A Somatic Retreat for Women in the Redwoods of Mendocino: Witches in the Woods 2026
There is a moment, somewhere between the first exhale in the forest and the last song around the fire, when something in you remembers itself. That is what Witches in the Woods: A Somatic Awakening is designed for. Returning for its fourth year, this somatic retreat for women-identifying participants takes place October 21 through 25, 2026, at Spirit Camp Retreat Center in Mendocino, Northern California. It is not a vacation. It is not a workshop. It is a rite of passage, a creative incubator, and, as facilitators Kirin Power and Magalí Clazón describe it, a divine homecoming. If something in you is already leaning toward yes, you can learn more and reserve your place here, or explore the full Spirit Camp retreat calendar to see everything on offer.
What Is a Somatic Retreat, and Why Does It Matter for Women?
The word somatic comes from the Greek word for body. At its core, a somatic retreat is one that treats the body not as something to push through or perform with, but as a living archive of experience, sensation, wisdom, and memory. Somatic healing recognizes that the body holds what the mind sometimes cannot process through words alone. Tension carried for years, emotions stored in the hips and chest, a voice that has grown quieter over time — all of this lives in the body and can be met, moved, and released through body-based healing practices.
For women especially, this kind of work carries particular meaning. Many women have learned, over years of conditioning, to override their bodies' signals, to perform rather than feel, to produce rather than rest. A women's somatic healing retreat offers an alternative. It creates the conditions to slow down, to listen inward, to move from sensation rather than instruction, and to be witnessed in that process by a community of other women doing the same.
Witches in the Woods holds all of this. The programming weaves together yoga, somatic movement, creative expression, vocal activation, nature immersion, sharing circles, fire ceremonies, and song. Nothing is siloed. Everything builds on everything else. By the end of four days, the goal is not simply to have relaxed — it is to have strengthened your foundation, opened your voice, and deepened your devotion to the practice of living inside your own body.
Four Days of Somatic Awakening: What to Expect
This is a retreat for the witch, the alchemist, the intuitive one. For the priestess and the gatekeeper. For the creative midwife who is in the process of birthing new versions of herself. For the entrepreneur ready to embody feminine wisdom, the mother longing to return to her voice, the woman who has felt a quiet yes stirring in her bones and has not yet known where to direct it.
2026 is the year Kirin and Magalí have named the year of embodied legacy. This gathering asks: What are you cultivating? What are you passing forward? What does it mean to practice deeply enough that your practice becomes a gift to those around you?
Each day of this somatic awakening retreat moves through layers of the work. You can expect to refine your intuition through somatic movement and yoga, to engage in ritual and creative artistic expression, to activate and strengthen your voice through song and sharing circles, to be immersed in the Redwood forest and connected to the natural elements, and to restore your nervous system through presence, spaciousness, and rest. This is not a schedule built on productivity. It is a container built on devotion.
Photo of Deer Haven, one of the our many unique cabin spaces. This cabin has three beds. Cabins have between 1 to 8 beds each and provide several different sleeping arrangements for Somatic Retreat. All cabin spaces are included in women's retreat Mendocino.
Photo of Group Glamping Tents Setup in Sunset Meadow. We have 10 Glamping Structures that can be added with 1to 3 beds each. This can increase bed capacity of campus to 50 guests across 20 unique accommodation spaces.
Meet Your Guides: Kirin Power and Magalí Clazón
Kirin Power is a yoga and meditation teacher, holistic hypnotherapist, and self-described fellow witch with a deep reverence for the ecstatic and powerful elements of nature. Her teaching alchemizes yogic technologies, movement, music, mantra, and meditation into offerings that are as alive as they are grounding. Kirin's intention is that every woman who spends time with her leaves feeling held in self-love, empowered in authentic expression, and radiating at her own favorite frequency. Her students describe her as someone who plans for every detail while making everything feel organic and perfectly timed.
Magalí Clazón is a movement artist born in Argentina and the founder of Movimiento Creativo and Ocean Dance SF. She has spent fifteen years devoted to the learning and practice of somatics and movement, and since relocating to San Francisco in 2020, she has deepened her study of nature-based and shamanic practices to integrate mind-body work into the realms of spirit. Magalí runs women's circles, ceremonies with animal spirits, creative movement sessions, and one-on-one coaching in nature. She brings music into every experience, crafting curated playlists that reflect the natural rhythm of change. Together, Kirin and Magalí are, as one past participant put it, "DJs for emotions" — guiding women through a wide range of feeling with skill, care, and a deep well of love.
The Spirit Camp Difference: A Retreat Venue That Holds the Work
Spirit Camp is a former youth summer camp transformed into a boutique spiritual retreat center set within 27 acres of second-growth Redwood forest in Mendocino County, Northern California. The venue is co-owned by Nathaniel Reagan and Julian Cressman, a queer couple who have built an environment that is sober, body-positive, earth-based, and genuinely inclusive. Every retreat held here is all-inclusive, meaning your accommodation, meals, and programming are woven into a single, seamless experience.
The Sanctuary is perhaps the most beloved gathering space at Spirit Camp. Designed by the late architect Paul Tay, it features a copper roof, a central skylight, and 20-foot south-facing windows that flood the room with light year-round. It seats 20 to 25 in a circle and is a natural home for the kind of sharing, meditation, and ceremony that anchors a somatic healing retreat. On cool October evenings, the wood-burning stove keeps the space warm while rain taps gently on the copper roof overhead.
The Redwood Lodge — a 1,500-square-foot hall built from lumber harvested onsite — serves as the primary space for yoga, movement, and communal dining. Six skylights keep it bright even through coastal fog. A disco ball waits in the rafters for the moments when the work calls for dancing. The communal meals are plant-based, locally sourced, and designed to nourish an active schedule of inner work. Between sessions, participants find themselves in the Magic Meadow beside one of two fire pits, journaling in the Sanctuary, walking the private forest trail, or simply sitting among the Redwoods and letting the trees do what they do best — slow everything down.
A Nervous System Restoration Retreat North of San Francisco
Spirit Camp sits in Mendocino County, in the heart of Northern California's coastal Redwood belt. It is approximately three hours north of San Francisco and the Bay Area, and about two hours from Sonoma County. The Santa Rosa Airport is roughly two hours away. The camp is situated on a ridge line just ten minutes from the charming coastal village of Mendocino, with its galleries, cafes, and ocean views, while remaining fully sheltered within the forest.
October in Mendocino is a gift. The Redwoods shift into their autumn gold. The mornings carry a cool, crystalline stillness. Coastal mist moves through the trees in the early hours before the ridge-line sun burns it back. This is the landscape inside which your nervous system restoration retreat will take place — not a constructed spa environment, but a living, breathing forest that has been grounding humans for millennia.
If you are looking for a healing retreat north of the Bay Area that offers real depth without requiring a flight to Bali or Costa Rica, this is it. The Redwoods are three hours away. The work is ready when you are. See the full Spirit Camp retreat calendar here.
Frequently Asked Questions About Witches in the Woods
Who is this retreat designed for? This retreat is for women-identifying individuals 18 and older who resonate with archetypes like the witch, the priestess, the creative midwife, the intuitive one, or the woman who feels a quiet yes in her bones and is ready to follow it. Whether you are deeply rooted in your practice or just beginning to remember something, you are welcome here.
What is included in the retreat? Witches in the Woods is an all-inclusive retreat. Your registration covers programming, accommodations at Spirit Camp, and plant-based meals prepared fresh each day. A range of lodging options is available, from private cabins to shared rooms, with glamping potentially still available in late October depending on weather.
What should I bring to Spirit Camp in October? Mendocino evenings in late October are cool and can be misty. Pack warm layers, a rain jacket or windbreaker, a journal, a water bottle, and your yoga mat. Check the retreat's dedicated page for any specific requests from Kirin and Magalí ahead of your arrival.
Explore More: Things to Do Near Mendocino
Paddle the Big River Estuary by Canoe or Kayak
The Big River is California's longest undeveloped estuary, running through protected state park land just minutes from Spirit Camp. Catch-a-Canoe, located at the mouth of the river, offers handcrafted redwood outrigger canoes and kayaks for solo or group adventures. Because the lower eight miles of the river are tidal, the paddle with the incoming tide feels almost effortless — you simply drift upriver through old-growth forest as harbor seals, river otters, and Great Blue Herons observe you from the banks. It is a deeply restorative half-day that extends the grounding work of the retreat into the rhythm of moving water. Call ahead to time your launch with the tides, and consider reserving your canoe in advance during the busy fall season.
Walk the Mendocino Headlands Bluff Trail
The Mendocino Headlands Bluff Trail is a mostly level, 2.3-mile loop that winds around the dramatic coastal cliffs surrounding the historic village of Mendocino. At the west end of Main Street, the trail leads to a promontory above a spectacular natural blowhole where the ocean surges through a collapsed sea arch below. Further along, the trail passes tide pools, sea stacks, and views of Goat Island, a flat offshore rock teeming with seabirds. In October, the afternoon light on the Pacific is extraordinary. This is the kind of walk that clears the mind without requiring effort — the ocean does the work for you. Free to access, with street parking throughout the village.
Come Home to Your Body in the Redwood Forest
A somatic retreat is an act of remembering. Remembering that the body is not a problem to solve. That sensation is information. That rest is productive. That being witnessed in your full expression by a circle of women is one of the oldest and most powerful forms of healing available to us.
Witches in the Woods 2026 holds all of this, inside 27 acres of ancient Redwood forest, held by two of the most gifted facilitators currently working in the somatic and women's retreat space. October 21 through 25 in Mendocino, Northern California. Reserve your place here, and explore everything happening at Spirit Camp at https://www.spirit.camp/retreats.
TOPICS:
somatic retreat, somatic awakening retreat, women's somatic healing, body-based healing retreat, somatic movement and yoga, Northern California somatic retreat, nervous system restoration retreat, embodiment retreat for women, women's retreat Mendocino, somatic yoga retreat California, retreat for women North of San Francisco, healing retreat in the Redwoods
