Welcome to the premiere edition of Natural Awakenings of Lancaster and Berks counties.  We are delighted to join with our local community in creating this holistic resource to assist you on your way to healthier and more natural living.

Each month, you will find a wealth of information and insights by leading local and national experts on nutrition, fitness, green living, individual growth and creative personal expression.  These pages will bring you news briefs, calendar items and articles selected to support each individual’s personal freedom to choose consciously in caring for one’s self and one another.  Our vision is a community awakened to balanced and simplified living.

With this mindset, the three of us came together several years ago to explore our shared passions for a mind-body-spirit approach to authenticity, healing and service. Many cups of tea and inspiring conversations brought us to this present moment of fostering a resource intentionally supporting a local collective immersed in natural and sustainable living. Surrounded by many others invested in these foundational beliefs, our dream evolved rapidly. The resource we had envisioned easily found its home within the larger Natural Awakenings family, connecting our community to a like-minded network of 3.5 million readers in 83 markets coast to coast.

Today, despite the long hours necessary to make this publication happen, we have been energized by the resonance felt throughout the process and inspired by the genuine support along the way. Timing and synchronicity continue to characterize the journey with this month’s launch theme of Passion and Purpose.  The issue’s contributors offer many examples of lives and businesses grown from seeds of innate wisdom and nurtured in the context of hope. We invite you to join us in honoring this strong local network of practitioners and holistic business owners as they share their perspectives and expertise. We look forward to expanding on what has only been a first step in discovering all the gifts available among us and celebrate these many opportunities for positive change.

As we tune into the deeper rhythms of autumn  and gather in various circles to harvest memories and meaning this month, may you feel the reassurance of a wider community invested in living well and supporting your every joy. Please join us in pausing to give thanks for each new day as we open to expectations of beautiful and abundant lives.

 In gratitude and good health,

 Jacqueline Mast, Kendra Campbell and Lois Schultz, Co-publishers