Retreats & Events
Embodied Pathways:
An introduction to Somatic Practice & Facilitation.
This four day residential retreat is entitled EMBODIED PATHWAYS: an introduction to Somatic Practice & Facilitation.
Friday 24 – Monday 27th October 2025 – £795
It is designed for yoga practitioners & teachers, dancers, movement educators,
bodyworkers, healers, artists, psychotherapists with an interest in Somatic Practice… and
you.
The aim of the retreat is to create opportunities for you to deeply explore your current movement practice, becoming more intimately familiar with your body as SOMA, the body-subject which directly experiences itself as a moving, breathing, feeling, cognitive and spiritual ‘being in process’.
It is part of the intuitive shift happening among the Western yoga, dance and physio community, away from the rigid bio-mechanical model of teaching ‘correct’ alignment and adjustment (out of fear), toward a pedagogy and therapeutic approach encouraging adaptive and organic expression, grounded in surrender and trust, both of ourselves, and our students/ clients. This represents a return to original intention of those transcendent movement practices, as a journey of the self, through and by the self, to the Self.
We will draw on varied modalities to support our inquiry, including traditional Hatha Yoga Asana (postures), Pranayama (yogic breathing), and meditation, as well as emergent Somatic Practice of unstructured, spontaneous movement, dance, the use of breath, voice & sound, and somatic touch. Extensive use of journaling, art making, and personal creative practice as part of the reflective and integrative process is encouraged.
The workshop offerings are designed to support your own personal deep resting, sense of becoming and unbecoming, and journey of healing and transformation. In addition, they are an invitation into the relational field, and the power of collective inquiry. Some sessions will be designed for solo exploration, others for working within a partnership or group dynamic. Whether, when, and how you chose to participate in any and all of the workshops is entirely up to you – session to session, moment to moment.
Being immensely privileged to offer this work at such an ecologically and topographically rich location, there is the possibility that some sessions may be outdoors, where we explore moving in nature, and our relationship with the Anima Mundi, or World Soul. We will also be bringing elements of the outdoors in, with workshops exploring embodied imagination, creativity and ritual making.
There will be a strong theme of relating to ourselves through a lens of compassionate inquiry – slowing down, learning to recognise the voice of our inner critic, and the voice of the body-mind-imagination that we may have silenced. In doing so, we welcome whatever sensations, emotions, history or narrative may arise – without analysis or pathology. By tending this way to our emergent experience, we can learn to integrate and release what needs releasing, and be awake to possibilities for newness and change.
The main areas we will cover are:
● Structured & Spontaneous Movement
● Breath, Voice & Sound
● Somatic Touch & Bodywork
● Identifying, Tracking & Mapping (sensation, movement & holding patterns)
● Compassionate Inquiry vs Corrective Pathology
● Witnessing Self & Other (including the more than human world)
● Creative Practice, Embodied Story & Ritual Making
Enquiries & Booking
Where Are We?
The retreat is located at Llwynerwermoed Estate, former Royal Duchy residence of His Majesty King Charles 3rd. Sat on the Western Edge of the Bannau Brecheiniog, just outside of Llandovery, this exclusive location is secluded in almost 200 acres of private countryside, with the Beacons in the background, we will have access to woodland, water, meadow, and mountains. Surrounded by this wild landscape, at the turning of the season, you cannot refuse the invitation to rest, reflect and reconnect.
Between sessions you will be able to walk the walled gardens, enjoy the abundant orchard, stroll by the stream, watch the woodland leaves change, and soak in the starlight in this Dark Sky Reserve!
The venue accommodation comprises three luxurious courtyard cottages, with comfortable bedrooms sleeping two or three, bath and shower, log burning stove, and private gardens. Breakfasts will be provided for you to take at leisure here.
A fully catered vegetarian, gluten free menu will be provided for lunch and dinner. If you have any other dietary requirements please let us know upon booking. Lunch and dinner will be served communally in the main hall.
There is studio space indoors and out for movement and sound baths, and a separate space for Massage and Complementary Therapy Treatments which must be booked separately – ideally before arrival so our therapist can manage her schedule.
If you are booking with a friend and would like to stay in the same cottage, please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate you.
A Rough Itinerary:
Our time together will be spaciously structured in a way that promotes both focused attention to our experience, and adequate time to digest and reflect. The “unknown” and “as yet” nature of somatic inquiry requires gentle holding, that being said, a securely held boundary around the time and place of our workshops exists to protect that deep work. Early mornings are your own to ease into the day, breakfast, journal, walk etc.
10am Morning Workshop (Arrive 09.30 on Friday)
11.30am Break
12-1.30pm Workshop
1.30-3pm Lunch
3-5pm Afternoon Workshop (5pm close on Monday)
Dinner
7-8.30pm Evening Workshop (Breathwork/ Meditation/ Relaxation)
Payment Options
The price for the 4 day residential course including accommodation, catering, and all workshop materials is £795.
Massage & Complementary Therapies incur an additional cost.
If you are experiencing financial barriers to access, please email me detailing your circumstances as far as you are comfortable and we may be able to offer a discretionary reduction.
If you would like to sponsor someone experiencing financial barriers to access in part or whole, please email me also.
A Non Refundable deposit of £275 is required at time of booking.
The remaining balance can be paid in full or in installments by Sept 1st 2025.
No deferrals or refunds will be offered after this date.
Payment to
Rebecca Bond (Body & Earth Holistics)
Account number: 17466867
Sort code: 04-06-05
Further contact details:
Bodyandearthbookings@gmail.com
07926 794806
Body & Earth Holistics 32 High Street Crickhowell NP8 1BE