EMERGENCE
A Waykeeping Retreat & Fireside Feast for Women at the Threshold
For women who are claiming the space between what has been and what has yet to become—and who know that this season is asking something of us beyond the familiar strategies of striving, solving, doing, or enduring.
December 6th, 2026
12:30 PM EST - 8:30 PM EST
The Barn at Windpointe
Freeport, Maine
This daylong immersion is not only a place to find comfort or support through uncertainty—though support you will find in abundance.
It’s also an invitation to reclaim the deeply embodied, even ecstatic authority that lives in not-knowing. To discover the power of taking our rightful place as protectors of the fertile, generative dark because we are part of the intelligence at work within it.
There are times when not-knowing is not a symptom of fear, and when not-acting is the most courageous—rewarding, nourishing, Life-giving—thing we can do.
To feel and follow the pull of the void is to heed a call both ancient and essential. It’s the call of the earth and its seasons. It’s the call of our bodies and their cycles. It’s the call of the womb, the deep sea, and imagination. And, of course, of Mystery.
Ancient wisdom traditions around the world teach this. Goddesses such as Inanna, Hecate, and Kali (among many others) remind us of the ego-death inherent to rebirth, as well as the raw, chaotic, fecund dark from which all potential arises.
That so many women are heeding this call right now—in our personal lives, our spiritual lives, in our businesses and careers—is significant. At a time when the extractive logic of late capitalism has brought both the earth and our bodies to the brink of exhaustion, our collective willingness to not only honor, but to embody and protect the void rather than rush to fill isn’t just radical; it’s necessary.
Together, we’re making space for emergence: the unfurling of Life in its most alive, sustainable—creative—expression.
EMERGENCE: A Waykeeping Retreat for Women at the Threshold
Join me and an intimate circle of women in a gorgeous, sun-drenched woodland setting on the coast of Maine for sacred sisterhood, deep reflection, guided visualization, movement, skilled teaching, and ceremony.
Our daylong retreat will culminate with a delectable fireside feast lovingly prepared from scratch with the finest local organic ingredients by farmer-chef Lucretia Woodruff.
During this nourishing and empowering retreat, we will…
• Deeply relax and soften, creating the embodied conditions for our creativity and wisdom to naturally rise.
• Explore the initiatory experience of dissolution and surrender, as well as the wonder awakened by grief.
• Reclaim and celebrate the fecundity of the fertile void and our ancient role as its keepers.
• Practice discerning when Life is asking us to act, and when it’s asking us to wait.
• Strengthen our trust in the intelligence of our bodies, and in the oracular and psychic senses that amplify when we surrender to the dark.
• Embody the rhythms of the living world, and the mysterious unfolding of what can’t be forced.
• Learn about archetypes and myths of the sacred feminine that safekeep the spiritual power of the threshold.
• Experience genuine soul-connection with other women and the medicine of women supporting and empowering each other.
Perhaps most importantly, we’ll remember that sovereignty is not autonomy, and true change cannot emerge when we pursue it alone.
In science, philosophy, and systems theory, emergence describes the mechanism of true change: what happens when an interconnected system displays completely new properties, behaviors, or patterns that its individual parts do not possess on their own.
Emergence is key to ecological—as opposed to extractive—consciousness, naming what the keepers of the sacred feminine have always known: that nature—Life itself—is a self-organizing, living system, not a collection of isolated resources.
Emergence reminds us that in order for a system of any kind to evolve into a higher order, it must first undergo a “phase transition”—a breakdown of the old structure. This liminal, chaotic state of “nothingness” is the fertile void, the earthly and cosmic gestational space where life is conceived in total darkness before it takes form.
Without this unmapped space, the system cannot reorganize; it simply repeats old patterns.
As we reclaim the threshold as a sacred season, we call out—explicitly and implicitly—a culture that devalues the void as a culture that insists on more of the same, no matter how “innovative” or “cutting-edge” that sameness purports to be.
As Waykeepers of the threshold, we are done with more of the same—in our own lives, in our communities and institutions, in society at large, in the ways we conceive of self, being, earth, history, place, purpose, power, and Life.
This is not passive work. It takes courage and discernment to recognize ourselves as participants in—and guardians of—the living intelligence of emergence itself; to relinquish the illusion of control and, in so doing, reclaim our pleasure and our power.
This is not a power we can practice, let alone amplify, alone. We need other women who can witness our uncertainty without rushing to resolve it, help us discern fear from wisdom, and remind us of what we know when the noise of the world grows loud.
Your Guide
Kirstin Hotelling Zona, PhD is a sought-after Certified Embodiment Coach, Spiritual Mentor, Transformational Facilitator, and the author of Modern Mystic (Substack). In all of her work, Kirstin blends spiritual wisdom and scholarly depth, drawing on her 25 years as a professor and poet, as well as her training in the ancient arts of the Sacred Feminine and the Isis-Magdelene-Rose Lineage.
Kirstin also teaches and speaks about women’s sexuality, desire, and pleasure, and is a “demo” model for OMGYes, the widely known online instructional platform co-hosted with the Kinsey Institute that explores and educates about female sexual pleasure. She mentors private clients, runs intimate group programs and trainings, and has hosted over 40 retreats and sacred pilgrimages in both the U.S. and abroad.
At once intuitive and intellectual, sensual and spiritual, she has helped thousands of students and clients embody their essence and realize their soul-aligned impact. Committed to evolving our collective consciousness through the reclamation of eros and the Divine Feminine, Kirstin loves dance, writing, the coast of Maine, her two grown kids, and connecting with other truth-seekers who yearn to feel fully alive.
Lucretia Woodruff is a mother, farmer and herbalist who loves to tend to her family, friends, and community. Whether it be through nourishing meals, herbal preparations or time spent outdoors in nature.
In the last few years she has been taking her love of cooking with local, seasonal food into preparing meals for retreats here in Maine and abroad.
Join me on December 6th, in Freeport, Maine, for EMERGENCE.
Space is limited to ensure an intimate and personalized experience for all.
Ticket includes a decadent farm-to-table dinner served fireside, a bespoke gift bag, and a lovingly curated immersion that will nourish your body, heart, mind, and soul.
Investment: $249
Have questions? Text Kirstin @ 309-829-3222