Desert Rose   

Healing After Baby Loss Retreat

“In the whitest, deepest stretch of pain’s infinite desert,
I lost my sanity,
and found this rose.”
— Rumi

Cabo de Gata, Southern Spain
04th - 08th October 2024

This 4 night/ 5 day retreat is inviting women who have experienced a baby loss or pregnancy loss.

The retreat was created for you to come home to yourself, find solace, healing, and support navigating life after baby loss.

The retreat centre is nestled on the edge of the Tabernas Desert in the spectacular UNESCO registered Cabo de Gata Nature Reserve, for you to experience the heavenly and safe space for rest, emotional healing and appreciation.

We will be gathering for ceremonies, sharing circles, gentle meditation, breathtaking Sunrise Yoga with Kelly, and kirtan under the stars at night.
All of our somatic practices will be trauma-sensitive.

The retreat centre is an intimate venue based in a unique watermill located in the Cabo de Gata Nature Reserve with hills as far as the eye can see, on the edge of the Tabernas desert. The ancient 500-year old watermill has been lovingly restored in keeping with its original Moorish design.

The Mill feels homely and has been beautifully and carefully decorated. There is an al fresco dining area, outstanding views, a swimming pool and the occasional bray of a donkey. There is also a wild swimming spot right above the centre. 

Spend any free time lazing in a hammock or chatting by the pool, taking a walk through the hills, or enjoying a massage under the shala. Enjoy views of the mountains, looking out to the mediterranean sea. Being lost in this natural landscape is all conducive to divine connection.

Womb Healing - Womb Massage & Rebozo Wrapping

Womb Massage, also known as Abdominal & Sacral Massage, is a non-invasive natural Womb Healing treatment that promotes health of the reproductive system and energetic healing. It combines a blend of techniques to gently manipulate the organs, muscles and ligaments of the abdominal and sacral areas. The aim is to restore optimal position of the womb and her surrounding organs, resolving any internal pressure that could disrupt nerve connections and obstruct blood and energy flow, resulting in congestion and reproductive health complaints.

Trauma can be physical or emotional, from this life, from a past life, from previous relationships, from personal experiences as well as collective, from ancestors, from maternal and paternal lineages. All of this can be held in the womb.

Women who embark on Womb Healing, step on a profound transformational journey that has the power to heal emotional trauma and ancestral wounds, to awaken their feminine energy and restore wholeness so that they can embrace a more abundant life with new depths and possibilities. The womb is not only a physical organ, but also a sacred energy centre that holds our creative potential and acts as a portal to deep intuition, gifts, wisdom and awakening of the goddess energy. But the womb can also store trauma and emotions like fear, shame and guilt. This therapy supports healing of the womb on an energetic and spiritual level. In fact, it helps to release emotional blockages and energetic trauma imprints, restoring connection with this sacred space and its full creative power.
You can read more about Womb Massage here.

The massage session will end with Rebozo Wrapping. This is very similar to the Bone Closing ceremony (cerrada), which is a postpartum healing ritual, where a woman is wrapped in rebozos from head to toes, to close her energy field, which has opened in pregnancy and childbirth. A rebozo is a woven Mexican shawl.

The Bone Closing ceremony is also done to support women healing from baby loss, miscarriage or abortion, even years after birth or loss. This beautiful ritual can benefit any woman who wants to release herself from a traumatic experience or be held while going through a life changing event. It can also be received to honour a rite of passage, like menarche, menopause and marriage.
When wrapped you will feel held in a peaceful and soothing state, opening up like a butterfly when you are gently and slowly unwrapped from your cocoon.

You will receive a session of Womb Massage & Rebozo Wrapping under the intimacy of the shala.
We will also have group womb blessing ceremony (called the 13th Rite of Munay-Ki) together.

Call and response chanting from the Yoga Bakti tradition, Kirtan is a beautiful group practice and heart opener. We will be sharing our voices together joined by the sound of the harmonium and the nature around us.

Kirtan

Accomodation

  • The Studio

  • The Studio

  • La Casetta

  • La Casetta

  • The Mosaic Room

  • The Mosaic Room

  • The Mosaic Room

  • The Blue Room

  • The Blue Room

  • The Morrocan Room

Prices

Monthly payment plan available- Please specify how you intend to pay upon booking

The Studio
1 Single+ 1 Double bed w/ En-suite bathroom
Double bed - £890pp
Single bed- £835pp


La Casetta
2 Single beds w/ En-suite Bathroom. £835pp


The Moroccan Room
1 Double bed w/ En-suite Bathroom:
- single occupancy - £890pp
- double occupancy (two close friends sharing) - £740pp


The Mosaic Room
2 Single beds, shared bathroom. £795pp

The Blue Room
3 Single beds, shared bathroom. £770pp

  • 4 nights accommodation

  • 3 vegetarian meals a day

  • Womb massage healing and rebozo wrapping

  • All led activities- Yoga, circles, ceremonies, kirtan, etc

  • Optional guided hike in the surrounding hills

Price includes

Does not include

  • Transfer from Alicante/ Almeria airport (a group car transfer will be organised)

  • Flights

  • Joséphine Roulet- Retreat Facilitator

    Joséphine is a birth doula. In her days-to-day, she supports women and parents to welcome their babies as a joyous and transformative life event, to birth in their power and autonomy.

    She has held circles and spaces for women recovering from a baby loss or pregnancy loss since 2019.

    Joséphine is a practising Buddhist and a certified meditation teacher (BSoM). She is trauma-informed, and also trained in TRE (Trauma Release Exercices).

    Both the work of Joséphine and Betty were informed by their own experience of baby loss.

    In this retreat, she will be leading the women’s circles, gentle meditations and the evening chanting practices called kirtan.

  • womb healing

    Betty Mezzarano - guest Yoga Teacher and Massage Therapist

    Betty is a Women’s Health & Fertility Therapist. She aims to empower women with love for themselves and their womb, to reawaken their divine feminine energy, and to help them heal from physical and emotional trauma. All of which can enhance women’s reproductive health and wellbeing.

    She has enriched her knowledge and repertoire of techniques by experiential immersions and training in various modalities such as Fertile Body Method, Feminine Embodiment, Womb Awakening, Doulaing, Closing of the Bones, Fertility/Womb Massage, Sivananda Yoga, Womb Yoga, Thai Massage, Hawaiian Massage, Pulsing and other bodywork therapies.

    She uses Womb Healing & Womb Massage as core therapies, blending in elements from other modalities.

    Betty will be facilitating the sunrise womb yoga and will offer one session of Womb Massage & Rebozo Wrapping to each guest on the retreat. You can read more about Betty here.

The space is welcoming all women experiencing perinatal grief. It is inclusive of all circumstances of loss - early loss, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, termination, abortion, stillbirth and infant loss. No matter how long ago.

However, if you are dealing with a recent loss (past 6 months or so), please consider whether enough time has passed for you to revisit difficult emotions. Although the retreat is designed to be a supportive and transformative space, and expect some level of emotional discomfort, there will be no mental health professional on site, and we cannot take responsibility for severe emotional states.
If you are not sure whether the retreat is right for you at this time- Please contact me to arrange a 15 minute chat.

Is this retreat for me?

Contact Josephine:
josephineroulet@gmail.com

‘In the early days and months of grieving a baby, I needed a refuge- both in the physical and spiritual sense. I quickly realised that other women felt a need to gather and heal together something that our society is not prepared to hold space for.

This retreat is the culmination of years of work searching for answers and holding space for women. I have poured all my love, learnings and devotion into it.
It is there for you if you are called to process and transcend your grief and experience of loss in a safe space and with a other women;
Whilst honouring your baby.
No matter how long ago, nor the circumstances. of your loss’

Baby loss retreat