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The Myth and Mystery of Sacred Geometry and the Healing Nature of Mandalas: A Holotropic Breathwork Workshop

Location icon
Phoenicia, NY 12464, USA
Date
April 4 - 8, 2027

About this Retreat

Details of this retreat

This workshop will explore how Holotropic Breathwork®, Sacred Geometry and creating a sand mandala can facilitate healing, our desire for transcendence, wholeness and connection to our Divine Nature.

You are invited to join us to experience the remarkable healing potential and therapeutic benefits of Holotropic Breathwork®, a powerful breathwork practice that allows for self-exploration, transformation and healing. With eyes closed and lying on a mat, you will use your own breath and the music in the room to enter an expanded state of consciousness. This state activates the natural inner healing potential of the breather, or “inner healer”, which guides the experience.

Holotropic Breathwork is a tool for bringing unconscious material into conscious awareness. It can serve as a portal into the unconscious, allowing participants to access, process, and release unprocessed memories, trauma, and repressed emotions. For centuries, and across many cultures, expanded states of consciousness have been used as a tool for transformation and healing.

The therapeutic benefits of Holotropic Breathwork® can include release and healing of trauma and grief, improving anxiety and depression, supporting recovery from addiction, higher insights of spiritual understanding, increased connection to self and others, and opening to compassion and love.

In this workshop, you will also have the rare opportunity to explore the Myth and Mystery of Sacred Geometry and participate in the transformative experience of creating a group sand mandala under the guidance of our dynamic Sacred Geometry teacher and Holotropic Breathwork facilitator from Ireland, Geoff Fitzpatrick. Our highly trained and experienced team of clinical psychologist Dr. Laurane McGlynn and psychotherapist and trauma specialist, Sarah Hirigoyen from England, will support and guide you on your Holotropic journey of self-discovery and healing.

In this double breathwork workshop, each person will experience four Holotropic Breathwork® sessions (two as a breather/two as a sitter), an introductory talk on Holotropic Breathwork, an interactive presentation on sacred geometry and the process of creating sand mandalas, creation of a group sand mandala, sound healing session, sharing circles, mandala drawing, an evening dance celebration and a closing healing ritual and ceremony with the sand mandala.

This workshop is open to new breathers, experienced breathers or anyone interested in Holotropic Breathwork, Sacred Geometry or the healing nature of mandalas. To register, please email drmcglynn6@gmail.com

*Contraindications: pregnancy, serious heart conditions, epilepsy, glaucoma, retinal detachment, history of severe mental or emotional disorders, acute infectious disease, and recent injury or surgery.



Schedule:

Sunday, April 4

3 pm Check-in begins
6 - 7 pm Dinner
7:15 - 8 pm Opening Circle
8 - 9:30 pm Talk: Introduction to Holotropic Breathwork

Monday, April 5

8 - 9 am Breakfast
9:15 am - 12:30 pm Holotropic Breathwork #1 - Please arrive by 9
1 - 2 pm Lunch
2:15 - 5:30 pm Holotropic Breathwork #2
6 - 7 pm Dinner
7:15 - 8:45 pm Sharing Circle
8:45 - 9:15 pm Sound Healing Session

Tuesday, April 6 – Mandala Day

8 - 9 am Breakfast
9 am - 12 pm Introduction to Sacred Geometry talk, The Mandala Nature Process, Preparation for the Journey
12:30 - 1:30 pm Lunch
1:30 - 2:00 pm Free Time
2:15 - 5:30 pm Creation of Group Sand Mandala
6 - 7 pm Dinner
7:30 - 9 pm Mandala Meditation with Screen Presentation/ Sharing Circle

Wednesday, April 7

8 - 9 am Breakfast
9:15 am - 12:30 pm Holotropic Breathwork #3 – Please arrive by 9
12:30 - 1:30 pm Lunch
2: 15 - 5:30 pm Holotropic Breathwork #4
6 - 7 pm Dinner
7:15 - 9 pm Sharing Circle
9 - 9:45 pm Dance Celebration

Thursday, April 8

8 - 9 am Breakfast
9 - 9:45 am Integration Talk
10 - 11 am Closing Ceremony with Sand Mandala
11:15 am - 12 pm Closing Circle
12:30 -1:30 pm Lunch
2 pm Departure

*Please note this schedule is subject to change.

Getting Here

Location icon Menla, Phoenicia, NY 12464, USA

Accommodation

Deluxe Queen

Accommodation
Deluxe Queen Room with Queen Bed and Private Bathroom Free Phone and Hi-Speed Wifi Internet Access Available Air Conditioning All Rooms in Lhasa are Handicap-Accessible, Including Four Rooms with Wheelchair Accessible Showers. Deluxe Queen Rooms are Available in Lhasa Inn and Kathmandu House * Please note that rates include meals and accommodations

Standard Single - Shared Bath

Accommodation
Menla Private Queen Room with Queen Bed and Shared Bathroom Public Phone and Hi-Speed Wifi Internet Access Available This lodging type is not ADA Compliant Private Queen Rooms with Shared Bathroom are Available in Thimpu House, Panther Cottage and Potala House * Please note that rates include meals and accommodations

Economy Premium Single - Shared Bath

Accommodation
Standard Premium Single Room with a Queen or Full Bed and Shared Bathroom Up to 10 guests share two large bathrooms. Each bathroom has two shower stalls and two toilets. A phone is not available but high-speed WiFi is available in the room Phone Access Available in Upper Level Of Conference Center. All calls are free of charge This Lodging Type is not ADA Compliant. * Please note rates include meals and accommodations.

Customer Reviews

4.81 out of 5.0 average rating

2.0
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Beautiful but…
I do love the setting & atmosphere at Menla. There’s magic in the air. After 2 previous visits where I stayed in Dragon (which was dumpy) I paid more this time around for Naranda. It was a lovely room, much nicer than Dragon. There is a tiny mirror in an awkward inaccessible place. A larger mirror in a more accessible place would be appreciated. The bathroom stalls could use improvement! One does not lock at all and the way the doors are designed makes it impossible to know whether to push or pull them and they slam loudly when they shut, jarringly so. This could be easily fixed! The showers are extremely small and it’s very easy to freeze or scald yourself if your elbow accidentally hits the temperature lever. The coffee is TERRIBLE! I had a glimpse of the bag and it’s NOT organic or fair trade which is what we are lead to believe. The food is mostly delicious but inconsistent. On our last evening the risotto was extremely undercooked and sometimes things ran out. Lastly, another retreat was happening at the same time and several of my colleagues had no place to sit to eat their dinner as all the seats were taken. No bueno!

5.0
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Let’s Talk about appropriation
My stay at Menla was beautiful as the center itself, staff and guest are just lovely. The scenery and energy is amazing. Craig (fire keeper) and Jill (water pourer ) supported by Ericka ( song keeper) sweat lodge is legitimate and wonderful.

However , I attended the Wisdom Warrior retreat more than once , where the leader Kareema should get one star or less. She uses names like Iylana Vanzant and others big named people to demonstrate her so called authority in knowing what she is doing. Turns out Iylana and her had a falling out.

She pretends to be oh so spiritual when all she does is appropriate. When you go to her retreats she’s expects you to work like setting up etc. She poorly plans the retreat and actually it really is not much of a retreat because her co-partner also had a falling out with Kareema and she did most of the retreat prior where it was fine much better.

Kareema picking up the coordinating , designing and more of the retreat herself demonstrated just how much she does not know what she’s doing. Total incompetence.

Furthermore she throws tantrums when she do not go her way and she is perceived by me to be manipulative and verbally and emotionally abusive. Especially when her poorly planned retreat gets someone sick. She has no saftey measures in place and no one available to support her in necessary situations . Her retreats from my experience is Not a safe space at all.

She’s about to make a professional documentary using yet another persons skills for her credit, on the wisdom warriors where it will be used to mislead people on how experienced she is and what a “Queen” she thinks she is personally.

During the retreat she actually told a head staff what she wanted and that she was going to get other staff to do it because this lead staff told her no.

I felt Menla deserves 5 stars itself but wisdom warrior retreat is a façade meaning, I felt I should state the facts as I see them so people do not blindly believe the documentary or any publicity she used to collect peoples money. That’s what she’s really about cash to cash business so she doesn’t have to claim it probably ?

2.0
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Not very embodied
Although the description of this retreat emphasized an experiential focus, the first evening and subsequent morning sessions were nearly all theory, with lots of verbalization of concepts, with very little actual body & sensation focus. There were a guided meditation & a body scan, and a brief intro to qigong, but no exercises to facilitate somatic awareness & discernment. And the didactic material was scattered, lots of seemingly random spiritual axioms and theories put forth, some anecdotes, and an incomplete (without any actual experience occurring) description of how to recognize and deal with “incompleted” feelings or emotions, the basis for this theory of (somehow) completing them, and living a sane, happy & fulfilled life.. Instead, it sounds to me like a lot of tumbling around with and coming to some compromise for control with our ego…and again, the sessions were nearly all theoretical, intellectual. Where’s the body? I wondered, and withdrew from the workshop after the first session of the second day, finding the material & presentation not worthwhile.

5.0
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Beautiful & Restful
Menla is quiet, beautiful and restful. The staff are warm and on their task - calm, focused and helpful, in the background, making it all happen in their caring, focused way. It’s a gorgeous valley location with walking paths between buildings. Facilities are elegantly simple and well designed. Food is tasty, plentiful and simple. Highly recommend.

5.0
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Extraordinary
I have been hosting retreats at Menla for five years, and I am already planning next year’s.

As a retreat leader, I feel completely cared for here. My needs are met, and so are the needs of every woman I bring. That care allows me to give my whole attention to what I am here to do: holding the space, the ritual, and the women who come.

Menla has become a true home for this work. I am deeply grateful, and I look forward to returning year after year.

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