Learn and Practice Seasonal Rhythms & Rituals for Sacred Guidance Through the Natural World
Is your sense of the sacred feeling stunted? Are you feeling disconnected from the rhythms and seasons of the natural world? Do you desire a deep feeling of communion with the whole community of creation? Then it is time to rewild your wonder!
Respond to this call to seek the sacred within the text of the natural world and recover your feral faith on Whidbey Island for this day long retreat with Mary DeJong at the Whidbey Institute's Storyhouse, a nurturing cabin surrounded by legacy forest and the whispers of wild life half a world away from the urban hustle and bustle.
Here you will expand your sense of rootedness and belonging to a place through the practice of the Rewilding Wheel, a sacred wheel circuit, influenced by Celtic spirituality and indigenous wisdom traditions. and designed to cultivate seasonal practices and disciplines that nurture a conscious and inspired relationship with the earth, the elements, and the divine. You will come away with grounded theory and routine, regular, and repeated rhythms and rituals that honor and connect with Earth's seasons and elements as a way to recover your sense of self and the sacred in the very real soil of your daily existence!
Following a community learning circle in the morning, a hearty and wholesome lunch will be served on site that will nourish you for a time of personal rewilding within the Chinook woods. Listen deeply to the numinous natural world within the Listening Circle, a sacred circle of stones set deep within a grove of hemlocks, cedar and fir. Engage in the ancient labyrinth-walking practice as a way to discern your place within the wild web of life. Spend time listening and learning from those with roots, wings, or fur and fold those messages deeper into your soul while you take a personal moment to breath in the peaceful air within the woodland sanctuary. Meditation materials along with wild-crafting supplies will be provided to enhance this process of remembering and reconnecting with the precious and wild more-than-human world.
Rewilding Retreats are offered quarterly, each exploring the entire round of the Rewilding Wheel while going deeper into seasonal practices that connect to the corresponding cardinal direction and element. The Rewilding Retreat will invite daily, monthly, and seasonal practices that will embed you in an interconnected, sacred relationship with your bioregion. You do not need to register for all four retreats to be profoundly impacted and invited into a new mindset of being in solidarity with creation; however, each quarterly retreat will spend time focusing on the sacred themes and practices that correspond to that particular seasonal quadrant.
This Winter Rewilding Retreat will focus on prayers and spiritual practices associated with the season of Winter, the element of Air, the cardinal direction of North, and the bioregion of mountains and high places. Threaded within these corresponding categories are deep mythopoetic meaning and psycho-spiritual themes that will inspire your wild soul formation and connection to the Sacred Wild.
What's Included
A one day retreat experience within The Whidbey Institute's StoryHouse and the surrounding wild landscape
Expert teaching and soulful group facilitation
Invitation to engage with meaningful rituals and nature-based spiritual practices
Rewilding Wheel Workbook
Guided nature walk with native plant identification
Introduction to and support during a forested labyrinth walk
Thoughtfully prepared and seasonally focused vegetarian mid-day meal, snacks, and herbal teas
Wild-crafting materials
Supported nature solo time
Access to a 100 acre trail system in a legacy forest
What's Not
Lodging
Travel expenses
Please Bring
Personal writing materials (journal, paper, pen/pencil) and backpack
Warm comfortable layers, weather proof outdoor wear, and sturdy water resistant footwear
Personal water bottle
Flashlight and fully charged cell phone
Emergency whistle
Fold up camping chair
A seeker's desire and the posture of seeing the stranger as a sacred guide!