Oxaca City Writing Retreat | February 2027
Healing Current Invites you to come and join us in the colorful, vibrant, city of Oaxaca, Mexico to allow your creative energies to awaken, come alive, and take flight!
Who would gain from the Women’s retreat? Essayists, memoirists, and writers working in any true form. Those who desire to go deeper within and answer the call to write their voice into the world.
We will immerse ourselves to have our stories come alive in this ancient, colonial city as our backdrop.
The creative space will be a time to reflect, renew, rekindle our connection within. Your imagination is key, that is why we have chosen to build the sacred, creative space in the pulsating, ancient, yet modern energies of the Central Valley of Mexico. There will be city sounds that will enliven us then we will take excursions into nature that will help us to integrate the soulful threads of life.
Away from our day-to-day routines we will be able to give space and freedom for our inner muse to awaken! To come out and play! Dance! Sing! Ultimately to write. Our week together in community is an opportunity to recognize that within our hearts that pounding, knocking on our heart’s wall is the writer’s voice patiently waiting to be released and expressed into the world.
This retreat is about loving you! And what you have been born to share with others through your creative writing expression, in whatever form, short story, poems, novel, non-fiction. Your writing is uniquely you! Someone, somewhere, next door, around the world is waiting for your creativity to appear in their lives. The ultimate gift of writing is the impact you can have on a complete stranger’s life.
Join Us!
To register
What Will We Do?
Each day we will gather and awaken with gentle group stretch, breakfast, and a mindfulness practice to dive, deeper within to uncover, and rediscover the inner writer that is awaiting to be expressed, your voice through writing matters.
We will reflect, do you have a story to tell, but haven’t gotten around to it, or wrote some notes and tucked them away? Maybe there is a completed manuscript ready to dust off and send out into the world. A writer’s world is intimate, personal, closely lived in their heart from inception to completion. The story follows us, sometimes haunts us, with tugs at the heart, “are you listening? I am yours; I am real. I am valid to share.”
Seasoned writer and facilitator Jackie Reason will present topics about how to get your words onto paper.
Retreat Highlights
In addition to deepening our writing and mindfulness practices daily , we will explore Oaxaca City.
Oaxaca is a city rich in culture, known for its indigenous heritage, and world-famous culinary cuisine. A taste of what you will experience will be:
Day 1: Travel day, airport pick-up. Participants will fly into Oaxaca’s small but international airport. The airport code when looking for flights is OAX. Stop at store for personal snacks and hard/soft beverages on trip home. Light dinner provided at host home.
Day 2: Breakfast at host family. Experience the local indigenous mercado and lunch in Tlacolula. Opening fiesta with Valentine theme and introduction to program in Teotitlan del Valle. Meet and mingle with other participants.
Day 3: Morning activities include: morning stretch, breakfast, mindfulness practice, and writing discourse.
Excursion: Hierve el Aqua, a geological wonder of mineral springs and petrified waterfalls. Bring your swimsuit! You will have the opportunity to sit in the crystal-clear mineral pools. We will have lunch at one of the on-site comedors.
Website for Hierve El Aqua: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierve_el_Agua
Day 4: Morning activities include morning stretch, breakfast, mindfulness practice, writing discourse.
Excursion: We will explore the historic city of Oaxaca, visiting Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzman Monastery and the Botanical Garden located in the historic center. The Oaxaca Zocalo (Plaza de la Constitucion) is a lively area with street musicians, artesian vendors all surrounded by unique boutiques. We will walk to the various bustling Mercados. The smells, noises, cobble stone, streets, vivid murals will naturally open your heart.
Information on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oaxaca.
Information on Santo Domingo Monastery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_Domingo,_Oaxaca
Day 5: Morning activities include morning stretch, breakfast, mindfulness practice, writing discourse.
Excursion: We will step back in time when we visit Teotitlan del Valle, an ancient indigenous Zapotec pueblo that is located about 18 miles east of Oaxaca City, situated at the foothills of Sierra Juarez mountains. The name Teotitlan del Valle comes from the Nahuatl language, meaning “land of the gods”. The pueblo is known for its century’s old tradition of hand-woven wool rugs and tapestries which are created on foot pedal operated looms. The weavers use raw wool and local dyes.
Not to be missed in Teotitlan del Valle we will visit the Iglesia Preciosa Sangre de Cristo, a colonial church that was erected over ancient Zapotec temple ruins. We will learn about the archaeological aspects of the ruins touring the museum, then spend some time at the artisan market.
There we will enjoy food at the famous local Restaurante Tlamanali, founded February 1990, by the internationally acclaimed Zapotec master chef Abigail Mendoza Ruiz and her sisters. The humble restaurant, with its open-air kitchen was featured on Anthony Bourdains’s Parts Unknown travel series. Restaurante Tlamanalli specializes in pre-Hispanic cuisine.
Information about Teotitlan del Valle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotitl%C3%A1n_del_Valle
Also, we will visit El Rey de Matatlan Mezcaleria and taste many types of mezcal. Dinner in Tule.
Information on Tule Tree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81rbol_del_Tule
Day 6: Morning activities include morning stretch, breakfast, mindfulness practice, writing discourse.
Excursion: An exceptional experience will be our visit to artisans of black pottery in San Bartolo Coyotepec, workshop of alebrije makers in San Martin Ticajete, and backstrap weavers in Santo Tomas Jalieza. That evening dinner at Azucena Zapoteca restaurant.
Information about Dona Rosa and black pottery and about Jacobo Ojedas alebrijes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doña_Rosa, Jacobo Angeles Ojeda’s alebrijes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_Angeles
Day 7: Morning activities include morning stretch, breakfast, mindfulness practice, writing discourse.
Excursion: Visit Monte Alban, a major pre-Columbian, Zapotec archaeological site in the morning due to limited shade on the flattened mountain top where The UNESCO World Heritage site is located. Afternoon free to shop for final souvenirs and to write a closing reflection. Closing dinner at Casa Oaxaca.
Information about Monte Alban: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Alb%C3%A1n
Day 8: Program ends. Transportation to airport.
Program Costs
Price: $1000/person [Based on double occupancy Room]
*For a private room add an additional $150 to your total registration fees
Price includes:
Housing accommodations for 8 days and 7 nights, including daily breakfasts.
Light dinner on evening of arrival Saturday at host family home, 02/13/207.
Opening fiesta/dinner on Sunday, 02/14/207.
Closing dinner on Friday, 02/19/2027
English-speaking tour guide(s).
All ground transportation (including airport pick up and drop off).
Entry fees to all program sites that require them.
To Register: