July Retreat

Retreat location

The retreat will be held at the beautiful Casa Warrandyte. The house is located on Wurundjeri country on the river in Warrandyte and is very secluded with plenty of space to explore surrounding bush walks and swimming spots.

Daily yoga and meditation practices

Morning and evening yoga and meditation practices will be led by Small beyond facilitators Shannon May Powell and Joshua Jon Lynch. The yoga is slow and restorative and designed for all levels of practice and experience.

Plant-based meals

The menu is designed and prepared by our cook Amichai, the food is plant based and inspired by a passion for culinary rituals and good conversation. There will always be gluten free options available and we are happy to cater to any dietary needs.

Embodied Writing & Poetry Workshops

On the Saturday, Natalie Briggs, author of Who Loves At All (Rabbit Poetry, 2020) will share a workshop that explores the possibilities of a generative and reparative poetic practice. In writing together, sharing our work, and listening to one another, this workshop will centre play, reflection, and poetic enquiry interested in the excess and overflow of language. 

On the Sunday, Shannon, author of Can We Rest Tonight in the Amnesia of Pleasure (No More Poetry, 2022) will be hosting a workshop that explores writing as an embodied practice. Using sensory and somatic techniques to access memories and our potential for creative storytelling.

No writing experience is needed to attend these workshops, just a sense of curiosity about where the body and the written word meet.

Joshua Jon Lynch

Josh (he/him) is a proud Ngāti Te Wehi man. He is a poet, applied philosopher and facilitator at Small Beyond and is interested in where and through what means our inner and outer worlds meet and, ultimately, influence one another.

This interest has led him on a long and windy path where he started and sustained a meditation practice, co-founded and ran Australia’s first multi-disciplinary meditation studio, has been invited to artist residencies and now co-directs and hosts Small Beyond experiences with Shannon.

Josh has a professional background in systems thinking and is currently applying this knowledge to his new found passion for permaculture design. He hopes to weave together and integrate practices of meditation and embodiment with understanding of land and place and the sacred relationship that connects them.

Shannon May Powell

Shannon (pronouns: she/they) is a writer, artist and embodiment practitioner of Irish and French settler descent who currently lives and works on unceded Kulin nation lands. They believe embodiment is a human right and their practice is person-centred and grounded in care and liberation. 

Shannon has trained in dance, vinyasa and yin yoga, massage and somatic movement for trauma. They currently work for a non-profit organisation called Collective Being, which offers wellbeing programs to community organisations that don’t have access to mainstream resources.

With lived experience of integrating trauma through embodied and creative practices, Shannon is interested in how embodiment can support our values and actions becoming aligned, building our ability to live from a place of dignity.

Day 1, Friday

5 - 6pm: Arrive and settle

6:30pm: Yin yoga class

7:45pm: Dinner