A Winter Return

It might just need you to come back to yourself.

Retreats are one of my favorite things to lead. I've brought women to Tulum, Joshua Tree, and Sedona — and this time we're staying closer to home. Less time and money getting to where we need to go, and more energy for arriving to the place where we already are.

After the noise of the holidays and before the year gathers speed, we're disappearing to the wild coast of Point Reyes for three nights and four days of fire, movement, long walks, beautiful food, ritual, reflection, and the company of women.

This isn't a New Year's resolution retreat. We won't spend the weekend making lists of all the ways we should be thinner, richer, more productive, more disciplined, or somehow better by next January.

Instead, we're going to get quiet enough to ask something much more interesting: What do I actually want? Not what am I supposed to want. Not what would look impressive. Not what everyone else seems to be doing. What feels true now?

Imagine waking before the rest of the world.

Candles lit. Coffee brewing. Bare feet on the floor. Sunrise yoga while the January light begins to come through the windows. Slow breakfasts and long tables.

Hiking the wild Point Reyes coast — sometimes talking, sometimes walking quietly enough to hear yourself think. Somatic practices that help us notice what happens when the body says yes, no, not anymore, and I want more of this.

Afternoons with nowhere to be. A book by the fire. A nap. Tea. Journaling. A conversation you didn't know you needed.

We'll create a personal compass for the year ahead, make a little botanical medicine to carry home, write letters to our future selves, gather around fire, eat beautiful meals, pull cards, tell stories, laugh, move, rest, and probably drink some wine and dance in the kitchen.

There will be ritual here. But nothing you have to believe in. Think less New Year, New You. More women gathering in winter to remember what matters.

There is something powerful about saying what you want out loud — and having another woman hear you.

During the weekend, you'll be paired with a witness. Not an accountability partner. Nobody is texting you in February to ask whether you've been waking up at 5:30 a.m.

A witness is someone who knows what you chose. She knows what you want more of. She knows what tends to pull you away from yourself. And she can remind you of the woman who sat beside her in Point Reyes and said, This is what I want my life to look like.

And because four beautiful days shouldn't disappear the moment we drive home, our circle will gather virtually again throughout the year to reconnect with what we chose and with one another.