January 15-20, 2018
Yelapa Residential Program
(Monday – Saturday)
$1200 base price with room upgrades available. Price includes all classes, workshops, accommodations and most meals (3 dinners will be taken at local restaurants).
This program is designed for writers who want to spend more time writing, and less time giving and receiving feedback. We will be staying at Casa de Isabel, on the point, with easy access to Isabel’s beach.
Charles will start each morning with a roof top yoga class. After breakfast, Patricia will introduce a 3 hour writing practice. After lunch we will either take free time, a group excursion, or for those that want to do more writing, that will also be available. The first and last night we will have a catered dinner on site. In between, we will eat at several of the wonderful restaurants in Yelapa.
Yelapa Alumni from Charles’ previous retreats can take an additional $100 discount. Fee includes room, all meals except for 3 dinners which we will enjoy at local village restaurants, all classes & workshops.
$500 non-refundable deposit to secure your place. If paying by credit card, please use Buy Now Button below, filling in the amount you are paying ($500 deposit or balance owed).
Additional information and photos for both the Residential Program and the Yoga & Writing Retreat are available on Patricia’s website at: writingretreats.org/yelapa/
January 20-27, 2018
Yoga & Writing Retreat
Los Naranjos, Yelapa, Mexico
(Saturday-Saturday)
At Los Naranjos the cost is $2100/person, alums pay $1960 and, if combined with pre-retreat Writers’ Residency at Casa Isabel, you pay only $1750. Limited number of Singles are available, first come/first served for a supplement of $250 for the week. $500 deposit will secure your place at the retreat. Use pay now button below to pay deposit or balance owed.
Charles and Patricia Lewis will be returning to Yelapa (the location of their very first collaborative international retreat) to offer a Yoga & Writing Retreat in January 2018. The retreat will be hosted by the newly refurbished Los Naranjos Retreat Center, 45 minutes South of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico by boat.
Both Charles and Patricia feel a strong connection to this village and the entire valley, and have returned dozens of times to lead retreats here since 200l. The entire valley is cut off by mountains from civilization and lives quite peacefully without phones, or roads. Transportation is by foot, or by donkey – there are no motorcycles or cars in Yelapa. In fact, electricity only arrived in Yelapa in 2001.
A participant from the February 2000 retreat noted, while relaxing at one of the local restaurants and watering holes, that the most common conversation among Americans who were staying in Yelapa, was the topic of what day of the week it was. It is this simpler way of life that has drawn Charles and Patricia to return again and again to Yelapa. Over the years, they have made many friends among the artists, musicians, writers, healers and assorted characters who call Yelapa their home.
WHY MIND/BODY WRITING? Stories are waiting in our bodies to be told in our own voices. Memories are stored not only in our brains but, perhaps even more powerfully, they are hidden in our muscles, our glands, our guts, our breath. They are wrapped in feelings. The practice of yoga, the joining of body and mind, can open pathways into the feelings, memories, stories and images embedded in the tissues.
This workshop is designed to help you shift your awareness and write from those deeper levels of consciousness. Through Hatha Yoga we will get in touch with our kinesthetic sense of self. We will use special meditation techniques to slow the mind and create and sustain a sense of the sacred throughout the retreat. A variety of special exercises utilizing tactile, visual, auditory, kinesthetic and olfactory “prompts” will help us reach deeply held images, and we will learn how to use Mind Mapping & Clustering techniques to generate, associate and manipulate ideas and information in new ways.
All levels of students are welcome, and all are made to feel comfortable in both the writing and the yoga. Although most participants choose to participate in all of the various activities and exercises, students are encouraged to consider the entire retreat as free time.
It is common to find a student napping in a hammock, or hanging out at the beach while others are participating in a workshop or class.
Patricia will be assisted in the writing portions of this retreat by Jane Mortifee.
We hope you will be able to join us for Eight days and Seven nights of Creative Writing, Hatha Yoga, Meditation, Visualization, vegetarian cooking, and the renewing pleasures of Yelapa’s clear blue waters and lush, bird-filled mountains.