MAY 26-31
THE SPRING WATERS ARE RISING AND FLOWING, CALLING FORTH OUR SACRED BLOOMS, ASKING US TO REMEMBER OUR MAGIC. COME GATHER IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE, A LAND IMBUED WITH THE MYSTERIES OF THE SACRED FEMININE, TO LET THE GLISTENING GOLD OF THE HIVE AWAKEN YOUR SENSES, CALL FORTH YOUR HOLY WATERS, AND UNFURL YOUR SERPENTINE, SENSUOUS SELF.
From the serpentine currents of the telluric, to the nectarous drops of the stellar, we are creatures of eros, spirit, sea and flower.
We find our feet have chosen to tread this earth at a time of upheaval. A time when the voice of the earth-womb needs us to reweave, reclaim and retrieve our vital, wild, sensual, wise, innocent selves. While there are many roads to healing and wholing, we seek to engage with the holiness that is cultivated when we nurture the sensate self: she who flows and flowers. In this way she becomes one who trusts her loving, her dreaming, her body, and her intuition.
You are invited to join us for 6 days and five nights in the fullness of spring bloom.
Here We will:
Awaken eros in the body
Develop our oracular wisdom and intuition
Seek to heal the places within us that have been stagnant and unable to flow.
Work directly with the womb as center for dreaming, healing, seeing, and creating.
Work with spirit guides and allies
Where we’ll Stay, Dream, anD Be Nourished
Our retreat will be held at Sol Henge, an ancient French farm house turned retreat center west of Bordeaux.
Sol Henge Retreat can be found near Saint-Vivien-de-Monségur, in the heart of the resplendent countryside of the Aquitaine region of France. Sol Henge is surrounded by rolling hills filled with sunflowers, grape vines and grain. The valley is secluded, with 15 acres of private woodland and stunning views. At the property itself, there is a pool, gardens, a small stone circle perfect for ceremony. This is a place of unsurpassed and timeless beauty.
Imagine a day….
You will wake to the sounds of the land, making your way to the temple space: a covered indoor-outdoor space. Here you can make your breakfast in the student kitchen and enjoy your morning nourishment from some of the couches overlooking the farmlands, or out wandering the property.
At mid-morning we gather as a hive in the temple space to dive into our days magic. The work will be both nurturing and spacious, deep and bold.
In the afternoon we will enjoy lunch al fresco style at the long table on the lawn. Depending on the flow of each day, you will then have time to rest, swim, go for a walk, lay in the hammock, or connect with sisters.
Our afternoon session will be followed by a similar dinner break outdoors. We will conclude most nights with an evening session, before turning in to your rooms for the night’s dreaming tasks.
Accommodation
There are two options for accommodation: staying in the stone Farmhouse, or staying in a glamping tent.
All women will be housed in shared bedrooms with single beds.
In the farmhouse you will have access to shared bathrooms equipped with both tub and shower. At the tent platforms, you will have the luxury of a hot, outdoor shower. All women will have access to both the indoor bathrooms.
Accommodations are in a large, rustic French country house on a quiet property about 15 minutes from the nearest village. Rather than a hotel experience, this is more of a family-living experience, where you have the opportunity to come together as a hive, living, dreaming, and sharing meals together.
What people are saying
Meals
Meals consist of local, freshly sourced, seasonal, healthy vegetarian food (often from Sol Henge’s own vegetable patch and fruit trees). We do our very best to attend to your dietary needs. Vegan food is offered on advance request.
At SolHenge we always dine alfresco-style. We enjoy the views and fresh air.
Fruit, teas, and refreshments and snacks are available throughout the day.
Students will also have access to a student kitchen for breakfast and snacks. The student kitchen is located in the outdoor covered barn.
Sarita, our hostess extraordinare, makes a bread and pastries run daily, bringing us fresh yummies from the village boulangerie!
Your Facilitators
Ariella Daly
Ariella is a beekeeper, writer, teacher and musician living in Northern California. Her work with the bee came through a lifelong interest in human connection with the non-human world. She is a graduate of the Lyceum, a European shamanic tradition with the bee and the serpent as its central motifs. Within this tradition, she is trained in the healing and seership modality known as the Pollen Method. Her work is a fusion of her love for the natural world and embodied, womb-centric practices.
Ariella works as a natural beekeeping consultant in Northern California, as well as offering workshops and ceremonies in the United States and abroad. She has over 16 years experience leading earth-based ceremonies including seasonal observances and rites of passages such as blessing ways, entering elderhood, and entering marriage.
Ariella seeks to foster a deeper relationship between humans and the natural world through honey bees, seeing the bee as a bridge species between our domestic lives and the wild, both within and around us. She is a lover of wild places, liminal spaces and the song of the land. She teaches shamanic dreamwork, natural beekeeping, and women's retreats all guided by the honeyed wisdom of the serpent and the bee.
Gina DeBernardo
Gina is a woman devoted to helping all beings return to love and harmony in their bodies and lives. She has danced through her life as a lover of Earth and its people, practicing the embodiment of ecstasy in a pure and grounded form.
Gina is a skilled bodywork practitioner with over 20 years experience. Her work combines a unique blend of Biodynamic Cranial Touch, Massage, Sacred Anointment, Embodiment Practices and Shamanic Modalities.
Gina has worked in many arenas, from offering craniosacral therapy to differently abled adults and children, to providing healing touch to end-of-life patients within Hospice. For fun and to fulfill her love of speed, Gina travels internationally as a therapist for Porsche Motorsports and received her racing license in 2012.
GIna has spent years engaged in advanced teachings within the Lyceum, a European shamanic tradition which holds the honey bee as its central living symbol. She has assisted with many of the advanced programs offered within the Lyceum, including more recent work with men. Integrating shamanic methods with her own bodywork practices, Gina helps to awaken us to our divine Eros: our love, life force, creativity, will and the power we have to ignite our dreams into reality.
What You will Receive
This workshop retreat is designed for women and womb-identifying people who wish to deepen their connection to their own body of wisdom and develop greater capacity to flow with eros, intuition, and creative energy. This workshop will include practices based in womb-shamanism as it is taught through European Bee Shamanism (sometimes known as The Path of Pollen). It will also include bodywork informed by Craniosacral techniques, however it is not a Craniosacral training. We will also be engaging in oracular work. Oracular work is a form of seeing beyond the veil and receiving information from the Otherworld and the Earth herself. It is done concert with nature and connects the women to her own voice, as a voice for the earth. As a result, this form of seership is healing to self, others, and the Earth.
Through shamanic practices we will seek to engage with the vital life force energy of nature as a source of eros, vitality, nourishment and gnosis. This work will engage with the womb on both a physical and spiritual level. It is open to women or and those who identify as women or are gender fluid, regardless of whether or not you have a physical womb.
You will Experience:
Lovingly crafted vegetarian meals, snacks, fruit, tea, and coffee.
Access to a student kitchen (where you can cook/eat meat if desired)
Accommodation in the Farmhouse or the Glamping tents
Access to the Farmhouse
Space to develop connection with the other women as hive sisters engaged in a deep body of work.
Space to roam the private woodlands, swim in the pool, rest and be revitalized by the land.
The 2023 retreat is full, but you are welcome to apply below to be put on the waiting list.
PRICING
Farmhouse
$2200
A single bed in the farmhouse in a shared room with access to a shared bathroom.
Shared rooms range from 2- 4 people.
Best for those who like the comforts of cooler indoor sleeping.
Bell Tent
$1950
A single bed inside a bell tent on a platform, with access to a shared bathroom and outdoor shower (as well as use of indoor bathrooms).
Shared tents range from 2-3 people.
Best for those who want an immersive experience with nature.
Payments accepted via PayPal, Stripe or Venmo.
Fee includes lodging, all meals, and workshop
Airfare and transportation to Sol Henge not included.
You can pay in full, or you can opt for a payment plan, with plan completed by May 25.
The 2023 retreat is full, but you are welcome to apply to be put on the waiting list.
TRAVEL
Participants are responsible for their own airfare and travel costs.
The closest airports are Bordeaux and Bergerac. Sol Henge offers an airport transfer for a reduced rate.
Ariella recommends also looking into Paris flights and taking the fast TGV train down to Bordeaux, then hopping on a regional train to La Réole where we will pick you up!
Participants are also welcome to rent a car and come directly to Sol Henge.
Have more QUestions?
Want to know about our Covid policy? Cancellation policy? Who else is on staff? Whether or not you’ll have down time?
Read the FAQ’s below.
I walked in to a cool retreat. I walked out of a ancient portal.
I walked in as a woman wanting to learn. I walked out as part of the mystery.
…..
This retreat focuses on the arc of embodiment of new teachings (that are actually as old as time). Whereas so much "learning" happens in the mind nowadays, this experience is designed for the whole self. 6 months later, new parts of myself are awakening that are shifting decades old perceptions.
-Elyna Paizis, Bloom Lucid, California (Part of France retreat 2023)