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Arriving here was like stepping into a magical fairyland. You can literally feel the sparkles in the air. The place seems to attract genuinely good, adventurous people, and the land of course has a visceral energy and peace that breathes life.
Laughing Orchard
An ancient temple to your highest self.
Voices from the land
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The healing energy of the land was nourishing. I left feeling rested, rejuvenated, and inspired by the group's collective magic.
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This is a place that attracts really great, self-conscious people. I had the opportunity to get into my work, make new friends and contacts. It is a truly wonderful place.
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The spirit of the Azores completely took me over. This place forms a company of new friends who creatively and freely share knowledge, experience, and joy.
A temple of meaning.
This land speaks to you, and only to you. In the rainbows. In the silent mist of the mornings. In the question that hangs in the air every day: What did you come here to become?
A temple of abundance.
Fruit falls from the trees into your hands. Warmth rises from the ground in the hot springs. Rest comes without being earned. Beauty pours from the green hills, waiting for you to look up. Here, you remember how much life is in you.
A temple of connection.
Strangers become kin over shared meals. Silences turn into companionship. Conversations go places you did not mean them to go. The voice in you that has been quiet for years begins to speak again.
A temple of creativity.
Writers find sentences they could not find in cities. Musicians hear notes that were unavailable to them before. Conversations become the beginning of projects that were unthinkable the week before. The volcano that built this valley is still building — and here, it builds with you.
A temple of transformation.
The land changes. The weather changes. The body, placed inside both, cannot help but change with them. Bring the question you have been carrying. The valley will do the rest.
A temple to your highest purpose.
The world is coming apart. Here, the ground knows stability amidst movement. Here, a life can be rebuilt from what is actually real in you. Nature erected this temple to your highest self long before any human arrived.
A temple of sensitivity.
Something opens in you that you did not know was closed. A softness returns that the world has been pushing against for years. The land holds up a mirror to your most abundant heart — and once you have seen that reflection, it stays present in your life.
Offerings
Immersions
Weeks of presence and practice on the land. No fixed agenda. The land and the people create together. What emerges is always more than what was planned.
Host Your Retreat
Bring your own group, your own practice. The temple holds the space. We take care of the rest — so you can take care of what matters.
Organizations
For teams and leadership groups seeking something real. Coherence, alignment, and the rare experience of building from presence rather than pressure.
Volunteer
Live with us. Work the land. Learn what the orchard teaches when you show up every day. This is not service — it is apprenticeship to abundance.
The Land
São Miguel is the oldest of the Azores — a volcanic island that carries the most ancient energy of creation. Volcanoes created this island, and you are invited to feel and manifest in resonance with them.
The town of Furnas sits inside a crater. Hot springs bubble through the ground. Two hundred shades of green surround a mineral lake. The town's botanical garden and commercial hot springs are world-class. The thick forests surrounding the crater are a living testament to the emergence and unpredictability that comes from the interaction between humans and nature.
The Laughing Orchard is hidden inside this crater — a hectare of fruit garden tucked inside an ancient riverbed, shielded from the wind by trees on all sides. The air here is warm, mineral-rich, thick with the scent of earth and growing things. The land is not a backdrop. It is the teacher. It is the host.
The orchard is a living calendar. In winter and spring, oranges, lemons, and kiwis weigh the branches down. Summer brings apples, pears, plums, and passion fruit. There are bananas, figs, guavas. The garden gives without being asked.
The relationship with land here is complex. A young syntropic agroforest grows alongside an old Azorean orchard. Water is plentiful and sometimes overbearing. Wind is playful and unpredictable. This land is always active, always asking for a conscious relationship. That is how it teaches.
The Spaces
Sleeping
2Guest Houses
7Rooms
14Participants
Two guest houses with seven rooms sleeping up to 14 participants. Up to 4 additional guests (18 total) can be accommodated through camping and extra cabins.
Practice
1Indoor Studio
1Outdoor Platform
Both indoor and outdoor spaces designed for yoga, meditation, breathwork, and group ceremony. We provide all equipment — mats, cushions, blankets.
Facilities
1Natural Sauna
2Kitchens
4Bathrooms
Everything you need to live well — a wood-fired sauna, two kitchens including an outdoor cooking area, and four bathrooms.
Meals
Meals can be arranged at extra cost, tailored to the needs of each group through our network of conscious catering professionals.
How to Get Here
Furnas, São Miguel, Azores, Portugal.
Direct flights to Ponta Delgada from New York and Boston, as well as several major European cities. The centre is located 45 minutes from the airport — a taxi can be easily arranged for around €50.
Immersions
An immersion is time lived on the land, in a small group, with intention.
Some immersions are guided by a single teacher. Some are brought by a facilitator or a team with their own reason to gather. Some arise from the group itself, with no curriculum, shaped by what emerges in the days.
What they share is the container. A handful of people. The valley doing its quiet work underneath whatever is happening on the surface. You arrive for a reason. The land tends to reveal a deeper one.
From Pressure to Pleasure
July 12–17, 2026A 6-day somatic immersion with Amal & Randa — movement, nature, and guided practices to release stored tension and reconnect with ease.
Full details →Sacred Lomi-Lomi Immersion
August 7–17, 202610 days of Hawaiian bodywork, breath, and presence on the land.
Full details →Bring your own immersion
Many of the weeks that happen here are not ours. They are brought by the people who arrive to lead them.
If you teach a practice — yoga, bodywork, meditation, breath, sound, movement, writing — the land has supported nearly every discipline that has found its way to the valley. If you hold a circle of students or clients and want a place to take them deeper, the container is ready. If you lead a team — founders, leadership groups, organizations whose work would benefit from a week of being together in a place that does not compete for attention — the valley makes room for that too.
Tell us what you want to bring. We will tell you whether the land is a fit.
On Collisions
Some of the immersions we have hosted have taken a particular shape: no teacher at the front of the room, no fixed program, a group of practitioners, artists, and seekers brought together to let something unplanned arrive. We call these Collisions. The three below are the ones that have happened so far.
Past Collisions
The third Collision gathered another bright and curious mix of people from different corners of life. From the AI world came Anastasia and Alberto, co-founders of a thriving computer vision startup, who brought both entrepreneurial energy and a love for creative play. With them was Genny, also in tech, who nourished the group with her gift for cooking.
Laura arrived with a spirit of fire and spontaneity, introducing tuning forks, energy circles, and even discovering her own singing voice in a shared jam. Megan, a psychedelic therapist from the US, opened conversations about healing, substances, and the evolving landscape of therapy. Karola, a movement practitioner and masseuse, brought depth through a heart-opening dyad practice and the presence of her infant son, Orion.
I didn't know I could sing until that moment — something just unlocked.
The hosts — Alex, Matt, Dominic, and Arian — wove the week together through music, movement, saunas, circles, and conversations.
From journaling exercises that unfolded into heartfelt sharing, to hikes, hot springs, a full moon dance, and impromptu rituals, the days unfolded like chapters of a book written in real time.
I didn't expect a simple writing exercise to lead to tears, laughter, and such real connection.
What emerged was a sense of flow and trust: each person bringing their gifts, receiving what they needed, and co-creating a retreat that could not have been designed in advance. The July Collision revealed how quickly strangers can become a community when given the space to collide openly and playfully.
The April Collision carried a quieter, more inward and almost wintery rhythm. The group — Alex, Arian, Dominic, Mat, Katie, Christina and Karola — spent most of their time within the warmth of the Laughing Orchard, while the island outside lingered in its winter mood.
This was a gentle retreat into the subtler aspects of life and energy, activating and strengthening the threads of inward connection and sensitivity. Days unfolded slowly, with long conversations that stretched into the night.
Meditation was a staple. As was sound and energy work. Dominic shared astrology and Qi Gong, Christina offered various Reiki styles, Mat offered movement. Punctuated by staples of the Laughing Orchard experience — nature adventures, sauna and ice bath sessions, hot spring walks, yoga.
Movement took many forms: Karola opened the body through dance, Qi Gong and yoga shaped the mornings, and Katie's channelling invited another layer of exploration. There were hikes through nearby hills and visits to hot springs, yet the essence of April remained internal.
It was a winter retreat into subtlety — a time for gathering energy, listening to intuition, and deepening connection with one another.
A Journey into the Unknown — the very first Collision brought together people from seemingly very different walks of life.
Ana Maria and Špela came from Slovenia, where Špela has a retreat center and they create holistic healing and creativity programs. From the Azores came Alex, a Russian-American tech entrepreneur with experience in indigenous mystical traditions, alongside a London-born musician from Iran working with the music of his cultures. They were joined by Matt, a movement teacher and chessboxing coach from the US, and his friends Tom, an innovative entrepreneur, and Bryant, a breathwork and meditation guide.
Through various adventures, practices, music, one-on-ones, movement, and reflection, the group discovered the common ground of being alive on this planet together.
Life at the Orchard
Between sessions: hot springs, black sand beaches, volcanic forests, music, and the particular quality of time that happens when a small group is gathered in a hidden valley.
The Keepers
A group of beings devoted to tending this space.
Aleksandr Bulkin
Founder & Vision HolderAlex guides conscious connection with nature's power at the Laughing Orchard, bridging between logic and spirit, as well as between spirit and logic. He is a bridge personality, who is both a seer and a listener, riding the waves of natural chaos using nothing but imagination.
Magical Crafts
- Imagining
- Manifesting
- Engineering
- Bridging
- Seeing
- Listening
Can Be Found
- At the Laughing Orchard
- Portugal, Hungary, and the US
- Playing ancient flutes
- Prepping Russian sauna
- Carrying baby
- Wearing a black t-shirt and headset ("on a call")
Aya Bondar
Weaver of Living WarmthAya transforms spaces into harmony, where people feel held and cared for, reconnect with themselves and each other. Through touches of beauty and heartfelt care, she weaves warmth and nourishment into the atmosphere — shaping places that feel alive, welcoming, and deeply human.
Magical Crafts
- Homemaking
- Caring for people, animals and spaces
- Feeling everything deeply
- Seeing and creating beauty
- Believing in more miracles to come
Can Be Found
- In the kitchen making kombucha
- On the beach picking driftwood and dragging it to the garage to create something later
- Around Furnas looking for runaway Botsman
- Somewhere in a tent on one of the islands
- At the gate of Laughing Orchard welcoming you
Karola Szőke
Heart of the OrchardKarola's presence is one of the central beating hearts of the Laughing Orchard, as well as a great source of wisdom. Having recently blessed the land by birthing her and Alex's baby here, Karola's loving and light presence unfolds with new dimensions like a flower in bloom.
Magical Crafts
- Sensitivity
- Motherhood
- Somatic movement, dance and bodywork
- Crocheting, felting, weaving
- Teacher of divine Love
Can Be Found
- In Hungary and Portugal
- Caring for small and big beings of the Laughing Orchard
- Playing music
- Harvesting tea leaves
- Laughing
- Making crafts
Marta Anula Diniz
Guardian of the ForestMarta is a guardian of mother earth. She sees in the land a space for reconnection between the human being and nature, where natural cycles teach us about balance, cooperation, love and abundance.
Magical Crafts
- Balancing ecosystems
- Perceiving ecosystems
- Behaving like a plant
- Nurturing mother earth
- Dancing as if mother nature is dancing through her
Can Be Found
- Nestled between tall leaves in a food forest
- Soaking in the ocean
- In the middle of a field
- Driving across the island to be in the middle of a field
Arian Mortazavi Sarrafan
Resident MusicianArian is a musician and sound guide on the early steps of a lifelong path with sacred music. Drawing from folk and mystical ancestral traditions — his Iranian roots being a focus right now — he offers gentle, soul-rooted sound journeys and music that invite one to deeply meet oneself in stillness and connection with the unseen.
Magical Crafts
- Inter-dimensional sound portals
- Visual content with soul
- Dancing
- Bridging worlds
Can Be Found
- In the middle of nowhere… travelling remote and lost lands in search of knowledge and mystery
- Playing ancient instruments
- In a hot spring
Botsman
The DogMagical Crafts
- Psychic and telepathic understanding
- Sniffing out activity
- Singing ancient songs (often in tune)
Can Be Found
- Covering several square kilometres of land in a day
Get in Touch
Write to us
If you're interested in hosting your retreat or event here, staying with us as an aligned guest, or volunteering, please fill out the form below or use the email address on the right.
Reach us directly
alex@laughingorchard.orgLocation
Furnas, São Miguel, Azores, Portugal
Getting Here
Fly into Ponta Delgada — direct flights from New York, Boston, London, and Lisbon.
A taxi from the airport to Furnas costs around 45 euros. We can help arrange rides.