Ashley Grandkoski is an acupuncturist, Reiki and energy healer, herbalist, ceremonialist, event facilitator and producer, ecstatic dance DJ and local mom. In addition to her private practice as an acupuncturist and energy healer, she offers a number of events in the community which include elements of dance, ceremony and healing in various formats. She is a regular DJ at Durango ecstatic dance, as well as a guest facilitator at a number of other special events in the community. Through her many projects and offerings, her deepest desire is to contribute to transforming consciousness on the personal and collective level, and bring soul-level healing to the people she works with.

Her Offering: As DJ Asha Akashic, Ashley combines her ability to channel healing energy and hold space for transformation with powerful and ecstatic musical medicine, crafting dance sets that take you on a deep and rapturous journey of embodiment and soul-connection. The music she plays invites you into deeper relationship with self, inspiring clarity, vision and a feeling of heart-centered joy. Her music tastes span a wide range of genres, but often include heart-opening vocals, inspiring lyrics, earthy, tribal and world beats, conscious hip-hop and high-vibe electronic dance music.

Brandy Wade grew up in Boulder, Colorado.  As a young girl, Brandy and her mother (a spiritual teacher and therapist), would talk for hours about the nature of life, exploring and diving into the subtle intricacies of the world around them. It was through these conversations that Brandy recognized the value of listening to her heart and therefore kindled her passion for alternative healing arts. At age 19, Brandy went from being a competitive soccer player to a spiritual explorer as she turned toward nature and yoga. From that point forward, she was guided to various teachers, paths, and modalities shaping the person she is today.

For the past 20 years, Brandy has been a student and teacher of yoga, extensively studying the Feminine path of Hatha, Bhakti, and Tantra Yoga. Some of her main teachers have been Shannon Paige Schneider, Aditi Devi, Sofia Diaz, and Brenda Flemming. She has also had the honor to work with the spirit of plant medicines for 15 years  and dance the ceremonial Moondance in Mexico the last seven years, receiving the teachings from Aztec and Mayan grandmother Abuela Mali Nali. Currently, Brandy splits her time between Durango and Salida, Colorado and offers bodywork sessions that incorporate Ortho-bionomy, womb and belly healing,  yoni steams, ancestral healing, sound healing, plant brushings, emotional and somatic therapy, prayer, and song.

Her Offerings:

Crystal Bowl Sound Bath

Join Brandy Wade for Crystal Bowl sound meditation.  Settle into the soothing wave frequencies from the Crystal and Tibetan bowls as well as a myriad of other instruments that will be woven into the soundscape.  This session will support the relaxation of mind, the softening of heart, and the settling of the nervous system. During our time together we will uplift our prayers and intentions to be heard, witnessed, and surrendered to the Divine.  We will shift our focus from thinking to listening as it is in these slower meditative brain wave states where deep healing is available.

Morning Sadhana Practice  

A subtle body yoga practice that weaves, breath, movement, and bodily alignment.   We will align our bodies to our vertical nature as conduits between Heaven and Earth, circling our breath within the currents of our beings, connecting to the spatial awareness around us, and receiving the grace of connectedness as a whole body prayer.  A great way to close out our retreat space and time together.  

Crystal Wolfchild: By living in service through love, honor and healing work, Crystal, a Dakota woman, offers her gifts and stands for a World that works for everyone.

As a visionary leader and innovative makeup artist, Crystal stands for a world of beauty and service. A Sundancer, Mother, member of The Mother Earth Restoration Trust, walker of two 100 mile pilgrimages she is also a creative force in the beauty world. Crystal is the recipient of a 2008 First Americans in the Arts Award for Outstanding Achievement in Technical Arts for Makeup, and is a two time Emmy nominated makeup artist for her work on “So You Think You Can Dance”.
Her true passion and why she moved back to Durango, is to create healing for all generations past and future through prayer, spiritual work, education and community.  In addition, a Co-founder of TIOSPAYE, a non profit Transformational Experiential/Education Leadership Program. Crystal has co-created massive positive change with the completion of 12 Leadership teams and graduated hundreds of people who have experienced the life changing work that TIOSPAYE offered. 
Since moving back home to Durango, Colorado, Crystal’s talents are currently focused on raising her two children and teaching them about and connecting to the Earth Mother and her relatives.

Crystal and her mother, Dellabina Romero-WolfChild, will be offering an Opening Circle ritual and blessing.

Dellabina Romer0-WolfChild is a Grandmother, Elder, Mother, and Sundancer. She is of Pueblo and Ute lineage and has been on the Healing path most of her life. Through her work she delights in awakening people to themselves, to become self empowered, to heal Self and create miracles!

Upon retiring Della co-founded, with her two daughters, the nonprofit transformational Leadership Program, Tiospaye (the making of relatives). In 7 years TIOSPAYE had significant positive impact on hundreds of attendees where a family of choice was created that is still in connection. Della continues to walk the path for the restoration of the Mother Earth. She is a Life-coach specializing on healing and spirituality, a ceremonialist and an Elder member of the Wisdom Keepers.

Della believes in and works wholeheartedly for a healthy future for the coming generations of the children. In collaboration. keeping the Mother at the forefront of her thoughts, words, and actions, works with others to bring in the Golden Age, preserve the purity and innocence of the children, protect the elementals of the Earth and plant loving seeds of awareness in the collective consciousness so as to rise together in this Vision.

Isa Vasanti

Isa’s life mission is healing and awakening, first her own which took her over oceans (originally from Belgium, she moved to India in her twenties to pursue the spiritual quest of the Self where she lived for 9 years before coming to the USA to raise her two children). Her perspective is of the soul, returning to who we truly are. She uses various modalities to guide the transformation of others, including mindfulness in the body, craniosacral therapy, breathwork and sound healing, all embedded in feminine wisdom.

Offerings:

Sacred Breath Ceremony

Embody your soul. Join us in a powerful healing and awakening ceremony to release toxins of all types, resolve emotional conflicts and connect with higher self, spirit guides and/or ancestors. 

Sacred Sound

The crystal sound of singing bowls transports us in the realm of oneness where the Self can be known. In the silence of the mind, realize your true self, one and untethered.

Jenna Pfingston is a Primal Movement Guide, Yoga Teacher, Spiritual Alchemist, and Embodied Wisdom Coach. Her signature work is Primal Embodied Wisdom.

One of Jenna's missions in life with Primal Embodied Wisdom is to normalize the beauty, messiness, and wildness of being a woman. Her passion on the path is to invite souls to deepen their connection with the Self, others, and the Divine. Jenna’s signature work Primal Embodied Wisdom is soulfully rich and will gift you the remembrance of your innate truth to magnetize the life you desire.

Jenna lives in Buena Vista, Colorado where she has cultivated a flourishing community within her studio of fourteen years, jalaBlu Yoga & Collective Healing. Her love for ceremony, primal movement, yoga, embodiment, and her sense of humor allow women to drop into a safe and courageous space within their bodies.

Beyond jalaBlu Collective Healing you can connect with Jenna on Insight- Timer with meditations or ONLINE yoga classes, ongoing Primal Embodied Wisdom Retreats, or one-on-one Embodied Wisdom Sessions.

Her Offerings:

An Embodied Woman Is A Powerful Woman/ Primal Movement

This two-hour ceremony for your soul will invite you to: uncoil, shed, howl, taste pleasure, touch pain, and feel into the deepest spaces of your truth. Jenna Pfingston will open the portal with a Sensual Dharma Chat followed by one of her greatest loves, Primal Movement. Inhabit your whole body through awareness, non-linear movement, breath, and primal sound. Primal Movement is infused with a tantalizing playlist that will awaken your senses, desires, ancestors, and move you into a liberating experience for your soul.

Embodied Kali Yoga/ ‘Trust In the Feel Of It.’

Join Jenna Pfingston for a unique yoga experience as she infuses her signature work, Primal Embodied Wisdom into the art and science of yoga. Inviting the energy of Kali to be your north star guiding you back home into your earth body to align with your highest truth. This yoga class will embrace the energies of the Divine Masculine (Shiva) and Divine Feminine (Shakti) by interweaving: alignment, flow, primal sound, mudras, a Kali story, mantra, and the beauty of feeling stillness within the sacred heart.

Julie Hartline is a vocal activist, community song leader, and embodiment educator of Welsh, Scottish, and Irish descent. With a passion for weaving community and rewilding soul, Julie invites song and movement to guide the way back to authentic connection and community. In a time of great unraveling, Julie offers the reclamation of song and movement in our everyday lives as an act of collective resilience and hope.

Her Offering: Community Resilience: Song Is Medicine

Singing in community lives deep in our bones. It is our birthright and is a powerful tool of belonging. Weaving our voices together is an act of resilience and courage. Join song leader Julie Hartline to learn simple and inspiring songs to nourish the heart and soul of community.

Katrina Blair began studying wild plants in her teens when she camped out alone for a summer to focus on eating wild foods. She later wrote “The Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants of the San Juan Mountains” for her senior project at Colorado College. In 1997 she completed a MA at John F Kennedy University in Orinda, CA in Holistic Health Education. She founded Turtle Lake Refuge in 1998, a non-profit, whose mission is to celebrate the connection between personal health and wild lands. Turtle Lake Refuge is a wild harvested, locally grown and living foods café and sustainable education center for the community. Katrina teaches sustainable living practices and wild edible and medicinal classes locally and globally. She is author of a book titled “Local Wild Life- Turtle Lake Refuge’s Recipes for Living Deep” and “ The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival” published by Chelsea Green 2014. Find out more at www.turtlelakerefuge.org

Her Offering: The Medicinal Power of Wild Weeds

In the Wild Heart's Plant Walk we will take the time to be together on the land and learn about many common medicinal and edible plants that are at our fingertips to integrate into our meals, juices, tea, and medicines.

We will connect to the wisdom of the plants and open to their communication with us as we touch and taste and enjoy the powerful presence of our plant allies. We will gather and harvest some local wild greens on the land and make a healing lotion to share as well as a medicinal salve to take home.

Kayla Wexelberg, one of the visionaries behind this gathering, has been a chef for over 18 years and has had a deep love for Culinary Anthropology and the power of energtics in relation to holistic health for most of her life. Her love of dance, movement and eating from the land has guided her through various chapters in life. She now owns her own business Taste Your Roots, a holistic health, nutrition and catering company as well as teaches contact dance and mystical dance both locally and internationally.

Offering:

The Deep Feast is an eating meditation intended to enhance one’s awareness of nourishing the gates of many bodies. The spiritual, energetic, physical and emotional bodies all find union here as we explore what it is to connect with food far beyond the "standard" nourishment rituals that are practiced everyday. The workshop will include an array of flavors and textures and a hands-on feasting practice between participants. The feast is silent and deeply rewarding, leaving participants full on many levels.

Spiritual Eros:

In this workshop we will dive into the realms of our sexuality through the lens of our spiritual erotic bodies. In Kayla’s workshop we will uncover the foundational elements of eros: creative force. She will help guide you to open this energy center in a powerful way, not just in efforts to interact with others but first and foremost with ourselves. This is a somatic based hands-on tantra workshop that will lead you through several rituals designed to awaken your erotic body and to utilize its power and magic in navigating your life.

KUKU ~ Ceremonial Cacao

We are Kukuru & Waupu, mother and daughter, Guardians of the Fire and the Spirit of Ix Cacao.

Our ceremonies are based on the Mayan cosmovision, inspired in the special energy of each day, following the Sacred Calendar Cholq'üj', "The Count of Destiny". Our journey together in ceremony borns in the desert of Wirikuta, Mexico, in 2019. A call and a vision from the sacred fire of the Wixarika tradition. Later the medicine of cacao presents to us and in 2021 we travel to Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. Where for the first time we encounter our teachers, magicians, Tatas, Nanas and guardians of cacao, that to the present day guide us in our formation as Ceremonialists.

Our mission is to awaken the magic of the heart, through recognizing the divine essence that lives within our own wonderful universe.

Offering: Kuku Cacao Ceremony

It is a beautiful moment that will connect you with the love and healing magic that exists within you. We will drink ceremonial cacao in front of a lively altar of flowers lit by a sacred fire. Wrapped in an aura of sounds and healing frequencies that will surely make your heart vibrate. Since ancient times, Cacao has been honored in sacred ceremonies by our Mayan ancestors. Each cacao seed contains 1.2% Theobromine, property that in Greek means the food of the Gods. We honor Kuku, the name of the Cacao Spirit, which means “Sacred over sacred”.

Our ceremony follows the Mayan Cosmovision. Kuku Cacao is the union of components and ideal energies that stimulates the opening of the heart and creates a inner communication in connection with our own spirit. It activates a very special and loving frequency in each person, harmonizing in emotional, mental and spiritual levels.

Physical benefits:

Activates blood circulation, cleaning veins and arteries.

Is energizing and revitalizing, increases the feeling of well-being.

It produces a broad state of consciousness and sensory perception.

Laurie Hall and her family have been farming in Mancos for 19 years, growing vegetables and hay and raising Navajo Churro sheep. A few years ago, Laurie was introduced to botanical dyes and added a dye garden to her family's farm operations. Growing and using botanical dyes is farming-science-nature-art all rolled into one, and she was hooked! The use of botanical dyes is something of a lost art, and by teaching workshops, Laurie is delighted to share both ancient and new techniques that are beautiful, environmentally friendly, and fun.

Her Offering: Textile Dyeing with Flower Power

Express your colorful self! There is magical color hidden in many plants around us. Join me to learn a bit about botanical dyes as you experience the ancient Japanese textile art of Shibori, a method of folding and tying to create specific patterns. Shibori textiles are traditionally dyed with indigo, but in this workshop, our color will come from fresh flowers from my dye garden in Mancos. You’ll use dye baths, flowers and Shibori techniques to create a flower-infused top of your own design to take home.

Lily Russo: I feel very fortunate to have been practicing yoga for the past 20 years. It has been a path of health, joy, transformation and empowerment since my teen years. Initially, it was the physical practice that captured my attention, but over the years this led me to study all the other facets including pranayama, meditation, tantra, and yoga’s sister science, Ayurveda, as well as other influential disciplines, primarily Buddhism, the Tao te Ching, and plant medicines. I have participated in over 1000 hours of yoga trainings, and am an affiliate of Shiva Rea’s Samudra Global School of Living Yoga, leading 200 Hour Prana Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Trainings.

As a Sacred Sensuality Guide, Yoga Teacher, Retreat Organizer, Podcaster and Ayurvedic Wellness Coach, my goal is to guide others to embody a path of connection to their higher selves and to all other beings, and be empowered to access the great cosmic source of radiance, creativity, and healing. My deepest passion is connecting with women and guiding them to fully cultivate their natural feminine powers of sensuality, intuition, compassion, radiance and pleasure! Connect with me at www.lilyrussoyoga.com

The vision for Wild Heart Women’s Gathering stemmed from a deep yearning to connect more deeply to sisterhood, my elemental body, and the natural cycles and powers of our wild Mother Earth. During the gathering I will be facilitating ceremony, movement medicine, song, and connection between all guests and the land we will be gathering on.

Offering:

Living in Rhythm:

In nature, we see animals and plants instinctively living in rhythm with the sun. A bird wakes at sunrise and starts to sing, then cleans herself, then looks for food. A flower opens up with the light and closes in the evening. Just like plants and animals, we are meant to live in alignment with the cycles of nature. Morning, mealtime, and evening rituals are especially helpful in establishing healthy rhythms to our day for optimal energy, digestion, and sleep. In this experience, we’ll study the Ayurvedic recommendations for living in alignment with nature, and we’ll get on the mat to practice embodiment rituals appropriate for the sacred junctures of sunrise and sundown.

Body and Face Adornments with Emma Hooper

Holding space to invite in the sacredness of using your body as a canvas. During this vulnerable  process you get to exude whatever your intention is during the retreat. Or use the paint to embody the transformation that will take place during this beautiful time. Adornments are an external expression of fierce beauty, and individuality. They are applied to help you remember your uniqueness and importance here.

Lotus Vibes Creative by Ani Silversprings

Ani Silversprings weaves one-of-a-kind seed bead fringe earrings for all people yearning to express their version of flowing femininity. The act of adorning oneself can be a sacred, spiritual act. This belief is coupled with love and joyful energy as she creates. The name, Lotus Vibes, comes from the vibration of the lotus flower blooming from the mud of the earth, opening up into a strong, beautiful flower. We are all these blossoms, a combination of strength and radiance.