Stories of Faith from the Yoga Mat: A Case Study of Women’s Yoga Retreats

This article presents empirical material on faith storytelling in the compilation between Orthodox Christianity and New Age spirituality. These kinds of faith syntheses are endemic to modern people, emancipated from the rules and roles of traditional religious institutions, but also in constant search for new ways to connect with the divine. In full accord with contemporary spirituality, the collected narratives are intended to demonstrate the complex forms under which religious identity is constructed today. The particular case study of women’s yoga getaways, often called “retreats”, also provides in-depth accounts of this new form of travel that has become increasingly popular in recent decades. The methodological apparatus of the article is organized around an interpretive approach focused on the analysis of narratives collected from women participants in the retreat. Through examples from the author’s fieldwork, the paper will demonstrate how the yoga mat creates a pathway to the divine and what this might look like in the context of a post-socialist, Eastern Orthodox country like Bulgaria.