Nature’s Embrace Retreat

About the retreat

Come and join me for a healing experience and embodiment of the elements in nature! We are especially diving into the Five Elements Theory that is a Chinese philosophy used to describe interactions and relationships between things. The five elements — wood, fire, earth, metal, and water — are believed to be the fundamental elements of everything in the universe between which interactions occur.

Yoga is a love affair.

When we first go to a yoga studio or buy a book or watch a video, we may do so because on some level we recognise we are under strain. Mental, physical or emotional. We practice a little and feel loosened, at greater ease. Some of the stress we carried before our practice seems to abate enough so that we may move into our life with assurance. Yoga is healing and offers us a return to a state of equilibrium. So we devote a little more time to ourselves, just for ourselves.

Right now, you may be in the early tentative days of this yoga romance, or entirely certain that what was once a sporadic practice has now become a way of life. Whatever stage in your relationship, a retreat at Vale de Moses is an invitation to deepen the love affair. With yoga and with yourself. Removed from the normal stresses and responsibilities of life, surrounded by the stunning wilderness of the Portuguese forests, nurture yourself, without distraction. Be romanced into yoga, free from intimidating complex drills, open slowly, sweetly, squeeze and savour all the juice out of your practice and digest every drop of the nutrients.

Through the gentle compassionate guidance of experienced teacher, be taken inward to connect with the harmonious rhythm of your breathing and from this rhythm into your body. Broaden, lengthen and soften into each asana, into your day, into your week and into your life. The indulgent luxury of time loosens and dissolves nervous tension. From this calm space, a confidence in ourselves and our personal experience grows.

Return home with a stronger desire to cultivate a personal practice that encourages a little more contentment and ease in your world. Bend, stretch, ground, bind, flow, cry, invert, balance, fold, open, relax, tuck, twist, release, close, experience silence, contemplate, walk, broaden, sing, dance, digest, taste, consolidate, stand, swim, sit, lengthen, soften, calm, laugh, live, love, lie down.”

Accommodation

We have space for 20 students. There's a stone cottage guest house with 4 single beds, a stone Monastic Adega with 3 single beds, 3 private bedrooms in the farmhouse (each with double beds), 5 Soulpads and a large Tipi (each with double or twin single mahogany beds, carpets, electricity, hammocks and solar lights outside). please let us know if you have a friens or a spouse you can share a bed with, we will give you some discount.

Yoga Shala

The Yoga practice shall floating over the kitchen gardens with views up and down the valeys, has capacity for 25 students, so plenty of space for the group sizes we have beds to accommodate. The shala is fully equipped with good mats, bolsters, blocks, belts and blankets. Plus a yoga swing and a shoulder stand chair.

Food

We serve 3 delicious vegetarian Ayurvedic meals a day. Restorative food is such an important part of the retreat experience. Our first e-cookbook, "Nourish: Healing Meals from Vale de Moses", has all the recipes and more that we serve here on retreats. We're also open to working with you on compiling a menu for your retreat. Inside or outside the Ayurvedic framework.

Staff

We have a chef, housekeeper, groundsman and manager, along with 2 Karma Yoga volunteers per month. Plus therapists, local cleaners, laundry service, gardeners and taxi drivers as well as a couple of local ladies who produce honey and olive oil and also handmade soaps, pressed flower oils, jams, broaches and other gifts for your students to buy for their loved ones back home.

Massage and Acupuncture Treatments

We have a team of therapists and acupuncturists available. We've found over the years that the mix of daily yoga, great food, mountain walks, swimming in natural river pools and treatments has a profound effect on our guests health, even within just one week. So all our teachers so far have included a half hour health consultation and an hour's massage for their students in their package, as we do on all our own retreats. But that's up to you. Prices are 75€ per 90 minute session.

Useful information

• Start date: July 16th - July 22nd, 2017
• Location: Vale de Moses, 6160 052 Amieira, Castelo Branco, Portugal
  • City: Vale de Moses, Portugal
• Price: Reservation fee 300 EUR
  • EARLY BIRD (paid full when booking before 1.12.2016)
  • 790€ in shared cottage or tipi.
  • 890€ for private room or Soulpad.
  • 100€ discount on joint price for couples or friends sharing a private room or Soulpad to 740€ each. After the price will come up 100€ in all rooms
• Included in the price:
  • All food
  • 2 yoga classes per day
  • Accommodation & facilities
  • Transport to and from Oleiros if wanted
• Teacher:
  • Satu Tuomela is an international yoga teacher/facilitator and a Reiki master (ERYT500). She is specialized in Embodied Flow™ and yin yoga. Satu is one of the most influential and respected teachers in the Nordics and has a big and loving Kula around the world.She has been teaching for over 15 years and is known for her unique and authentic style. Satu charms with her intuitive instructions, humour, loving adjustments, Reiki and a clear understanding of the human body and how everybody is unique. She loves singing, the ocean, her dogs and living her life worry-free day by day.
• Yoga style: Embodied Flow, Embodied Yin and Yin & Yang classes E-mail address for contact person & booking: [email protected]

Schedule

(May change): Sunday afternoon arrival from Lisbon at 5pm or from Porto at 8.30pm. Sundays are just to arrive, settle into your accommodation, meet the team and the others on your group and have dinner together.

• Monday to Friday
  • 7.30am - Kitchens open for tea, fresh fruit and nuts
  • 8am - Chance for a silent group meditation either in the shala or outside
  • 8.30am Yoga 2 hour class with Satu
  • 10.30am Big breakfast, a variety of delicious rice and grain porridges, fruit salads, toasted seeds, local honey and freshly squeezed juices
  • 11.30am Free time / massage treatments / swimming / walking
  • 2pm Large nutritious lunch
  • 3pm More free time / massage treatments / swimming / walking
  • 5pm Yoga classes/workshops
  • 7pm Light evening meal One afternoon in the week we head off to the nearby Rio Zêzere for a wild swim and mud bath weather permitting.
    • Friday evening party with music and dancing
  • Saturday check out 7am for 8am coach to Porto or Lisbon.
  • 2pm for 3pm coach for Lisbon

Travel

There are 2 national coaches to Oleiros daily from Lisbon (3.5 hours, 25€ return) and Porto (5 hours in total with two 45 minute stops, 34€ return). See our Come and Go page for links to timetables etc. We can arrange taxis to pick you up from Oleiros.

Explore

Hiking, cycling, climbing, exploring these beautiful valleys. If people hire cars, then there are historic villages and towns half an hour to an hour's drive away in all directions. We're in the middle of a remote and depopulated part of Portugal, which makes a lovely place to retreat to but not so full of tourist attractions or tourists. We can arrange a Friday afternoon trip for a swim and bud bath in the local Rio Zêzere. And we have a Swiss friend Christian who lives in our village, a mountaineer who doesn't charge much to take guests on climbs and longer hikes.