Tending
the Bones
In-Person Retreat
Jan 9th — 12th, 2025
Find healing and meaning through ancestral reconnection with Lydia Violet Harutoonian & Leah Song of Rising Appalachia
Gather at the…
Wellsprings of Story and Song!
In this retreat, Lydia and Leah joyfully accompany you in reconnecting to ancestral lineage.
During this retreat, we will take you through an interactive and immersive journey of cultural self-discovery. You’ll participate in lectures, group discussions, folk singing and dancing, evening storytelling celebrations, and extended Q&A sessions.
You will dive into learning about the instruments and music styles singing in your blood. You will see the connections and differentiations across cultures.
Most importantly, you will define and deepen your relationship with your ancestors from within the diaspora.
This retreat will be limited to 36 participants, ensuring an opportunity to build meaningful connections with others and create a sense of belonging and community. In a world that can feel isolating, this opportunity to weave our ancestral healing work as a coherent tapestry can soothe the pangs of that isolation.
We are excited for all of us to take a break from our daily routine and fully immerse ourselves in our Tending the Bones retreat experience. What a gift! We will gather at the gorgeous Whispertree Retreat in the heart of the Anderson Valley in Boonville, California.
Your lineage holds potent medicine
To be diasporic means to be a member of any group of people who have been dispersed outside their traditional homeland.
Many of the world’s population, including the majority of North American residents, exist within a diaspora.
This dispersion often brings with it a sense of ancestral cultural separation.
With this separation comes disorientation from land, language, and tradition. And, assimilation into modern cultures based on capitalism and materialism.
But we do not need to resign ourselves to this assimilation. We can study the past to inform our way forward.
Humans have always stored their lessons and medicines in stories and songs, and every culture has a thread in this tapestry.
What is yours?
Learning about the cultures of our ancestors can give us powerful tools for…
healing old patterns, nurturing relationships, and creating a greater sense of meaning in our lives
All humans gathered around imagination and creativity, confessing their life stories, wonderings, and prayers.
Their humanity often came forward through these outlets, creating medicine for the hardships of life.
Through studying the stories of these cultures, we have an opportunity to connect to the psychic, spiritual, and material landscapes of our ancestors.
These stories tell us the flora and fauna they were surrounded by, the fundamental patterns of daily life they engaged in, the foods they shared, and the celebrations they marked.
This type of cultural learning is a pivotal step in connecting to our authentic selves and our own spiritual depth.
This Retreat is…
For you if:
You’d love to learn about your ancestral culture and traditions (in a supportive, immersive, and in-person environment!)
It excites you to have uninterrupted time as you gain knowledge in a healing container (with practices that engage somatically, intellectually, creatively, and spiritually)
You’d love to build meaningful connections with others in the diaspora and create a greater sense of belonging
You seek to improve your well-being through the healing power of cultural reconnection
You’re curious about harvesting wisdom and finding meaning by exploring your cultural heritage
You’re curious about discovering the ancestral instruments and music styles singing in your blood
You’d love to get nourished by the nervous-system-regulating vitamins of singing, sharing stories, dancing, and celebrating life together!
Retreat Schedule:
Thursday
January 9
4pm
Arrival & check-in
Dinner
Community Welcome Dinner!
Evening (7:30-9pm)
Sofreh Altar building with ancestral objects
Meet your cohort and set your intentions
Community Singing Lullaby Session
Friday
January 10
Morning (9:30am-12pm)
Session 1:
Why We Start with Story: Psyche, Soul, and the Nature of Archetypes
Healing in the Diaspora
Session 2:
Archetypal Story Figures from Around the World
The Patterns Humanity Shares
Connecting to the Psyches of Our Ancestors Through Story
Lunch
Meet with small counsel group
Afternoon (2-5:30pm)
The Literal Truths and Mythic Truths Found in Folk Stories and Mythologies, and What They Can Tell Us About the Lives of Our Ancestors
Evening (7:30-9pm)
Stories from Around the World: Ancestral Reconnection Oral Storytelling Circle
Saturday
January 11
Morning (9:30am-12pm)
Session 1:
Folk Music Traditions: Drums, Winds, and Strings from Around the World!
Session 2:
Vocal Workshop with Leah Song: explore sound vibration and body movement as tools for self-awareness. Embody the physical art of making sound from all the many resonators in the body, and expand your voice.
Lunch
Meet with small counsel group
Afternoon (2-5:30pm)
Session 1:
Music As Medicine: Why All Peoples Make Music, and Learning A Song In Your Blood.
Session 2:
Songs from Around the World!
Evening (7:30-9pm)
Songs from Around the World: Oral Songshare
Night
Singing the Bones band concert and dance party!
Sunday
January 12
Morning (9:30am-12pm)
Closing Ceremony
Lunch
Final Group Meal
2pm
Departure
a note about preparing for this retreat…
We are so excited to be offering this Tending the Bones retreat in person! Tending the Bones is also an 8-week online course that Leah and Lydia have taught many times over several years.
For folks attending the retreat who haven't taken the online course, we will offer four 1-hour online study sessions that you must either attend live or watch via recording, in order to learn some of the ways that we work with ancestral cultural reconnection. These online sessions will help you feel oriented for our time together.
Your Groovy Facilitators
Lydia Violet Harutoonian
(she/her)
Lydia Violet brings with her a robust scholarship in cosmology, archetypal psychology, and group work facilitation aimed at individual and community repair. Through compassionate and grounded facilitation, Lydia’ is able to move her groups through both intellectual study, somatic tending, and emotional mending in a way that balances mind, spirit, and heart.
Leah Song
(she/her)
Leah Song brings with her 15+ years as the frontwoman of internationally-renowned folk group Rising Appalachia, born from her own lifetime immersion in a variety of folk music traditions. Leah is also passionate about somatic healing, offering groups her own unique synthesis of yoga, dance, meditation, and vocal exploration.
Meals & Accommodations
Meals
Delicious, healthy, seasonal meals are included in this retreat. Dinner on Thursday; breakfast, lunch, and dinner on Friday and Saturday; and breakfast and lunch on Sunday will be served by Chef Eden Keller and her team.
Eden sources from local farms and purveyors with some of the finest ingredients in California. An experienced gardener and yoga teacher, Eden brings her knowledge of nutrition and the use of seasonal ingredients into every meal she prepares. She expresses her love for the earth's bounty by creating nourishing, beautiful, and delicious meals.
Most dishes will be vegetarian. Food allergies and dietary needs can be accommodated. If you have special dietary needs, please tell us your needs on the Registration Form after you sign up, and we will be in touch about what our caterer can accommodate. Dietary requests must be made no less than 14 days prior to the retreat.
Accommodations
Located in the heart of Anderson Valley, Whispertree Retreat offers a beautiful setting for Tending the Bones. Whispertree offers access to miles of trails and expansive, pristine views of the valley. A sub-watershed feeding Soda Creek and the larger Navarro River Watershed, the land supports fir forests and towering old oaks. The diversity and resilience of the land is palpable. Each of the oak trees, in both savannah and forest settings, host over two thousand species of more than human life. Whispertree Retreat hosts changemakers involved in reconnection and the creation of a more reverent and regenerative future.
Accommodation choices at our retreat include:
Platform Tent (Bell Tent or Cabin): 2 twin beds
Shared Indoor Room: 2-3 beds
Indoor Bunk Room: 6-7 beds
Private Room
More details on these room types can be found below. We will ask about your access needs and roommate preferences in the Registration Form.
Accessibility
Accessibility varies at different locations on the Whispertree Retreat property.
We will ask you to share any access needs you have on the Registration Form, and we will communicate with you about how we can accommodate those needs. You’re welcome to email us if you have specific questions.
Kind Words from Students
“Sending you BIG, BIG, love, gratitude, and appreciation. What you are doing with Singing the Bones is remarkable. I have long sensed that our people are always near to us and show themselves in a plethora of ways. In this class I have been able to foster that idea and begin to see a path towards sharing it. It has been so uplifting to see your work in action and connect with kindred spirits.”
— Beth Hutchinson
“This class felt like the opening ceremony for the rest of my life…”
— Hollyn Bermonde
“Participating in this course has brought more love, meaning, and vitality into my heart. This journey felt as if I was falling in love for the first time, staying up late researching wanting more, more, more!”
— A.S.
“I feel somatically altered from the experience as the intelligence and wisdom of my Lithuanian pagan ancestors has been awakened within my bones…”
— Jamie Oksas
Cost & Registration
We ask for your commitment to attend all 4 days, because this is a cohesive program meant to be experienced in full.
Registration deadline: December 15, 2024
Registration includes the Tending the Bones immersion, plus all meals and lodging at the retreat center.
Choose your lodging option below. Rooms vary and the images below are examples.
Platform Tent
Bell Tent or Cabin with electricity and wifi
2 twin beds
shared with 1 roommate
short walk to restroom and showers
Pay In Full
$1195
SOLD OUT
Payment Plan
$200
for 6 months
SOLD OUT
Bunk Room
6-7 twin or bunk beds
shared with up to 6 roommates
shared indoor restroom and showers
Shared Indoor Room
2-3 twin or bunk beds
shared with 1-2 roommates
shared indoor restroom and showers
Pay In Full
$1495
Payment Plan
$250
for 6 months
Private Room
indoor restroom and shower (may be in-room or in a common area)
Pay In Full
$1795
Payment Plan
$300
for 6 months
Scholarships
We have 5 partial scholarships available for this retreat, as we would love to create as much access as possible. Priority will be offered to participants from systemically marginalized groups. Please click here to fill out this application. We will get back to you within 1 week.
Refund Policy
For cancellations made 3 months or more prior to the retreat, we can offer a 75% refund.
For cancellations between 1-3 months before the retreat, we can offer a 50% refund.
Cancellations within 1 month of the retreat are not eligible for a refund.
Covid/Illness Policy
Within our group we will have varied levels of risk and vulnerability to infection with covid-19 and other contagious illnesses. Let's take good care of each other!With this in mind, we request:
- please test yourself for covid-19 infection before coming, and only attend if you test negative for covid-19 and feel well
- consider wearing a mask to protect others if you know you've been exposed to anyone ill
- in the week leading up to the retreat, if you're taking public transportation/flying on an airplane, consider masking during your travels
During the retreat, we will make sure to have good air flow in our indoor meeting spaces. Masks will be optional.
Pay In Full
$1395
Payment Plan
$233
for 6 months
If you have questions after reviewing all of the information on this page, please reach out to us at care@schoolforthegreatturning.com and we’ll be happy to help.