Friends of the Living World
Shamanic Spring Retreat for Rekindling the Connection
with Mother Earth and the Living World
Tuesday 21th – Sunday 25th April 2027
Earthwise Residency, Mols Bjerge National Park, Denmark
With Sófía Stefánsdóttir & Helena Karhu
Mols Bjerge is known for its rare ice-age landscapes with rolling hills, bronze age burial grounds, and chalky white beaches. Tucked away at the edges of Mols Bjerge National Park is a tiny secluded spot of rolling hills, roaming horses, ancient woodlands, and permaculture gardens.
This stunning place is where we meet for our spring 2027 retreat, to re-member and re-awaken what is already a natural part of who we are: Our connection with Mother Earth and all her living beings. Belonging and finding our place again in the web of love that connects all things.
We gather here to immerse ourselves and reconnect with the wisdom of the living world. To re-enchant ourselves and the world we live in. To re-boot and re-kindle the vital energy exchange that we are part of.
Each day begins with gentle yoga - outdoors whenever possible - followed by immersive practices of relationship with the living world.
Throughout the retreat we cultivate deep listening, attention and reciprocity, discovering which places, beings and presences we naturally find ourselves drawn to connect with. Stones, trees, plants, birds, animals and the invisible dimensions all become possible companions and teachers along the way.
You will practice ancient techniques for connection and strengthen your natural spirituality. Throughout the retreat, you are invited to discover beings, places and presences you find yourself naturally drawn into relationship with.
This is an Earthwise supported retreat. Earthwise Residency stands for ecological, community supported activities, which benefit the harmony of the planet and all its residents. Care and consideration for all those people, we humans share the planet with.
From earlier participants:
” Five days in the nature retreat made my soul rest and my heart sing. My warmest recommendation to Helena’s and Sofia’s retreat - which was just what I needed after a stressful time in my life. Beautiful nature, lovely company, great teachings and wonderful food. Nourishment for my spirit.”
Danish retreat participant, March 2026
“Helena and Sofia hold space with such sensitivity for all the participants and everyone's individual and collective processes. I felt safe, nurtured and connected in a way I have not experienced before. I felt heard and seen in such a gentle way that transformed something in me really deeply.”
Finnish retreat participant, March 2026
“For me, it is very different to intellectually know that I am part of nature, than to embody that knowledge and really feel in my bones and in my body, that I belong and am part of this bigger whole. I learned very embodied wisdom on this retreat.”
Finnish retreat participant, March 2026
Retreat Program
(Program may be subject to change)
Tuesday
Arrivals to Aarhus and coordinated car pooling to Earthwise Residency in Mols Bjerge National Park.
16.00 Arrival & Opening Circle
18.00 Dinner
19.00 Opening Ceremony
Wednesday
07.00 Gentle Movement & Meditation
08.00 Breakfast
09.00 Morning Circle
Gratitude, Reciprocity & Entering into Relationship
An introduction to the perspectives and practices that form the foundation of the retreat.
12.00 Lunch
13.00–15.00 Personal Time
Rest, wandering, journaling or simply becoming familiar with the place.
15.00 Field Practice
Learning to Listen
Our first guided practice in the surrounding landscape, awakening the senses
18.00 Dinner
19.00 Yoga Nidra
Deep Restful Healing
Thursday
07.00 Root & Rise Yoga & Meditation
08.00 Breakfast
09.00 Field Practice
Listening with the Living World
A guided immersion in attentive presence.
12.00 Lunch
13.00–15.00 Personal Exploration
Continue following the places, beings or presences that draw your attention.
15.00 Shamanic Journey
Listening inward
18.00 Dinner
19.00 Yoga Nidra
Deep Healing Rest
Friday
07.00 Vitality Yoga & Meditation
08.00 Breakfast
09.00 Morning Circle
Shared reflections and experiences
10.30 Solo Field Practice
An extended period of individual exploration.
12.30 Lunch
15.00 Shamanic Circle
Practices for deepening relationship with the living world
18.00 Dinner
19.00 Evening Rest
Saturday
07.00 Expanding Awareness Yoga & Meditation
08.00 Breakfast
09.00 Morning Circle
The Living World as Community
Exploring what it means not only to perceive relationship, but to participate within it.
10.30 Field Practice
Follow the calling: Offering, blessing, song, silence, movement or other forms of reciprocal practice emerging from the retreat.
12.00 Lunch
13.00–15.00 Personal Time
Rest, reflection or continued exploration.
15.00 Collective Ceremony
A shared ceremony expressing gratitude and reciprocity
18.00 Dinner
19.00 Evening Drumming Circle for those who wish
Sunday
08.00 Integrating Yoga & Meditation
09.00 Breakfast
10.00 Closing Circle
Bringing Practices of Relationship into Everyday Life
How do we continue cultivating relationship after returning home?
12.00 Departures
How to get there?
The closest big city is Aarhus. You can plan your travel to Århus, and then we coordinate our shared rides and transportation from there.
More information about Mols Bjerge National Park: https://eng.nationalparkmolsbjerge.dk/
Retreat guides
The retreat is guided by Sofia, a resident of Denmark with Icelandic heritage, and Helena from Finland (and who used to live over 13 years in Denmark, and speaks also Danish).
We have been sisters in shamanic practice and friends for over 12 years. We look forward to an international retreat circle with participants from Denmark and from abroad. Between us, we speak fluently: English, Finnish, Danish, Icelandic and Spanish. General guidance on the retreat will be in English, with the possibility to translate into the mentioned languages when needed.
Sófía
I am an Icelandic-born anthropologist, ritualist and yogini, living in Denmark. I create and guide personal and collective processes for healing, integration, belonging, celebration, and connection. This spans from one-to-one personal healing sessions and shamanic counseling to group facilitation of drum journeys, medicine walks, and rituals.
My aim is to actively contribute as much as I can to the re-enchantment of the world we live in. We are so much more, and the world is so much more, than we often allow ourselves to perceive. This "more" is what I continually explore and share through practices, ancient and emerging, that help rediscover our relationship with the living world.
I hold a Master’s in Anthropology, Cand. Scient. Anth., from the University of Copenhagen, and I have worked for a number of years within the field of user studies and innovation consulting.
To me, innovation has come to mean liberation from habitual, reductive patterns that hold us down and the technologies I now dedicate my life to are inherent in the human biology. In many cases dormant, waiting to be activated through meditation, movement, and ritual. I call my practice natural spirituality, because I believe spirituality is a natural part of being alive and everyone’s birthright.
My background also includes: Training with Annette Høst, and ongoing training under a Mongolian lineage shaman. Vibrantly Alive Hatha & 5 Element Yoga, with Sidhamo Michael Johnson, Yinspiration Yin Yoga, with Jo Phee, L’Art de Respirer, lung capacity expansion, with Dominique Lonchant, Breathing Journey, rebirthing breathwork, with Shiran Michaeli, Vipassana Meditation, with Dhamma Sobhana - Nordic Vipassana Center, Healing Massage, with Joachim Palvig, Flower Essence Therapy, with Elisabeth Løfgren. And of course, my life and my relations.
Helena
I am a North Karelian practitioner of shamanism and knowledge keeper, mother of twins, ritual artist, cultural producer, and cultural researcher (PhD about Finnish shamanism in November 2026). My great passion is to be a companion for falling in love with nature and to learn about the ancestral heritage of this land. North Savo is a unique travel destination, definitely off the beaten path. It is the land of hundreds of thousands of lakes!
The spirit of the Northern ancestors and nature invites me to share more about Northern nature, the animistic-shamanistic tradition, and to combine archaic methods and their possibilities in contemporary culture. I work at House of the Bear, which I founded, through whose services you can learn more about folklore and shamanism to help self-knowledge and community well-being. I am also chairwoman of a cultural foundation promoting shamanic and wisdom keeper traditions.
The Residence
Earthwise Residency, Ebeltoft, Denmark
The residence house is a Friis & Moltke house with a thatched roof, located without neighbours at the top of a hill with a sea view. There are five guestrooms, four worktables, a kitchen with dining table, a living room and a kitchenette. There is space for 10-12 people, and internet access.
Care is a core value for all practices in and around Earthwise and we strive for sustainable solutions and reuse in all aspects of taking care of the house.
More information and registration:
More details are coming soon. If you are interested about this retreat, please e-mail us: info@karhuntalo.com