Voices of the
Well
A unique opportunity to return to the sacred re-membering of your voice through Sound, Breath, Creative writing, Embodiment practices and Nature.
7th-9th March 2025
My deepest, most ecstatic life experiences and remembering have always been through sound.
In these moments, I have felt a profound connection to what I would call ‘home’—the purest expression of my soul. Our Voice is a door, a gateway to the depths of our infinite self.
I love to create spaces where women can reconnect with their authentic voice—the truest expression of who they are. With Polly and I, you are invited to soften and peel away the layers that pull you away from the depths of your being, allowing the voice that emerges from this sacred place to resonate and be heard.
The well of a woman is deep, and her waters are wise. In the disconnection of her song and the severing of her voice, the blood spilt over millennia and still being spilled, nature calls us to reconnect once again to the unity of the One Song—the song that unifies, not separates.
"Together we stand, inseparable—one can't exist without the other."
We need to root to rise
Voices of the Well invites you into this descent
It’s here that her song fully emerges. What happens when you open your voice and drop downwards? What is waiting to be accessed and brought forth as you go deep?
In folklore, wells held sacred, life-giving vitality flowing upwards from the deep and potent waters below. It was women’s role to tend and be the voices of the wells.
Join Polly and I for a weekend of voice, body and writing exploration to find your abundant wellspring and offer your life-giving drink to the world.
Who is the Voices of the Well for?
This is a workshop retreat space for you if you’re interested in personal and spiritual evolution. It’s intended for those who are examining how their voice is (or isn’t) heard in the world, and who wish to explore opening more fully to allow authentic expression. From an embodied lens we'll be bringing that expression into creative writing led by a published, award-winning author with many years of experience as a journalist, columnist (NZ Life & Leisure magazine) and creative writing teacher. Here you can fearlessly express your writing and sounding voice and access inner wisdom.
If you’re curious about how to open physically to allow full expression to pour forth, this workshop will assist you. It will help you gain more connection with your wild, uncensored voice and increase your confidence in expressing fully, even if your voice is clunky, out of tune, or simply unknown.
If you have a sense of a deeper intelligence, this workshop will help you surrender to the experience of being breathed and played like a flute. It invites exploration into your body and how to open at both ends like a channel. It offers an opportunity to connect with Nature as well as your own wild nature. If you wish to explore your breath from a nonlinear place and feel more sense of connection with yourself and those around you, this workshop will facilitate that.
If you’re investigating menopause or perimenopause, it will give you meaningful ways to meet the edges of yourself and gain clarity around the process of initiation as you approach your crone-years. It will help you embrace your unique voice and feel more rooted in yourself and your purpose.
What you may take away from the weekend:
-
Gain tools to express a wider range of vocal expression in speaking and sounding.
-
More acceptance of your voice and letting go of old patterns and stories around your voice.
-
Increased awareness of your nervous system.
-
Experience opening of the throat to let the voice move through the whole body.
-
Increased sensation & feeling through breath, sound and movement.
-
Increased awareness around ‘who is my voice and how does it show up in the world.’
-
Yin ways of opening into the body and voice.
-
More connection with your womb and sexuality.
-
Increased connection with nature and the elements and an understanding of how your voice is a vehicle to connect deeper to these elements.
-
Permission to be seen & witnessed in ALL parts of you.
-
Connection with sisterhood and like-minded women.
-
Increased trust in the wisdom and power of your written voice
-
Writing techniques for self-exploration
During our time together you will be:
-
Connecting more with your naked untamed voice in its’ primal form.
-
Connecting with your voice as part of nature/your nature.
-
Learning embodied practices with your voice.
-
Connecting with your voice through the heart, womb, and pelvis.
-
Exploring somatic practices to connect more to body/mind and to bring greater awareness to our nervous system and how it might affect us in our daily life.
-
Practicing breath awareness.
-
Enjoying nature connection off-grid.
-
Partaking in a cacao ceremony.
-
Exploring your creative flow on the page.
Location
Tangihua Lions Lodge
1095 Omana Road, Waiotira 0178
45-mins from Whangarei or 2-hours 20-minutes from Auckland
Cost
$555.00 - Early bird before 07th Jan $488.00
(includes meals and accommodation)
To secure your place a non-refundable $100 deposit is required
A wonderful opportunity to be immersed in nature and off-grid for the weekend.
Retreat Programme
Friday evening: 5:00-8:00pm
Following an opening Karakia, the container of our gathering will be ceremonially established with
cacao served and intentions activated. An opportunity for some embodiment and song before we
descend on a guided journey down the well and write our way inwards.
Saturday
10:00am-2:00pm
Explore your breath, your voice and your body, as you open your throat and connect to your womb.
Guided journeying and writing to meet your truths in the depths below.
5:00-8:00pm
Weaving Sound & Movement. What are you connected to? Who breathes you?
What is waiting to pour forth and what’s in the way?
Sunday
10:00am-2:00pm
How does your voice show up in the world? Voice exploration. Guided journey to your wellspring
and writing its flow. Sounding to open to the wild aspects of your voice and yourself. Closing.
Please note this is a guideline and isn’t fixed. We will be tuning into the ‘field’ & group as we go,
so what is offered may change as the field opens and guides us.
Meet Your Facilitators
Talia Brand
Talia is a Sound & Somatic Therapist who has worked extensively with sound and embodiment for many years. She weaves tools of sound, embodiment practices, somatic experiencing, embodied counseling, bodywork & shamanic womb work.
She is trauma-trained having completed a 3-year training in Somatic Experiencing in 2022 (working with trauma through the body based on the work of Peter Levine)
Her studies have included many years of Classical training & Performance, moving more into Sound Healing & working with the Voice in a non-linear way through embodied expression. She has also trained as a somatic sex educator with the Institute of Somatic Sexology & as an Embodied Counselor. She completed a 9-month shamanic Womb apprenticeship in 2016 working with the seven gates of the womb & has a particular interest in the physiological connection between the womb & the throat.
She has a particular love of the water element and aims to immerse herself most days in rivers & lakes. She has a deep connection with whales and the primordial sound & wisdom they hold.
Talia is passionate about women landing their full voice and expression through spirit & matter woven together. Coming home to the sacred remembering and wisdom we already hold inside waiting to be unveiled. She believes in deep listening & presence and in co-creative spaces where each woman weaves her wisdom with the whole.
Polly Greeks
Polly is an award-winning author of Embracing the Dragon, (runner-up Travcom NZ Travel Book of the Year), columnist (3x NZ Magazine Columnist of the Year) and journalist who has held numerous writing workshops for adults and children. She loves the power of free writing to reveal deeper knowing and insight and identify opportunities for rewriting our personal narratives.
Trained in Conscious Communication, she also holds space for people to verbally explore their stories and tune in to their feelings and needs.
Co-facilitator of a women’s Red Tent space for many years, she celebrates the sharing, support and deep opening that can occur when women come together. She is currently investigating her own journey through the initiation of menopause and feels passionate about the power and embodied-belonging waiting for women who connect with both their authentic selves and the deeper, timeless wisdom waiting to be expressed through their voices.
For the last 14 years she and her husband have lived off-grid in remote Northland forest where they’re raising their children.
What previous participants have said:
“Talia I would like to thank you for my recent journey to better know and understand myself far more intimately than I ever have before. You created a space during the Sacred Remembering retreat that was safe, honouring, compassionate, professional and transformative.”
— Janine
“The journey was a dive deep into our bones, calling each of us to remember who we really are and honoring where we have come from. Rarely have I experienced such deep connection between participants in a workshop & such full participation in the practices.”
— Tina
“I am singing with a vocal range I lost in my late teens, I have found my powerful and sensual voice, I feel so alive in every aspect of myself!
I travelled to depths where I retrieved my breathing and voice. Messages from this weekend feel potent for changing my life.”
— Louise
“I was amazed at what came through. The words poured out without me even thinking about it. Lots of insights. It’s inspired me to get back into journaling.”
— Karen
“I loved Polly’s very creative and encouraging approach to writing. It was so interesting to put my unconscious mind on paper.”
— Kathryn
“Greeks writes with unflinching honesty and poetic verve.”
— Denis Welch, Listener
A Poem by Polly Greeks
In the gaps between breaths stretches timeless All.
Breathe with Her.
Let your breath rise and fall.
Feel the movement; the rhythm, set within the ringing silence of eternity. This is You, the receptacle, emptied out and present.
Listening into the realm of Creation.
What does She long for?
Connection.
That is, the remembrance of the connection.
The electric spark of two ends becoming unified into a sinuous, conscious life-force. She is awareness in its purest form.
Out here the planets sing.
Ancient lines, coded sound across the multiverse.
What you yearn for is a part of yourself.
That's why it's called Coming Home.