Sophia Unfolds 2014 Retreat
Beloved Body
August 8 - 10 in Metamora, MI

Pictureart by Leah Myers
What keeps women from fully stepping into our power? Underlying many of our barriers are body issues. In this year’s retreat, Beloved Body, we will be connecting deeply with our bodies and celebrating the physical female form. We will be reclaiming our bodies as our own, learning to hold them sacred, and cultivating self-love and self-care practices. 
 
This retreat experience will include workshops, integrative sessions, time to play, discover, and connect. 
 
Windrise Retreat Center offers the perfect container for this sacred work, with beautiful grounds, accommodations, and delicious, healthy food to support our Beautiful, Beloved Bodies! 

The Details

Who: The annual Sophia Unfolds retreats are organized by the mother-daughter team Mara and Andrea Evans. We have found these retreats to be powerful when co-created by group of wonderful facilitators who bring many different perspectives to the topic.  This year that group consists of: Deb Austin, Miriam Dowd, Peggy Bennett and Leah Myers

What: An awesome weekend, women's retreat

When: Friday August 8, 2014 6:00 pm - Sunday August 10, 2014 5:00 pm

Where: Windrise Retreat Center in Metamora, MI

How Much: Retreat cost is $350 - this includes room and board.  You can pay by Check / Money Order / Credit or Debit Card.  Further instructions can be found on the Registration page.

Retreat Workshops

Instincts & Issues: Body as Living Library
-with Deb Austin

Embodiment matters. The degree to which we inhabit our body temple determines not only our capacity for authenticity and self-awareness, but our capacity for joy. And what of spiritual connection? Accounts left by a number of Christian mystics speak of spontaneous physical orgasm during their peak experiences of union with the Divine. The body was certainly invited to those parties.

What issues within our psyches constrict the channels of communion, that opening to Divine Love that affords us the wisdom of our own truest heart, as well as alignment with the realm of Light? We'll discuss the barriers to embodiment and employ practices and meditative exercises that will invite us into our own living library.

Our individual embodiment has larger ramifications than merely our personal paths. We are all participants and co-creators in humanity's great awakening. Jungian analyst Marion Woodman has observed, "There’s a mutation being demanded in the evolution of consciousness.  I think that mater- the Latin word for mother, the body- wants to become conscious, wants to release light from the density of matter. This is what the French Impressionists were painting. It is where quantum physics and dream imagery meet. This is the new level of conscious femininity that’s never been in the world before: the conscious recognition of energy, wisdom, Sophia, in matter. That’s why my work honors the body as part of the  psyche." 

Body, the archive of our past, the scaffolding for our future, and the gateway to the present moment. We simply can't afford to leave it out of the equation. What do you need to be able to come fully home into yourself, into your beloved body?

The Great Big V: Uncovering Our Unique Experience of Gender & Sexuality
-with Miriam Dowd

How do you experience and/or perform your femininity through your self-image and body-language? How much does your gender shape your identity? How do you experience and define your sexuality? We’ll explore these questions and more in this mini-workshop and guided Ecstatic Dance Practice.

The intention of this session is to discover the unique way we identify, by looking through the lens of our physical body and social body. We’ll look at the difference between the two, how they shape us, and how we shape them. 

Embodiment is a journey in and through. It’s life as practice, feeling as practice. Any spirituality that has us doing anything else is dissociative and causes greater separation. Through improv, vocalization, meditation, writing, dialog, and a little bit of structured Play, we will access a multi-layered view of The Great Big V. 

Your Body: Advocate of Your Soul 
-with Peggy Bennett

Carl Jung said the great spiritual illness of our time is the loss of soul.  In our society there is a deep yearning to return to the essential self, the inborn and innate spiritual nature of each of us.  The Advocate of the Soul is an antidote for this loss in that it acknowledges, nurtures, and creates accommodation for soul. 

One expression of this advocate is the body.  Irish poet-philosopher John O’Donohue advises that we say farewell forever to the false dualism that separates the soul from the body: “All of our great inner work and all of the energies of our souls long to find a mirror and to find expression in some form that can be seen and felt and touched.  The body is the place where the secret world of the soul comes to expression.  So it’s a very, very sacred threshold.  And it deserves to be respected and to be minded and really to be seen in its very, very spiritual nature.”  
 
When we as communities of women in the world today truly honor our bodies as sacred thresholds where the secret world of our souls comes to expression, all the trappings of our Western materialist culture that denigrate not only our female bodies, but sacredness itself, become seen for what they really are: distractions that rob us of deep connection with our soul’s desire.  Join with your bodysoulmates in honoring Your Body: Advocate of Your Soul through music, movement, drawing, and deep listening. 

Into the Belly of Love: The Return of Divine Feminine Power
-with Leah Myers

A woman’s belly or womb is the center of her power. It is the sacred container of life itself and holds limitless creativity, intuition, wisdom and miraculous abundance and power. However, many women today are dissatisfied and even disgusted with this part of their body.

The intention of this workshop, regardless of where one is currently at in their journey, is to move towards a healthier and fuller embodiment of this sacred space.

In this session, we will look at the relationship of women to their power centers through Her-story and share our stories in circle. Together, we will learn to identify damaging internal programming, or “viruses”, that block many women from a fuller experience of this sacred space. We will explore tools for removing the destructive programming and discover ways to reprogram healthy ones. We will also begin the process of healing the wounds of separation, with a healing exercise. The session will end with a celebration to recognize our personal and collective home coming to the fullness of divine feminine power on earth.