Women's Sacred Circle Retreat in Paradise
(with yoga, belly dancing, nature adventure and much much more!)

with Linda Wolf and Teri Copley

November 5 -13th, 2010
in Yelapa, Mexico

"The work Linda Wolf is doing could change the world" Jean Houston

(For Linda's bio, click here)

Since 2005, we have been offering our Women’s Sacred Circle Workshops & Retreats to rave reviews! We hold them at Casa Isabel, long considered the Jewel of Yelapa, and a magnet for Huichol Shamans and artists, long supported by the late Isabel Jordan, creator of this magical place. Casa Isabel is a garden paradise guesthouse & retreat center, which sits at the edge of a tropical jungle on a cliff overlooking an ocean with dolphins, whales, and manta rays. Sitting together in circle in the open air, under our Palapa roof, on balmy days and nights, we have a view of nature that is unparalled in Yelapa. The songs of birds and the sound of breezes flowing through the branches of giant avocado, mango, and strangler fig trees surround us. Because of its unique natural setting, open, flowing, and warm ambiance, secluded beach, and opportunity for privacy and comfort, Casa Isabel is the perfect location to do the inner work of Compassionate Listening and Sacred Circle.

Sacred Circle is one of the ineffables - what is most important and essential about Sacred Circle comes from shared feelings, emotions, life stories, and experiences developed in a deepening relationship to ourselves and each other, created by honoring everyone's humanity and agreements we make to hold confidentiality, non-judgment, complete support for the other, and take radical responsibility for all our perceptions. This is how we create "safe space" -- a space within which we can be intimate, authentic, and share even that which we feel will turn people away from us. It is there that we discover total self-love and the experience that we are whole, beautiful, worthwhile, and wanted exactly for who we are and where we're at. This is one of the most healing experiences we can give each other on this planet. Out of this, we discover that we are worth everything and truly have the power to choose what serves us, and recognize what our hearts truly long for.

Compassionate Listening™ is one of the most important skills we teach in all our circles. C.L. is a life-long spiritual practice that will alter your experience of all your relationships, starting with yourself. It is a skill you can take back home with you and use for the rest of your life. Compassionate Listening opens us to engage with ourselves, others, and the world in a vastly more positive, healing, and transformational way -- where suddenly what we fear, what triggers us, or what we feel ashamed of can become seen as gifts to help us grow. Doing Compassionate Listening in Sacred Circle is the heart of our Sacred Circle Retreat.

Loving Our Bodies In Motion:  Rooting our emotional and spiritual circle work in our bodies is a top priority of ours this November. We are thrilled to have Teri Copley leading us as we practice the sacred arts of centering, dancing and moving to the voices of our souls. A certified Nia and Zumba instructor, Teri has blended a lifelong practice of movement to create Bodies In Motion, an inspirational and enjoyable journey to love the body you were born into. Using a diversity of movement forms (classical and world dance, martial arts and yoga) with easy to follow instruction and beautiful music, we will channel our energy to empower our entire beings in an easy, relaxed way, while having a great time. 

Special Adventures: On days we’re not in circle, or taking time for ourselves, we’ll have planned special adventures. We'll visit the neighboring village of Pizota, which is an even smaller fishing village (only 26 families) just around the southern point of Yelapa, 10 minutes by boat. There we’ll be treated to a delicious lunch and possibly to a lesson in preparing corn tortillas from scratch and cooking them on an adobe stove. Conditions permitting, we will take you on a guided hike to "the secret waterfall," where the water is truly clean and we are totally secluded! We also plan to travel with our boatman and guide, Sev, to the beaches of the uninhabited Marietta Islands, one of the last two nesting grounds of the Blue-Footed Booby. (Bring your waterproof cameras!). Snorkeling there provides one with endless delights, and swimming there is quite a thrill for those who love the water. This is a highlight of our time together. If we're lucky enough to have the beach to ourselves, we can even skinny dip! (We have always been able to make these trips, but occasionally conditions may call for an alternate adventure.)

Deluxe Package: The Deluxe Package includes the following:

• Eight Nights Eco Lodging & all meals at Casa Isabel
• Sacred Circles facilitated by Linda Wolf
• Yoga, Zumba, Nia and Belly Dancing with Teri Copley at El Jardin
• Healthy lunch & dinner meals prepared by our on-site chef
• Presentation on the Huichol indigenous people of Mexico with Anna Fornishon
  
• Presentation on local medicinal plants & herbs with Alicia (if time permits)
  
• Brunch at La Bahia in Yelapa
  
• Day trip to the Marietta Islands (uninhabited wildlife refuge, pristine beaches, home of the Blue-Footed Boobie. Our guide and friend Sev catches local fish and prepares fresh ceviche for our enjoyment!)
• Day trip to our favorite waterfall. Tucked into a little-visited jungle ravine, this beautiful waterfall forms an ideal swimming hole--wide, deep, cool, and clean. Includes fresh fish lunch with fresh coconuts, freshly caught fish, homemade guacamole & salsa, and handmade corn tortillas in the fishing village of Pizota.
• *Baggage transfer from the boat to your room and back to the boat upon departure*
• All tips for guides, porters, and housekeepers
• *By Arrangement in advance

• Optional (not covered in package): Massage, Acupressure, Paragliding, Reiki, Watsu, Spanish language class, photography lesson with Linda Wolf (if time permits), sweat lodge, Huichol Shamanic Healing Treatment, Day-Spa Services.
  

Our Meals in Yelapa are lovingly prepared and come from local providers. We use as many organic and local products in our preparations as possible. Fresh fish, homemade black beans and rice, fresh corn tortillas, salsa, guacamole, chili rellenos, salads, steamed vegetables, and an array of delicious choices of natural fruits, nuts, juices, coffee, teas, and local desserts, all made with care, love, and patience. Vegan, and vegetarian options, as well as all attempts to work with your particular dietary constraints, are availabe as well.

Packages do not include the following costs: airfare; ground taxi / transfer to & from airport to the pier in Puerto Vallarta; water taxi to & from Yelapa;  alcoholic beverages; massage / bodywork; Huichol shamanic healing treatments;  As departure and arrival plans vary, we will work with you to arrange baggage assistance and water taxi transportation, as needed. We'll give you all the information and assistance you need to get from the airport to Yelapa and back! Please use the contact link above if you have specific questions or concerns.

Fitness Requirements: Both Yelapa and Casa Isabel, as well as our day-trip adventures, require you have good to excellent health and stamina, including the capacity to walk up and down as many as 200 steps per day, sometimes more than once or twice. Howver, we've had participants from 18 - 80 years old in our circles -- even one woman with two artificial knees! If you've been wanting more exercise, you'll surely get it! However, if you're feeling sore or even if you're not, you can avail yourself of one of the many talented local bodywork practicioners whose prices are far better than we're used to in most North American cities. For people signing up for the Full Package, you will receive a 1/2-hour treatment from one of the most sought after practicioners in Yelapa, as part of your stay.

Living Conditions to Consider:

Casa Isabel is located in the jungle on the edge of the Bay of Banderas. Accommodations are open-air, rustic, and close to nature. Each house has a kitchen with stove and refrigerator, composting toilet, comfy beds with mosquito nets, and most of the amenities that you’d expect at any retreat center. Towels, linens, drinking water are provided. However, there are no phones, computers, radios or TVs in the rooms.  (There is a phone in the main house for emergency use and most cell phones work on the property). In our experience, the water quality at the beach at Casa Isabel and in the Bay of Banderas has been good. The water is tested regularly throughout the year. During the rainy season there are occasionally issues with runoff causing poorer water quality.

Living close to nature brings us more deeply in touch with our own wild nature and the wilderness in our own spirits. It provides enormous pleasure, awe and can also cause us to have to confront our fears as well as pay attention to possible hazzards. The presence of scorpions, jellyfish, ticks (non-lyme), stingrays, intense sun, uneven footing on rocky trails requires mindfullness and care. We have never had injuries, scorpion stings or other health issues among our participants, but these hazzards are ever present and need to be recognized.

Yelapa also offers us tremendous opportunities outside our scheduled times -- through resting, reading, hiking, swimming, dancing, paragliding, and simply being, we revitalize. There are kayaks availble for our use and a beach right at our doorstep. Depending upon the year, there may be an Internet Cafe, but this may be a time to be offline! Cell phones do work in some places in Yelapa! If you're someone who enjoys speaking Spanish, the locals love conversation and even make an effort to understand our worst efforts!

At night, in Yelapa, there is much to do to shake out our bodies and rattle our souls! Always dancing and music! And walks on the beach under the stars or a midnight swim in the phosphorescence. Then, sleep to the sounds of the crickets and tropical forest creatures and the music flowing across the Bay. In the morning you'll wake to the sounds of dozens of birds, the hooves of horses on the stone paths, the calls of the fishermen, and the children playing or on their way to the school "upriver," where an hour hike will bring you to Christina's Vegan Restaurant --- itself quite a novelty locate on the river, with a bathroom & toilet up in a funky treehouse! And further on the waterfall in Yelapa.

Yelapa, nominated by Sunset Magazine as "one of the top ten places to see before you die," has long been a favorite destination for artists, musicians, hippies, backpackers, beatniks, and other counter-culture folks who were drawn by the "back to nature" reality of no electricity, no cars, no streets, no roads, and the easy-going attitude towards all things free. Now Yelapa has electricity (most of the time!), but there is still the same free-flowing feeling and no cars, no streets, no roads, plus an indigenous Mexican culture where you can still find indoor adobe tortilla stoves, and a natural environment with the greatest bio-diversity, second only to the Amazon Rainforest.

Huichol Shamans and Artists: The Huichol or Wixáritari (or "peyote people," as they are often called) are an indigenous ethnic group of western central Mexico, living in the Sierra Madre mountain range in the Mexican states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Durango. Over the past 40 years, the late Isabel Jordan, founder of Casa Isabel, befriended and supported many Huichol shamans and artists by purchasing their artwork and jewelry, as well as participating in their religious and spiritual rituals at sacred sites in the Sierra Madre Mountains. I, Linda, was privileged to attend a sacred ceremony in the San Andreas Mountains with Isabel one year, and given the right to photograph it. You can see some of these images on the slideshow listed below. Today, Casa Isabel has a virtual museum of Huichol art and a small collection of art & jewelry for sale. If shamans are visiting Yelapa, you might be able to purchase a treatment.

Traveling in Jalisco, Mexico is easy.  Most locals either speak English or make a great attempt to understand poor Spanish. The peso is 13-14 to the dollar (tipping with US or Canadian dollars is a kindness to the locals). Airlines are offering great deals, and there are many direct flights to Puerto Vallarta.

We hope you will join us for another unforgetable experience in Circle in Yelapa. If you need to speak with a real person or two about this, don't hesitate to call us at 206-842-3000. You can also email Genevieve, who will be glad to help you figure out the details - genevieve@teentalkingcircles.org.

Click here to watch the Youtube movie about yelapa and women's sacred circles, led by Linda Wolf
YouTube Movie

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

Refunds
If you must cancel your trip, a cancellation fee will apply. Cancellations must be received in writing or by email. The following cancellation fees apply:

• 90 days or more: $400 will be retained;
• 30 – 90 days: 75% of the trip cost will be retained, unless you find someone to take your place
• Less than 30 days and “no-shows”: We’re sorry, but we cannot provide any refund in this case, due to the nonrefundable reservations we are locked into at this stage of the journey.

If We Cancel a Trip: We reserve the right to cancel a trip due to critical issues that would cause us not to be able to fulfill our responsibilities  (which we’ve never had to do), or if we do not receive a minimum of 4 registrations (we’ve never had to do this either, but you never know!). In such a case, we will refund your payments minus $200. If you have already purchased your ticket and we have to cancel the trip for any reason, airfare will be refunded according to the policy of the air carrier. For this reason, we recommend travelers insurance.
 
Travelers Insurance: We encourage participants to purchase travel insurance, which generally includes: trip cancellation, baggage, medical and/or emergency evacuation insurance. No one ever intends to cancel their trip; however, unforeseen circumstances can change travel plans. Baggage may be lost or damaged, and some medical insurance (including Medicare) will not provide coverage outside the U.S. For a modest price, protection can be provided for these and other concerns. Please check with a travel agent of your choice or there are many reputable companies on-line.