Mothering Daughters Art and Ritual Retreat
A Weekend Retreat (for mothers) Exploring How to Create Happy and Healthy Mother-Daughter Relationships
Join me online or in-person in Redwood Meadows, a storybook town located 5 minutes from Bragg Creek, Alberta for a weekend retreat where we use art and ritual to heal the mother wound and explore what is hidden within the complex and beautiful dynamic of the mother-daughter relationship.
What kind of future relationship do you want with your daughter?
I invite you to take a moment and imagine what your relationship with your daughter might look like when she is older. Imagine your time
together being easy and fun where your conversations are kind and sprinkled with laughter. Imagine she really understands everything you have done for her and you really see her and the woman she was born to be. Imagine your relationship is exactly as you always hoped it would be.
This is what I believe is possible for mothers and daughters.
But if you’re a woman who experienced childhood trauma, emotional neglect or a strained childhood relationship with your own mother or you lived in a strong patriarchal system, you might find your role as mother uniquely challenging and you might find the relationship with your daughter(s) especially confusing.
Maybe you’re already fighting more than you’d like. Or you yell more often than you want to. Or you’re wondering how to maintain the connection with your daughter through her teen years. Or maybe you’re worried you’re going to recreate the kind of relationship you had with your mother or you didn’t have a close relationship with your parents so what you want to create in your family dynamics feels unfamiliar to you.
You want a close relationship with your daughter but you’re not feeling confident that what you’re doing will get you there.
You’re not alone. Mother/daughter relationships aren’t just hard; they’re complex and layered with generations of unintended mistakes and unmanaged patriarchal expectations. Women (and those who significantly identify as such or those who are significantly perceived as such), are expected to shoulder a tremendous amount of emotional burdens without being emotionally cared for themselves. If you’re confused about what to do or if you notice your daughter pulls away more often than you want her to, there’s probably so much your childhood wasn’t able to teach you about building strong and healthy mother/daughter relationships.
But what your mother couldn’t teach you, your daughter needs you to know.
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.
Hi. I’m Dana.
I created the Mothering-Daughters Art Ritual Retreats but the truth is 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 the photo below was taken, 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 and in the patriarchal system we lived in, she was shouldering more than she could bear. 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.
Eight 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 the way I was affected by the patriarchal structures that quietly weaved their way into my family’s dynamics was a crucial step and now I’m deeply passionate about helping mothers understand how to explore their own childhoods and prevent their daughters (and their sons) from experiencing the pain that being emotionally unattuned to causes.
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 relationships.
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 Mothering Daughters Art and Ritual Retreat
For years I’ve studied relationships from a spiritual perspective.
I don’t have a daughter of my own and I’m not a psychologist and this isn’t therapy. This retreat was created with all the information I wish someone would have shared with my mother when I was a child.
And I’d love to share it with you…for your daughter’s sake.
This two day creative retreat takes place in-person in my home studio near Bragg Creek, AB on from Friday, September 19-21, 2025 OR online in my private Zoom room from September 26-28, 2025
NEXT IN-PERSON RETREAT DATES:
The next in-person retreat will take place in my home studio on September 19-21:
Friday night, September 19 from 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Saturday, September 20 from noon – 4:30 pm
Sunday, September 21 from noon – 4:30 pm
The cost is $420 CAD
Register for the In-Person Retreat Here
NEXT ONLINE RETREAT DATES:
The next online retreat will take place in my private Zoom room on September 26-28:
Yes, all sessions will be recorded and available
Friday night, September 26 from 7:00 – 9:00 pm MT
Saturday, September 27 from noon – 4:30 pm MT
Sunday, September 28 from noon – 4:30 pm MT
The cost is $320 CAD
Register for the Online Retreat Here
What to Expect
During the retreat, we will use soulful art activities and simple rituals to help us heal and understand the complex
and beautiful nature of the mother/daughter relationship. When we are done, these art creations will become a hand-made heartfelt gift you can present to your daughter when the time is right.
You will not only be learning essential skills to help you build a strong and healthy bond with your children, you will also walk away with a truly unique made-with-love gift for your daughter(s) that will be infused with so much meaning.
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 to enjoy this process. Even if you’ve never picked up a paintbrush before, 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 your 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 what some of your daughter’s emotional needs may be and how to meet them
- take a couple steps closer to being at peace with your relationship with your own mother (whatever its status)
- learn a simple spiritual technique that will help you handle the problems that arise in your 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:
- For the in-person retreat you receive a colorful, artsy studio to light your creativity on fire
- One evening and two full days of instruction, sisterhood and intuitive and spiritual magic led by me, Dana da Ponte (a professional intuitive, art witch and astrologer in training)
- 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 when you join the in-person retreat
- astrology insight into you and your daughter’s birth charts
What’s not included:
- food and snacks will not be included but coffee, water and tea will be available for the in-person retreat
- for the online retreat art supplies will not be provided but all PDF booklets and a list of supplies will be provided (and I stick to easy supplies that you probably already have)
NEXT IN-PERSON RETREAT DATES:
The next in-person retreat will take place in my home studio on September 19-21:
Friday night, September 19 from 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Saturday, September 20 from noon – 4:30 pm
Sunday, September 21 from noon – 4:30 pm
The cost is $420 CAD
Register for the In-Person Retreat Here
NEXT ONLINE RETREAT DATES:
The next online retreat will take place in my private Zoom room on September 26-28:
Yes, all sessions will be recorded and available
Friday night, September 26 from 7:00 – 9:00 pm MT
Saturday, September 27 from noon – 4:30 pm MT
Sunday, September 28 from noon – 4:30 pm MT
The cost is $320 CAD
Register for the Online Retreat Here
Where the Magic Happens
My in-person 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 in the studio intimate so we can get deep and soulful and really get to the heart of things. Register early as the retreat is limited to 4-6 women.
The online retreat is in my private Zoom room but I’ll be in my studio as I lead it so, don’t worry, the magic of my storybook hometown will come through to you too.
