A Transformative Week of Embodied LGBTQIA+ Wellness and Radical Revelry where the Rainforest Meets the Beach
Let’s heal together and reclaim our radiance!
soul nourishment
In-person Yoga Retreat
March 12-19th 2022
At the Oceanfront Eco-Resort Blue Osa, Costa Rica
Imagine feeling completely at peace with who you are.
Being able to fully breathe, relax and laugh,
To expand through strong, gorgeous embodied healing in community,
To feel fresh gratitude inspired by tender intimacy with nature,
To dwell in deep rest
and open up to the pleasure of just being present…
Being queer is a blessing, but navigating a cis het world steeped in systemic oppresssion is exhausting, complex, and heartbreaking. In order to survive, maybe you’ve sometimes disconnected from your body, your needs, or even certain parts of your sweet, sacred self. While it’s gotten you this far, you know it’s time for a deep shift.
It’s time for a deep care reset.
- Are you tired of feeling tired all the time?
- Does your body feel stiff, stagnant, out of balance?
- Do you feel mentally scattered, emotionally stuck?
If your body, mind and emotions are out of sync, it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed, run down. Sometimes we don’t know how much we’re really carrying until we can actually let loose, and let go.
When it comes to centering your own health, integration, and embodiment, though, it’s not so simple.
Yoga can be profoundly healing, but sadly most yoga spaces – much less Retreats – are not welcoming to folks like us. Harmful mainstream culture is often replicated in yoga spaces through its cis, hetrero, white, classist norms. Pressure to assimilate runs rampant.
In addition, a lot of modern yoga is a reductive, watered down version of ‘fitness’ yoga. It can be hard to find yoga that actually works with your body – not against it – so that you can experience fluid stability, pain-relieving anatomical alignment, somatic release, and embodied healing.
Maybe you’ve never even imagined doing something like this, because you know this type of thing isn’t for people like you.
Well, this time, it is.
Queer space can provide such a palpable relief. Now imagine that for a whole week – a gorgeous, magical adventure just for us. A deep dive immersion that allows for profound integration and reclamation of self.
You are so worthy of this type of luscious, transformative journey. Imagine having this to look forward to!
Give yourself permission to untangle the inner knots, to relax and awaken to the deeper authentic expression of who you are. In so doing, you create space for that journey for everyone around you.
Imagine feeling completely at peace with who you are….
Appreciative of your incredible body and all the amazing things it can do and feel, compassionate towards your self and the all you’ve been through, that brought you to this point.
Free from shame, free from binary gender.
Glorious and rooted in your truth!
What would it feel like to let go of the layers of armor, to soften and be seen, to play and explore freely, the inner and outer wilderness?
To let the salty, flirtatious ocean and fresh, clean, warm morning breeze caress you, and know that you are worthy of these moments of happiness?
And to know deeply, that whenever challenges come, you’re connected to your inner strength and guidance.
This is an incredible opportunity that will catalyze so much in your life!
What makes this Retreat Different?
Socially Conscious Yoga: Good for You, Good for Others
It’s true, it’s a privilege to travel and experience a week long Retreat. And it’s also true that allowing yourself to experience this in and of itself is a healing process. A chance to clear out some outdated stories about self worth and what’s possible. Investing in your health and happiness can feel like a brave stretch. This level of care, healing, play, and relaxation will have a lot of very real positive ripple effects – not only through the impact on your own life, but also in the good work it helps support.
As a queer person, equity and accessibility are probably important values to you. With discounts for BIPOC and trans participants, fundraising for a couple of deeper scholarships, a portion of the proceeds going to —–, a QTBIPOC healing project in Costa Rica, and by supporting an LGBTQ+ owned sustainable Retreat center and QT yoga facilitators, this is an opportunity to invest in an amazing experience that also uplifts your values.
You may be thinking, ‘I wish this type of experience could be accessible to everyone.’ Another cool thing is that by offering these larger scale queer trans yoga immersions, I am able to more sustainably offer low and no cost yoga to our community throughout the rest of the year.
The Practice
Iyengar yoga provides deep, challenging, yet adaptive and supportive practices to make transformative yoga sadhana accessible to all bodies. We’ll use props and inspired sequencing responsive to your needs. We’ll connect and share through both active, dynamic asana and deeply restorative relaxation poses and breathwork. We’ll unpack the Yoga Sutras through a queer lens and invite your wisdom to the circle as we weave new, inspiring possibilites into existence.
The asana we’ll be practicing is alignment based asana as a conduit for all 8 limbs of Patanjali’s system. The Iyengar method is informed by both functional anatomy and embodied, classical yoga philosophy.
This Retreat will provide a well- rounded experience of my Embodied Stability, Inner Freedom (?) framework. We will explore structural reorganization and, right relationship in our joints, rebuild the neutral curves and fluid movement of the spine, and explore integrative core and pelvic floor health. This will globally decompress the body, allowing for supple autonomous movement, inner body length, and nervous system regulation. This physical foundation allows for mental, emotional, and energetic alignment and profound spiritual connection.
Asana, pranayama, and philosophy become much more meaningful through an anti-oppression lens. We will explore the full system of yoga in a way that uplifts our values around social change and collective healing, that integrates our physical practice with the rest of our lives. Juicy, playful embodied spirituality is a conduit for inner and collective transformation!
Come as you are.
Part of having a queer and/or trans body in our stressful modern era is dealing with its challenges – pain and stiffness, joint instability, neck and shoulder problems, back and knee issues, fatigue, hormonal imbalance, illness… you have your list, I’m sure! Don’t worry – they won’t hold you back from experiencing the retreat. Classes will be adaptive, meaning each pose can be customized for your needs or we’ll find an alternative. I teach all of my classes in a way that centers accessibility, attending to your work in the pose to bring you into balance.
This is an invitation to explore radical sovereignty and self compassion within your own body and mind. Non-harming – ahimsa – is foundational to our practice. Let’s delight in practice together that allows for real relief!
My decades-long background in yoga has been focused on functional anatomy, stability, and alignment. I am a rigorous teacher, but also compassionate and nurturing. I am skillful at helping those with a range of motion challenges understand how to work intelligently and safely to open up, while also helping folks with hypermobile bodies to adjust their practice to find stability.
We will explore strong, dynamic work, that takes you beyond the known – but in ways that are truly beneficial for your body, and every other layer of your being.
If you’re a queer yoga teacher, this is an amazing opportunity to not only deepen your skillset but also experience a whole new level of affirming, inspiring, empowering practice. It will open new doors of possibility in yourself and your teaching. (Plus, it’s probably a tax deductible trip!)
The Place
Blue Osa is the perfect spot for our Retreat.
Rooted in sustainability and spirituality, Blue Osa was designed to help make profound transformation simple.
As an eco-friendly resort, Blue Osa uses less energy than the average American family of four! They run mostly on solar power, are grid neutral, work closely with sustainable local businesses, and have their own organic farm. They intend to leave the smallest carbon footprint possible.
The Osa Peninsula is a jewel of the natural world, where generations of advocates have protected native species – on this small stretch of land represents 2.5% of the world’s biodiversity!
Blue Osa is right on the beach, with tropical rainforest surrounding us on every other side.
The beach is a 30-second walk from Blue Osa. This makes it easy for you to wake up in the morning at sunrise and stroll down to the ocean for a morning swim as the jungle awakens.
Um… Also, we won’t JUST be doing Yoga!
And when I say it’s an LGBTQ+ space, I mean we’ll have the whole place to ourselves – Blue Osa’s bright and spacious yoga studio equipped with beautiful Iyengar Yoga props, the lush tropical gardens, the labyrinth, a beautiful chemical-free pool – all spaces for us to enjoy. As a gay-owned resort, Blue Osa is committed to being a welcoming, healing space for all.
Especially for trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming folks, anything involving bathing suits in public can be anxiety producing. This secluded, private beach is the perfect spot to be able to relax and connect with the ocean. There will even be an opportunity for a body love naked ocean bathing ceremony!
The food here is ridiculously beautiful. Blue Osa’s organic permaculture farm supplies fruit, veggies, and herbs. At the core of being eco-friendly, Blue Osa’s farm-to-table, primarily plant-based cuisine invites you to experience the freshest possible ingredients that are hand-picked daily. Health is wealth!
You also have the option of luxuriating with spa services – as a retreat participant you’ll get a gift certificate towards a holistic healing treatment of your choice! Jump on eco-tour adventures… Or you may just want to relax with friends by the pool.
The Community
This retreat is for you.
It’s for you in the fullest sense of your full on, fluid, brave, tender, work-in-progress, politically rad, weirdo, queer self.
And – you will be in such good company.
A big part of any Retreat is the people on the journey with you.
The connections we make through affirming community allow us to discover a deeper sense of wholeness and self love.
LGBTQ+ folks are often on the front line, working for social change and helping others heal. You know self care and community care are interconnected, that you can’t pour from an empty cup.
When we’re relaxed and connected to others, it’s a gift that flows in all directions.
This Retreat is specially designed to create an inclusive, warm, welcoming environment for LGBTQ+ from diverse social locations. We gather for practice, play, healing pleasure and radical rest as a sacred way to deeply replenish, connect us to our purpose, and thus nourish collective change.
We’re going to be in a tropical wonderland with the loveliest of the lovely people – so YES there will be much revelry.
Should you bring fun outfits….maybe the kind of dress ups conducive to hiking through the jewel toned jungle and spontaneous photo shoots? YES. Will there be dance parties? Yes.
Opportunities to cuddle, flirt, feel cute, remember what’s yummy about being in relationship with yourself and other beings… YES.
Time for tarot, stargazing, journaling, astrology convos? For sure, if that’s your cup of tea.
And if not, that’s fine too. We get to create this space together. Your authenticity and truth in the moment IS the magic ingredient here.
Will there be laughter, emotion, connection, and friendship…? Definitely.
A tropical beach Yoga Retreat in Costa Rica just for Queer and Trans folks is something edgy – for so long it’s felt way too risky, too big.
Like my first discoveries of queer love, nonbinary truth, and transness – it was stretch to even believe that is something like this could be possible and within reach.
It is a leap of faith to trust in such a dream. To get to explore this deep yoga work, in this space, with you… has been a dream for so long.
And now, it is a reality.
I so want this for you – for us – for our community!