A Rewilding Retreat for Women: Reconnect and Remember

A group of women smile holding their handmade whisk brooms made during a women's Rewilding retreat at Wild AbundanceNourish yourself with a long weekend retreat full of reconnection and rejuvenation by engaging your hands and heart.

The women’s rewilding retreat is a supportive, collective opportunity to learn ancient, archetypal skills, commune with your sisters, explore your own depths and fortify your connections with yourself and the generative Earth.  

Rewilding is about integration, not about going back in time. It’s about making space for the ancient, undomesticated part of ourselves to come forward, even in the modern world.

What our students say

As women, we have a deep physiological and spiritual connection with creation. Rewilding is a way to nurture and animate that innate connection. No matter our backgrounds, all of us have female ancestors who lived with the rhythms of Earth’s patterns and cycles. Indeed, women’s relationships with plants, animals and spirits have been foundational to human culture for millennia. This rewilding women’s retreat offers an opportunity to revitalize those connections and to reclaim the power and grace of your womanhood.

At this women’s retreat, we’ll co-create a supportive, inclusive environment.

A group of women smile after the closing circle of their rewilding retreat at Wild Abundance

This program is open to all who identify as women.

In this rewilding retreat for women, we focus on cultivating a safe, inclusive, supportive, relaxed and fun learning environment, in which students with beginning to intermediate skill levels can thrive. While we will be doing hands-on projects, this is not an outcome-oriented class; you won’t be pressured to work more quickly than is comfortable for you. The rewilding retreat is about liberating our minds and hearts to express themselves creatively, not about measurable accomplishments.

Learning together with our hands and hearts.

During this special weekend, we will learn and practice some of the essential, beautiful skills and rituals that have woven us together for millennia. We’ll gather around an altar and a fire to share stories, rituals, and prayers. Together, we’ll explore traditional crafts, self-care, wild foraging, medicine making, and more. 

With the loving guidance of wise women from diverse backgrounds, we’ll learn to nurture the feminine strength within each of us that has sustained our ancestors and that springs directly from the Earth. As we practice ancient skills and explore timeless ideas, we will connect with each other and with the nature of womanhood, throughout the ages and across all walks of life.

What is rewilding?

Milkweed flower with monarch caterpillar

Rewilding is a term that was first used in wildlife conservation. In that context, it refers to the restoration of land to a wild, uncultivated state, including the reintroduction of native plant and animal species. Human rewilding is a process of restoring our inner landscape and lifestyle to a more primal and natural state. In this case, we are welcoming home our instincts and innate connection with the natural world. Rewilding is a process of reawakening the essential nature that lives within each of us.

Through rewilding, we connect with our truest selves and our roots in the living world.

As a result, we’re able to access a much-needed inner compass to help navigate our busy, modern lives. Even though we all have a deep well of creativity, healing, and wisdom within us, many of us have forgotten how to get in touch with it. Rewilding is a path toward that remembering.

Why is rewilding for women important?

A group of women are led by an elder woman naturalist through a forest on a plant identification walkWe believe that empowered, grounded, Earth-centered women are an essential part of a healthy world. But it can be hard to embody these qualities with the pressures of daily life, especially if we feel isolated or alone! In the face of rampant ecological and social upheaval, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed or powerless. In these modern times, we organize our lives on our phones, communicate via the Internet, and live in a culture so very estranged from each other and the Earth. Yet, the power and wisdom of the wild world continues to speak to us and through us.

Rewilding is a way to listen to that untamed voice. Through this process, we can reclaim the innate strength to show up with integrity in our own lives, our communities, and the wider world.

Now more than ever, it is vital for us to come together to reconnect and to remember what it means to be human and female, in order to nurture a thriving future.

What to Expect in This Women’s Rewilding Retreat:

Over the course of four days, we will gather for morning, afternoon, and sometimes evening sessions with a wonderful group of wise women of all ages. There will be time for deep sharing, reflection, ceremony, creative expression, hands on learning and attunement to the land, ourselves, and each other.

We will create a container together during this time that allows for depth and integration. There will be invitations to lean into vulnerable spaces, providing fertile ground for new growth. Within this there will be moments for learning new skills, for coming together as a group, for one-on-one connections with sisters, and for quiet contemplation with ourselves and our greatest teacher the living Earth.

When women gather, beauty is made and profound change is possible. 

This women’s retreat will change you if you allow it to. You can expect to walk away on Sunday with a seed planted, a spark ignited, a prayer answered.

Please note: this weekend of rewilding for women involves spiritual practices such as prayer and ritual, but it is not a religious class. Animism, or the belief that there is Spirit/aliveness in all things, was the first “religion” of humanity everywhere, and is infused in this retreat. Let us rewild our own spirits by working with the powerful, wild energies of the Earth.

All are welcome, regardless of your personal beliefs and practices

Students are invited to participate as they feel moved, and nobody will be pressured to do anything that doesn’t feel right to them. 

Most class sessions will include a hands-on project or craft, along with an in-depth discussion of its personal and cultural significance. Part of the magic of rewilding is the weaving together of our physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual bodies. For this reason, we’ll be working on projects that embody and explore essential aspects of our womanhood.

Skills and subjects we will explore, in a relaxed atmosphere that honors both ambition and repose

Brooms made during rewilding class lined up in a circle around a flower

  • Traditional crafts
  • Reconnecting with our wild women within
  • Honoring the stages of women’s lives through seasons and cycles
  • Wildcrafting and plant medicine
  • Wild foods 
  • Earth-centered self-care 
  • Altar building and tending

 


Instructors

Emileigh Zola, instructor of Women's Rewilding Retreat

Emileigh Zola

Emileigh Zola (she/her) has a passion for curating spaces of depth, connection, and inspiration.Through her own trials of loss, transformation, and the unexpected, she has learned many key tools for self growth that she loves sharing with others. Emileigh is a life coach and loves working with women who are ready to commit themselves to ...

Mary Morgaine Squire

Mary Morgaine Squire, aka Mary Plantwalker, was born a tender and documentarian. She naturally tends to the beings within any space she is in with the utmost attention and care. As the matriarch of Herb Mountain Farm, Mary creates sanctuary for plants, birds, humans and many other creatures through earth stewardship. Documenting the life unfolding ...

Stephanie Hein

Stephanie (she/her) is a Plant Extrovert, No-Till Farmer, Herbalist, Mother, and Daughter. She owns Wise Earth Way, a small batch botanical company where she takes great joy in growing nearly 90% of all the plant medicines in her formulas.  She believes that the earth is wise and the way to tend to her is with ...

Nancy Basket

Nancy Basket (she/her) takes her name from the work she does and from her Cherokee grandmother long ago, Margaret Basket. She came South in 1989 to gather pine needles and learn Cherokee stories to teach her 6 children.  Nancy loves being an Artist in Education working in public schools sharing her culture, stories and art ...

This class is held just outside of Asheville, NC, at the Wild Abundance Sanford Way Campus

Wild Abundance’s original home campus is on Sanford Way in Barnardsville, NC. It boasts many gorgeous and functional features,  like a leaf-shaped organic permaculture garden, a food forest, a hand built log cabin, an open-air classroom topped with solar panels, and a stunning wattle and daub outdoor kitchen.

Please note: our campuses are all unconventional, with rustic amenities and uneven ground. Read more about Planning your trip and about our campuses. It takes about 25 minutes to get here from Asheville.

Accommodations and Facilities

You’ve got several options of where to stay during your class. Some students camp, some locals commute, and others choose to rent accommodations with more creature comforts.

Onsite camping (with your own bedding and rainproof tent or hammock) is available for free to all students (including locals) during class. Campers have access to a lovely outdoor kitchen equipped with a stove, hot and cold running water, plus pots and pans, knives and cutting boards, bowls, plates, and utensils, along with an outdoor shower (with hot and cold running water) and outhouse. If you’d rather rent a place, there are many available. We’ll share a curated list of nearby options once you’ve registered. 

Costs of Different Accommodations

So you can better plan your trip to come learn with us, here’s some info on accommodations we offer, or that we link to in the student handbook you’ll receive upon registration. 

  • Camping with your own gear: free
  • On-campus enclosed or open-air options through AirBnB : $30-$65/night + fees
  • Hyper-local off-campus single rentals: $40-$2000/night + fees
  • Hyper-local off-campus couples rentals: $20-100/person/night + fees
  • Hyper-local off-campus group rentals: $25-$86/person/night + fees

Getting a place with a group of fellow students is a great way to make connections and reduce costs! We share contact info for each class so you can get in touch and make plans together. Everyone has a chance to keep their info private if they choose. 

Transportation Info and Costs

Our campus is about 25 minutes north of Asheville, 40 minutes from the Asheville Regional Airport, and 2.5 hours from the Charlotte International Airport. You’ll get detailed directions of how to get here upon registration. 

You won’t need a car during your class. There’s a chance you may want to run an errand or go out to dinner with fellow students, and if this happens, it’s highly likely that another student with a car will be happy to give you a lift.

Public transportation doesn’t serve our rural area, but we’ll share contact info for local folks who offer airport and grocery shuttle runs for $50-$80 each way upon registration. If you’d rather rent a car, those run anywhere from $45-$200/day. Just like with lodging, teaming up with a group of fellow students to share a car rental can help build connections and reduce costs. 


Pricing for Women’s Rewilding

Regular Pricing: $700 – $1,400

Please pay what you can afford.  The median price is suggested to help cover the full cost of hosting this class. Please select the low end of the sliding scale if you are low income. If your household income is over $115,000/year, please select the maximum fee. Please place yourself in this range where you deem appropriate, based on your income.

Course Date:

  • Jun 6-9, 2024 (filled)