Earth, Art, and Heart for Women
A nature-connected weekend retreat in service to tending the wild soul
Oct 24-26, 2025
At Fauna Forest Farm in Jonesborough, TN
Earth, Art, & Heart: A Soul-Centered Retreat for Women
At Fauna Forest Farm in Jonesborough
Oct. 24-26
Earth, Art, & Heart for Women is a weekend retreat designed to support women in honoring the seasons of their heart and soul, as well as to support deepened relationship with both the outer and inner landscapes of our lives. Women taking part in this retreat will be guided in the art of council, a nature-connected practice of sharing from the heart, informed by the wisdom of the land. We will explore nature-connected frameworks rooted in the natural life cycles and turnings of the earth, and will integrate this as a resource for recognizing and honoring the various seasons of change in our lives. We will deepen into an inquiry around human wholeness— our own, and that which we long to cultivate in our lives, within our families, and within the cultural fabrics of our communities.
Together, we will listen for the wild whisper of the soul that sings out to us our deepest longings for our life— that whisper that often grows clearer as we slow down and root into nature’s rhythms. We will court this whisper and tend it through artistic expression, poetry, song, storytelling, exploration of symbol and metaphor, authentic connection with community, guided mindfulness practices, and healing somatic practices.
“The psyches and souls of women also have their own cycles and seasons of doing and solitude, running and staying, being involved and being removed, questing and resting, creating and incubating, being of the world and returning to the soul-place.”
-Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Earth, Art, & Heart: A Fall Women’s Retreat
Oct. 24-26 at Fauna Forest Farm
-
Earth
This experience will focus on the cultivation of meaningful relationship with earth as home— as an ever-deepening relationship of sanctuary, healing, and reciprocity. We will explore the 4 shields of human wholeness: a nature-connected model reflective of the seasons of the natural world and the seasons of the soul.
In addition, we are incredibly grateful that this year’s retreat will include a “Healing with Horses” component guided by nature-based therapist & gifted guide, Chelsea Green.
-
Art
This retreat will include an exploration of the practice of beauty-making with natural materials in community with other women.
-
Heart
Amidst the hustle of our fast-paced industrial culture, this retreat is being offered to create space for deep listening to our interior landscapes, as well as to share in authentic and meaningful ways in circle.
We will connect through the art of council under the stars around a fire, as well as through sharing in nature-connected song and storytelling.
“Our job is not to comprehend or control everything, but to learn which story we are in and which of the many things calling out in the world is calling to us. Our job is to be fully alive in the life we have, to pick up the invisible thread of our own story and follow where it leads. Our job is to find the thread of our own dream and live it all the way to the end.”
Shae Keane
Ecotherapist & Fauna Forest Farm Co-Director
Shae is a poet, ecotherapist,, artisan of cultural revitalization, and lover of wild landscapes— both inner and outer. Shae completed her Masters in Clinical Mental Health at ETSU, where she collaborated with Dr. Bethany Novotny to establish the Nature-Based Therapy Graduate Certificate.
Shae is deeply committed to contributing to the cultivation of soul-centered community, education, farming, and healing approaches that center care of people, place, and the more-than-human world. She longs deeply for a world in which all of life is resourced and tended in ways that support its greatest sprouting, flowering, and fruiting. She is particularly passionate about supporting women and girls in their unfolding journeys of becoming the fullest expression of themselves in their lives. She is brought alive accompanying them in deep inquiries of the heart, particularly as relates to the questions “Who am I?” and “What are my gifts?” Shae understands authentic relationship with the life of the land and nature-connected rites of passage experiences to be of the most powerful elements for deepening this inquiry and mending our torn cultural fabrics.
Shae is passionate about showing up as an artisan of connection— connection with the soul, with community, with animals, with the earth, and with the unfolding mystery of each individual’s life. She loves inviting people into experiences that may serve to bring them ever-closer to the home of themselves - through nature-connected song & storytelling, creative expression, somatic practices, growing and tending life, engaging in meaningful council, and adventuring into the unknown wilds.
Shae is on a journey of flowering her heart’s dream at Fauna Forest Farm in Jonesborough, TN, where she stewards land and community, offers sessions as an ecotherapeutic guide, and serves as co-director of The Earth School.
To inquire about one-on-one ecotherapeutic sessions with Shae, reach out to her via email at shae@faunaforestfarm.org
Meet the Guides
Chelsea Green
Therapist, Co-Director of Nature-Based Therapeutics at Fauna Forest Farm
Chelsea Green, MA, LPC, is a masters level therapist and a Licensed Professional Counselor who offers coaching and therapy services at Fauna Forest Farm. Chelsea provides holistic and trauma-responsive care to support adults, couples, families. Her background as a professional artist and a mindfulness teacher inform her creative approach as she works dynamically with clients. She also facilitates the powerful group work of family constellations and integrates horses into these healing practices on the farm.
To inquire about one-on-one sessions with Chelsea, reach out to her at: chelseagreencmi@gmail.com
Learn more at: https://www.anubeginningtherapy.com/
Laura Blankenship
Artist, Therapeutic Arts Facilitator
“If I were asked why I do what I do, I would say, ‘Art is inseparable from who I am; I feel the most alive when I am creating. It is impossible for me not to create.’ "
Laura Marie Blankenship is a vibrant abstract and portrait artist who teaches transformative creative workshops, guiding her students back home to themselves. Since her first live music painting in 2014, Laura has painted over 200 music shows in front of live audiences in the southeast as LaMB Fine Art. Laura most recently finished up a 3 year stint of teaching art in the public schools of southwest Virginia. She teaches "I Felt What I Felt" art and social emotional intelligence workshops, and her students report feeling a deepened sense of self-trust, connection to others, and upleveled creative confidence after her classes.
Learn more at: https://lambfineart.smugmug.com/
Trini Sampson
Soul Flow Dance Journey Guide & Fairy Godmother of the farm
Trini is a student of life, a dancer at heart, and a lover of nature & movement. She lives with her 3 felines and 1 canine furry all beautiful souls that fill her life with unconditional love.
She began dance at the age of 4 and continued through her 20's. Through her life
Trini has done extensive training in many different modalities of movement, as Movement Medicine, 5 Rhythms, Azul, Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Continuum, and she received her 230 hour Yoga Teacher Training Certification at InnerSeaYoga in 2014.
Dance has always been her passion, her love, and after a hip replacement in her 50's, through the support of a loving friend, Trini started a dance class to bring more movement and embodiment into people's lives.
She has now been holding her Soul Medicine Dances for 8 years, a free movement expression-a dance from the inside out, accompanied with soul inspiring music in support of your soul-dance journey
Soul Medicine Conscious Movement practice is held from a safe space where you can 'be who you came here to be and express the unique dancer that is inside of you'
We were born to move and dance! We just need to re-member! Movement is Medicine!
"BE who YOU came here to be"
Camping & Food
For this program, we will be camping on the farm. Participants bring their own tent and camping gear. For those who are local and would prefer to sleep away from the program site and then return to meet the group again in the morning, this is also welcome. If you’d like to camp in one of our covered pavilion spaces, this is an option as well. Please reach out for more details.
Participants are responsible for their own meals.
Details
Price
There are three pricing tiers in hopes of increasing accessibility. Please pay what you can afford.
Reduced: $375
Regular: $425
Resource: $475
*Please note: this program offers two partial scholarships, for those who would like to attend, but cannot budget for any of the three tiered pricing options. Please reach out for more information*
When and Where
When: Friday, Oct. 24-26
Begin: Friday, Oct. 24 at 4p
End: Sunday, Oct. 26 at 1p
Where: The farm is located in Jonesborough, TN. Upon registration, you will be sent directions to the farm.
