Golden Mother Collective presents…
INTO THE LIGHT
A Women’s Retreat & Solar Feminine Immersion in the Blue Ridge Mountains
June 4-7, 2026 · Hot Springs, NC
At the threshold of summer, we gather to remember the radiant intelligence that lives in the Sun and all of creation—including us.
The plants are stretching toward their fullest expression, and we are invited to do the same: To root deeply and receive solar energy with ease, anchoring that light in our bodies, our relationships and our work on Earth.
Held in a supportive container of sisterhood, we’ll explore somatic practices that help cultivate the nervous system regulation, clarity and deep sense of belonging that help make visibility and self-expression feel safe.
If you’re feeling the call to connect deeply with nature and the wisdom held in your body… To expand your capacity to hold your own radiance and awaken the fierce, luminous love of the solar feminine…
We invite you to join us in the forest for this intimate, nature-based women’s retreat.
Our time together during this somatic, nature-based women’s retreat in North Carolina will include…
☀️ Heart coherence practices to strengthen nervous system resilience
☀️ Somatic movement, fascial release & embodied integration
☀️ Exploration of boundaries, visibility & healing the witch wound and sister wound
☀️ Vocal activation for authentic, embodied self-expression
☀️ Inquiry into the solar feminine archetypes & Mary Magdalene teachings
☀️ Alchemical work with gold as a symbol of resilience and steady radiance
☀️ Sacred rage and solar activation ritual
☀️ Native plant identification and guided plant spirit medicine journeys in the forest
☀️ Flower medicine and essence crafting
☀️ Tobacco (hapé) and blue lotus tea ceremonies
☀️ Swimming in pristine, mineral-rich mountain waters
☀️ Morning breathwork and yoga
☀️ Nourishing, locally sourced, organic meals crafted by chef Madeline Morgan
☀️ Evening fires and medicine song circles
☀️ Ecstatic dance with the fireflies
☀️ Spacious time to rest, wander and connect with the land
☀️ Supportive sisterhood in a group of powerful women
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Arrival is between 2 PM and 4 PM
5 PM
Opening Circle: Exploration of the Solar Feminine7 PM
Dinner in the Celestial Hall8 PM
Sacred Fire & Medicine Song Circle -
7 AM
Fruit, Tea & Coffee8 AM
Transformational Breathwork9:30
Breakfast in the Celestial Hall11 AM
Deep Circle Work: Somatics, the Nervous System & Sacred Rage1:30 PM
Lunch in the Celestial Hall3 PM
Solar Activation, Sacred Rage Ritual & Tobacco Ceremony
7 PM
Dinner in the Celestial Hall8 PM
Sacred Fire & Ecstatic Dance -
7 AM
Fruit, Tea & Coffee8 AM
Morning Yoga on the Bliss House Deck9:15 AM
Breakfast in the Bliss House10 AM
Hike, Guided Plant Spirit Journey & Flower Essence Making12 PM
Lunch in the Celestial Hall1 PM
Deep Circle Work: Gold, Boundaries & the Building Heart Field3 PM
Swimming, Forest Bathing & Flower Blessings7 PM
Dinner in the Celestial Hall8 PM
Sacred Fire & Blue Lotus Tea Ceremony -
7 AM
Fruit, Tea & Coffee8 AM
Morning Yoga on the Bliss House Deck9 AM
Breakfast in the Bliss House10 AM
Closing Circle & Land Offering CeremonyDeparture is by 1 PM
*Schedule subject to change based on the needs of the group and unfolding of the Mystery.
Embody the Solar Feminine &
Align with the Alchemy of Gold
The Solar Feminine is inner knowing made visible and embodied in the world.
This can look like:
Trusting your clarity instead of second-guessing it
Speaking, creating or sharing before it feels perfect
Staying open, but holding clear boundaries
Directing your energy outward, not just processing it internally
Grounded, honest self-expression—not performance
With our feet rooted on the ground, we’ll engage in ritual with the Sun to anchor the light that peaks at the Summer Solstice into our earthly vessels.
We’ll also explore the Solar Feminine connection to elemental gold.
Gold is born in the heart of stars—enduring yet soft. Across mystical traditions, gold has long symbolized incorruptible love: a radiance that holds steady under pressure. In the body, this becomes something we can feel and cultivate—the resilience of a nervous system that can remain receptive without losing itself and meet intensity without becoming reactive.
Nourish Your Nervous System & Cultivate Heart Coherence
With somatic self-care practices for nervous system support, we will build our capacity to hold intensity—anger, desire, grief, joy—without becoming overwhelmed or shut down. We’ll explore practices that cultivate resilience and coherence, helping you stay present with what arises.
This retreat supports nervous system healing through embodied practice, nature immersion and intentional rest—creating the conditions for clarity, steadiness and connection.
Explore Sacred Rage as a
Clarifying, Protective Force
The light of the Summer Solstice reveals what has been hidden. Anger becomes information—an intelligent heat that shows us where we override our needs.
Through ritual, embodied movement, somatic inquiry, and non-violent communication, we’ll explore how anger can illuminate healthy boundaries. Sacred rage is welcomed here—not as chaos, but as a clarifying fire that protects what is sacred and restores truth.
In the ancient forest, we’ll enter into conscious relationship with plants as living intelligences—rooted in soil layered with mineral memory.
Plants are master translators of light, drawing solar energy into their leaves and transforming it into nourishment, medicine and form. In this way, they turn celestial radiance into earthly wisdom.
Through native medicinal plant identification and guided plant journeys, we’ll rekindle our ancestral relationship with the green world as healer, protector and mirror.
This somatic nature immersion experience is a core part of the retreat—supporting nervous system regulation, restoration and deeper connection to the body and the natural world.
We’ll deepen our capacity to listen to the subtle language of the plants, to the intelligence of the land and mineral kingdom, and to what remains clear and steady within ourselves.
In ceremony, we’ll enter into reverent relationship with tobacco as an ally in illumination. When approached with respect and consent, tobacco can strengthen intention and clarify boundaries, refining our relationship to personal and relational power—helping us discern what we stand for and what we are ready to release.
In alignment with the rising solar field, we’ll explore the art of crafting flower essences.
These subtle plant medicines carry the vibrational wisdom of a plant, created by imprinting the flower’s energetic signature into water through solarization—an intentional process that honors our relationship with plant, element and light. Flower essences support emotional and energetic integration, gently helping us release patterns that no longer serve our unfolding toward fuller expression.
Meet Your Guides
Mina walks a path of devotion to the Cosmic Mother and the living Earth, creating spaces where women can reconnect with their embodied wisdom, intuition, ancestry and the natural world. She is an animist herbalist, medicine maker, ritualist, community weaver, birthkeeper, E-RYT 500 yoga teacher, professional writer and homesteading mama of two.
Mina Isabel Shahriary
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Raised outside of Washington, D.C. by a first-generation Iranian father and an American mother of Celtic maternal lineage, Mina grew up between cultural worlds, learning early to navigate belonging and in-between spaces. Over time, she recognized a subtle disconnection—from her body, the land where she was raised and her ancestral homelands. Her path has grown from that lived experience into a steady practice of restoring and deepening relationship with body, ancestry and place.
She now lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina on traditional Cherokee land, where she and her partner tend a regenerative homestead with their children and animals. There, she grows medicinal herbs and crafts plant medicines in rhythm with the seasons. Living in close relationship with the land shapes her grounded and relational approach to healing work.
With deep reverence for the intelligence of nature, Mina believes that healing and wisdom are always available through attunement to the rhythms of body, earth and sky. Her offerings weave plant medicine, somatic practice, classical Tantra, rewilding and nature-based ritual into intimate spaces for reflection and growth.
Mina’s facilitation style is gentle, grounded and deeply connective, creating containers where women can soften, clarify boundaries, reconnect with their vitality, feel supported in meaningful change and step more fully into their luminous, sovereign potential.
Havalyn is an initiated folk healer, animist, breathwork facilitator, somatic practitioner, womb keeper, ritualist, artist and cacao ceremonialist devoted to the restoration of right relationship between humans, Earth and the living web of life. Her work is guided by a deep listening to the wisdom of the body, the land and the ancient rhythms that shape all living systems.
Havalyn Irene Raeuber
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Of Swedish, German, Polish and Northwestern European ancestry, Havalyn walks a path of remembering—reweaving the threads of earth-based wisdom, embodied healing and forgotten ancestral ways of knowing. For more than twenty-five years, she has immersed herself in the study of nature-based and indigenous wisdom traditions, alongside graduate-level studies in psychotherapy and somatic healing.
A lifelong dancer and artist with over thirty-five years of training devoted to movement and creative expression, her work bridges somatic awareness, ritual, the creative process, breath, voice and embodied presence. She weaves songs, dances and ceremonial spaces that invite people into deeper intimacy with themselves, each other and the living world.
Havalyn lives with her partner on a regenerative homestead in the mountains of Western North Carolina on traditional Cherokee lands. Living with, tending to and listening to the rhythms of nature deeply informs her practice and devotion to cyclical wisdom, earth stewardship and the restoration of healthy/right relationship.
Her work—rooted in what she calls The Spiral Path—supports the Great Healing and Great Re-membering of humanity: the return to embodied wholeness, ancestral remembrance and the awakening of our innate capacity to live in beauty, reciprocity and reverence with all our relations.
Allison has lived in the mountains of southern Appalachia for most of her life, shaped by the region’s extraordinary biodiversity and deep-rooted cultural heritage. She and her partner are raising their three children on a multi-generational homestead in a remote valley of Madison County, North Carolina, where daily life unfolds alongside animals, gardens, honeybees and the steady rhythms of the land.
Allison Welder
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Homesteading and homeschooling continually inform her grounded, embodied approach to practice.
For more than 15 years, Allison has taught yoga and serves as primary steward of Magictown Movement Studio. Her teaching is shaped by study with Anusara instructors, immersion in biomechanics and myofascial release, and work with Tom Myers of Anatomy Trains. Through motherhood, the pandemic and a devastating flood in her mountain community, yoga has remained a steady companion—an embodied practice that lives both on and off the mat.
Her path deepened through Andean nature mysticism after journeying to Peru’s Sacred Valley to study with the paqos while pregnant with her second child. Through offerings and prayer, she experienced a profound heart-opening connection with the spirit of the land and continues to walk a path of reciprocity with the living world.
Allison weaves together yoga, heart coherence practices, nature mysticism, fascia and myofascial release, and stone medicine. For the past several years, she has studied stone medicine with Sarah Thomas of Upper Clarity, creating seasonal stone grids and elixirs in pure mountain spring water.
During this retreat, we will work with the element of Gold—a symbol of refinement, resilience and radiant inner alchemy—through embodied practices designed to gently polish the heart and illuminate the steady light within.
“The facilitators created a space that felt both grounded and spacious—deep work without pressure or performance. I felt genuinely supported and left with tools and insights I’m still integrating months later.”
“What a wonderful experience! I felt safe, cared for and comfortable. Wheel of Bliss offers modern amenities in a beautifully natural and remote setting. The food was amazing and the facilitators were very attentive and organized. Highly recommend!”
“Being held in such a beautiful natural setting added a whole other layer to the experience. There was a nice balance between structured practice and time to rest, reflect and simply be.”
Fresh, Locally Sourced,
High-Vibe Nourishment
Dining in the beautiful Celestial Hall, we’ll enjoy seasonal, locally sourced organic meals prepared by beloved chef and kitchen witch Madeline Morgan. She is highly skilled at crafting nutrient-dense, deeply nourishing, easy-to-digest meals, drawing inspiration from Ayurvedic principles and traditional whole-food culinary wisdom.
We believe that thoughtful nourishment is essential for sustaining energy as we move through practice and ceremony. Vegan and gluten-free options will be available, and we will make every effort to accommodate dietary needs and preferences.
Wheel of Bliss Retreat Center is a secluded, lovingly tended 63-acre forest sanctuary nestled in the ancient mountains of Southern Appalachia, about an hour from Asheville. This Blue Ridge Mountains retreat center in North Carolina features a large ceremonial yurt, a spacious dining hall and a comfortable retreat house with 16 beds, six bathrooms, a kitchen, a welcoming living area and a serene meditation room anchored by a Tibetan Buddhist altar.
About Wheel of Bliss
Join Us!
Early Bird pricing is available through April 15th.Payment plans are available!
Spots are limited to keep the container intimate and well-held.
Please send a message if you have questions or would like to schedule a free discovery call.
Sister Sanctuary (Shared)
$999-$1,111
Or 3 payments of $350-388
Enjoy resting in a comfortable bed on the first floor of the retreat house. You’ll share a room with 2-4 other sisters.
Twin Sanctuary (Semi-Private)
$1,333 per person
Or 3 payments of $460
This semi-private room offers two twin beds on the second floor alongside the altar room and kitchen, with a large balcony that overlooks the forest. This room shares a bathroom with the Queen Sanctuary.
Just 1 bed left!
Queen Sanctuary (Private)
$1,777
Or 3 payments of $610
This private room has a queen bed on the second floor alongside the altar room and kitchen, with a large balcony that overlooks the forest. This room shares a bathroom with the Twin Sanctuary.
Camping
$777
Or 3 payments of $275
Choose a spot nestled in the forest or in the meadow adjacent to the yurt and dining hall. Indoor restrooms and showers are available. You must provide all your own camping gear.
If you are local or wish to find a rental nearby and commute in, you are welcome to register at the camping rate.
If finances are the primary barrier, please reach out. We may have limited partial scholarship or creative options available.
Your investment includes:
4 days and 3 nights of accommodations at Wheel of Bliss
All facilitated circles, workshops, rituals and ceremonial experiences
Sacred rage ritual and guided integration practices
Flower and stone essence medicine-making materials to take home
Optional tobacco (hapé) and blue lotus tea ceremonies
Guided breathwork and morning yoga sessions
Seasonal, locally sourced organic meals throughout the retreat
Access to 63 acres of private forest, hiking trails and mineral-rich mountain streams
Printed handouts and post-retreat integration practices
A professionally facilitated, carefully held container designed for depth, safety and meaningful connection
We look forward to gathering with you in the forest. If you’ve been searching for a women’s retreat in North Carolina to reset, reconnect, and return to yourself—this is that space.
We would be honored to share this experience with you.
With love,
Mina, Havalyn & Allison
Golden Mother Collective
On the fence? Let’s connect!
If you’re feeling curious but want more clarity—about the container, logistics, facilitators, group dynamic or anything else—you’re invited to schedule a complimentary discovery call. We’re happy to answer questions and help you discern whether this retreat is the right fit for you.
Who This Retreat Is For
Women navigating overwhelm or burnout
Those seeking a grounded, somatic nervous system reset
Those craving time in nature and a return to rhythm
Women ready for deeper connection—to self, land, and community
And those ready to step fully into their radiance ✨
Frequently Asked Questions
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This retreat is for women of all ages who feel called to embodied leadership, clear boundaries and sustainable radiance. No prior experience is required, but a willingness to engage with self-awareness, emotional responsibility and care for the shared space is essential.
Participants should feel generally stable and resourced. While our time together includes meaningful emotional and somatic exploration, this retreat is not a substitute for therapy or crisis support.
This container may not be the right fit if you are currently in acute crisis, navigating unresolved trauma without outside support or seeking a recreational retreat experience.
Into the Light is a women-centered space open to women and femme-identifying people who feel called to participate in women’s work.
If this resonates, we welcome you.
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Wheel of Bliss is located in Hot Springs, NC, approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes away from Asheville Regional Airport (AVL) and 3 hours away from Charlotte Douglass International Airport (CLT). We can help coordinate transportation from the airport if you are flying into Asheville.
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All plant medicine work in this retreat is legal, invitational and trauma-informed. No psychedelic substances will be used. All participation is entirely optional.
We will engage with plants through:
Native plant identification
Guided plant connection practices
Flower essence crafting
Ceremony with tobacco (hape)
Blue lotus tea ceremony
Hape is a traditional Amazonian tobacco preparation used ceremonially in some Indigenous cultures. We approach this practice with respect, consent and care. It will be offered by a trained facilitator in a grounded and contained setting.
Blue lotus is a mild botanical traditionally used in ritual contexts. When prepared as tea, it is gentle and legal. It is not psychedelic. Some participants experience subtle relaxation or mood elevation.
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This retreat includes exploration of anger, grief, visibility and relational patterns. Emotional activation is possible.
Facilitation is gentle, structured and grounded. Practices emphasize regulation, consent and pacing.
However, this is not a clinical therapeutic setting. If you are currently navigating acute trauma, severe anxiety, depression or instability, this retreat may not be the appropriate level of support at this time.
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Each day includes a blend of:
Morning embodiment or yoga
Facilitated circle and guided inquiry
Nature immersion and unstructured integration time
Ritual and ceremony
Shared meals and connection
Rest and solitude are built into the schedule.
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No.
All practices are invitations. You are encouraged to listen to your body and make choices that feel aligned. Consent and personal agency are foundational to this container.
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Wheel of Bliss is a secluded 63-acre forest sanctuary with shared and private lodging options. Expect modern comforts within a natural setting, forest trails and access to mountain streams.
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Due to the limited size of this retreat and the advance expenses required to host it, all payments are non-refundable and non-transferable except as outlined below.
We recommend purchasing travel insurance for this retreat if you think for any reason you may need to cancel.
You may transfer your registration to another eligible participant with prior written approval from Golden Mother Collective.
If you need to cancel and we are able to fill your spot, you will receive a refund minus a $75 administrative fee to cover processing and coordination costs.
Cancellations after May 1, 2026 are not eligible for a refund unless your space is filled.
No refunds will be issued for late arrival, early departure or failure to attend the retreat.
In the event that Golden Mother Collective cancels the retreat, all tuition payments will be fully refunded. We are not responsible for airfare, travel expenses or other personal costs incurred.
By registering, you acknowledge and agree to these terms.