The Mindful Unplug Setting and Guides

The Setting

The Feathered Pipe Ranch

The primary teacher at The Mindful Unplug is the place where it happens — the land of the Feathered Pipe Ranch. National forestland surrounds the 110-acre Feathered Pipe Ranch just outside of Helena, Montana. As home to one of the oldest, non-guru based healing retreat centers in North America for close to 50 years, the Ranch supports the qualities of nurturing solitude, reflection, and rejuvenation that are only found in the natural world. The Mindful Unplug’s human program guides bow to Mother Nature and lean on her as the wisest teacher. We will spend much of our time outdoors to soak up the soul medicine of this sacred place as we move, meditate, stroll, inquire, and reclaim our relationship with land and sky.

More about the Feathered Pipe Ranch: featheredpipe.com

The Guides

Anne Jablonski and Matthew Marsolek/Drum Brothers

Your guides for The Mindful Unplug have a longstanding affection for and intimate familiarity with the 110-acre Ranch. They treasure sharing and revealing its hidden gifts with guests through their respective specialties. In consort with the land itself, your guides for the week include:

Anne Jablonski

Anne Jablonski has been a Feathered Pipe Ranch groupie for two decades and serves as President of the Feathered Pipe Foundation. She believes that deepening our relationship with the natural world is one of the most potent curatives for the reclaiming our attention in the digital age and that the Ranch is one of the best possible places to do exactly that. That’s what inspired her to co-create The Mindful Unplug in the first place! Strongly influenced by the liberating principles of "freedom yoga" — her teaching is informed and inspired by Erich Schiffmann — Anne says, "The golden treasure beyond mechanical yoga practice is the freedom unleashed from intuitive, intelligent, and continuous deep inner listening. It informs each moment and every decision about what to do next, on the mat. First it suffuses fresh life into asana practice, and soon the sticky mat becomes training ground for experimenting with self-trust in other parts of life." She is a Yoga Alliance-registered teacher (E-RYT-500, YACEP), teaches at Sun & Moon Yoga Studio in Arlington, Virginia, and considers herself a semi-successful rat race survivor in training.  More about Anne.

Matthew Marsolek/Drum Brothers

A beloved ‘son of the Ranch,’ Matthew Marsolek has been braided into the land and spirit of the Feathered Pipe since early youth. He reminds everyone that no experience is necessary to participate: “If you have a heartbeat, you have a rhythm. If you can breathe, you can sing.” Matthew has studied West African and East Indian music for decades and is an accomplished guitarist, vocalist, and composer. He’s released recordings with the Drum Brothers and Mandir and produces original music for film. Matthew has also been a featured speaker at TEDX UMontana. He is the band leader of the Drum Brothers world fusion ensemble based in Arlee, Montana and has been at the forefront of the North American hand drumming movement since the 1990s. As a facilitator at events and workshops in the American Northwest and Canada, Matthew has shared music and rhythm with corporate teams, at-risk youth, bereaved children, cancer survivors, and students of all ages.  More about Matthew.