We would love to hear from you. Feel free to E-mail or phone Ellen and/or Sherry to visit with us about our retreats. We welcome your ideas, questions, and suggestions.

Sojourn Retreats
P.O. Box 326
Manchaca, TX 78652-0326

Our Vision:
We specialize in providing quality, life-transforming retreats for women worldwide.

Ellen B. Smith, M.A., CYT, ERYT
ebsmith@austin.rr.com or 512-419-1339

Ellen is an Intuitive Mentor, Performance Coach, and certified Hatha Yoga Instructor, and has a Masters Degree in Spiritual Psychology. Ellen’s mission is to be a light to each person she meets, and to assist as many people as possible in steeping themselves even more deeply into their life passions.

Having worked for decades as a mentor to people of all walks of life, Ellen has developed a compassionate, unique, and effective style of guidance. Through the qualities of deep listening, uncanny intuition, genuine praise, and humor, Ellen creates a safe, accepting, and nurturing environment that encourages healing, self-reflection, and “aha’s.” She is able to mirror back to clients their innately fabulous qualities, encouraging them to live from this place even more of the time.

Along with her other business partners, Donna Belk and Charles MacInerney, she is Co-Founder of the Living Yoga Teacher Training Program, L.L.C. and Texas Yoga. She teaches weekly hatha yoga classes in the Austin area.

Ellen’s newly designed website is coming soon. In the meantime, please visit her other websites: www.livingyogaprogram.com and www.texasyoga.com, and E-mail her at ebsmith@austin.rr.com.

Sherry D. Ransom
possibilities2345@sbcglobal.net  or 512-922-1882

Sherry is a professional speaker and award-winning author whose passion is guiding others in identifying their dreams, and living life to its fullest. While striving to live her passion, she soon discovered that she needed a roadmap to identify and defeat the dream demons that constantly appeared on her path. She developed a blueprint that has enabled her to live each of her dreams one by one, and soon found herself appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show. With that dream realized, she knew she had a winning plan. That plan ultimately became her book, Three Paths, Three Choices – Getting the Life That You Deserve.  Her advice column, Dreamcatcher, appears in the Austin magazine, Urban Speak. Sherry’s style of facilitation honors the journey and its obstacles, and identifies the unique barriers that each person encounters on the path to following his or her dreams. She invites you to join her as you travel the path that leads to living your life to its fullest. Sherry lives in Austin with her husband Alfred.

Visit Sherry’s website at www.sherryransom.com and E-mail Sherry at possibilities2345@sbcglobal.net.

For more than a decade, Ellen and Sherry have nurtured their friendship, watching over and co-mentoring each other along their respective journeys. Together at Sojourn Retreats, they lovingly orchestrate a dynamic and healing experience for retreat participants. Ellen and Sherry are happy to travel to your state to offer retreats; please contact us for details.

Our Massage Therapist, Heather Darden

Heather Darden, BA, RMT graduated from Lauterstein-Conway Massage School in 2002. She believes we should all feel as divine as we are. Training in Ayurvedic Thai massage with Lotus Palm in Montreal confirmed what she had long suspected: yoga and massage go together like peanut butter and jelly. Heather endeavors to meet each client wherever she is while nurturing the divine within her. Her yoga and massage practices have led her to study Ayurveda in depth with the California College of Ayurveda. She has taught Ayurveda 101 with the University of Texas Informal classes.

Our Chef, Madeline Pizzo

Madeline was raised in a family of food-lovers who combined food and celebration as a natural extension of one another.  During her culinary career, she celebrates the opportunity to be involved with food and cooking and has enjoyed various experiences, continuing to learn each time she cooks.  As a student of macrobiotics, she aims to base meals upon local, sustainably-grown, and seasonal ingredients. She is passionate about making good, healthy food that is accessible for everyone, and she hopes to empower others to be inspired in their own gardens and kitchens.  Madeline has worked as a chef and baker at Casa de Luz as well as at a yoga center in Greece.  She has also worked as a lead baker at Wheatsville Cooperative and the Blossoming Lotus in Hawaii.  Her interest in travel and international cuisine has allowed her to adapt traditional regional dishes to suit vegetarian and vegan diets.  Madeline is very happy to have returned to Austin, where she offers her services as a personal chef, caterer, and teacher.