Crafting the Year Ahead: Music, Magic, and Vinyasa

Crafting the Year Ahead: Music, Magic, and Vinyasa is a weekend yoga retreat at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, led by yoga teacher and kirtan artist Miles Borrero. It is open to people of all yoga and meditation experience levels who want to spend the start of the year listening inwardly, singing together, and setting an intention for the months ahead.

What to Expect

The retreat is built around the quiet of January, when shorter days invite introspection. Miles Borrero draws on years of study across yoga lineages to offer practices that are joyful and laid-back, with a focus on connection: the sense that we are better together.

Over the weekend you will chant with live music, practice grounding vinyasa, and spend time down-regulating the nervous system through guided partner bodywork, restorative yoga, and meditation. There is also room for reflection on the year behind and the year ahead, through journaling, storytelling, and crafting.

A central thread is a magical realism tradition from Miles's homeland of Colombia: the New Year's custom of the Año Viejo. It is offered as a tangible way to envision your hopes and cast them into the coming year, and as a chance to rediscover some child-like wonder and delight.

The weekend runs from a Thursday arrival to a Saturday midday departure. Check-in begins at 2:00 pm on the first day, followed by a Kripalu Yoga class at 4:45, dinner, and an evening program session from 7:30 to 9:00. The full day follows a steady rhythm: Kripalu Yoga at 6:30 am, silent breakfast, a morning program session from 9:00 to 11:30, lunch, an afternoon session from 1:30 to 4:00, another yoga class, dinner, and an evening session. On the closing day there is yoga, silent breakfast, and a final session from 9:00 to 11:00, with lunch and departure after 11:30. Times may shift, and a schedule is provided at check-in.

About Miles Borrero

Miles Borrero is a beloved yoga teacher and kirtan artist. His teaching is shaped by his love of music and by years of study across all yoga lineages, and it is marked by authenticity and ease. He is the author of Beautiful Monster: A Becoming, which the program recommends as reading. Miles brings the Año Viejo tradition from his native Colombia into this retreat.

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. You can choose a private room for solitude and personal space, or a shared dormitory for community-style connection with other guests. Rooms are ready by 4:00 pm, and a luggage room is available if you arrive earlier. Three nutritious meals are served each day, with breakfast taken in silence.

Before You Go

All levels are welcome, and instruction is adapted to meet each person where they are. The program is taught in English, and the invitation is simply to come as you are.

Your stay includes three meals a day, more than ten daily yoga and movement classes, program sessions with Miles Borrero, access to the Kripalu grounds and facilities, and overnight accommodation, with the room type chosen separately. Healing Arts sessions and items from the Kripalu Shop and Cafe are available for purchase. On the last day, room check-out is at 10:00 am, though you may stay on campus and take part in workshops until 2:00 pm.