Big Medicine: A Grief & Dream Retreat with Tina Tau & Laura Green

What if:

we're part of something vast and interactive,

all wellness and suffering is collaborative,

trying to find our way out of pain using just our human brains is impossible?

What if there's medicine for every ailment and we're part of the medicine? What if we've simply forgotten how to offer ourselves and receive? What if we can remember?

For this retreat, we'll play with the possibility that we're held inside something that knows its way to wellness; if we listen and try to move collaboratively, the system might balance in ways we can't think up on our own.

We'll test this possibility by working with a particular pain or quandary. We will work with nature and our dreams to explore ways we might find deeper understanding of our grief and how to move with it from the vast, non human-invented world. 

This group is a chance to explore and learn about dreams: how to work with them, how to recall them, how to use them to deepen your life experience. No existing dreamwork practice is required - whether you have journals full of dreams, a scattering of memories or a frustrating absence of memories of your dreams you are welcome. We will work together, with the option of trying a variety of creative practices, to meet your dream life and get to know it a bit more.

The Details:

We will be gathering at a lovely house in Bingen, Washington for our sessions together. 

We highly recommend booking lodging at The Society Hotel, which is just down the road from our retreat house. Beds there range from $60 - $100 per person per night, depending on accomodation style, and include access to their soaking pools, sauna, library, and yoga and meditation space. 

If you have other connections in the area, you're most welcome to nest wherever feels right! Sleeping accomodations are not included in the retreat.

Before The Retreat

We'll offer some specific suggestions for ways you can work with nature and your dreams in the week (or weeks) before you come including ideas for walking meditation and prompts to start or continue building dream and nature journals.

Retreat Schedule:

Friday

• 7:00 – 9:00pm – Tea, dessert and Dreams: Gather at the dream house to meet, talk about our plans for the weekend and share our grief and dreams over tea. 
• Bring your journals to this gathering - we'll be building a communal wall of dreams and messages at the house from your writing.
• We'll end with grounding meditation and send you off to soak or walk or rest and dream.

Saturday

• 8:00 – 9:00am – Yoga at the Dream House - A gentle, guided practice in staying, listening and responding to messages from our bodies
• 9:00 – 10am – Breakfast and Dream Sharing - We will offer cereal, fruit, toast and other light breakfast foods (or feel free to bring the breakfast of your choosing), sit and share our dreams.
• 10 – 1pm – Dream Work Session 1: Dream Theater - During this session we'll begin to explore some creative ways to play with dreams. Dream theater is an invitation to literally bring our dreams to life. It's a quite magical and very accessible practice that requires little to no flair for drama and offers deep insights into the messages of a dream. 
• 1:00 – 3:00pm – Lunch and Personal Time to Explore -  The dream house will be open with our shared and growing offerings on the walls, oracle cards, blankets and cushions, and prompts for journaling, meditation and self-care. We will also be happy to direct you to some local nature walks and provide prompts for walking meditations. 
• 3:00 – 6:00pm – Dream Work session 2 - Dream Art - We'll bring materials for collage, zines, diorama and puppet building and invite you to explore how it feels to make your dreams tangible and interactive.
• 6:00 – 7:00pm – Dinner and Dream/Grief Share - We'll share vegan, gluten free soup, and share our dreams and our feelings tucked in around the wood stove.

Sunday

• 8:00 – 9:00am – Restorative Yoga and Dreams - A supprted, restorative practice; Laura will lead yoga while Tina reads aloud from our shared dreams.
• 9:00 – 10:00am – Breakfast and Reflections.
• 10 - 12:30pm - Final Dream Work Session - During this final session our dreams and grief will get a final chance to revisit an activity from Saturday work deeper into something you've already started or ask questions that are lingering. You may choose to work in pairs, using the structure we've been practicing or independently. During this time, Tina will be available to talk with people one-on-one about their dreams or this work generally, while Laura helps facilitate your conversations, writing or art work.
• 12:30 - 1pm - Final Circle - We'll close by sharing medicine we've gathered, and offering thanks to our dreams, the non-human world that holds us and each other. 

Cost

The cost for this retreat is $350. This includes all retreat supplies (excluding your journal), breakfast and dinner on Saturday and Breakfast on Sunday. It does NOT include lodging.

We're interested in making this work avaiable to everyone who needs it, regardless of financial means. 

To that end, we're happy to work to offer scholarships whenever possible. Please contact us directly at info@griefhouse.org to talk about acholarships.

If you are able to afford more than $350 for the weekend, the exta money you offer will go towards reducing the cost for another participant. 

We feel honored and excited to share dreams with you.