UNTAMED
REWILDING THE FEMININE
A Four-Day Women’s Initiation in the Forest
June 11–14, 2026
VANESSA CRITES
JUST LOVE FOREST, POETRY, GEORGIA
Since before memory, women have gathered like this.
Around fire. In the wild. In moon lodges and medicine circles and sacred groves, women have always found their way back to themselves, and to each other, in spaces that belonged only to them.
That knowing didn't disappear. It was silenced.
Modern life isolated us from the circle. From the fire. From the particular kind of truth that only surfaces when women gather without performance, without hierarchy, without the weight of being needed by everyone else first.
UNTAMED is a return to that.
Not as ritual for ritual's sake, but because something in you has always known this was missing. And because the women who came before you, in every culture that remembered how to tend the feminine, knew that this gathering was not indulgent.
It was how they stayed whole.
Some women arrive here feeling like a concrete pillar.
Steady. Dependable. Necessary. Holding everything up, including themselves, for so long they’ve forgotten what it feels like to bend.
Some arrive cracked open already. Grief close to the surface. Something pressing for space.
Some don’t have language for it at all. Just a quiet knowing that something needs to shift.
Wherever you are, we meet you there.
It is four days in the belly of Just Love Forest, 716 acres of protected land that has held ceremony for years. This work lives in its roots, its soil, its silence. This land is not a venue. It is a living partner. It has been tending something here long before you arrive.
We work with what the elements have always known how to do.
Earth that steadies you.
Fire that changes things.
Water that moves what has been stuck.
Air that reminds you how to breathe again.
We don’t know what you’re carrying or how long you’ve been carrying it.
We bring the bolt cutters.
You bring yourself, the inconvenient parts, the too-much parts, the parts that have been waiting so long for permission they’ve almost forgotten what they were waiting for.
Come find out what you are when nothing is required of you.
"You were wild once. Don't let them tame you." - Isadora Duncan
THIS IS FOR YOU IF
You have done the work. Therapy, courses, spiritual practices, years of trying to understand yourself. And still, something hasn’t moved. Not because you haven’t tried hard enough. But because some things don’t shift until they are met in the body, in a circle of women, on land that knows how to hold what we carry.
You are tired of managing yourself to keep things intact. The connection. The approval. The version of your life that works for everyone else.
You notice where you override your own knowing, especially in the moments where something feels at risk. Being understood. Being chosen. Keeping the peace.
You are holding something that hasn’t had a place to land. Grief. Rage. Desire. Truth. Or something you don’t yet have words for.
You have adapted in ways that made your life work and in the process, something in you went quiet.
You want connection that doesn’t require you to abandon yourself to have it.
You want to be more at ease in your body. More honest in your voice. More available for the life and love you actually want, unapologetically.
You are not looking for another experience. You are ready for something to actually change.
Come exactly as you are. Especially with the parts that feel inconvenient, too much, not enough, or still finding their voice.
Bring your grief. Bring your wonder. Bring the wild threads of yourself that have waited for a place to belong.
We will hold them all together.
If you’re transgender or non-binary, you’re deeply welcome here.
WHAT THIS IS
Four days in the belly of the forest, moving through the elemental gateways of earth, fire, water, and sky, not as metaphor, but as direct experience of rewilding in the body.
We work with fire and sound and silence and circle. With grief and joy as twin teachers rather than opposites. With the losses that broke you, the longings you have not yet spoken, the quiet wisdom you are learning to trust again.
This is where what has been held alone for too long finally has somewhere to go. Without performance. Without managing how it looks. Without needing it to be anything other than true.
There is a before. There is an after.
What happens between them changes everything.
"Cure yourself with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon... Heal yourself with beautiful love and always remember... you are the medicine." - Maria Sabina
WHAT AWAITS YOU
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Sacred Fire Ceremony
We build the fire. We circle. We sing and drum and share our voices, from prompts that will take you somewhere you haven’t been in a while. And then each woman makes her offering. The prayers she’s been carrying. The version of herself she’s ready to release. What she built for survival that she no longer needs to keep. The fire is our alchemist.
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Sound Healing
The bowls speak in frequencies your thinking mind doesn't have access to. Something in the body recognizes it before you do. You don't work at this one. You just receive it, and receiving, for most women in that circle, will be the hardest and most necessary thing they do all weekend.
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Cacao Ceremony & Embodied Movement
The heart opens first. Then the body follows. What has been held tightly begins to move through sound, through breath, through whatever wants to come through when nothing is being performed and nothing is being managed. This is where the wild in you remembers itself.
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Forest Immersion
Unstructured time with the land. No destination. No task. Nothing being asked of you. The forest holds you in a particular way when you release expectation. Most women are surprised by what surfaces when they finally get quiet enough to listen.
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Circle & Reflection
All of you is welcome here. You speak the stories that need to be told. You hear yourself without interruption. You are met without performance. This is where you begin to see clearly where you have chosen self-abandonment over self-truth, not as judgment, but as the beginning of the end of it.
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Ritual Evenings
After dark, around the fire. Drum. Song. Silence. The conversations that only happen when the day is over and nothing is being managed. You will say things here you haven’t said anywhere else. So will the women beside you.
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The Labyrinth Walk of Return
On the final morning, we walk the labyrinth. One path in. One path out. You walk toward your own center and you walk back out into your life carrying what has been reclaimed. This is the closing rite. It earns its place.
yOur GUIDES
Facilitator · Artist · Author · EducatorCeremonialist · Certified Integration Specialist · Earth-Based Spiritual Practitioner · GrandmotherKelsey wishik
Vanessa Crites
Sarah woolson
Licensed Psychotherapist · Licensed Music Therapist · Therapeutic Sound PractitionerVanessa Crites
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Guided by Vanessa Crites, Ceremonialist and Integration Guide
Vanessa Crites is a ceremonial guide and integration specialist. Her work is rooted in over twenty years of lived experience in healing, recovery, and deep inner transformation. She has walked alongside more than a thousand people through life’s thresholds of grief, addiction and recovery, illness, and profound personal change. She offers spaces that are steady, honest, and deeply attuned to what is real.
Her approach weaves together trauma-informed care, recovery wisdom, earth-based ritual, and a quiet, grounded spiritual presence. Rather than leading from a fixed method, Vanessa listens closely to the body, to the moment, and to the subtle intelligence that arises when people feel safe enough to be themselves. Her work is shaped as much by her time in recovery spaces and ceremonial settings as it is by her own lived path.
Vanessa’s life has been her primary teacher, alongside extensive training in therapeutic and psychospiritual modalities and over 20 years of holding containers for women through grief, healing, and transformation. Her journey includes two decades of recovery, healing through chronic illness, raising three children, and now stepping into the role of grandmother. This depth of experience brings a rare steadiness to the spaces she holds, one that allows both tenderness and strength to exist side by side.
In this rewilding retreat, Vanessa guides women back into relationship with their bodies, their truth, and the living world around them. Her work invites a slowing down, a softening out of performance and into something more instinctual, more honest, more connected.
Through time on the land, shared circle, and embodied practice, participants are supported in remembering that nothing essential is missing. The body holds wisdom. The earth offers reflection. And beneath what has been learned or carried, there is something natural and whole waiting to be felt again.
Vanessa offers this work not from a place above, but from beside, holding space as a woman who has walked through fire and learned to trust what remains.
Kelsey Wishik
Kelsey is devoted to embodied transformation and the remembering of our deeper relationship with self, earth, and spirit. Rooted in over two decades of study of yoga, meditation, somatic inquiry, dance, wilderness treks, and personal expression, she weaves together movement, nervous system integration, contemplative practice, and earth-based insight into experiences that are both grounded and transformational.
An E-RYT 500 teacher and founder of Catalyst Conscious: Movement and Mind Technologies, Kelsey facilitates yoga teacher trainings, somatic programs, trauma-informed work, women’s circles, retreats, and immersive experiences that support healing, self-discovery, and authentic living. Her work bridges ancient wisdom and contemporary understanding, drawing from yoga philosophy, neuroscience, breathwork, meditation, creative process, and relationally embodied approaches to well-being.
With a special devotion to women’s work and rewilding, Kelsey creates and co-creates spaces that invite participants into deeper self-understanding as the keystone to holistic wellness. Her offerings guide others to listen deeply, reclaim intuition, restore connection to their body, and remember the intelligence and rhythms of the natural world. Her retreats often explore the meeting place of inner and outer landscape, where personal healing, inquiry, and the living earth inform one another.
A visual artist and author, Kelsey brings a mythic and creative sensibility to her teaching, honoring transformation as both an embodied and imaginative path. Through years of leading workshops, community gatherings, and retreats, she has cultivated an approach that is soulful, grounded, and expansive, supporting others in coming home to their own inner authority, vitality, and wholeness, towards a more awakened world.
Sarah Woolson
Sarah’s work bridges clinical care, creative expression, and embodied healing. In private practice, she supports individuals and groups through integrative psychotherapy that weaves together music, somatic awareness, and evidence-based care. She also facilitates community-focused gatherings centered on sound and collective healing.
Sarah works with children and families navigating grief, as well as caregivers, healthcare workers, and helpers in need of restoration and renewal. She continues her music therapy practice in pediatric intensive care, bringing music and presence to spaces that call for tenderness and resilience.
At the heart of Sarah’s work is her own ongoing journey. In learning to hold space for others, she has committed just as deeply to her own process of self-inquiry and transformation, which continues to shape how she listens and shows up. Music has been a constant companion in that journey, which she turns to for processing emotion and deepening connection. She understands music as both deeply personal and profoundly collective, a space where feeling, memory, and connection meet, and where healing has unfolded across generations.
Who is this retreat for?
The forest remembers what you are underneath the performance. In circle with women across generations - young women just beginning to feel the pressure to conform, women in the middle unwinding decades of "should," women claiming their crone ferocity - we create space for what culture won't hold.
The inconvenient. The too much. The not enough. The untamed.
Women come to UNTAMED because they can feel the constriction, even if they don't have language for it yet. They know how carefully they've been living. How much calculation has shaped their gestures, their speech, their wanting.
They're not seeking transformation. They're seeking return.
Do I need experience with this kind of work?
You don't need any previous experience with ritual, ceremony, or embodied practice. All that's required is willingness to show up honestly and let your body lead. The circle welcomes women at all stages of their journey. What matters most is your willingness to engage authentically with the process.
What should i expect from the weekend?
Expect time in the forest, circle with other women, embodied practices, ritual, fire, movement, silence, and deep listening. Expect to grieve what domestication cost you. Expect to leave feeling more inhabited - more rooted in your body, your voice, and your untamed truth.
Is there time for solitude?
Yes. The schedule is designed to honor both collective ritual and individual time. You will have space to wander, to be quiet, to let what has surfaced settle before the next thing begins.
what should i bring?
We'll provide a detailed packing list upon registration. Essentials include comfortable clothing for movement (nothing restrictive), layers for June weather, clothes you don't mind getting muddy, water bottle, journal, and personal items for ceremony. Bedding and take-home ritual items are provided.
What is your cancellation policy?
All registrations are final. This is a committed container for you and for the circle you will enter. Please register when you are certain.
how do i know if im ready?
If something in you is responding to what you’ve read here, that response is your answer. The call to rewild often comes with uncertainty - that's part of the work. Pay attention to what’s happening in your body when you read this. Trust the part of you that already knows.
What if the weather changes?
We adapt. Rain, heat, and wind are not obstacles. They are part of what the land offers. Covered spaces are available for all elements of the retreat.
RETREAT INVESTMENT
June 11th-14th, 2026
Arrival Thursday 2pm · Departure Sunday 4pm
Packages include all retreat experiences, vegan chef-prepared meals, all guided practices and ceremonies, sound healing session, and take-home ritual items.
Limited to 20 women for depth and intimacy.
SPECIAL RATES APPLY FOR MEMBERS
Up to two members are eligible for a limited 25% off. Please inquire before checkout regarding availability.
Self Camping
Bring your own tent and sleeping gear
$400 + tax
Tipi Twin Hosted Stay
Twin standard mattress in one of our Tipi tents
$700 + tax
Canvas Bell Queen Hosted Stay
Queen tempur-pedic mattress in one of our Canvas Bell tents
$800 + tax.
*Optionally one additional person can stay with you for $400.
Financial accessibility
We always want these gatherings to be as financially accessible as possible. If you would like to be considered to serve as part of our volunteer and support teams for a reduction in fees, or new a payment plan, please contact us.
Your forest home awaits
Just Love Forest is not a backdrop to this work. It is a living partner in it.
716 acres of pristine protected forest in Poetry, Georgia. Ancient trees. A hand-built intentional yurt. A labyrinth walked by women in ceremony. Land that has been tended with care and held with reverence, not occasionally, but as a way of life.
The insights, openings, and moments of grace that arise here are inseparable from this place and the agreements we hold with it. We are not guests on this land. We are in relationship with it.
You will sleep in a beautiful canvas bell tent with a comfortable Tempur-Pedic mattress. You will eat intentionally prepared vegan meals. You will wake before sunrise if the forest calls you and you will sleep when the embers of the fire finally go out.
Our beloved forest holds space for you to remember who you are. Not who you were taught to be, not who others needed you to become, but who you have always been beneath the layers of expectation and performance.
716 acres of pristine protected forest
Our gathering space
A hand-built intentional yurt
Untamed is not about becoming someone new.
It is about remembering someone ancient.
The woman who knows how to listen to her body, honor her rhythms, and speak from her bones. The woman who has survived loss and still loves. The woman who is both gentle and unbreakable.
The work is deep. The invitation is simple
Come exactly as you are, especially the parts that feel inconvenient, too much, not enough, or still finding their voice.
We will hold them all.
Limited to 20 women · Just Love Forest,
Poetry, Georgia
June 11–14, 2026