Join us for a personal retreat mid-week and some optional gentle yoga and meditation.  Enjoy the tranquillity of the space and embrace the art of doing nothing – seriously. This time out offers a slower rhythm, allowing you to step back from the busyness of life and find peace within.

This mid-week retreat will offer gentle hatha yoga and guided meditation and will provide an opportunity to change your perceptions of everyday life, find more balance, and develop more attunement with the present moment. There will be discussions on practical tools for finding greater peace, understanding life’s lessons, and following your heart. Beginners to yoga and meditation are welcome.

Step into a life‑changing journey of renewal and awakening. This powerful retreat invites you to experience the alchemy of true transformation and fresh beginnings. Through their wisdom, intuitive guidance, and over forty years of combined experience in transformational workshops, John and Michelle will lead you into a space where profound change becomes possible. Together, they weave a rich tapestry of:

• Deep meditations that quiet the mind and open the heart
• Process art sessions that are both profound and joyfully creative
• Energy body movement practices to restore flow and vitality
• Immersive nature walks that reconnect you with the Earth’s rhythms

You will be gently guided through processes to release the old patterns and identities that no longer serve you, enabling you to step into the authentic essence of who and what you truly are meant to be now. These two teachers with more than 40 years of combined experience, will gently guide you into embodying the truly life-changing 5 Golden Keys of Awakened Living.

Following the transformative journey of Part One, Part Two is a continuation, going even deeper. It offers a more intimate and personalised experience integrating the 5 Golden Keys of Awakened Living. With this more select group, John and Michelle will guide you into the deeper meaning and integration of the teachings in practical ways, helping you to embody presence in everyday ways.

This second retreat is about moving beyond inspiration into application, integrating the alchemy of presence into your relationships, work, health, and daily choices. Through:

• Focussed counselling and guidance on your personal challenges and life issues
• Practical tools, nature immersion, and exercises to anchor presence in real‑world situations
• Deep meditations and energy practices to sustain inner balance
• Creative and reflective processes that open new pathways of awareness

This retreat is your opportunity to receive more direct attention, personalised counsel, and practical integration strategies that ensure the shifts begun in Part One take root and flourish in your life.

Why do we need to Recover to our true Self - to our Buddha nature? Often we may find ourselves using various substances or strategies addictively which can include everything from food, alcohol, recreational or prescription drugs, social media, or where we are in abusive relationships. When this affects our daily lives and more importantly the relationships that mean the most to us, we have lost our true nature of self.

In this retreat we will explore the Buddha’s teaching on the cause of suffering (Samudaya), the origin of suffering - our attachment, our craving and ignorance that generate negative karma. We will discover that there is a solution in the Four Noble Truths which results in the end of suffering (Nirhodha) and the possibility of achieving liberation (Nirvana) from the cycle of suffering and the rebirth to our true self (Samsara). Our karma and shortcomings can be removed only by ourselves. We are personally responsible for their creation, and we are responsible for their elimination. This retreat will be helpful to people in need of recovery and speaks to any aspect of ourselves that needs to heal.

This two-day gratitude retreat is designed for people who want real change, not through force or fixing, but through gentle, steady, sustainable transformation. Blending contemporary neuroscience with grounded spiritual practice, this retreat focuses on micro-habits that gently rewire the nervous system while deepening your capacity for presence, gratitude, and self-trust. Rather than aiming for dramatic breakthroughs, we work with small, precise shifts that the brain can actually integrate, changes that continue unfolding long after the retreat ends.

Over two days, you will learn how gratitude functions not just as a mindset, but as a biological and energetic practice that supports emotional regulation, clarity, and resilience. Through guided experiences, reflection, and simple daily rituals, you will begin installing habits that feel natural, authentic, and aligned with who you truly are. This retreat is for those who sense their brilliance isn’t something to achieve, but something to remember, patiently, kindly, and step by step.

The feast of Wesak is the most important day in the Buddhist calendar, commemorating the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha 2,500 years ago, and is held annually on the full moon of the lunar month of Vesakha (coincidental with May). We will mark this festival with a programme of sitting and walking meditation plus reflections on the Buddha’s life and teachings and, in union with Buddhists around the world, hold a traditional Wesak ceremony - a lantern-lit circumambulation – on Saturday evening. Apart from a talk or two - some thoughts on the Buddha’s smile - plus discussion, the weekend will place an emphasis on meditation, the basic Buddhist practice common to all traditions – simply breathing in and breathing out – doing exactly what the Buddha did. The schedule will include time to enjoy the beautiful grounds of the Buddhist Retreat Centre.

*Please note this retreat will be held in Noble Silence.

There comes a time when the silence begins to speak.
It sounds like your grandmother's voice. The wind through the trees. The waters you have cried. The child within, asking to be held.
This retreat is a listening.

Izwi lika Nomkhubulwane — the voice of the Great Mother — is an invitation to return. To your body. To your breath. To the memory your blood has been carrying long before you had words for it.

Over one weekend in the sacred hills of Ixopo, we will slow down enough to hear what has always been trying to reach us. The ancestral wisdom. The inner child. The dream life. The feeling we were never taught to feel. This is not a workshop. It is a remembering.

What we will move through together:

• Ubuntu Ishta Yoga — the body as the first doorway
• Guided ancestral meditations
• Dream journaling and storytelling
• Inner child healing
• Sacred sound healing rituals
• Sacred walks in nature
• Restorative silence
• Moments of stillness, song and community

Anyone who is ready to feel. Anyone who has been running and is ready to rest. Anyone who senses that their healing is connected to something older than themselves. No experience needed. All are welcome.

Join Duncan for a weekend of reflection, rejuvenation, relaxation and restoration. The retreat is based on the ancient practices of hatha and raja yoga and is open to all levels of ability, including beginners, who wish to understand the fundamentals of yoga and develop, or deepen, their own practice. In the tranquil environment of the Buddhist Retreat Centre, we will discover how shatkarmas (cleansing techniques), asanas (postures), pranayama (control of the breath), mudra (gestures to manipulate and stimulate the energies in the body), bandhas (energy locks with the body) bring us into equilibrium. These traditional practices will help us to develop awareness of body, mind and breath. As the body gently opens like a lotus flower, and we start to release our past impressions, so the mind becomes relaxed preparing us for meditation. We will follow traditional guided meditation techniques in the meditation hall and in the labyrinth to quieten the mind, calm anxieties, recover balance in life and enhance creativity, insight and self-reflection.

Join Carey and Christie as we return home to the essence of our beings. Through meditation, yoga, and talks exploring the themes of rest and ritual, we will remember what it means to live in a rested and rooted state. As the winter solstice draws us into the quiet heart of the year, we invite you to join for a soulful yoga retreat to restore. Held during the longest night and the turning point toward light, this retreat offers a pause, a time to slow down, reconnect with your inner landscape, and honour the wisdom that emerges from stillness. We will offer grounding yoga practices such as fireside yin and mindful slow flows as well as mindful meditation practices and a winter solstice circle, honouring the ritual of being with the season as it is. We will also offer a Rituals for Radiance workshop to explore how we can tend to ourselves in our day to day. This is a space to exhale, to retreat inward and reflect on the first half of the year and what is yet to come.

Whether you’re feeling depleted, curious, or simply called to pause, Wisdom of Wintering offers a deeply supportive container to restore your body, quiet your mind, and rekindle your inner light.