EVENTS
Tending the Garden - Somatic Pathways for Grief
A two-part, pay-what-you-can offering facilitated by Erica Denise Franzen, LMT, LST, Shamanic Counsel (Death Walker, Grief Companion, End-of-Life Doula) & Lauren Gil Hayes, LCSW (Grief Therapist, Loneliness Scholar, End-of-Life Doula)
This is a shared grief space where we can bring our collection of inner altars and lay them down in witness to partners and the collective. "Tending the Garden" is a communal ritual for anyone moving through grief - quiet grief, complicated grief, anticipatory grief, or the kind that doesn't have a name. We’ll gather with sound, writing, breath, and ritual to tend to what’s present. There’s no pressure to fix or move on; just an invitation to be with and witness it. Together.
We’re offering two sessions this summer in the series and recommend attending both:
Equinox Session: “Composting & Blooming”
An activated 3.5 to 4-hour gathering with an optional garden experience afterward.
Includes altar-building, writing, soundscapes, and participatory ritual.
What to expect:
A place to be with your grief in community
Invitations to move, rest, write, and reflect in response to loss
Shared silence and sound
No fixing, no performing--just tending
Come as you are. Bring something small for the opening altar if you’d like. All grief is welcome.
New Moon Movement and Meditation
Our New Moon Rituals honor the lunar cycle through gentle movement, intention setting and deep rest. We end the ritual with a yoga Nidra and a sound meditation and plant your intentions in our community garden where you can watch them grow because they have been tended to by the community. Join us!
Incarnate: A Somatic Experience
What a wonder it is to be born into these bodies, so capable of sensing, of feeling, of creating connection to the world around us; and yet, most of us wouldn’t likely describe the experience of being in a body as one full of wonder. Instead, for most of us, the experience can be confounding on our best days, and unbearable on our worst.
But that isn’t because you’re broken.
It isn’t because there is anything wrong with you or your body.
It isn’t because you’re not capable.
It’s because we live in a cultural context that rarely offers us a pathway for this kind of connection, and so we spend our lives separated from the most meaningful part of being human… from the experience of being embodied…because it is the only way we know.
But what if there were another way? What if there was a practice that could create a safe pathway back to our bodies and home to ourselves?
There is.
Enter Incarnate: A Somatic Experience.
Rooting in the neurophysiology of Somatic Experiencing® and building on the Somatic Sessions unique to Sanctuary Studios, we will use movement to create a primary pathway back to our bodies and will build rituals to reinforce that pathway. Through safe sensory awareness we will learn to tolerate sensation, restore regulation, and rebuild our capacity for connection. We will have time for meditation and reflection, deep rest and relaxation, and engaging excursions for people who’d like a little adventure.
Together, we will explore:
What it means to safely be in your body.
How to use sensory pathways (touch, sight, sound, movement) as portals to presence and regulation
How to create practices that support moving from a state of hypervigilance and disconnection into shared safety and embodied belonging
This retreat blends what science teaches us about the body with a reverence for the mystery of our own incarnation - the miracle of being a sensing, breathing, relational body in a world that is alive. It will be both a return and a remembering.
You’ll leave with:
A practice and a pathway back to yourself
A deeper trust in your body’s innate wisdom
The capacity for connection to the world around you
Incarnate is open to all — no prior experience with somatic work is necessary. Whether you are on a healing journey, a practitioner, or simply curious about embodiment, this retreat is for you.
Come as you are. Remember who you were made to be.
The Details:
For two years, we’ve hosted thousands of visits to our Somatic Sessions at Sanctuary Studios, so we’ve decided it’s time to deepen the experience, expand the insights, and take the show on the road to sunny Sayulitas Mexico.Join us as we slow down to spend five days and four nights creating an experience designed for deep exploration and embodied connection.
Retreat cost includes all programming and practices, breakfast and dinner every day, private transport from the airport, and overnight accommodations at Hotelito Los Suenos.
Airfare is not included and booking will be the responsibility of each participant. Sayulita is about 25 miles (about an hour drive) from the Puerto Vallarta airport.
Single Occupancy: $1500
Double Occupancy: $2000
*$500 nonrefundable deposit due at the time of booking.
New Moon Movement & Meditation
There is so much power in planting our intentions in fertile soil and there is no time more fertile for this kind of work than during the New Moon. Join Sarah Stevens & Erica Franzen for movement, meditation & reflection, a sound bath, and Yoga Nidra to send you home rested and ready for your intentions to grow.
Tending the Garden: Somatic & Creative Pathways for Grief
A two-part, pay-what-you-can offering at Sanctuary Studios in Moline, IL
Facilitated by Erica Denise Franzen, LMT, LST, Shamanic Counsel (Death Walker, Grief Companion, End-of-Life Doula) & Lauren Gil Hayes, LCSW (Grief Therapist, Loneliness Scholar, End-of-Life Doula)
This is a shared grief space where we can bring our collection of inner altars and lay them down in witness to partners and the collective. "Tending the Garden" is a communal ritual for anyone moving through grief - quiet grief, complicated grief, anticipatory grief, or the kind that doesn't have a name. We’ll gather with sound, writing, breath, and ritual to tend to what’s present. There’s no pressure to fix or move on; just an invitation to be with and witness it. Together.
We’re offering two sessions this summer in the series and recommend attending both:
June 21 – Solstice Session: “Composting & Blooming”
An activated 3.5 to 4-hour gathering with an optional garden experience afterward.
Includes altar-building, writing, soundscapes, and participatory ritual.
August 10 – Short Session: “The Seed in the Dark”
A quieter, 2-hour gathering.
Includes sensory exploration, sound bath, and gentle witnessing.
What to expect:
A place to be with your grief in community
Invitations to move, rest, write, and reflect in response to loss
Shared silence and sound
No fixing, no performing--just tending
Come as you are. Bring something small for the opening altar if you’d like. All grief is welcome.
New Moon Movement & Meditation
There is so much power in planting our intentions in fertile soil and there is no time more fertile for this kind of work than during the New Moon. Join Sarah Stevens & Erica Franzen for movement, meditation & reflection, a sound bath, and Yoga Nidra to send you home rested and ready for your intentions to grow.
Full Moon Movement & Meditation
The Full Moon is an auspicious time to slow down, turn toward the wisdom of your body, and create a little space for some openness to whatever this part of the lunar cycle has to offer. We’ll move our bodies with some traditional yoga sequencing, have some quiet time for reflection, and then move into a sound bath to help welcome rest.
Fill the Gardens
As part of our commitment to community care, Sanctuary is planting nearly 300 square feet of gardens this summer to feed anyone who needs to be fed. Come join us as we fill the gardens with soil on Saturday, May 10th. Bring a bucket if you’ve got one!
New Moon Movement & Meditation
Join us for 45 minutes of movement and 45 minutes of meditation as we seed our intentions during the New Moon.
Full Moon Movement & Meditation
Join us for 45 minutes of movement and 45 minutes of sound meditation as rest in the light of the full moon.
Seeded at Sanctuary
Join us on New Year’s Eve for a special Sanctuary celebration designed to help you let go of the year behind you and root yourself in the year ahead.
The studio will be open from noon to midnight with classes offered every other hour throughout the afternoon and evening. You’re welcome to join us for some or all of the offerings, but you don’t have to join a class to be a part of this celebration.
You’re also invited to stop into the studio all day long where you’ll find two kinds of paper in the entry. On one table, you’ll find incense paper and on the other, you’ll find seed paper.
You’re welcome to write what you want to release on the incense paper and the intention you want to take root on the seed paper. We will burn the incense paper in the studio all day long and on New Year’s Day, we will use the ashes from that offering to fertilize the soil that we will use to plant the intentions you write on seed paper. Those intentions will be cared for in the studio all year long, offering you the chance to see what we can grow when we allow ourselves to be cared for by each other.
Think New-Years-Resolutions-Meets-Community-Care-And-Together-They-Flourish… or something like that.
Check out the class schedule here or just come by, ready to release 2024 and plant something beautiful with us in 2025.