Do you feel restless, or complacent in your recovery? Are you hungry for more? Do you long to experience more joy, inspiration, and connection to the natural world around you?

Perhaps you are living a life of service and stability but still feel hollow and disconnected. Or maybe your life is going great and you are curious about how to deepen your spiritual connection. If you’re ready to experience the dynamic and vast life that is yours to live, sober, clean, and awake, join us to take your recovery to the next level!

Recovery as Medicine

Recovery as Medicine is a 5-day retreat in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina steeped in ancient practices that will help enhance your recovery. Through teachings, lectures, ceremonies, and ritual practices, you’ll be guided to rediscover the strengths you have within. You’ll learn to use a Medicine Wheel to guide you to find balance, an essential concept to maintain and deepen your recovery. We will spend the retreat tent camping on private land bordering the Ivy River near Asheville, North Carolina.

“Don’t go back to sleep. Don’t go back to sleep. The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you… Don’t go back to sleep.””
— Rumi
 
 

This Program is for you IF:

  • You are an active participant in your recovery

  • You are in a place of personal growth, self-awareness, and spiritual development, and would like to take your recovery to the next level

  • You have hit a plateau in your recovery and are seeking more spiritual connection

  • You are curious to learn why your recovery story matters

  • You find solace in nature and the natural world around you and would like to connect on a deeper level

  • You are drawn to the natural world and want to connect more deeply

  • You struggle to feel a sense of belonging, even in recovery

This Program is NOT for you IF:

  • Your addiction is not effectively managed. You are actively using or have used in the last 6 months

  • You are in your first 6 months of recovery

  • You have difficulty self-regulating in a group environment

 
 
 
 

What will this program offer me?

  • A deeper connection to your joy, curiosity, and inner wisdom!

  • Fun, community, and connection!

  • A foundational understanding of how to bring balance to your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual body by using the Medicine Wheel. An ancient symbol, applied to visualize balance. You’ll also learn how you can apply these concepts to your recovery.

  • Tools to deepen your relationship with the natural world and Spirit/Higher Power/Great Mystery.

  • Experiential group ritual facilitated by guides who are also in active recovery.

  • Program facilitators who were once where you are today and have used these concepts to create meaningful change.

  • A transformative guided day spent in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, meditating, fasting, and connecting with the visible and invisible worlds.

  • Fundamental understanding of how to utilize ritual and ceremony in your life of recovery.

  • An understanding of how your recovery story can be used as a powerful medicine to guide you to continued recovery and service to others.

 

Details:

When: July 24-28, 2024

Where: Near Asheville, NC

Deposit: $200 non-refundable deposit will hold your spot for this program

Early Registration: $950 (Save $100 if paid by June 5th, 2024)

Late Registration: $1050 (If registering after June 5th, 2024)

Equity Discount: $600 (This is only for those who belong to marginalized groups)

Payment plans available. All payments due by July 23rd.

After July 1st, 2024 all tuition is non-refundable

Facilitated by: Kallie Brown, LeAnne Feliciano, and Rio Sawhill

Retreat Schedule:

July 24th - Arrive by 3 pm, set up camp, opening Fire Ceremony

July 25th - Tools for your Recovery: Teachings around the Medicine

Wheel, introduction to ceremony and ritual, Shamanic Journeying

with Spirit guides, preparation Ceremony for fasting Solo

July 26th - Fasting Solo

July 27th - Return Ceremony, Cacao Ceremony, Integration

July 28th - Closing Ceremony, breakdown camp, depart by noon.

 

Your Facilitators

 
 

Kallie Brown

 
 
 

Rio Sawhill

 
 
 

LeAnne Feliciano

 

Kallie is a rites of passage guide and licensed psychotherapist. Perhaps more important than titles or accolades Kallie is a woman in recovery. It is through her own dark night of the soul, navigating addiction and recovery, that Kallie found herself being called to this work and her medicine as a wounded healer.

Devoting her life’s work to guiding and supporting others carrying this sacred wound, Kallie’s work has included working in a wilderness therapy program for struggling adolescents, working in residential addiction treatment settings with men and women, developing a rites of passage program for young adult women graduating residential treatment and re-entering their lives, working in rural Appalachia providing support to those grappling with addictions, and now, offering individual, couples, and group work at her private practice in Asheville, NC. Her passion for blending addiction recovery, rites of passage work, and earth-based healing comes from her own lived experience. It continues to be her intention to offer back what has been offered to her, tending to the stream of gratitude and reciprocity. To learn more about Kallie visit her website at https://www.kalliebrown.com/ or read about her here at https://www.ritesofpassagecouncil.org/fireside-inspirations/2021/meet-your-guide-kallie-brown.

 

Rio is following the thread of his life; journeying through holy places in Jordan and Israel, Southeast Asia and island nations of the Pacific Ocean. In all these places and here at home in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, he finds Spirit and strives to listen to the whispers. The natural world calls him out of the comforts of buildings and bed to walk forest trails and mountain passes towards rivers and waterfalls in the lowlands and to the summits and cliff edges in the clouds. The year 2011 marked the beginning of his conscious awareness of nature’s therapeutic role in the healing of humans; he stepped into wilderness therapy for youth and almost simultaneously began work with The Joshua Project mentoring boys as they move towards manhood. The thread so often brings him into the company of teachers and mentors who are connected, and for the past two years he has studied and worked with Rites of Passage Council.

“There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change.” --William Stafford

 

Have questions about the program? Wondering if it’s right for you? Reach out to us below!

I stand as a beacon of transformation, a Certified Holistic Practitioner in the Healing Arts, weaving together the ancient wisdom of shamanic practices, the healing power of plant medicine, and the profound depths of hypnosis.After 12 years of navigating my own journey of recovery, I encountered a pivotal moment 2 ½ years ago—a moment where I felt the stirring of my spirit, a longing for something undefined yet essential.

In the enigmatic dance of the Universe, sincere inquiries are met with profound revelations. My quest led me to the Rites of Passage Council, where I unearthed profound insights into the indispensable interplay between recovery, ritual, and the Natural world. This journey not only fortified my own recovery but unearthed a deeper connection to Source and self, furnishing me with invaluable tools to harmonize my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual realms.

This transformative work has become my wellspring of empowerment and resilience, igniting a renewed fervor within me. It has propelled me to share this journey with others, guiding them towards their own renaissance in recovery. The impact is profound, breathing new life into souls and reigniting the flames of hope and healing.