Sacred Heart Retreat for Women ~ Hudson Valley, NY ~ March 21-24

Join a small group of women for a profound healing & heart-opening experience to welcome in the season of rebirth and renewal.

Welcome to the Hudson River Valley

Friends,

I am thrilled to announce the first of three Sacred Heart Retreats for women this year in the Hudson Valley. The first is the Spring Equinox Edition. We’ll gather from Thursday, March 21-Sunday, March 24. It’s just a two hour drive from NYC or an Amtrak train ride…and a world away.

We’ll tap into the quickening energy Mother Nature generates for transformation at this potent time of year. Our gathering will take place days after the spring equinox and right on the verge of the full Worm Moon, so called because the soil is softening and underground beings are starting to loosen the packed and frozen earth for the emergence of new life. We’ll also be riding the tide of rebirth that comes with Ostara & Easter.

My heart’s desire for the retreat is to enter Sacred Space together, rest, integrate, remember ourselves, fall in love with the world again, and emerge inspired and clear about who we are and what we must do.

A little backstory…

I moved upstate exactly four years ago this March. I arrived to my friends’ farm with my daughter on March 15 with bags packed for two weeks—we stayed for two and a half years.

I will never forget that March on the farm. My nervous system, already frayed by life in the big city, was on the verge of exhaustion due to the stress and uncertainty of the pandemic. Within a few days, walking in the woods, sitting on the dock, watching the birds, building fires with my daughter in our new home, the stress in our bodies melted along with the frozen earth. I vowed never to take the healing power of March for granted again.

I wrote this poem one day in March on the farm, walking the quiet paths and witnessing the very first buds of leaves on limbs. The photo is of me and my daughter on the dock, taking in some warming sun. On the walk back to the cabin I saw what looked like a green gate into a magical realm. It turned out to be a massive evergreen, but I was already inspired.

I laugh as I remember this beautiful time of thawing for both of our stressed systems. We’re wearing borrowed clothes because we didn’t have much when we left Brooklyn that March.

Beyond the Emerald Gate
Spring 2020

What I’m seeking 
is an intimate relationship 
with Reality as it is.

To be alive, 
and awake to the possibilities 
in each moment.

To be free, 
of all constructs and concepts
clinging to nothing:
free falling, sky diving.

To be in love 
with the Divine.
Or to become Love itself,
in love with itself.

That’s it. 
That’s all I’ve ever wanted.

What if it’s been here 
all along?
Between the trees...
Just up the path...
A click of the heels 
in ruby slippers,
or a tentative step 
beyond the emerald gate.
~~~

I was struck that day by the last line of the poem and the appearance of the word, “gate.” I was seeing an actual gate, but it reminded me of the Sanskrit word, gate, or gone in the mantra that is the essence seed of the Heart Sutra in Buddhism:

gate gate pāragate pārasamgate bodhi svāhā

gone, gone, gone beyond gone utterly beyond (to the other shore)

Oh, what an awakening!

That day four years ago, I was thinking about the Heart Sutra. It became the primary theme of my Buddhist studies and practice during the pandemic years. As I write this invitation to you to join this Sacred Heart Retreat for women…I am thinking about the Heart Sutra again. The magic it holds will be foundational to the time we spend together. In my experience, there is a portal…a gate…we can find and enter to cross over into the world of the heart—the Sacred Heart—the other shore. Oh, what an awakening!

This field of unity that I’m calling the Sacred Heart is trans-lineage and integral. It is known to all cultures and people because it is simply A WAY OF BEING in the HEART and living FROM the heart.

This retreat is not "religious", but it is spiritual and will include scripture, sutras and teachings from some of the great teachers who have walked this earth and the gods and goddesses who hold and guide us. I am very inspired by the intersection or meeting point in the heart teachings and transmissions of the eastern and the western esoteric schools. It's TANTRIC in the way I hold it and how we use ALCHEMY to transmute all energies into unity and light, especially the union of opposities (divine masculine and feminine) as exemplified through love by the great consort traditions:  

• The Egyptian mysteries related to Isis, Osiris and Horace 

• Esoteric Christianity represented by the union of Yeshua/Jesus and Mary Magdalene and the Sacred Heart transmissions of Jesus

• Mysteries of Persephone...Eleusinian mysteries

• The Tibetan Tantra of Padmashambhava and the Lady Yeshe Tsogyal along with the wisdom of Prajnaparamita and the Heart Sutra

• The teachings and energetic frequencies of the Cosmic Masters who are holding Earth through this time of precarious transition

Our inaugural event in October 2023 was inspired by the presence of Mary Magdalene and Jesus and was beyond beautiful. You can read about it here. More than one participant deemed it “life-changing.” It was certainly life-changing for me…a long-time dream became a reality when I found myself surrounded by sister seekers ready to abide in the frequency of love together. Sure, it’s just for a weekend, but a weekend can do a lot to re-wire the system and de-program long-held beliefs about what love is and how worthy we are of it. A weekend can change your perspective and give you a taste of something you know in your heart to be real. This confirmation is rare and essential. Once you know what it feels like, you can always find your way back.

If you know you’re interested in joining us, you can read more and register here:

In the meantime, I’ll share a little more detail below so you can get a sense for the setting, themes, and even the food ;) we’ll be enjoying together. There will be an informational session on Zoom for anyone who’d like to know more or meet me and previous retreat attendees on Monday, February 12 at 6-7pm EST.

I’m also putting together a dedicated email list for women on this topic of the Sacred Heart. If you feel the topic and events calling to you, but haven’t been able to make a live session, sign up here and we’ll be sure to keep you posted with specific communication regarding opportunities to gather with us virtually and in-person.

This is not a self-help or personal healing experience to make your own life more tolerable or more comfortable. That might happen, but the real work we’re engaged in here is awakening so we can restore the balance and create a new world of wisdom. This is about healing and integrating in order to truly be of service in the most profound ways within our families and communities at this pivotal time on earth. This is about becoming an embodiment of love in the world NOW.

---

Some images from our October gathering

More details on content

The weekend will be a direct experience of this wonderous wisdom of the Sacred Heart; a glimpse of something so far from where our modern/post-modern/meta-modern world has taken us. It is simple, beautiful and REAL. It's also deeply personal--this is a remembering of your own direct connection to Source, the one that was taken from you and your ancestors long ago by institutions and systems and dogma. This is the way of Nature, the Cosmos, the way of angels and animals, goddesses and plants, the way of the body and the soul...the ensouled way of being. This is the way of the heart, the way of emptiness, the way of bliss, the way of Light.

It's so simple it's almost ridiculous. What we're offering is less, not more. Less trying, less doing, less proving of ourselves, less defending, less fighting, less struggle. We create a space of deep rest, pleasure, joy and harmony and then we step into that space and delight in each other, the land, and the divine beings holding and guiding us. We rest in the lightness of our own being. We return home. We release what doesn't serve. We remember ourselves.

Maybe it seems like a big promise for a weekend, but it's really not! What we're doing is working with prayer and intention, sheer force of will and intutitive knowing to find our way to a parallel world. When we relate to each other from the heart, truly from the sacred heart, we break through the mirage of separateness and isolation and pain to a place of pure bliss and acceptance: heaven on earth. It's right here. The weekend is designed to give us a taste of what is possible, to know ourselves and each other in this place. Then, we take that back into our lives to ground it and make it real full time (to whatever degree is possible).

Practically speaking, the retreat will offer:

• a variety of accommodations to suit your budget and desire

• delicious, vegetarian food

• movement, breath work and meditation

• shamanic, guided journeys

• deep rest and relaxation

• nature art and mandala-making

• journaling

• dancing

• healing and release of old energetic patterns and conditioning

Here are some photos from the retreat house.

And delicious organic and vegetarian meals will be provided by Paco Rodriguez.

We will have space for 12-13 participants. 9 of these spots are with overnight accommodations and 3-4 are for commuters here in the Hudson Valley.

~~~