Looking Back...

Women's Painting & Earth-Centered Healing Weekend
April 21-23 2006

Join us for an incredible weekend as we open to the creative source and breathe life into to the Art-Medicine Woman inside. Painting can be a powerful tool for healing and change, it is delightfully unpredictable, body centered and non-verbal, it is bright and alive! Process Painting has the power to help you connect to your deeper self, heal what has been stuck or hidden, and gently change your life. At times it is all play and fun, at other times it is deep and requires a commitment to inner work and healing. Class will be held in Shelley’s new studio. We will do plant brushings, burn copal and utilize traditional healing techniques to honor and birth the painter’s spirit in each of you. NO ART OR PAINTING EXPERIENCE REQUIRED, actually the less the better! Painting from the Source by Aviva Gold is required and fun reading for the workshop and is available at Apothecary Tinctura.
Cost: $225
with Shelley Torgove
Call the store for details 303.399.1175

Healing Traditions of Mexico Adventure
March 18-25 2006, Mexico

To truly learn and embrace traditional healing wisdom, one must venture to the source. Join us as we travel to Cuernavaca, Mexico, a beautiful colonial town one hour south of Mexico City to study ancient philosophies and practices of healing. The four elements will be ever present in this journey of spirit: earth as food and herbs, air as the wafting smoke of copal, fire as the burning embers beneath the copal, and water as our sweat and tears in the temazcal. We will stay in the heart of the city, eat and make Mexican foods, travel to the market to buy herbs, visit the ethno-botanical gardens to acquaint ourselves with common plants, and spend our days in the company of local traditional healers. This trip is an opportunity to immerse yourself in Mexican culture, learning concepts of traditional medicine, deepening your spiritual connection to the earth and her remedies.

Sample Itinerary:

Day 1: Arrive Mexico City, travel to Cuernavaca... get to know the city

Evening Lecture: Traditions of Mexico: Healing for Mind, Body, & Spirit... setting the tone for the trip and opening ceremony

Day 2: Estela Roman & Dora Diaz: Traditional techniques for healing:

limpia, copal, ventosas, massage, dance, etc.

Day 3: El Mercado Degollada: Trip to purchase

foods and herbs; tour of the city, Cooking traditional foods with Mari Elena and Estela, Traditional Nutrition, prehispanic foods and its healing power, aroma, and colors.

Day 4: Excursion to Xochicalco

Estela and Dario (Aztec art and its meanings)

Day 5: Trip to Temixco to meet with Estela Roman

Temazcal- Ancestral sweat lodge for healing of body, mind, and spirit
Massage Techniques

Day 6: El Jardin Etnobotanico

w/ Estela Roman and Carlos Gomez
Evening: herbal baths by the poolside

Day 7: Excursion to Tepoztlan

Climb the ruins: initiation!
Meet with Dona Vicenta Alaya

Day 8: Free Day to visit the city, museums, Jardin Borda, or shopping!!

Day 9: Back to Denver!

Optional morning classes in Spanish with Ricardo Castaneda Ortiz (Kari's favorite Spanish teacher ever!)

When there aren't evening lectures there will be time for relaxation, talking, space to practice new skills, salsa dance classes, as well as space to work on a group painting using the "process painting" concepts.

Cost: $1050 Deposit: $400 (non-refundable)
with Estela Roman, Kari Radoff & Shelley Torgove

Call the store for details 303.399.1175

Women's Painting & Earth-Centered Healing Retreat
Santa Fe, New Mexico
May 2004

Imagine yourself... surrounded by the enchanting magic of the high desert, fully immersed in the creative process... supported and celebrated by a group of like-minded kindred spirits... painting, playing and giving form and color to what is authentic and alive in YOU. The Women's Painting and Healing Retreat will be held at the beautiful Synergia Ranch outside of Santa Fe where we will call on the spirits of the land and desert plants to help us dig deep and breathe life into the art-medicine woman inside.

Our painting space is incredible... a circular dome in the desert where we are surrounded by our paintings. We will also spend time preparing herbal baths and doing plant brushings. We will have time for long walks in nature and learn traditional songs that honor women and the earth. Lodging is very comfortable in little adobe "casitas" and the food is a delicious celebration of the Southwest. This workshop is ideal for women who are seeking to know themselves more fully. While both fun and creative, it requires a commitment to inner work and group process.

Cost: $495 includes lodging/meals
Deposit: $200
With Shelley Torgove

Join us for a truly life changing experience on a journey to the heart of the rainforest to study traditional healing. We have been blessed with the opportunity to return again to Belize to study with Dr. Rosita Arvigo, Miss Hortense Robinson and Miss Beatrice Waight. This time the focus of the trip is Maya Spiritual Healing... everyone's favorite part of the past workshops that have focused on Maya Uterine Massage. This trip is designed for individuals and practitioners to learn very practical and applicable skills on how to recognize and address common spiritual ailments such as PTSD, grief, depression and envy. We will also be introduced to house blessings, helping lost souls and do a guided imagery journey to the Maya Spirits and hopefully to Don Elijio Panti, the great Maya shaman, to ask for assistance in this important work. The basis of Maya Spiritual Healing is of course, the prayers, incense, herbal baths and a close connection with the Nine Maya Spirits.

Cost: $1700 includes lodging/meals
Deposit: $400

Women's Healing Journey To Belize: Maya Uterine Massage 
Belize
January 2003

Join us for an incredible eight-day journey as we explore, study, play, and touch the ancient wisdom that still thrives with Rosita Arvigo and the people of the Belize Rain Forest. We will be staying at the beautiful Ix Chel Farm, steeping ourselves in the ancient wisdom of the forest and the traditional Maya people. We will be learning about the plant medicines of the rainforest, making remedies and learning the essence of Maya Spiritual Healing. Our time will also be spent learning the ancient Maya technique of uterine massage, an external, non-invasive traditional therapy used to treat women's health imbalances. This is truly a chance-of-a-lifetime-experience to learn directly from the midwives and healers of Belize. We consider this to be women's spirit journey as we celebrate time spent together in nature, canoeing the rivers as we travel through ancient Maya ruins. Accommodations are perfectly delightful and the fresh vegetarian cooking is absolutely fabulous.

Cost: $1700 includes lodging/meals
Deposit: $400