Into the Dark Woods: A Rite of Passage

🌑 Into the Dark Woods 🌑
A Rite of Passage Retreat with The Imaginelle Mystery School

Held by Naomi Jason • Celeste Morris • Alison Vida

Step into the ancient tale of Vasilisa, who journeyed into the forest to face the fierce Baba Yaga and returned with fire that burns away what is false and illuminates what is true.

Together we will:
🌑 Listen to the live storytelling
🔥 Sit in the woods with the dark and return with light
🕯 Share wisdom, reflection, and firelit nourishment
🪡 Embroider white linen with red thread, weaving soul into form

This is a retreat of grief, beauty, and initiation. For women who hold space that are ready to be held in the dark, reclaim the spark, and stitch it into their lives.

Because even leaders need to lay it down sometimes.
Even fire-keepers need to sit in the dark.

📍 Salt Spring Island · Nov 8–9 (overnight retreat)
📞 Calls: Monday evenings Nov 3 & Nov 17
✉️ aWduaXRlIHwgbmFvbWlqYXNvbiAhIGNvbQ==

early bird: $495 (till Oct 15)
full: $595

Included: overnight sleepover optional (bring your own bedding)
*upgrade to private room upon request

******

Step into the dark woods. Return with your flame.

******


There is a time when every woman is asked to walk into the unknown, to face the dark woods and the fierce questions that live there. In the old Slavic tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful, a young girl is sent into the forest to seek fire from Baba Yaga. What begins as exile becomes initiation: through tasks of patience, courage, and devotion, she returns with the fire of truth—the flame that burns away illusion and lights the way forward.

This retreat is our own journey into the dark woods.

Before we gather, we meet in a live storytelling call, listening to Vasilisa’s tale and naming the intentions we will carry. At retreat, we open ceremonial space, nourish our bodies, and step into the night woods to sit in silence with the unseen. From darkness we return to the fire, each woman lighting her own candle, a symbol of the spark carried home.

The next morning we move and dance our bodies alive, then enter sacred craft—embroidering white linen with red thread, just as Vasalisa wove beauty from her fire. Each stitch a prayer. Each thread a continuation of the story.

Afterward, we return once more in a post-retreat integration call, tending the embers and grounding the fire into our daily lives.

This is a circle for women who are ready to:
Sit with grief, shadow, and mystery
Reclaim the fire of their own soul
Weave the light into body, home, and community

*****

About us:

Celeste Morris is a grief celebrant, ritualist, and wild mother who tends the holy ground where life and death, love and grief, joy and eros entwine. A keeper of hearth and womb wisdom, she walks in devotion to the ancestors, the Earth, and the eternal spark that guides us through darkness. With hands skilled in craft and a heart rooted in nature’s rhythms, Celeste invites others into the depths where grief becomes sacred, and the hidden fire of the soul can be reclaimed.

Alison Vida is lifelong seeker who discovered her calling through the convergence of Jungian psychology and Tibetan Buddhism in the early 1970s, Alison spent her career as an educator and counsellor, working with students, families, and diverse adult populations while raising her family (Naomi!). Her passion for understanding the psyche led her from teaching to residential treatment work and eventually back to formal analytical training. Since 2011, she has been studying at ISAPZürich, the International School of Analytical Psychology in Switzerland, where she is now a Diploma Candidate working under supervision. She remains dedicated to tending soul and cultivating pathways for wisdom to flow into ordinary lives, viewing this as her response to the world's sorrows and challenges.

Naomi Jason is a visionary, community leader and mentor, the founder of Dance Temple, the Imaginelle community theatre project, and the Imaginelle Mystery School for Embodied Transformation. Deeply rooted in the wisdom of the earth, Naomi is a farmer as well as a dance facilitator, medical qigong therapist, ritualist, dancer, choreographer, and music curator. With 15+ years of experience tending community through embodied ritual, she is dedicated to empowering community leaders to step into their full, impactful service, so that we can support our people in this time of great change.

Also check out other Workshops in Salt Spring Island, Health & Wellness events in Salt Spring Island, Arts events in Salt Spring Island.