Alma de Mujer is a conference/retreat center located in the beautiful foothills at Lake Travis within a fertile valley surrounded by trees and streams. Located 20 miles northwest of Austin, the natural and rustic setting provides a beautiful, private environment. Our main lodge has 4,000 square feet of space and our sleeping quarters can accommodate 30 people. Encampments are possible for larger groups. Catering, camping, organic gardening, volleyball, meditation knoll, canoeing and Jacuzzi are also available.
A designated wildflower trail runs between Austin and Washington on the Brazos, the first capital of Texas, and in the spring the road sides and pastures of this historic region bloom in profusion.
Writing & Yoga Retreat at Alma de Mujer
with: Patricia Lee Lewis and Charles Macinerney
Schedule: The retreat starts with dinner at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 10th 2008, and runs through 3:00 p.m. Sunday, April 13th. You may check in beginning at 3:00 p.m.on Thursday. We will offer two to three writing and yoga sessions a day. All yoga, writing workshops, and meals are optional. Remember, your time is your own.
Cost: $605 before February 10, $665 after. Alums of previous retreats led by Patricia and Charles may take an additional $30 discount. Cost includes 9 meals, shared accommodations for 3 nights, all materials and instruction.
Registration: Please Request Registration Form and send it with payment in full or your deposit check for $150 (made out to Patchwork Farm Retreat), to Patchwork Farm Retreat, 292 Chesterfield Road, Westhampton, MA 01027
About Our Retreats
At the heart of this retreat is the joining of Creative Writing, Hatha Yoga, and Meditation. Patricia Lee Lewis & Charles MacInerney have combined their energies for 10 years to offer this powerful path to the creative self. The Yoga, led by Charles, creates in you a sense of physical well-being, while bringing you back to your body and your senses. Each Yoga class ends with a deep guided relaxation which calms your mind and helps it to relax into a creative Alpha brainwave pattern.
Patricia leads the writing circles in a way designed to help you bypass your inner critic and go directly to images, feelings or memories--to the places steeped in story and natural language. Because this is the time to generate new writing, rather than to critique what you have already prepared, you will be encouraged to write freely to the extent possible, without editing.
Gathering in small, intimate groups, you will be invited to read what you have written. Group members respond only with what is strong in the piece, what they remember, what is vivid. The process is highly encouraging and supportive to the natural voice and to you as a writer, whether you are beginning again after years away; an experienced writer in need of a jump start; or you are in the middle of a project and are looking for new ideas and time dedicated to writing.
The Writing
Patricia Lee Lewis will lead the writing sessions. Our writing retreats are designed after the process developed by Patricia's mentor, Pat Schneider, founder of Amherst Writers & Artists, to help us find our truest voice; to write from the images, memories and feelings we all carry inside ourselves; and to write with greater confidence and skill. The retreats are a wonderful way to take time out and allow the deeper levels of your own creative self to emerge onto the page. Besides all of this, they are fun.
We will write several times each day in response to exercises Patricia suggests (which you are completely free to ignore!). We are invited to read aloud what we have just written and to respond to each other's work with what is working (what we like, what we remember, what moves us) and not, at this stage of vulnerability, with what will make it stronger. We will work together to create and maintain a safe, confidential space in which to write whatever comes by following certain practices in responding to new writing:
We honor the writer by listening carefully; We treat everything as fiction; We refer to the narrator/speaker, not to the author, as the voice of the piece; We remember that while healing often occurs through our writing, this is not a therapy group, and we maintain our focus on the writing; We concentrate on the writing at hand, not on anecdotes of our similar experiences; We are free to write what we want; exercises are offered; We are invited to read; We respond only with what we like, what stays with us, what moves us-and not, at this stage of vulnerability, with what will make it stronger.
Writers of all levels of experience and of all genres are invited. There are no criteria for acceptance other than a sincere desire and willingness to write. You need bring no manuscripts with you; all writing is done during the retreat.
The Yoga
Hatha Yoga classes will be taught by Charles MacInerney. We will learn a variety of techniques to engage and deepen awareness of the most subtle sensations and movements of mind and body - first in stillness, then through subtle movement, and finally in more challenging and active asanas.
You will be encouraged to pay more attention to the sensations and signals of your own body than to any external authority figures, including the teachers. One of the effects of this style of class is that you will become more self-aware, self-confident, and independent. Charles encourages his students to learn from their own experience, from their own sensations, from their own deep awareness of mind and body, and to trust that awareness over any external authority figures.
The overall atmosphere will be relaxed, with the emphasis on enjoyment rather than effort. This does not mean that we will not work hard at times. You will find that you can engage in difficult and even strenuous poses joyfully, without experiencing the physical and psychological stresses associated with joyless striving.
About the Staff
Patricia Lee Lewis lives and works at Patchwork Farm Retreat in western Massachusetts. She shares the world with trees and stones, chickadees, writers and bears, and leads weekend writing retreats and weekly workshops in her mountain cottage at Patchwork Farm, throughout the United States, and yoga and writing retreats at sacred sites around the world - Guatemala, Mexico, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Costa Rica.
Patricia holds an MFA degree in Creative Writing from Vermont College, and completed her undergraduate degree at Smith College, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1970. She is affiliated with Amherst Writers & Artists, and leads national training workshops in the AWA method for workshop leaders on the east and west coasts. Patricia's poetry, fiction and feature articles have appeared in journals & anthologies, The Los Angeles Times, Hampshire Life, and The Boston Sunday Globe. Her poems have most recently appeared in The Berkshire Review, Vol. 11, and Crossing Paths: An Anthology of Poems by Women, Mad River Press. She was supported by a grant from the Chester Cultural Council under the auspices of the Massachusetts Cultural Council to perform her poems to a full house to benefit the Miniature Theatre of Chester. Her poem "Two Hundred Wings" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry, and her book of poems, A Kind of Yellow, won first prize in Writer's Digest's International Self-Published Book Competition in 2005.
Patricia has spent much of her life as an advocate: for women, for civil rights, for peace, for a healthy environment, for small farms and rural communities, for the arts. Born and raised in Texas, she moved north years ago with her children. She has been a business owner, tree farmer, director of several organizations, including women's centers, community economic development corporations, district congressional offices, and served as an elected county commissioner for four years. In 1985, when she joined Pat Schneider's Amherst Writers & Artists writing workshop, she finally found the courage to write for others to read.
Patricia is responsible for the writing program at all retreats and serves as retreat coordinator.
Charles is registered with the Yoga Alliance at the 500 hour level (the highest registration currently available), and is the co-founder and serves on the faculty of the Living Yoga Teacher Training Program. He is also the co-founder of Texas Yoga, and helps organize and presents at the Annual Texas Yoga Retreat.
Charles is a guest writer for Yoga Journal's "Ask Our Expert" column, and has been interviewed for articles in Yoga Journal four times, on yoga retreats, creativity, heart disease, and Yoga for overweight students. One of Charles' essays (written on retreat with Patricia) appeared as the lead essay in a National Chess magazine in India. He has numerous essays published in regional publications through out the US, and on the internet.
Charles MacInerney has studied Yoga and Meditation since 1971. He teaches classes on Yoga, Meditation, Posture, Visualization, Breathing, Balance, Creativity, Concentration and biofeedback for a variety of businesses, corporations and institutions. He has worked with over 12,000 students in Austin, where he lives.
Charles has led over 50 retreats since 1992, including 15 international retreats. For more information please visit his web-sites at www.yogateacher.com and www.expandingparadigms.com.
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Patricia Lee Lewis lives and works at Patchwork Farm Retreat in western Massachusetts. She shares the world with trees and stones, chickadees, writers and bears, and leads weekend writing retreats and weekly workshops in her mountain cottage at Patchwork Farm, throughout the United States, and yoga and writing retreats at sacred sites around the world - Guatemala, Mexico, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Costa Rica.