WELL RETREATS Content
Source the W E L L
Emerge with innovations for change
In this time when multiple crises of climate change, environmental degradation, social injustice, and personal suffering are completely interconnected challenges drying up the wells of the planet, the secret pools of the deep need great protection for the life giving nourishment of water.
Living in this emergency of the world, the resourcing of the wild brings the ability to live with stress and yet feel intrinsic radiance. By deeply resting, recharging, resourcing, nourishing, we drink from the revitalizing energies of the well to create luminous leadership.
February 1-3
Opening this WINTER WELL with a celebration of the deep, we dive into the concentrated waters of two days and two nights at the time of Imbolc — in Celtic mythology — the time of light and luminosity returning to the Earth
February 21 – March 24
March 14-17
Being with each other and the Earth with wild nature as our guide, we bear witness to healing and call upon play, spontaneity, and surprise to generate the luminous.
With strong presence to one another we intermingle practices of embodied interdisciplinary arts, contemplative practice, immersion in regenerative living skills, and the sanctuary space.
Like rising waters, we enliven the creative project that catalyzes activism and the flow of leadership…sharing the waters with others.
Source the energies, intelligence, sentience, and mystery
of water for rejuvenation for ourselves,
each other, and the planet.
Feel the wild movements of the W E L L and the clear, cold waters in its depths.
This flow of retreat offerings is an opportunity to revel in the soft quiet of winter and open to the deep mysteries of nature.
As an interlude for wild humming, sounding, listening to trees and mycelium and the inside of snow, we find silence, open to quiet, and restore the long calm of winter, breathing into the wild nature we are.
In the safety and sanctuary of community, we stir the multimodal richness of embodied practices of improvisation and co-creation…a healing theater.
In the dawn of each day, we dive into the knowing of the body for morning practice, feeling the rhythm of inwardly guided movement and breath, listening to inner nature in the warmth of beeswax candlelight and companionship of others.
Refresh in the luminosity of our co-creative leadership.
Each day, nurture your creative project most longed for — in this way calling forth from the deep well the soul’s purpose.
Reclaim your wild knowing of this necessity and to bring forth these waters in sacred vessels…projects each of us alone and together can originate for activism and leadership.
Prepare food together, learn the origins of food, and the many alchemical ways to make food a medicine for healing. Brewing and sipping teas, we enjoy tea ceremony. With the multi hues of corn grown on the land, we grind and bake cornbreads to compliment soups made with hand shucked beans, also harvested here from organic, biodynamic, and nutrient dense soils. The waters from the well, earth from the gardens, fire from the woodstoves nourish us in the richest, most healthy way.
Feel the wild belonging of this ensemble.
The “well” is an ancient archetype for water expressing the essence of wildness and the deep, ancient reaching into earth for the refreshment of pure water. The well also expresses our inner life calling to dive into the dark and cold for what most sustains and to be in the wild pools below the surface, leaving the known world and moving into the unknown.
PRACTICES
Embodied Improvisation & Co-Creation Practice
We have a daily schedule to explore our creativity, spontaneity, play, deep listening and connection to self, others and nature. With our bodies as guides, we create a space for open and not too serious interdisciplinary improvisations that lead us to experiment with emergence and co-creation. From this practice discover and manifest the power of transformation we all possess. Working our creativity In the midst of crisis draws inspiration from the power of community and to experiment the emerging power of humanity to enact our shared future.
Regenerative Living
Metta Earth is a farm and wild haven. With the many forms of caring for earth closely intermingled with our creative purpose, we integrate many practices of permaculture, regenerative agriculture, and indigenous remembering. Living as a small community for these many weeks, we enter into many processes to transform the rich and abundant harvests of the last growing season. These may include herbal tea making, plant medicine making, corn shucking and grinding, creating with wool. We prepare our meals together learning new ways to transform the foods from the farm. With closeness to the wild elements of water, fire, earth, air, and space, we become alchemists of the wild.
Contemplative Practice
Winter is such a protected and deepening time for contemplative practice. The dawn light beckons for breath, movement, and deep listening for our morning practice…an invitation to listen for each to be guided by the pulses and currents and flows. Also, many other pause moments and attunements help us center in this deep knowing. Many opportunities for guided yoga, meditation, Qi Gong, and other contemplative practices enrich the days.
Leadership, Activism, and Social Justice
Observing and aligning with wild nature, the great natural intelligence of Earth and Cosmos perhaps will touch and guide us. With this approach as an essential devotion, we explore theories of oppression, social change dynamics, and models of leadership. We hope these become processes for the wild ensemble for luminous leadership.
A Collaboration of Ego/Eco and Metta Earth
Isabelle from Égo/Éco met Gillian and Russell in the spring of 2017. Both of us are innovators weaving ecopsychology, permaculture, contemplative practice and art. We instantly felt the sisterhood. In summer 2017 Isabelle gave an Ego/Eco theater workshop within the Sustainability Immersion. It was so inspiring that we decide to go further and try a co- create with the Winter WELL. We were all really excited to create this space for nourishment, creativity and emergence.
Fees
Meals & Lodging
Location
Metta Earth is nestled in the quietude of the mountains, the stunning headwaters of the New Haven river with abundant waterfalls and pools for swimming, wilderness trails to walk or bike, and 158 acres of Metta Earth land to explore. The nearest town is Lincoln, VT (see full directions).
Meals
Meals are vegetarian and lovingly prepared with seasonal, local and organic foods. Much of our food comes from our own organic garden and farmstead. Participants have the opportunity to learn about harvesting, cooking, food storage, and other aspects of organic local food.
Lodging
Options for sleeping accommodations include peaceful rooms in the main Metta Earth house, shared space in one of the yurts, or space to set up your own tent. The Metta Earth main house provides bathrooms, laundry, phones, wireless internet, library, kitchen and dining facilities, and teaching, study, and practice space.
