Gathering of the Doves: A Black Women’s Wellness Retreat in WV

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By: Black by God: The West Virginian

HILLSBORO, W.Va. — If you’ve been craving a reset — the kind that lives in your body long after the weekend ends — this May offers an invitation.

From May 15–17, 2026, Black women from across the country will gather in the Appalachian mountains for the Gathering of the Doves Retreat — a three-day experience rooted in rest, ritual, and reconnection.

Set against the lush, quiet backdrop of Pocahontas County, at the Yew Mountain Center. The weekend blends movement, nature, storytelling, and ancestral practice into something both grounding and expansive — a space to exhale, to be held, and to return to yourself. A Weekend Designed to Restore.

This isn’t a packed schedule or a conference. It’s a rhythm.

Mornings begin with gentle yoga and movement, easing the body awake. Days unfold with herbal walks through the forest, where participants learn to identify plants, understand their uses, and reconnect with Appalachian traditions of care.

Throughout the weekend, participants will experience:

Herbal walks and forest-based botanical education
Rituals guided by divination, astrology, and ancestral practices
Workshops, ceremonies, and guided reflection
Shared meals and communal living
Time to rest, journal, wander, or simply be

Optional offerings like acupuncture and Reiki are also available for those seeking deeper restoration.

Lodging is communal — with options for shared indoor spaces or tents — extending the experience beyond sessions and into late-night conversations, quiet mornings, and connection under the open sky.

Rooted in Something Deeper

The Gathering of the Doves builds on the spirit of a powerful 2025 retreat at Yew Mountain Center, where women came together for what became a weekend of storytelling, healing, and renewal.

As previously reported in Black By God, that gathering transformed Pocahontas County — a place often marked by difficult histories — into a site of Black women’s connection, joy, and reclamation.

That same energy carries forward this year.

At the center of the experience is Ruby Daniels — an Afrilachian farmer, herbalist, and storyteller whose work bridges land, lineage, and healing.

Founder of Creasy Jane’s Herbal Remedies, Daniels holds a Master of Science in Herbal Therapeutics from Maryland University of Integrative Health. Based in Beckley, she grows heritage vegetables and medicinal herbs while working with landowners to steward ginseng and other forest botanicals.

Her approach is simple and profound: the land holds knowledge — and gathering is a way of remembering.

_{Crystal Good and Ruby Daniels beside Yew Pond, Yew Mountain, August 30, 2025.}

A Space to Return to Yourself

Across three days, the retreat moves intentionally between body, land, and community — creating space not just to learn, but to feel, to release, and to reconnect.

Meals become moments of laughter and conversation. Forest walks become classrooms. Ritual becomes a language for reflection and clarity.

And in between it all, there is space — to rest, to breathe, to look up at the sky and remember your place in it.