Retreats are opportunities to step beyond your borders and discover your deepest belonging, both to yourself and to the larger web of life. Programs are unique depending on the facilitators and individual emphasis, yet each one is set in the context of the natural world where an intimate and mutually reflective encounter can occur with the world at large. All programs support your own unfolding as well as the realization of your place amidst the larger unfolding fabric of life.
Historically, the wilderness has been a place for initiating humans into their authentic being. By removing ourselves from our everyday context and immersing ourselves in the rhythms and cycles of the natural world, we are drawn out beyond the confines of our usual definitions. It is then that we stand at the threshold where our deepest identity might shift from something static and private into that which is vast, ever-changing and intimately connected with all life.
Retreats incorporate awareness and nature-based practices as well as tools such as authentic movement, dreamwork, deep imagery, expressive arts, council and ceremony. The interplay of modalities along with extended time on the land supports lifting the veil between your rational mind and all that seeks to inform you. By becoming more permeable to the subtle whisperings that are in and around you, you allow your waiting depths to be evoked and support the natural movement of your own unfolding.
Although the structures vary, retreats are organic in process as they are informed by each participant, by the group as a whole and by the particular ecosystem in which we find ourselves. Through an intimate and conscious encounter with the world, with each other, with your own inner impulses, with the larger earth community that awaits you, you will be guided to the fertile edge of your own deepest creativity. When we open to the more-than-human world we are not only mirrored and reflected in our own deepest nature but come to learn about the wild things themselves. In this way we move beyond our typically anthropocentric lens and open to the possibility of living in a more conscious and mutually enhancing way with all life.
Course Descriptions (Please check calendar for dates and locations)
Nature and Eros: Intimate Engagement with a Living Universe
We live in an extraordinary time. Western industrialized culture has conditioned us into the assumption that we are separate selves living upon the earth. Yet across disciplines we are awakening to the knowledge that we are living organisms intricately woven into the ever-evolving vibrant web of life. Coming to understand and, most importantly, to live from this knowing requires a profound shift in our perception of the larger web as well as a recognition of our deepest identity as an inextricable part of the cosmic unfolding that brought us forth.
Beginning with explorations into the wonders of the cosmological story itself, Nature and Eros aims to initiate and support this shift in consciousness – a shift that encourages the movement from alienation to intimate connection; from striving to active surrender. Through mutually reflective encounters with the larger Earth community, with our own rich interiors and with each other, we will begin to dissolve our borders and discover our deepest belonging, both to ourselves and to the larger whole. Rather than being passive, the invitation is to a deeply embodied and sensual way of listening to the world and its constant beckoning.
Our time will organically weave between dialogue about the fundamental nature of the universe and gleanings from the quantum world, solo time on the land, and group time designed to deepen our individual experiences. Through intentional wanderings in the exquisite valley and sun-laden hills of Tunitas Creek Ranch, we will open to the cry of the red-tail hawk and brilliance of the late spring full moon. Together, we will engage in nature-based practices, ceremony, soul-oriented dreamwork, council, movement and other processes designed to lift the veil between our everyday self and the larger mysteries that permeate us. By opening to the more-than-human world while simultaneously drawing from the mysteries within the quantum realm, we will be mirrored and reflected in our own deepest nature and drawn toward the fertile meeting ground between our unique creative expression and the universal unfolding from which it is sourced. Ultimately, our aim is to explore what it is to shift from “trying to move through the world” to “allowing the world to move through us”!
A few unique aspects to Nature and Eros include:
- The intimacy of working within a small group of 15
- A day-long solo immersion to support you in further discovering your doorway to your own becoming and to a more intimate engagement with all life
- Nourishment through local organic food as a conscious means of exploring how the larger earth community supports us
- A co-creative process informed by each participant, the group unfolding, and the land that holds and guides us; thereby mirroring what it is to give way to the movement of the world itself
Location and Accommodations: Private Retreat Center, Half Moon Bay, CA. Accommodations at Tunitas are simple: tent camping, with showers and outhouses nearby. A few dorm room beds are available for an additional fee.
Course Fee: $1095, includes basic tent camping and all meals from dinner on the 5th through lunch on the 10th.
To Register or for more information: Contact Cathryn at: natureanderos@unfoldings.com
Priority enrollment for first time participants. Brief application required.
Edge of Surrender
Edge of Surrender is an invitation to awaken to your essential nature and to follow in its natural movement and expression. The offering is to begin to shift your center of gravity: out of what is conditioned and separate; into what is ever becoming and connected to all life. This retreat is an opportunity to dissolve your borders and discover your deepest belonging, both to yourself and to the larger web of life. Rather than looking “out there” for a vision, it’s about becoming more permeable to the subtle whisperings within and around you so that you might be moved, authentically and spontaneously, from within.
As many have come to discover, it is not enough to experience the occasional spiritual high or opening that can occur while on a vision quest or retreat. Edge of Surrender is dedicated to support you in discovering what it is to live from the truth of your deepest essence, in all aspects of your life. Through an intimate and conscious encounter with the world – with each other, with your own inner impulses, with the larger earth community that awaits you – you will be guided towards what most beckons. In following such a draw, you will naturally be carried to the edge of the unknown – a place where we can brace, even subtly, in fear of leaving the familiar. Within that fertile ground you will be invited to meet what’s frozen or hidden within so that it can melt and return to the inherent flow of your being. In so doing, you will learn what it is to surrender to the moment-to-moment whisper that is the key to your natural blooming and self emergence.
Our exploration will unfold organically through intimate attention to the individual and group unfolding rather than from a set agenda or curriculum. Weaving group process and solitary practices in nature, each experience informs and guides the next, supporting you in staying attuned to your own inner current. Our time will be spent at Ocean Song, a vast land of rolling coastal hills that reach toward the visible and beckoning ocean five miles away. We will dwell in the ridge top grasslands, rugged canyons, oak woodlands, and redwood groves while we engage in listening meditation, nature based exploration, dreamwork, inquiry, council, ceremony, and other processes designed to lift the veil between our everyday rational selves and the deeper undercurrent that yearns to move us.
The retreat includes a 24 hour solo (with an optional fasting component) and an optional mentoring consult with Kerry before the start of the program. The consult is designed to support you in connecting more intimately with what’s calling you to your own most vibrant “edge” and may include (given sufficient lead time) use of the astrological chart. With or without use of the chart, the initial meeting supports you deepening your awareness of old patterns and attitudes that bind, developing insight into the potentials that wait to be lived, and more fully embracing the opportunity of the moment before you. There is an additional fee for the consultation.
Limited to a small group of 10. A brief application is required.
Location and Accomodations: Ocean Song Farm and Wilderness Center, Occidental, California. Accommodations at Ocean Song are simple with tent camping and showers and bathrooms available.
Course Fee: $985 includes all meals and lodging from dinner the first night through lunch the last day.
Small Group Immersions
With a maximum of 4 participants, these shorter length retreats are designed to create a more intimate and personalized experience than is possible on larger programs. The intention of immersions is threefold: to support you to further root in the moment-to-moment unfolding of your deepest nature; to become more fluid in giving way to how this unique expression wants to move and inform you; and to re-discover and re-member your place within the larger earth community. Custom designed through the individual emerging of each person's experience, our days will flow between time in the small group, solo time with the beings and magic of the land and personal sessions with Kerry. Working with dreamwork, somatic awareness and other tools, individual meetings support your ability to follow the current of your individual unfolding and to move through the various obstacles and openings that avail themselves. As with all retreats, much of our time will be spent in intimate conversation with the natural world where a deep reflection of your own true nature as well as a more conscious and reverent recognition of the wild things themselves might occur.
Please contact Kerry at info@unfoldings.com to find out about pricing and upcoming Small Group Immersions.
Nature and Eros (for CIIS students)
We live in an extraordinary time. Western industrialized culture has conditioned us into the assumption that we are simply individual selves living upon the earth. Yet across disciplines we are awakening to the fact that we are living organisms within a living earth, intricately woven into the ever evolving vibrant web of life. To come to understand and, most importantly, to live from this knowing requires a profound shift in our perception of reality and an inherent recognition of our deepest identity as an inextricable part of the larger cosmic unfolding that brought us forth. Nature and Eros, as a series, is concerned with evoking this shift in consciousness, a shift that is fundamental to answering the central planetary challenge of our time - the move from an attitude of "control over" to a deep sensual and erotic engagement with the earth and her inhabitants.
In order to do this essential work we come together in community. For five days we live close to the land -- in the Spring at Ocean Song, several hundred acres of rolling coastal hills that reach out to the sea an hour and a half north of San Francisco, and in the Fall at Tunitas Creek Ranch -- a hundred acres of forest and brush nestled in California's coastal range an hour and a half south of San Francisco. The primary teacher in each course will be the combination of the particular eco-system where we gather, the gifts of the Season when we meet, and the distinct configuration of people who come together. In this way, each course is unique and therefore open to new students as well as those seeking to continue or deepen previous journeys taken with us. As we bring ourselves into a more intimate and immediate connection with the larger Earth Community around us, we invite the deep magic of the place and season to evoke our hidden sensitivities and capacities, re-discovering and re-membering who we are as planetary beings. In opening to all that seeks to awaken us, we will consciously explore the mysterious and fertile meeting ground between our own creativity and the larger unfolding and discover the way our unique expression fits into the deep needs of our time.
