THIS RETREAT IS BOOKED OUT. WAITING LIST AVAILABLE, email Ashleigh on ash086@gmail.com.

We live in a culture that prioritises productivity over connection. Yet in our DNA is the wisdom of over 300 000 years of hunter gatherer ancestry, where rituals, ceremonies and practices of connection underpinned every aspect of our ancestors' existence. No wonder so many people live lives of quiet desperation. Our souls yearn for something vital, something we know in our bones yet cannot find, in a world that has turned away from these fundamental needs.

This retreat is an exploration of where we have lost connection, and a series of maps to find our way home.

The first map is Gabrielle Roth's 5Rhythms dance/movement meditation, a profoundly powerful somatic practice which allows us to take a fragment of story and pull on its threads, unravelling the barbed wire thickets of trauma and conditioning holding it in place, giving it physical shape and expression, telling the truth from our deepest self. Once we have embodied it in pure expression it can be digested and metabolised. Then we give it to the dance floor, turn it inside out to mine its lessons for blessings.

The second map is the 5 Wounds of Connection map. This comes from Gina Chick's thirty years of exploration into embodiment and what it is to be a being, humaning. Combining her experience as a Rewilding facilitator and village matriarch, with tens of thousands of hours holding one on one trauma exploration sessions, and time learning with elders of many traditions, Gina has spent countless hours deepening into the ancestral practices of hunter gatherers, the wisdom nestled in our DNA. This map is the culmination of those decades of journeying.

The 5 wounds of connection are:

connection with self
connection with other
connection with group/family/village/tribe
connection with nature
connection with spirit

Tracking these threads gives us an intimate understanding of ourselves and allows us insight into where we can strengthen our connections.By gently healing these wounds we move toward making healthy choices. We all have a birthright of a life that is nourishing, fulfilling and creative. Understanding the 5 wounds of connections helps us reclaim lost fragments, remembering the wisdom in our deepspaces on our way to a life that works. The 5 Wounds map gives us a set of tools to work on our connections so that every dance is a dance of homecoming.

This retreat is designed to give you an understanding of your own patterns of connection, so you can play to your strengths and use them as a springboard to work on the areas that are more challenging. We'll be using the map of 5Rhythms movement meditation to somatically explore our connection to self, other, group, nature and spirit.

We'll also be exploring voice and song, spending time in nature, outdoor dance, breathwork, creative expression, individual, partnership and group processes, rewilding practices and whatever else arises in the moment.

This 7 day retreat is facilitated by registered 5Rhythms teacher and transformational facilitator Gina Chick.