BLOOD BREATH & BONES
Reclaiming our Ancestral Stories
3 Day, In-Person Samhain Retreat with
Elayne Kalila & Rebecca Cavender
Limited to 22 sisters
October 31st—November 2nd, 2019
Priestess Presence Home Temple
Nevada City, California
We tell new stories
on the body and in the sky.
Stories that dance with
star and bone,
singing old pain
into harmonic wisdom.
Listen to your body-land.
Listen to your story.
—Rebecca Cavender
You are invited
to a sacred Samhain, in-person, weekend retreat to honor,
awaken, and reclaim your ancestral stories.
You are the living manifestation of your ancestors—their conscious dream,
their deepest hope.
You are here to honor, heal, and retell the stories of those who live within your
blood, breath, and bones.
Over 3 days, including Samhain, we will gather in ceremonial temple space to connect with our ancestral and star lineages so their archetypal stories, songs, rituals, images, and wisdom intimately interweave with ours, laying to rest that which wants to die and reactivating that which want to live within us now.
Listen.
You are the new branch of your tree.
You stand, roots to earth:
Bone in breath:
Stars in your eyes.
You are the very land you walk on.
You carry the very land we walked.
Blood of our blood.
Land of our land.
Heart of our heart.
Listen.
Will you join us to honor & activate
your ancestral & spiritual lineages?
Your ancestral stories are etched into your very breath. You hold access to untold stories waiting to be told, sung, healed, and celebrated—as sacrament to your family tree and star kin.
The roots of this tree nourish and nurture you. It directs you to the union of your mother-father lines.
It’s a place of intimate belonging—for there is no separation between you and them.
When we connect to our ancestral gifts, all of our current relationships shift—with self and with others—because we feel rooted in knowing we belong.
Your well ancestors wish to speak, sing, write,
dance, drum through you so you activate your gifts
and create new belonging stories that reconnect you
to who you truly are, where you’re from, and
ultimately, weave you into the web of all life.
During our weekend together, we will do this
by entering a space of profound listening and
connection to body, land, fire, and air while
working with the arts of:
- Intuitive oracle
- Ritual
- Storytelling
- Sacred writing
- Singing ancestral
songlines/soul songs
- Release ceremonies
- Sacred tool crafting
- Anointing
- Embodiment
- Silence
…culminating in a ritual theatre piece during a shared ceremony on our final day together.
Come, sing the unsung songs of your ancestors…
During This Powerful, 3 Day Samhain Immersion, We Will:
- Co-create a community ancestral altar
- Experience a powerful Samhain ritual ceremony
- Connect and commune with your well, benevolent ancestors to receive guidance from them
- Awaken the benevolent, ancestral wisdom and sacred medicine you carry from your blood and spiritual lineages
- Open to receive song and writing transmissions from your well ancestors
- Write your untold ancestral stories & sing your unsung ancestral songs
- Honor and give offerings to the temple’s sacred lands and the people who have lived here for eons
- Commune with body, land, fire, air as elements that support us to retell our stories
- Enter the alchemical temples of the Queen of Death, Wise Woman, and Weaver Dreamer
- Explore the sacred art of ancestral storytelling
Rituals:
- Ceremonial Staff Making
- Ceremonial Mask Release
- Gateway of Death
You will receive:
- 3 days of temple retreat time
- Gorgeous welcome packet & preparation guide
- List of supplies & resources to enhance our sacred time
- Spaciousness and time for meditation, reflection, heart-sharing, art, embodied practices, and journaling
- Connecting With Your Ancestors—a guided journey
- Lush, beautifully designed handouts
Included:
- 3 full days of ritual immersion—Friday morning until Sunday afternoon; please arrive at your accommodation on Thursday. We begin Friday morning
- Ritual preparation & closing—Live, online call prior to the retreat and a live call after the retreat for integration
- Delicious meals—Lunch all 3 days; dinner on Friday and Saturday
- Mythic Dinner on Saturday night
Not Included:
Accommodation—We will:
- Provide a list of accommodation to help you secure your home away from home
- Connect you with other attendees so you can share accommodation and/or transportation
Transportation & Travel—We will:
- Need to make and pay for your own travel and transportation.
- There are Ubers in Nevada City, though you may find it’s best to rent a car
Distance Details:
- Closest airport: Sacramento—1.5 hour drive
- Amtrak: in Sacramento
- San Francisco Airport: 3 hour drive
- Oakland Airport: 3 hour drive
Bonus:
- Answering the Call: 9 Sacred Priestess Practices—a self-study online course
- Sacred Call of the Ancient Priestess book
Connect with your ancestors.
Free your new stories.
Redefining Death:
Samhain & Your Ancestors
Samain is the dying time—a time to engage with the process of dying and reconnecting.
The veils are thin.
While we are able to access our well ancestors whenever we desire, this portal of time in the wheel of the year is especially potent.
Samhain opens up a resonant field for us to release, without fear; we trust we belong, that all is well, that we are loved, creating a way for us to get clear about our legacy—what we are leaving behind for our ancestors, both in the past and in the future.
This can also mean connecting to the beauty of grief and experiencing it as a transmutation of love. Grief opens your heart to deeper love—it’s a wild gift, if you let it.
Elayne Kalila is acutely aware of this with the recent death of her mum. She knows that when our mothers/fathers die, we are initiated into another level of who we are on the planet—a redefining of who we are. It’s also the redefinition death … death as freedom.
With death, we can let go of contracts and ideas/beliefs that no longer serve, that are
complete, that we don’t want to be connected with, so we can better serve ourselves,
our family, and the community.
Death frees us and reminds us that we belong.
We are tethered and untethered.
We’d love to honor your benevelovent ancestral gifts with you…
There is no “one way,”
but there is “a” way.
A way—your path—that you’ve carried in your blood for milenia.
It’s the blood you carry for us,
of us—your ancestors.
Of the land.
It’s the way forward.
It’s how we walk on the land.
How we leave footprints in the swollen dirt and the aching tundra.
It’s how we howl and sing to the stars,
to the color-sky,
to the lakes of grass.
You are reflected in that.
Made from that:
It’s how you move and it’s
your adoration for the flowers, fields, sky.
The wind.
How the wind whispers your name:
Your real name—you can almost catch it on your tongue,
on a wisp of your hair.
You are free.
This is us. Our Ways.
Your world, the world, needs this belonging place.
This is in your bones.
This is in your body.
You carry Our Way.
—Message from Rebecca Cavender’s ancestors
Guides
Elayne Kalila
Doughty
Elayne Kalila Doughty, MA, MFT, has been on the path of passionate service for the past 30 years. She is an ordained Priestess and the founder of the Priestess Presence Temple – a dedicated temple of the 13 Moon Mystery School which
initiates women into the ancient mysteries of the Divine Feminine – in a modern context. Through embodiment practices and devoted service, the temple inspires women to unleash their leadership gifts and step into their full potential.
Elayne specializes in helping women tap into their deepest wisdom, enabling them to harness their own transformational power to be more effective and whole in every aspect of their lives. She is a psychotherapist, global social and spiritual activist (see www.gratitudealliance.org – the organization she co-founded), best-selling author, speaker, and soul midwife.
You can connect with Elayne at:
www.priestesspresence.com
Rebecca Cavender
Rebecca is a professional, intuitive writer—and proudly autistic—from a small city nestled in a beautiful desert valley in Washington State, USA. This is where she calls home after living in five countries on four continents—including Myanmar, where she wrote a best-selling guidebook for expats.
But what really matters to her is honoring our sacred self-expression so we feel free to be who we are. This takes listening to our authentic voice and knowing that even (especially!) if it’s a divergent, different voice, it matters … in fact, it can help change the world.
Rebecca connects with her well, benevelovent Nordic (Finnish & Swedish)
ancestors who offer guidance in her life decisions, her writing, her ritual and healing practices—including soul songs & journey—and provide her with a true sense of belonging.
Through ancestral healing, she recognizes the power of their nourishment, love, and blessings. They support us to write new stories for our future while honoring our past—ultimately reminding us of our timelessness and interconnection.
From this inspired place of love, Rebecca intuitively scribes words, in a uniquely catalyzing and lyrical voice, that serve as medicine so you know you belong.
…Because: you do truly belong—to yourself and to everything. This is where the starry-dirt we’re made of tastes like bliss on the tongue of a volcanic eruption of love: an orgasmic recognition of truth and joy.
Rebecca offers the following services to help you access your sacred
self-expression:
- Writing circles
- Bespoke coaching & accountability for your writing projects
- 1:1 sessions—to have a direct experience of your creative, fiery, True Self
- Intuitive copywriting and editing
Reparations
The Priestess Presence Temple & School of Sacred Arts is located on the unceded and traditional territory of the Nisenan Tribe.
We honor this ancestral land and its original people. We give thanks for our ability to hold the space for this temple on their sacred land.
The area of Nevada City, California, where the temple resides, was repeatedly taken from the Nisenan people,
without compensation or regard for the lives of the original people; and now, they have no land left.
The temple acknowledges it is on the ancestral homelands of the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe. The Temple acknowledges we are settlers here—that we live, love, and work on land the Nisenan never ceded.
In order to help amend the tragic legacy, the temple provides a monthly contribution to recognize the
sovereignty of the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan and acknowledge their historic relationship with this land,
their ancestral homelands. We give to CHIRP—CALIFORNIA HERITAGE: INDIGENOUS RESEARCH PROJECT.
It was created to research, document, preserve, and protect California Indigenous Nisenan culture.
We are committed to translating spiritual concepts into devoted service and walking our talk.
The temple commits to being an anti-racist, inclusive space that honors all diversity. This includes: looking
at and dismantling our privilege in all aspects of systemic racism, white supremacy, institutional/cultural
imperialism, while alchemizing the truth that we, too, are One (without bypassing).
As such, we feel it’s crucial to be informed on the past and ongoing consequences of colonialism.
We encourage everyone to learn about the history of the lands they’re on and support Indigenous
resistance here and across Turtle Island.
Our Lineage
This temple is founded upon and deeply rooted in the 13 Moon Mystery School—
a Celtic/Avalonian lineage.
However, we are inclusive of and welcome all other priestess lineages from around the world. We know the importance of priestess sisters coming together from diverse temple lineages.
We actively seek to include more diversity of voices—especially with our sisters of color.
© 2019, PRIESTESS PRESENCE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.