Samhain marks the end and beginning of the Celtic New Year, when we gather our final harvest before descending into the darkness of Winter. At this threshold we are invited to dance with the mystery of life, death and rebirth and remember those who have walked this way before us.
Cultivating an intimate and reciprocol relationship between the living and the dead, the seen and unseen, is what enables the Great River to keep on flowing. With our prayers, songs, stories, tears and offerings we feed the Ancestral Altar and create a home for the Sacred to dwell in our hearts.
Through the container of ceremony, woven with story, pilgrimage, crafting and ritual, The Ancestral Altar will reconnect you with the sacred bones within you and the lineage of earth you come from. Held within the ancient lands of Dartmoor, Dumnonia, we will be unravelling the thread of a story of bones, weaving words with the landscape that capture the essence of a time past and awaken forgotten memory.
Our bones carry the wisdom of the ancients, the tales of our ancestors, and the unshakeable knowing that we are woven with all life, made of earth, returning to earth. When we tend to the bones, we are taking care of the earth of us - of our human and more-than-human kin that have made compost for our life to grow.
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Our time together will be spent listening to the wild land and waters, crafting soulful rituals and making offerings that honour our ancestors and give thanks to the more-than-human world. As the veil thins during the Samhain tide, we will explore ways to communicate with the spirit realm and shift modes of perception to become more attuned to the subtle and numinous.
Our ceremony will include an evening of vigil; singing over the bones and welcoming the return of the Callieach - Ancient Grandmother of mountain, stone, cave and cliff, who knows how to endure the desolate places our souls meet in the depths of Winter. To connect with the Wild Spirit of the land and flesh out the ancient bones, this ceremony will include journeying with sacred Bramble medicine.
To ground our prayers we will make a pilgrimage to a wild landscape at the heart of Dumnonia, to hold council with ancient stones and offer up the blessings from The Ancestral Altar to the wild ancestral spirits of the land.
Once returned from our pilgrimage, we will enjoy a seasonal feast and time in the sauna and hot tub before gathering round the fire for stories and songs, to ground and nourish before returning home the next morning.
The Ancestral Altar is for those of you that long to feel at home in your body and with the land you live with; who seek deeper intimacy in your relationships with the more-than-human world.
If you feel curious about crafting rituals that reconnect you with Nature and honour your ancestors, this journey will provide a tapestry of inspiration to support your ritual life and offer ways to create an intentional practice of ancestral veneration.
If you believe that we can create a reciprocol, regenerative and vital living culture, following the wisdom of the ancients back towards a state of belonging and wholeness, then this ceremony will provide good kindling for the fire of inspiration!
All genders are welcome.
Listen to the story of Bone Woman, who wanders the ancestral landscape gathering bones that represent the lost parts of our souls. Bone by bone she rebuilds these lost parts and sings life back into them. Bone Woman is She who Knows, the wise one in all of us who can access the River Beneath the River, the place where all knowing is found this ritual introduction will call her near as our guide.
Spend time with the trees, stones and waters in vigil with the earth, to attune to the ancient spirit of the land of Dumnonia
Daily movement and vocal explorations to deepen into our bodies and connect with our vital life force. Learn how to dedicate your voice and body towards prayer.
Experience a reimagining of an ancient ceremony devoted to tending the bones and feeding the ancestral altar. Journey with the blood of the earth with sacred Bramble medicine, to flesh out the skeleton of Bone Woman and connect with the spirit of the Callieach
Engage with the ancient craft of weaving, to create a simple sacred pouch, containing essences of the land.
Connect with the memory of water and invite our grief to flow as we bathe the bones in the River Dart
Walking in anicent footsteps upon the wild land of Dumnonia, to make offerings to the Ancient Grandmothers & Grandfathers
To ground after a weekend of ceremony, we will enjoy a nourishing evening with water and fire, and a delicious seasonal feast.
“One purpose of creative ritual was to experience the connection to “the other” as well as a deeper connection to oneself. That’s why ancient people would say: that ritual made me more aware of how I’m connected to life, to the earth, to the spirits, to the song of creation, and made me more aware of who I am inside, at the level of my own being. What we’ve lost is partly the sense that we are each connected to the whole thing, that each human soul is secretly connected to the living soul of the world.” -Michael Meade
Arrive: 5pm Friday 18th October 2024
Depart: 9:30am Monday 21st October 2024
Brimpts Farm, Dartmeet, Dartmoor PL20 6SG
Brimpts Farm lies at the heart of Dartmoor. and has been the home to generations of farming families. The buildings are surrounded by bothy farmland and wilderness. The East and West Dart rivers meet in the valley below and ancient monuments adorn the nearby landscape.
Nearest train stations: Totnes or Newton Abbot
There are a mixture of shared twin and dorm rooms available, and one double room, each with access to a shared shower and toilet facilities.
£695 - Double room (FULLY BOOKED)
£550 - Twin room
£425 - Shared room (up to 4)
There are several concessionary places available for those folks from marginalised communities or with challenging social-economic backgrounds.
£200 non-refundable deposit required to confirm your place.
It is possible to pay in instalments.
Isla Macleod is a modern-day medicine woman, attending to the threshold between the visible and invisible realms, in service to the Earth community. Her work as a ceremonialist is informed and inspired by her relationship with the natural world and devoted towards helping others to remember what is Sacred in their lives by creating rituals and facilitating journeys that reconnect them with a sense of meaning and belonging.
Isla has a wealth of experience holding retreats and guiding others through earth-honouring ceremonies, that are accessible and inclusive. She has worked extensively in the terrain of ancestral healing, grief tending, nature connection and rites of passage; crafting journeys that help others to honour significant transitions and experience the hidden realms of psyche and spirit in a safe and grounded way.
Jade is a nature connection guide, storyteller, poet and maker of sacred art. Her life and practice is steeped in ritual processes and a deep love of the Earth. Jade isinspired by the land under her feet, the seen and unseen worlds, myth, fairytale and the wild intelligence of the human spirit.
For more insight into Jade's offerings, visit her website: bonesong.co.uk
"Isla curated a wonderfully diverse range of practices / activities over the weekend which led to us feeling deeply connected to one another and to nature very quickly. She held us in such a loving and inclusive way that we all felt very safe to dive deep into our healing process. Isla's wisdom and knowledge left me feeling incredibly inspired and hungry for more. She has such a big heart and radiates so much peace and beauty."
- Erika
"The remembrance retreat with Isla was one of the most powerful work I ever did. I came out knowing deeply that I have been initiated to a new way of relating and loving myself within the wider context of the nature I belong to. Isla makes true magic, her deeply rooted wisdom is so alive, her care for the process tremendous and her joy contagious. One of the highlight was the fire ceremony, there was so much skill, love and power poured into it. From there on, my path is clear, my understanding much more profound and my creativity leaping out."
- Magali
"The retreat was spiritually and emotionally uplifting. Isla is a very empathetic and open facilitator who weaves a wonderful warm energy throughout the weekend and holds a beautiful safe space to 'just be'. My lasting memory was the drumming and dancing around the fire in such a beautiful space! Who needs Ayahuasca !?"
- Sue
"For me the whole experience was a beautiful exploration of how to dance lightly and wildly with our own remembering and becoming. I feel that this soul work is simply necessary medicine for humanity at this time of collective forgetting and distraction from our own grief and separation from nature. So heartfelt gratitude to Isla being one of the ones to courageously step up and truly honour and inspire a way back to belonging on this earth."
- Sophie
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