The Creative Medicine Path

01/23/2026

✨ Medicine Doll Ceremony and Workshop ✨

Registration is now open for my next Medicine Doll Ceremony on Sunday, March 1, 2026 from 10am to 5pm at .

This is a full day workshop for women to enter into sacred relationship with the art of doll making as ritual. Through guided, intuitive, hands on practice, you will craft a personalized Medicine Doll using the ancient technique of needle felting with wool, cloth, and natural adornments. Each doll becomes a vessel of story, intention, and ancestral connection, shaped slowly through presence and care.

No experience is necessary and all materials are provided. This gathering is open to 20 women.

Our gathering coincides with the total lunar eclipse, a symbolic time of release and renewal, making our day together a powerful threshold for our dolls to emerge.

The workshop is offered at a reduced rate of $85, supported in part by the 2025 StART Grant from the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona.

A limited number of need based scholarships are available, including support reserved for BIPOC participants, LGBTQIA+ participants, and wise elders 65+ on a fixed income. These are intended for those who would not otherwise be able to attend.

More details and registration through the link in my bio!

01/07/2026

✨ SOLD OUT ✨

I’m beyond grateful to share that the Sonoran Soulfire Retreat is full.

Today, twenty-four women step into the wild embrace of Aravaipa Canyon.

Each one said yes in her own way.
Yes to making space.
Yes to showing up for herself.
Yes to slowing down in a world that rarely invites it.
Yes to creativity, reflection, and being held in community as we cross into a new year together.

What we’re stepping into is ancient and alive. Each woman brings her own medicine, lived experience, culture, and wisdom into the constellation we’re forming.

May we all receive the nourishment our minds, bodies, and spirits need to keep our inner fire burning bright.

Thank you to each woman who felt the call and answered it. We’ll see you on the other side.

Ritual WomensCeremony WomenSupportingWomen Art Wellness Retreats Yoga Sedona RitualArts Creativity

01/05/2026

01/05/2026

We are thrilled to welcome Jess (.club) as one of our retreat photographers for Sonoran Soulfire! ✨

Jess is a mother, photographer, and a community builder devoted to supporting women & families throughout all seasons of life. Her work is rooted in nourishment, warmth, and the belief that every person deserves to feel beautiful, seen, accepted, and radiant exactly as they are.

Through her photography, Jess aims to capture moments without performance or pressure. Her lens is guided by reverence rather than perfection. She aims to encourage women to relish in all the portals of transformation found in life, honoring each season with compassion and acceptance.

With over 1,400 hours of formal yoga education gathered across India, Australia, Cambodia, and the United States, including her first training in Rishikesh, India, all of her work is grounded in intuition, attunement, and care. While she will not be teaching yoga on retreat, this foundation shapes the way she sees, listens, and holds space through her photography.

Jess also reads tarot, which she loves to use as a reflective and intuitive tool for insight, storytelling, and self inquiry. She approaches tarot as an invitation to listen inward, name what is present, and reconnect with the inner wisdom that lives within each of us.

At the Sonoran Soulfire Retreat, Jess (who will be 33 weeks pregnant!) will be thoughtfully documenting the experience so the magic, connection, and transformation can live on long after the retreat ends. Her presence is intentional and supportive, allowing participants to fully inhabit the moment while she quietly captures it. ❤️✨

Thank you, Jess!

01/03/2026

Starting 2026 with new growth and opportunity ✨

I’m honored to be teaching at this year’s 13th Annual Spirit Weavers Gathering, a five-day ancestral craft and ceremony gathering for 800 women held on the sacred Cedar Bloom Farm in Cave Junction, Oregon.

I was fortunate to attend in 2024 and truly felt what it means to live inside a village shaped by reverence, wisdom, song, and shared care. I left deeply inspired, with a clear knowing that my own humble offering, the Sonoran Soulfire Retreat, is needed in the world and that I am resourced to shepherd it.

I’ll be offering Needle-Felted Medicine Dolls as a two-part skillshare during the Moon Session, June 18–22, held at an accessible community scale of $40–$50. Registration for the gathering opens January 17 (my birthday!) and is available on a sliding scale of $525–$775 for camping, with two meals provided each day. If you’re a woman feeling called to a space like this, I’m always happy to share about my experience.

I’ll be spending some time in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California this summer, and if the stars align, possibly Canada, South America, and Europe.

May opportunities and connections like this continue to unfold in the year ahead. 🙏

12/20/2025

Sweet Medicine Spirit is a licensed massage therapist, mother, circle facilitator, and Plant Medicine practitioner. She weaves over two decades of somatic wisdom into her devoted healing arts practice. Specializing in trauma-informed massage therapy with an emphasis on nervous system regulation, she integrates into each session modalities of Ashiatsu, Thai massage, sound meditation, hot stones, cupping, Gua sha, and Chakra Reiki energy wisdom. Her trauma-informed approach invites the body to remember its innate harmony, supporting the body’s natural rhythm of regulation and wholeness.

In her full-time practice as owner and operator of Health Through Awareness, Spirit has over 248,000 hands-on sessions under her belt since her 2001 graduation from the Desert Institute of the Healing Arts 1000-hour program in Tucson, AZ. Her continued education is rooted in trauma-informed care and nervous system regulation.

Spirit will guide a somatic journey of release to help us soften the stories held with in our nervous system. From a grounded space, this embodied practice prepares us to receive a guided nurturing self-soothing massage, awakening the currents of creation within. The journey completes in a sound meditation of crystal and Tibetan sound bowls, rain stick, ocean drum, and koshi chimes, where vibration will weave restoration, peace, and wholeness through every cell.

There’s still time to join us!
Sonoran Soulfire Retreat
January 7-11, 2026
Aravaipa Canyon Ranch

For the low cost of $849, you will never find another all-inclusive 5-day retreat centered around women’s ceremony, ritual and creative embodiment.

Come ignite your inner fire with us and start your new year off renewed ❤️‍🔥

12/13/2025

Calling photographers ✨
The Sonoran Soulfire Retreat is seeking a photographer for a work-trade opportunity to join our team for our gathering January 7-11 in Aravaipa Canyon.

We’re looking for a women’s retreat photographer who can capture the raw beauty, intimacy, and soulful moments of a ceremonial women’s retreat with care, consent, and deep respect for sacred processes.

This role is ideal for someone drawn to conscious photography, retreat photography, and documentary-style storytelling rooted in presence and natural light.

You’ll receive the full retreat experience, behind-the-scenes access, and the opportunity to collaborate with a team committed to creativity, healing and community.

The application is open now until December 28th.

Apply via the link in the bio!

Sonoran Soulfire Retreat
January 7–11, 2026 • Aravaipa Canyon, Arizona

12/03/2025

✨ Five Reasons Why the Sonoran Soulfire Retreat is Truly One of a Kind ✨
January 7–11, 2026 | Aravaipa Canyon, AZ

If you’re longing for a retreat that is intentional, restorative, and creatively awakening, here are five reasons why this gathering is unlike any other:

1. Accessible Pricing
A five-day, all-inclusive retreat for $849, covering lodging, meals, creative materials, workshops, ceremony, and movement. This is more affordable than a five-night hotel stay, and intentionally priced so cost isn’t a barrier.

2. A Rich Weaving of Experiences
Oil anointing, clay work, a private portrait session, voice activation, fire ceremony, meditative movement, somatic practices, and so much more.

2. Unwind in Nature
Aravaipa’s wild beauty holds you in a way technology never can. This magical sanctuary invites you to soften into prescinde and return to your natural rhythm.

4. Nourishing Ayurvedic Meals
Warm, grounding, winter-season meals crafted to support digestion, vitality, and the inner flame that guides us through the desert nights.

5. A Circle Rooted in Sisterhood
This is a small, intentional group. Authentic connection, safety, and depth are at the heart of everything we do.

If you’re craving a slower beginning to the year, a space to reconnect with yourself, or a community of women walking with intention… we would be honored to welcome you into the circle.

Registration link in bio. ❤️‍🔥

11/25/2025

We are so excited to welcome Melissa Schwindenhammer to guide our journey with clay at the Sonoran Soulfire Retreat. Melissa is an artist, mother, and longtime teacher who has called Tucson home for nearly four decades.

With more than 21 years of teaching art, she believes creativity is something we all carry inside, waiting to be revealed. Her approach invites us to slow down, embrace the unexpected, and trust the quiet wisdom of our hands.

Rooted in play, reflection, and discovery, Melissa draws deep inspiration from the Tucson desert, often gathering local clay directly from the land itself. Her art weaves together reflection, community, and the sacred act of creation.

At the Sonoran Soulfire Retreat, she will guide us through a reflective ceramics journey that reconnects us with the earth and the stories that live within it, followed by a pit firing that becomes its own quiet ceremony of transformation.

Come ignite your creative fire with us ❤️‍🔥

Sonoran Soulfire Retreat
January 7–11, 2026
Aravaipa Canyon Ranch, AZ
$849 all inclusive
Registration link in bio!

11/19/2025

Thinking back to this sweet little offering I guided for these young beauty makers in Santa Fe this year 🌺

I had the honor of leading an Earth Altar workshop for 20 incredible girls ages 6–14 at a Soul Skills Summer Girls Camp. The girls had been learning the Native story of “Jumping Mouse” and turning it into a play. It is a beautiful tale full of teachings about courage, sacrifice, and transformation through the wisdom of the Medicine Wheel and animal spirits.

We grounded in a circle and spoke about earth altars across cultures, how they honor, connect, and express gratitude through the Earth’s gifts. Nearly every girl already knew what an altar was and shared about their own at home (bless those Santa Fean parents!). Using flowers, seeds, leaves, and handmade animal cards by Meagan Chandler, each girl created her own unique altar.

A deep focus and intuitive crafting quickly took over, and as they worked they began singing the animal songs from their play. It was pure magic! They were also read a passage from the Celtic fairytale Gwinna, and the whole yurt was alive with imagination and ancient wisdom. We closed by sharing and witnessing the girls’ creations, and hearing about the symbolism and meaning they wove into each piece was stunning.

The altar building practice was adapted from its typical place in nature, where the altars would eventually return to the earth, to a paper base the girls could take home. This way, they could share their mandalas with their families and watch them slowly transform over time.

This experience was deeply nourishing and reminded me how accessible and powerful this practice is for all ages. I am so grateful to keep walking this path and to have shared it with such bright, open hearts.

A very special thank you to and for inviting me to share this practice. 🧡🐭🌺

11/15/2025

✨ Join us tomorrow for our Sonoran Soulfire Info Session ✨

We’re gathering in a live virtual circle to meet the facilitators, hear what this retreat holds, and feel into how this sacred journey can kindle your inner fire ❤️‍🔥

Sonoran Soulfire Info Session
Sunday, November 16
10am–11am MST on Zoom

If you join the call and feel the spark to register afterward, you’ll receive a $50 welcome gift toward your retreat tuition. 🙏

A recording will be available for those who cannot attend live.

Link in bio to RSVP and receive the Zoom details.

We can’t wait to gather with you and begin weaving the energy of this circle.

The photos in this post are moments from our last meeting altar—a glimpse of the intentions, beauty, and shared medicine that are already shaping this supportive creative sanctuary for the women who feel called to join us.