Golden Mother Collective presents…
Into Winter’s Womb
A Mystical Yuletide Women’s Gathering & Ritual Feast
December 12-13, 2026
StarHeart Sanctuary
Marshall, NC
Evergreen Medicine · Sophia · Sacred Reciprocity · The Returning Light
Sisters, come gather with us at the threshold of winter.
As the Earth draws her energy inward, we’re invited to slow down, gather close and listen inward for what can only be heard in the dark, quiet stillness.
This year, Into Winter’s Womb turns toward the ancient magic of Yuletide—the medicine of evergreens, sacred reciprocity with the Earth, the wisdom of Sophia and the mystery of light born within darkness.
Together, we’ll make offerings, drink tea from the winter forest, tend our dreams, craft with evergreens, feast, sing, dance and rest in the nourishment of a community of magical women.
We’ll honor the darkness as fertile ground: a place of renewal, dreaming and preparation for what is yet to come.
Come rest, receive and celebrate the returning light with us.
Here’s what we have planned for our time together…
SATURDAY (arrival is at 10 am)
🌹Heart connection circles & dyads
🌹Ancestral wisdom for wintering well
🌹 Introduction to dream tending & winter divination practices
🌹 Snacking spreads and herbal elixirs available throughout the day
🌹 Somatic practices for nervous system self-care
🌹 Rosicrucian teachings on Sophia, Christ consciousness and the Winter Solstice
🌹 Crafting St. Lucia crowns with evergreens
🌹 Walking meditation & guided drum journey with white pine
🌹 4-course ritual feast by Chef Madeline Morgan: local, seasonal, Appalachian, Italian and Ayurvedic-inspired
🌹 Traditional cèilidh dancing, song & storytelling circle in the evening
🌹 Slumber party! (optional communal overnight accommodations)
SUNDAY (departure is at noon)
🌹 Morning movement practice
🌹 Nourishing, local organic breakfast
🌹 Land offering ceremony & closing circle
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.
Mina, Havalyn and Allison are co-founders of Golden Mother Collective—a land-based community initiative dedicated to embodied learning, relational healing and honoring of Earth wisdom. Follow along on Instagram.
“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, Clean, Locally Sourced
High-Vibe Nourishment
Throughout our time together, we’ll enjoy seasonal, locally sourced, organic meals prepared by beloved chef and kitchen witch Madeline Morgan. She is highly skilled at crafting delicious, 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. All meals are gluten-free friendly.
MENU (subject to change)
Snacking Spreads
WNC pimento cheese with gluten-free crackers and crudités
Warm white bean dip with rosemary and crusty bread
Local charcuterie, fermented local vegetables
Smoked trout spread with lemon, dill and capers
Spiced pecans with sorghum, cayenne,and cinnamon
Sliced apples with aged cheddar and honey
Dinner
Butternut squash soup with ginger and cardamom, pepitas, sage crumble, sorghum drizzle
Hand-rolled sweet potato gnocchi with brown butter, fried sage, pecans and Parmigiano
Cider-braised pork shoulder with apple mostarda
Creamy polenta with mascarpone
Braised collard greens with smoked ham hock and apple cider vinegar
Roasted root vegetables with ghee, cumin and honey
Dessert
Warm apple and pear galette (with an almond flour crust) with cardamom-vanilla custard sauce and butter pecan crumble
Brunch
Collard green and caramelized onion frittata
Sweet potato and sausage hash
Cast-iron skillet cornbread with sorghum butter
Biscuits (gluten-free option) with sawmill gravy
Roasted pear and yogurt parfait with granola, cinnamon and honey
Coffee & hot apple cider with cinnamon, clove and ginger