Heart of the West
A Creative Retreat for Women
July 25th - July 28th
"You quiet yourself not so much through effort, but through something much more tender and deep. That is a willingness to step outside of our identity to walk in the mountains or to sit quietly; mostly just to stop and have a conversation with your heart in some way."
-Jack Kornfield
Heart of the West will invite participants to gather together in community and creative practice, to focus our hearts and bodies on slowing down and listening. As summer flows through the Centennial Valley, we will pay deep attention to our most profound longings for connection, storytelling, and artistic expression. As we invite our souls into this time and place, we'll create a container for our relationships to the vast landscape and our capacities for witnessing ourselves as artists, storytellers, and humans in all of our dimensions. Together we will play, write, paint, draw, move, and hold sacred space for gently exploring our passions, griefs, and connections to one another and the earth.
*Anyone who identifies as a woman is welcome!
Itinerary
-
2-4 pm: Arrival/Exploration
4 pm: Welcome/Introduction
5-6 pm: Yoga and grounding practice
*All levels welcome throughout retreat, no previous experience necessary
6:30 pm: Dinner
7:30 pm: Evening gathering and meditation
-
7:00-8:00 am: Yoga and grounding practice
8:15-9:00 am: Breakfast
9:00-11:30 am: Plein Air Watercolor Workshop - Landscape
Noon: Lunch
1:30-4:00 pm Writing the Landscape I Workshop
4:00-6:00 pm: Free time/Work time
6:00 pm: Dinner
7:00 pm: Evening gathering and mindfulness walk
-
7:00-8:00 am: Yoga and grounding practice
8:15-9:00 am: Breakfast
9:00-11:30 am: Plein Air Watercolor Workshop - Subject
Noon: Lunch
1:30-3:30 pm Writing the Landscape II Workshop
4:00-6:00 pm: Free time/Work time
6:00 pm: Dinner
7:00 pm: Evening gathering and sharing circle
-
7:00-8:00 am: Optional yoga and grounding practice
8:15-9:00 am: Breakfast
9:00-10:30 am: Nature Journaling and Illustration Workshop
10:30-11:45 Free time/Work time/Pack Up
11:45 Closing Circle
Noon: Departure w/ packed lunch available
Itinerary is subject to change.
Meet Your Artist Facilitators
Katie Shepherd Christiansen
Katie Shepherd Christiansen is an artist, writer, naturalist, mindfulness guide, and mother. She is Artist-in-Residence at the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative (Jackson, WY) and editor and illustrator of the book The Artist's Field Guide to Yellowstone. She holds a master’s degree from Yale’s School of the Environment, where she studied as a Wyss Conservation Scholar for the American West.
Katie’s intricate wildlife portraits, nature writing, and hand-painted maps appear in books, galleries, and on natural area interpretive resources across the Greater Yellowstone. She has worked in collaboration with institutions including the National Endowment for the Arts (two-time grant recipient), Jackson Hole Public Art, the City of Bozeman, Ucross Foundation, AMB West Ranches, and National Geographic. Katie is principal of Coyote Art & Ecology, which missions to inspire meaningful connection to the natural world, to the benefit of all people and wildlife, through collaborative conservation, education, and art initiatives. Informed by her studies of meditation and philosophy, Katie infuses her interpretive art installations with themes of mindfulness and living in harmony with the natural world. Above all, Katie’s most beloved role is as the mother to her two young children.
Molly Damm
Molly Damm is a writer, therapist, yoga teacher, and lecturer at Montana State University in Bozeman. She is the author of the poetry collection Ground-truth (Finishing Line Press, 2018), and her poems have appeared in the Colorado Review, Western Humanities Review, Thayer, and elsewhere. She received her Masters in Counseling from Montana State University. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns fellow in poetry.
Molly is passionate about creating opportunities for individuals and groups to reconnect to themselves and landscapes. She believes in the healing potential of creativity, movement, and relationships, and facilitates yoga and writing practice in this spirit. Molly endeavors to create safe, accessible spaces in which to feel seen and inspired are the primary goals. She cares about the slow, intentional melding of breath to movement, and re-integrating joy and deep connection into our everyday lives.
Erin Hilgendorf : Our Culinary Artist
Erin Hilgendorf is a creative and healing arts mentor who believes in the power to heal. She believes we all innately desire to feel our best and health is the cohabitation between the physical nature of one’s experience, how the mind perceives it, and what we choose to integrate. It is her personal and professional goal to learn the stories we live by, support the possibility to re-write them, and share what drives vitality.
“You are the story you tell yourself, you have the power to do the things that define who you are, and to actively pursue the lifestyle you want.” - Chad Kellogg (1971-2014)
She has over a decade of education in the fields of clinical herbalism, holistic nutrition, integrative and natural medicine, polarity energetics, sustainable living, and movement arts including yoga and dance. She is a self-taught chef and sees cooking as one of her creative art expressions. She is passionate about integrating these modalities into sustainable and practical lifestyle rituals that create a simple way of being in harmony with ourselves and the natural world.
Erin can be contacted at hello@integrativechef.com and seen locally in her community and the mountains of Bozeman, Montana. Be sure to say hello!
Retreat Price: $1,495
Reserve your spot via the button below.