Awaken Your Inner Magic: A Yoga and Tarot Weekend

Awaken Your Inner Magic is a yoga and tarot weekend retreat at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is open to anyone curious about tarot, intuition and yoga, with no prior experience in either needed. The weekend is led by tarot guides Alison DeNicola and Sasha Graham, who bring the archetypes and symbols of the tarot together with movement, meditation and reflection.

What to Expect

The program explores how tarot imagery connects to our intuition and to collective consciousness. Rather than only studying the cards, you work with them in the body. Through yoga, movement, meditation, guided visualization, journaling and partner practice, you learn to reveal and embody the archetypes and suits of the tarot.

Guided meditations with the Fool, the High Priestess and the Empress are used to open up intuition. Other practices focus on working with intention, accessing the higher mind, sharpening the senses and receiving inner messages. Over the weekend you also try mini readings, both for yourself and for others.

The weekend begins on a Friday. Check-in opens at 2:00 pm, followed by a Kripalu Yoga class from 4:45 to 6:00, dinner from 5:30 to 7:30, and a first program session from 7:30 to 9:00 in the evening.

Saturday is the full day. It opens with Kripalu Yoga from 6:30 to 7:45 am and a silent breakfast from 7:30 to 9:00. Program sessions run from 9:00 to 11:30 am and again from 1:30 to 4:00 pm, with lunch between them. Another yoga class at 4:45 and dinner round out the day.

Sunday follows the same early rhythm of yoga and silent breakfast, then a final program session from 9:00 to 11:00 am. Lunch and departure are from 11:30 to 1:30 pm.

About Alison DeNicola and Sasha Graham

Alison DeNicola is one of the two tarot guides leading the weekend. She has written about why tarot and yoga work so well together, in a piece titled "Six Reasons Tarot and Yoga Blend Seamlessly for the Ultimate Master Practice," which is recommended reading for the program.

Sasha Graham is a tarot practitioner and author. Her book The Magic of Tarot is also recommended reading for participants who want to prepare.

The Setting

Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health sits in Stockbridge, in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Accommodations are intentionally simple, designed to help you unplug and feel grounded. Options include private rooms, shared double rooms and community-style dorms. Rooms are ready by 4:00 pm, and a luggage room is available if you arrive earlier.

Stays include three meals a day, with breakfast taken in silence, along with more than ten yoga classes over the weekend and access to the Kripalu grounds. On the day of departure, room check-out is at 10:00 am, and you are welcome to stay on campus and take part in workshops until 2:00 pm.

Before You Go

The program works with the images of the Rider Waite Tarot deck, so please bring a copy with you. If you do not own one, it can be bought at the Kripalu Shop. The deck is not included in the program.

The program is taught in English and suits all levels. Healing Arts sessions and purchases from the Kripalu Shop and Cafe are not included, and are available for an additional cost. Online booking covers one or two guests. If the program is full, you can ask to join the waitlist.