Good Medicine Confluence
Once Upon a Time a connivance of maladies of the body, mind and spirit was seen to spread across the once verdant land, and time it was for its most inspired and caring peoples to arise and gather, time indeed to increase their knowledge, learn new skills, and together make a special magic!
Imagine if you will, an ancient land alive with spirits and the many blessings of the still wild natural world. Richly colorful wildflowers, medicinal herbs and shrooms abound on the shimmering mountainsides, where diverse healers, plant lovers and alchemists, visionaries and culture-shifters from all over the world gather to learn, share, connect and celebrate.
It is for you – on your unique personal path – to seek and then step through the fabled door to Nature’s healing Otherworld... and thereby, delve deeper into your own unfolding story.
Laura will be teaching two workshops:
Belonging: Finding your way home
This is an experience for people who have felt like they were too much or not enough to belong. Through education, playful experiences, and a guided journey, we'll start to unwind habitual neurobiological patterns. In little ways and big ways, together we cultivate a sense of belonging. On our journey, we'll open to being held by Mama Earth, and discover how deepening a connection to the Earth, we plant seeds of courage, confidence, and wisdom.
Emotional Wisdom: How The Earth Can Support Us in Understanding & Relating to Emotions
In this workshop, we'll explore cultivating wisdom as we experience various seasons of emotions such as sadness, joy, fear, and anger. Participants will learn three Earth-based practices that can support people in relating to emotions with respect and care.
Purchase your ticket here!
As a presenter, Laura has two extra tickets for sale. Tickets include all classes. Food and lodging are not included.
Bison Lodge at Puma Hills - Nature Retreat Center
Entering the site, the experience is one of spectacular mountainsides parting before us like giant gates at the threshold of a most fantastic dream, the thickets of Spruce and Fir opening up to us like the pages of a book whose entire tale is yet to be written.
Having flown or driven from homes across the country, here we find ourselves not only in a refreshing new subalpine landscape but a veritable Otherworld, a realm of the numinous and an enchanting stage for explorations and discoveries, for the learning of new skills and developing of connections and alliances, for a profound encountering not only of the medicine of nature but of our most natural, healthful, purposeful and hopeful selves.
Lodging, meals, the Masquerade Ball, and our 6 simultaneous classes in each time slot will be spread among a number of beautiful and unusual spaces. It should be said that the founders of Bison Lodge/Puma Hills themselves have long focused on providing opportunities for healing from PTSD as well as physical injuries, especially for oft neglected veterans and heroic first responders – an ethos in keeping with Plant Healer’s aims of serving the underserved, and of contributing to health as an essential wholeness of body, mind and spirit. As you know, a return to wellness and wholeness can benefit not only from the use of curative herbs and fungi, but also from intimate time out in the natural world.
Every structure found at the Center is dedicated to that caring mission, with lovely window-filled architecture designed to reflect the vibrant green nature they each seem to grow out of. The Main Lodge will be host to daily classes, as well as some lodgers.
A covered patio behind will also feature classes, overlooking the nearby woods. The Pavilion building will house the Healer’s Market, where Confluence teachers and other vendors will offer information, answer your questions, and sell their herbal and artisan wares. Middle-Ages style festival tents will hold additional classes and workshops, as well as the Thursday night teacher introductions, Friday night presentation with Kenneth Proefrock, and Saturday night dance concert. The largest of these is a sight to behold, particularly when lit up beneath a star speckled Western sky. In every direction there are wildflower lined trails leading out into the dense conifer forest, perfect for plant walks and quiet diversions when the seasonal monsoon showers allow – usually sunny days with banks of clouds rushing in most afternoons and painting the mountains with a faery glimmer.
Food & Lodging
When it comes to where to lodge for the four nights of the Confluence, we recommend to you the wide range of great on-site options offered by the good folks at this Retreat Center –– from very inexpensive primitive camping sites for erecting your own tent, to the Center’s rental tents, unusual bubble tents and geodesic domes, cushy glamping tipis, a couple of well appointed historic covered wagons, luxurious cabin rooms and affordable bunk-rooms, and even car camping spots. Staying right there on the property means being able to quickly get to meals and classes, and back to bed after each night’s activities.
Bison Lodge at Puma Hills offers an extremely reasonable 12-Meals Plan, Wednesday Breakfast through Saturday Supper, featuring all-you-can-eat buffets with special options for Confluence attendees and teachers, and served on the Main Lodge patio overlooking the mountains.
Meals and lodging will be available to purchase February 1st.
