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Roots of Breath | Spirit of Return with Ashira Darwish


A 5-Day Immersion Into Healing, Embodiment & Inner Restoration

Hidden in the heart of the jungle, this gathering is an invitation to return to your body, soften what has been held for too long, and meet yourself with truth, tenderness and depth.

Over five intentional days, we will work gently and deeply with plant medicine, somatic therapies, devotional movement, breath, sound and nature. Every layer of the experience is curated to support safety, nervous-system repair, emotional release and embodied integration.

This is not a retreat for the mind, it is a space for the body to speak, unwind and remember its original intelligence.


You don’t have to know how to heal, only trust that healing is possible. Your body holds ancient intelligence, your breath is the bridge, and every moment of softness creates space for transformation.
— Ashira darwish


This retreat offers a powerful and deeply supportive container where somatic trauma work, sound healing, breath, movement and devotional Sufi practices come together to create meaningful transformation. Held in the heart of the jungle, this experience invites you to slow down, exhale and gently reconnect with what is true inside you. As the environment softens the nervous system, you may begin to notice what the body has been holding and what is finally ready to be released.

Through guided practices, compassionate facilitation and therapeutic support, emotional imprints and stored memories can rise with clarity and be processed with care rather than overwhelm. You do not have to force anything. Instead, you are supported to allow healing to unfold at the pace your body knows is right.

Throughout the retreat you will receive personal one on one support, somatic tools and embodied practices you can continue using long after the retreat ends. Many people find that this work does not just create insight. It creates change you can feel in your breath, your body and your life.

This experience is designed to feel spacious, intentional and safe. Every element honors consent, pacing, nervous system safety and personal agency. Whether you are longing for release, clarity, nervous system repair or a return to your inner truth, you are welcome. There is space for you exactly as you are.

If something in you feels curious, hopeful or quietly ready, that may be the part of you that already knows:

You are not meant to carry this alone. Healing is possible.


Day 1 — Arrival & Opening Ceremony

Theme: Grounding • Trust • Threshold Crossing

Arrival and settling into the land

Opening circle

Intention-setting ritual

Retreat orientation and agreements

Preparation practices for nervous-system grounding and emotional readiness

First plant medicine ceremony (evening)

Day 2 — Silence, Rest & Integration

Theme: Listening • Stillness • Witnessing

Silent day

Rest, journaling and time with nature

Nourishment aligned with dieta

One-on-one integration sessions with Ashira

Second plant medicine ceremony (evening)

Day 3 — Somatic Processing & Sound Integration

Theme: Unwinding • Expression • Release

Morning Ashira Active Meditation

Somatic exercises for emotional processing

Rest and reflection time

Sound healing session (evening)

Day 4 — Embodiment & Devotional Movement

Theme: Expansion • Presence • Devotion

Slow and intentional morning

Integration circle and guided reflection

Sufi Whirling Session

Spacious afternoon for journaling or rest

Evening ceremony

Day 5 — Tools, Empowerment & Closing Ceremony

Theme: Continuation • Integration • Return

Grounding practice

Group EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)

Final one-on-one integration sessions

Journaling and somatic tools for long-term care

Closing ceremony and final reflections


WHO IS THIS FOR?

This retreat is for individuals who feel called to work deeply with: unresolved emotional trauma chronic stress, burnout or nervous system overwhelm. Autoimmune or chronic illness connected to emotional imprinting. Grief, transitions, or PTSD. Ancestral and intergenerational trauma. A desire to return to embodiment, clarity and presence . No prior experience with ceremony or somatic work is required — only readiness.


MEET YOUR GUIDE : ASHIRA DARWISH

Ashira Darwish is a somatic trauma practitioner and founder of Catharsis Holistic Healing in Palestine. Her work focuses on nervous system regulation, trauma recovery, and healing intergenerational patterns through embodied therapy, breath, movement and ceremonial work. She is the creator of Ashira Active Meditation, a modality weaving somatic trauma practices with Sufi contemplative lineage. Her approach is grounded in lived experience, including her own recovery from full body paralysis. Ashira has facilitated trauma-informed healing spaces internationally and offers her work in both Arabic and English.



TIERRA VALIENTE | BRAVE EARTH

Brave Earth is located between San Ramon and La Fortuna, nestled in between Arenal Volcano and the Children’s Eternal Rainforest, the largest reserve of protected wildlife in Costa Rica.

As a living lab, we have experimented with different building modalities using AirCrete and materials sourced on the land including bamboo and adobe. We have implemented biophilic design, closed-loop systems and permaculture design principles. Ornamental, food, and medicinal gardens surround the center as well as hiking trials to a nearby river, and a natural swimming pond.

CULTURES OF TRANSITION

The impulse for Tierra Valiente stems from an awareness of our civilizational trajectory within the dominant culture with its source code of extraction, domination, commodification, colonization, control, entitlement, and separation from the living world.

We are both informed by this critical lens and inspired to create outside of the old values and incentive landscapes to build a culture based on reciprocity, regeneration and resiliency.

In this collective transition - whether you call it the Anthropocene, the Kali Yuga, late-stage capitalism or capitalist modernity - our intention is to become more attuned to this cultural context in order to decolonize the conditioning of the dominant system and be in deeper service to our collective potential.