Photos by JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

Starchild Abraham Dreaming Wolf Cherrix participates in a yoga session during the Earthsong Teen Meditation Retreat. Sixteen students participated in meditation and yoga sessions, discussion groups and daily workshops.

Students participate in nature walks and do without cellphones or laptops at the retreat, which is held at Ferrum's rural Mistletoe Farm.

FERRUM -- Ceiling fans churned above their heads. Yoga mats rested below their bare feet. Ahead of them, as they bent and stretched in unison like dancers, a young, ponytailed instructor reminded them to be mindful and graceful.

"Graceful?" 17-year-old Cameron Woodruff asked, struggling to pose on one knee.

They moved from cobra positions where bellies touched the floor to downward dogs and warrior threes.

"This is the first pose where I realized yoga can be really sweaty," instructor Jessica Morey told the group of 16 pretzel-bodied teens.

"And painful," Cameron added through clenched teeth.

"Oh Cameron," fellow yogi Allie Bell, 17, scolded. "It's good for you."

Here, inside a sparsely furnished room set among rolling, yellow-green fields and packed dirt paths of Ferrum's Mistletoe Farm, teens spent a week of their summer relaxing.

But unlike summer camps that give teens the chance to do mission work, camp or canoe, this retreat in a rural setting dotted with cabins and picnic pavilions aimed to do something different. By practicing meditation, this gathering, dubbed the Earthsong Teen Meditation Retreat, strived to teach kids to use their inner wisdom to cope with life's problems.

"It's an experience that teaches kids to plug into themselves -- all of the beauty and all of the crap," said Maury Cooke, who helped start the retreat last summer. "Joy can come out of pain and suffering."

Lessons about joy, pain

Cooke runs a Portsmouth-based nonprofit organization dealing with affordable housing and urban arts in addition to founding the Earthsong Farm and Retreat.

He lost a son in his younger years and credits meditation with saving him from anxiety, grief and depression. He wanted to do something to reach out to teens, and after visiting a teen retreat in California, he knew he wanted to start something similar in this area.

The first local meditation retreat happened in July 2007 with teens from Virginia and along the East Coast, taught by many of the same instructors who led the California sessions.

At this year's retreat, the teens gathered with no cellphones, no laptops, e-mails and certainly, no Starbucks. Instead, they were encouraged only to bring instruments, stories and rap songs.

They ate meals of locally grown food at picnic tables topped with Mason jars full of wildflowers, were reminded to be mindful -- or aware of their thoughts -- while doing everything from meditating in groups to hauling their mats across the floor.

Each day started and ended with periods of reflective silence. Here, adult volunteers sat at the fringes of the room, joining the teens in yoga or cross-legged meditation or on nature walks where teens scouted for edible plants.

When the teens were not meditating, they took part in salsa dance or juggling classes and were given the chance to participate in an American Indian sweat lodge. They giggled during theatrical games and were thanked by instructors afterward for their energy and their playful hearts.

Twice-daily group discussions gave them the chance to bond or sometimes break down and cry as they recounted their emotions during silent meditation.

Discussion coupled with silent time make the retreat unique, said Joe Klein, a local mental health counselor who has worked in Floyd County schools.

While adult retreats are often completely silent, Klein said the talk sessions provided a safe atmosphere where teens could share what was happening inside them -- good or bad. Here, teens were taught they don't always have to embrace pleasure or shun pain. Instead of blurring their feelings with alcohol or drugs, they learned through meditation how pain can be transformed into joy or to make them stronger.

Klein said he thinks there will never be enough mental health care professionals working in public schools. Instead, he said retreats like this give teens a tool kit to maintain their well-being.

"They're learning to be present with what the experience is," he said. "Not always seeking pleasure and avoiding pain."

Retreat leaders such as Klein and Cook talk passionately about the power of meditation. Cooke compares it to a glass of muddy water where nothing is visible. After meditation, he says, the mud settles and one can see.

Some of the teens explain it more simply. This is a place they say they can de-stress.

Focusing on themselves

Devin Deerheart came to the retreat overwhelmed by Advanced Placement classes, summer school assignments, relationships and home life. He walked into camp a stressed-out, schedule-based person whose mind was always racing.

He's 15 years old.

"I don't know the date, I don't know what time it is and I don't care," he said midway through the retreat. "I think it should be mandatory to meditate 30 minutes at least every weekday."

Devin, who's originally from Floyd but now lives in Fayetteville, Ark., came to the retreat last year, too. Afterward, he said the relaxed mentality stayed with him for a few weeks. This time, he's hoping it lasts all year.

Others, such as Allie -- who lives in Floyd during the summer -- has meditated since she was 10 and was looking for a retreat like this. But when she told some of her friends what she was doing this summer, some thought she "was a freak."

After growing up in an era where everything is as instant as text messages, she feels many teens lack patience for meditation and think it's boring.

"A lot of teens have an image of sitting in one place going , 'Omm,' for hours,' " she said. "You center yourself and focus on breathing and being in the moment. It feels really good."

In fact, said Jason Murphy -- a pierced, tattooed, gentle giant of an instructor -- the silence of meditation helps teens identify their own wisdom, thoughts and feelings.

"I see this as being one of the most helpful structures to help kids heal and discover," said Murphy, a 36-year-old who leads meditation groups in California and is also an addiction counselor.

So while some came to this woodsy setting finding exactly what they needed, first-time meditators such as Miles Necker, 15, were surprised by life-changing aspects of the retreat.

Miles came because his Buddhist mother signed him up. Before leaving his Quakertown, Pa. home, he dreaded the idea of a new place full of strangers, of being driven from the airport to the farm by people he didn't know. He expected to be sad and miserable.

At first, he found meditation "annoying and stupid." Why did they have to sit the entire time, he wondered, listening to small voices in a big room? But soon, he was accepted by others. Soon, he noticed how meditation helped him concentrate and combat Attention Deficit Disorder -- without taking medication he doesn't like.

"I was extremely surprised I actually liked it," he said.

He's continued meditating since he's been home. He's felt pain and realized its easier if he simply accepts what's happening.

But before going home, instructors Cooke and Klein told Miles they expect to see him at retreats that will happen over New Year's Eve and Columbus Day weekend.

They told him he didn't have a choice.

This time, he's OK with the decision.