The Olive Grove Retreat
May 3-10 & May 10-17 2027
On the Greek Island of Lesvos, the Muse is expecting you.
You’ll find her under your own olive tree.
From ancient times, the Olive Grove has been a half-wild, half-cultivated source of food and ritual, light and healing, poetry and song. As soon as you walk into this grove on the island of Lesvos, you’re in the presence of mythic & practical magic. That’s just the way it is.
This ancient land welcomes everyone to the source: Earth, Sea, the Stories of Trees. Our little grove, and the nearby village and sea, are ‘the retreat spaces.’ They are community-connected places of ease & authenticity.
If you would like to rejuvenate, connect with the Earth and your creative life, this adventure—& it is an adventure—is for you.
Join us for a one (or two) week retreat filled with creative transformations. And really great food.
The Olive Grove offers us Muse Time.
With guidance and a light touch, the trees (and Kaz, and our group circle) help each participant return to creative flow and earth wisdom. Greece has been famous for magical flow states for several thousand years. Mythic ritual is still alive here.
On the island, creative work isn’t a decorative option. Nor is it conceived as struggle. Rather, in the Greek ethos, it’s part of life. Play. Good medicine. As deep as the sea herself.
Connecting creativity to sensual pleasure is an ancient habit, even in modern-day Greece. We step into (and lie down in) that vibe for the duration of our retreat.
Who is this for?
writers, poets, artists, creative makers, from professionals to beginners to dreamers
women who want creative instruction and guidance for their current project: women who want to write/make art in their own (outdoor) olive tree studio
women who are ready to step into belonging, resonance, and mindful presence with other creative people and the Olive Grove
women who are interested in healing creative hurts and other wounds
women who feel stuck or disconnected from an earlier-life creativity, who wish to reconnect with their power again
women who are wish to tend their own and Earth’s shared states of overwhelm and weariness; we do this in a relaxed way through reciprocity, gift rituals, play & the sweet hospitality of Ellada: Greece herself.
women who want to cultivate a mythic (maybe witchy) connection to Land, to the Goddess or God in any form, to the Olive Tree Muses of the grove.
The island of Lesvos has inspired millenia of humans: painters, writers, philosophers & scientists from antiquity all the down to you and me.
Sappho The Eresian, the greatest lyric poet of the ancient world, was born in Eresos seven centuries before Christ—not far from where we meet in the Grove. She describes the beauty of Eresos in her poetry. We visit her local statue as we have our morning coffee in the square. Aristotle visited Eresos, and many of his most important scientific discoveries (he basically invented ‘biology’) took place not far from here, in the company of Theophrastus, philosopher, botanist, and one of the most famous nature writers of all time, who was also born in Eresos. The local grade school is named after him.
It’s wild how ‘alive’ this ancient history feels when you’re on the land. The olive trees will be in full spring flower. The company is a few like-minded humans . . . and thirty beautiful trees near the village of Eresos on the Aegean Sea.
I’ve designed The Olive Grove Retreat to nurture our brain-body-spirit—the whole being—in the midst of a place, under trees, with trees (and grasses and birds and . . .) that feed us with their very presence. And our local chef Yeremiah’s sumptuous cooking also really helps. The spectacular olive oil we eat every day comes from the trees around us.
Each day begins with a walk into the grove, to your chosen tree. Each participant has a table, a chair, and a place to lie down and muse.
When you walk up into the grove, where will you be?
Which olive tree is yours? Come and find out.
Group is limited to ten participants.
The Olive Grove Retreat Offers You
Light-handed professional guidance. A safe and inspiring container: our group circle and the olive grove. A cultivated sense of belonging.
Freedom from digital interruptions and control. (We do have digital device-free & device-mindful days.)
Expert daily instruction in holistic practices for deepening creative work and handling impediments, Brain-Body-Spirit: In daily master-classes, enter extraordinary inner spaces under the olive trees.
With expertise, empathy and humour, I teach nature mindfulness; trance & self-hypnosis; Observed and Experiential Integration, a unique form of somatic and nervous system healing that lets you work directly with your brain. We also consciously welcome and explore gentle and mindful movement and play every day. Each day includes illuminating embodied learning about how our brains are expanded, enriched and healed through nature and beauty.
Within the group, receive coaching/direct instruction on embracing your creative work AND your resources more fully.
Emotional support. While the retreat is not ‘therapy,’ work and play in the Grove is deeply healing. I’m also trauma-informed.
Transformative inner and outer discoveries of Greece and the Olive Grove.
Sacred reminders regarding myth, the body, and gift of creativity. Quiet. Starlight.
Organizational details
Transfers to and from Mytilene airport (the Odysseus Elytis Airport). Eresos is 1.5 hours away from the airport. We’ll pick you up and deliver you back when you leave.
Logistical support with your travel questions and plans.
Learning time takes place daily from 10:00 am to 1:30/2 pm (This includes our communal lunch hour).
Necessary, itinerary-related transportation by car or van to various places around Eresos and our day trips to Sigri and Molivos.
On Day One, guests are welcome to a complimentary dinner in the Grove or in Skala. A generous farm-to-table lunch (all locally sourced food) will be served daily in the Olive Grove. At Retreat’s end, you also receive a complimentart farewell dinner.
Aside from the welcome and farewell dinner and our extraordinary lunches, meal costs are participants’ responsibility. A low-cost breakfast is available at the hotel, payable at the end of your stay & there are many reasonably priced tavernas on the sea-side.
For Two Week participants, simple lunches in the Grove are provided, as well as a closing dinner (excluding orders of fancy fish & alcohol.)
The second week provides a less structured, more integrated creative time after the first week, offered at a significantly lower cost. Simple (non-catered) Olive Grove lunches are provided. Other meals are shared in cost.
NOTE: Your air-travel costs as well as your travel and health insurance are NOT covered by the amounts below. All participants must have health insurance for this trip.
Early Bird Price for one week, available until Nov 10, 2026
$4800 CAD
(approx $3600 USD)
The Early Bird Price can be secured with a $1000 CAN deposit.
Sea view rooms are available—first come, first served
Regular Price for one week, available after Nov 10, 2026
$5300 CAD
(approx $3800 USD)
Sea view rooms are available—first come, first served
For the full TWO WEEKS
+$2500 CAD
Early Bird 2-Week Total:
$7400 CAD ($5250 USD)
After Nov 10, 2026, 2-Week Total:
$7800 CAD ($5530 USD)
Love from our retreat participants
“Kaz introduced us to the most extraordinary place, practices, and practical magic in the family grove on Lesvos. I went two retreats in one year, one for creative rejuvenation (I needed it!) and one for writing craft. Kaz and Rob’s Olive Grove is one of the most beautiful, safe and unique places I’ve ever been in my life. My healing and my writing practice both accelerated . . . Thank you!”
Doley Henderson 
“I felt invited to unwind, let go and rest into the land, the Olive Grove and to swim in the Aegean Sea. Each day, Karen led us in gentle, deceptively simple exercises in self hypnosis and eye-to-brain self-connection work. These practices regulated and calmed me. They are part of the gift I brought back with me from Greece.
Karen is an excellent guide to the Grove, to Lesvos, to its history and people, and equally seems at home in Greek myths (which often came into our time together). She is at home with metaphor, to working with what interferes with our creative expression in the moment. I count my time on retreat with Karen as a pivotal part of my healing and creative journey.”
Somae Osler
With the help of the Olive Grove Muses, Cynthia Overcomes Writer’s Block
Cynthia was a recent participant (May 2026) and became the (loving) envy of the our retreat group: once unblocked, she wrote every day until she finished her book. It was an extraordinary thing to witness: a woman intent on connecting to her creative voice and power, with the Olive Grove supplying flow, rootedness and inspiration.
Would you like to have a Discovery Call to learn more about the retreat?
Reach out and I’ll get back to you within 24 hours.
– Kaz