YOGA & PRANAYAMA RETREAT
Essential Nourishment
January 25 - 28, 2023
HEALESVILLE, VICTORIA
Set in a completely private and sublime natural environment of Rocklyn Ashram, this retreat is a rare opportunity for us to let go of the pressures and distractions of our day-to-day lives and turn towards the clarifying wisdom of the Dharma.
The heart of our work is to open towards a deeper relationship with the essential foundation and innate intelligence of our lives.
Each day an opportunity the dive a little deeper into the intimate terrain of our bodies, hearts and minds,
gathering in and integrating the sometimes fragmented impulses in our lives into a cohesive wholeness.
Nourishment will be the main theme for this retreat.
How we make contact with the immediate felt reality of our lives and the world round us.
How we touch and are touched by life can open for us a profoundly nourishing relational exchange.
While we will be practicing some embodied movement and asana, mostly this retreat is a deep dive into the qualities of, and our relationship to contact (sparsa), intimacy and nourishment and how available we can be for our practice.
So expect 5 days of deep rest through restoratives, yoga nidra, pranayama, meditation and inquiry as well as nourishing time in nature.
We will learn to relax to find our home in the simple elegance of embodied living, uncontrived, open and natural.
OUR RETREAT FOCUS
This retreat will focus on the rich and subtle dynamics of pranayama, offering us a deeper insight into how to work with breath and the responsive intelligence of feeling.
PRANAYAMA IS AN INTIMATE PROCESS OF APPRENTICING OURSELVES
TO THE SUBTLE AND RESPONSIVE INTELLIGENCE OF LIFE
Cultivating our relationship with Pranayama is cultivating a relationship with the living current of life itself.
It is a profoundly intimate affair.
Prana is accessed through feeling, and the practice of Pranayama expands and refines our capacity for feeling.
A refined and intelligent sensibility to feeling is a gateway to the rich and subtle terrain of the deeper dimensions of yoga and life.
There is, of course, technique. But it is the responsiveness of feeling that is the guiding intelligence of Pranayama.
Pranayama, as with all yoga practice, is not a technique we do to ourselves; nor a method of controlling the breath.
It is an intimate relational invitation into to the nourishing intelligence of life.
Pranayama requires deep listening and a willingness to respond to the moment to moment demands and invitations of life.
This retreat will be of great benefit to teachers looking to deepen their understanding and practice of Pranayama.
DAILY PROGRAMME
06.30 am Meditation and movement
08.00 am Breakfast
08.30 am Karma yoga (until 9am)
10.30 am Dharma Talk, Inquiry and Meditation
12.30 pm Lunch and break
03.30 pm Restoratives, Yoga Nidra and Pranayama
05.30 pm Meditation
06.00 pm Dinner
07.00 pm Evening session will vary, with Meditation
08.30pm Break for the day
Silence encouraged until after breakfast next day
FOOD
Delicious vegetarian meals.
Rocklyn Ashram serves balanced vegetarian food, with lots of grains
and fresh vegetables mostly from the ashram organic garden or sourced
from organic local farmers in the neighbourhood.
Fresh fruits are provided at morning and afternoon tea.
If you have any specific dietary needs or restrictions, please let us know before the retreat.
ACCOMMODATION
The accommodation is in mud brick and rammed earth dwellings.
All rooms and the practice rooms are comfortably heated in winter.
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Shared rooms with shared bathroom facilities
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Shared rooms with ensuite
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Bring your own tent
Please note there are limited numbers of the ensuite option.
Covid precaution: Please bring your own bedding, yoga mat, blanket/shawl.
Join Us
TWIN SHARE
WITH ENSUITE
$1750 pp
TWIN SHARE
WITH SHARED BATHROOM
$1650 pp
CAMPING
BRING YOUR OWN TENT
$1400 pp
COVID19 SAFETY
ROCKLYN ASHRAM REQUIRES ALL PARTICIPANTS TO BE DOUBLE-VACCINATED.
We are limiting numbers to align with social distancing protocols.
The yoga studio is large so there will be plenty of room for us all.
GETTING THERE
Rocklyn Ashram Is about 10 minutes rom Daylesford and 90 minutes from Melbourne.
We can help coordinate a ride if you need it.
ABOUT PAUL WOODEN
Paul has been practicing and studying yoga and meditation for 35 years and teaching for 30 years.
He draws from his experience in many different styles and traditions and, through a practical understanding of their underlying unifying principles, weaves together a cohesive and integrated approach to yoga.
Paul is a unique voice in the world of yoga. He has a way of bringing the sometimes abstract teaching of yoga into ordinary language making them accessible and workable in our lives.
For Paul, yoga is first and foremost a relational process, with technique being a way to serve a deepening and more intimate relationship with ongoing moment to moment reality of our lives.
Working with Paul is an invitation to the deeper dimensions of practice. His particular way of working opens us to the sensitivity and receptivity necessary for the subtler inner practices. He has been running retreats for over 2 decades and finds them fertile ground for real transformation.
He continues to study the inexhaustible richness of the wisdom traditions and complements these studies with a more contemporary understanding of the human condition, including developmental psychology, integral theory and trauma work (somatic experiencing) which seeks to help uncover and release the binding patterns of trauma in the body.
Hit the button below and send me a message, if you would like to secure yourself a place.