offerings
Soul Care and Permaculture
This class is part of the permaculture design course taught through Garfield Community Farm and Wild Indigo in partnership with Three Sister's Permaculture.
https://www.wild-indigo-guild.com/classes/soulcare-and-permaculture
Spring, 2025! (TBD)
Garfield Community Farm, 509 Wicklow Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15224
Stephanie Bell holds roles as a spiritual director at Pittsburgh Pastoral Institute and a retreat facilitator at Philoxenia Life. As a graduate of our permaculture design course, she weaves permaculture principles and spirituality into her personal, permaculture design, and professional endeavors.
“In permaculture we like to talk about hands-on design, but we have seen how there is a big need for us to include our hearts. We need hearts-on design. We need to include the whole person in the design process, and we have seen that the spiritual dimension is one that is increasing being recognized both by science and by people generally.” – Gibsone and Bang
Throughout this course, we will delve into how our spirituality influences our design approach. Furthermore, we will explore how permaculture's ethics and principles can serve as valuable assets for fostering mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being, often referred to as "inner-permaculture." This connection extends to our bodies, minds, the Earth, the spirit, and is critical when crafting thriving ecosystems of abundance.
restorative mornings
Garfield Community Farm: 509 Wicklow Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15224
Spring, 2025! (TBD)
Experiential opportunities for contemplation and reflection while engaging your inner-life movements and interacting with herbs in various ways. Each morning will be something different — making herbal teas, creating herbal weavings, enjoying herbal footbaths, and making herbal blessing smudges (just to name a few). These activities are designed to be both creative and reflective.
Throughout the morning your retreat leaders, Stephanie and Kevin Bell, will facilitate a series of hands-on workshops coupled with time for solitude and guided reflections designed to help the attendees slowly steep in the healing power of herbs and walk away feeling restored.
World Labyrinth day
Saturday, May 3, 2025: 1pm
Every year on the first Saturday in May thousands of people around the globe participate in World Labyrinth Day. Please join us at the Sensory Peace Labyrinth at GCF as we “Walk as One at 1” (local time) to create a rolling wave of peaceful energy passing from one time zone to the next as a moving meditation for world peace and celebration of the labyrinth experience. Check out this link for more information about World Labyrinth Day
Winter solstice
Saturday, December 21, 2024, 5-6pm
Garfield Community Farm, 509 Wicklow Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15224
Join us as we partner with Garfield Community Farm for a warm, annual Winter Solstice celebration that welcomes the season’s quiet beauty and the rebirth of light.
This free event begins with a guided meditation, inviting reflection on winter’s stillness and the solstice’s timeless symbolism of hope and renewal. A candlelit walk through the farm grounds follows, leading us from darkness to light, a journey mirroring the sun’s own turning point.
At the heart of the evening, a communal bonfire invites warmth, stories, and shared s’mores—a reminder of simple joys and togetherness during winter’s longest night.
Come celebrate the season, nature, and community in this timeless tradition.
custom ikarian retreat
Starting with a discovery session, together we discern the desires, interests, and set intentions for you, your partner or family’s custom retreat.
Taking place in Ikaria, Greece these “meraki” retreats innately embody the healthy lifestyle habits of the world’s longest-lived people, popularized by Dan Buettner and his work with The Blue Zones.
2024 & 2025 REGISTRATION FULL
If you are interested in 2027, please let us know!
spiritual direction
Stephanie offers individual and group spiritual direction through Pittsburgh Pastoral Institute.
Different from counseling, Spiritual Direction offers time to listen, connect, and cultivate an awareness of the Spirit within you. During confidential one-on-one or group sessions we will focus on your spiritual questions, your deep longings, your experiences and responses to what is meaningful and holy in your life. Spiritual Directors provide guidance needed for discerning truths about your relationship with God, finding purpose, and deeper wisdom. Spiritual Direction does not offer certainty, it offers presence.