Healing trauma in troubled times

A residential retreat in the Negev/Naqab desert, led by Adam Barley and Naomi Katz

When things are too much, we are designed to escape. In modern life, that tends to be distractions and thinking, numbing out with stimulants or depressants such as drugs, overwork, constant activity or consumption.

What we’re running from doesn’t go away, though. The pain, fear and grief that creates so much activity in the head needs to be grounded back in the body.

To return to full health, we have to release the pain, and that requires us to feel it. Not easy, but with the warm-hearted presence of others, we can do it. We are born knowing how to embody and express our feelings, allowing the body to release, let go, and return to balance: present in our physicality, emotionally responsive and mindfully awake to the moment. We’re meant to be well in ourselves and with each other. We just need to remember.

This gathering is a resource for that remembrance. Using embodiment and presence practices, time spent in the desert and time in sweat lodge,  we will create a journey of recovery, finding our way through the blockages and wounds we may be carrying deep within us, towards the kind of whole-hearted wellness that our body knows is possible.

We will dance deep through each day, using movement to access, release and integrate feeling states that have been trapped in the body. We will dance with each other to strengthen the sense of support for each other, and freeing ourselves to be more truly ourselves.

We will have the opportunity to remember our natural wellness in a sweat lodge ceremony with Naomi. The Temazcal (Sweat Lodge) is an ancient ceremony of purification and prayer in which we return to the womb of the earth and are reborn anew. In this ceremony, we will collaborate in a prayer of integration and release — integrating what we have been experiencing and releasing that which no longer serves us — and in this way return to our health, to our natural relationship with our bodies and our internal fire.

Naomi Katz is a ceremonialist, educator and movement facilitator. Inspired by the indigenous practices of the women of the earth, she has traveled the world studying ancient wisdom. For more information see naomikatz.com

This retreat is fully residential, lodging and food are included from lunch on Jan 10 through brunch on Jan 14.

Collaboration: 3400 NIS (950 Euro) until 15 December, 3700 NIS (1035 Euro) after that.