NOSTOS RETREAT

4-DAY WOMEN’S VIGIL
8 women only.

22–25 OCTOBER 2026
Upper Wilsons Creek, NSW.

NOSTOS retreat is a place of gathering, regeneration and integration.

NOSTOS is an Ancient Greek word that means return or homecoming.

This four-day vigil is a collection of old ways: ceremony, story, rest, ritual and nourishment. It is a place of slow and down, of placing our ear to the dirt. A moment to pause and receive deeply, and to account for moments that went unbeheld or were not properly marked.

It supports the beginning of the third and final stage of initiation: the return. A stage that belongs to the community as much as to the woman herself.

For a woman to be a living expression of her authenticity, she needs three things.

An intact essence, home in her body.

Sufficient energy to sustain life, depth and hold guardianship.

A knowing of where and what she belongs to.

NOSTOS is four days within the third and final stage of a rite of passage

Listen to NOSTOS podcast

NOSTOS is a place where

old ceremony

and ritual, origin story, deep rest, silence, nourishment and being held by other women mark the chapters in a woman's life where significant experiences left her changed.

These can be the more commonly known thresholds, such as birth, marriage, and menarche, or life’s trials including addiction, miscarriage, divorce, war, abuse or the death of a child, to name a few.

All of these thresholds are considered an ending of sorts, a line in the sand between before and after. A ‘never the same again’ experience. A micro death within life.

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Across cultures, for thousands of years, people have marked these moments through ritual. The change is witnessed, and the woman is received back. A gift in hand, belonging among her people, and something greater than her own story to protect and care for.

We still cross these thresholds. We just do it less consciously, and usually without a map or tools.

Even the well-known ones, menarche, birth and death, are often rushed past: under-tended, unrecognised, no community return.

So the change can go unbeheld. A little shell-shocked, not knowing what really happened, or why, or perhaps even how. She simply moves on as best she can, with little sense of what wisdom she now holds, where she belongs or what she is now guarding.
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NOSTOS is a beholding on the other side of life's thresholds.
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When integration and return are partial or unfinished, we can feel suspended in our lives. Restless, agitated, urgent, and vigilant. Depression can more easily cloak us.

It presents in different ways, but much of it is survival strategies that take up much of our life energy. The world dims, and we’re unamazed and emptied of vitality, joy and passion.

Vital essence depletes, and potency and power diminish.

Integration and completion begin within our bodies, psyche and spirit.

The return begins in the presence of grandmothers, mothers and elders. It happens in community, with old ceremony and story, and being fed, held and witnessed.

We instinctively know this. It is the same with grief, a natural part of the return: what's lost, gone or changed is deeply understood and accepted, and our inner world rearranges.

Many unbeheld experiences are too big to carry alone, which is part of why the essence steps out. They can be initiatory if we are returned in a good way. We long for that holding, though for some, it may hold grief too.

When there have been painful encounters with other women, personal and ancestral, such care and intimacy is tender, and its own process. But an essential one. Women holding women restores the natural order within and without.

This is grandma medicine. Grandmothers and elders have lived it. They have crossed the thresholds and are initiated by Life. Equal parts benevolence and terror, they will speak the truths you need to hear, and then feed you and hold you.

At the centre of the vigil is an old origin story, told in full and listened to together.


Everything else gathers around it: deep rest, silence and stillness, a traditional temazcal, a ceremonially held time on the mountain, a traditional closing of the bones, and a 5Rhythms dance to bring it all together.

These are the central pillars. Much of what happens is left to the mystery, and spaciousness is created for this purpose.

Through this kind of unhurried tending, a woman can become receptive again, her Spirit and uprightness strengthened from within.

She remembers from the inside out, her energy returns, and she moves naturally into courageous conversation with land and life.

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What you receive

the core of things…

❶ 4 days / 3 nights glamping accommodation in Upper Wilsons Creek, Northern New South Wales.

All meals, snacks, broths and tea. Deeply nourishing food, with the whole menu based on restoring Jin, Qi and Shen (Essence, Energy and Spirit)

❷ Personalised herbs by naturopath Talita Amaru.

A personalised concoction of herbs, tailored to your energy and capacity, mailed to you before the retreat.

Bodywork throughout the four days.

❸ All ceremonies and practices across the four days.

One-on-one work with Amber in the group as it arises.

A community call before and after the retreat. Community support held for a time after.

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INVESTMENT

Pay in Full
$4,900 (exc. GST)

Payment Plan
3 or 6 Month Payment Plans available with a 10% fee added to the cost.

Everything is included
All food, all accommodation, and everything you receive.

Through meeting and being met by women, find a generative place within the larger story and arc of Life.

YOUR guidance

Amber has more than 15 years of experience facilitating Rites of Passage immersions and retreats. A holder of grief thresholds and carer of women and Life.

Some of the more official qualifications held include Ancestral Healing (Ancestral Medicine, Daniel Foor); Initiation and Ritual; Death Walker Training (Zenith Virago); Process-Oriented Facilitation (David Bedrick); Somatic Therapy; and a Bachelor of Medical Science, with mentorship and experience in Gestalt Therapy, Attachment and Development and is currently studying Holistic Psychotherapy under Lee Tree.

Support Team

  • Virginie Marley

    Carer of Grief and Death

  • Michelle Palasia

    Birthkeeper and Grandmother

  • Adya Cadden

    Mentor in Mysteries and Shamanic Designs for Women’s Health

  • Avalon Darcy

    Ceremonialist, Rites of Passage, Threshold Tender & Closing of the Bones Practitioner

  • Lauren Aurthur

    Closing of the Bones & Threshold Tender

  • Lesley Powell

    Birthkeeper, Sobada & Mayan Abdominal Massage & Closing of the Bones Practitiioner

  • Tash Boyd

    Mother & Nourisher

  • Jade Krause

    Space Holder & Sound Weaver

  • Sarah Cannard

    Breathwork Facilitator and Body Worker

  • Jess Smith

    Physiotherapist & Intuive Healer

  • Honor Morningstar

    5Rhythms Teacher + Embodiment Facilitator.

  • Asher Packman

    Mythopoetic Storyteller & Writer

  • Talita Amaru

    Herbalist & Naturopath

If you would like to attend the NOSTOS retreat, apply below or send questions to hello@amberhawken.com.  After you apply, we will email you to organise a time to connect with me before confirming attendance.

This call is an opportunity to ask questions and clarify, and is not intended as an interview.

Please ensure you listen to this audio before emailing us.

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