Big Sky Yoga Retreats founder Margaret Burns Vap, left, works in tandem with chef and interior designer Holly Rainey, right, to host farm-to-table dinners as the culmination of a longer yoga retreat where guests pair time on the yoga mat with lessons in horsemanship. Photo by Larry Stanley.
Interview: Horses, Yoga, and Great Food
Just outside the Bozeman buzz, in a still-quiet corner of Gallatin Valley, there’s a space where you are invited to be your authentic self. Amid aspen trees and cottonwoods, at the toe of the expansive Gallatin Mountain Range, Big Sky Yoga Retreats has partnered with Camp Arrow Creek Farm to cultivate experiential Cowgirl Yoga Farm Dinners. It’s alfresco dining at its best, complete with seasonal greens, local produce, and Montana meats prepared on a traditional parrilla grill; a dinner that reflects introspection, community, and living life at a slower pace.
Edible Bozeman: Your philosophy inspires community and empowers women to be their authentic selves. How do your retreats and dinners facilitate this?
Margaret Burns Vap: Retreats give women time and space to dedicate to self-care, without the usual distractions they have at home. “Self-care” sounds so simple, yet can be so difficult. Somehow our culture has shaped us to believe that the last person we should take care of is ourselves. As women, we have a lot of guilt about self-care: It’s too expensive; I can’t take that time off work; I can’t leave my family or pets.
We know it’s important to our well-being to connect with other women, spend time with friends, practice yoga. When there is time for these things, without the pull of our home and work life, the connections run deeper and women discover their authentic selves. My hope is for retreats to deepen the self-care groove, and for people to take that home. My mantra is self-care is non-negotiable—but it doesn’t just land in your lap; you have to create the pattern.
EB: Why did you feel compelled to start these farm dinners?
Holly Rainey: Growing up in Montana, I listened to the stories of small community life from my parents, grandparents, and great-grandmother. The people of a small rural community were a family; they were there for each other and each did their part to support the other. That sense of community is something I felt was changing and dissipating as Bozeman continued to grow so rapidly.
It’s been said that we humans are herd animals—we need other people, especially after the pandemic drove many people to be alone. We knew that this was the right time to facilitate small community gatherings on our own little patch of land.
EB: Holly, what inspires you both as a chef and as an interior designer?
HR: So many things! Visual beauty inspires me as an interior designer: colors of the landscape and sky on a country drive; the cool gray line of a grain silo on the edge of a vast wheat field; a crazy beautiful tribal pattern that is hundreds of years old; antique William Morris wallpaper; gorgeous wood striations; the work of other makers and creators.
With food, it is always about the color and flavor explosions of cultural foods. You eat with your eyes before you take the first bite. My auntie taught me so many lessons on how to make good food many years ago when I was home raising kids, and it stuck. I love making things beautiful and tasteful for people—be that food on the plate with a spray of lime juice and a dash of fresh herbs, or in a room with a classic base, sprinkled with lovely art and accessories that complement the homeowner. I think it comes down to listening well, treading lightly, and pairing lovely things with their natural fit.
EB: Margaret, how did you come to mix yoga and horses?
MBV: Like many women, I fell in love with horses as a child and tucked that away for years as I lived my equinefree— albeit wonderful—life. When my family moved to Montana, I spent a lot of time with horses, fulfilling my childhood dream and learning to ride and partner with these exquisite animals.
During that first year in Montana, it struck me how similar the learning process with horses was to being new to yoga. Creating that connection between horse and human goes hand in hand with cultivating connection to self on your yoga mat. There are so many parallels between our yoga practice and what we practice with horses. It opened up a new way to live my yoga practice, which became so much richer as a result.
One of my favorite mantras is that you’re never done learning, particularly with yoga and horses. There is always something to learn every time you step on your yoga mat and every time you are with a horse. That is inspiring to me.
“On retreat and at Holly’s dinners, we give women the time and space to enjoy their meal. We want them to remember how good it feels to eat good food, savor it slowly, and notice the effect it has on body and mind.” —Margaret Burns Vap
EB: What does healthy living mean to you?
HR: To me healthy living means taking care of one another well and being well cared for. It means considering others as we consider ourselves; respecting the soil that our food comes from and the water that makes it grow; harvesting and eating healthy food and making sure that those in our community can do the same; the balance of working and taking time to be of service to one another; keeping spiritually grounded; moving our limbs and bodies as we are able; playing in nature; stopping to acknowledge gratitude for all we’ve been given.
MBV: To me, the underlying foundation of wellness is connection: to self, to others, to nature, to our nourishment, and, ultimately, to the universe. The things that have made me feel most connected to my world have been yoga, meditation, being outdoors in nature, and understanding where my food comes from. The understanding that pure, unprocessed, local food is one of the keys to our best health is not universally recognized in our fast-moving culture. On retreat and at Holly’s dinners, we give women the time and space to enjoy their meal. We want them to remember how good it feels to eat good food, savor it slowly, and notice the eff ect it has on body and mind.
