Jumpstart Your SOULjourn! II
Connect, and claim what's always been yours:
This year our logo is reminiscent of the timeless wisdom of our foremothers, and acknowledges our ancestral homeland of Africa as the "Grandmother of Mexico". Holding a Mexica calendar based on earlier calendars (Olmec, Aztec, Mayan, etc.) she reminds us of the importance of ritual, remembering our ancestors with reverence and honor; ceremony, and acknowledgment of our potential as we traverse through time and the cycles of life. Change and transformation are symbolized in the monarch butterflies which come home to Mexico every year in a glorious migration journey of their own.
Jumpstart Your SOULjourn II Retreat 2025
Registration is open
Dates: February 21-27, 2025
Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico
Email info@sojournersvistadellago.com for 2025 Waiting List
As a Black woman, you've shouldered the weight of the world for far too long. The polarization of perspectives and realities surrounding the recent election has left many of us feeling exhausted, uncertain, and eager for a change. In the midst of it all, we know that you're craving a life of intention, self-care, and ease.
That's why we're inviting you to join our "Jumpstart Your SOULjourn II! retreat" – a sacred space for Black women to rest, renew, and rediscover themselves. This year, our 7- day 6- night retreat is in Chapala, Mexico and is specifically designed for mature Black women who are ready to leave the chaos behind and start anew.
Do you have a desire to MOVE from feeling that you are not living your best life, that time is fleeting, and you have an urgency to experience more? Do you desire to live with more freedom, ease, expansion, and adventure? Are you tired of the nonsense, stress, and overwhelm and are ready for a change?... for good? .Consider exploring the land, culture, and language of inland Mexico, and experiencing this colorful and vibrant area for yourself. Consider the possibiity of bringing your family. Jumpstart Your Souljourn is your opportunity to come to the lakeside villages of Chapala, Mexico and to come home to yourself. We invite you to breathe in and EMBODY the change you are looking for. You will move from uncertainty concerning how to craft more ease in your life to breathing in and embodying an expanded life that includes more tranquility, caring community, expansion, and holistic freedom. Join us in Mexico this winter and craft a new life chapter of freedom, rest, exploration, and expansion. In caring community, let's make it happen!
Jumpstart your SOULjourn II is the soft landing to your very SOUL. It is also your official welcome to the Lakeside area of Jalisco, Mexico, characterized by Lake Chapala, Mexico's largest lake, and the surrounding towns and smaller pueblos. This experience is designed to give hands-on information to Black women, especially those considering their future and life during our mature and wisdom years.
Africa is considered the "Grandmother of Mexico" due to the significant cultural and genetic legacy of African people in addition to the various other indigenous peoples of North America. African, Indigenous, and European customs have shaped Mexico's music, dance, art and cuisine. Our old and new genetic legacies have been documented and are celebrated in many places in Mexico as Afro-Mexican identity is awakened and celebrated. Just as we came centuries before and during the Transatlantic Slave Trade through Southern routes, our diasporic footprints continue to create new migratory patterns and make history today. You will tap into the wisdom of your own foremothers and embrace the wisdom and energy of the land as you journey within.
So, take a deep breath. If you are ready to seize the time, expand your territory, and embody the change that's inside of you, then this retreat is for you.
About Your Facilitators:
Sunya Folayan and Donna "Savvy" Jones
Sunya Folayan and Savvy Jones will be your facilitators. Sunya, is a coach, published academic writer, award-winning textile artist and musician; and Donna "Savvy" Jones (The Hope Coach) is a writer, motivational speaker, and entrepreneur. Both have had flourishing careers helping others; Sunya in social work via direct clinical services, financial social work, corporate executive counseling, HBCU faculty, and non-profit management; and Donna as a registered nurse in mental health settings, teaching, and consulting.
Committed to serving you: Together they own Sojourners Vista del Lago, a Bed and Breakfast in San Nicolas de Ibarra, situated in a lakeside Pueblo adjacent to Lake Chapala, Mexico. Both are committed to a thriving community of women and families embracing financial health, and stress- free living as a part of wellness and self-care. Sunya and Donna met online and created MEXodus Sojourners, a Facebook group for Black women who want to experience what they discovered: the beautiful life, people, culture, and pace of inland Mexico's Lake Chapala communities and travel life adventures in general. You will hear and experience firsthand from these two, who are dual residents of Mexico, and the United States, how they manifested their journey into a softer way of life encompassing joy, freedom, loving community, and ease. ...and they want to show you how you how you can do it, too!
Food, Color, and Culture:
Enjoy Two daily meals of authentic, nutritious, and varied Mexican cuisine and other diverse flavors. Find yourself in the culinary roots of Africa in Mexican food, flavors, textures and colors. Drink Red Jamaica tea, Horchata, and Tamarindo; savor red rice and black bean dishes, and so much more as you uncover the West African foundations of so many Mexican dishes.
Hotel Memora in Chapala will be your base. You will choose to reside in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom shared bungalow, or a one bedroom one bath building in which you will reside alone. Located 10 minutes by taxi from Chapala Centro, you will find this peaceful haven along the lower side of a mountain. On your rest days, enjoy the boutiques, shops and artisan offerings, art galleries, music, and color, of Ajijic and Chapala, as the backdrop for your activities. Tap into these communities, enjoy fragrant coffee and pasteles at dusk on a sidewalk table at the town's Plaza Centro, and tap into your own magic, actualizing the dreams that have been placed inside of you.
Yes, Sister, Rest.
Each participant will enjoy two curated spa treatments as well as a day to luxuriate in the thermal waters of the San Juan Cosala spas. This year, we have more rest time built in for you to use as you see fit. Do nothing, if you please.
Spa Aguas Calientes, Mountainside Dinner
Our group excursion is to one of the area's thermal spas that bring forth varying degrees of heated volcanic healing mineral spring water. Luxuriate for hours in a pool of fragrant flowers, immerse your body in the healing smoothness of an Avena bath, and experience the decadence of the gentle exfoliation of coffee on one's skin followed by fragrant floral and herbal vapors for the face and neck and body. No rushing through this experience, you will want to linger for a while!
Mountainside Dinner
After your thermal waters experience, enjoy a breathtaking, mountainside dinner at sunset overlooking Lake Chapala from one of the most spectacular vistas in the area. Allow yourself to be awestruck by the beauty of the starry sky and the enchanting twinkling lights floating below on the lake as we dine by candlelight under a soaring thatched- roof palapa.
Knowledge is Power
Get answers to all of your questions about residency in Mexico from a local attorney we know and trust in our Informational workshop on residency. Get insider information on paths to residency in Mexico in 2024.
Experience informational presentations regarding life in Mexico, enjoy a Spanish lesson, and bring your questions about safety, law, daily life, money, and community.
Mirador Mingle
You will enjoy a rooftop reception at the home of the hosts, Sunya Folayan and Donna Jones in Chapala, where you will meet local residents, friends, and neighbors for a "Mirador Mingle".
Embodiology® for the Body, Mind, and Spirit
Wake up, breathe, and lean into Embodiology® movement in the mornings. Engage your body and prepare your mind to receive all that is in store for you... and we will close out the week's experience with a water blessing ceremony at Lake Chapala incorporating some of the themes you will develop during the Embodiology® sessions you experienced during the week.
Your Home Base: Hotel Memora, Chapala,Mx.
See video of your accommodations below:
Embodiology®
This year we are getting centered and grounded in daily practice of Embodiology® movement. Created by Dr. Ama Wray and facilitated by advance practitioner Deirdre Lovell, we will use this West African-inspired movement to ignite physical remembrance and return to a state of expanded self-expression.
Special Guest Facilitator-
Deirdre Lovell
About Deirdre Lovell
Embodiology® Practitioner:
We are honored and excited to have Deirdre Lovell on board with us for Jumpstart your SOULjourn II. Deirdre is an Embodiology® Facilitator and Practitioner, Dancer, Choreographer, Actress, Director, Producer, Film maker, Arts & Science &Technology Researcher and Administrator, Holistic Wellness Practitioner, Globetrotter, Gardener, Chef, Mentor, Mother, Photographer, Arts/Health/Environmental Activist, and Warrior- a "business- as- usual disruptor", she is bringing her whole self to move us to new places!
Following a thirty-year international career in dance performance, pedagogy, theater/film production and arts and business management, Ms. Lovell embarked on her fourth career as a holistic bodywork practitioner starting her next entrepreneurial venture Body & Soul Therapies in 2004. Ms. Lovell, now retired, currently lives on the east coast, conducting and attending national and international seminars and workshops. Deirdre is ever discovering, executing, and sharing how to love the creative forces that nurture and shape every aspect of our lives.
Learn more about Embodiology ® here:
https://www.embodiology.com/home
Get inspired through guided daily journal prompts—catalysts to activate your intentions to make them a reality. During our Vision Board and Goal Setting Session, you will create and or refine the vision and outline the steps to actualize the visions inside you that are waiting to be unfurled.
You will be assigned a coach and will receive group and individualized coaching sessions to address 5 cashflow strategies to take into middle age, and into retirement. Your retreat experience and preparation will begin in January 2025, in advance of your arrival in Mexico in February.
Space for this retreat is limited, so register early, check your passport, and pack your bags!
What's included:
Cost: $1097.00 per person for retreat in shared bungalow; 1397.00 for retreat in private bungalow. (Catch the Early Bird registration rate through January 20, 2025- but don't wait until the last minute!) Price includes lodging, 2 daily meals, workshops, financial success tools, coaching, two individual spa treatments, trip to thermal waters, Embodiology sessions; transportation and admission to thermal waters, and transportation to and including mountaintop dinner and Mirador Mingle.
(Airfare, taxi to and from hotel, return from individual spa treatments, and individual sightseeing/shopping trips on rest days, and alcoholic beverages are not included.)
Jumpstart your sojourn to your SOUL's desires in the private bungalows on the lower campus of Hotel Memora in Chapala, Mexico. Here, on the lower side of a mountain, you will experience beautiful views of the wooded landscape and breathe in the lovely expanse of Lake Chapala.
Our recommended travel vendor this year is Mary Heredia is our preferred travel professional this year for airline tickets and world travel. She is our bi-lingual Chapala- based travel agent who knows the language and cultural terrain, and she has been a great supporter of our business. Mary provides courteous service to our clients,is excited about our retreat, and is committed to helping our customers get the best prices. Her information is provided once you enroll.
Airport and Ground Transportation:
Airport: You will fly into Guadalajara Hidalgo International Airport. Airport taxis are plentiful and easily accessible from the front portico of the airport. The cost of taxi service is approximately 550 pesos (Approx. 35.00 in U.S. dollars.) Our retreat location is approximately 20 minutes from the airport. Detailed information is provided upon enrollment.
