Cameron's Staff Pick
Wild Soma Being and Becoming: Embodied Practices for Collective Thriving
Cortes Island, Strathcona, BC, Canada
June 22 - 27, 2025
Retreat Highlights
- Practices of somatic attunement that foreground embodied knowledges such as feeling, sensation, and emotion
- Practices that support expanded attentional awareness
- Relational practices that support connection to community within the human and more than human world
- Creative practices such as ensemble-based imaginative play, including movement and vocalizing
- An expanded awareness of embodied ways of knowing, being and doing
- A repertoire of individual and collective practices designed to support your wellbeing and aliveness, including sensory, attentional, relational, and creative practices
- An enhanced capacity for cultivating life-giving relationship with self, others, and the world around you
- A better understanding of how embodiment is a world-making gesture
About this Retreat
Andrea Nann is a contemporary dance artist, arts educator, founding artistic director of Dreamwalker Dance Company, and founder/co-creator of Conscious Bodies Methodology, an embodied community practice. Andrea dances to reach across distance and to experience herself and others in celebration of possibility, plurality, imagination, originality, and belonging. A graduate of York University’s Department of Fine Arts, Andrea was a member of the Danny Grossman Dance Company for 15 years and she has contributed to the creation of new works by over 70 dance and theatre creators from across Turtle Island. Andrea has been recognized with awards for choreography, performance, contributions to the performing arts sector and for her work in community actioning. Andrea believes that dance and embodiment can shift attitudes and ways of being, tuning us into what makes each of us distinct, to what we share, and ultimately how we can live together in wonderment and peace.
Julia Aplin has been studying and practicing movement for over 40 years. She has an intense curiosity about the human body in motion and draws on a variety of tools and techniques in her current practice. Julia danced full time for 15 years with Dancemakers, under the Artistic Direction of Serge Bennathan performing around the world. She is an award winning choreographer and has created dances for theatres, rivers, boxing rings, wading pools, cyberspace and neuroscience labs. Julia is on faculty at University of Toronto and Centre for Indigenous Theatre teaching movement to actors. She is a consultant with PULSE research team for movement and aging at McMaster University. She was an artist in residence at the LIVElab a world class facility for the scientific study of music, sound and movement in relation to human health.
In September 2022, she led three installations for riverMOUTH with Urbanvessel and Art in the Park to offer Torontonians a closer relationship to the Cobechenonk/Humber River. She works with a wide range of people from elite performers to beginners. She has created work with the Canadian Opera Company on the Four Seasons stage and with the neighbourhood public school in the basement gym. Julia founded and led Triple C, a community dance group for creation, collaboration and community 2019-2021. She held a fellowship with rareCharitable reserve in Cambridge, Ontario and her research is focused on embodiment and kinship through human and tree relations. She is a member of Wild Soma, an artist collective for embodied World-Making.
upwardspiral.me
Roula Said is a singer, dancer, musician, actor and poet of Palestinian heritage based in Toronto, Canada. Roula has been studying, teaching and performing Arab music and dance for over 25 years. From within her tradition as practiced here in the west (where she has also explored many other styles of movement, music, voice and dance) Roula has created Seven Waves Movement and Embodied Voice, original and innovative methodologies rooted in the Arab Arts and open to the world. She whole-heartedly brings the wisdom offerings of her rich lineage to Wild Soma.
From 2011-18, Roula worked alongside her partner, David Buchbinder to run a cross-cultural creativity-based project called Diasporic Genius that brought citizens together across boundaries of race, religion, ethnicity and age to create music, art, feasts and festivals to enrich their communities and the city at large.
Finally, Roula is a licensed minister and death doula, officiating weddings and milestone ceremonies, as well as providing loving support to individuals and families at the end of life.
Shannon Litzenberger (she/her, Tkaronto) is an award-winning contemporary dancer, choreographer, director and embodiment facilitator. Inspired by the borderless landscapes of her prairie homeland, she creates sensory-rich multi-disciplinary performance experiences that animate our relationship to land, community and the forgotten wisdom of the body. An imaginative creator, she often develops unique collaborations across art forms and communities, centring participatory experiences in artistic processes. Throughout her 20+ year career, her work has been presented across Canada and the US, in collaboration with many of Canada’s leading artists across disciplines.
The creative principles and embodied practices she works with regularly in the studio are also central to her work in leadership development, organizational culture development, public policy development and systems change. Backed by a growing body of emergent research from across a spectrum of fields in both the sciences and humanities, her approach to personal and collective transformation focuses on recovering our capacity to feel and sense ourselves and the world around us as a way of knowing, being and co-creating. She works frequently across corporate, academic and non-profit spaces, with organizations such as the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), the Ivey Business School at Western University, Memorial University, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, Department of Canadian Heritage, Canada Council for the Arts, Cultural Pluralism Movement in the Arts - Ontario (CPAMO), and others in support of creating a healthier, more interconnected, equitable and resilient society.
Details of this retreat
In this time of intersecting social, political, and planetary crises, how do we embrace and honour all that is arising in us as bodies? What if we listen closely to what we feel in our hearts, what we know in our bones? Can we resonate care and connection across our differences, tuning into our sense of aliveness and embracing a fully embodied, relational way of being in the world in service of collective thriving?
Wild Soma invites you to soften your mind and connect to the wisdom of your body. Move through embodied practices that invite new ways of relating to self, others and our world. Explore ways of recasting the body as self, in specific relationship to the social, cultural, temporal and planetary ecosystems we live within. Resonate inside circles of kindness, wonderment, and connection, illuminating a sense of interconnectedness within the living world. Discover creative practices that gesture toward a world aligned with thriving.
Program Highlights
Wild Soma will guide you through intentionally designed practices and experiences that center embodied ways of knowing, being and moving into action. These include:
Practices of somatic attunement that foreground embodied knowledges such as feeling, sensation, and emotion
Practices that support expanded attentional awareness
Relational practices that support connection to community within the human and more than human world
Creative practices such as ensemble-based imaginative play, including movement and vocalizing
Together we will explore, experience, feel, inquire, move, sound, connect, question, visit, listen, align, attune, accept, breathe, walk, dance, embrace, invite, honour, celebrate, grieve and rest.
We will do this through games, personal reflection, small group activities, guided movement meditations, nature connection activations, informal dance, non-verbal group discussion, verbal group reflections and other creative engagements.
This experience will leave you with:
An expanded awareness of embodied ways of knowing, being and doing
A repertoire of individual and collective practices designed to support your wellbeing and aliveness, including sensory, attentional, relational, and creative practices
An enhanced capacity for cultivating life-giving relationship with self, others, and the world around you
A better understanding of how embodiment is a world-making gesture
Testimonials
“I recommend you jump all-in to the Wild Soma retreat experience. This seriously thoughtful program is in equal parts deep learning, Being shifting and delightful fun. I can't recommend it enough.” - Deborah Farquharson -artist, past participant
“It was a rich delight to experience the exquisite integrity Wild Soma brings to their workshops – a rare quality that is grounded in the diverse and complementary expertise of their leadership, in the inclusive, welcoming invitation with which their practices are offered, and in the ways those practices support a gentle opening of the heart, the imagination, our embodied sensitivity – and ultimately our full, relational humanity. If you have a chance to experience Wild Soma, jump at it!” - Philip Shephard, Creator of The Embodied Present Process, Author of Radical Wholeness and New Self, New World
Daily Schedule
A detailed schedule will be emailed to you about 30 days prior to your program. Click here to view a sample program schedule.
Accommodation
A variety of accommodations are located throughout our lush campus, ranging in price to suit most budgets. Choose from private, beachfront or ocean facing rooms, dorm-style lodging or cabins that nestle in the quiet seclusion of the forest. Our beautiful campsites are also available, with a cedar bath house conveniently located for your use.
Room fees include all Hollyhock basics, like stimulating presenter evenings, delicious, organic meals, morning yoga/meditation classes, guided naturalist walks and tours of the garden, as well as luxurious soaks in our ocean-view hot-tubs. Telephones and wireless Internet are centrally located.
Room Options Include:
Single: 1 Person
Twin: Couple or Friends, 2 beds.
Couple: Couples or Friends sharing 1 bed.
Family/Friends: 3 or more adult friends or family /2 beds
Dorm: Up to 6 people/bunk beds
Tenting with full-service bath house (bring your own tent and bedding)
Roommates can be assigned, upon request, in twin and dorm rooms only.
Private Cabin Oceanfront
This prized cabin includes one queen bedroom, a common area with fireplace and couch, mini-kitchen, private bathroom, and deck overlooking the ocean. Located on our water's edge with a stunning panoramic view of the surrounding Desolation Sound.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi.
Single w/ensuite Oceanfront
Located on our water's edge with a stunning panoramic view of the surrounding Desolation Sound. These rooms include a queen bed and your own private bathroom. The building has a shared kitchen and living space, with a large deck on the ocean side.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
Single w/ensuite
Spacious rooms with a queen bed and private bathroom. Enjoy your own space immersed in nature and the surrounding views.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
Single w/shared bathroom
These cozy private rooms have a shared bathroom, and some rooms have a small desk.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
Couple w/ensuite Oceanfront
Located on our water’s edge with a stunning panoramic view of the surrounding Desolation Sound. These luxurious rooms include your own private bathroom. The building has a shared kitchen and living space, with a large deck on the ocean side.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
*For couples attending separate programs, please advise in the comment section. Your reservation will be adjusted and you will receive an updated confirmation.
Couple w/ensuite
These spacious rooms have a queen bed with a private bathroom. Enjoy your own space immersed in nature and the surrounding views.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
*For couples attending separate programs, please advise in the comment section. Your reservation will be adjusted and you will receive an updated confirmation.
Couple w/shared bathroom
These cozy private rooms have a queen or double bed and a shared bathroom. Some rooms have a small desk.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
*For couples attending separate programs, please advise in the comment section. Your reservation will be adjusted and you will receive an updated confirmation.
Twin w/ensuite oceanfront
This room has two double beds and will be shared by two people. Your room mate will be chosen at random based on gender, or you can request to share with someone you know. The room is located on our water’s edge with a stunning panoramic view of the surrounding Desolation Sound, and includes a private bathroom. The building has access to a kitchen and living space with a large deck on the ocean side.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
Twin w/ensuite
These rooms have two beds and will be shared by two people. You can share with someone you know or your room mate will be chosen at random based on gender. They are spacious and modern with a queen bed, twin bed, or sofa pull out, and include a private bathroom.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
Twin w/shared bathroom
These rooms have two beds and will be shared by two people. You can share with someone you know or your room mate will be chosen at random based on gender. Nested in ferns and blackberry bushes, these cozy and rustic rooms have a shared bathroom. Please be advised some have an external bathhouse.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
Three-share w/shared bathroom
These rooms have three beds and will be shared by three people. Your room mates will be chosen at random based on gender, or you can request to share with someone you know.
This comfortable room surrounded by lush green forest has one double bed and two twin beds. A small kitchenette with a small fridge is available. The bathroom is shared with another room.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
Women Dorm
Rustic and cozy, our dorms are our most economical room option. This dorm can accommodate up to 6 people and has its own washroom. This option is for female-identified people only.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
All dorm beds are assigned, please ask the reception desk first if you would like to switch beds.
In consideration of other participants in your dorm, if you require an alarm clock, please bring a battery-powered one with no audible noise.
If sound may keep you awake, we recommend bringing ear-plugs with you to ensure a good-night’s rest. If you are a loud snorer, the dorms may not be suitable for you.
Male Dorm
Rustic and cozy, our dorms are our most economical room option. This dorm can accommodate up to 4 people and has its own washroom. This option is for male-identified people only.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
All dorm beds are assigned, please ask the reception desk first if you would like to switch beds.
In consideration of other participants in your dorm, if you require an alarm clock, please bring a battery-powered one with no audible noise.
If sound may keep you awake, we recommend bringing ear-plugs with you to ensure a good-night’s rest. If you are a loud snorer, the dorms may not be suitable for you.
Mixed Dorm
Open to all! Rustic and cozy, our dorms are our most economical room option. This dorm can accommodate up to 6 people and has its own washroom.
We have property wide complimentary WiFi, the signal varies from room to room.
All dorm beds are assigned, please ask the reception desk first if you would like to switch beds.
In consideration of other participants in your dorm, if you require an alarm clock, please bring a battery-powered one with no audible noise.
If sound may keep you awake, we recommend bringing ear-plugs with you to ensure a good-night’s rest. If you are a loud snorer, the dorms may not be suitable for you.
Tent Site Single
For nature lovers, set up your tent near cedars and reconnect with nature.
Bathhouse nearby with showers and toilets. Bring your own tent, towels, and all appropriate camping gear. Due to fire safety, cooking on campsites is not permitted. Three meals a day from the Hollyhock kitchen are included in your total cost.
Please be aware that this area is accessed by walking paths only. There may be uneven terrain in the forest.
Stoves, campfires, and recreational vehicles are not allowed on campus.
Tent Site Couple
For nature lovers, set up your tent near cedars and reconnect with nature.
Bathhouse nearby with showers and toilets. Bring your own tent, towels, and all appropriate camping gear. Due to fire safety, cooking on campsites is not permitted. Three meals a day from the Hollyhock kitchen are included in your total cost.
Please be aware that this area is accessed by walking paths only. There may be uneven terrain in the forest.
Stoves, campfires, and recreational vehicles are not allowed on campus.
*For couples attending separate programs, please advise in the comment section. Your reservation will be adjusted and you will receive an updated confirmation.
Commuter
Staying off-site. Includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, and unlimited use of the property’s facilities. If you prefer to have no breakfast or only lunch, please check the appropriate box in your registration form under the commuter question. Lunch is $31 and Dinner is $63 per day, plus tax. Your package and pricing will be updated manually and you will get a second confirmation when we have updated your package. Please call us if you have any questions or would like a different meal arrangement: 1.800.933.6339
Cameron's Staff Pick
A/C in Rooms
Free Wifi
Spa
Sauna
Pool
Towels
Free Parking
Kitchen
Tour Assistance
Hot Tub
Coffee/Tea
Cafe
Restaurant
Fitness Center
Yoga Studio
Housekeeping
Bicycles For Rent
Vegan
Vegetarian
Pescetarian
Ayurvedic
Includes Meat
Organic
Gluten Free
Dairy Free
Nut Free
Verified
