For millennia woman have met in Sacred Circles to exchange insights, wisdom and healing-- to share their secrets, stories, and struggles and above all to offer each other deep listening, gentle inquiry, and opportunities to experience self-love.

Through being present and connected with each other we have explored old wounds and defenses, mined hurts inside ourselves and faced the parts of ourselves that we injure through fear, judgment and jealousy. 

In circles, women have been midwives to each other’s liberation and transformation – been partners in one of the most important movements of the 20th and 21st centuries, the women's movement. Now, we come together to help a new generation honor the spiritual, regenerative, cooperative, and healing qualities of the sacred feminine that are alive today rebalancing our world.

Since 2005, we have been offering our Women’s Sacred Circle Retreats in Yelapa, Mexico because we know that being in nature and doing this “work” is healthier when we can rest, recreate, and take good care of ourselves.

In our retreats we not only sit in circle together, often twice daily, but we strengthen our bodies through yoga, bodywork, healthy eating and natural exercise – walking, swimming, hiking, climbing, dancing…and we rest, read, meditate, space out, taking time to quiet our minds and open our hearts, so that we can truly listen to our own inner wisdom.

In circle we practice and refine the fine arts of communication such as Compassionate Listening (SM). Doing this we co-create a resonant field vibrant with love, compassion, and interconnection. Through this we become partners in each other’s enlightenment, sisters in each other’s liberation.

After the retreat, when we return to our homes and everyday lives, we bring not only new communication skills, renewed vibrancy for life and a stronger commitment to take responsibility for creating sustainable, thriving relationships, but we bring a more enlightened Self – lighter for all that we blessed, embraced and let go.

Yelapa is the perfect place for our Women's Sacred Circle Retreats, and Casa Isabel is the best place for a retreat. Nestled in a tropical garden rain forest, over-looking the Bay of Banderas, Yelapa moves at the pace of the heart. It is a walking village, no cars, no streets, and no roads. Boats take us from village to village and out across the Bay to the Marietta Islands, where we swim near one of the last two nesting grounds for the Blue Footed Booby.

Casa Isabel is an art and healing community, with one of the finest acupressure massage therapists living on the land. At night, listening to the mantras of the crickets and forest creatures you can also hear Kirtan or piano or music flowing from one of the Palapas owned by residents of Casa Isabel. Often, we are invited to join in with the locals, be they indigenous Yelapan folks or ex-pats from Canada and the US who have lived in Yelapa for decades.

Yelapa only recently got electricity, so it is really a very unusual place, where children still play outside and the worst of the world has just not caught up.

As part of our retreat, we invite you to join in Judith’s local yoga class, or paraglide in tandem with Chris, or walk “up river” to Christina’s Vegan Restaurant and go swimming at the waterfall.  
Or have one of the best massages you’ve ever had from Nancy (from Esalen) or Claudia or Dana (from Big Sur, also), who work at the main beach hotel.

At night, we’ll sit together overlooking the water and the stars in the warm breeze and fresh air and have individual listening sessions or heart to heart sessions that will inspire you to new heights of creativity and freedom and new depths of feeling, understanding and self-love.

Our Retreat begins on Friday afternoon with dinner and ends eight days later on Saturday morning with Isabel's famous pancake breakfast. On days we’re not in circle, or taking time for ourselves, we’ll visit neighboring village called Pizota, which is an even smaller fishing village (only 26 families) just around the southern point of Yelapa, 10 minutes by boat. There we’ll be treated to a lesson in preparing corn tortillas from scratch.

In Yelapa, you’ll sleep like a baby, rocked on a floating bed covered by a soft net, in your open air Palapa. Eric Kuhner, Linda’s partner and co-facilitator for mixed gender retreats, lovingly prepares our meals. Fresh fish, homemade black beans and rice, fresh corn tortillas, salsa, guacamole, chili rellenos, salads, steamed vegetables and deserts, all made with love and patience. Vegan, and vegetarian options are available.
As guests of Isabel, we'll stay in one of three Palapas. Each Palapa has hot water showers, flush toilets, fully equipped kitchen, towels, bedding, mosquito nets, and hammocks, ice chests or refrigerators, and fire pits with wood supplied. Ice and purified water are also provided. The houses have electricity, as well as candles and oil lamps for ambiance. It is a perfect place for a combination of privacy and intimacy as well as community.

Linda Wolf & Genevieve Wolf Smeeth (mother and daughter) are co-facilitators of the Circle. Linda is the founder of Teen Talking Circles and Women's Circles Network, as well as a fine art photographer and author. She is co-author of Daughters of the Moon, Sisters of the Sun: Young Women and Mentors on the Transition to Womanhood (New Society Publishers); Global Uprising: Stories from a New Generation of Activists (NSP); and Speaking and Listening from the Heart: The Art of Facilitating Teen Talking Circles (dsistas Press). She has trained hundreds of people around the world to start Teen Talking Circles in their communities. Linda is a certified facilitator of Compassionate Listening(SM)*, and member of the Compassionate Listening Learning Community.

Genevieve has been co-facilitating with Linda for the past 4 years and was an original member of Girls’ Talking Circles on Bainbridge Island since she was in middle school. Genevieve has participated in countless ways as a spokesperson, training facilitator, assistant, and representative of Teen Talking Circles. She has just returned to live in the US and is attending Seattle Central College, after a year and a half living in Yelapa. Genevieve is a talented soccer player, maintains a vegan diet, speaks Spanish fluently, and is a gifted facilitator.  

Yelapa is 50 minutes from Puerto Vallarta by water taxi. Vallarta is located on the west coast of Mexico. Participants fly into Puerto Vallarta and take a taxi to the pier at Los Muertos Beach. There you’ll catch the water taxi to Isabel's Beach in Yelapa. If you come in too late to catch the boat, we will help you find accommodations in PV. There are pay phones in the village, and an Internet Café, at "The Vortex:" However, "pre-paid calling cards" must be used. These are available at many of the local stores. There is some cell phone coverage.

The Fee for this retreat is $1275 US and includes 7 nights lodging, special field trips, a yoga class, all meals, and a one-hour bodywork session.

Additional yoga classes, Huichol Shamanic Healing sessions, massages, acupressure, hang gliding, restaurant outings and alcoholic drinks are optional.

If you pay online by credit card, you’ll be charged a small Internet fee. To avoid fees, click pay by check when you sign up.

Feel free to stay longer in Yelapa or visit Isabel's casita, Tortilla Flats, in Puerto Vallarta before or after the retreat. You can work this out in advance directly with Isabel by contacting her at isabelyelapa@yahoo.com.

 If you have your own lodging in Yelapa, please deduct $250 from the above fee.

To see a slide show of one of Yelapa and photos of last year’s retreats, go to: http://lindawolf.net/yelapa/

*Compassionate Listening(SM) is one of the most important skills we bring into our Sacred Circles and Teen Talking Circles. For more information about this life changing conflict resolution and spiritual practice, go to www.compassionatelistening.org