Women Who See In The Dark Guatemala
APRIL 7-13, 2024
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Imagine...
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A circle of women gathering to rejuvenate, celebrate and explore their untapped creative power.
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A week in paradise held in a luxury retreat space on the shores of the most beautiful lake in the world.
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Nurturing practices designed to restore your inner peace combining darkness meditation, dreamwork, art and creative expression.
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Deep inquiry through tantric and shadow integration practices.
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Delicious healthy meals, yin yoga, saunas, hot tubs, hammocks and divine accommodation.
∞ WHAT'S INCLUDED ∞
DARKNESS MEDITATIONS
Stillness and silence are key values of this retreat. Women’s vitality and creativity requires pause from overwhelming to-do lists. By bathing our eyes in darkness, we are able to relax deeply, rejuvenate our nervous systems and brain chemistry. Melatonin production changes and our natural receptivity returns. The reactive pattern to grab and cling to external forms recedes as our inner vision reasserts itself.
Consumer culture bombards our senses, especially our vision. The beauty of starting and ending each day of this delicious women’s retreat with darkness meditation, eyes open - helps reset the neurology and chemistry of the body bit by bit.
MASCULINE INTEGRATION
Our part as women is not only to love ourselves but to reorient ourselves to love & respect rather than emasculate men.Toxic programming about men can dampen our vision and perpetuate conflict. The Women Who See in the Dark Retreat is a unique offering for women designed to shift ourselves and our relationship to men by undertaking initiations for our own inner masculine. This path brings immense insights, deep integration and a flowering of authenticity and intimacy with our brothers.
What We'll Explore:
∞ Identifying and integrating our inner masculine.
∞ Learning to penetrate the shadow with love.
∞ Expanding capacity for presence and witnessing without judgement.
∞ Sacred Sexuality Teachings
Yin Yoga
Yin Yoga is a powerful yet passive style and practice that supports deep nourishment to the body through longer holds and deeper breaths resulting in more stillness and expanded awareness. We will begin and end most days with 30 minute yin yoga sessions.
Benefits include:
∞ balance emotions ∞ improve flexibility ∞stretch connective tissue ∞boost circulation ∞improve sleep ∞ enhance mental focus ∞ promote relaxation ∞develop breath awareness ∞heal injuries
LUCID DREAMING TEACHINGS
Lucid dreaming is the art of becoming conscious within your dreams. That "aha" moment when you awaken inside a dream while you are still asleep! You can then interact and direct the dream at will. Normal rules of reality do not apply.
Developing lucidity in dreams is an ancient mystical discipline - a gateway that develops and sharpens your awareness. It is also a great developer of your shamanic capacities allowing you to cross levels of consciousness.
What We'll Explore:
∞ The benefits of lucid dreaming and mindfulness of dream and sleep.
∞ Dream Journaling Practices to help recognise your lucidity triggers.
∞ Decoding your dreams to reveal what they are trying to tell you.
∞ Awakening inside your dreams and begin mastering the lucid state.
∞ Accessing the healing capacities of conscious dreaming.
SHADOW INTEGRATION
Each day we look at an archetype and explore its shadow. Our culture is afraid of death, darkness, and pausing. It doesn’t value its place or honours its links to the cycle of rebirth. Instead, we tend to focus on increase and accumulation at all costs. Anything that is linked to decrease usually triggers deep-seeded fear. By exploring archetypes such as the Victim, Rescuer, and Seducer we uncover our strategies to cling to increase. Piercing these shadows brings harmony, freedom and a resurgence of life force.
CREATIVITY
Many of us have lost touch with our inner artist. Together we'll reclaim our unlimited access to manifestation through play. We will reconnect through spontaneous expression. Women innately know to gather and heal by sharing their journeys while crafting with their hands.
The act of creation enables us to explore and understand our experiences in a symbolic way, supporting emotional awareness and empowering our resilience. Through creativity we will uncover lost parts and vision ourselves anew.
What We'll Explore:
∞ Dance
∞ Intuitive Drawing
∞ Storytelling
∞ Archetypal Theatre
UNMASKING
What lies behind our personas? Being strong and independent often disguises desire and pain. Under the mask of auto-sufficiency, fear and competition grow. In truth, emotional values are not recognized, and vulnerability is hidden behind the need to prove strength.
What We'll Explore:
∞ Identifying our self-sabotaging strategies.
∞ Accessing empowered authenticity.
∞ Practicing self-responsibility and integrity.
Blue Lotus Tea & Sound Healing Ceremony
Blue Lotus is a non-psychoactive plant that enhances relaxation and is known to promote vivid dreams. We will combine blue lotus tea with a sound ceremony of singing bowls and gongs to enhance our meditation and connection to the non-physical realm.
This is a special evening offering to deepen our exploration of our third eye chakra.
This retreat is a dive into the self, a reclamation! A dive into the shadow, expressing and integrating what has been suppressed and understanding the freedom in that. Reconnecting with the power of the yoni, and tapping into your full unapologetic expression. Tuning into your many archetypes and pouring light and awareness to their strategies and seductions. This retreat offers you a way into deep connection and conversations with the inner parts of you, as you go into the subconscious mind, tap into your old patterns and victim tendencies and alchemize it all into love, power, play, and dance.
This offering has enriched my life in mysterious ways, in deep layers that continue to unfold in perfect timing. It is a piercing look at the strategies we use to manuipulate and seduce the world to get our needs met. And through both dissolving into darkness and full body creative expression.
Hear from Participants
The Daily Journey
Each day centers around a core question. This inquiry leads to deep reflections answered through an expressive process - poems, theatre, touch, dance, art and storytelling. These daily activities are framed by a morning and evening Darkness Meditation, yin yoga class and Community Dream Work. Different nourishing, restorative practices are sprinkled throughout the week to allow digestion of what is being revealed.
Early morning
Movement & Stillness ~ Awakening subtle body channels through meditation & yin yoga
Morning
Electricity & Magnetism ~ Recognizing dark masculine and feminine archetypes, their wisdom & resources.
Mid-day
Emptiness & Fullness ~ Nourishing the body with a delicious menu & time to rest in nature.
Afternoon
Inquiry & Revelations ~ Discovering what is ready to unfold through creativity
Themes for exploration include Blood Mysteries, Beyond Fairy Tales, Honoring Creative Power, Saint &Whore, moving through evolving archetypes
Dinner
Vertical & Horizontal ~ Enjoying tastes, scents, touch, sounds, colors, opening the senses...
Evenings
Expression & Introspection ~ Sharing with transparent honesty while listening in spaciouness. Sauna, Hot tub, Yin Yoga, Sound healing
Into the Night
Vision & Expansion ~ Activating the third-eye with Dream rituals & Darkness Meditation
Now - Calls for remembering...
∞ Intention - Individually and collectively.
∞ Integration - Inviting the masculine to dance within.
∞ Vibrancy - Igniting the heart and soul within our body channel.
∞ Power - Facing the shadows
∞ Love - The space from where all arises.
∞ Vision - Within we SEE that which is REAL
∞ Your Guide ∞
Araminta Barbour
Araminta is a Lead Facilitator with The International School of Temple Arts (ISTA), Founder of The Sanctuary Guatemala, and co-founder of the Women Who See in The Dark retreats. She has guided intensive, transformational retreats in 25 countries specialising in tantric shamanic teachings, and sacred sexuality. Guatemala and Lake Atitlan has been her home for 17 years.
"My life's path has been shaped most deeply from the sudden death of a partner when I was 19 and the deep grief, travel, and questioning of collective beliefs that his loss led me to.
I now support people to transform painful experiences into power, heal from parental and relationship wounding, step-free from sexual or emotional abuse, and navigate the psychological hurdles to self-acceptance, self-belief, and self-love. My deeper focus is awakening to expansive levels of Self untangled from collective consciousness."
Araminta utilizes skills from Meditation, Non-dual Spirituality, Shamanism, Sacred Sexuality, Tantra, Breathwork, Yoga, Bodywork, Shadow Integration, Evolutionary Astrology, Emotional Release, and Initiatory rituals. Her teachings aim to bring together the tools and maps that reactivate our full human capacities. Araminta’s core passion is the process of radical self-acceptance – the inner marriage of love with power.
"In 2016, Komala Lyra and I launched Women Who See in The Dark as the ultimate retreat we always wanted to take. A mixture of resourcing ourselves with profound depth of enquiry. This event has been hosted around the world. It now returns to Guatemala where it was seeded and is updated with new Lucid Dreaming teachings to further our inner work with our subconscious."
Special Guests:
Araminta will be accompanied throughout the week by Robin Kempe, our Yin Yoga Facilitator, and we will delight in a special evening sound healing and blue lotus ceremony. Additional sessions can be booked with the professional body-workers, acupuncturists and healers in your lunch breaks.
Learn More About Araminta∞ Yin Yoga & Sound Ceremony Facilitator ∞
Robin Kempe
Robin is a mystical weaver of the esoteric tapestry, a conscious yoga maestra who blends profound wisdom of the transpersonal and shamanic realms with the corporeal knowledge of anatomy and the spiritual doctrines of yoga. Her teachings are an alchemy of mindful breathwork and restorative yin asanas, interlaced with the intuitive art of energy healing, resonant sound, magical teachings of the oracles and the enchanting power of mythos to kindle the inner flame, unfurl the heart’s petals, diving deep into the mystery of being and guide the soul on its odyssey to a sanctuary of completeness, serenity, and empowerment. With a heart anchored in self-love, authentic being, and communion with the natural world, she invites us to our daily prayer.
Before this retreat there were parts of myself I was running away from. After, I left feeling grounded, powerful, and with a sense of "everything is okay." I now feel acceptance of the ugly and weak parts in me. Before, I didn't understand how happiness and the masculine could live in the same universe and I left this retreat welcoming the masculine into my heart and not seeing it as a threat to happiness anymore. I have a deeper connection to my dreams and a trust that my unconscious has all the answers I am looking for, I don't need to look outside of me. I recommend this retreat to everyone that can give themselves this gift of learning from an incredible woman, amongst powerful women, in a the beautiful Lake Atitlan. - Tanai
WWSITD wasn't an experience where I came to change or improve something in myself, it was a retreat where I shed light on stories, fears, strengths and voices in myself and I got to meet them with love and acceptance, and therefore having so much compassion for myself and the people in my life.
Taking time to look into what I've been storing as shadows and unpacking it under your guidance triggered powerful changes in the way I experience life. I am more present, open, aware and compassionate.
Forever grateful!
The beauty of sisterhood, the extraordinary magic of the feminine, the need for inner masculine/feminine balance, the power of slowing down, and creative ways of accessing and expressing our ancestral stories.
This event will bring a very deep meaning that will grow inside you like a seed.
OUR VENUE
∞ Villa Sumaya, Lake Atitlán, Guatemala ∞
Guatemala is a jewel in Central America - unknown to most - and we welcome the chance to support your exploration of this beautiful land and its rich culture while journeying deeply into your essential qualities and gifts. Araminta has been holding trainings annually here since 2012, honored to be partnering with the world-class eco-retreat Villa Sumaya on the shores of stunning Lake Atitlán. Surrounded by three striking volcanoes and over 1,000 feet deep, this magnificent lake’s beauty is encapsulated in the meaning of the Mayan word Atitlán: “the place where the rainbow gets its colors.”
Villa Sumaya offers us one of the most luxurious hospitality experiences in Guatemala, and is the perfect spot for engaging in this life-changing journey in a comfortable, magical and natural setting. There is a solar hot tub permanently available for you to soak and relax, as well as a fire-lit hot tub and sauna which are open on selected evenings.
Villa Sumaya’s restaurant offers a splendid view of the lake, and a blend of local and international vegetarian cuisine. All food is carefully prepared and almost entirely locally sourced. The center operates in a sustainable, ecologically and socially engaged way.
Reserve Your Place
DATES: APRIL 7-13, 2024
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Accommodation: 6 Nights 7 Days shared accommodation at eco-wellness retreat Villa Sumaya (5* on Trip Advisor)
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Deluxe Meals: Three full vegetarians meals per day (option to add chicken or fish)
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Sauna
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Hot Tub
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Beverage Bar: Unlimited herbal teas, coffee and purified water service
- Venue Amenities: Lush gardens, hammocks, pool access, yoga equipment and deck.
- Travel Support: Detailed arrival and departure travel support, hotel recommendations and suggested adventures to add on to your trip.
- Staff tips and all taxes
ADDITIONAL COSTS:
- Flights and travel costs to and from the venue
- Optional spa treatments
- Optional upgrade to deluxe private suite $500USD
∞ Standard price: $2,297 USD (final spaces)
∞ Guatemalan National Price: $1,797
∞ Guatemalan Resident (w/ DPI) $1,997 USD
∞ Assistant Price: $1,997 USD (3 spaces) -
APPLY HERE
(To apply to assist you must be a graduate of ISTA or WWSITD)
∞ Deposit: $597 USD
Woman who See in the Dark is a magical event, filled with really special beings, activities, experiences, discoveries that were really profound to my healing journey. It was exactly what I needed at the right time that provided me with the tools that will help me to further expand my consciousness so that I can really BE out in the world.
Drawing on the beauty and magic of sisterhood, creative expression, and ritual, Women Who See In The Dark is a deep dive into the inner masculine and feminine. Powerful explorations take you through ancestral legacies, your conditioning and survival patterns, and how you show up in life and relationship.
What is the accommodation like?
Is Lake Atitlan safe?
What about dietary needs?
What if I need to cancel?
How do I get to the venue?
How do I contact you?
What about Covid-19?
What if I have mobility issues?
Hear from Participants
Are you looking to:
∞ Transform with an intimate group of sisters.
∞ Deactivate patterns of conditioning that hold you back from the fullness of body-heart-soul expression.
∞ Dissolve inner separations and contractions between masculine and feminine energetic qualities independent of gender definition, integrating their dance at a personal and collective level.
∞ Embark on an inner adventure, using erotic awakening as creative power.
∞ Dive into darkness, releasing fear, shame, taboo.
∞ Receive a fresh outburst of creative power overflowing into expressions of love, freedom, and uniqueness.
∞ Embrace your creativity ~ expression ~ emptiness.
Yes! I'm coming
I am stepping more into my power and releasing old patterns and structures that had created more contraction and stagnate energy. I am leaning into my edges and facing them head on with love and compassion. I appreciated the de-armoring practices and becoming more light and open for the gifts and pleasures of this world. Tuning into daily awareness activities and checking in with myself now, my inner masculine, feminine, and tending to their needs and no longer seeking external validation. I loved journaling my dreams and analyzing the powerful information given to me in that realm. And trusting in the power of sisterhood and circling.
I appreciated concentrating more on my dreams/dreaming; having more conversations between my inner personalities; some pictures in my life became clear finally, as some last puzzle pieces got into place, so it gave me a new perspective. I overwrote some stories. The retreat helped me understand more my family dynamics; and with this new understanding I feel more powerful and more capable to face my family of origin in the future, and my life's challenges excites me, instead of filling me up with fear.
There is a creative power that lives within...
Hear from Participants
ASTARA OLIVIA SARAH
People in my regular life have told me I seem lighter since the retreat. And I feel lighter. Things don’t get me down as easily, I’m able to take a step back and see where others are stuck and have such compassion for them rather than judgment; I also feel more self-compassion and less fear of other humans/human interactions. - A, 2024
I am so grateful for what this week illuminated within my system. Joyful to say my relationship with the masculine in my life has transformed in such a beautiful way from diving into this inner work. Araminta, the resources you shared on archetypes are soo insightful! - Olivia, 2024
I learned to surrender in my body, heart and mind which continues to bring freedom to my life every day since this retreat. I feel I have access to more choice and more ways of being and more relationship with my divine masculine and feminine which is restorative, cathartic and really fulfills my most important value in life - to be continually growing and evolving.
