THE MOTHER
JOURNEYING TO THE WOMB,
ROOTING IN THE EARTH
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THE MOTHER
JOURNEYING TO THE WOMB,
ROOTING IN THE EARTH
A SILENT YOGA RETREAT & HEALING CIRCLE
POSTOPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
The Mother is the place where our earthly journey begins.
This is an intensive 5 day silent yoga retreat of Hatha-Tantra-Mantra in which we will address ‘the Mother’. We will empower ourselves by working with the broad scope that Mother encompasses. This will range from the relationship to one’s own mother, to our inner quality of mothering, and the mother energy within our lives and culture. Finally, by going through the gate, we shall come to the great Mother of all.
The Tantric practices of working with the womb and reclaiming of the lost feminine mysteries will be encompassed herein.
Tantra is the way that honours the feminine above all things, and recognises that the source of all our earthly unrest finds its roots in the relationship to one’s own Mother.
Whether we are looking at our own personal themes of physical health or earthly base in terms of home and finance, the Mother is the key.
This retreat will offer ways for both men and women to establish a healthy relationship to the dark & light sides of the feminine.
It will offer much range and opportunity in practice for making peace with one’s own Mother.
Women of all life cycles who deal with issues of femininity, motherhood or the womb are called to find healing and challenge for the next step afoot.
The practices we shall engage in come straight from the profound source of the “left hand of Tantra”, the path of the Heart, and deal with practical applications that relate to femininity and the womb, in both the woman and the man.
Tantra offers many techniques and ritualistic practices for healing our relationship to the Earth element and the ways in which we find ourselves rooted into the Earth.
The silent aspect of this retreat will emphasise group relation outside of the conventions that we know of communication and language. Rich with Healing Hatha-Tantric yoga work and mantra, we shall work with another modality of speech and sound.
Working with sound and silence will support and intensify the healing work and the process of finding one’s own voice. Finding one’s own voice and following one’s own feelings and inner flame is what ignites the fire of Life.
Kali Ma, the Great Mother Nature, will be our guiding force from first step to last.
Journeying back to our Roots, working with our Root Chakra and lower energy centres, observing and recognising unconscious patters and programmes stored in our bodies, will be a major part of this retreat.
The silent element will further concentrate the power of the Yogic ritual and bring us to face ourselves and our essential patterns and blocks that are getting in our way and drawing a wall between us and the natural state.
This ancient shamanic line of secret wisdom is little known outside the circles of initiation hidden around India. Rarely shared in the West, we will perform this practice in ritualistic ways working with light and darkness.
Working with our Shadow and with the Alter will be special features of this particular retreat.
The work is fully interactive and the circle will be built together.
The Alter will stand on the ground, in the centre of the circle, which we shall also build together.
The promise and vision of the Yogis is contained in the Alter.
The name of the Alter is ‘Healing’.
A YOGA DETOX DIET
The diet on these retreats will be a sattvic yogic diet: simple, clean, nutritional, with the objective of cleansing the body & supporting the practice. It will include at least once a day a traditional detoxifying Kitcheri – a mixture of half mungbeans & half rice, fruits & vegetables used as a healing food by yogis (one of the best diets to rid the body of accumulated toxins), Kitcheri is an ancient detoxifying yogic formula used for thinning the veil between the spirit and the physical worlds. It is classically undertaken for 5 days, which is the length of the retreat.
“It shifted my understanding of what Yoga actually is,
on a fundamental level”
Joe
Farmer & Activist | UK
WHAT IS SHADOW WORK?
A short interview with Boonath.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS?
Listen to what participants have to say.
CHECK OUT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL!
FOR MORE VIDEOS, CLASSES, GUIDED MEDITATIONS, TANTRIC INDIAN TALES
ANCIENT & SACRED
In these full-immersion retreats you will practice a form of Yoga that is rarely available and accessible even in India today. You will take part in a sacred Yogic tradition that roots itself in India’s native shamanic wisdom & Tantric lineage handed down orally between generations of Yogis, Babas, Sadhus and Fakirs.
You will be exposed to the old tantric ways of seeking profound healing and spiritual awakening, including practicing in darkly-lit spaces to quieten the mind and awaken the senses to the body’s subtle energy currents, holding simple postures for long periods of time, and engaging in powerful breath-work to open-up the body and take the mind into altered states of consciousness.
GENTLE
The practice draws on postures seldom used in modern styles of yoga, ancient sequences that honour the mother and the divine feminine, gently opening-up the body to its highest levels of flexibility through minimal effort.
Integral to this experience will be the exploration of sound-currents present in the body (Nada Yoga) – perhaps one of Yoga’s greatest secrets and one of the most powerful vehicles through which the karmic patterns stored in the chakras can be accessed and released in pursuit of profound healing.
UNIQUE
Unique to this tradition is its simultaneous employment of Asanas (postures), aerobic & anaerobic Pranayam (breathwork), Mudras (gestures), and Mantras (sacred sounds).
The synergy created by the employment of these various yogic tools will lead you into altered states of consciousness and dream-like experiences aimed at facilitating a greater openness to inward journeying and an easier access to your subconscious.
UNBOUND
Because we are going to play with shamanic yogic traditions, the practice will take place outside of clearly time constraints. In line with this approach, there will be NO PREDEFINED TIME-SCHEDULE in order to allow the energy of the group to flow freely, and for the teacher to guide the practice in accordance with the group’s energy and needs. Classes, ceremonies, exercises, chanting, eating and even sleeping will happen naturally and not according to a fixed time. PARTICIPANTS WILL BE EXPECTED TO TAKE PART IN EVERY SESSION and it will not be possible to dip in & out of the practice. Participants will be expected to spend some time every day helping with the preparations of meals and the tidying of the yogashala.
INCLUSIVE
The retreat is suitable for beginners & advanced practitioners. In particular to all those seeking a deeply healing experience. The practice does not involve strenuous physical exercise, but some physical flexibility will be necessary to participate in the retreat. Because places are typically limited to 12 participants, priority will be given to those with a serious intention & commitment to leaving their comfort zone & seeking genuine change. Yoga teachers, bodyworkers & shamanic practitioners will benefit from the retreat as they will learn rare tantric healing techniques. The retreat is not suitable for people with serious forms of PSYCHOSIS. If you are a regular REGULAR USERS OF ALCOHOL OR DRUGS please discuss the issue with us prior to booking, thank you.
The practie usually takes place in the dark or darkly-lit spaces.
The pictures below were taken during the closing circle on the final morning of a retreat.
They capture the flow of a practice spent grounding before returning home.
Pictures were taken in a previous location than the current one.
BOONATH
BOONATH was born into a life of yoga. He grew up between Europe and India and was introduced as a child to yoga through his grandparents who were on both sides yoga practitioners.
His grandparents took him on his first Himalayan pilgrimage when he was just seven years old and he has been exposed to the world of yogis ever since.
Boonath has taken initiation into the left hand path (that’s the path of the heart) and specialises in the branch of Chandra Parampara, that is a secret style of Moon practice that works with the night forces. It is a style of tantra that goes very deep into the subconscious roots It is first and foremostly a Healing System. Most of his family still lives in India and he has been travelling there regularly throughout his life in pursuit of yoga. He has worked closely in apprenticeship with elders in the line of Siddha systems of healing and holds much knowledge in the use of rituals, mantras and body/spirit healing methods among other things.
Boonath has been working in this line and helping people with the implementation of these techniques for over 25 years to successfully overcome mental and physical problems, from chronic pain to addiction.
Boonath’s healing and yoga work sees him travelling across the whole of Europe to give workshops and healing sessions. His travels and yoga workshops continue to benefit people in deprived circumstances.
In recent years Boonath has been living and teaching yoga in Germany where he has a network of students. It was in Berlin that Boonath met Kim, with whom Boonath co-founded Working with the Shadow in 2014.
Formal studies and encounters have all left their impression on Boonath, but his teachings are deeply rooted in the Shamanic traditions of the mystical Babas and Fakirs of India, with whom Boonath has been studying closely since childhood to the present day.
KIM
KIM is an Eco-activist & researcher turned Yogi and the founder of Healing in the Willows, the retreat company hosting Working with the Shadow, which he developed in 2014 in collaboration with Boonath, who he assists with the teaching on the retreat. Kim discovered Yoga in 2005, following a burn-out at work that brought him onto a spiritual path. Kim had spent over 10 years coordinating international environmental campaigns in Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin for major environmental NGOs, including Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth, ActionAid, and many others.
Kim practiced Yoga with many teachers from several modern styles of Yoga (including Iyengar, Astanga, Vinasa, Bikram, Sivananda, Scaravelli, Kundalini) all over Europe, India and further afield. In 2011 Kim set up a first yoga collective in Berlin, which he then expanded to a new location in 2013, in one of the economically deprived areas of town that was undergoing gentrification. The collective brought together a variety of local teachers to promote yoga on a donation basis within the surrounding community unable to afford the increasing cost of living. It was there that Kim met Boonath and, through Boonath, that his understanding of what Yoga is and what Yoga can do shifted entirely. Boonath’s rare and ancient Tantric lineage revolutionised Kim’s understanding of Yoga and initiated him into a mystical healing journey that impacted strongly also on Kim’s activist work.
Since then Kim has been collaborating with Boonath on developing Working with the Shadow through the retreats they run in a remote forest in Tuscany, where Kim lives, and the workshops they run across Europe.
“Two years ago I went on a deeply self-
& life-affirming yoga retreat called “Working with the Shadow.”
Boonath, the teacher, shared a very different yoga experience than I had ever had
& it was profoundly beautiful… and challenging!
One of the chants stayed with me
& ended up on the song “Remain the Sea” on my album Land of Gold.
I urge anyone interested to check out their upcoming retreats.”
Anoushka Shankar
Musician | India/UK
“I cannot begin to describe
how beautiful the location is…”
Kim
Hotel Manager | UK
QUIET. COMFORTABLE. PRIVATE.
You will stay in a renovated medieval watermill in the heart of Tuscany’s Chianti region, just a few miles away from the spectacular city of Siena. The mill has been renovated with local material and traditional furniture, creating a magical atmosphere. Built on the river Arbia the mill is located in a secluded area, surrounded by olive grows, vineyard, and woodland. The watermill offers basic single, double and triple accommodation with shared bathrooms, a communal kitchen and a yogashala for practice.
The closest train station is Siena, a short train journey from Florence. The closest airport is Pisa (just an hour away from Florence). We organise transfers from Siena train station to the water mill.
YOGIC VEGAN DIET.
The diet on these retreats will be predominantly a sattvic yogic diet: simple, clean, nutritional, with the objective of cleansing the body & supporting the practice. It will include at least once a day a traditional detoxifying Kitcheri – a mixture of mung-beans, rice and vegetables used as a healing food (one of the best diets to rid the body of accumulated toxins).
Kitcheri is an ancient detoxifying yogic formula used for thinning the veil between the spirit and the physical worlds. It is classically undertaken for 6 days, which is the length of the retreat. All meals will be Vegan (and Gluten-free) as Veganism best embodies the contemporary meaning of Ahimsa [‘non-violence’] – the very first observance on the path to ‘Yog’.
PRICES.
Committed to making the retreats available to the widest possible demographic
we offer a range of prices (which include accommodation and full board).
The teaching fee is to be paid at the time of booking (non-refundable)
and the accommodation costs are to be paid upon arrival.
€300.oo
COURSE FEES
+
€ 299.oo
TRIPLE ROOM.
Price is per person.
Three people in three single beds.
€ 399.oo
TWIN ROOM.
Price per person.
Two people sharing two single beds.
€ 499.oo
SINGLE ROOM.
One person in a single or doouble bed.
Double occupancy €599.
If you cannot find affordable flights for the dates of the retreat,
look for the cheapest flights closer to the retreat’s dates and consider arriving early or extending your stay
and visit the nearby cities of Siena, Pisa, or Florence.
Get in touch for more details!
BOOK / INQUIRE.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JOIN THE RETREAT,
WE KINDLY ASK YOU TO SEND US AN EMAIL AND TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF:
* YOUR AGE,
* YOUR BACKGROUND / PROFESSION,
* YOUR LIFESTYLE,
* ANY HEALTH ISSUES (PHYSICAL/MENTAL/EMOTIONAL),
* PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE WITH PRACTICING YOGA, MEDITATION, SHAMANISM, ETC.,
* MORE IMPORTANTLY… WHAT DRAWS YOU TO COME ON SUCH A HEALING JOURNEY?
(Feel free to share as much information as possible)
info@healinginthewillows.com
Please be aware that typically places are limited to 12 participants per retreat, so places go fast.
Also, we request that participants abstain from recreational drugs (including weed & hash) and alcohol, for at least a week prior to the retreat taking place as their use can seriously compromise the experience on the retreat and its outcome, both for the individual and the group as a whole (if you have an addiction, please let us know and we will find look for a solution).
The retreat is not suitable for people affected by severe forms of psychosis, however Boonath is available to treat people affected by psychosis privately in Berlin (get in touch with us for more details).
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