RETREATS
- MEANING
When the question is what comes next.
DATES
THE INVITATION
Bloom is a six-day medicinal mushroom retreat in the Cederberg. Two guided sessions with the mushrooms, and supporting practices.
This experience is for people whose lives already work, but who have started to wonder if there is more, and to ask questions about the nature of experience and mind. Because a mind that gets good at things narrows toward what it can predict, and slowly less gets through. Bloom widens it back out. For a week you see your own life with the filter off, and catch what you had stopped seeing.
THE FLOW
The experience itself is not the product. The sessions can show you a great deal in a week; whether any of it lasts depends on what surrounds them. States can become traits, or they fade.
pre-retreat
Preparation
It begins before you arrive. Once your application is accepted, you move through a preparation call, and the slower work of setting an intention for the experience. By the time you reach the valley, the groundwork is laid, and the week itself can go to the experience rather than to getting ready for it.
post-retreat
Integration
THE APPROACH
Four things. Done well.
1
Two guided sessions with medicinal mushrooms. Most of the time your brain runs on prediction, one network at its centre narrating the familiar story of who you are. The medicine disrupts that network for a few hours. Patterns that usually feel fixed go soft enough to work with, and a lot can move while they do.
2
3
4
WHAT A DAY LOOKS LIKE
Presence and connection
MORNING
midday
AFTERNOON
EVENING
AT A GLANCE
We serve vegetarian / vegan food. Most of our produce comes from our gardens or from local farmers. The meals are served at the communal table. We do not serve coffee or alcohol, which is mostly about sleep. Mornings are cacao, rooibos infusions.
Dietary requirements are accommodated. Tell us when you book.
6 days
Tuesday to Sunday
Cederberg
Western Cape
Plant-based
No Coffee · No alcohol
YOUR GUIDES
SITTERS · GUIDES · FOUNDERS
“This is a tool for radical change. What it asks for is a container honest and safe enough to hold what it opens. That is the work we are interested in.”
Daria and Heine have spent years preparing the land, the property, and themselves for the work that happens at Bloom.
Daria carries the formal training: Somatic Experiencing, mindfulness under Martin Aylward, breathwork with Dan Brulé, and the Synthesis Institute Foundations course. Both Daria and Heine have also completed sitter training. This is a foundation that maps almost exactly onto what is needed in a ceremony container: trauma-informed, body-attuned, contemplatively grounded, non-directive.
Heine sits the ceremonies alongside her and brings the kind of attention that the work asks for: steady, unintrusive.
Between them, the room is held for what unfolds, not directed toward what should. They do not guide you anywhere. They make the place safe enough that you can arrive where you already are.
WHAT GUESTS SAY
what does it cost
All prices include accommodation, all meals, all practices, and guided stargazing. No hidden charges. Never more than eight guests, often fewer.
CANVAS AND TIMBER
Built from canvas and timber, which means the valley comes through the walls. Wind, water, first light. The simplest of the three, and the closest you can sleep to the land.
5 NIGHTS
Solo
R28,000
Double
R39,200
WOOD AND GLASS
Built from wood and glass, set between the rocks. Floor-to-ceiling windows put the valley in the room with you. The one most people picture when they imagine the place.
5 NIGHTS
Solo
R36,000
Double
R49,000
CEDERBERG ROCK
Built from Cederberg rock, set closest to the river. A separate bedroom, its own lounge, and a large outdoor space that is yours alone. The most private of the three.
5 NIGHTS
Solo
Double
Includes: Accommodation, all meals, practices and activities
application form
Bloom is by application, only. It takes ten minutes. We reply within three working days.
Please note, our retreats are not medical or clinical treatments; this screening is purely for safety.