A Transformative Week of Embodied LGBTQIA+ Wellness and Radical Revelry in Baja, Mexico
Sunday April 9-
Saturday April 15, 2023
A magical Retreat for Queer and Trans folks of diverse lived experience
Tiered equity pricing + we are actively fundraising to help folks come!
Space is limited to 21 queers
Intention: at least 50% BIPOC and 50% trans
Pre Retreat Covid Testing and current Passport required.
Double Occupancy Rooms. Participants will need to be able to use stairs.
Imagine feeling completely at peace with who you are.
Being able to fully breathe, relax and laugh,
To expand through embodied healing in beloved community,
To feel fresh gratitude inspired by tender intimacy with nature and spirit,
To dwell in deep rest,
And open up to the pleasure of just being present…
Being queer is a blessing, but navigating a cishet world steeped in systemic oppression is exhausting, complex, and heartbreaking.
In order to survive, maybe you’ve sometimes disconnected from your body, your needs, or even certain parts of your sweet, sacred self. While it’s gotten you this far, you know it’s time for a deep shift.
What Makes this Retreat Special?
- A week of gaycation rejuvenation at Casa Tara, a gorgeous eco Retreat Center, on the Sea of Cortez
- Affirming, accessible daily yoga including asana, meditation, pranayama, philosophy, astrology and deep rest that is truly transformative, in a gorgeous ocean view fully equipped studio with beautiful props. Bedtime Relaxation sessions, discussions, journaling, facilitated reflection…
- Delicious, creative, gourmet meals together! Plant-based and pescatarian local flavor!
- Ample time to chill, play, nap, and swim in the ocean, pool, and hot tub. Bike to a nearby beach where hotsprings water flows into the sea. Enjoy the spa, get a massage. Savor some alone time, or connect in community. Tarot, cute outfits, what will you tuck into your suitcase to enjoy here?
- Descend beautiful stairs to the pristine beach, perfect for swimming, or go explore on one of the included paddle boards.
- Affinity gatherings for BIPOC, Trans + Nonbinary folks. Body positive, feminist, gender affirming space for embodied healing.
- Space to honor your heart’s truest yes, see where it leads, and soak up living your best life!
– At least 50% Black Indigenous People of Color
– At least 50% trans, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary people
Tiered pricing allows those who can to help support others who need a lower price!
Therefore, we have a brief application process as part of registration:
APPLY NOW!
“OMG I feel like I’ve breathed more in the last week than I have in the last few months.”
To let the salty, flirtatious ocean and fresh, clean, warm morning breeze caress you, and know that you are worthy of these moments of happiness?
And to know deeply, that whenever challenges come, you’re connected to your inner strength and guidance.
This is an incredible opportunity that will catalyze so much goodness in your life!
Are you tired of feeling tired all the time? Does your body feel stiff, stagnant, out of balance? Do you feel mentally scattered, emotionally stuck?
With everything we’re coping with, it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed, run down.
Sometimes we don’t know how much we’re really carrying until we can *actually* let loose and relax.
When it comes to centering your own care though, it’s not so simple.
Yoga can be profoundly healing, but sadly most yoga spaces – much less Retreats – are not welcoming to folks like us.
Harmful mainstream culture is often replicated in yoga spaces through its cis, hetero, white, classist norms. Pressure to assimilate runs rampant.
It can be hard to find yoga that welcomes the whole you, so you can experience fluid stability, pain-relieving anatomical alignment, somatic release, and embodied healing.
Queer space can provide such a palpable relief. Now imagine that for a whole week – a gorgeous, magical adventure just for us. A deep dive immersion that allows for profound integration and reclamation of self.
You are so worthy of this type of luscious, transformative journey. Imagine having this to look forward to!
Give yourself permission to untangle the inner knots, to relax and awaken to the deeper authentic expression of who you are.
In so doing, you create space for that journey for everyone around you, which empowers all the ways we’re showing up for collective change.
Socially Conscious Yoga
It’s true, it’s a huge privilege to travel and experience a week long Retreat.
And it’s also true that allowing yourself to experience this in and of itself is a healing process. A chance to clear out outdated stories about self worth and what’s possible. Investing in your health and happiness can feel like a brave stretch. This level of care, healing, play, and relaxation will have a lot of very real positive ripple effects – not only for you, but for all the ways you show up in community.
Most queers like a little pain with our pleasure.
We want joy, but also critique. Spirituality that connects us to social change, not as spiritual bypass.
For many of us, queer identity is political, so shared values are important. A form of grassroots organizing, this emergent, unique space has been crafted with care and intersectional awareness to center BIPOC and trans healing in ways that are inclusive, dynamic, and brave.
Investing in such a gathering supports community care, and our work as QT yoga facilitators. By offering these larger scale queer trans yoga immersions, we are able to more sustainably offer low and no cost yoga to our community throughout the rest of the year.
Many of us are working to dismantle systems of harm; part of that work is imagining, building and experiencing in real time what we are working to cultivate.
We affirm eachother’s worth and wholeness when we gather together for play, healing, and joy!
This retreat offers a unique opportunity to explore this, in a relatively low contact way.
Part of having a queer and/or trans body in our stressful modern era is dealing with its challenges – pain and stiffness, inflammation, joint instability, fatigue, dysphoria, dissociation, chronic conditions, etc…
Maybe even the idea “being more in your body” feels challenging and scary, even if it’s something you want to explore.
Don’t worry – your body challenges won’t hold you back from experiencing the retreat. In fact, we’ve designed our embodiment specifically to help you get relief, sleep better, and have less pain. Classes will be adaptive, meaning each pose can be customized for your needs or we’ll find an alternative. We center accessibility, attending to your work in the pose to bring you into balance.
This is an invitation to explore radical sovereignty and self compassion within your own body and mind. Non-harming – ahimsa – is foundational to our practice. Let’s delight in practice together that allows for real relief!
This retreat is perfect for solo travelers! Or come with friends for the most epic week together. And of course, what an incredibly luscious thing to experience with your lover(s)…
“I have never before experienced the kind of affirmation, safety… I healed parts of past sexual trauma, ancestral trauma, I was seen and affirmed in my gender – and without effort or strain.
I didn’t have to fight for or prove my truth…it simply, was. I simply, was.”
The Place
Casa Tara is the perfect spot for our Retreat.
Rooted in sustainability and spirituality, Casa Tara was designed for healing, spiritual care, and as a place where guests can fully be themselves. Casa Tara was built with straw bale construction and is powered primarily by solar energy.
Learn more about the owners, Marcela and Miguel, and their vision for Cara Tara here.
On the menu…
The food here is ridiculously beautiful, inspired. We’ll enjoy 3 meals daily at Casa Tara’s restaurant, La Moringa, which features both local seafood and abundant plant-based options. Health is wealth!
The Community
It’s for you in the fullest sense of your full on, fluid, brave, tender, work-in-progress, politically rad, weirdo, queer self.
And – you will be in such good company.
A big part of any Retreat is the people on the journey with you.
The connections we make through affirming community allow us to discover a deeper sense of wholeness and self love.
LGBTQIA+ folks are often on the front lines, working for social change and helping others heal. You know self care and community care are interconnected, that you can’t pour from an empty cup.
When we’re relaxed and connected to others, it’s a gift that flows in all directions.
This Retreat is specially designed to create an inclusive, warm, welcoming environment for LGBTQIA+ from diverse social locations. We gather for practice, play, healing pleasure and radical rest as a sacred way to deeply replenish, connect us to our purpose, and thus nourish collective change.
“My identity felt so validated. So seen… It let me rest in my own softness.
I didn’t have to perform to prove my transness.
Also learning how my poc body reacts very differently than other bodies, having that resonance w other trans poc people about our own boundaries, comfortabilities and learning to honor that instead of feeling pressure to assimilate or belong or keep up.
The land also was in such deep communication with us the entire trip, wow nature is so fucking powerful and held me so fully, made me feel so beautiful and worthy.
Having 3 teachers with rich complex identities come together to love on us and guide us and even learn from us.
So honored to be introduced to yoga through this honest messy liberated lens.”
Um… Also, we won’t JUST be doing Yoga!
Should you bring fun outfits for gender affirming spontaneous photo shoots? YES. Will there be a dance party? Yes.
Opportunities to flirt, feel cute? Have alone time? Tarot, stargazing, journaling, juicy convos? Sure, if that’s your cuppa tea. And if not, that’s fine too. We get to create this space together. Your authenticity and truth in the moment IS the magic ingredient here.
Will there be laughter, emotion, connection, and friendship…? Definitely.
A note about what this retreat space is, and is not: When we gather for healing in community, so much can come up. We arrive with our exhaustion, physical mental and emotional pain, and our ancestor’s unresolved wounds, too. While this space is trauma informed and yes, healing, it is not a space to specifically work with or address trauma. We are not mental health professionals. Yoga is therapeutic, but it is not therapy. While embodiment, yoga, and community connection are powerfully healing, this space is not a replacement for mental or other health care. As teachers, we will tend with care, with our combined skills, to whatever arises. We embrace the messy, imperfect ways healing happens, and we practice knowing our own limits. We will gather virtually before the retreat at connect, create community agreements, build trust, and explore helpful boundaries. Our ask is for everyone who joins us explore your own capacity, expectations, role and contribution to what makes brave space, what are your needs and desires for this experience, what tools for regulation do you already have, that you can bring with you? We ask for a commitment to show up as fully, and honestly as possible to this space. We value ahimsa, and satya (nonviolence, truth) and with humility have immense faith in the power of these practices in shared community space.
Meet your Retreat Organizers and Teachers:
AVERY JANECZEK KALAPA
they them
Avery has a major crush on life! They are a Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher (L2), community weaver at Sadhana Support Collective, and queer + trans wellness organizer; eRYT500, YACEP, BFA, with over 25 years experience.
Celebrated for their enthusiasm, commitment to accessibility, counterculture spirituality, devotion, and depth of technique, Avery’s teaching uplifts inner healing rooted in collective liberation.
They believe all people, especially folks who have been left out of or turned off by mainstream yoga spaces, should have access to the revitalizing nourishment of deeply informed, classical yoga that goes beyond fitness, without having to code switch or assimilate in order to practice.
They center integrative functional anatomy, nervous system regulation and stability to support counter-culture yoga lovers to break the burn out cycle, be nourished, strong, and spiritually powerful without bypassing the wisdom of their body and lived experience.
Avery’s also a community organizer, artist, parent, gardener. They are a white, neurodiverse, queer, trans, nonbinary settler grateful to live in unceded Tiwa land, Albuquerque NM.
TIGER RAHMAN
they, he
is a Black, queer, transmasculine yoga and astrology practitioner, and a full-time organizational strategist, researcher and analyst with a Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership and Learning from George Washington University.
To Tiger, organizations and groups are the cornerstone of human social life, and self-leadership is what guides our action. Their project “Live Your Own Life” is a call for all individuals to set aside the ways of thinking we’ve adopted without critical analysis and go deeper to rediscover our power, purpose, and infinite potential for contribution.
Tiger facilitates this through heartful reflection, contemplation of yogic philosophy, and continuous self study. Tiger completed his 200 hour YTT in St Louis with Yoga Pipeline and now serves on their board and guest faculty. Tiger completed their 300 hour YTT with Susanna Barkataki, and in 2021 was fortunate to join the Ignite team in mentoring BIPOC students in her 300 hour program.
MEESHA SHARMA
she, they
Hi! My name is Vuzmal Sharma, but most folks call me Meesha. My name Vuzmal means lightning in Kashmiri, the land of my maternal lineage. Meesha is a pet name I was given at birth. Sharma comes from my Punjabi father’s lineage. I am the first of my family to be born outside of South Asia.
I believe all people are ever-evolving, shape-shifting multi-dimensional entities, so it’s hard to encapsulate who I am in a few sentences. However, the key words that come to mind right now are: writer, disruptor, yoga sadhaka and guide, community space holder, queer trans lover, and creatrix.
My passion lies in alchemizing our sacred and inherent creative energy with the indigenous medicine of yoga to dismantle harmful systems within and without, while co-weaving new ways of being with my peers and allies. I am the founder of a virtual community called Alchemystic Studio (www.alchemysticstudio.com) where we come together to do the work of healing and change-making in a joyful and supportive way. It is an honor to be a part of this incredible retreat, and I so look forward to co-creating this experience with you.
IG: @alchemystic_studio
LOGISTICS: RETREAT DATES Sunday APRIL 9 - Saturday APRIL 15th 2023
Here's all the juicy details:
What’s included
- 6 nights, 7 days stay at CASA TARA – Luxurious, beautiful open air double occupancy accomodation with ocean views!
- 3 meals together daily. Mostly plant based, with eggs, fresh seafood, and dairy options offered
- Daily yoga, meditation, pranayama
- Use of paddle boards at Casa Tara
- Ample time to rest, nap, swim, and explore
- Use of Casa Tara’s paddleboards
- Transport to and from San Cabo Airport
- Hotel tax and processing fees
- Journaling, magic, queer philosophy and facilitated group connection
- Dance party on the deck!
- Affinity gatherings for BIPOC, femmes, Trans + Nonbinary folks
- Retreat space that will be hosting just our group. However, FYI, people from the general public will be onsight for services such as local classes, at the spa, and restaurant.
What’s not included
- Airfare to and from Mexico
- Bike rental (but available for a small fee!)
- Spa treatments
- Extra excursions, tours such as snorkeling at a nearby uninhabited island
- Gratuities for the staff
- Alcoholic and specialty drinks
- Travel Insurance
Investment:
We have 3 levels of pricing to help make this retreat more accessible to people of diverse lived expereince and adjecent access to money.
Double Occupancy per person:
OCEAN supporter rate at: $3300
LAKE actual rate at: $2600
RIVER equity rate SOLD OUT and waitlisted – please help us raise funds to cover more QTBIPOC spots
DONATIONS! We are fundraising to create scholarships. Linktree, Paypal, Venmo, and credit card accepted.
Paypal averyasana@gmail.com, Venmo @swayvery_avery_kalapa or email me to make a credit card donation of any amount.
Rooms are all double occupancy, either with separate beds, or 1 king bed.
Coming alone? We’ll find you the best roommate possible. Each room is spacious, beautifully furnished has a private bath.
**This Retreat is a dedicated space for people who identity as lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, nonbinary, intersex, asexual, and/or queer.
Travel Insurance is highly recomended.
Covid tests prior to Retreat required.
REFUNDS – In the unlikely event that we must cancel due to natural disaster, illness, border closures due to Covid etc, we cannot guarantee a refund – however, we will reschedule the Retreat! If we cancel due to not enough sign ups, we will offer a full refund. If you must cancel due to unforeseen illness, etc., we cannot provide a refund. As soon as a deposit is made, these funds are used to secure travel, housing, meals, supervision and other expenses to arrange the trip for you, and in turn secure the livelihood of the staff and community at Casa Tara. They are excited to welcome our group!
Copyright © Yoga with Avery 2022