✨ YOGA | SOUND | CLAY | PLAY | SAUNA | FOOD
🗓️ MAY 13 @ 2PM - MAY 17 @2:30PM
Your body knows a rhythm your mind may have forgotten.
We'll help you remember.
Through playful and creative Vinyasa & Mandala yoga flows, sonic immersion, tactile clay creation, taste without sight, nature and deep rest - we’ll explore the living pulse between void and vibration, doing and being. This is where the body's wisdom speaks again, where stillness becomes play, where your creative pulse lives waiting to be heard.
If your life feels stagnant, we'll help you remember the creative flow that's always been there.
Above: Memories from past retreats - feel the experience & magic that we create!
Overview
My relationship to creativity is delicate. While I know there's capacity for great flow, my mind tricks me into thinking MORE art, people, buzz, and stimuli will feed it, but it so rarely does. However, stripping away the constant influx and returning to my bare hands, to the wisdom of the body - that's where I find my cosmic play.
We'll get there together. In a Japanese-inspired home, with the most delicious food and the deepest peace and quiet around us (phone-free zones included). We'll dig into the language of the body and heart, get our hands dirty with clay, and our bodies sweaty and joyful with movement. We'll deprive some senses to rediscover the depth of others. We'll connect to the cosmic hum and vibration through chanting, gongs, and crystal bowls.
What to Expect:
16 hours of soulful, themed Yoga Workshops, Meditation, Nidra & Kirtan
Gong Bath and Crystal Bowls Sound Baths
2 hours Ceramics workshop (+ get your piece delivered to London for free, or pay to ship elsewhere)
A sensory dinner - guided exploration of the senses through food
Japanese Infrared Sauna on premises (free access!)
Guided forest walk
3 wholesome, locally sourced and seasonal vegetarian meals a day
(rich brunch, snack, generous dinner + dessert) made by our private chefsPlenty of free time for reading, board games, nature & forest walks.
Optional add-on: Massage
Yoga classes:
I’ll be offering creative and playful Vinyasa Yoga and Mandala practice - rich, intelligent asana sequencing with a focus on proper alignment of your body, wrapped in fluid movement and creative flow, inspired by Yogic philosophy and storytelling intertwined with the theme. I’ll offer different pathways - towards peak poses or alternative lunar variations for regeneration and versatility so that you can take what you need from it.
In the evenings, you will dive into the regenerative, gentle lunar and restorative flows, meditation and Yoga Nidra. It will be an open invitation to turn inwards, tap into the stillness, calmness and mystery. Some evenings you’ll practice with me, and on others, Sam will be guiding you into her signature Slow Flow and Sound!
All classes include chanting the devotional songs and mantras, led on a harmonium, embracing the power of the Bhakti Yoga that cracks the hearts open.
SONIC JOURNEYS
The PULSE Beneath the Sound
Whether through crystal bowls or gong, these sonic journeys aren't about relaxation (though you will). They're about tuning your instrument - your body, your nervous system, your awareness - back to its original frequency. The one that's been humming all along, waiting for you to stop and listen.
Crystal Bowls Sound Baths with Sam
Sound offers a direct pathway to the place beneath thought - where the body softens, the mind quiets, and something deeper can be heard. Sam works with crystal singing bowls to create immersive sonic landscapes that invite you into deep rest and self-connection. Whether you arrive restless or already quiet, the vibration does the work. You simply lie down, receive, and let the frequencies move through you, dissolving what needs dissolving, opening what's ready to open. No effort required - just presence. Sam is a great friend of mine, and a studio manager at SOMA!
Gong Bath: Shunya - The Void
One full session will be dedicated to exploring Shunya - the fertile emptiness where all creation begins. We'll start with OM chanting to drop into collective resonance, then surrender to the gong's waves. The gong doesn't play melodies; it creates a sonic washing that clears the static, the stories, the noise. What remains is the space between - vast, receptive, alive. This is where the pulse becomes perceptible. This is where you remember what you are beneath everything you do.
WORKSHOPS & EXPERIENCES
Ceramics workshop
A local artisan comes to us, bringing clay, tools, and knowing how mud becomes art. After a brief introduction to the craft, you're in - hands at work, mind quiet, shaping something from nothing.
This isn't about making something perfect. It's about feeling the material respond to pressure, watching form emerge from formlessness, letting your hands think instead of your head. Clay has its own intelligence - it teaches you about patience, imperfection, and the conversation between control and surrender.
You'll create your piece during the workshop. The artisan then takes them away to glaze (in colors you choose) and fire in a professional kiln.
2-3 weeks later, they can arrive at your door.
A tangible reminder of what you made when you slowed down enough to listen. A bowl that holds your morning tea. A cup that remembers your hands. The retreat doesn't end when you leave.
Sensory Dinner ~ Taste in the dark
An invitation to eat without seeing (completely optional!) - so everything else can come alive.
Each course is placed in your hand. You meet the food first through weight, shape, temperature, texture. Your hands make the introduction. Then come the aromas - suddenly vivid, almost three-dimensional. Then taste - stripped of expectation, amplified by mystery.
Without sight, your attention sharpens. Warmth spreads differently. Sweetness arrives in waves. You notice the exact moment flavor shifts on your tongue and amplify the taste.
Music weaves through the meal like a thread, creating a sonic container for this inner experience - an extension of everything we've been practicing on the mat and in stillness.
It’s a practice of trusting what your body knows when your mind can't label or judge what's in front of you.
Accommodation
Home
Our secluded Japanese home offers the promise of a suspended time to reconnect with yourself. You’ll find the timeless, earthy space, conducive to listening again to your own rhythms. The home is fully built with bio, natural materials and uses rainwater. Made in absolute harmony with (and from) the surroundings - natural materials allow the home to operate without a heating or air conditioning system, relying solely on the sun.
All living & sleeping spaces overlook a beautiful, peaceful, Japanese garden and a pond.
Rooms
All rooms are en-suite and exactly the same, offering a promising experience. With floor-to-ceiling windows and beautiful garden views from every bed, rooms are shared between 2 people (or booked for single occupancy). Every room has a single bed on the ground floor, and a double bed on the mezzanine, positioned in a way that every person has privacy and is out of sight of another.
Yoga space
We’ll be practicing Yoga in two different areas - in the clean and airy, meditative Japanese practice room space, and a more open and spacious shala overlooking the peaceful Japanese garden and a pond.
Japanese Infrared Sauna
The venue offers a Japanese-style infrared sauna dome - a gentle heat therapy. Unlike traditional saunas, the so-called Waon Therapy - Soothing Warmth, works at a lower, more meditative temperature (around 40-60°C), allowing you to stay longer and go deeper - another way to feel the body from the inside out, slow down, and tune into subtle sensation. Available throughout the retreat.
Location
Our home is located in Normandy, France, about an hour and a half from Paris. It’s best to fly or take a train to Paris, and from there, a train + taxi. We always create a WhatsApp retreat group to connect participants for shared rides and have contacts for transport to share.
Packages include:
5 days, 4 nights accommodation
all meals - vegetarian, wholesome, locally sourced and seasonal (daily: rich brunch, snack & generous dinner with dessert)
Daily tea & coffee
16h of Yoga, Meditation, Chanting
Gong Bath and Crystal Bowls Sound Baths
2 hours Ceramics workshop
A sensory dinner - guided exploration of the senses through food
Japanese Infrared Sauna on premises (free access!)
Guided forest walk
The Retreat Goodie bag!
Not included
Flights
Transport to the retreat home (we help you connect & share the cost)
Massage and any other extra activities
Travel insurance
Extra meals & drinks
PRICES
SHARED OCCUPANCY : £1300
2 people share the room with a double and a single bed
En-suite
SINGLE OCCUPANCY: £1700
En-suite room with a double & a single bed.
Limited availability
PAYMENT
Submit a £400 deposit to reserve your spot
and pay the rest by April 1st, 2025.
Or spread the rest of the payment through monthly payment plans (ending May 7th). Just email me and we’ll make this possible.