Wild Heart Writing Retreat
with Mirabai Starr
Offer the lead of your story to the flames of creativity.
Taos, NM
May 23-May 27, 2024
You are invited to the high desert of magical New Mexico for our second annual Wild Heart Writing Retreat.
"When we offer the lead of our stories to the flames of creativity, alchemy happens, gold unfolds, our hearts are transformed and in turn our writing transforms the world."
-Mirabai Starr
Taos, NM
May 23-May 27, 2024
"The Wild Heart Writing Retreat was a nourishing experience where I felt fully held by a supportive, nonjudgemental community while still having the time and space to be with my inner experience."
-Erin A.
Find the freedom to speak your deepest truths
Join us for an intimate gathering in the magical high desert of New Mexico with five days of writing, practice, time in nature, delicious food and community connection.
"Sitting with Mirabai and receiving her potent transmissions both through her words and her presence changed my life."
-Jessica W.
Are you longing for creative tender space to write your story?
Would you like to generate a large quantity of writing over a short period?
Does the company of other people writing their story feel like refuge?
Is your wild heart ready to be revealed and witnessed?
Do you feel drawn to the magic of the high desert of New Mexico?
Yes!
"Writing as a spiritual practice honors our stories as holy and mysterious; sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrible. It is in the telling that they open us to a vast new inner landscape."
-Mirabai Starr
What to expect during the retreat...
Join us for five days of guided writing exercises, deep dialog, and practice in a serene atmosphere.
A small, intimate group experience including...
Writing
Each day we will dive into guided writing exercises and deep dialog with teachings from Mirabai about writing as a spiritual practice.
Dialogue
You will be able to share your work in small circles of soul companions and bear witness to the sacred creation of others.
Community
Take refuge in the company of other people experiencing loss and on a path of radical transformation.
Movement
Each morning we will practice Body Temple yoga and dance with Adriana, accessible to all bodies and abilities, as a way to set our bodies free and allow our creativity to move through us.
Chanting
Steep in sacred song with guided chants from Willow. These will weave naturally into our practice of expression with an invitation to inhabit your beautiful voice as a prayer, exactly as it is.
Tea Ceremony
In Tea Ceremony with Kat Mills Martin, you will be invited to learn from nature herself. The Way of Tea is a path of self-cultivation and living a wakeful life. Tea is a plant medicine that inspires calmness in the mind, nourishes the body, and awakens the heart.
Meditation
Grant access to your inner landscape with contemplative and embodied meditation practices.
Ready to astonish yourself and nourish the world with your words?
We welcome you to five days of connection as Mirabai shares teachings on writing as a spiritual practice and offers a series of guided exercises to help you access your authentic voice and tell the truths you may not have even realized have ripened inside you. You will be able to share your work in small circles of soul companions and bear witness to the beauty and bravery of others who are navigating the terrain of the wild heart.
Meet Mirabai
Mirabai Starr is an award-winning author of creative non-fiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature. She taught Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years and now teaches and speaks internationally on contemplative practice and inter-spiritual dialog. A certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss. Her latest book, WILD MERCY: Living the Fierce & Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, was named one of the “Best Books of 2019”. She lives with her extended family in the mountains of northern New Mexico.
"Mirabai invites us into a sacred encounter with the Divine while giving permission to trust our own hearts to lead the way. "
-Wendy B.
Our Retreat Team
(pictured left to right - Rosa Santoyo, Monika Denise Burkholder, Mirabai Starr, Willow Brook, Adriana Rizzolo, and Kat Mills)
Body Temple Movement with Adriana Rizzolo
Adriana will share her Body Temple Dance practices to help us integrate and celebrate. She will hold space for somatic healing, body tending and awakening our creativity. She has experience working with transforming trauma into purpose and has a strong space for both deep rest as well as energy activation. Through mantra, breath, movement and exploring the imagination, together we will deepen in soul love while embodying our humanness more fully. Adriana guides others in taking their role as leaders in the feminine healing arts, in which Mirabai has been a massive inspiration and teacher.
"No matter what your age, or if you have never danced in your life, Adriana's Body Temple Dance opened my body to a new way of loving. In one dance I began to open to my wisdom, my Crone, and my connection to Mother Earth. I felt FREE. I had come home to the joy of the wild ride to life."
Karin G
Sacred Song with Willow Brook
Willow will weave chanting and song from a multitude of sacred traditions into our retreat, offering a space of profound beauty. An earth loving educator, seeker, artist and friend on fire for love, truth and embodied liberation, Willow is the co-founder of Wild Heart and has led retreats with Mirabai since 2021. With a lifetime of experience on an interspiritual path and a decade of experience teaching in classrooms across the world, Willow brings devotional song and prayer into everything she does.
"Willow is indeed a tree of strength and grace. She has a way of creating order without hindering flow and spontaneity. She was a leader, and she was also a sister, allowing herself to see and be seen. Most of all, as I watched her beaming face leading us in song, unselfconscious and full of love, my own childlike joy in music-making was given back to me."
Christa W
Tea Ceremony with Kat Mills Martin
Kat Mills Martin is a filmmaker, writer, and facilitator of sacred spaces. She began her tea journey over a decade ago, and has been a grateful student of the Way of Tea ever since. Formally initiated in the Urasenke tradition, Kat was last student of tea master Sosei Shizuye Matsumoto, whom she studied with weekly until she passed away peacefully at the age of 103. As a perennial student of movement, meditation, and Indigenous healing, Kat continues to weave a web of creativity as a mystic and artist.
"The dancing was exuberant and body-freeing; the meditation-time had me sinking deep into the communal silence and the chanting resulted in a close-encounter of the Sufi type for me that I wrote about for the Salon."
-Rev. Gail U.
Access your authentic voice
"I feel softened, and I am ready to receive at a whole new level. I feel more alive in a different way."
-Heidi R.
"What has been significant for me in sharing this time with people is not only the information about the process of writing as a means of spiritual transformation, but also the beautiful people who come here to share their hearts."
- Tom C.
"Writing without knowing what might lie ahead is positively stunning. To see what shows up each time, that in and of itself is life changing."
- Leslie C.
Emerge with a revitalized connection to the core of your experience, and a fearless voice to tell about it.
By the end of our retreat, together we will have...
Created a body of writing you can shape into a finished piece
Generated a list of evocative prompts to be able to continue writing
Forged bonds of community connection
Laid down the burden of concealing and containing your real feelings
Learned songs, chants, meditations and body practices to integrate your life experience
Join Us
"Although the time spent writing was a beautiful gift to myself, the extended time singing in Kirtan is an experience I continue to carry in my heart. The embodied practices in Body Temple, ignited my imagination. I didn't expect to be crawling, growling and hissing like a leopard and flying like a raven, but that's what emerged."
-Susan P.
Where we will be...
We will gather at Hyperslow Retreat Center in Taos, NM surrounded by high desert mountains. On the edge of the Kit Carson Forest, and in the newly renovated Historic San Geronimo Lodge, you will have the opportunity to swim in the Chile Pepper shaped pool, walk the labyrinth, relax in the sauna, sit by the fire pit, explore the tranquil grounds, and enjoy homemade meals prepared with love.
Write your Story of Transformation with Mirabai
Shared Room & Bathroom
Sold Out
Private Queen Room & Private Bathroom
Sold Out
Private King Room & Private Bathroom
Sold Out
We look forward to welcoming you to the Wild Heart Writing Retreat!
Wild Heart acknowledges the systemic financial barriers of our society. Lower rates and limited financial support is available for people who experience marginalization.
All financial assistance has been given out for this retreat.
"For women mystics, contemplative life is not so much a matter of transcending the illusions of mundane existence or attaining states of perfect equanimity as it is about becoming as fully present as possible to the realities of the human experience."
-Wild Mercy by Mirabai Starr
Questions?
When do we arrive Thursday May 23rd?
What time is checkout on Monday, May 27th?
What will the food be like?
Is this gathering for people of all genders?
Is financial support available?
