Hope Springs Institute

Some transitions feel exactly right.

April Theriot-Hammon has long felt the pull of this land, as a retreat participant, a seeker, and someone devoted to the kind of work Hope Springs holds. Now she steps into the role of Administrative Assistant, dedicating herself to the Institute and the community it serves.

With roots in accounting, group facilitation, nonprofit leadership, and sacred ceremony, April brings a rare wholeness to this work. We are honored to welcome her and to continue building the kind of team that lives its values from the inside out. 🌿

Sometimes the most powerful thing we can offer is space — and our Enter the Quiet community has felt it.

Here's what past participants have shared:
💙 "The support, power and love expressed in our silence was meaningful, and I will carry it back home."
💙 "I valued choice, quiet, and the ability to be quiet in my own way and the anchor of the community aspect."
💙 "I felt loved, held, nourished in a way that I had been craving. I felt supported by all the staff and so appreciative of the healing energy."
💙 "So grateful that you continue to offer a very spacious schedule & permission to follow what your body, heart, and spirit need. I am so much better at doing that in 'real' life after coming to this retreat for so many years."

This is Enter the Quiet, a retreat where everything on the schedule is truly optional, the land holds you, and you are free to simply be.

Space is limited and filling. If something in these words is speaking to you, we hope you'll join us.

🔗 Register here: https://www.hopespringsinstitute.org/events-1/enter-the-quiet-summer-silent-retreat-2

Grief wants to be tended.

Tending is about staying present to something alive, even when that something is painful, even when you'd give anything for it to be over.

Grief has its own timeline. Its own logic. It moves through you when it's ready, not when you've decided you should be done with it. It shows up in the middle of grocery stores and at the end of good days, and when a particular song finds you in a quiet moment. And when we try to fix it, to rush it, to perform our way through it, it doesn't go away. It just goes underground. It waits.

Tending grief looks different. It looks like acknowledging it when it arrives, rather than apologizing for it. It looks like giving it enough space so that it doesn't have to shout to be heard. It looks like sitting with what's lost before you try to figure out what comes next.

We are standing at a threshold, collectively and personally. So many of us are carrying losses we haven't fully named: relationships, possibilities, versions of ourselves we thought we'd become, a world we thought we understood. That grief is real. It deserves tending.

You don't have to rush past what's here. You don't have to have it resolved before you're allowed to move forward. The threshold holds room for all of it.

This week, we invite you to ask: What am I grieving that deserves a little more tending? You don't have to answer out loud. But we hope you'll ask.

And if grief is something you want to explore in community, our Tending the Threshold virtual series holds space for exactly this kind of work. Link in the comments. 💗

Nearly 30 years ago, Mary Whalen came to Hope Springs for the first time - a healers' retreat, a farmhouse kitchen, friends trading massage, and a piece of land that immediately got under her skin.

What followed was a lifetime of service: volunteer, gardener, massage therapist, housekeeping staff, retreat host. She describes her love for Hope Springs simply: "the healing and the calm the land gives continuously."

As Mary steps into a new season, we honor all she has given this place — and the trust she carries for what is still unfolding here. Thank you, Mary. 🌿

Somewhere beneath the noise of daily life, there is a knowing that has never left you.

We call this workshop Rewilding Inner Knowing — and it's an invitation to come back to yourself.

Facilitated by Amy Tuttle, this experiential session weaves together guided reflection, somatic awareness, land-based practices, and small group conversation. No prior experience is required. Just a willingness to slow down and listen.

You'll leave with:
→ A renewed sense of connection to your inner wisdom
→ Simple, grounded practices for daily life
→ A community of fellow travelers on the path

🌿 Sliding scale: $35 · $65 · $110

Early registration discount: Save 10–15% when you register 14+ days in advance

Register here: https://www.hopespringsinstitute.org/events-1/rewilding-inner-knowing

We'd love to have you with us. 💚

Tending is not fixing.

It sounds simple, but sit with it for a moment. Fixing assumes something is broken that there's a problem to solve, a gap to close, a way to make the discomfort stop. Tending assumes something is alive. And that your presence, your patience, your quiet attention is exactly what it needs to keep growing.

We tend fires so they don't go out. We tend gardens so they don't get lost to weeds and neglect. We tend relationships so they don't quietly close, one unanswered moment at a time. We tend ourselves (or at least we try to) so we don't disappear entirely into the demands of everything and everyone else.

This is what Tending the Threshold is really about. It's the name of our new monthly virtual program series, but it's also a way of moving through the world. Not crossing over quickly. Not rushing toward what's next. But learning to be present to the in-between that liminal space where something old is composting and something new hasn't quite arrived yet.

The threshold doesn't need you to push through it. It needs you to tend it.
This June, we're sitting with one question across all five Mondays: What in your life is asking to be tended right now? Not solved. Not optimized. Not pushed through or figured out. Just tended.

We'd love to hear your answer in the comments. And we'll be sharing ours all month long.

Welcome to June. Welcome to the threshold. 🌿
https://www.hopespringsinstitute.org/copy-of-retreats-programs

Some people give to an organization, and others pour themselves into one. Betsy Pourvakil is the latter.

Over years of service, Betsy has walked alongside Hope Springs through some of its most uncertain and transformative seasons. She held the organization with steadiness and love when it needed both most.

As she steps into a new chapter of her own, she shared these words with us:

"My time in community and service with Hope Springs has been one of the deepest honors of my life. To walk with her, listen to her, and be shaped by the land and the sacred spaces held there has changed me forever. I carry immense gratitude for every moment of connection, ceremony, learning, and shared devotion that unfolded within her embrace.

As I shift into supporting from the outside, I do so with trust in the threshold of a new way of being that is emerging for the next generation. I have long felt that the land already knows her purpose, and that our role is simply to listen deeply enough to follow what she is guiding us toward."

Betsy, we receive your trust as a gift. We will keep listening. We will keep tending. And we will carry you with us, just as you carry Hope Springs. 🌿

This week, the Cincinnati q***r community experienced a profound loss.

In response, we are rescheduling Roots and Horizons: A Q***r Futures Workshop. We intend to honor the grief present right now and take the time to make this workshop as accessible and intentionally held as possible, including offering scholarships so that no one who needs this space is turned away.

The vision at the heart of this workshop is to connect to the resilience of those who came before us, and to dare to imagine bold, joyful futures together. This work feels essential right now. We want to create the space and time to offer it with the care it deserves.

📅 New Date: Saturday, August 22 | 1–3:30 PM EDT
💻 Virtual via Zoom

Already registered? Your spot is held. If you've been on the fence, we hope you'll join us. We need all of us in the work ahead.

And if you're hurting: you belong here. 🌱

Medicine for the Long Dark 🌑🔥

In times of collective upheaval and grief, what do you actually need to stay rooted?
Join us for an intimate virtual evening exploring Francis Weller's primary satisfactions — the primal nourishments that sustain a life of depth, meaning, and resilience. Not luxuries. Necessities of the soul.

Through reflection, conversation, and guided practice, we'll slow down together, feel what's true, and remember what actually feeds us.
This is for those who feel the weight of the long dark — and are ready to tend the inner fire.

✨ Save 10–15% with early registration (14+ days in advance)

https://www.hopespringsinstitute.org/events-1/medicine-for-the-long-dark

There is something that happens when hands work together toward a common center.

Building a mandala in community is about what emerges in the making - the negotiation of color, the patience, the moment someone places a stone exactly where it is needed to go, and everyone feels it.

Want to try it with your own community? Here's all you need:

Gather your materials. Stones, flowers, leaves, seeds, petals - anything natural and beautiful. No special supplies required. Let the season guide what you collect.
Find your center. Choose a single stone, flower, or object and place it in the middle. Everything grows from here.

Work outward in rings. Take turns adding to the pattern, one layer at a time, moving away from the center. Let there be pauses. Let people look. Let the pattern surprise you.

When it's complete, sit with it. Before anyone moves or photographs it, take a moment of silence together. Notice what you built. Notice who you built it with.
Then let it go. A mandala is meant to be temporary. Its impermanence is part of the teaching.

This week, we invite you to gather your people, find a patch of ground, and begin at the center.