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Join me in-person at the New Year, New Moon time, for an experiential, playful, and transformative retreat! We will explore how nature’s rhythms affect us and play a significant role in limiting or facilitating our capacity for clarity, contentment, and personal well-being.

Daily lifestyle makes a difference! When you awaken, sleep, eat, and choose food according to digestion rather than ‘likes’, it can have a profound impact on heath. In this retreat we will follow an Ayurveda daily flow that will support clarity, contentment, and well-being.

The slow, soft qualities of winter season, the lunar rhythm of the New Moon, and the presence of the elder trees will hold our sacred circle, open access to our interconnectedness, and empower your compassionate inquiry, personal discovery, and inner resourcing.

We will integrate meditation, yoga asana, and pranayama to develop your capacity to notice nature’s changing rhythms and qualities (gunas) within yourself and the outer environment. The weekend immersion will empower you to apply practices at home.

“The rhythmic lifestyle of Ayurveda follows Nature, and if you decide to live according to this lifestyle, you too will begin to feel supported by Nature—from within yourself. You can discover the deep nurturance that is always available in Nature and gradually become one with the great natural rhythm. Be assured that Ayurvedic principles are Nature’s own principles.”

~ Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom, Acharya Shunya

 

WHERE: Aldermarsh, S. Whidbey Island (Clinton, WA)

Aldermarsh is a volunteer-led, non-profit organization located in the historic Maxwelton Valley, South Whidbey Island. The 5 acres are sustainably managed and include elder trees, meadows, a garden, a beautiful and spacious practice space, nearby hiking trails, Japanese hot tub, sauna, and comfortable gathering and resting spaces. You will be nourished by place and also contribute to regenerating and renewing place through your sincere presence.

WHAT IS INCLUDED:

  • 2 Nights Accommodations – Individual small cabins or private sleeping spaces within shared buildings, shared bath. When registering, partners and friends may specify sharing a room.
  • seasonal, vegetarian meals by Ayurvedic Chef Aria Peterman, Elephant’s Kitchen https://elephantskitchen.com/ (Friday dinner through Sunday lunch. As locally and organically sourced as possible.)
  • Silent Times, Time to Connect, Nature Walks
  • Guided Meditation
  • Asana, Pranayama
  • Ayurveda Wisdom ‘Labs’
  • Japanese Hot TubSauna (optional)

Practice offers a daily reset but sometimes we need a stronger reset. Going into retreat and staying on-site provides a foundational opportunity. The break from your typical routine and responsibilities to be in sacred space and understand your own rhythms is invaluable to understanding yourself and exploring supportive habits. This is an alcohol-free retreat. Limited usage of electronic devices is encouraged.

Please contact me if you require lodging off-site. One partial scholarship is available for someone who is interested in attending & serving as my assistant.

 

Schedule: Friday, 2:00pm – Sunday, 2:00pm Pacific Time
January 20 – 22, 2023

 

Cost: – PAY DEPOSIT – $250 NONREFUNDABLE DEPOSIT. Balance of $500 (tax inc.) due by 12/20/22.
EARLY BIRD PRICING – $700 (tax inc.) Available until 10/31/22. $250 of your payment is NONREFUNDABLE. See Cancellation Policy below.

*Your payment is your registration. You will receive an email confirmation with further details and registration requests. You are welcome to share your sleeping space with a partner or friend.

Cancellation Policy:

$250 of your payment is a nonrefundable administration fee. The remainder of your payment can be refunded for cancellation through December 20, 2022. There will be no refunds after December 20, 2022 unless I can fill your space with another participant from the waiting list. If I cancel the retreat for any reason, your payment will be refunded in full.

All are welcome! We will do our best to foster health for ourselves and each other and will support each other’s choice to mask or unmask. Retreat size is limited for ample space. Please join me in trusting one another to take care of ourselves, the group, and the stewards of the lovely space in which we will practice. Please stay at home if you have any signs of illness.

About the instructor: Wendy Dion

I teach yoga, meditation, and Ayurveda as awareness practices, paths of inquiry, that lead to greater sensitivity, tolerance, understanding, and transformation. This approach is informed by forty years’ of practice and study, synthesizing my professional training in psychology, movement, and health science with these wisdom practices. My teaching is also influenced by my study and participation in racial, social, and environmental justice.

These practices involve deep listening—attuning to sensations, thoughts, feelings, ancestral, and cultural bias. Our body holds layers of habitual patterning and programming, which we experience as feelings of contraction and tension. When we listen deeply to the body, we expand our capacity to notice, release, and re-pattern. Then we can allow the arising and subsiding of moment-to-moment experience to be a pathway to the subtle energy flow and awareness, which is the ground of being, within and around us, and the essential center of our personal and collective universe. This has powerful implications for personal and global healing.

Our layers of programming and tension are often deep-seated, even chronic, and their release takes time and a commitment to consciously observe and change patterns; to pause from constant stimulation. Through the legacy of inspired texts, particularly those of nondual Shaiva Tantra, we are supported and reminded the deepest part of ourselves is always accessible and available in the moment, and that regular practice over the long term will support subtle and nuanced change. Practice will build and refine a capacity for resilience.  Our willingness to pause and observe ourselves is the heart of inner work and transformation.  This inner healing work is our birthright and allows aging to be a continual process of growth and adventure. Transforming our world requires that each of us transform ourselves.

I have been a certified Iyengar teacher and inspired by the Anusara method, having completed study and internships under Patricia Walden, Peentz Dubble, Deb Neubauer, and John Friend.  I continue ongoing study in yoga, somatic, and body mind centering with Donna Farhi, Tias Little, Doug Keller, and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen; in Shaiva tantra meditation with Christopher Wallis and Sally Kempton; and in the intersection of racial/social justice and spirituality with rev angel kyodo williams. I have studied and continue ongoing Ayurveda education with Kumudini Shoba.

I currently live in Seattle, where I teach online classes, intensives, and regularly see clients for one-on-one consultations, online and in-person.  For seventeen years, I was the steward of The Yoga Lodge, a teaching and retreat destination on Whidbey Island.

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