Garden update 🌱🦚
The kids have been enjoying watching their seeds grow into actual fruit they can harvest and pray with and eat. It’s the most fulfilling thing in the world to hear from a kid‘s mouth that you are a great gardener and to me that means so much to tend such precious life that keeps on giving and giving without asking for anything in return, so here is some of the Harvest from today is green beans and snap peas are mint garden has been growing abundantly and so has our gooseberries and strawberries. They are not shown in this photo because how much we have been devouring them before taking photos… the garden here is happy at Mana and we even more so are grateful to tend it❤️🙏🏽
Hi! Happy May🌺 We’re so excited to be entering our second year of MANA Summer Camp 🌞✨🌈
We’ll be at the ranch offering an educational, primal, and FUN experience.
June Dates:
June 22–25
June 29–July 2
(Monday–Thursday, 9:30 AM – 3 PM)
🦚🎨🚣🏼♀️🏹Offerings🐴🪁🍊🏕️
Archery, fishing, horse riding, river baths, lake time, water play, maker stations, cooking, gymnastics, yoga, crafts, music, harvesting, juicing, and so much more
Pricing:
Weekly: $550
If you feel the call for your child to join us, we’d love to get you set up or answer any questions, you can text us here.
+1 (559) 300-1220
We’re so grateful for this growing community and to continue creating such a enriching space for the kids
🌎🌈
We’re so excited to introduce something truly special happening at Mana 👩🏼🍳🥑🥦🥕
Every Tuesday, we welcome the radiant Lindsay Navama, mama, integrative nutrition coach, cookbook author, and founder of Earth Food First, into our space for our Taste Education Food Program. @earthfoodfirst
And let me tell you… it’s magic you can taste.
Week by week, our children are not just “cooking”… they’re awakening their senses, building a relationship with real food, and learning that what we eat shapes how we feel.
From vibrant 5-spice carrot salad, to a bright, zesty yuzu jade salad sprinkled with furikake, to last week’s mouth watering carpaccio ✨
Simple. Beautiful. Alive.
There’s something so powerful about watching little hands prepare food with care, curiosity, and joy… tasting, exploring, and connecting back to the earth in the most natural way.
This is what it means to choose farm over factory. This is what it means to raise conscious eaters.
We feel so grateful to share this rhythm each week with Lindsay and our Mana children. It’s more than food… it’s education, connection, and remembrance.
✨🌈🪶
So grateful for this time, for the land that holds us, and for each child who brought their spirit into the space. Already dreaming into the next one 🌞
Throughout the week, kids experienced horseback riding, kayaking, and fishing, cooking class, food education, along with activities like archery and group games, including a capture the flag at the barn that quickly became a favorite. We also incorporated movement through our water slide and jump house play and gymnastics + movement activities to keep their bodies active and engaged.
Beyond the activities, a big focus was connection to the land. The kids spent time in the river, harvested fresh oranges and loquats, and worked on simple projects that encouraged creativity and teamwork.
Each day was intentionally balanced with physical activity, outdoor exploration, and collaborative play giving kids space to build confidence, develop new skills, and form meaningful friendships.
Now Enrolling for our Summer Camp beginning this June✨🌈
Not just camp.
A return to what matters 🌿
🌸MANA Spring + Summer Camp☀️
Where children spend their days in nature, in creativity, in connection🌈
• Outdoor adventure
• Maker based learning
• Animal care
• Leadership + collaboration
• Real world skills
Ojai, CA
Limited enrollment
(559) 300-1220
🌎
Morning ritual before the kids arrive.
Breath work ✅
Cleanse the space with copal ✅
Complete our checklist ✅
Test our tea and tortillas on a Tuesday✅
Special thanks to Maya Luna who prepared our tea beverage the day before harvesting chocolate mint from the garden, adding honey, and putting it in the fridge to enjoy a cool beverage the next day.
This is how we begin.
Not just preparing a space…
but weaving a feeling.🩵
Thursdays at MANA are our In-Service in the World days, led by our guide Brandee.
Last week the children were introduced to something truly meaningful. Through a nonprofit collaboration, we are able to support orphanages around the world, including Tanzania, Cambodia, and Nepal.
The children began learning about the lives of other children across the globe and the importance of compassion, awareness, and service. They also started creating vision boards for the world they want to live in and the kind of humans they want to become.
As children begin to understand themselves, their gifts, and their dreams, they also begin to understand how they can help others.
These Thursdays will also include Entrepreneur Days, where the kids create products with purpose.
Our first project:
🌈 Organic Play-Doh~ made by kids, for kids.
All profits will go directly to support the orphanages we are partnering with.
💛 MANA
Cheers to our second year of MANA Camp 🌿
If you’re looking for a spring break experience that feels grounded, joyful, and alive, this is it.🌈
☀️ MANA Spring Break Camp☀️
Message for details or to reserve a spot🙏🏽
At MANA, Thursdays are dedicated to In-Service in the World days. 🌎 These are special days where we invite entrepreneurs, artisans, elders, and changemakers into our learning environment, or venture out on field trips to learn different trades, skills, and ways of living.
This month, as we focus on Indigenous studies, we had the absolute honor of welcoming Lakota elder Tony into our circle. 🪶
Today he shared the sacred story of White Buffalo Calf Woman. In Lakota tradition, White Buffalo Calf Woman is a sacred messenger who came to the people during a time when harmony had been forgotten. She brought the Chanunpa, the Sacred Pipe, a powerful symbol of prayer, responsibility, and the relationship between humans, the Earth, the sky, and all living beings.
White Buffalo Calf Woman also carried teachings about respect, community, honoring women as life-givers, and remembering that everything in nature is connected.🌀
After hearing this story, the children learned how to weave dream catchers using willow branches that were lovingly harvested by Mr. Amir and Tony. Small hands working patiently, weaving circles of intention and creativity.
What a special day honoring the living lineage of Indigenous knowledge and bringing elders into our learning spaces.
This is the kind of village we are committed to building at MANA, one where wisdom, craft, storytelling, and the voices of elders continue to guide the next generation.🪔
A quiet moment for our garden beds at M.A.N.A. 🌱
Here, tucked into the soil, life is unfolding in the most beautiful ways. Together the children are growing spearmint, chocolate mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary, snap peas, string beans, tomatoes, golden berries, thornless raspberries, strawberries, eggplant, collard greens, and now newly planted bell peppers. 🌈
These gardens are not just places where food grows. They are living classrooms where children learn patience, care, and reverence for the land.
Every leaf carries the memory of the children who planted it. Every root reaches deeper because it was placed there with love.
We are so grateful for these sacred lands we are tending and for the joy that fills them each day. 🌎
Our Mondays are devoted to MANA Makers day, a time where creativity becomes a practice and the children step into the role of designers, builders, and visionaries.
We created nature mandalas, gathering treasures from the land and arranging them into beautiful patterns. Each mandala revealed something special… the unique blueprint of each child. No two were the same. Different colors, different shapes, different rhythms.
Through the design process, we honor something deeper than just the final creation.
We honor curiosity, patience, problem solving, and imagination.🌎🌀
Today we planted bell peppers in our garden beds and walked through the full life cycle… from tiny seed to fruiting plant. The children got their hands deep in the soil, noticing roots, sunlight, moisture, and what it truly means to tend something over time with intention and songs.
After gardening, we hiked the land and acknowledged that we are learning and growing on Chumash land. We talked about respect, stewardship, and gratitude for those who came before us and for the land that continues to hold us.
And of course… Tuesday is our tortilla making time. 🌽
Grateful for the lands that hold us🌈
