Heart Awakening New Year's Retreat

You are warmly welcome to join us for a week of shared stillness, movement and relatedness. The retreat will be held in the heart of winter, during a time when nature sleeps deep in the earth and light is scarce. We invite you to lean back and rest, allowing the body and mind to unwind from the demands of everyday life. Come to rejuvenate your energy by enjoying the winter landscape, meeting yourself and others from a space of heart-felt presence, enjoying meditation and movement practises and eating absolutely delicious vegan & gluten free food. Together we celebrate the end of another cycle and support each other in orienting towards an integrated and sustainable new year. DAILY PRACTICES The retreat offers a unique combination of different approaches through which we can tune in with deeper layers of our being, joyfully reconnect with our moving bodies and remember the beauty and depth of belonging in genuine human connections. These include relational awareness work, different somatic practices, yoga, tantric practices, meditation and breath-work and singing circles. We celebrate the end of the year with a transitional ritual, cacao ceremony and ecstatic dance! Sauna is also available every night! In between the offered practices, there will be plenty of free time for your needs and wishes. A more detailed description of the daily practices will be added soon! VENUE We will stay in a beautiful retreat centre in the quiet countryside of southern Finland. An old village school building situated in the middle of fields and forests will offer generous space to practice and rest. The venue provides an atmosphere of calm and simplicity with beautiful surroundings that invite for walks and contemplation. There are different options for accommodation that will be chosen during the registration. For more details, please visit: http://lammiretreat.com/home/ FOOD We will have three meals per day including breakfast, lunch and dinner. Our catering is taken care of by an amazing culinary crafter. She will cook us delicious vegetarian and gluten free food during the whole retreat. Water boilers and tea will be supplied all day. WHAT TO BRING -Bedding (sheets and covers or a sleeping bag) -Warm and comfortable clothes suitable for sitting as well as for movement -Pen and Paper / Notebook -Water bottle -Thermos flask if you would like to keep hot drinks on you during the day -Personal hygiene and towel -Yoga mat and warm blanket TIME The retreat begins Tuesday 27.12.2022 and participants can arrive from 16:00 onwards. The official program begins at 18:00. The retreat ends Sun 1.1.2023 after lunch and clean up. PRICE AND REGISTRATION **Earlybird** price (until 1.10.2022) 520€/420€ (full time students and unemployed). After this 620€/520€. The price includes the retreat program for 6 days, accommodation, three meals per day and sauna every night (payment plans available for those with low income). To reserve your place please send an email to: [email protected] After receiving your email, we will send you payment info and some questions for you to answer like food allergies, accommodation preferences etc. Your place at the retreat will be secured after your registration and payment of a deposit of 100€. TRAVELLING TO THE VENUE By flight: Destination is Helsinki-Vantaa airport. From there continue with car or public transport. By car: Map link to the center: https://goo.gl/maps/HBMSY8b8JhR2. By train/bus: Check www.vr.fi and www.matkahuolto.fi for the most recent info. With a train you first have to go to Hämeenlinna or Lahti and then with the bus to “Lammi (Hämeenlinna)”. Busses go to Lammi from all major cities via Hämeenlinna or Lahti. Ridesharing (Google Doc): In the registration email we will send you a link to a doc where people can share car rides and to synchronise their arrival in Lammi with public transport for a shared taxi (10km) from the venue. You are warmly welcome! Samuli & Gloria DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRACTICES Morning Yoga and Movement Practice We will begin the mornings with varied and gentle movement allowing the body to warm up and wake up for the new day. Yoga practices are designed to allow free circulation of prana, life force, throughout the energetic body bringing a state of overall balance. All the movement practices prepare us for stillness and meditation. For those struggling with sitting meditation, the movement practice offers a wonderful foundation to ground in the body with ease. Morning/ Evening Meditation Each morning and on most evenings (some exceptions apply) we will sit together in silence for 30 min (or longer in the evening depending on your choice) with and without verbal guidance. If you have your own established meditation practice, you are encouraged to follow it. If you have little or no experience with meditation, we will take time during the arrival day to introduce a few simple meditation techniques that can be used during the retreat. Throughout the retreat we will also follow up on the development of the meditation practice of those who have little previous experience. Restorative Yoga and Breath Work Here we center back to ourselves, calm down the nervous system and take time to contemplate the experiences of the day. Restorative yoga is gentle, slow paced practice combining easy movements and stillness, loving awareness and deep relaxation. Breath work will further balance and deepen the established meditative state and spontaneously translate the consciousness into a state of meditation. Embodied Presencing Embodied presencing is a form of personal and interpersonal awareness work developed by Samuli, that is based on Gestalt therapy, Vipassana meditation and sharing circles. It's a direct and simple way to engage with transparent and moment-to-moment human relatedness and communication. The method is based on reconnecting with the wealth of body sensations/ experiences that most of us have learned to disconnect from. This supports deeper self-awareness, self-other awareness and clearer communication as we become more sensitive and receptive to our own experience and the experience of others in relational settings. During the retreat Embodied Presencing will also be applied and combined with movement practices. Somatic work, movement and creative expression These sessions are built from a diverse range of different somatic, movement and theatre based methods. Here the focus is on creative, dynamic, restorative, meditative, interactional and solo work. We will take time to travel inside the body supported by our breath and subtle movements, experience the support of witnesses, play with sound, language and movement and have fun! New Year’s Eve For the new year’s eve we have designed a transitional ritual where we intentionally let go of the old and create space for the new. This is fused with a cacao ceremony and ecstatic dance. The rest of the evening is spent in a cosy atmosphere socialising, singing, sauna and other activities. The cooks may also have something special in store for us ;) FACILITATORS Samuli Lehesaari "In the last 20 years Samuli has been studying, researching, practicing and teaching in the field of movement and personal development. He has completed a training in Integral psychotherapy and at the moment he is working as an occupational health psychologist. He is also a school teacher, dancer and a dance teacher. Samuli offers private therapy and awareness work for individuals and groups, organises and teaches at contact improvisation festivals worldwide and more recently has been holding workshops and longer retreats on numerous different topics. He’s deep passion and interest lies in the broad avenues of human potential and in grounding spiritual principles into the fabric of everyday life, especially to the many facets of human relatedness." Gloria Salo "Gloria has had passion for paths of awakening consciousness since she was a child. After she found the esoteric and tantric practices of yoga and meditation, she committed herself to the ancient sacred yogic and tantric tradition. Gloria has always had deep interest in human psyche and the different dimensions of consciousness. The quest to understand the hidden potentials deep within, led her to graduate with Masters of Social Sciences, majoring in Social Psychology. Gloria is a child of not one but many yogic and tantric traditions. These days she mainly studies and practices classical nondual tantra from the Trika lineage with Christopher (Harees) Wallis. She is trained in NVC (non-violent communication) and Living Compassion, and is doing her post studies in cognitive therapy, working also as a therapist. In addition to yoga and tantra Gloria likes to involve herself in creative and transformative projects. She is a producer of consciousness awakening events, practices dance and is an active member in the psychedelic art and music community, teaching tantra in many of the big festivals in Europe."