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Educators and Sessions

We showcase Australian Women working with Herbal Wisdom, Holistic Health, Women's Mysteries and Community. 

2023 Speakers

Here you will find our Educators from 2023.

The Program for 2024 will be launched in December

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Jacqui Bushell

Jacqui has been dancing with the mythic imagination for much of her life, through her love of the wisdom held in fairy tales and her work as a spiritual herbalist listening for the voices and stories in the land. As a writer and speaker, she is passionate about encouraging others to explore their own mythology at the borderlands of psyche, body, culture and landscape. She has been facilitating women’s circles, ceremonies, retreats, workshops and courses in Australia and internationally for 30 years. As a senior lecturer, keynote and consultant, she has taught herbal medicine, essences and intuitive healing in colleges and community centers. Her work is always empowering and experiential, inviting you to come home to a deep sense of belonging and kinship with nature.

Herbs that hold the heart

When the heart is hurting, discover which herbal allies offer nourishment on a psycho-spiritual as well as a physical level. Explore the medicine, wisdom and mythology of four key herbs that comfort the heart and help anchor the spirit back. Learn which ones are strengthening, softening, encourage self-resourcing, warm a cold heart or reduce tension and balance agitation. With case studies, plus connecting with plant spirit and the lineage of the rose.

Friday 1.15pm & Saturday 10.15am
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Jane Hardwicke Collings

Jane Hardwicke Collings is a grandmother, former homebirth midwife for 30 years, a teacher, writer and menstrual educator. She gives workshops on mother and daughter preparation for menstruation, the spiritual practice of menstruation, and the sacred dimensions of pregnancy, birth and menopause.
Jane founded and runs The School of Shamanic Womancraft, an international Women’s Mysteries School.

Banishing Menstrual Shame

Menstrual shame leads to body shame, body shame leads to low self-esteem and all manner of wounded behaviours… Part of the work of our time is to dismantle our internalised patriarchy and misogyny and banish menstrual shame forever.
We will sit together in circle, do the inner work and then with ritual and ceremony and spell crafting we will reclaim our power.

Friday 10.15am
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Sara-Jane Cleland

Sara-Jane Cleland is a Dancing Freedom Facilitator, Naturopath, Herbalist, Nutritionist and Massage Therapist who lives on Gundungurra land in the Southern Highlands, NSW.

Her journey as a holistic practitioner began 30 years ago as a Yoga teacher and organically evolved into Bodywork, Naturopathy and Conscious Dance. In 2016, she discovered 5 rhythms dance on retreat with Gina Chick and became a passionate advocate for conscious dance. At the end of 2018, she journeyed to Byron Bay for intensive facilitator training in Dancing Freedom.

Since 2019, she has held monthly Dancing Freedom events, offering this powerful dance practice to her local community. In 2021, she designed a course - Women's Embodied Dance Journey through the 5 Elements - which combines meditation, a women's sharing circle and a dancing freedom journey.

She has collaborated with Anna Clarke to offer monthly Red Tent Women's circles and yearly Nurture & Nourish Women's retreats for the past 6 years.

Her passion is connection, connection to the innate healing power of the body, connection in community, co-creating and supporting each other, connection to oneself, your whole loving being, so worthy of self-love and creative expression.

Celebrating Community - Dancing Freedom

Dancing Freedom is a conscious dance practice to support living in oneness with ourselves, each other, the earth and the cosmos. A free-form somatic practice that blends the medicine of dance with the medicine of ceremony and co-creation. Dancing freedom takes you on a guided dance journey through an elemental wave of Earth, Water, Fire, Air & Ether - deepening your connection to life.

In the dance, you are invited to explore an authentic way of moving - a creative expression of your unique being. There is only one rule in Dancing Freedom - you can't do it wrong! In the process of free movement with the structure of a wave pattern, it is possible to become a free flow of energy, moving into oneness, beyond the mind, personality and ego, to drop deeply into presence.

Conscious dance provides an opportunity to release physical tension and pain, to free energy in the body, to express emotions and sounds, to connect with others, to play and to remember that you LOVE to dance!

The theme for this workshop is 'Celebrating Community', coming together in community to move and dance, to create and share energy, to find self-expression and to experience emerging creativity together.

Friday Night Special
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Laura Doe

Laura-Doe is an award-winning somatic sex educator, comedienne, singer/songwriter and founder of the yOniversity. She works internationally using humour, song and science to help people connect with the wisdom and pleasure within their amazing bodies.
Laura-Doe created the Vulvalicious Cushions, beautiful anatomically accurate art pieces to help educate about the elegant design of the vulva owner’s arousal anatomy. She also wrote and performs a one woman comic cabaret called ‘Vaudeville of the Vulva’. Her current projects include The Happy Pelvis Project, an online programme teaching her signature system of pelvic floor wellness practices, yOnilates.

Absolutely Vulvalicious

Absolutely Vulvalicious provides the sex education we didn’t receive at school but should have - accessibly presented research based information with added humour and song. It is an entertaining and informative romp through the awesome yet poorly understood hot spots of our feminine pleasure anatomy. We’ll use the yOniversity's sumptuous, anatomically accurate Vulvalicious® cushions to get a felt sense of the orchestra of arousal structures that are standard issue in this exciting terrain. Together we’ll build a walk through pelvis installation to support your fuller understanding of the elegant design of your pelvis and to further explore how arousal happens. Knowledge is power and laughter is great medicine: by immersing yourself in this interactive experience you’ll be empowered with a potent map of your wonderful body. With plenty of opportunity for questions and answers, this workshop involves no nudity.

Saturday and Sunday 10.15am
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Louise Kanjee

Louise Kanjee has been in private practice as a professional Homeopath and Healer for ten years. In 2021 she completed over 4 years of study to become a Counsellor/Process Work Psychotherapist.
Louise has been on a healing journey for most of her life and she has dedicated her career to empowering others to access and embark on healing quests of their own. Her history of menstrual ill-health, fibroids and endometriosis; as well as childhood trauma and sexual assault have led her to holding a deep desire to hold space where our deepest stories can be explored and held sacred. She is passionate about spirituality that is grounded in the real world and that embraces all aspects of self. She is a psychotherapist and homeopath and has spent a lifetime studying all things from a Masters in Peace Studies to a Graduate Diploma in trauma-informed process work psychotherapy. In 2017 after completing her Eight Seasons Journey with the School of Shamanic Womancraft she had a hysterectomy and unilateral oophorectomy, experiencing this as a huge rite of passage and she is passionate about sharing this experience with others to empower and heal their own

Hysterectomy - a Rite of Passage

This circle space is based on Louise's experience of having a hysterectomy and of turning this into a positive experience that was empowering and transformational on many levels. This session will explore how to approach turning this drastic surgical intervention into a rite of passage and how ritual and inner work can heal the shame or emotions from hysterectomy even years after the event. Space will be given to sharing the experiences of having considered or had a hysterectomy in a circle. Ritual and meditation will be shared as a means for those who have experienced this surgery to a) release and process any emotions or feelings you still hold around the experience – however recent or long ago it happened and b) to connect more deeply with your pelvic source of feminine power.

Saturday 1.15pm
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Dr Kath Kovac

Kath’s professional background is in research, science communication, editing, workshop facilitation and training. She also facilitates women's circles and menopause workshops in the community and online, and teaches the mindful arts of tai chi, qigong and meditation.
Through running women’s circles, Kath has developed a deep interest in women’s inter-relationships, inherent creativity and intuition, and lived wisdom.
Kath has set up a new business, Kupala, aiming to combine her professional training and communication skills with her community and teaching experience to help women at work connect, communicate and grow together. She would like to help women form a supportive sisterhood at work and create true female-friendly workplaces.

Women's circles 101

What is a women's circle? How do they run, and what are they for? If you have never attended a women's circle before, then this is the ideal workshop to start off your gathering weekend. Find out about the history (or herstory) of women gathering in circle and why we were prevented from doing so hundreds of years ago. Discover the way a circle is set up, opened, run and closed by participating fully in your first circle. Learn the guidelines of circle, such as confidentiality, how to listen without agenda, support without sympathising, and take responsibility for your own sharing. You’ll enjoy a relaxing grounding meditation and experience ways to deeply connect to the other women sitting in circle with you. Bring a small personal object that has meaning for you – this could be jewellery, or a stone, feather or shell, for example – to add to the circle centre.

Friday 3pm
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Christie Little & Kirsten Maclean

Christie is a Holistic Psychotherapist and Counsellor with additional certifications in Somatic Coaching, Embodied Flow Yoga, Positive Neuroplasticity Training, Biofeedback for Stress and Recovery, Wellness Coaching and Nature Therapy. With 15 years of experience working with groups and individuals to bring about transformation and healing in a holistic way, she now specialises in grief and loss support, self-care and acceptance, anxiety and depression, purpose and meaning. She is deeply passionate about grief and loss support since her husband suicided in 2018.

Kirsten is a Holistic Psychotherapist, Coach and Group Facilitator. With a background in education and training, Kirsten has now turned her focus to holding sacred space for holistic healing and transformation. She is passionate about midwifing women through the chaos of life and towards calm, holding space for grief, anxiety and stress that can present during times of change. Kirsten draws on her training and experience in Process-Oriented Psychology, Positive Psychology Coaching, Shamanic Womancraft, Nature Therapy and Red Tent Facilitation.

Together, Christie and Kirsten facilitate a range of workshops and provide holistic psychotherapy services in the Blue Mountains and online, as part of the House of Healing Collective.

Discover Your Life Myth - the personal archetypal pattern giving depth and meaning to our lives

This session is founded in the work of Carl Jung and the idea that we each have an Archetypal pattern that gives meaning and depth to our lives, and that can be discovered at a subjective and personal level through dreams, memories and body symptoms.

In this experiential session, through the remembering of your earliest childhood dream and/or memory, we will identify the larger pattern or thread that is trying to come into being over the course of your life. We will mine these dreams for the energies, qualities and gifts that will support you to fully express all parts of yourself. Life myth work can help you to realise your unique potential, become unstuck, resolve a repetitive conflict in your life, or attend to a question you are holding.

As James Hillman says, when life myth is discovered, it becomes a guide to living soulfully, teaching the hand to represent it, the ear to hear, and the heart how to respond. May you move in the world in a new way, having uncovered your own unique life myth.

Friday 10.15am & Sunday 1.15pm
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Cindy Hurley Leister & Lucy Allen

Lucy and Cindy share a passion for people and a curiosity for living a conscious life in the beautiful Blue Mountains. Bush & Mind expresses their love for nature and people and they are excited to bring their diverse expertise in counseling, corporate coaching and mind & body work to this workshop. Lucy is a social worker with a background in counseling and systemic family therapy currently working in public health. Cindy is a certified leadership & life coach with her own coaching practice. Together they have over 20 years of yoga and mindfulness practice. It is a deep connection with nature that inspires them to work creatively with the people they support.

bush & mind: connecting with yourself through nature

Join us for a sensory experience around nature to nourish your body and mind. Our signature Bush & Mind workshop draws on latest research around the positive effects of connecting with nature, visualisation & mindfulness practices and time to express your inner world through journaling. Please bring along a pen & some paper.

Friday 10.15am & Sunday 1.15pm
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Rebecca Levy

Rebecca is a Somatic Sexologist, Sexological Bodyworker, educator and counsellor. She is dedicated to sharing knowledge and empowering women about their body’s, ways to experience more pleasure and enjoy a natural, healthy and satisfying sex life free from shame, disconnection and pain.

Based in Newcastle, she works with individuals, couples and delivers workshops to women and those who love them. Her approach uses counselling, coaching and bodywork to support clients overcome sexual difficulties and cultivate pleasure. As a former birth doula she understands how birth and motherhood can impact on a woman’s body and sex life.

Rebecca knows sexual pleasure and freedom are our birth rite and loves creating spaces for healing to occur from the disconnection society has created.

Vulva Love

Join Rebecca for a delicious hour of Vulva Love, an Erotic Embodiment class where you will be guided through somatic practices to connect with your vulva. In nurturing a loving connection with our vulva, it can increase self-love, build arousal and body acceptance whilst feeling wonderfully pleasurable. Being present with the body and its sensations can reduce shame and lead to greater levels self-acceptance. The more acceptance and love we have for ourselves, the more we have to share with the others.

This workshop is gentle and deep, you will be guided through practices using awareness, breath, movement and touch to cultivate a loving connection to your vulva.

Nudity is not required, please bring a sarong or shawl to lie on.

Friday 1.15pm
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Pat Collins

I was brought up on dairy farms in the Hunter Valley and there I developed my love of nature and the bush. When I married we bought an idyllic block of land on the edge of Wollemi National Park and there I grow my herbs for my Practice and collect wild plants growing on the property. After having two children I obtained my Herbal Diploma in the late 1980's and this allowed me to teach Herbal medicine for the layman, teaching them how to make products to care for their families and loved ones. I worked for TAFE, Outreach and I still teach privately. I also set up a business in a nearby town and called it THE Total Health and Education Centre. 24 years later it is a thriving business and I sell products that I make myself along with the books I wrote and other herbs and supplements for my clients.
I have attended numerous workshops and one of my favourites I attended 20 years ago was a workshop run by Gregg Furth who wrote a book called "The Secret World of Drawings". I have been following his guidelines ever since and use it especially for children that cannot express their feelings and people with emotional problems. It is an extremely useful tool to help you understand your client and more importantly for them to understand themselves.

Creating products from the weeds and natives around us

I have been teaching people how to make their own products and look after their health for the past thirty years. One of my passions is to use the plants that grow in our back yard (weeds) and the natives that grow in the hills around us.
It is so important to learn about these plants as they are usually prolific and easy to find. My students are often amazed when we stand in one spot and all around us are twelve plants we can use. They may be used externally made into ointments, creams or used as poultices and compresses. Many are good to make into products such as cough syrups; insect repellent sprays; teas, capsules and so much more.
At this workshop you will learn about the plants that grow at the WWG site and ones I bring along. We will collect these useful plants then make them into an ointment. I love practical workshops and there will be as much participation as possible. Then you will take a sample of the ointment home.

Friday & Saturday 10.15am
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Sally Kingsford-Smith

I’ve been involved with WWG since I was invited to be a keynote speaker at the inaugural event. This was a huge, very unexpected and somewhat terrifying honour and I loved it. It stretched me; pulled me and grew me. It gently nudged me to step into a new role as a ‘wise woman’, an elder and teacher. I’ve been here every year since and I wouldn’t miss it.

My childhood was spent making fairy gardens and plant medicines for my dolls. Then my own personal experiences with a natural, holistic approach to healing lead me to study herbal medicine back in the 1980’s. Motherhood at age 36 saw me defer studies until after the birth of my second child at age 40. I then happily threw myself back into herbal studies with the amazing Dorothy Hall.

In 2002 I opened my own herbal medicine clinic to help people enjoy their lives more fully with gentle, low dose herbs, tissue salts and flower essences.

In 2018 I stepped further into my wise woman role and began teaching: my online Herbal Masterclass series based on Dorothy’s amazing work, and an Introduction to Tissue Salts.

I’m very blessed, my life is good.

Nourish Your Nerves with Herbs

Every so often in your life you’ll meet a herb that sings to you: that can become your best supporter; your ally. I’d love to introduce some of my best herby friends. Hopefully one of them will call your name.

We often talk about herbs for certain issues, for example, Withania for anxiety or Passionflower for sleep, but herbs are way more than that and it’s very limiting to think of them this way. I want to take you away from the concept of ‘this herb for that’ and introduce to you ‘person picture’ herbs. The right ‘person picture’ herb will nourish all of you, including your nerves.

I studied herbal medicine with a very wise woman, Dorothy Hall, one of Australia’s foremost, most loved and respected herbalists. Dorothy taught how many herbs have ‘person pictures,’ i.e. they match particular personalities.

Are you a ‘Chamomile’? You relive the dramas of your day as you tell everyone the highs and lows of your day? Maybe you’re a ‘St Johns Wort’? Like the princess in the fairy-tale, The Princess and the Pea, you feel everything more keenly?

I’ll also include Zodiac signs and markers in the iris.

Saturday & Sunday 10:15am
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Kristyn Haywood

Kristyn (aka The Giftspotter) is the founder of 'Expand Now', a not-for-profit that exists to radically lift the confidence of people who want to make a positive difference in the world. She has extensive experience as an international leadership coach & educator, and communications & emotional intelligence educator. Kristyn helps her clients radically improve their confidence, connect with their deepest callings, and SHOW UP! Kristyn has a Master of Business, is an NLP Master Practitioner & Trainer, Edward deBono Creativity Facilitator, experienced Emotional Intelligence (EQi 2.0) practitioner & coach, and a Generative Change Therapist.

Crafting and Sharing your Turning Point Story

Join our creative circle and find one of your uplifting 'turning point" stories. Learn how to succinctly craft it and eloquently share it so you move others with your unique insight. And whilst you are here, listen deeply to other wise women’s turning point stories. One of those stories will gift the dose of wisdom you need at the very moment it is shared with you. In the wise words of Maya Angelou, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Saturday 1:15pm
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Megan Garner

Megan Garner is an accredited Nutritionist, Naturopath and Herbalist with the Australian Natural Therapists Association (ANTA) and works as a blogger, author, presenter and workshop facilitator. Megan has a special interest in children’s health, and healing and preventing tooth decay through nourishing animal foods after raising her daughter on a vegan diet for 5 years which led to tooth decay.

Healing and preventing tooth decay with nutrition

Does your child have tooth decay or would you like to learn how it can be prevented? Tooth decay is the number 1 disease in children and is usually blamed on sugar and poor hygiene. However, this isn’t the full story. Dr. Weston A Price’s research on tooth decay and Indigenous Populations found that modern food and lifestyle are the primary causes of tooth decay. Dr. Price’s pioneering nutritional program proved to be 90-95% or more effective in remineralizing tooth cavities utilizing only nutritional improvements in the diet. Learn how to naturally prevent and heal tooth decay by following an ancestral diet.

Saturday 3pm
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Shona Lee

I am keenly aware of the spatial configurations within our environment and the effect that has on how we feel / inhabit our environment. As a Feldenkrais practitioner and remedial massage therapist I create spaciousness within bodies and hold space for processing your life experiences. Wide open spaces like the desert / ocean / stage invigorate and excite me but it's the clever, creative use of small spaces that I delight in the most.

The Gift of Space

When we ask for some space, what is it exactly that we're asking for? Space allows something special to emerge: how to create intentional spaces designed for purpose. Holding space for someone else is a precious but how can we gift it to ourselves for an embodied sense of spaciousness?

Friday 10:15am
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Brenda Rogers

Brenda is a transformational naturopath and life coach who loves science as well as the more mysterious arts such as iridology and energy medicine. She’s a wisdom teacher; nutrition educator specialising in nutrient- dense, traditional foods; transformational coach; public speaker; wellness blogger; Art of Feminine Presence teacher; aspiring author; nature-lover, and on a serious mission to rewrite the narrative on women’s power and bring nutrient-dense traditional wholefoods back into the kitchen.

Serene Queen: Mood Medicine for Mature Women

As a woman matures, especially after 50, she is invited to go within and access her wisdom. The external expression of that is serenity. However, that's generally not how women feel. They are often stressed, hormonal, overwhelmed and anxious. The naturopathic apothecary combined with knowledge from the women's wisdom schools provides an array of magic and medicine that can support women as she develops her emotional intelligence. Join me for an introduction into the sacred knowledge of food lore, herbal medicine, yin movement, feminine presence and other wisdom medicine available to you.

Saturday & Sunday 10.15am
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EveningStar NightWalker

Star is a shamanic craftswoman, dr of Chinese medicine and reiki master teacher, specializing in womens health, fertility and rites of passage work for over 20yrs. Star is devoted to supporting women to reclaim their power by reclaiming their cyclical wisdom and moving with the moon. Star believes that by balancing hormones, emotions, finding the sacred in the mundane and healing the sister wound is what is going to change our world, and it all starts with our relationship with ourselves.

Moving with the Moon - a deep dive into the 8 phases of the moon and your natal moon type

Discover how Your Natal Moon Depicts Your Personality, Souls Evolution & Energetic Relationship Patterns by how it dances the masculine & feminine energies within you!
Knowing which moon phase you were born under is to knowing yourself more intimately.
Come together in the safety of sacred women's circle to explore the dance of the masculine & feminine energies that your natal moon imprinted upon you at the time of your birth.
This knowledge will give you a deeper understanding of your emotional personality and the energy in which your souls evolution has chosen to enact in this life.
By living in accordance to this natal moon phase you will deepen your knowing of your own emotional undercurrents and how to tap more deeply into your sacred gifts.
In this workshop you will not only gather the information needed to ride the waves of this lifetime more readily, but you will also experience the embodiment of your moon phase through sacred movement and emotional expression.
Your soul chose to be born under your particular natal moon phase for a reason... Join me to find out why!

Friday & Sunday 10.15am
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Kerri Trope Alexander

Kerri is a university qualified naturopath and herbalist living and working in the beautiful bushland suburb of Hornsby Heights on Sydney’s North Shore. She has a special interest in women’s health, menstruality and cyclic living, herbal medicine making and the women’s mysteries teachings. She guides women in reconnecting deeply with their bodies and the wisdom of the menstrual cycle to reclaim their health and wellbeing. She is passionate about helping women to live their fullest and most vibrant lives and offers in-person and online naturopathic consultations as well as community workshops.

The Bleed On It Method

Learn to use the power and wisdom of the menstrual, or lunar cycle for insight and clarity around a single question, situation or circumstance. Done over a full lunar month, this practice allows reflection through the lens of the changing energies of the inner seasons of the menstrual cycle, so bringing with it guidance, awareness and understanding to the deeper questions that we may hold.

Friday & Saturday 1.15pm
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Hollie Bakerboljkovac

Hollie is a Clinical Counsellor and Coach with a background in natural and ancestral health, wellness, sacred space, martial arts and functional movement, conscious living and Women's Mysteries.
She is passionate about empowering people to live well; unlimited and unbound.

Hollie has a (mostly) respectful disregard for the status quo and mainstream culture. She promotes Choice and believes in the capacity of human beings to do extraordinary things.

Magick and Movement

"Magick is the Science and Art of causing change to create a free human being."

Your body is a spell. Make magick simply by being you, in the body you have right now.

In this session we will explore the inner and outer realities of being a Self in your particular body. We'll play with altered states within and out. We'll use our senses, our movement, our Being; to set Magick in Motion; toward embodying an unbound and unlimited life. If you've always felt connected to words like Witch, Creatrix or Wild Woman - this session is calling you...

Sunday 10.15am
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Yia Alias

I am a Ceremony Woman Transpersonal Counsellor/Mentor &Women’s Mystery Teacher Specialising in Healing through Ritual.
With a strong focus on women's cyclic life, I bring a collage of modalities: life mapping, archetype work and earth centred knowledge.
At present my main focus is on supporting women through the peri menopausal phase of life and beyond in my work called Bone Woman. Bone Woman is a Life Review process to enable women to become Conscious Elders.
Over the years I have founded the long running Womens Shed at Round Corner: a Red Tent space supporting women through rites of passage and holding a wide variety of workshops including GirlStory a program developed to support young girls through puberty. Journey with the Seven Greek Goddesses, Modern Matriarchs, co facilatated crafting a Sacred Yoni workshops and holding workshops at many womens festivals and gatherings including Seven Sisters Wise Woman Gathering Goddess Conference and upon the Darug ceremony grounds at HearthGround where I now live and care for the land with my partner.
My deepest learnings have been gathered from many years of sitting in circle and bearing witness to the rich wisdom and stories of many women.

The Power of Ceremony to Heal a Modern World.

Yia experiences Life as one large ceremony containing a multitude of transitional thresholds. Conscious Ceremony allows one to acknowledge and take responsibility for internalised outdated programming, disrupting old patterns and breaking the spell of habituated responses and old default settings. Dormant potential is released and enables individuals and communities a process to begin again, to reset, to move into the world with a mind full consciousness that has been raised up by the ceremonial process.
And in doing so, so too does the world around us change.
Drawing on her many years as a ceremony woman Yia hopes to inspire women to create their own ceremonies to restore/restory themselves and in doing so add to the change that is being birthed upon the planet right now.
She will share some stories and ceremonies she has designed, will share some teachings tools to activate and ignite the ceremony woman within and open the space for questions and response.

Friday 10.15am & Saturday 1.15pm
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Katherine Cailleach Howard

Katherine Cailleach is a Maga woman (somewhere between Mother and Crone!), mother to 3 daughters, grandmother to 6 small people, and partner to her beloved.
She has lived in the bush of the Blue Mountains of NSW since 2009, and recently also resides at Lane Cove in Sydney part of the time. She has many passions, and is most passionate about the women's mysteries, relationships, shadow cycles, mental health, the power of the grandmothers and the sacred energy of the land. Cailleach has journeyed often with her partner and on solitary wanderings to sacred places. Ireland and Glastonbury are her spiritual homes.
She is an accredited mental health Occupational Therapist with 40 years of individual & relationship counselling and groupwork experience. She is also an accredited Psychodramatist and a Teacher with the School of Shamanic Womancraft. Cailleach has a busy counselling practice in Katoomba and Lane Cove and runs Women’s Circles, Personal Development groups in both those places, as well as on line.

Shadow Cycles: The Shadow Lover

The Cave of Shadows is the residence somewhere within your psyche and body of all those disowned, disavowed roles in you. They reside- pushed into the dark as things that are fear full or provocative or unacceptable somehow. These Shadow roles push particularly hard to come out and show themselves when you are in a relationship with another- all relationships, but most especially those close intimate relationships where you become Lover (Lover is not necessarily a sexual role- but could be)
This session will focus on the woman’s phase of life which I call the Lover- she lies at the North East of the Woman's Wheel of Life at the point between Maiden and Mother, the time of Beltaine. We will consider an overview of the Woman’s Wheel of Life, share and explore what Shadow means generally and in particular for the Lover in you. And finally we will explore and practice ways of understanding relationship, ways of developing mutuality where there is difference and ways of developing skilled communication.

Friday & Saturday 1.15pm
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Jill Healy-Quintard

My lifelong passion is Human Movement and Music. This has taken me on a journey of dance, acting, teaching, creating, presenting and awards for my Long-time Achievements by the Australian Fitness Network in 2006- 2008.
Presenting 2007-2019 in Australia and India and Europe in 2006 and 2017.
in 2019 and 2020 Fitness Australia awarded me Top 5 and Top 3 in Group Fitness and currently a 2021 Fitness Australia Awards Finalist.
Awarded as an Iconic Woman of the Century for my commitment to Wellbeing in 2017 at the Women’s Economic Forum. In August 2021 I was offered the inaugural Lifetime Fitness Australia Member by Barrie Elvish (CEO).
YogaPilates Fusion: A Mind Body and Balanced Practice was published in 2019 and my 2nd book Open the Gate which is part autobiographical and empowered living through a life of passion and balance, has been edited.
I am pro-age and believe living in a High Vibration. I share this awareness with women to be part of my High Vibe community and live their best life.
As Owner/Operator of Body and Balance Australia my goals include teaching, instructing and presenting my unique class styles, sharing my extensive knowledge, writing, presenting workshops and online programs globally.

YogaPilatesDance Fusion: A MindBody and Balanced Practice

YogaPilatesDance Fusion is a visual and physical journey of movement of mind and body with my 10 Principles, developed over 35 years as a base, with added recognition of Chakra energies, connected to different emotions and organs and glands for our life energy.
Music is used to inspire, lift vibrations and flow from gentle through to tribal and dance beats, where we have permission to stamp, shout, scream for joy, as we often hold back from exploring the power of our root Chakra. The outcome will be complete MindBody balance for each participant and will finish with YogaNidra (the Waking Sleep) and setting of Intentions to release to the universe.
A beautiful session to share with and empower women. This session is a positive alternative for finding life and energy balance. Through this celebration of life, perhaps emotions will be released that can limit our beliefs in moving forward in life. A short Yoga Nidra Meditation with Intention will bring this to a perfect finish of total MindBody Balance.

Friday 3pm & Saturday 6.30am
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Jane Hardwicke Collings

Jane Hardwicke Collings is a grandmother, former homebirth midwife for 30 years, a teacher, writer and menstrual educator. She gives workshops on mother and daughter preparation for menstruation, the spiritual practice of menstruation, and the sacred dimensions of pregnancy, birth and menopause.
Jane founded and runs The School of Shamanic Womancraft, an international Women’s Mysteries School.

On Following a Vision

Jane will speak on taking a Vision into reality, through the story of her work in the Shamanic School of Womancraft, encouraged by her mentors and her own wild heart's calling. A free flowing, interactive session where you will also be able to call in your own Vision, and set it in motion...

Sunday 1.15pm
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Jacqui Bushell

Jacqui has been dancing with the mythic imagination for much of her life, through her love of the wisdom held in fairy tales and her work as a spiritual herbalist listening for the voices and stories in the land. As a writer and speaker, she is passionate about encouraging others to explore their own mythology at the borderlands of psyche, body, culture and landscape. She has been facilitating women’s circles, ceremonies, retreats, workshops and courses in Australia and internationally for 30 years. As a senior lecturer, keynote and consultant, she has taught herbal medicine, essences and intuitive healing in colleges and community centers. Her work is always empowering and experiential, inviting you to come home to a deep sense of belonging and kinship with nature.

The 9 Sacred Gateways: A Blessing Ceremony for Earth, Body and Water

Illuminate your inner temple through blessing the nine sacred gateways of your body. Connect with the lineage of the scent priestesses, the Myrrhophores, through the ancient practice of anointing with sacred oils. To touch yourself, another or the land in this way is a consecration of loving presence, healing, balancing, bringing sacred blessing. Remember that you are enough, Beloved, just as you are, whole and holy, sacred ground. Come to honour yourself, the land and the waters of the earth.

Sunday 1:15pm
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Dr Kath Kovac

Kath has been interested in Taoist practices, such as tai chi, qigong and meditation, for almost 20 years. After attending a retreat back in 2011 on her 40th birthday, Kath experienced a life-changing meditation session that has seen her devote much of her spare time since to learning and practising many different forms of qigong and meditation under the guidance of expert teachers at Canberra's Tai Chi Academy. With the blessing of her teacher, Kath began teaching her own qigong classes in 2017 to share the wonderful, healthgiving experience of this practice with her local community.

Qigong for health and vitality

Qigong (pronounced chee-goong) is a gentle, mindful form of exercise that reduces anxiety and stress, and improves overall health and wellbeing. It's suitable for all ages and levels of agility, and is a bit like tai chi, but is done standing on the spot, rather than stepping around the room. The word qigong means 'energy cultivation'. The slow, gentle movements relax the body, calm the mind, and gather and build energy inside the body. It is excellent for calming and balancing the nervous system, and improving circulation and flexibility. Based on ancient Chinese practises developed thousands of years ago, the many different qigong movements enable you to connect with the energy from the universe and stimulate the body’s immune system to naturally induce healing.

Saturday 3pm & Sunday 6:30am
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Deanne Apostolou

Deanne is a Medical Herbalist, Iridologist, educator and speaker, with over 27 years clinical experience. Deanne studied a Diploma of Medical Herbalism with Nancy Evelyn (one of Dorothy Hall’s first graduates) at the Newcastle College of Herbal Medicine and recently completed a Graduate Certificate in Evidence-Based Complementary Medicine, and a Bachelor of Medicines Management with Professional Honours in Complementary Medicine through the University of Tasmania.
Deanne has written subject content, lectured and supervised clinical practice at the Academy of Complementary Health in Newcastle for five years. She is currently writing course content for Switch on Health.
Deanne has her own clinic space in Newcastle.
She is passionate about helping people realise their health goals and guiding them to be the best version of themselves possible, by supporting her patients to make small changes in their physical and emotional lifestyle traits.
Deanne is a Founding Member of Estuary Learning.
Deanne is passionate about passing on the traditional herbal knowledge and wisdom of her elders.

Chronic Pain and Inflammation: Pharmaceuticals and Herbal Medicine

Chronic pain can literally be a thorn in your side. Unfortunately, many people live with chronic pain. We will delve deeply into what’s happening physically and emotionally when pain starts to take over your life. What was happening when it started? What lifestyle changes can you make to ease the pain? There is a great number of herbal remedies that can be used for pain relief. Deanne has many years of experience helping patients control their pain, release their pain, and how to protect the body if the only relief available is with pharmaceuticals. Deanne will take you through foods to eat, foods to avoid, home remedies for pain relief and which herbal remedies can help you move freely again.

Friday and Saturday 3pm
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