Storytelling, Myth and Magic Morocco Retreat 2020

ABOUT

Come and listen to some stories from older times.  

Open your ears to myths and tales 

from times long ago

that connect 

with a thread to your heart.

Find a more soulful way, and to find your own story.

This retreat is for storytellers and listeners, for the keepers of the tales, who want to write, tell or listen. We will look at the role of the storyteller in this modern world. We will invite you to craft the story of where you've been, what has happened, and where you are now. We will ask you bring out your personal myth or cosmological story. 

These stories are to keep to yourself, or share with the world. 

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Join writing coach Sarah Bullen and shaman Niall Campbell in Morocco in 2020 for a an adventure into the magical world of mythology.

I went to Morocco as a journalist in 2008 and wrote about its culture and people. A little part of it stayed with me and that little seed has grown into a tree. As you may know I am an international writing coach and work on stories and tradition. When I decided that this would be the most special place to really explore myth, storytelling and magic I knew there was only one person who could bring the magic. 

Niall Campbell is a shaman, a storyteller, a weaver of magic and a traditional nyanga (medicine man). Niall has over 25 years of apprenticeship with African teachers in ancestral and nature spirits, divination and medicinal herbalism. He facilitates rites of passage, coming into adulthood and manhood and is widely regarded as one of the foremost holders of traditional ways.  

I have been running international writing retreats and workshops for close to ten years now and this is the first one in Morocco. It has been ten years in the dreaming. 

WHERE? ?

We partner in this with Holidays with Heart at their award-winning, sustainably-run traditional Moroccan Guest House in Taroudant.  Located in the ancient walled market town of Taroudant in the fertile Souss Valley between two mountain ranges: the lofty High Atlas and the parched Anti-Atlas bordering the Sahara.  Away from the principal tourist trails, it is an ideal place to enjoy an attractive, genuinely Moroccan environment and to soak up the local culture and the sun. 

Travelers often stay on the periphery of societies they visit, but our staff take you straight to the heart of a Moroccan family home.  Besides, on one of our group holidays you get the chance to bond with other like-minded people. Our holistic approach to nurturing the whole person means you feed your spirit as well as your body.

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PRICE for 2020

 SINGLE ROOM   €2,500  * early bird €2,300 if paid in full by 31 August 2019

SHARING ROOM €1,900  * early bird €2,300 if paid in full by 31 August 2019

DEPOSIT €500  

WHAT IS INCLUDED?

* 7 nights/8 days Bed, Breakfast and Evening Meal

*  2 Excursions and 2 Cultural Experiences 

* A 5 hour walk (trek) in the High Atlas Mountains

* A practical cookery class

* A visit to the local steam bath (hamman),

* A guided tour around the town by horse-drawn taxi .

* Airport Transfers to and from Agadir . This is under an hour drive

* “Feast for the Senses” celebration on your last night.

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COSTS EXCLUDE

Cost of flights, travel insurance, VISAS, tips and lunches. 

NEXT STEP? ??

Please note we do require an application form. Download an application form here ???

Come and listen to some stories from older times. Tap into the myths and archetypes of this beautiful soulful land. 

Start writing. Start dreaming. 

Mythic stories serve a purpose, and, well told, they have a powerful effect. They take the listener first out of the humdrum, day to day rationale of existence. They entice by drawing us close to familiar scenarios, domestic, familial or humorous. Once caught, they take us slowly into the deep. Like Alice down the rabbit hole. They take us clinging to our now beloved hero, into worlds of utter insanity. Places where logic is contorted. Thought and reality are interchangeable, and space and time follow rules beyond our daily capacity.

Once in the depths of the realm of chaos, the story moulds and shapes us. We are now malleable, ductile, soft and vulnerable. Ready for the story to do its work. Our soul is bare and open, the thread of Ariadne the only thing that keeps us vaguely in touch with the upper day-to-day world.

The telling of these stories is a performance. Maybe not a drama or a play, but like a poem (which many of them are) it’s a rhythmic, repetitive chant. The teller seems to be elsewhere, to be not them self. Maybe taken over, inspired as the ancients say. Bringing forth a whole world, the narration becoming both a music, a dreamscape and a worship of the ancestral realm.

In Africa these are called Potent Stories or Stories with Power.

They change you, they draw you in so deep that you become a part of them. Then they stay with you, as if your deepest most ancient ancestral taproot has tapped a mystic water.

DIRECTIONS