A weekend retreat (for mothers and daughters aged 13-17) with creative rituals and soulful conversations to nurture the mother/daughter relationship
Join me in Redwood Meadows, a storybook town located 5 minutes from Bragg Creek, Alberta for a weekend retreat where you and your daughter will play with art and ritual to celebrate and strengthen the mother daughter relationship.
Friday, October 18 at 6:30 pm – Sunday, October 20th, 2019 at 4 pm
If you have a daughter between 13-17 who loves to be creative and who you would treasure spending quality one-on-one time with while learning how to use the magic of the moon and how to keep your mother/daughter relationship strong and healthy, I encourage you to join us.
Register Here
Cost is $320 + gst
(price includes all supplies and admission for both you and your daughter)
The mother-daughter relationship is sacred and precious. There are many unique dynamics to consider between a mother and her daughter because it becomes such a key relationship in every woman’s life. How your daughter sees herself, her place in the world and how she navigates relationships has a lot to do with your relationship with her. Wouldn’t it feel good to check in and see how she’s doing, release any generational patterns that no longer serve the two of you and just spend some fun quality time bonding with art and ritual? (previous experience with the visual arts and/or ritual is not needed to enjoy this weekend. I keep things nice and simple for everyone to enjoy.)
My goal, while creating this retreat, is for your daughter to turn to you when she’s older and say, “Remember that moon magic retreat we went to. I really enjoyed doing that with you. It’s one of my happy memories.” I also know this retreat will help you, as the mother, walk away with powerful insights. You’ll see where your past is affecting your mother/daughter relationship, how to heal the past and the one thing the both of you can do to ensure a strong and healthy bond for years to come. And you’ll create some beautiful art for and with each other while also experiencing two simple moon rituals that you can take home with you and continue to do together. These rituals will become an amazing way to stay deeply connected as your daughter moves through adolescence and becomes more independent. It will also help you to initiate deeper conversations where you both talk about what’s really on each other’s hearts.
HOW THE WEEKEND WILL UNFOLD (Please note that Friday evening is for mothers only)
Friday evening 6:30 – 9:30 pm
Friday evening is for MOTHERS ONLY. We’ll be taking this time to get to know each other and delve into your own mother/daughter history. We will also be making a small meaningful gift that you will present to your daughter on the last day of the retreat.
Saturday morning 10:00 am – noon
We’ll explore emotions and how we can navigate the challenging ones throughout our lives and you will also create a meaningful painting together.
Saturday afternoon 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
This time is for DAUGHTERS ONLY. Moms, you can head down to Bragg Creek and enjoy a hike in the West Bragg Trails or visit the cute shops downtown or enjoy a coffee at The Heart of Bragg Creek (they make my favorite treats there). Your daughters and I will be talking about the importance of taking care of our emotional well-being while creating a special surprise for you.
Sunday morning 10:00 am – noon
On our final day we will talk about the one simple step both you and your daughter can take to maintain a strong mother/daughter bond as we create a self-love portrait.
Sunday afternoon 1:00 – 4:00 pm
We will learn the basic steps for completing a ritual and two moon rituals you can enjoy together for years to come. We will also end the retreat with a unique mother/daughter ritual.
You will be required to bring your own lunch on Saturday and Sunday but beverages and snacks will be provided.
Register Here
Cost is $320 + gst
(price includes all supplies and admission for both you and your daughter)
WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS:
My retreats are held in the most precious place to me… my home in the idyllic town of Redwood Meadows, Alberta (near Bragg Creek). Directions will be sent by email closer to the date of the retreat.
I like to keep things intimate so we can get deep and soulful and really get to the heart of things. Register early as the retreat is limited to 8 mothers and their precious daughters.
This is a truly one-of-a-kind soul art process that will deepen your mother daughter relationship and become an experience you will treasure for years to come.
You don’t need to be familiar with art or ritual to enjoy this process. Even if you’ve never picked up a paintbrush before or experienced a moon ritual, I’ve taken extra care to make this easy and gentle for you.
If you choose to join me on this journey, you will:
- have the opportunity to explore the mother wound
- understand how your childhood relationship with your mother may be affecting you today (perhaps even without your realizing it)
- learn what emotional needs are and how they affect the mother/daughter relationship
- learn a simple spiritual technique that will help you handle the problems that arise in the mother-daughter relationship and in all the other relationships in your life
This retreat is perfect for you if…
- you suspect your childhood relationship with your mother affected you more than you realize
- you want to be closer to your daughter than you were to your mother when you were young
- you appreciate the joy and play art brings to healing the heart (even if you don’t consider yourself artistic)
- you like the idea of spending two full days making tremendous headway in this important area of your life
What’s included:
- A colorful, artsy studio to light your creativity on fire
- Two full days and one evening of instruction, creativity and magic led by me, Dana da Ponte
- A small, intimate group setting where you are able to feel safe and receive as much support as you need
- ALL ART SUPPLIES will be provided for you
- Snacks and beverages will be available (please bring a bagged lunch on Saturday and Sunday)
Register Here
WHY I CREATED THIS RETREAT:
I believe the journey to creating the kind of mother/daughter bond you want begins with knowing that the kind of relationship your soul craves doesn’t happen by chance. Deep and meaningful bonds take work. But those kinds of relationships are worth every tear you shed, every argument you have and every break your heart braves.
This is as true for best friends and lovers as it is for daughters and mothers.
I didn’t always know this.
To give you an idea how I came to understand more about mothers and daughters, I’d like to share this picture of my mother and me. I think of this photo as our before photo.
It was taken before I built walls around my heart. It is the memory of a time when I loved my mom and I wasn’t afraid to feel it.
Not long after this photo, life took many unexpected turns and, brick by brick, I started to build a wall between my mother and me. It wasn’t a conscious decision. That kind of thing rarely is. I didn’t know I was doing it and neither did my mom.
She thought I was becoming independent.
She thought I knew how much she loved me.
As a mother, there are things she could have done to improve our situation but unfortunately, they didn’t teach those kinds of skills back then. So she did the best she could but our relationship continued to experience challenges and my walls grew.
Those walls negatively impacted many areas of my life including my relationships, my self-image and my parenting. I never felt good enough. I didn’t have healthy boundaries and I allowed other people to treat me poorly. I became the care-taker and spent more time focused on other people’s needs while I was completely ignorant of my own. I swallowed my opinions and became what I believed other people needed me to be in order to love me. I made decisions based on making other people happy while my dreams and the kind of life I wanted to live faded away.
Six years ago the walls I built around my heart finally came crashing down.
And my life is very different because of this. I am very different. I navigate relationships in a much healthier way. I experience more harmony and ease. I make choices that suit me better and allow myself to have preferences. I speak up. I ask for help. I believe in myself and every day I grow closer to seeing how worthy and lovable I really am.
Healing my mother wound was a crucial step and now I’m deeply passionate about helping mothers understand how to heal their own mother wound and prevent their daughters (and their sons) from experiencing it in the first place.
Because despite our best intentions life moves quickly and if you’re not really paying attention, and I mean truly taking the time to be mindful and get curious, seemingly unimportant moments will come one after the other and add up to distance in your mother/daughter relationship.
Relationships are like that. They are deeply affected by subtle moments and great distances and unhealthy patterns can be created between two people so very slowly over time. It happens to the best of us.
That’s why I created the weekend retreat Moon Magic for Mothers and Teen Daughters
For years I’ve studied relationships from a spiritual perspective and I came to heal my own mother wound which changed so many areas of my life.
I don’t have a daughter of my own but this retreat was created with all the information I wish someone would have shared with my mother when I was younger.
And I’d love to share it with you…for your daughter’s sake while at the same time helping the two of you bond over creative activities that you can both enjoy.
This weekend retreat takes place in my home studio near Bragg Creek, AB on October 18-20th, 2019.
Register Here
Cost is $320 + gst
(price includes all supplies and admission for both you and your daughter)
Mother-Daughter photo taken by Janet Pliszka-Hughes of Visual Hues Photography