"𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑒, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑛, 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑐𝑢𝑠𝑝 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑖𝑑𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟'𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑢𝑛𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑠 𝑔𝑜 & 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒; 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡ℎ."

 - 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑡 𝐴𝑡𝑤𝑜𝑜𝑑

Retreat to ancient sanctuary land in the mystical Scottish highlands to nurture your body, mind and soul. Join master herbalist Kelsey Barrett, world-renowned wilderness survival skills teacher Willow Lohr, and your highland hostess Catherine Stewart, for a deep and nurturing nature-based immersion into the Spirit of Scotland.

You will be based in Applecross, a remote and ancient fishing village on the west coast of the Scottish highlands and adventure into the Scottish countryside including a day trip to explore the Isle of Skye via the stunning and historic Eilean Donan Castle. 

This fully catered 7 night, 6 day women’s retreat* takes place in a beautiful luxury eco-lodge Eagle Rock, perched in solitary splendor on the site of an ancient Viking watchfire. Enjoy the comfort and glorious views from Eagle Rock while basking in an infinity hot-tub perched over a sea-loch called the Inner Sound. We will be nourished daily with a base of local organic whole foods and herbal teas native to the lands - and if you choose, indulge with native whisky’s on our feast night of Uisge Beath (water of life)! Expand into the wild invitation of the land for ocean swimming, guided historical and meditative walks, and a series of interwoven workshops as Willow, Kelsey and Catherine blend their offerings in dream-work, old celtic wisdom and myth, herb, plant and animal lore and meaningful Summer Solstice ceremony.

The Solstices mark important physical, energetic and mystical changes on the planet. The Summer Solstice signals the buried transition from the abundance of Brigid’s summer to the start of the dark, wintry days, a time of quietude known as the Realm of Women. Willow will guide our solstice ritual through shamanic journeying, exploring the myths and stories of Celtic women’s wit and ancient wisdom all while on Eagle Rock’s stone circle that was laid by the ancient Celts.

Surrounding the days of the solstice you will be immersed into nature, tradition, your own ancestral connection and connection to the Celtic spirit with insights and practices that will enrich your daily life.

Learn the plants animals native to the highlands, and explore their relationship to people past and present, while enjoying plant-craft workshops combining traditional Scottish herbs and plants and medicine wheel-based teachings. Listen to the secrets of the plants, lichens and stones used for thousands of years to make and keep fire, which help us understand the ways highland fauna have evolved to survive in this harsh and beautiful wilderness. 

You will spend a morning on a local croft, gathering plants and participating in traditional dying processes with native Scottish elders. Connect to your roots and your ancestors through guided meditation, journaling, ceremony and daily dreamwork. You will learn about plants of special significance at Summer Solstice and songs to celebrate its abundance and as we gather at the fire on our final Outlander inspired feast night, to remind ourselves how we personally can keep the light burning in the coming dark months. On the last night, we’ll dress for the gods and enjoy an authentic highland feast and pose for individual portraits to commemorate our time together.

Join us for… 

• Local seasonal meals**

• Daily native herbal infusions

• Day trip to the Isle of Skye, via Eilean Donan Castle

• Solstice ritual

• Celtic Fire Practice: Making and keeping fire in Neolithic Scotland till present day

• Dreamwork and herbal lore with ancestral inquiry

• Native plant dye workshop on an original croft

• Outlander highland feast 

• Whisky-tasting feast

• Cooking class, prep and portraits at finale Outlander feast

• Transport to and from Inverness to Eagle Rock

• Shared accommodations (2 people per room)

• Maximum 12 participants

*Women and women-identified 

**One meal at the local pub, and one meal at the Walled Garden are not included

Tickets can be purchased here.

Willow Lohr Bio

Willow has spent most of her life living in the remoter parts of the Scottish Highlands. Although born in the Netherlands, the rugged conditions and dramatic landscape of Scotland is where she feels most at home. After completing her degree and MPhil in Philosophy, Willow's occupations have always been determined by two mottos - work with a good view before you and be creative with your hands. As such she has become an accomplished craftswoman in many traditional skills, spanning from Neolithic times to the present.

Living on a smallholding with rare breed sheep, hens and bees, Willow holds an Expert Bee-Master’s Certificate. She taught herself spinning, tanning, leatherwork, felting, bone and wood carving, indigenous arts, plant crafts and tipi making. In 2003 this led her to a three year apprenticeship in wilderness-living skills and survival techniques under Juha Rankinen (Sweden).

She went on to instruct bushcraft courses for Ray Mears. In 2009 Willow joined Woodsmoke. There she was given the opportunity to design, develop and lead courses which were virtually non-existent in the UK, such as Buckskin Tanning, Bone & Antler carving and Mukluk moccasin making. In 2012 she was awarded the Hazel-Handled Instructors' knife by Ben and Lisa of Woodsmoke.

Currently she is working as a freelance bushcraft and hand-craft instructor in Scotland, designing and instructing courses for professional institutions, schools, corporate events, international bushcraft companies, local groups and individuals.

Catherine Stewart

Catherine has spent much of the last decade creating Eagle Rock, her haven, and a highland home to many who regularly return to Scotland. A South African-born Scot, she has spent most of her professional life working in communication and education. She has a Masters in Film and Television from the University of London, a Masters in Creative Writing with J.M Coetzee, and an Honours in Philosophy of Literature.  Catherine is expert in arts-based facilitation techniques and in bringing diverse stakeholders together to work towards a common goal. Catherine’s focus is on bringing out each individual’s voice and helping to weave these together with purpose and power. Eagle Rock and its surrounds are a base and sanctuary for people to come together for rest, inspiration, and fellowship. 

Kelsey Barrett

Kelsey Barrett is a master herbalist on a mission to transform contemporary culture through the power of plants. Her approach is based on cultivating intimacy with self, health and the natural world by way of herbal medicine. 

Kelsey’s clinical practice focuses on women’s health, hormone balance, stress management, high density nutrition, and herbal detoxification. Her teaching blends mordern science with ancient folklore to inspire health through our inherent connection to nature and our bodies. Kelsey's Scot-Irish ancestry has lead her on pilgrimages back to her indigenious lands to reclaim kinship with the land.

She has studied Clinical Herbalism at Berkeley Herbal Center, organic gardening at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, and with master herbalists Julia Graves, Matthew Wood and Dr. William Morris. Her herbal and environmental insights have been published in Vogue, Edible East Bay, GOOD Magazine and Gestalten. She is currently based in California and has a private practice, coaching clients in life-changing strategies for long term wellness.

Early bird special ends on May 7, 2023! May 8 price increases to $2800.

Verse is a live online 3-year herbal medicine program with curriculum designed by Kelsey Barrett. The program’s curriculum is where evidence-based modern research meets traditional knowledge.

Empower your life with purpose, physical well-being, and spiritual connection

Mercado Segrado is a well-curated craft, art, and design pop-up. It’s also a music fest, a wellness marketplace, and an organic food fair. But it goes beyond that. We’re building a community and, we hope, creating an unforgettable experience. It’s a place for artisans to share their craft, where commerce is ethical and conscious. A place for like-minded people to gather, to inspire and be inspired. To find new ways to heal and expand. We like to think of it as a festival with deeper meaning. One with a connection to art and craft beyond consumerism. One with food that nourishes and music that resonates. One that speaks to a higher consciousness, and a more beautiful, insightful, deliberate way of living.

This season I’ll be offering herbal sessions and custom blended teas for your unique needs.

In this workshop, Kelsey Barrett explores the ancient and everyday medicine you’ll find in your kitchen. Through storytelling and in-class plant meditations you will powerfully integrate the medicinal offerings of your spice rack and garden.

Come learn together the mythology and folklore of herbs, alongside their medicinal uses, as we enter the Fall season.

You’ll also have the opportunity to participate in live infusion medicine making!

Supplies:
spring of fresh or dry rosemary
real vanilla extract or pods
a berry of juniper

The natural world holds a multitude of secrets for healing the body, mind, spirit, and planet.

Would you like to develop the power to more easily care for yourself, while remaining in spiritual communion with the natural world around you?

With the proper guides leading you through the latest botanical medicine discoveries, you can apply this wisdom for immune repair, neural and cognitive support, and spiritual enlightenment.

Would you like to benefit from up-to-date research on how plant allies can help you navigate specific present and future challenges?

We’re living in a pivotal time for deepening our approaches to wellness and healing. Traditional wisdom on how our plant allies help our bodily systems is being supported by scientific evidence of how botanical medicines work. Established botanical medicine experts have energized a new generation of healers and educators who are eager to help people integrate clinical practices with individual self-care routines.

Plant medicine has been shaped by ancient traditions from around the world — and our ancestors' antidotes are influencing the future of how we can treat and heal diseases, digestive problems, anxiety, depression, and even approach pandemics. What we’ve learned about botanical rituals and remedies from Mayan, Ayurvedic, and Tibetan healers, for example, gives us a roadmap for preventing and managing future ailments.

We’re excited to present The Future of Plant Medicine Summit at a time of global awakening to the importance of holistic approaches to disease, emotional distress, and planetary healing. This esteemed collection of Ayurvedic and integrative medical doctors and pharmacists, herbalists, researchers, educators, and healers are shaping the future of herbal medicine.

You’ll be receiving support not only from revered Shift Network faculty, but also from the next generation of visionaries in the plant medicine movement, all of whom can help you understand the practicalities of creating an individualized botanical medicine treatment plan.

Over the course of an enlightening week featuring the very latest in plant medicine research, you’ll deepen your understanding of the role of specific herbs in common health concerns — such as herbs used in Ayurveda for every stage of life, nervine tonic herbs for protection against stress, and herbs for managing headaches naturally, among other valuable applications. Plus, you’ll gain the framework for how to speak with your medical doctors about herbal medicines, and for implementing your own self-care practices for these challenging times.

You’ll have access to a level of spiritual healing unavailable with allopathic medicine. You’ll explore myriad rituals, passed down through generations, that connect you to your plant allies through a deep journey of the soul and the subconscious.

“In herbalism we don’t ascend, we deepen.”

–Jesse Wolf Hardin

SOLD OUT

Join Wildtender and Heavy Nettle for a weekend camping retreat and hands-on workshop in the Big Sur wilderness to discover and practice the magic of wild California herbalism. 

Making our camp in an extraordinary valley nestled among the Big Sur mountains (25 miles inland from the coast), we will explore the land to acquaint ourselves with the names, stories, edible and medicinal uses of the region’s native plants. We will slow down and deeply connect with ourselves, each other and the wild through guided mindful hiking, plant meditations and awareness practices. Following our wild wanderings, we will return to camp to learn a variety of ancient methods for distilling plants into powerful, healing medicines.

Our instructors will include clinical herbalist and Heavy Nettle founder Kelsey Barrett, Wildtender co-founder Fletcher Tucker, and of course, the wild plants themselves.

Workshop topics and activities will include:

• Introduction to Big Sur natural history / ecology

• Identification and ethnobotanical exploration of native plants 

• Guided plant meditations and nature awareness practices 

• Discussion of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK)

• Instruction in ethical wildcrafting principles

• Hands-on medicine-making with a variety of methods and applications

In addition to a weekend of instruction in herbalism and ecology, participants can also expect to take home their own handmade tincture, tallow salve, salt preserve, and incense.

Please Note: This program will include some hiking and camping out. We will drive to our primitive campground, but will need to carry camping equipment roughly 100 yards. Participants should be free of bodily injury or impairment, and willing to get a little sweaty and a little dirty! Because we will be using stoves, knives and pruning sheers this program is restricted to people 16 years or older. All levels of experience are welcome, including folks with no experience camping or in herbalism. No dogs are allowed in this wilderness area.

The Epidemic of Disconnection: Herbal Medicine for Building Intimacy with Self, Nature and Others

Never has it been more important and urgent to regenerate your body and build robust immunity than now, in the midst of our global health crisis.

Acquiring the right knowledge about plant allies, and how to source and prepare them, can be life-changing for you and your family.

To be sure, the advances of modern medicine are amazing, even miraculous. Our ability to treat ailments and cure diseases is an inspiring testament to what we’re capable of.

And, some of the most simple and overlooked elements of our immediate natural environment also offer remarkable healing power…

Plants contain a myriad of compounds which can nourish, balance, and support immune function, thereby increasing your body’s built-in resistance to disease.

Medicinal botanicals have a wide range of healing properties when properly applied. They can reverse inflammation, renew proper organ function, and tone the endocrine system, for starters. And, they can rebalance your emotions and provide you with clarity and enhanced vigor.

Furthermore, certain types of plant medicines can protect you from the negative effects of modern life — from toxic substances in the food supply, to high levels of electromagnetic radiation exposure, to chronic daily stressors, and more.

Finding a pathway specific to your needs can be daunting... and the information-saturated online space can be overwhelming...

… making it difficult to discern which products being advertised are verified and trustworthy, and the most impactful way to build your home pharmacy and choose which medicinal plants to grow or buy.

That’s why we’re excited to present the Plant Medicine for Modern Epidemics Summit — a timely gathering of Ayurvedic and integrative medicine doctors, and botany and ecology experts. Each will share their multifaceted approaches to healing and renewing the body by allying with nature.

There are variable and conflicting messages and many unknown factors around how to stay safe and well during this time of the pandemic, which means many of us are living with a lot of fear and anxiety.

When operating in a state of constant fear, a number of stress hormones are amplified and secreted into the blood. Over time, these can negatively affect your health, causing a host of maladies, from panic and anxiety... to rage and depression... to digestive problems and physiological breakdowns.

This summit will help you clear the extraneous noise and anxiety-soaked information surrounding public health — empowering you with expert-level, practical, and responsible insights into the best plant medicine and natural health strategies for your needs.

Reclaim, Renew, Remember: Return to the Divine Feminine

is a womxn’s gathering in celebration of the divine feminine within all of us, reclaiming our power and self-empowerment through the community. This Fall I’ll be guiding an elemental communion at the Ojai hot springs to support embodying your natural feminine essence.

At this gathering, you will held under the gorgeous Ojai stars, bathed in the sacred hot springs, lifted by like-minded womxn, and transcend old belief systems that are holding you back. There we will come together as we release old patterning, activate & celebrate our unique voice and soul path.

Born of the urgency for womxn to embody their unique relationship to the feminine. This is a safe, inclusive space of all womxn // female identifying, trans, non-binary.

• Opening // Closing Cacao & Ancestral Blessing Ceremony by Mary Grisey, Julia Corbett and Safiya Randera.

• 5 workshops: Guardians of the Divine Feminine: Channeled Messages from your Masters, Teachers, Guides and Loved Ones by Taylor Montague & Mary Grisey, Womb Healing & Activation by Madre Jaguar, Embodying the Divine Feminine at the Ojai Hot Springs by Kelsey Barrett, Reading Energy // Auras // Astral Frequencies by Mary Grisey, and The Power of Posture and Presence by Deena Odelle Hyatt. See more details below under Teachers and Practitioners

• Sound Bath and Musical performances by Christine Aprile, Deena Odelle Hyatt and Jessi Campbell. See more details below under Teachers and Practitioners

• Private Cosmic Photography Portrait Sessions with Julia Corbett. Every participant will receive one cosmic portrait of them from the retreat. See more details below under Teachers and Practitioners

Together we will ascend a trail up the Santa Lucia Mountains, stopping along the way to learn the names, stories, and edible and medicinal uses of Big Sur’s native plants. We will slow down to connect with ourselves and the interdependent community of beings of the Big Sur wild. Meditate on the land while enjoying a wild herb tea, absorb the fragrance of Summer chaparral, and sit amongst the trees while sampling wild foods. When we reach the crest of the trail, we will share a communal picnic overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Ancient Infusions: Bear Tallow Medicine

Learn the ancient practice and medicinal use of tallow. Together we will craft an infusion of medicinal California plants into bear fat (sourced from Canadian first nations people), exploring traditional applications and the modern science for transdermal nourishment and overall health. Our crafting will be enriched with the conversation about the mythological significance of the bear across primary cultures. Specifically bear mythology from Kelsey’s ancestral lands of the pre-celtic Pagans.

Kelsey will be teaching at Mercado Segrado for the Wildtender booth.

Wellness Den: Lead Coordinator

The Wellness Den at Spirit Weavers Gathering is a safe haven for emergency first aid of the body and spirit.  We are offering each woman an opportunity to support their immediate ailments and needs with Earth based plant medicine; extracts, syrups, topical salves, flower essences.  This includes a fully stocked pantry of western medical supplies.  At Spirit Weavers women have the opportunity to reconnect with traditional skills while living and sleeping close to the Earth for five days.  For many women this reintegration into nature can bring up everything, from practical discomforts of walking and dancing with bare feet, to digestive disrupt from eating a simple plant based diet, to emotional reintegration of feeling herself as a human-animal and part of the Earth.  We are prepared!  Our team of Clinical Western herbalists and a registered nurse arrives to be in service to you, with both plant based and westerns options.  We are honored to support our community in their healing and personal empowerment to use natural medicine! ~Kelsey, Heavy Nettle

Rewilding our Heart Connection Through Daily Practice

with Kelsey Barrett, Baelyn Elspeth & holistic chef Claire Ragozzino

Together we gather on the beautiful north shore of Kauai to cleanse our sense and elevate our receptivity through daily practice. Upon waking, we tune into being, and reconnect to the fundamental heart space of intimacy with our present moment. Through daily tea ceremony, sensory meditations, and Ayurvedic based wellness practices, we open our hearts and clear our minds to deeply listen to messages from the natural world. We will explore the pristine nature of Kauai and connect to the ancient spirit of her land with a traditional water ceremony and a visit to a local tea farm. These combines experience will enhance our ability to access the pleasure that arises in embracing nature as an extension of the self. Reawakening to our perfect expression as the elemental world.

Through the pulse we enter the body, we can access the story of each organ, the ancestral story, and story of current lifestyle.

In this workshop we will study the basics of neo-Classical pulse, an extension of the Ding lineage medical tradition reaching back to the early 17th century. We will learn hand placement, pulse positions and their corresponding organs systems, the three depths within each point. We will begin to interpret our sensory findings, helping us formulate questions that will sharpen the precision of our western herbal practice!

Reclaiming the Myth with Alchemy, Medicine stories, and Plant Medicine

This circle will satiate the souls of people who feel a connection with the witches who were burned at the stake or destroyed for the knowledge they held and used. We will begin with the telling of an ancient story and will weave the alchemy of working with tinctures and plant medicine wisdom to support the internal process. We will go through a group process of exploring where we are living in the mythology and exploring how to transform how we are living in our own stories.