During my 13 years experience as a nurse in mainstream healthcare I struggled with several episodes of burn out leading to anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances and apathy. In an attempt to explore alternative modalities to help navigate the emotions that were becoming increasingly stored in my body, I discovered Heart Breath and my life has been revolutionized ever since. It is my pleasure and honor to share these practices with you all as we build a deeper connection with our breath, bodies and hearts.

Britney will be offering our Heart Breath workshop where she will guide our divine community of breathers to explore the goodness of our heart, identify any areas of tension or blockages, and provide a safe place to release what no longer serves us as individuals and a collective. After the session she will invite us into an art therapy session called Heart Art where we will draw, paint, and dance the images of our heart onto paper as a keepsake reminder of the new connection we built together uniting our hearts for deeper healing.

Rosemary is an acupuncturist licensed in the state of Maine and Montana. As a child Rosemary grew up receiving acupuncture and found that it helped her with food sensitivities. Some of her family pets also had a significant improvement in health after acupuncture treatments therefore, she was inspired to utilize acupuncture as a tool to help people and animals. Patients who have seen her have reported a dramatic reduction in pain, increased digestive function, menstrual cycle improvements, migraine reduction and a significant decrease in stress and anxiety after receiving acupuncture. Rosemary loves supporting each patient's body so that it can heal itself. She is a certified auricular acupuncture practitioner.

Rosemary will be offering community acupuncture sessions during the retreat where she will create a individualized treatment plan for everyone who participates. She will also be offering a Qi Gong session which is a gentle exercise that strengthens and supports the movement of qi or energy thru the body. During the retreat she will start with a grounding/rooting qi gong and will pair it with qi gong movements to support the change in season.

Early in my life I learned that dis-ease comes from a prolonged imbalance between body, mind and soul. Our sufferings are entirely real, and the tools of modern medicine are generally wonderful at treating the acute manifestations of pain, torn tissues, and more. And sometimes it is as simple as that. Other times suffering and pain continue – and that’s the realm in which I am interested.

How do we look beyond the specific tissue damaged and in pain: how do we look to the whole human being, with all our layers of individual complexity and beauty, body, mind, soul, to support the larger system to re-create a balance, an “ease in body, mind, and soul” that brings a more complete healing, better function and more Ease at whatever our stage in life.

Over the years my studies and personal practice keeps evolving, starting with foods and nutrition, an MBA, and including Gestalt Therapy, Family Constellations (we are all influenced by the larger fields in which we live), Yoga (all its branches of body, movement, breath, mind, philosophy), Meditation (mindfulness and beyond), Ayurveda (Yogic science of health), Therapeutic Yoga (its own discipline of Yoga), Somatics, Neurodevelopmental Movement, Bowenwork, MSTR (McLoughlin Scar Tissue Release) and Essential Oils.

Darcy will be offering a therapeutic yoga session where she will support dropping down in, digesting what they have opened into so far in the retreat and time to breath into their pelvic bowl.