There’s a type of fatigue that builds up over the years, no one realizes, not even you. It’s not that it’s been a long night or a long week. Tiredness is that of living a life consistently out of sync with oneself—too much of production, not enough replenishment, too much of obligations in service to oneself.
Most people will not become aware of it until they’ve been using it for quite some time. Of course, they also realize that sleep won’t cure it, as it is a natural instinct. That it’s not going to resolve anything with a weekend getaway. There’s a need for a more basic thing: a real pause, in a spot that has the authority equal to the need.
That’s where Hawaii is becoming an increasingly popular destination for many.
Why Hawaii has always been a Place of Healing
These islands were known to their native people as very sacred before any harbor was built on any of the islands’ shores. The land wasn’t anything but scenery. It was a forebear, educator and an active interloper in the lives of man. All elements of the landscape had spiritual meaning, determining a person’s sense of self and the world around them, from every volcanic peak to every coastal spring, every forest valley.
With the modernization this intelligence did not fade away. It is under the surface of all the true experiences the islands have to offer — where the light is, when it is drizzling in the rainforest, how the ocean welcomes you unconditionally.
Hawaii retreats that access this other realm of the island’s healing can provide something that other wellness experiences can’t. The land participates. It holds the space. It moves the person’s inner process at a speed that is hard to explain and cannot be overlooked in months of practice, such as what practitioners facilitate in the clinic.
The cultural beliefs of Native Hawaiians reiterate this knowledge. The ancient practice of healing and reconciling, ho’oponopono, looks at healing as a right relationship with oneself, others and the land. Lomilomi, a sacred bodywork tradition that arose from these islands, works on all three bodies – physical, emotional and spiritual – on all three planes – touch, breath and intention.
These aren’t crazy items to add to the wellness menu. For thousands of years, they have been the traditional medicine of a culture that has known for all that time that it is the interconnectedness of body, mind and spirit that allows for human healing to take place most completely.
This is the island that transforms, Maui.
Maui, of all the Hawaiian Islands, has carved out a niche in the spiritual retreat community, not by marketing but by providing the consistent lived experience of practitioners and participants that come here year after year and find this place consistently delivers on its promise.
The quality of facilitators that attract Maui Spiritual Retreats is due to the unique physical terrain of the island that provides a unique spectrum of healing environments in a very small area. There is no place on earth which can transport you from an active volcano, to a waterfall valley of lush greenery, to a black sand beach, each with a unique energetic quality, in a span of one day.
The most well-known sacred place on the Island is Haleakalā. The dormant volcano (House of the Sun) rises above the clouds at more than ten thousand feet, and is consistently described as one of the most consciousness-altering experiences by practitioners and first time visitors. When you see the dawn from the sky and everything is lit up and silent, you modify some basic concepts of your life and its priorities.
The Road to Hana is surrounded by a rainforest that has been unaltered for centuries, below the summit. More slowing down than relaxation, more return than rest, and more density than water, more sound than air, more air than ordinary life, these make for a slowing down. Bring back what the body considers to be a normal speed. Reengage in a quality of being in the world, which most people haven’t known since childhood.
The sea areas round the edges round up the rest. Retreat participants often compare the experience of the lava and Pacific Ocean beaches they find themselves on to the metaphor of a living experience, one that embodies the contraposition of opposites: fire and water, creation and dissolution. The ocean is not merely a setting, rather it is a presence, it is a movement, it is a huge amount of space that regulates the nervous system, that gives perspective that no therapy room can give.
What really goes on in a Retreat
There are many connotations to the word retreat, some of them correct and many others incorrect. The reality is more substantial and more awesome than the popular imagination; there needs to be specificity on what transformative retreat work in Hawaii is actually like, so as to make it easier to see.
The first step in a well-designed retreat is to arrive: in reality, not in just location. The first day or two is spent on settling; learning how to slow down, to know where you are, what you’ve brought with you, and what you really want. Articulate facilitators provide a safe and purposeful space for people to go deeper than they’d been able to go before.
The middle days are the days upon which the bulk of the work is done. The Ceremony, Somatic Practice, Breathwork, Meditation, Sound Healing and Integration Circles establish a cadence of engagement and relief to ensure there is a proper balancing act with regards to depth and rest — the nervous system requires both to process authentic change. Medicines work with plants, when available, expands upon this process and when done with proper care and knowledge, can burn years of inner work down to days.
The final days are dedicated to integration — the work that often is taken for granted, and which is the first step in bringing what emerged in ceremony and/or meditation into one’s real life. It’s in the patient and loving attention to the process of creating meaning and developing the practices that will support the insights that emerge once participants board the plane home, that this is where the most lasting change occurs – and is where experienced facilitators earn their worth.
The Q.B.’s function is to attract people to the event.
The Q.B. is there to draw people to the event.
Who am I, really?—This is a question most likely asked by those who arrive at Maui Spiritual Retreats, whether in the spiritual terms they use or not. It’s the question we ask in our Maui Spiritual Retreats; the landscape + the intention combine to bring to you your truest self.
The islands make sitting with the question easier. The massiveness of the ocean. Age of the volcanic rock from which it was formed. The leisurely lifestyle that still exists in a few enclaves of the island in spite of all the trappings modernity has introduced. Everything makes it seem like the voice of everyday identity – the job title, the family identity, the sum of your experiences – is less secure.Everything makes it feel like the voice of everyday identity – the job title, the family role, the sum of your experiences – is less steady. In that giving way, there’s room for something that’s so much more real.
That’s no trifling matter. To many, it is what they’ve been looking for, but couldn’t quite put a name to it.
Together, we are on a sacred voyage through Hawaii’s healing landscapes.
Our mission at Sacred Voyages is to provide people with the opportunity to have an experience that is as deep as what they are really seeking — an experience, not a wellness tour, not an escape of luxury with spiritual jargon, but a real experience of transformative work in a sacred landscape, with a facilitator who has dedicated her or his life to this work.
With healers, ceremonial guides and wisdom keepers leading the way, we curate retreat experiences that are immersive and happen in the most powerful healing environments on Maui and Hawaii. Our retreats are small in nature, for, as with any transformation, intimacy is required and intimacy cannot be created at scale.
Each Sacred Voyages experience includes integration tools that help carry the medicine from the retreat with them as they return home and embark on their journey of integration. We know that the ceremony is not the end, it’s the beginning – and that the transformation that occurs in the weeks and months following a retreat is the real beginning.
You can come with your questions as a first-time visitor, or as a returning pilgrim to explore and discover more along already laid-out trails, Sacred Voyages will meet you where you are, and walk with you to what awaits on the other side.