Ancient Woodland Retreats

Ancient Woodland Retreats Welcome to Ancient Woodland Retreats. Set in the heart of the Far Forest in Ancient woodland, we off Join us in ancient woodland in the heart of the Far Forest.

Staying in authentic yurts, celebrate the beauty of nature on retreats throughout the year. Specialising in Yoga, meditation and massage therapies, relax and unwind in harmony with the enchanting beauty around us. Weekend retreats available on specific dates or book a private retreat for your friends and family for birthdays, hen weekends ect incorporating yoga sessions, guided meditations and/or relaxing massage therapies tailored to your requests.

28/07/2022

“Grandma, how do you cope with pain?”
“With your hands, honey. If you do it with your mind instead of relieving the pain, it toughens even harder.”
“With your hands grandma?”
“Yes, our hands are the antennae of our soul. If you move them; knitting, cooking, painting, playing or sinking them into the ground, you send care signs to the deepest part of you and your soul lights up because you’re paying attention to it. Then signs of pain will no longer be necessary.”
“Hands are really that important?”
“Yes my daughter. Think of babies: they start to know the world through the touch of their hands. If you look at the hands of old people, they tell you more about their life then any body part. Everything that is done by hand is said to be done with the heart. Because it’s really like this: hands and heart are connected. Masseurs know well: when they touch someone with their hands, they create a deep connection. It is precisely from this connection that healing comes. Think of lovers: when they touch their hands, they make love in a more sublime way.”
“My hands grandma.... how long I haven’t used them like this!”
“Move them, my love. Begin to create with them and everything within you will begin to move. The pain will not pass away. And instead what you do with them will become the most beautiful masterpiece and it won’t hurt anymore. Because you have been able to transform its essence..

~Elena Bernabe ~

Artist Credit : Claudia Tremblay

28/07/2021

M.K.

27/07/2021

Foxglove ( Digitalis )is a plant beloved by the fairies, and its appearance in the wild indicates their presence. Likewise, fairies can be attracted to a domestic garden by planting foxgloves. Dew collected from the blossoms is used in spells for communicating with fairies, though gloves must be worn when handling the plant as digitalis can be toxic. In the Scottish borders, foxgloves leaves were strewn about babies' cradles for protection from Foxglovebewitchement, while in Shropshire they were put in children's shoes for the same reason (and also as a cure for Scarlet Fever). Picking foxglove flowers is said to be unlucky in Devon and Cornwall, this is because it robs the fairies, elves, and pixies of a plant they particularly delight in and in the north of England, foxglove flowers in the house are said to allow the Devil entrance.

In Roman times, foxglove was a flower sacred to the goddess Flora, who touched Hera on her breasts and belly with foxglove in order to impregnate her with the god Mars. The plant has been associated with midwifery and women's magic ever since -- as well as with "white witches" (practitioners of benign and healing magic) who live in the wild with vixen familiars, the latter pictured with enchanted foxglove bells around their necks. In medieval gardens, the plant was believed to be sacred to the Virgin Mary. In the earliest recordings of the Language of Flowers, foxgloves symbolized riddles, conundrums, and secrets, but by the Victorian era they had devolved into the more negative symbol of insincerity.

A lovely old legend told in the West Country explains why foxgloves bob and sway even when there is no wind: this is the plant bowing to the fairy folk as they pass by. The spires of foxgloves growing on our hill mark it out a place beloved by fairies, a land filled with riddles, secrets, and stories. I walk its paths, listen to the tales, and then do my best to bring them back to you ..

~ Terri Wilding ~

Art by Nom Kinnear King

23/06/2021

How monotonous our speaking becomes when we speak only to ourselves!
And how insulting to the other beings – to foraging black bears and twisted old cypresses – that no longer sense us talking to them, but only about them, as though they were not present in our world…
Small wonder that rivers and forests no longer compel our focus or our fierce devotion. For we walk about such entities only behind their backs, as though they were not participant in our lives.
Yet if we no longer call out to the moon slipping between the clouds, or whisper to the spider setting the silken struts of her web, well, then the numerous powers of this world will no longer address us –
and if they still try, we will not likely hear them.
•David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology
•Art: Tomasz Alen Kopera
http://alenkopera.com/

13/04/2019

Resurrection is no once-in-history miracle
Each moment offers a new now
Each swell of breath rolls rock from tomb

This morning the peepers call to prayer
From the vernal spring
Itself a miracle of renewal

Shrouded sunlight
Gentles me awake
To new life
-Howard Jacobson
Photograhy by Alexandra Sophie “The Burial”
https://www.deviantart.com/.../art/The-burial-III-414994802

09/03/2019

​Ever since my youth I’ve felt the embrace of my landscape. I’ve known its curves and its cures.As a troubled teenager I’d disappear into the thickness of the woods, unseen by all…

09/03/2019

Take your heart and your horse out for a walk. Walking alongside the horse has immense healing potential. When you walk beside the horse it is possible to have profound shifts of awareness from endless mind chatter to absolute presence. This is because when you are beside the horse, you are gifted some of her presence and some of her alert awareness. You are welcomed into her world while you take her for a walk in yours. 💫 more on our website launching soon ✨

02/03/2019
14/02/2019

Address

Meaton Lane
Far Forest
DY148NT

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