Harvest Your Health!
Week of July 26, 2025
Harvest your Health: A Workshop
Part I: Facilitated family tour to the farm with coordinated cultivation sessions
We will talk about the traits of medicinal plants and how many household “weeds” are actually “garden doctors” providing medicine for the garden (or degraded land) that can be natural treatments for us, too! We will also harvest cultivated garden herbs and bring the items to the kitchen “lab” for drying and processing. Fresh tea is served from our cultivation session before we return to the Ranch. Harvesting (and wild harvesting) ethics along with mindfulness / connection to nature process will also be facilitated as part of the workshop! Great for families!
Part II: Make your own Spa Kit and wild harvested Remedies!
Using a blend of herbs harvested earlier in the week that are now dried combined with local beeswax and olive oil and other regional products we will make our own chapstick, salve, body scrubs! It is not necessary to attend Part I to attend Part II.
River Morgan is a third-generation mindfulness instructor. A lifelong study of movement and the body has guided her over 25 years of teaching. River has been featured in many publications for her yoga classes and retreats, including Yoga Journal, Forbes magazine, Elephant Journal, Aspen Peak Magazine and as a model for the Gaiam and Jade Catalogs and products. She authored a wellness column for The Aspen Daily News and her classes are featured on Deepak Chopra’s Jiyo app as well as Golf Forever, Healthy Backs Forever, Aspen82, and The Healthy Life channels.
River has presented at conferences such as The American Renewable Energy Summit, the Aspen Idea Festival, The Aspen Security Forum, and The Aspen Environmental Forum. She also taught Yoga for Cyclists workshops and retreats at the Carmichael Training Center in Santa Barbara and the Snowmass Wellness Conference, and has been a guest presenter at Rancho La Puerta over 30 times, as well as at the Golden Door, and on the “The World” ship.
River is a certified yoga, meditation & Gyrotonic instructor, and holds the credentials to lead teacher trainings for yoga and meditation through Yoga Alliance. She holds a BFA in Dance & toured internationally with two professional dance companies. River has also served as assistant director of TheFarmCollabortive.org for the past 14 years.
River’s classes encourage you to be fully in the moment and dive into your body, mind & spirit as they truly are.
Eden Vardy is dedicated to doing his part in solving climate challenges so that future generations can thrive. With that goal, in 2008 he founded The Farm Collaborative (www.farmco.org), “a collaboration for regeneration” that focuses on regenerating the local food system, one community at a time.
Under Vardy’s leadership, the organization made 0% interest loans to over 50 burgeoning farmers and food entrepreneurs through a pioneering “gift- circle investment club” model, launched a multi- stakeholder support ecosystem to grow new farmers, took ownership of the award winning edibleAspen magazine (where Vardy served as publisher), and hosted a program focused on innovating in crop production and stewarding regenerative agriculture regionally. The Farm Collaborative is now building a first of its kind learning campus in Aspen that will showcase integrated agriculture while pioneering a farmer”renaissance” of young leaders dedicated to a better future.
In 2019 Colorado Governor Jared Polis appointed and the senate confirmed Vardy to the state’s Parks and Wildlife Commission to represent agriculture. Vardy was appointed for a second term in July 2022, and confirmed with rare bi-partisan support unanimously by Colorado’s congress. In 2021, Vardy was selected as the Eisenhower Agricultural Fellow and met with policy makers, farmers, and community leaders in the EU and Brazil to exchange ideas for best practices to support the next generation of small holder farmers. In 2022, Vardy was selected as a “Food Leaders Fellow” as part of the inaugural cohort by the Aspen Institute. Vardy has presented at over 30 conferences and consulted community organizations across the globe, including in Israel, Uganda, France, Brazil, Mexico, and around the United States. Vardy is an avid percussionist and a proud father.