Awaken Your Medicine
5-day Shamanic Retreat
with Michael Hoffman
Awaken Your Spiritual Gift
Live Your Purpose
Align your Spiritual Gift & Career
What is your medicine?
Native and Shamanic Cultures often refer to the spiritual gift that they offer their people as their medicine.
Medicine or spiritual gifts are a combination of your natural innate gifts and your life experiences. But what is yours?
Your innate gifts might include your unique expression of intuition, empathy, healing, or vision.
Medicine that can be derived from life experiences includes overcoming and healing adversity such as trauma, oppression, and loss. It also includes wisdom and skills developed through spiritual practices and experiences, career, and child raising.
Shamanic ceremony opens the door to directly experience your medicine so you can offer it to your people.
Shamanic ceremony opens the door to your inner world and the spiritual dimensions where your medicine and spiritual gifts lie. Once you experience your gifts you begin to naturally understand how to unlock and develop them.
It is vital to understand that your medicine is already inside you, so you do not need to create or manufacture it. It may be in a somewhat dormant state, but once you bring the light of awareness to it, it awakens and becomes accessible.
Then it is a matter of unlocking and developing your medicine. This is a different type of learning than going to school or college. It is more intuitive than intellectual and works best through experience and getting a feel for it.
In this spiritual retreat, you will experience your medicine for yourself by participating in an overnight Vision Quest, Medicine Wheel, Healing Circle, Shamanic Journey, and Sweat Lodge.
The cornerstone of a deep shamanic practice is establishing a collaborative and joyful relationship with Spirit.
The essence of shamanism is having a direct relationship with Spirit. Whether you refer to it as Source, God, the universe, or guides, what matters is that you enjoy a relationship with it.
Spirit has a sense of humor. Have you noticed? Your relationship with Spirit naturally brings you richness and joy. It makes you laugh out loud and shows you that you're never alone.
It all starts with seeing yourself as Spirit's equal. Many of us in a Judeo-Christian culture were conditioned to put God above us. This may linger today as a tendency to put yourself below Spirit.
In reality, you and Spirit are equal members of a collaborative team with different roles to play. With you as its partner, Spirit can touch people and the world in ways it could not otherwise.
Spirit needs you to effect change and make a difference.
So in this retreat...
You will awaken your medicine, receive your vision, and initiate your Medicine.
What good is it if it doesn't plant corn? This is what my teacher would say when he would see me have a spiritual experience but not translate it into making a difference in the lives of my people.
I suppose it depends on what your intention is. It is perfectly valid to practice spirituality to liberate yourself And this may even be an important first step.
But the natural inclination is then to share what you learned so others can be free and connected and joyful.
In native aboriginal culture, the intention of ceremony and spirituality was always based in bringing value to your people. If you received a vision or medicine it was always oriented to offering guidance, healing, and abundance to your people.
So what's your medicine? What's your gift to your people? I'm sure you've sensed there is something important you came here to do. Let's figure out what it is and get it working. Together.
What if Spirit is looking for a way to awaken the medicine you are meant to offer your people right now?
This retreat just provides the conditions for it to happen.
Neal Creek Cermonial Grounds
Awaken Your Medicine
5-day Shamanic Retreat
with Michael Hoffman
This spiritual retreat utilizes shamanic ceremony and tradition to guide you to directly experience your medicine and integrate it into your daily life.
What do you want to awaken in your life?
I’ve invested the last 35 years working in the trenches with spiritually-minded people to develop a spiritual retreat that guides you through the steps to make a complete transition in your life. It's designed for...
- People who are 'over it' and ready to change an aspect of their life, but have not been able to find an effective-enough approach to pull it off.
- People who have been on an active spiritual journey and feel like they have something to offer other people, but have not been able to quite identify it or find the confidence to offer it to other people.
- People who have not been able to offer a sense of purpose in a meaningful way that sustains financial livelihood.
- People who continue to struggle to bring the well-being and connection they experience in their spiritual practice into their relationships- ESPECIALLY their significant-other relationship. There is nothing more painful than experiencing loneliness in a relationship.
- People who are not finding a deep, meaningful significant-other relationship, but are rather dating emotionally unavailable people or people who want to relate on a superficial level. And...
- People who experience a transcendent flow-state when practicing yoga or meditation only to bump up against a meaningless, soul-killing job, relationship, or daily grind.
The Result Is...
A guided, easy-to-follow "Awaken Your Medicine" 5-day Shamanic Retreat that gives you a crystal clear roadmap for bringing the sense of well-being, openness, and purpose of your spiritual nature into your relationships, work, and daily life.
RETREAT SETTING, CAMPING & DINING
Neal Creek Ceremonial Grounds
Neal Creek Ceremonial Grounds is on the banks of Bilyeu Creek and forest lands of the western slopes of the Cascade mountains.
We will be the only group of people that is on these grounds during this retreat. This offers us a sacred space and total privacy to do deep spiritual work.
Chad Butler and his family have been living on this land for many years. Chad believes that the energy of ceremony will help the land to heal. He has been concerned with the irresponsible logging that has recently happened on the land.
Chad organized the Northwest Didgefest (previously called Indiginus) for the past 26 years on the neighboring land. The land carries the energy of hundreds of digeridoo musicians who gathered there to play and celebrate the music of the didgeridoo including Australian aboriginal elders such as Louis Burns.
We will build our Sweat Lodge and Medicine Wheel right on the banks of the creek. We will also camp, break bread, and sit in sharing circles right on the ceremonial grounds so virtually everything we do will be done in the spirit of ceremony.
Our lodging will be in the form of tent camping right on the ceremonial grounds. So you will be able to drift off to sleep listening to the sound of the creek. Please bring your own camping equipment including a tent, sleeping bag, flashlight lantern, and comfortable sleeping pad.
We will also be doing part of our Vision Quest Ceremony in our tents, so if you are sharing a tent, bring an additional tent for the night so you can have your own space for Vision Quest. Please let Michael know if you need to borrow camping equipment.
Our meals will be prepared in a fully electric outdoor kitchen. Fresh fruit, yogurt, oatmeal, granola, etc. will be served for breakfast. Lunch and dinner will feature hot meals for vegan, gluten-free, and meat diets. Coffee and tea will be provided throughout the day.
Each of you will be asked to volunteer for kitchen duty for several meals to create a spiritual practice of service and community.
Neal Creek Ceremonial Grounds are located 1 1/2 hours by car from the Portland International Airport and 1 hour and 20 minutes from the Eugene Airport.
MEET YOUR RETREAT FACILITATOR...
Michael Hoffman
I have been facilitating ceremonies and spiritual retreats for participants to directly experience their essential nature and spiritual purpose for 35 years.
When I'm not playing the didgeridoo, exploring the Pacific Northwest, or interpreting dreams, I'm facilitating coaching sessions and spiritual retreats for people to awaken their spiritual nature and purpose in their lives.
I do this by personally guiding and supporting one person at a time to directly integrate their truth and purpose into their relationships, work, and everyday life.
I created "Awaken Your Medicine" 5-day Shamanistic Retreat by combining Native American ceremony, sharing circles, and supportive community into a guided, experience-it-for-yourself approach to awaken your medicine and understand how to offer it to your people.
So join me for five days of ceremony in the beautiful mountain forest lands of western Oregon to experience spiritual awakening, purpose, and community.
THE ITINERARY...
Day 1: Call Forth Your Medicine
Arrival and check-in will happen between 3 and 5 pm on Wednesday, July 17. We will be sitting around the fire in Sharing Circle most of the evening. Bring any questions about the retreat. Here are the events for our first evening together:
- 3 to 5 pm: Arrival and check-in
- 5:30 pm: Dinner is served.
- 6:30 pm: Awakening the Fire and Sharing Circle: What's in your heart? Smudging blesses and awakens us for ceremony. We awaken the sacred fire by inviting Spirit and the energy of the Earth to dance with us. Sharing circles involve sharing your heart and receiving guidance. We pass a talking stick around the fire. This sharing circle invites you to share what's in your heart including what you've been experiencing and what you're hoping to awaken in retreat.
- 7 pm: Sharing Circle: Sharing Circle: The Blessing that You Offer the People. We all came here for a reason. You have powerful medicine within you. Your medicine can be seen as a blessing that you offer your people. It is your personal blessing that is unique to you. We will also look at the things that may prevent us from claiming and offering our medicine.
- 9 pm: Awakening Ceremony: Calling Forth Your Medicine. Our medicine often lies dormant inside of us. This ceremony intentionally calls it forth so we can awaken it, access it, and dance with it.
Day 2: Awaken Your Medicine
In the mornings coffee and tea are available around 6 am. The day will offer several ways to directly experience your medicine culminating with going into an overnight Vision Quest.
Today's events are as follows:
- 7 to 8:30 am: Breakfast Buffet is open.
- 9 am: Guided Shamanic Journey: Awakening your Medicine. This guided shamanic journey guides you to awaken your medicine for your new life. It will take you to your sacred space. From here spirit guides or ancestors will show you things and introduce you to your medicine.
- 10 am: Sharing Circle: Your Relationship with Spirit. The essence of shamanism is having a direct relationship with Spirit. Many of us were conditioned to put ourselves below Spirit. This circle allows you to experience your personal truth of you and Spirit being equal members of a collaborative team with different roles to play.
- 12 to 1:30 pm: Lunch Break
- 12:30 pm: Lunch is served
- 1:30 pm: Stone People Gathering Ceremony and Building the Medicine Wheel. Part of our Sweat Lodge tradition involves doing a Stone People Gathering Ceremony to honor the Stone People before and as we gather the rocks that we will use for our Medicine Wheel and Sweat Lodge. We will then build the Medicine Wheel according to our shamanic tradition.
- 3:30 pm: Medicine Wheel Ceremony. Bringing consciousness and intentionality to the Medicine Wheel or wheel of life allows you to effectively navigate the developmental phases of the various changes, cycles, and aspects of your life.
- 5 to 7 pm: Dinner Break.
- 5:30 pm: Dinner is served.
- 7 pm: Prayer Wheel Ceremony: Elements of your Medicine. The Prayer Wheel is a powerful ceremony where you can identify and claim the internal elements of your Medicine such as trust, strength, discernment, and clarity.
- 9 pm: Entering Vision Quest Sequester Ceremony. We will call in the spirits and energies for the Vision Quest ceremony and place each of the participants in their Vision Quest sequester. Energy, prayers, and drumming will be offered for you to receive your vision for the people throughout the night.
Day 3: Seek Your Vision
Much of the day will revolve around Vision Quest. We will come out of our sequester and complete the vision quest ceremony in the morning and then enjoy some personal time to rest and integrate your vision.
An afternoon sharing circle will allow you to share and understand your Vision Quest ceremonies. Then we can offer the energy of our newly discovered medicine in two evening healing ceremonies.
Today's events are as follows:
- Before 10 am: Vision Quest continues in Sequester. As the sun begins to rise, it provides new energy to pray hard to receive your vision.
- 10:00 am: Come out of Sequester and Completion of Vision Quest Ceremony. Fresh fruit is served as we make our way back to the Medicine Wheel to complete the Vision Quest Ceremony.
- 11:30 am to 3:00 pm: Free time. Nap, shower, hike, relax, sit by the creek, or go into town.
- 12:30 pm: Lunch is served
- 3 pm: Vision Quest Sharing Circle. It is traditional to share and offer your medicine to your people. Sometimes visions come in the form of symbolism like a dream does. This circle will help you understand your vision and how it applies to your medicine and your life.
- 5 to 7 pm: Dinner Break.
- 5:30 pm: Dinner is served.
- 7 pm: Healing Circle for the People. A healing circle is a ceremony that we do sitting in a circle combining our healing energies and focusing them on someone who needs healing. If you or someone you know could benefit from our healing energies, please let Michael know when you get to retreat.
- 8:30 pm: Healing Circle for the Land. Chad, the owner of the land, was drawn to us doing ceremonies on his land to heal and reawaken the spirit of the land. He agreed to have us offer a healing ceremony for the land.
Day 4: Initiate Your Medicine
The focus for today is to initiate your vision from Vision Quest and the past few days. The primary initiation ceremony will be offering our prayers or intentions in Sweat Lodge.
Much of the day will focus on building the lodge and the various ceremonies and traditions that go along with that. The whole day has a feeling of community and common purpose. Here is a listing of today's events:
- 7 to 8:30 am: Breakfast Buffet is open.
- 9 am: Drum Ceremony: Sounding the Energy of your Heart. We will follow this with a Drum Ceremony which is a place where express the thunder of our medicine. We share our voices as a community and have our hearts beat as one.
- 10:30 am: Build Sweat Lodge. We will work with the willow that we gathered yesterday morning and begin to actually build our sweat lodge. We also prepare the space for a sweat lodge fire and an altar in front of the lodge. Building the lodge is embued with rich tradition and building the lodge together serves to bring us together for a common purpose.
- 12 to 1:30 pm: Lunch Break.
- 12:30 pm: Lunch is served.
- 1:30 pm: Build and Light Sweat Lodge Fire. This is a beautiful and touching ceremony where we put our intention and prayers into the "stone people" and light the Sweat Lodge fire which awakens the ceremony.
- 3 pm: Sharing Circle: Crafting an Intention to Walk with your Medicine. Drawing from all the things you learned and experienced about your medicine, this Sharing Circle focuses on creating a clear intention to walk with your medicine and offer it to your people.
- 5 to 7 pm: Dinner Break.
- 5:30 pm: Dinner is served.
- 7:00 pm Sweat Lodge: Initiating Your New Way of Being. Offering your intention in Sweat Lodge initiates your new way of being. Enacting it in the Dreamtime ensures it will take form in your life. This rite of passage marks the moment that your old life ends and a new life begins.
- 9:00 pm: Sharing, Stories, and Smores by the Fire. Celebrating the ceremony and work we have done.
Day 5: Integrate Your Medicine
On our final day of retreat, we will integrate the visions, insights, and awakenings we experienced throughout the retreat. While there is a tendency to start thinking about leaving the retreat, it is essential to stay present to complete the retreat.
Here is a listing of today's events:
- 7 to 8:30 am: Breakfast Buffet is open.
- 9 am: Heart Rattle Ceremony: Feeling the energy of your Medicine. The Rattle Ceremony is a place where you can express the subtle feelings of your heart non-verbally.
- 10:30 am: Sharing Circle: Integrating your new way of being into your life. A spiritual practice allows you to experience the sensation and feeling of the element that you are integrating on a regular basis so it can provide orientation for your life. By tuning into the sensation of the element on a regular basis, you can recognize it in the context of your daily life.
- 12:00 pm: Closing Ceremony: Prayer of compassion for yourself. We close our week of ceremony by offering a prayer of compassion for yourself. We complete the ceremony by breaking down the Sacred Pipe and closing the energy portal of the Medicine Wheel. We then deconstruct the Sweat Lodge and Medicine Wheel and ensure that we return the ceremonial grounds to the condition they were before did ceremony.
- 12:30 pm: Lunch is served. Final Breaking of bread together.
- 1 pm: Retreat is complete.
Word on the Street
“Michael Hoffman’s “Metamorphosis” retreat helped me to understand that anything I want is possible. I now understand that my beliefs about my world, who I am, and what I am capable of have been limiting my life.
My future depends on me and me alone. All I need do is open myself up to possibilities. If I agree that anything is possible then I give myself permission to try and that makes it possible. Knowing that all is possible frees me to recognize when a door opens.
Previously I would have said to myself; “that isn’t possible, it’s my imagination;” or some such thing. Once I recognize that the door is ajar, I have the choice of walking through it or closing it (but at least I have acknowledged that it is open to me).
Mike not only helped me understand what actions were limiting me. I now have a plan and tools I can work with to help me break my cycle of limiting behavior and find support to help me make my dreams reality.”
Midge Geston
"AWAKEN YOUR MEDICINE" 5-Day Shamanic Retreat
3 monthly pymts. of $150
INCLUDES:
Register for Retreat"AWAKEN YOUR MEDICINE" 5-Day Shamanic Retreat
One-time Payment of $450
INCLUDES:
Register for RetreatStill Undecided?
You’re ready to directly experience your spiritual nature during this retreat if...
1. You’ve never done a shamanic ceremony or spiritual retreat before and you're wondering if it's for you. You want to make sure you will be guided and supported and that you get powerful results.
2. You’ve done shamanic ceremonies and/or spiritual retreats before, and you want to go deeper. This seems similar but a little different than what you have done before, but this really resonates with you.
3. You already KNOW some of your spiritual gifts and may already offer them to people: Sure, you are open to some guidance as you go through the Awaken Your Medicine Shamanic Retreat... but for the most part, you just want to experience your medicine for yourself.
4. You have no problem investing the time and money as long as you know that every bit of energy you invest is a powerful and effective step forward to understanding and offering your spiritual gifts.
5. In fact, you’re ALREADY investing lots of time and energy doing things like reading relationship books, doing yoga, meditating, and doing spiritual online courses.
Only problem is, without directly experiencing your unique medicine, you lack the understanding and confidence to feel good about offering it to other people.
6. You want something that works: You have tried spiritual workshops before. You paid your money, invested the effort (and worst of all, got hopeful), only to land back in the same confusing and unfulfilling place.
You want a program that actually results in offering your spiritual gifts to other people so that it makes a noticeable difference in their lives.
7. You can envision all the things you have always wanted that will open up once you integrate your spiritual nature into your life. You can just feel the closeness in your relationship, the life purpose in your work, and the pure enjoyment and richness of everyday life. You’ve always known it was possible.
8. You’re excited to try the Awaken Your Medicine Shamanic Retreat. Even if you’ve been side-tracked and let down before, you’re currently feeling a wave of renewed optimism.
If you caught yourself nodding your head to at least 5 of the 8 points above, then I absolutely CANNOT wait to meet you in the A Journey into the Dreamtime Retreat.
"AWAKEN YOUR MEDICINE" 5-Day Shamanic Retreat
3 monthly pymts. of $150
INCLUDES:
Register for Retreat"AWAKEN YOUR MEDICINE" 5-Day Shamanic Retreat
One-time Payment of $450
INCLUDES:
Register for RetreatStill have questions about the retreat? Perhaps with your specific situation?
If you have questions or would like to discuss your specific situation with me (Michael Hoffman), you can call me at 541-639-6246 or schedule a free retreat consultation with me via the button below.
