There are many retreats available in the world today ~ yoga retreats, cleansing retreats, adventure retreats, and definitely plant medicine retreats! With so many options, it can be challenging to find the right option for your needs. After all, a retreat is more than just a vacation, it’s an opportunity to take the time just for YOU, and you should find the retreat that fits ALL that you are looking for! What is different about The Heart of the Mother Retreats?
There are six essential elements that make our retreats stand out:
Comfort * Enjoyment * Exploration
Rejuvenation * Community * Transformation
Comfort
We plan our retreats so that once you board the plane and begin your journey, all the details are taken care of ~ we want you to be able to relax and take the time for yourself without having to worry about anything else. We choose beautiful retreat centers and hotels that offer wonderful comforts to make you feel at home while also embracing the uniqueness of the cultures we are experiencing. Transportation is provided, from airport pickup to return and everything in between. In addition, our Managing Director, Helene Garrovillo, who is also a master chef, works with our retreat centers and hotels to craft delicious menus using the best fresh and organic produce available. This guarantees that we will enjoy wonderful meals that are also lovingly prepared to support the necessary diet that best supports our work.
Enjoyment
We believe that balance is important. Our ceremonies will be challenging, blissful, and life-changing, and you will go deep into a process of profound healing. Alongside that rigorous work, we build in plenty of unstructured time for rest and rejuvenation. We also believe that grounding into the body can be deeply beneficial in conjunction with this healing work, and we offer a variety of opportunities to enjoy yoga, meditation, hiking, walking, and bodywork. We sometimes even have a spontaneous dance jam or song circle around the fire! We believe that finding a balance with rest and adventure, shared community experiences, and alone time. We will work with you to create the experience that best meets your needs.
Exploration
Our retreats are created with the vision of providing a safe container for deep inner exploration and healing through working with plant medicines, while also balancing that with excursions to explore the incredible places where our retreats are held. We choose locations where the land and culture are expansive, as we value the shift in perspective that can occur with a dramatic change in environment. We love bringing people to breathtakingly beautiful places that are off the beaten track, allowing the space for more personal and organic exploration to take place, and inviting experiences that are truly once-in-a-lifetime. We want our participants to enjoy the outer exploration just as much as the inner journey!
In the Sacred Valley of Peru, we definitely don’t want you to miss amazing places like Machu Picchu and the Pisac Market ~ we love them too ~ but we pride ourselves in taking our retreat groups to wonderful temples and sacred sites that we’ve found only through many years of journeying to Peru ourselves, places that you’d never find in the Lonely Planet guidebook. In our Costa Rica retreats, we are delighted to invite people to experience the riches of the remote Pacific coastline, rivers, and jungles ~ you may have the entire beach or trail to yourself, surrounded by macaws, howler monkeys, and mango trees! Here, we enter into ceremony under an open canopy of lush and fragrant forest, while watching the silver moonlight dance on the ocean. During our Costa Rica retreats, we enjoy immersing ourselves in a culture that is known for its lifestyle of abundant health and longevity.
Rejuvenation
Alongside powerful healing ceremonies, we believe that it’s essential to take very good care of the body, mind, and spirit in order to allow the experience to integrate fully. Unlike some retreats that have participants constantly on the move, we build in plenty of time for rest and rejuvenation. We understand that people process things in different ways, and we do our best to find ways of offering support and space that honor individual preferences and needs. In integrating this work, we understand that some people will be happiest in silent alone time, perhaps with a journal, sketchbook, or listening to music. Others will want to walk in nature with a trusted companion, talking through their experiences to gain insight. Others will prefer massage and energy healing. We provide options for all of these things on our retreats, as well as yoga, meditation, light hiking, dance, and inspiring music. We are also dedicated to supporting the integration process all along the way, and are pioneering new approaches to this. Every retreat participant has the opportunity to work one-on-one with our staff in private integration sessions, with the option to continue the process once returning home as well.
Community
Many of us are so busy in our daily lives that we don’t always find the time to connect with others in meaningful ways. During our retreats, the medicine work brings a profound sense of connection that comes through sharing deep journeys together. As participants gain insights and share them with each other, it is quite natural to connect a heartfelt way, and a wonderful sense of community is created. Friendships that are formed during retreats are often a wonderful support once returning home as well, especially as the challenges of re-integration surface. As these inner changes show up in daily life at home, it is wonderful to reconnect with the retreat community for ongoing support and connection.
In addition to the sense of community we form together during our retreats, we enjoy bringing our retreat groups together with local community as much as possible, allowing for sharing, learning, and growth in wonderful ways. Whenever possible, we include wise elders, healers, and teachers in our retreats, and welcome opportunities to learn about the cultures and traditions of each place.
Transformation
Each of the previous elements is designed to provide support for the healing work we experience in our plant medicine ceremonies. The intensive retreat setting allows for powerful shifts to take place ~ without the distractions of daily life and responsibilities, you are free to focus on yourself, your process, and your healing while being fully supported every single day. When combined with sincere personal preparation and clarity of intention, Heart of the Mother Retreats have the potential to initiate profound transformation, greater awareness, cleansing of the body/mind/emotions, expansion of consciousness, and healing on many levels. We have personally experienced the power of this work in our own lives, and know that the journey is both incredibly beautiful and challenging, and completely worth it. Though there are never any guarantees for specific individual healing results, we do believe that if one is truly prepared to engage in the process of personal transformation, our retreats are a potent catalyst. For those who are called to this work, and who are ready to look deep inside themselves with courage and heart, this is the journey of a lifetime.
