Feathered Pipe

Feathered Pipe ~ America's finest health, wellness and yoga retreats and travel ~ Carlos Nakai – to name only a few – are honored alumni of the Feathered Pipe.

The Feathered Pipe Ranch is one of the country’s premier yoga and conscious living retreat centers. Tucked in the heart of the Montana Rockies and surrounded by miles of forested mountains, it is a vibrant and peaceful oasis to which our guests return eagerly year after year – inevitably leaving the Ranch feeling recharged and relaxed – and counting the days until they can again return. The Ranch has been home to yoga and meditation retreats and a host of other personal growth programs since 1975, helping people experience our wholeness and remember our intimate connection to all of life. Many of today’s foremost voices on yoga, meditation, wellness and health have come through our doors at one time or another, with many of them getting their start as a student through our scholarship fund. Joseph Campbell, Dr. Andrew Weil, Lilias Folan, Angela Farmer, Rodney Yee, Patricia Walden, Erich Schiffmann, Judith Hanson Lasater, Seane Corn, and world-renowned Native American flutists, R. The Ranch is nestled amidst almost a million acres of national forestland and offers an ideal setting for true retreat experience, allowing the space within and without to experience the essence of one’s self and nature. Visitors can wander alone exploring ambling brooks fed by pure mountain springs and discover open vistas to view the world below and the Big Sky above. Ranch retreat visitors can just as easily find community with others, sitting on the open lawn in the shade of cottonwood trees, quaking aspens, and fragrant pine with an exquisite view out over the lake with Lake Tipi and mountain woodlands reflected. Horseback riding is available for those wishing to view the world from a truly Montanan point of view.

"This world is a school and we are its students. Each of us studies something as we pass through. Some people learn love...
01/20/2026

"This world is a school and we are its students. Each of us studies something as we pass through. Some people learn love, kindness. Others… abuse and brutality.

But the best students are those who acquire generosity and compassion from their encounters with hardship and cruelty. The ones who choose not to inflict their suffering on to others. And what you learn is what you take with you to your grave."

To have a strong feeling about anything is to discover something about the poles of your own mind, some potent charge reason can’t touch that electrifies life with an energy you don’t f…

Iyengar Yoga teacher Marla Apt designed this particular sequence to address the stuffy noses, swollen sinuses, and heada...
01/20/2026

Iyengar Yoga teacher Marla Apt designed this particular sequence to address the stuffy noses, swollen sinuses, and headaches associated with colds and seasonal allergies.

We’re delighted to invite you into something new—and very Feathered Pipe.We’re opening the doors of our Online Feathered...
01/20/2026

We’re delighted to invite you into something new—and very Feathered Pipe.

We’re opening the doors of our Online Feathered Pipe Main Hall Workshop Series: a collection of live, interactive mini-workshops featuring beloved teachers from our upcoming 2026 Ranch retreat season.

Plus, here’s a little EXTRA Feathered Pipe magic: At each Main Hall session, we’ll randomly draw the name of one live participant to receive a $200 discount toward any 2026 Feathered Pipe retreat program.

Find out how to register and more in our latest newsletter!

This winter and spring, we’re opening the doors of our Online Feathered Pipe Main Hall Workshop Series: a collection of live, interactive mini-workshops.

'And if our destinies are so intertwined, it follows that ‘strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you...
01/19/2026

'And if our destinies are so intertwined, it follows that ‘strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.’

A reflection from Shambhala Publications on Martin Luther King.

"I hope that, through my art, people can see themselves reflected in objects like a water bottle, a coffee cup, or a sho...
01/19/2026

"I hope that, through my art, people can see themselves reflected in objects like a water bottle, a coffee cup, or a shoe—we all have shoes.

Can you see yourself reflected in that item, but then can you also see yourself reflected in that environment? It sparks a human connection to the landscapes around us, and my art fuels those connections and the small changes they inspire."

Mariah Reading was a national park ranger whose job was cut during the mass layoffs of 2025. Now, she’s fighting to save public lands one piece of trash at a time.

We will be kicking off our 2026 season through a series of FREE zoom workshops beginning next Saturday!Our first worksho...
01/18/2026

We will be kicking off our 2026 season through a series of FREE zoom workshops beginning next Saturday!

Our first workshop will be led by Elise Miller and focused on Back and Hip Health! Join us for an invigorating class and an opportunity to $200 off any of our hosted retreats!

Register here for our Main Hall Yoga Series kickoff next Saturday at 1pm EST: https://bit.ly/4sIwd0t

01/18/2026

Registration has opened for our first offering of The Main Hall Online Workshop series! Join Elise Browning Miller for an iyengar based practice to relieve lower back and hip pain. A $200 DISCOUNT WILL BE GIVEN TO A LUCKY WINNER THAT ATTENDS THE ONLINE CLASS! Register Here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/BPJNs7GLR02O3CYS_xJ5kQ #/registration

Music: .marsolek

"I think of Iyengar Yoga as the yoga of 'What if?' 'If I have this sensation in my hip when I press my inner heel, what ...
01/17/2026

"I think of Iyengar Yoga as the yoga of 'What if?'

'If I have this sensation in my hip when I press my inner heel, what happens if I press my outer heel?' 'What is my state of mind after eight cycles of Viloma I? What if I make the pauses longer? Then what? What does that do to my awareness?'

This is the process of developing discriminating wisdom. In this way, we refine our intuitive understanding of our bodies, our world, ourselves. And as we go deeper and deeper inward in our practice, we may begin to taste those moments of joy and freedom that open our hearts and make our lives sing." -

John Schumacher has been a key voice in Iyengar yoga since he began his practice over fifty years ago. John and Patricia Walden were both essential in bringing yoga to the US and are senior-level Iyengar practitioners. These two hold immense amounts of knowledge and bring an unmatched level of detail and wisdom to their practice.

Join us for their retreat where you will learn to find balance between effort and letting go (abhyasa and vairagya), between the pairs of opposites (dvandvah), between firmness and comfort (sthira and sukha), and more.

Find out more about Balance on the Path from July 5-11th here: https://featheredpipe.com/feathered_retreats/patricia-walden-john-schumacher-iyengar-yoga-retreat-2026/

Check out some of the best flowers and vegetables for winter sowing!
01/16/2026

Check out some of the best flowers and vegetables for winter sowing!

Find out which flowers and vegetables are best for winter sowing!

"You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You on...
01/15/2026

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

Listen for the calls of the world like the wild geese (or osprey at Feathered Pipe Ranch) 🖤

“And the predicament is that as you develop a model of who you are and how the universe works, it’s extremely hard to ge...
01/15/2026

“And the predicament is that as you develop a model of who you are and how the universe works, it’s extremely hard to get out of that, which is called the ego, really. It’s very hard to get out of that.

And what the chemical allows you to do is set that aside for a moment and see the universe from a different vantage point and find places in yourself, which is why it was used in religious traditions, find the deeper parts of your being that lie behind your thinking mind.” – Ram Dass

Speaking across the decades from the 1960s through the 1990s, Ram Dass shares his thoughts on expanding the boundaries of consciousness through the use of psychedelic chemicals.

Patricia Walden and John Schumacher were students of BKS Iyengar and pioneers in bringing yoga to the western world.Thes...
01/14/2026

Patricia Walden and John Schumacher were students of BKS Iyengar and pioneers in bringing yoga to the western world.

These teachers are nothing short of legends and bring an immense depth of knowledge of spirituality and physicality to the practice.

Dive into a deep learning of your own body and skills that you will carry with you well past the retreat! Find out more about Balance On The Path from July 5-11 below!

Feathered Pipe Ranch, July 5 - 11, 2026: Join senior-most Iyengar yoga instructors Patricia Walden and John Schumacher on a journey of self-actualization.

Address

2409 Bear Creek Road
Helena, MT
59601

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