A 7-Day Exploration in Restoring our Relationship to Inner Nature and Wild Nature
A Collaboration with Alaya Babineau of Wilderness-Within
Dates: Sunday, July 9- Saturday, July 15, 2023
Location: Rip Redwoods Camp, Sonoma, CA
Your Guides: Satya Gita + Alaya Babineau
Hiking and Swimming
Yoga, Movement & Breathwork
Sacred Ceremony, Community Council and Inquiry
Guided Meditation and Nature Listening
Teachings Four Directions and Contemporary Wisdom
Community Meal Share
24-Hour Solo Sit
“To encounter our human body is to encounter the natural world. We tend to forget that we are mammalian primates! The closer we come to the body, the closer we draw to the truth of our own wildness. This connects us to the planetary wildness that we aspire to protect.” ~Lama Willa B. Miller
Community Meal Share And Preparation
How we choose our food is one of the biggest ways to positively affect Climate Change and help the planet and our bodies heal and stay well. We will all be participating in a shared meal plan preparing and supplying food for each other, for a hearty Breakfast and Dinner. Lunch will be your responsibility to provide for yourself. We will be creating a simple healthy meal plan that 2 participants at a time, will take shifts in preparing breakfast or dinner. We will be providing tea, coffee, sweeteners, dairy-free creamers and snacks. A cooking space will be set and all pots and pans provided. You will need to provide your utensils. As we get closer to the date you will be receiving a list of what food you are needing to bring and what you are helping to make for our tribal community food adventure.
Sacred Ceremony And Community Council
Each journey out into the wilderness will give us insights and experience that we will bring back to be witnessed by our tribe. Questions and inquiry may be invited as, together, we explore and reflect on each person’s experience.
In this time together in community we create a sacred container to be seen, heard, affirmed and supported in the unique evolutionary journey of our soul. As we listen to each other’s heartfelt expression in community council, we find reservoirs of strength and compassion, allowing us to be with discomfort. We will experience firsthand that nature, our tribe and our true nature, can hold these vulnerable, unmet places and help us stay present to their healing. Through ongoing revelation, we stretch and grow, finding ever changing expressions of what it means to be a human being in community.
Yoga, Movement And Breathwork
We will share practices such as yoga, movement, breathwork and melting our bodies into trees or rocks to explore how we move and are moved by nature. Allowing the conscious breath to touch contracted places in our body is one of the most natural ways to deepen into presence. We will be guiding you in a variety of breathing practices that can deepen your meditations, bring unmet material to the surface to be explored and open access to the ever present Breath of Life. Feeling the earth beneath our feet, the sun on our bodies, the wind brushing our skin, smelling the air and flowers and hearing the birds can support us in knowing the reality of nature through our body. Learn more about yoga with Satya here.
Being In Wilderness
Simply walking with awareness in the natural world has many benefits for our bodies and mental well being. For some of us, wild nature is an easy and beloved friend, a place to rejuvenate and re-connect to our self, find comfort and relax into the depth of ourselves. For other of us, the natural world can be scary, unfamiliar and bring up deep-seated issues. For yet others, there can be a wish to get more comfortable and more embodied with this majesty that provides such deep beauty and power. Whatever is your truth, you are welcome and will be supported to go deeper in your relationship to wild nature, discovering the subtlest magic of this land and landscape.
"Satya and Alaya are who you want to be with in the wilderness while finding the wild within. For me the Lassen Embodiment retreat was transformative. I was able to find and drop into my long abandoned Self, in a supportive and safe container with the love of intentional community. This is the third retreat I've been on in my entire life and the third with Satya. She is such a deeply special person to me and I am forever grateful to have crossed paths with this extraordinary human." – SM, 2021
Our Retreat Location
Rip Redwoods Camp, Sonoma, CA
Rips Redwoods is a 1,622-acre property located in the rural coastal area of western Sonoma County, approximately 2.5 miles east of the historic town of Stewarts. The property is an old ridge-top ranch with over 105 acres of virtually flat open land on top, surrounded by forests. A fully permitted pond with 135 acre-feet of water storage serves the ranch as an agricultural water supply. The forest on the property is predominantly redwood, as well as large amounts of Douglas fir, red alder, tanoak, bay, and numerous other species.
The Kashia Band of Pomo Indians were the first inhabitants of the northern coastal Sonoma County area. The Kashia Pomo lived in lands that extended from the Gualala River in the north to Duncan’s Point south of the Russian River. From the west, Kashia territory extended from the pacific coast over coastal mountain ranges down the Warm Springs Creek to the confluence of Dry Creek, thirty miles inland. Rips Redwoods is on the historic and unceded lands of the Pomo people.
About Retreat Co-leader Alaya Babineau
Alaya’s way of sharing reconnects us to our indigenous place within: as we are nature remembering in human form, our belonging to the natural world that birthed us into being. Alaya supports us in recovering our deep resolve from the heart, to living a life of fierce devotion in choosing loving care, cooperation and consideration in all the ways we move in life. Cultivating inner and outer resilience practices and community support to face the massive changes happening in the world.
Alaya is a teacher and practitioner of Massage Therapy and Biodynamic Cranial Sacral Therapy for 30 years. She has led workshops for environmentally conscious eating, cleansing, body-centered meditation, Breathwork, self-care, authentic movement (5-Rhythms and Continuum Movement inspired) and couples massage for 10 years at Harbin Hot Spring Retreat Center.
Alaya is a graduate of Wilderness Reflections-Wilderness Quest Apprenticeship and Training. Blessed by the vision quest leader and pipe carrier, Lorindra Moon Star to carry forward the gift of guiding. Alaya is currently offering a 30 Day Online Program: Kindness Kitchen Restoration Practices and Reset. Private bodywork sessions and personal massage instruction for couples. She lives currently in Sebastopol, CA and Louisville, Kentucky.
Investment
Sliding Scale $1200-3000 (Scholarships available, please contact me to inquire.)
To reserve your spot, venmo @SatyaGita-Aune a non-refundable deposit of $300.
COVID-19 Safe. Limited to 12 participants.