Callanish Lunar Standstill Retreat
Isle of Lewis
7pm Friday 21 March - 12 noon Monday 24 March 2025
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The Callanish retreat is set for the time of the maximum efffect looking south, just after Spring equinox and as a part of the It is Written in the Stones course which I started running on 21 June 2024. The course was guided by a series of coincidences that saw me receiving a text a couple of days after my birthday last April to meet in the standing stones car park, Machrie Moor on Arran with a group of people who had set up the past, present and future project. I am a great believer in the unexpected being very much a guiding director for the story of unfolding life. Well, I learnt that the stones, who I had been listening to all of my life would be guiding me on the third of the story practitioner courses that I would run. It was only whilst researching the mateiral for East and the recumbent stones of Aberdeenshire, that I realised I had tapped into the time of the lunar standstill which runs for approximately 18 months every 18.6 years. This window had coincidentally opened the day I had started the course: 21 June 2024.
I have been tracking story and the craft of the visionary operator all of my life, watching the weavings of dreams that come through and the everyday storylines as they show up. This has taken me through writing, filmmaking, art, shamanic theatre and shamanic teaching, working with children outdoors and indoors, research, counselling, earth ensemble constellation and theatre development and generally supporting the development of a community that works to listen to the story of the earth and all of its beings and work out how we are truly to play within it all.
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The standing stones and the leylines have always been there in it. I toured my children around the country to visit these sites all through their childhoods. It was the beings of Maes Howe who first brought me to Scotland. The scene in Stig of the Dump where Barney and Lou travel back through time at Stonehenge is the most vivid scene in my childhood story listening memory. What the ancients and whoever they were working with were up to has been my fascination, because in some way, the part of me that is eternally looking for balance, peace and deeper meaning in a modern civilisation that has lost its way, I know that there is an opening in these places that leads to the places I have been taken to in the visionary openings and meeting with planes of beings. We are multidimensional beings and there is a whole wider theatre that alignments of all kinds through land, sun, moon and stars are weaving with all of the time. When we operate with them we can change frequencies.
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This is what happened when I travelled over to Lewis to visit Callanish 1 for the stones course in September. The ferries were practically fully booked but there were two openings that meant that I could only go there and back in a small window. This turned out to be exactly the time of the new moon in Virgo. I got a cancellation on AirBnB last minute, 10 minutes from the stones. As soon as I drove onto the island I could feel pulsations. They didn't stop and I was awoken in the night by one of the most supernatural events I have ever experienced. I know for certain why the stones are equated with giants and that the giants are not what they look like in story books.
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Everyone is different the way that they pick up on energies and perceive dimensional shifts. It is also different for me each time I visit sites, never mind the alignment at the time. I don't know what we will uncover, or what will uncover us, but I do know I need to go there with others and create space for the visionary operator and writer within to come through. I have a course written that will give space for creative exploration as well as plenty of time to connect with the stones and the island.
Timewise, there here are many different alignments for the lunar standstill period. With a full moon the maximum south viewing was the Solstice full moon June 2024. Looking north those standstills have been 24 September for the maximum at the quarter phase and December 15th for the full moon maximum north.
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The one we are heading over for is the maximum south alignment early morning on 22 March 2025. It follows a lunar eclipse. The sun is in Aries and the moon is in the sign of Sagittarius at this time. The days that follow have a Capricorn moon.
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I have booked accommodation and workshop space for twelve people.
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It is a writing and filming retreat (I will be making a short film of the event too). You will need to book your ferry and there will be meals and snacks included but you will have self catering facilities too. If you are bringing a car please indicate as I will need to organise car shares for those not driving.
The cost of the workshop including accommodation for single room is £600 and for a shared room (two sharing) is £525 or for couples sharing the double bed for a single room £500. A non-returnable £175 deposit is payable on booking. All payments need to be paid in full by 14 February 2025.
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​Contact wholenesstemplate@gmail.com to book a space or visit the shop page.
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(Please be open to room share if the single rooms go - if you are a couple these are double beds so indicate this on booking)​​​
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