On April 1st of this year, I will be facilitating a new moon healing retreat at the remarkable Chozen Retreat. We have named this retreat “Swallow the Moon” after one of the profound cultivation practices we will experience throughout the weekend. Yes, we will swallow the moon, and in doing so, we will come to know her in a deeper and more profound way than ever before.

Retreating with awareness and curiosity into the new, mostly dark moon can revive and develop our instinctual and intuitive relationship to the entire world and to ourselves. It can create a direct experience of the cyclical nature of time, and in doing so, our relationship to time’s ebb and flow.

When hanging out with the moon our vital functions and other exterior inputs are quieted. As we retreat, we explore, we engage, and we cultivate our archaic consciousness. It is here we can notice the pulse at the center of the stillness. It is here we can experience the universe giving birth to itself through us. It is here that we foster the primordial, undifferentiated wholeness, the limitless love, that lies at the core of our existence.

This cannot be experienced by reading blogs or books or studied with equipment or measured or dissected. It is the domain of connection, compassion, and love. It is a descent into the slow, still dance of the Dao.

Nurturing our relationship to the moon can assist in assuaging our modern anxiety. When quiet and curious we can learn from the whispers of the ancient wise ones that exist on the deepest level of our consciousness.

The moon also teaches us the beauty of the constancy of change and graces us with a way to truly understand our place in the cosmos.

Moon can connect us in the most conscious way possible to ourselves. It can clarify our thinking, expand our imagination, enhance our senses, ease our embodied emotions, and connect us to our breath and spirit.

The moon has been a common experience for Earth beings throughout all of our existence, comforting and connecting us to the continuous flux that is our shared human existence here on Earth.

When we pause and take notice, the moon will likely plunge us deep below our superficial desperations and into the essential core that perfumes us with a positive attitude and awareness that is the foundation of a happy, holy existence.

Many misinterpret the concept of keeping a positive attitude during our life’s journey as a message to avoid all emotional content. Love is at the very core of our being. It is there to be dropped into at any moment. It is the template on which all human struggles occur. Our emotions, the anger, the fear, the grief, the worry that surge to the surface during our struggle with our challenges, our illnesses, and our physical and emotional selves provide an opportunity for expression and assimilation that when wholly engaged can be healing.

The deep healing process plays out simultaneously on the physical, mental, and spiritual levels. Struggling with illness is difficult but also allows us an accelerated opportunity for healing and embracing the totality of the human experience in a heightened way.

A retreat, especially one held with the moon in a space so consciously and lovingly created as the Chozen Sanctuary, allows a similar opportunity to engage this deep healing process.

Of course, a retreat is a conscious decision and under our control in a way that illness is not. But there is something to be said for the choosing as well. To consciously and intentionally retreat to a place, both internally and externally, with a shared group is a challenge to our ordinary selves living our ordinary lives. The radical shift in the external environment allows for profound and deep internal exploration of all the processes that make us human. To collectively and individually explore and engage the moon through a myriad of meditation and cultivation practices provides the grace and space for the harmonious transformation of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual for each of us as individuals and for the group as a whole.

What ultimately animates me about the retreat process is the unknown that will provide unique opportunities for our collective and individual journey. The mystery of our internal and external cosmos that unfolds and enfolds us all provides an extraordinary opportunity to connect deeply with my whole self, with the whole self of others, and with the wholeness that exists outside of all of us. It is through this deep connection that we can plant the seeds of lasting change in how we embrace the certainty and uncertainty that is the constancy in our lives and the life of our precious Earth.

Click here to find out more about the retreat!

We still have a few spaces available for the retreat in the Safari Camp! Wake up in nature with our off-the-grid glamping experience, including a well-appointed safari tent and all the programming, activities, meals, and the extraordinary grounds of the Chozen Sanctuary.