Women of the Woods was a retreat for women run in the Ashdown Forest in June 2015 and 2016 in collaboration with Ruby May, Abi Denyer-Bewick and Jools Voce. We feasted, sculpted, adorned ourselves, drank cacao, foraged, shared, listened, channeled, stretched our bodies and sang. And the woods sang back, in fact the Goddess of Sussex, Easke, whom the Ashdown Forest is named after, most certainly made an appearance. Philippa has had many enquiries about when the next retreat might be so do get in touch if you would like to be on the mailing list.
“Wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit” – Edward Abbey
“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.” - Rachel Carson.
Ruby May is an edge-dwelling, earth loving, creative visionary whose international workshops and rituals weave her passion for play, embodiment and authenticity with her love for creating magical and transformative spaces. She has studied and explored many paths to healing and expansion, including yoga, tantra, conscious kink, ecosexuality and spiritual ecology, and worked as sexological bodyworker and intimacy coach, before stepping into facilitating groups, full-time.
Ruby believes that our relationship to nature and our own inherent ‘wildness’ is central to our spiritual and physical well-being and she has a passion for exploring creative ways in which to practise this. Two powerful tools that she feels inspired to share at Women of the Woods, are working with nature constellation, in which we can become channels for earth wisdom, and working with the sacred plant medicine raw cacao, which contains a gentle yet powerful plant spirit, that supports us in creating a deeper connection to our self and our planet. For more information about Ruby's work, see her website here.
Everybody needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.
Why Women? Why Woods?
When Philippa started training as a forest school practitioner and described the process to friends, she noticed that women kept saying how much they would like to be a participant in my sessions. Many women expressed a deep urge to connect with nature and also a desire to learn some of the bushcraft / creative skills that allow the individual to explore their innate responses to the world. From these conversations, many themes came out: responding to seasonal changes, exploring the idea of community, making wild art and the empowerment of learning how to survive (if civilisation collapses!). Why women only? Well, from my experience, when there are men and women around, it can become very hard to avoid falling into gender stereotyped roles. Quite simply, I don't want anything to get in the way of women using axes and lighting fires!
* Sorry men I do love you but it's women only.
First Ever women of the woods day in Dorking, August 17th 2014: foraging, intrepid feasting and ingenious creativity.
Joined by 9 London-dwellers escaping the city for a day, we foraged, cooked, created, chatted, wandered and just enjoyed being in the woods. I learned so much from the ingenuity and enthusiasm of the group; never have I seen an outdoor toilet-tipi created with such beautiful attention to detail (accessibility handles, pathway and fancy string-work!?) or a meal of such gastronomic ambition cooked over a fire! We ate moroccan stew, poppy and nigella seed dampers with baba ganoush (from fire roasted aubergines) and cardamon and blackberry cupcakes baked inside oranges. We spent the rest of the day making useful things, beautiful things and discovering strange wood spirits emerging out of the trees. Bliss!
