gathering nourishment RETREAT

A four-day retreat focused on opening space for the possibility of living to be delicious

May 21-24th 2026

a camping program on healing through pleasure & nature

What if healing and transformation could be nourishing? What if it could even be…delicious? Nourishment is just as much what we take in as it is how we take it in. Together we will make room for more beauty, slowness, & wholeness

As spring takes root and the ferns and flowers of Southern Appalachia unfurl after a long fallow winter, we are invited to participate in the song of spring. These are the days for kicking off shoes with the sun on bare skin and planting seeds of wildflowers & intention with the energy of new beginnings. These are days for remembering ourselves, calling in wholeness and nourishment through intimacy with humans and other-than-humans alike.

Gathering Nourishment is a blending of practices for cultivating inner and outer wellness. We’ll turn towards the seeds of beauty and possibility that grow when we offer them our well-nourished bodies and souls. Together, we will ask what it means to truly digest; our food, our wounds, our lives. By focusing on slowness, deep listening, and leaning into the nourishing presence of earth in the form of humans, food, and land, we will court our well-being and visions for our beautiful, meaningful life. 

Over four days and three nights, we will merge practices of dream work, group talking circle,  contemplations with the land and music/ritual embodiment. Weaving through our days, we’ll invite mystery in for a seat at the table, listening for what wants to happen next while planting seeds of intention and beauty to grow through our year. This is an offering for those who want to bathe in nourishment and come out feeling fulfilled, open, in the flow, and ready for the seasons to come.

You’ll come out with…

  • The flowering beginnings in your life

  • Knowing how taste acts as a sensory gateway to how we feel & experience the world

  • Sensing how your nourishment is just as much what you take in as it is how you take things in

  • Clarity of what you are growing and healing through practices that are nourishing to you

  • More capacity to care for your body & nervous system

  • Feeling deeply connected with the other-than-human world (nature, wild foods, dreams)

  • Ways you can nourish your wounds and welcome yourself back into wholeness

  • A more keen sense of your belonging to earth 

  • Culinary tips to adjust the flavor of your food to be more pleasurable, more nourishing

What will we do on this

nature baed program?

Local food on east fork pottery in Asheville

We will explore nourishment through wanders, hands-on food exploration, and rejuvenating time for tending to the body and soul. We will encourage these possibilities through:

  • Dreamwork

  • The Way of Council (Sacred Talking Circle)

  • Journal/poetry practices

  • Intuitive contemplations on the land

  • Somatic/embodiment practices

  • Dancing

  • Music making

  • Enjoying nourishing food and food teachings

  • Deep imagination journeys

  • Self-designed ceremony and ritual

four day retreat Details

Next Gathering Nourishment Dates TBD in Fall of 2024

This will take place in Blue Ridge Mountains outside of Asheville, NC in Celo. The specific site is shared when enrolled.

Registrants will receive a preparation package including practices to begin and recommended resources for review. Everyone is responsible for their own breakfasts, lunches, and snacks. We bring group stoves, kitchen equipment, water, and all other needs.

All organic dinners will be provided by Kearsley’s Kitchen.

PRICING

We acknowledge systemic differences in peoples’ access to resources, therefore the cost of this program is on a sliding scale of $830-$1660 with payment plans available for all options. We have two spots at $415 for BIPOC.

Flourish Rate: $1660

If you are funded by an organization or business, or have access to financial security, own property, are in a double-income home, have personal savings or your household income is over $100,000.

Sustain Rate: $1245

If you have access to steady income and stability in your home/life, and have access to resources through family or friends, and ability to budget for opportunities such as this training. The median price is suggested to help cover the full cost of hosting this offering.

Support Rate: $860

If your access to resources is limited and your economic situation limits your ability to attend at the higher tiers.

If the tiered costs are a barrier, please send an email and let’s chat about a reduced cost option. These spots will be dependent on ongoing enrollments.

instructors

Kristopher in Asheville

  • Kristopher is an earth-rooted guide, writer and activist focusing his work at the intersection of grief and beauty. He believes that each person carries unique gifts that the earth needs at this intense cultural moment and he embodies and guides from a soul-level permission that encourages and supports people to step into their deepest selves. Kristopher sources his guiding from a decade of training in insight meditation, contemplative practice, Authentic Movement and other embodiment practices, men’s work, ritual grief facilitation, creative writing, and three years of intensive ritual, wilderness, and depth training with the Animas Valley Institute. Email Kristopher

Madison Ledgerwood connected in nature Asheville

  • Madison is a soul-centric guide dedicated to earth rooted relationships, wholeness and ancestral connections that enable individuals to see the mysteries of who they are. She believes these guide people toward their most fulfilling, authentic contributions to life-enhancing and just communities.

    As her own mystery unfolds, she continues to apprentice to wells of meaning and depth where the ancestors, human and more speak. Through ritual, ceremony, dream states, immersion in nature, intuitive listening and a re-membrance of our sacredness, lineages, and belonging, she feels each of us can access and fully embody our gifts for our communities. She believes these gifts were passed to us through our blood and bones long, long ago for this particular socio-ecological moment of peril and possibility.

    Her work is greatly informed by elder community activists, community organizing in social and environmental justice movements for over a decade, and being raised by two sets of grandparents who loved land, liberation and life. Madison’s trainings and personal work with Erica Rhinehart at Moonpath, mentors at Animas Valley Institute, and her mentors for her masters in Sustainable Communities shape her frameworks, processes, and practices in eco-depth psychology.

Kearsley Schweller Cooking

  • Kearsley (she/her) is the bioregional Chef, folk herbalist, & artist cooking up local flavors in Kearsley’s Kitchen. Kearsley brings together delicious, local, & wilcrafted foods that connect people with place. Her belief is that being well resourced begins with the body. She has extensively studied hormonal, digestive, & nervous system health along with a year apprenticeship under Becky Beyer and studying Appalachian & European folk traditions that included bioregional wildcrafting & medicine making as well as learning the animistic rituals of her German- British Isles ancestors.

    What Kearsley brings to Gathering Nourishment is a deep dive into the most fundamental of human needs- how to truly be well fed. By incorporating slow, attentive, somatic dining experiences to our retreat, Kearsley offers opportunity to deepen folks’ relationships to their bodies, the ecosystem, & the food that sustains every dream we carry.

    She describes her way of life to be the “slow simmer” – a delicate balance between actively tending the skillet and unraveling the need to be perpetually productive by wandering the lush ecosystem of Southern Appalachia, baking sourdough bread, & exploring the art of symbolism, dreams, & earth-based ritual.

    Read more about Kearsley’s work as a private chef, author of 4 seasonal recipe, remedy, & ritual cookbooks, & wildcrafted herbalist at Kearsley’s Kitchen

 FAQs

  • Yes, this is a small offering of only 16 people and staying for the full duration of the program is necessary for us to deepen in and feel held by one another.

  • Yes, we will include time for you to check in with Kristopher or Madison 1:1 where we can answer your questions, mirror whats arising for you, tend to a dream, offer invitations and co-create ceremonies that may be useful for you.

  • No, if you have it great. If not, we have tents, sleeping pads and sleeping bags for you to use. Just let us know.

  • Yes, people of all genders are welcome.

  • This offering includes 3 nights and four days of camping in Celo North Carolina. Each day you will receive personalized and group invitations to deepen into the questions and responses of this offering. You will be guided into ceremony, ritual, dreams, wandering on the land solo, journal practices, meditations, group talking circles and ecological awareness activities. This offering includes dinners and food related teaching from Kearsley’s Kitchen.

  • No, if you are in an active crisis or emergency we encourage you to seek personalized therapeutic support.

  • No, we believe consciousness is altered through our various practices and want you to experience the transformation without additional substances. Please email us if you have any questions.

  • Any cancellations more than 60 days before the start of the program will be provided a full refund, minus processing fees. Any cancellations between 30 and 60 days before the start of a program will be provided a refund of half the program cost, minus processing fees. Any cancellations less than 30 days from the start of a program will not be refunded, unless another applicant fills that spot.

  • Yes, we are offering 2 half-priced spot for BIPOC. If you are interested and this applies to you, please email us. We also have a scholarship for one person. Please email us if you would like to apply for the scholarship.

  • Thank you! You’re incredible. You can paypal wild@remembering-earth.com with the note naming who you are paying for. Please have the person you are paying for fill out the application.