Woodland Wellbeing Retreats for Women

‘Sensing Landscape’ is an approach to landscape painting that uses expressive mark-making to capture the sensory experience of being immersed in nature. Laurel will lead you through a series of creative exercises that enhance your sense of connection to place, and support you to translate those feelings into artworks. Laurel Gallagher studied Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University and Art and Design Education at Oxford Brookes and the Institute of Education, London. She is co-director of Urban Wilderness, an arts organisation based in Stoke-on-Trent, and practices as a painter under the name Feral State.

"Flowers are the music of the ground. From earth's lips, spoken without sound." Edwin Curran. 

Getting creative can have great benefits for everyone, no matter what age we are. It can help you to relax and calm the mind - re-focusing thoughts from worrying and stress. It’s also often a way to lift your mood and release 'happy endorphins', creating a sense of achievement.

Faye is a Derbyshire-based florist who has several years of experience in running creative sessions using flowers and foliage. Spending time making a Flower crown or headpiece during this outdoor session, using all-natural materials, is a great way of connecting with nature, and an opportunity to get creative and have fun.

Experience a deep, relaxing, and powerful sound meditation with gongs and other percussion instruments. Masha Bennett has completed a Master of Science in Therapeutic Practice for Psychological Trauma. She travels around the world as a Master Trainer of Trainers in Emotional Freedom Techniques. She has years of experience and extensive training in cognitive-behavioural therapy, hypno-psychotherapy, stress management and addiction treatment. 

Natalie's yoga practice is rooted in Hatha, Ashtanga and Iyengar Yoga. A deep love of nature and its healing abilities, the seasons, and the moon, also inspire her yoga offerings. All classes include pranayama, asanas, visualisation, and relaxation. She takes a non-competitive, gentle approach, helping to develop a deeper understanding and relationship with the body and mind. The practice of yoga provides the tools to make positive changes, which allows us to move towards a happier, healthier lifestyle.

Katherine has been teaching yoga classes for 15 years, to adults; pregnancy and postnatal; babies, children, and teenagers; and therapeutic yoga. In recent years, she answered a call to follow a more feminine path and focus on women’s healing. 

She trained to lead women’s circles with the Wild Woman Project. She was initiated as a Priestess of Brigantia with the Sheffield Goddess Temple, and a Priestess Healer Glastonbury Goddess Temple. She later studied many healing modalities, particularly trauma-informed practices, including Yoga Nidra; Energy Medicine; Emotional Freedom Technique; brain retraining techniques; wild feminine arts; various Conscious Dance modalities; Shamanic practices; Celtic practices and mythology and native herbalism.