Join us for Activating the Voice: Singing our Way into Right Relationship. This is an animate, creative and experimental practice dedicated to vocal training and finding greater freedom of expression. We gather in the rainforest for eight full days with the impulse to create beauty through subtle attunement, deep listening, dreaming and creative expressions. We will be exploring art making through sound and song as a way of restoring and creating beauty in times of transition and renewal.
Activating the voice is an invitation to expand our sense of self to include wider relations, re-rooting us back into our bodies and awakening our sensorial aliveness.
This will be our fourth year offering this gathering at Brave Earth. As we collectively continue to navigate a rapidly dynamic and complex world – and step into the inquiry of our own evolving role within it – every voice has a role to play in bringing forward a more just and loving world. We have created this week with the intention of offering healing space to be inspired, to make room for deeper wisdom and self-discovery to come through, to spark new and meaningful connections, and to unite with the joy, peace, and energy that comes from singing, playing music, and participating in a harmonic field.
ACTIVATING THE VOICE
This retreat is inspired by the “Activating the Voice” online course—a personal, artistic, cultural and ancestral exploration that helps individuals connect to an embodied and empowered relationship with their voice through music, singing, and speaking one’s full truth.
The premise for this work is that the voice is our soul’s signature, capturing the resonance of our spirit, as well as holding the map of our history: where we have been, where our ancestors journeyed, what has been silenced and what has been spoken to. In this way, honoring and tending to the voice is a liberatory path and one in which we claim our narrative.
This course is grounded in the chakra system and each day of the retreat is inspired by one of the seven chakras, and we offer daily voice activation workshops.
*All activities are optional and we invite everyone to honor their inner guidance if you feel like opting out of any activities.
You do not need to be a singer or have any experience in singing or a sense of musicality - these practices are just as valuable for anyone interested in feeling more confident and connected to their voice in everyday communication and creative endeavors. We welcome all who are wanting to get more in touch with their voice.
The location of the retreat is itself a very vocal field, inspiring us with the songs of birds, cicadas and frogs.
WHAT TO EXPECT
A songbook filled with Medicine Songs
Daily Voice Activation with Sonia Kreitzer (Doe Paoro)
Daily yoga with Claudia Gallo
Authentic Relating Sessions with Aly Khan Ladha
Finding more confidence in your voice
Edible garden and permaculture tour
Soundbath
Community Engagement
Art and Creative Expression
Temazcal Ceremony (traditional sweat lodge) with facilitation from Somos Flor de la Vida
Cacao ceremony with local, small-batch Two Monkeys Cacao
Breathwork
New Years Eve Festivities!
Song and fire circles with drumming
Stargazing
Play as prayer
Year-Naming Ceremony for 2024
Day trip to healing hot springs in La Fortuna
Waterfall visit
Nourishing meals
Transportation to and from San Jose Airport
Sonia Kreitzer is a singer, songwriter, sound healer and facilitator. She has released four full-length records under her project “Doe Paoro,” and her music has been featured on television, film, and international radio, with over 30 million streams. At the heart of her musical expression is an unshakeable belief in the power of music to heal, awaken, and unify consciousness. Sonia’s work in the world includes touring internationally, concerts and soundbaths, facilitating music in ceremonial spaces, and offering “Activating the Voice” online and in person.
TIERRA VALIENTE | BRAVE EARTH
Brave Earth is located between San Ramon and La Fortuna, nestled in between Arenal Volcano and the Children’s Eternal Rainforest, the largest reserve of protected wildlife in Costa Rica.
As a living lab, we have experimented with different building modalities using AirCrete and materials sourced on the land including bamboo and adobe. We have implemented biophilic design, closed-loop systems and permaculture design principles. Ornamental, food, and medicinal gardens surround the center as well as hiking trials to a nearby river, and a natural swimming pond.
CULTURES OF TRANSITION
The impulse for Tierra Valiente stems from an awareness of our civilizational trajectory within the dominant culture with its source code of extraction, domination, commodification, colonization, control, entitlement, and separation from the living world.
We are both informed by this critical lens and inspired to create outside of the old values and incentive landscapes to build a culture based on reciprocity, regeneration and resiliency.
In this collective transition - whether you call it the Anthropocene, the Kali Yuga, late-stage capitalism or capitalist modernity - our intention is to become more attuned to this cultural context in order to decolonize the conditioning of the dominant system and be in deeper service to our collective potential.
Our living lab is located on the northwestern Caribbean slope of Costa Rica, about 2.5 hours from San Jose. We have created an 80-acre commons nestled between the Children’s Eternal Rainforest, one of the largest protected regions of rainforest north of the Amazon and Volcano Arenal.
Juan Santamaria International located in San Jose is the nearest airport to Brave Earth. We are approximately a 2.5h drive from San Jose.
We are located 11 miles south from La Fortuna Arenal Area in a community called San Isidro de Peñas Blancas, La Fortuna, Alajuela.
GPS Coordinates:
10°23’16.2”N 84°35’50.8”W
Our address is:
Transportation:
Please reach out to maxine@braveearth.com with any transportation or logistic questions.
Private Taxis (1-5 people)
$165 each way / 2.5-3 hours
Private Van (6-9 people)
$185 each way / 2.5-3 hours
Public Buses
~$10 / Approx. 5 hours
Bus 1: San Jose bus terminal to San Ramon, Bus 2: San Ramon towards La Fortuna. Get off at San Isidro de Penas Blancas or Chachagua. Take short taxi ride to Finca Luna Nueva.