The Art of Belonging | Women's Retreat
September 2–6, 2026 | Taos, New Mexico
A LifeShine Initiatory Retreat
You're capable, reliable, giving —
and quietly hollow inside.
This is where you stop adapting and start belonging.
For the woman who has done the work — and still can't fully land inside herself.
Who holds space for everyone and rarely receives it in return.
Who left her creative life behind to be responsible, and hasn't forgiven herself for it.
Who is tired of walking the path alone.
This retreat is for her. For you.
The Art of Belonging is a five-day immersive retreat in the high desert of Taos, New Mexico.
Together we explore what it means to truly belong — to yourself, to your body, to your creativity, and to the living world around you.
Through structured creative practice, embodied exploration, and shared ritual, this retreat becomes a space where insight becomes lived experience and belonging becomes something you feel in your bones.
Application-based · Intimate circle
Still feeling into it? Join the interest list.
THE TRANSFORMATION
Belonging begins inside
Many accomplished, insightful women quietly carry a sense they can't quite name — not broken, not failing, just not fully home inside themselves. They've read the books. Done the therapy. Taken the workshops. And something is still missing.
Successful — and not fully rooted.
Connected — and still people-pleasing.
Wise — and not always at ease inside themselves.
This retreat supports a grounded shift:
From self-adjustment → to self-trust.
From over-accommodating → to relational sovereignty.
From internal tension → to embodied coherence.
Not through intensity.
Through structure.
Through creative process.
Through steady, witnessed integration.
What Makes This Retreat Different
A living architecture of belonging
The Art of Belonging is built on LifeShine Design — Jen Day’s integrative framework shaped by years of study, initiation, creative practice, and lived embodiment.
LifeShine stands in dialogue with:
The Q’ero wisdom triad (an Indigenous Andean lineage from Peru) — Yachay (wisdom), Munay (love), and Llankay (sacred action)
Celtic Cauldron teachings as carried through Rhonda McCrimmon — a lineage of Celtic wisdom describing three inner cauldrons within the body that govern vitality, purpose, and deep knowing
These traditions are honored as distinct streams.
They are not replicated.
They are not blended.
They are respectfully acknowledged and woven into a grounded, experiential structure participants can directly engage.
Jen does not speak for these lineages.
She speaks from the place where they have shaped her work.
LifeShine is the framework.
The retreat is the lived experience.
The Experience
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BODY
Nervous system grounding
Somatic awareness
Creative embodiment
Each day moves through three essential centers
♥︎
HEART
Relational sovereignty
Boundaries with compassion
Emotional steadiness
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WISDOM
Mythic clarity
Archetypal insight
Real-life integration
Each day cycles through these centers — not as lecture, but as lived practice.
Daily Rhythm
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Before the formal retreat day begins, you are invited into gentle body-based practices such as:
Yoga
Sound healing
Qigong
These offerings regulate the nervous system and open the body before we move into deeper work.
Participation is always optional.
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We begin at the root — where exile often starts.
Through somatic inquiry, parts awareness, and mythic reflection, you reclaim the part of you that knows.
Belonging to your perception.
Belonging to your inner myth.
Belonging to the way you see the world.
Not borrowed knowing.
Not performative knowing.
Your knowing.
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Creative embodiment becomes integration.
Paint becomes portal.
Symbol becomes language.
Insight becomes form.
We explore:
Boundaries as devotion
Love without collapse
Presence without performance
This is relational sovereignty lived through the body.
Not isolation.
Not detachment.
A mature, embodied heart.
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We close each day in circle.
Fire. Reflection. Grounding.
Here, insight is anchored into real-life architecture, so what awakens in retreat continues at home.
Belonging is not a concept.
It must land in the body.
On one evening, we will host a guest presenter from the Taos Pueblo community for a cultural offering. This visit will be approached with reverence and respect — not as spectacle, but as relationship.
Need a bit more time? Stay in the loop.
Creative Embodiment
One canvas. One unfolding. One living mirror.
Each afternoon, we enter the studio.
Not to “make art.”
But to anchor insight into form.
Throughout the retreat, you will work on one evolving canvas.
This canvas becomes:
A visible map of your inner architecture
A record of emotional color
A symbolic altar
A continuation object you take home
You do not need to be artistic. You do not need experience. You only need willingness.
This is for the woman who bought the sketchbooks and never opened them. Who used to make things and stopped. Who was told — directly or indirectly — that her creativity was indulgent. This canvas is yours to reclaim.
Most participants will not finish their painting by the final day. This is intentional.
Belonging is not completed in five days.
It continues.
The Land That Holds Us
Taos, New Mexico · High Desert Stillness
We gather at Hyperslow Retreat Center at the historic San Geronimo Lodge.
Two acres of high desert quiet.
Wide sky.
Mountain air.
Fire circle.
Labyrinth.
The land here invites slowness and clarity.
Taos has long drawn artists, seekers, and those standing at thresholds. We gather with humility, acknowledging the Indigenous peoples who have stewarded this region for generations.
The land participates in the work.
What You Leave With
A structural shift that transcends a temporary high.
Participants leave with:
A more regulated nervous system
Clearer relational boundaries
Renewed trust in their inner knowing
A visible mythic map
A creative practice to continue at home
Community witness
A live integration gathering two weeks after retreat
You leave with more than just information.
You leave with coherence.
Is This the Right Retreat For You?
This retreat is designed for women who are ready to root more deeply into themselves — while staying connected.
This Retreat May Be For You If:
You are capable and accomplished — but not always fully at ease inside yourself
You crave meaningful community without losing sovereignty
You buried your creative life years ago and feel the quiet grief of that
You hold space for others and are ready to receive it for yourself
You are willing to engage in creative process
You want belonging that feels mature, not performative
You've been hurt in spiritual spaces before and need to know this one is safe
You are ready for structure, not chaos
This Retreat May Not Be For You If:
You are seeking a casual vacation experience
You prefer purely intellectual or content-heavy learning
You are unwilling to participate in creative exploration
You are looking for therapy rather than initiation
You are not open to structured group process
Clarity creates safety.
Boundaries create belonging.
Still considering? Sign up to receive updates.
The Container
September 2–6, 2026
Taos, New Mexico
Five days.
Four nights.
An intentionally intimate circle.
We gather at Hyperslow Retreat Center at San Geronimo Lodge — a space chosen for quiet, beauty, and nervous-system exhale.
Each day unfolds in rhythm:
Morning immersion | Mid-day integration | Afternoon studio practice | Evening circle
This is structured spaciousness.
What’s Included
All immersion sessions
Daily guided creative studio practice
Canvas and core materials
Small group witness circles
Opening and closing ritual
Retreat workbook + integration guide
Three nourishing meals daily plus snacks — scratch-made, locally sourced, crafted to feed the body as we feed the soul
Live virtual integration gathering two weeks after retreat
Participation Pathways
Choose how you enter the circle
The Art of Belonging is designed as a full immersion.
And we recognize that members of the Taos community may feel called to participate while staying in their own homes.
Two pathways are available:
Full Immersion
Includes lodging, meals, and full retreat participation.
Taos Community Immersion
Includes full retreat participation. Lodging is arranged independently.
Meals may be purchased on-site.
All participants enter the same circle and are invited to all activities, including the post-retreat integration call.
That said, we encourage staying at the retreat lodge whenever possible. The shared environment allows the group field to deepen and supports a more continuous, immersive experience together.
The Investment
This is not the cost of a retreat.
It is the cost of five days held in sacred land, in the company of women who are done pretending — guided by three facilitators whose combined work spans embodiment, emotional healing, and creative awakening.
For the woman who has invested in everyone else's needs for years: this is the investment in yours.
Meals, lodging, and all materials are included.
What cannot be itemized is what you will carry home: the return to yourself.
Tuition & Accommodations
Choose your preferred room experience.
Shared Triple
$2,222
Includes full retreat + shared room lodging
+ meals
Shared Double
$2,666
Includes full retreat + shared room lodging
+ meals
Private Single
$2,999
Includes full retreat + private room lodging
+ meals
Payment Plans
$500 non-refundable deposit.
Flexible monthly payment plans available. Details to follow.
Taos Community Immersion (for Taos Residents)
$1,777
($200 lodging adjustment if staying onsite)
Integration Aftercare
The work continues.
Two weeks after the retreat, we gather live online.
To stabilize.
To witness what has shifted.
To anchor the work into daily life.
Belonging deepens through integration.
Meet Your Guides
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This work was not born in a classroom.
It was forged in the unraveling — in the years Jen spent finding her way back to herself after life asked her to rebuild from the ground up. She knows what it is to lose the thread of who you are, what it costs to find it again, and she knows the path back is never straight. It moves through the body, through grief, through creativity, through the slow return of self-trust.
This retreat was forged in the same fire she has walked.
Jen is a creative oracle, retreat leader, and the architect of this experience. Her work is rooted in Andean cosmology and the Q'ero wisdom tradition — a sacred map of human wholeness that moves through body, heart, and clear perception. She designs the arc of the journey, guiding each woman from instinct, into relational truth, into expanded awareness.
She works through symbol, ritual, art, and archetype — opening portals of remembrance rather than prescribing solutions. She does not pathologize what arises. She helps you find your way back to the parts of yourself that were never broken, only buried.
Certifications: Art Medicine, Creatively Fit®, Soulfully Aligned Women, The Adult Chair®
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Shannon brings deep emotional steadiness to transformative spaces.
Her work is shaped by seasons of loss, reinvention, and the courageous decision to choose herself. Through radical self-compassion and profound inner inquiry, she learned how to sit with her experience without judgment. That posture of curiosity now anchors the spaces she holds.
At this retreat, Shannon supports the emotional field.
As we move through Yankai (body), Munay (heart), and Yachay (wisdom), the Adult Chair® framework is woven throughout the experience — not as theory, but as orientation.
She helps participants notice when the inner child is tender, when the adolescent protector is reacting from old stories, and when the Adult self can return — grounded, present, and compassionate.
Her presence ensures that insight becomes embodiment, and activation becomes integration.
She does not pathologize the parts that arise.
She helps you meet them with courage and compassion — and return to your Adult seat with steadiness.
Certifications: Adult Chair® Master Coach, Soul Road & Soul Restoration Facilitator
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Kate White is an embodiment guide and trauma-informed educator who teaches women how to partner with their bodies instead of fighting them.
After 30 years in education, she stepped into a different kind of classroom — one where creativity, movement, and play became medicine. When her own body demanded attention after years of override, she listened. What felt like a revolt became an invitation.
The paintbrush found her at 55.
Through acrylic, canvas, and play, she discovered that creativity is not performance — it is medicine. That art is not about being “good” — it is a conversation with the soul. That play is how we remember we are alive.
She teaches from the middle, not the mountaintop.
Actively navigating chronic conditions and her own ongoing healing, Kate embodies what she offers: transformation in real time. She creates spaces where exhaustion becomes expression, survival softens into thriving, and women rediscover that their bodies have been loyal allies all along.
At this retreat, Kate anchors the Yankai field — the body cauldron — helping participants reconnect with sensation, truth, and the wisdom stored in muscle and memory.
She reminds us:
Your body is not the obstacle.
She is the oracle.
Certification: Creatively Fit® Coach
The Circle We Hold
Together, we form a living circle.
Body.
Heart.
Wisdom.
Kate anchors the body — sensation, movement, creative expression.
Shannon steadies the heart — emotional regulation, parts awareness, compassion.
Jen holds the mythic spine — symbol, ritual, cosmology, and sovereign integration.
Each guide strengthens the others. Each modality feeds the whole.
Like a serpent completing itself, the work moves in rhythm — from body, through heart, into wisdom, and back again. Nothing stands alone. Nothing is bypassed.
You are not stepping into a fragmented experience.
You are stepping into a container that knows how to hold itself.
And you.
Testimonials
Frequently Asked Questions
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No. This is not an art class. It is a creative process. You do not need to be “good” at painting. The work is about expression, not performance.
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No one is required to share beyond their comfort level. There will be structured group work, but you are always in choice. There is spaciousness built into the rhythm of the retreat, including quiet time and solo reflection.
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Perfectly fine. The framework is woven into the experience in an accessible way. No prior knowledge is required.
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They might.
And you will not be alone with them.
This retreat is trauma-informed and choice-based. You will have tools for regulation, and you may step out, rest, or receive support at any time.
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Many participants arrive solo. The container is intentionally structured to cultivate connection without forcing intimacy.
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Yes. Please share your needs during registration so we can communicate them to the retreat center.
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Albuquerque International Airport or Santa Fe Airport.
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Cancellation & Transfer Policy
Your retreat deposit secures your place in an intimate container and is non-refundable.
Because this retreat has limited spots and requires advance commitments to the venue and staff, the following policy applies:
Deposit
A $500 deposit is required to reserve your spot and is non-refundable.
Cancellations 60+ Days Before Retreat
If you cancel more than 60 days prior to the retreat start date, any payments made beyond the deposit will be refunded.
Cancellations 30–59 Days Before Retreat
Payments beyond the deposit may be transferred to a future retreat or offering within 12 months, but are not refunded.
Cancellations Within 30 Days of Retreat
All payments are non-refundable.
If you are unable to attend, you may transfer your spot to another qualified participant with written approval.
We strongly encourage purchasing travel insurance to protect against unexpected illness, travel delays, or emergencies.
This policy allows us to create a stable and committed container for everyone involved.
Your Place in the Circle
Belonging begins with one clear step.
If you've read this far and something in you is quietly saying yes — trust that.
You don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to arrive ready. The retreat will meet you where you are.
If this resonates, we invite you to book an Alignment Call.
This is a free 45-minute conversation — unhurried, no pressure, just an honest exploration of whether this retreat is right for you.
This allows us to ensure the container supports you — and gives you space to ask questions before committing.
This is an intentionally intimate container.
Thinking about it? Join the waitlist here.