Note: Completion of 5 Wounds of Connection is a pre-requisite for all Gina's 6+ day intensive 5Rhythms retreats.
It counts toward the 5Rhythms teacher training path
It counts toward the 5Rhythms teacher training path
We live in a culture that prioritises productivity over connection. Yet in our DNA is the wisdom of over 300 000 years of hunter gatherer ancestry, where rituals, ceremonies and practices of connection underpinned every aspect of our ancestors' existence. No wonder so many people live lives of quiet desperation. Our souls yearn for something vital, something we know in our bones yet cannot find, in a world that has turned away from these fundamental needs.
This retreat is an exploration of where we have lost connection, and a series of maps to find our way home.
The first map is Gabrielle Roth's 5Rhythms dance/movement meditation, a profoundly powerful somatic practice which allows us to take a fragment of story and pull on its threads, unravelling the barbed wire thickets of trauma and conditioning holding it in place, giving it physical shape and expression, telling the truth from our deepest self. Once we have embodied it in pure expression it can be digested and metabolised. We give it to the dance floor, release into sweat, sometimes tears, into stomping feet and shaking truth, and then, in the space left after the release, we fill up with presence, insight and choice. We may choose a new way of being from this territory of clarity and understanding. Not as theory, but as embodied, visceral knowing. We fill up with more of who and what we truly are, pure Presence, oneness, source, Isness... what we call it isn't relevant. How it feels, and how it radiates through our lives, is.
This retreat is an exploration of where we have lost connection, and a series of maps to find our way home.
The first map is Gabrielle Roth's 5Rhythms dance/movement meditation, a profoundly powerful somatic practice which allows us to take a fragment of story and pull on its threads, unravelling the barbed wire thickets of trauma and conditioning holding it in place, giving it physical shape and expression, telling the truth from our deepest self. Once we have embodied it in pure expression it can be digested and metabolised. We give it to the dance floor, release into sweat, sometimes tears, into stomping feet and shaking truth, and then, in the space left after the release, we fill up with presence, insight and choice. We may choose a new way of being from this territory of clarity and understanding. Not as theory, but as embodied, visceral knowing. We fill up with more of who and what we truly are, pure Presence, oneness, source, Isness... what we call it isn't relevant. How it feels, and how it radiates through our lives, is.
|
|
|
|
The second map is the 5 Wounds of Connection map. This comes from Gina Chick's thirty years of exploration into embodiment and what it is to be a being, humaning. Combining her experience as a Rewilding facilitator and village matriarch, with tens of thousands of hours holding one on one trauma exploration sessions, and time learning with elders of many traditions, Gina has spent countless hours deepening into the ancestral practices of hunter gatherers, the wisdom nestled in our DNA. This map is the culmination of those decades of journeying.
Hunter gatherer cultures historically used practices to support all 5 strands of connection. This resulted in healthy humans, which meant societies survived and thrived in right relationship with the planet and each other for hundreds of thousands of years. Over the last few thousand years we have gradually cut ourselves off from healthy practices of connection, until we are now so far along the wounds of connection most of us have no real idea of what we have lost, just that there is an aching gap inside, a feeling that there has to be more than this.
The 5 wounds of connection are:
- connection with self
- connection with other
- connection with group/family/village/tribe
- connection with nature
- connection with spirit
Most people have two areas they are comfortable sitting in. For example, you might be happiest on your own and in nature but do anything to avoid contact with humans . Or you might love being in the centre of a group and one on one, but spending time in nature gives you the heebiejeebies.
Most people have at least two areas they will avoid, or find so challenging that it's a struggle every time to spend time in these connections. These patterns of wounding affect all parts of our lives.
Tracking these threads gives us an intimate understanding of ourselves and allows us insight into where we can strengthen our connections. By gently healing these wounds we move toward making healthy choices. We all have a birthright of a life that is nourishing, fulfilling and creative. Understanding the 5 wounds of connections helps us reclaim lost fragments, remembering the wisdom in our deepspaces on our way to a life that works. The 5 Wounds map gives us a set of tools to work on our connections so that every dance is a dance of homecoming.
|
|
This retreat is a beginning to bring language and processes to the strands of connection as they turn up in us as individuals, so we may weave our own basket back to health. It's designed to give you an understanding of your own patterns of connection, so you can play to your strengths and use them as a springboard to work on the areas that are more challenging. We'll be using the map of 5Rhythms movement meditation to somatically explore our connection to self, other, group, nature and spirit.
We'll also be spending time in nature, around the fire pit at night, exploring voice and song, outdoor dance, creative expression, individual, partnership and group processes, rewilding practices and whatever else arises in the moment.
There will be a breathwork session with the amazing Amber Nomchong to support our journey.
Each day will involve powerful explorations into the day's material, using 5Rhythms to somatically process and release whatever is activated.
This retreat is a beginning to bring language and processes to the strands of connection as they turn up in us as individuals, so we may weave our own basket back to health. It's designed to give you an understanding of your own patterns of connection, so you can play to your strengths and use them as a springboard to work on the areas that are more challenging. We'll be using the map of 5Rhythms movement meditation to somatically explore our connection to self, other, group, nature and spirit.
We'll also be spending time in nature, around the fire pit at night, exploring voice and song, outdoor dance, creative expression, individual, partnership and group processes, rewilding practices and whatever else arises in the moment.
There will be a breathwork session with the amazing Amber Nomchong to support our journey.
Each day will involve powerful explorations into the day's material, using 5Rhythms to somatically process and release whatever is activated.
|
|
Here's a very general outline of content. During the retreat we will unfold and unfurl organically to meet the flow and needs of the group.
Connection with self.
Connection with other
Connection with group/family/village/tribe
Connection with nature
Connection with spirit
Here's a very general outline of content. During the retreat we will unfold and unfurl organically to meet the flow and needs of the group.
Connection with self.
- Practices to help us be alone with ourselves without needing to distract from our feelings
- Healing self judgement
- Taking responsibility for our choices and their consequences
- 5Rhythms as a tool and map to somatically process that which arises internally
- Using trance states to heal
- Trance dance
Connection with other
- Exploring how we are in our intimate and interpersonal relationships.
- Examining our unconscious power dynamics.
- Bringing awareness into consciously/healthily getting our needs met.
- Using humour to dance with our judgements and projections.
- Dances of human connection
Connection with group/family/village/tribe
- Group dynamics and our unconscious strategies to fit in
- Effective rebellion
- Releasing old stories from school/family/culture/generational trauma
- Healthy hunter gatherer social technologies
- Medicine/ ancestors dance
Connection with nature
- Embodied nature connection practices
- Nature as home, a mirror, a healing tool and energetic 'battery'
- The difference between thinking and knowing
- Learning to be part of nature rather than apart from nature
- Outdoor/ beach/ around the fire dances
Connection with spirit
- Pure Awareness processes and practices
- Breathwork with Amber Nomchong
- Dancing with mystery, finding faith in a benevolent universe
- Relationship with void, death, life, that which is greater than us
- Surrendering into a life of purpose greater than selfWeaving all the human/being strands into a matrix of unity, oneness, Isness, source
- Dancing a spiritual path as a life practice
- Vision Dance
LOGISTICS
Where
Murrah Dream Retreat, Sapphire Coast NSW, Yuin country.
5 hours drive south of Sydney. 3 hours southeast of Canberra
2962 Tathra Bermagui Road
Murrah NSW 2546
When
2pm Sat 15th July to 2pm Fri 21st July
What's included
EVERYTHING
We will be dancing 5Rhythms dance meditation every day, which means moving how you feel rather than how you look. Gina guides you in this practice. No experience with 5Rhythms necessary.
There will be around 5-6 hours of somatic movement each day interspersed with other processes.
This movement is based around the 5Rhythms map, which means it follows the natural/sustainable flow of energy through a body.
YOU TAKE IT AT YOUR OWN PACE! You don't have to be super fit or agile. You listen to your own body and adjust according to your body's needs in the moment. 5Rhythms is a powerful tool to help you process whatever is activated in the workshop. By the end of the week you will have a completely different relationship with your body and movement :)
We've had a 94 year old great great grandmother do a retreat. She danced in a chair and loved every minute of it.
Accommodation
There are two main tiers of accommodation
Main house 6 nights 7 days twin, triple or quad share $2590pp Earlybird $2390pp
Glamping 6 nights 7 days twin share luxury dome $3350pp Earlybird $3090pp
Your own van on premises 6 nights 7 days $2290pp Earlybird $1990pp
Non refundable $500 deposit holds your place. Earlybird balance is due by May 30. Full balance is due by June 15.
Cancellation policy.
$500 deposit non refundable
Cancellation up to 4 weeks before event, full refund of all funds less $500 deposit.
Cancellation under 4 weeks prior, no refund unless you can find someone to take your place.
Murrah Dream Retreat, Sapphire Coast NSW, Yuin country.
5 hours drive south of Sydney. 3 hours southeast of Canberra
2962 Tathra Bermagui Road
Murrah NSW 2546
When
2pm Sat 15th July to 2pm Fri 21st July
What's included
EVERYTHING
- 7 full days of delicious retreat space in a STUNNING centre owned and run by two divine soundhealing humans.
- 6 nights accommodation in superior comfort in the cosy main house or glamping domes.
- All delicious food and snacks included. Food is mostly vegetarian, vegan options, some meat dishes during the week. (That's 18 lovingly prepared meals you simply sit back and receive!)
- Retreat is facilitated by registered 5Rhythms teacher Gina Chick, assisted by Amber Nomchong.
- Breathwork with Amber Nomchong.
We will be dancing 5Rhythms dance meditation every day, which means moving how you feel rather than how you look. Gina guides you in this practice. No experience with 5Rhythms necessary.
There will be around 5-6 hours of somatic movement each day interspersed with other processes.
This movement is based around the 5Rhythms map, which means it follows the natural/sustainable flow of energy through a body.
YOU TAKE IT AT YOUR OWN PACE! You don't have to be super fit or agile. You listen to your own body and adjust according to your body's needs in the moment. 5Rhythms is a powerful tool to help you process whatever is activated in the workshop. By the end of the week you will have a completely different relationship with your body and movement :)
We've had a 94 year old great great grandmother do a retreat. She danced in a chair and loved every minute of it.
Accommodation
There are two main tiers of accommodation
- The main house has beautiful bedrooms- twin, triple or quad share. Warm, cosy communal spaces and lovely bathrooms. Outdoor area over infinity pool. Luscious grounds, NOTE: MAIN HOUSE IS FULLY BOOKED
- The glamping domes are self contained luxury twin share units. Minimal heating, so it really is glamping. There are electric blankets on the beds and cosiness everywhere, and the communal main house is heated.
- A small number of places are available for people to stay in their own van. No camping is available.
- Payment plans are available with Afterpay and Zip.
Main house 6 nights 7 days twin, triple or quad share $2590pp Earlybird $2390pp
Glamping 6 nights 7 days twin share luxury dome $3350pp Earlybird $3090pp
Your own van on premises 6 nights 7 days $2290pp Earlybird $1990pp
Non refundable $500 deposit holds your place. Earlybird balance is due by May 30. Full balance is due by June 15.
Cancellation policy.
$500 deposit non refundable
Cancellation up to 4 weeks before event, full refund of all funds less $500 deposit.
Cancellation under 4 weeks prior, no refund unless you can find someone to take your place.
|
|
|
|
Who's facilitating this retreat?
My name is Gina Chick (most people know me as Gigi).
I'm an international facilitator in transformation, using many, many modalities and specialising these days in 5Rhythms dance meditation. I'm fascinated with wildness in all its forms, haven't worn shoes in over 10 years, live in a bus and spend many months of the year in the wilderness, sleeping next to a fire.
I also devote myself to helping people remember who and what they truly are, and with love and presence, guiding them home to their own beautiful, painful, messy, wonderful truths, while sharing tools to help move any of the stuck places holding them away from Life.
For me it's all about being real, no bullshit, no guru trips. Saying yes to everything that life brings. Mining the lessons for blessings. Listening to the call of the wild soul, and learning to dance to its tune. Welcoming every person to stretch their wings, be big, be bold, be allowed, be magnificent, be small, be stuck, be flawed, be true.
In my reality, we are all creators and creatrixes... the only thing limiting us is our myriad beliefs and judgements, and the simple, dastardly human movement of making everything mean something. We are the prison and we are the key. I am passionately dedicated to helping people find the unique combination lock that is an unfurling human growing in divine rightness. What a journey. What an honour.
I offer international Heart of the Huntress retreats exploring feminine archetypes of power through archery and all round deep diving juicy women's work and 5Rhythms. I also offer mixed 5Rhythms transformational retreats, including 5 Wounds of Connection, Women Unchained, Wild Instinct and Powerful. These workshops are impossible to describe. If you're called, get in touch for a chat.
With Lee Trew, I also run family and adult Rewilding camps in Australia, teach primitive survival and shamanic skills, and run regular Vision Quests in the lineage of Grandfather Stalking Wolf. We teach Quest Protector and Seven Levels of Quest in that same lineage.
I am an accredited 5 Rhythms® dance and movement meditation teacher, a breathworker, bodyworker and healing guide, using pure Awareness as a life path. I've had a healing business for thirty years, and travelled the world for this time collecting tools for transformation that work.
I am constantly doing my own homework, dying to my picture of myself, looking inside and dancing what I find, especially the icky, nasty bits. And if I miss something, I have great friends who call me on my crap, thank goodness.
I bring all of these skills and tools to my workshops with a liberal dose of humour, profanity and the occasional pillow fight. I am deeply committed to providing a safe container for transformational work, and respecting the internal authority of every single person, always. That's you. Your sovereignty matters. It is sacred.
You take things at your pace. You choose which stepping stones to move to, and how long to stay on them. Your journey is uniquely personal and your timing is your own. My job is to open the doors of possibility and to hold the container while you choose which doors you go through. What you do once you go through the door is up to you, and none of my business. My job is to support you in your journey and to guide you when you ask, providing tools that have been proven to work for me, and if they work for you as well, awesome! And if not, just discard them. You take what you need, when you need it, gathering your own information, feeding your own library of wisdom. You heal yourself and are empowered in the process.
I am interested in helping you find your own wisdom, whatever that looks like. I love that we each have our own unique fingerprint. The only dance you can ever do is your own. What a relief.
If you want to know more, get in touch; [email protected], or just come along and be danced. At any of my workshops you are free to be utterly yourself. You can't get it wrong. You can be tender and quiet, or big and bold. There is space for you to be you, and be loved exactly as you are, whatever your shape. Together we weave a basket and within it we dance our way home, to the beautiful song of our own wild instinct.
Lots of love from my wild heart to yours,
Gigi
I'm an international facilitator in transformation, using many, many modalities and specialising these days in 5Rhythms dance meditation. I'm fascinated with wildness in all its forms, haven't worn shoes in over 10 years, live in a bus and spend many months of the year in the wilderness, sleeping next to a fire.
I also devote myself to helping people remember who and what they truly are, and with love and presence, guiding them home to their own beautiful, painful, messy, wonderful truths, while sharing tools to help move any of the stuck places holding them away from Life.
For me it's all about being real, no bullshit, no guru trips. Saying yes to everything that life brings. Mining the lessons for blessings. Listening to the call of the wild soul, and learning to dance to its tune. Welcoming every person to stretch their wings, be big, be bold, be allowed, be magnificent, be small, be stuck, be flawed, be true.
In my reality, we are all creators and creatrixes... the only thing limiting us is our myriad beliefs and judgements, and the simple, dastardly human movement of making everything mean something. We are the prison and we are the key. I am passionately dedicated to helping people find the unique combination lock that is an unfurling human growing in divine rightness. What a journey. What an honour.
I offer international Heart of the Huntress retreats exploring feminine archetypes of power through archery and all round deep diving juicy women's work and 5Rhythms. I also offer mixed 5Rhythms transformational retreats, including 5 Wounds of Connection, Women Unchained, Wild Instinct and Powerful. These workshops are impossible to describe. If you're called, get in touch for a chat.
With Lee Trew, I also run family and adult Rewilding camps in Australia, teach primitive survival and shamanic skills, and run regular Vision Quests in the lineage of Grandfather Stalking Wolf. We teach Quest Protector and Seven Levels of Quest in that same lineage.
I am an accredited 5 Rhythms® dance and movement meditation teacher, a breathworker, bodyworker and healing guide, using pure Awareness as a life path. I've had a healing business for thirty years, and travelled the world for this time collecting tools for transformation that work.
I am constantly doing my own homework, dying to my picture of myself, looking inside and dancing what I find, especially the icky, nasty bits. And if I miss something, I have great friends who call me on my crap, thank goodness.
I bring all of these skills and tools to my workshops with a liberal dose of humour, profanity and the occasional pillow fight. I am deeply committed to providing a safe container for transformational work, and respecting the internal authority of every single person, always. That's you. Your sovereignty matters. It is sacred.
You take things at your pace. You choose which stepping stones to move to, and how long to stay on them. Your journey is uniquely personal and your timing is your own. My job is to open the doors of possibility and to hold the container while you choose which doors you go through. What you do once you go through the door is up to you, and none of my business. My job is to support you in your journey and to guide you when you ask, providing tools that have been proven to work for me, and if they work for you as well, awesome! And if not, just discard them. You take what you need, when you need it, gathering your own information, feeding your own library of wisdom. You heal yourself and are empowered in the process.
I am interested in helping you find your own wisdom, whatever that looks like. I love that we each have our own unique fingerprint. The only dance you can ever do is your own. What a relief.
If you want to know more, get in touch; [email protected], or just come along and be danced. At any of my workshops you are free to be utterly yourself. You can't get it wrong. You can be tender and quiet, or big and bold. There is space for you to be you, and be loved exactly as you are, whatever your shape. Together we weave a basket and within it we dance our way home, to the beautiful song of our own wild instinct.
Lots of love from my wild heart to yours,
Gigi
For our breathwork piece, meet Bam.
Amber Nomchong (affectionately referred to as Bam), is a transformational facilitator with a deep interest in the therapeutic and psycho-spiritual capacity of Breathwork, 5rhythms dance, nature immersions and various embodiment practices.
Amber’s interest in transformational work is a no BS approach. She is powerfully gentle, playful and firmly grounded. She is not interested in approaches that look good on paper but ultimately lack integrity, heart and impact.
Amber has been practicing therapeutic and transpersonal Breathwork for over seven years in addition to teaching and facilitating various embodied and somatic movement practices for over 20 more. More recently she has become fascinated by using the deep body-verse and breath as a portal to personal and community healing, growth, transformation and remembering the deepest essences of this whole humaning experience.
Her influences are transpersonal Breathwork, process oriented psychology, shamanic and Holotrophic Breathwork, 5rhythms, deep nature connection processes, somatic psychotherapy, martial arts and intuitive bodywork. She offers individual and group Breathwork journeys, various women and teen embodiment and empowerment retreats and workshops, holistic wellness coaching as well as personal and family based rewilding immersions and practices.
Amber is passionate about using deep body based and altered state modalities to support people to connect with their inner nature, to come home to themselves, reclaim their sense of belonging and find space to live a vital, conscious and wholehearted life.
Amber Nomchong (affectionately referred to as Bam), is a transformational facilitator with a deep interest in the therapeutic and psycho-spiritual capacity of Breathwork, 5rhythms dance, nature immersions and various embodiment practices.
Amber’s interest in transformational work is a no BS approach. She is powerfully gentle, playful and firmly grounded. She is not interested in approaches that look good on paper but ultimately lack integrity, heart and impact.
Amber has been practicing therapeutic and transpersonal Breathwork for over seven years in addition to teaching and facilitating various embodied and somatic movement practices for over 20 more. More recently she has become fascinated by using the deep body-verse and breath as a portal to personal and community healing, growth, transformation and remembering the deepest essences of this whole humaning experience.
Her influences are transpersonal Breathwork, process oriented psychology, shamanic and Holotrophic Breathwork, 5rhythms, deep nature connection processes, somatic psychotherapy, martial arts and intuitive bodywork. She offers individual and group Breathwork journeys, various women and teen embodiment and empowerment retreats and workshops, holistic wellness coaching as well as personal and family based rewilding immersions and practices.
Amber is passionate about using deep body based and altered state modalities to support people to connect with their inner nature, to come home to themselves, reclaim their sense of belonging and find space to live a vital, conscious and wholehearted life.
Wild Heart runs rewilding programmes on the NSW South Coast. We acknowledge the traditional custodians of this whole area, the Dharawal, Jerrinja and Yuin nations. We acknowledge traditional displaced custodians of the entire continent. We ask permission to help people, in the ways that way can, to deepen into their relationships with the living earth and walk with respect and deep listening. We give respect to indigenous elders past present and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty of this land was never ceded. We have deep gratitude to be able to do the work we do, and endeavour to do so in harmony with indigenous caretakers.
We walk on stolen land and know that sovereignty was never ceded.
most photos on this page courtesy of Majica Alba and Gina Chick