Online course
Medicine woman: a journey to your centre.
Next start date: 12th June 2023
REGISTRATION OPEN
© Mara Friedman,
Listen she will teach you her ways
The archetype of the Medicine Woman is resonating with more and more women as we become aware of the deep desire to cultivate and strengthen her qualities and gifts within ourselves.
When we hear the words “Medicine Woman” something in us awakens, expands and vibrates within us. It is the memory in our bones, in the blood of our maternal ancestral line, that is present in all the world’s indigenous cultures, that’s now making an especially powerful resurgence.
Our ‘medicine’ is our power, a power which is based in nature and in our capacity to love. A Medicine Woman is a wise, awakened woman; a Shamana. A woman who remembers why she is here on Earth.
We are hearing the whispers of an inner voice that knows it’s time for the Medicine Woman to arise from deep within us. She walks with us on the path of expressing our full potential, helping us to find our own unique ways to honour and care for ourselves and each other with wisdom and love.
When we visualise the Medicine Woman like a light on the horizon, we are pulled towards her by the power of her wisdom. She symbolises a culmination of the pilgrimage, she represents all the qualities that guide us when we think we can’t go on. Her love beckons us with each step we take.
The Medicine Woman is a guide, a reference, an amulet, the light on our horizon. She enables us to trust in our own qualities and continue walking towards our full potential. She represents our deep calling to be ourselves.
This online course is a joint creation of Sophia Style and Gemma Polo: in it we have united our passion for the wisdom of the cycles, meditation and the spiritual path, and the healing power of nature.
We want to share with you everything that has helped us to remember and cultivate the archetype of the Medicine Woman in our lives, ranging from the spiritual practices that we’ve integrated on a personal level to the transformative dynamics that we’ve offered in our retreats and circles for over sixteen years.
If any of these sentences resonate with you, then perhaps the Medicine Woman is calling you.
At this moment in my life, I want to…
- Free myself from old patterns that are holding me back
- Live the intensity of my cycles and hormonal changes with more wisdom
- Explore more deeply the feminine archetypes and cyclical wisdom
- Learn how to care and give without exhausting myself
- Turn my sensitivity into my ally
- Offer my gifts in service to the Earth
- Open myself more to love and dare to be myself
- Celebrate life as a sacred journey
- Gather new resources and ideas for my work as a group facilitator and/or in my professional path
What will this journey be like?
We invite you to join us on this journey of reconnection to the Medicine Woman following the pathway of an ancient map which enables us to connect to the ancestral wisdom that permeated indigenous cultures in all continents, combined with our lived experience as women in the 21st century.
In this course we will dive deeply into the teachings of the Medicine Wheel from a uniquely feminine perspective that springs from a deep listening to our cycles and our womb.
We will follow the pathway of a spiral as we awaken and develop the qualities and gifts of the Medicine Woman in us, based on inspirational texts and practical dynamics including rituals, meditations, visualisations, creative activities and bodywork.
The course program below is based on a model that we developed during our face-to-face retreats and workshops, and it will serve you as a map of the journey we will take, firstly going inwards and then returning outwards again.
Program
Week 1:
West. Fire Element. Waning Moon. The Shamana and the Power of the Wild Woman.
Week 2:
North. Water Element. Dark Moon. The Wise Woman and the Silence of the Crone.
Week 3:
East. Air Element. Waxing Moon. The Maiden and the Vitality of the Renewed Woman.
Week 4:
South. Earth Element. Full Moon. The Mother and the Generosity of the Abundant Woman.
Travelling around the Medicine Wheel in this order is a profoundly healing and liberating experience for women.
In the centre of this circle we find the Medicine Woman who has integrated and matured the qualities of each archetype through her life experience and has transformed herself into medicine, wisdom and light for the world.
What does this online course offer you?
You will receive a wide range of tools and resources including bodywork and spiritual practices, guided visualisations, rituals and sacred objects to create, along with other proposals which will help you to:
- Cultivate your connection to nature’s healing power, the four elements and power animals
- Go deeper into the wisdom of the archetypes and the experience of feminine spirituality
- Transform and heal inherited beliefs and burdens that you know you want to let go of
- Integrate an authentic daily practice that helps you to live life from your centre and with gratitude
- Take a leap forwards in your personal growth journey and release even more of your inner potential
- Open up to abundance, embrace your gifts and offer them to the world
- Deepen your connection with feminine wisdom and the four archetypes
- Enrich your skills if you are already facilitating circles and enable yourself to bring new dynamics to the groups you accompany.
The Medicine Woman reflects the full potential within each and every one of us, which we are gradually discovering, remembering and integrating into our lives.
Course structure, format and content delivery
Course structure
This course is designed to be followed as a 28-day journey. It’s structured in four modules, each one centered on one of the four archetypes. The course will be delivered progressively over a four week period, and you will receive inspiring texts, proposals and practical activities to connect you with the qualities and gifts of the Medicine Woman.
Access to your course content: online area, downloadable manuals and daily reminders
When you register, we’ll ask you to create an account with Mujer Cíclica (Cyclical Woman) so that you can access the course contents.
From your starting date, you will progressively receive the course contents, including multimedia resources, which can be read and worked with either from your online area, or as downloadable manual for each module.
This way, at the start of each new week you will have access to the whole module, divided into daily content, both in an online format and as a carefully designed downloadable manual. These can be printed so that you can follow the course without needing to be online and you can save them for reference in the future.
To make it easy for you to follow the rhythm of the program, we will also send you a reminder email every day with a direct link to the online area with contents and proposals for that day.
Once you’ve finished the course you will have access to the online area and all of the content at any time.
Private Facebook group
This course offers you the possibility of connecting with other women who are doing the course, by taking part in a private Facebook group available to all participants. The intention of this space is to remind you that you are part of a group of women that have also decided to make this journey of re-connecting to the qualities of the Medicine Woman. You can share whatever you feel like expressing with those women who are doing the course at the same time as you. There is no obligation to participate, of course.
Tools and resources
- 28 texts full of reflections, inspirations and practical proposals
- Access to 4 playlists of beautiful music, one to accompany each archetype
- 2 videos with guided bodywork practices
- 6 guided visualizations
- 4 downloadable manuals, one for each module, which contain all of the course content
- Access to all the contents of the course online via our online area
- Access to a private Facebook group
Rhythm and dedication
To take this course, we invite you to make a commitment to yourself: we suggest that you set aside a regular time each day to read the texts, prepare the materials you will need, and put into practice the proposals. This may vary between 15 and 45 mins, depending on the day’s activities.
If your working rhythm or other commitments mean you need to organise your time in a different way, you have the full contents at your disposal from when we send them to you at the start of each week.
It is important that you can create an intimate space where you can feel relaxed, safe and comfortable, from which you can carry out the daily activities and proposals of this course and which supports your intention to cultivate the gifts of the Medicine Woman, from a place of inner reflection and in connection with yourself.
It’s also important that you find a place in nature that you like (wherever feels right to you), in order to connect in a direct way to the elements, something that we will suggest often throughout the course.
Above all, we very much hope and trust that this course will help you to cultivate the habit of integrating moments of reflection, prayer and rest in your daily life, once you have completed this four week journey.
Technical requirements
To get the most out of this course you will need a computer, tablet or mobile with an internet connection and speaker. Access to a printer is also recommended.
About us
Sophia Style
I am an anthropologist, doula, writer and mother. I have been facilitating women’s circles in Spain and in the UK for over sixteen years, with the intention of connecting to the wisdom of the cycles and the feminine. I am the creator of the international project Mujer Cíclica (Cyclical Woman), and I accompany and train women through workshops and my online courses ‘Las Cuatro Lunas en Mi’ (The Four Moons within Me), ‘El Camino de la Facilitadora’ (The Facilitator’s Path) and ‘Medicine Woman’, co-created with Gemma Polo. I am passionate about sharing inspiration and resources related to women’s cycles, the archetypes and female rites of passage, and everything that has helped me on my own journey of healing and transformation.
Gemma Polo
Since 2002 I have been offering spiritual guidance and facilitating deep rest meditation retreats. Theologian, pilgrim, poet and mother, I’ve always felt most at home in nature. After spending time as a catholic nun and practicing Zen Buddhism, I lived in India for ten years, deepening my spiritual path and co-directing the international ‘Open Dharma Association’. Over the following ten years I created and managed ‘Dharmaloca’, a pioneering eco-retreat centre in Catalunya. Together with Sophia Style we have also created a training course to facilitate and guide rites of passages and rituals. My first book ‘There is Light and only Light’, published in 2020, is a collection of all that I’ve shared in dozens of retreats all over the world.
Prices
Our intention is to honour the different realities and needs we see among the network of women who want to grow and receive training in this area. So we have decided to offer this course in two modalities, with corresponding prices, depending on how you plan to use the contents of the course.
From a place of trust and transparency, we leave it in your hands to decide how you are going to use this course.
It’s very important to us that there is clarity about whether or not you have our permission to share the course contents with other women in your community (as a group facilitator or therapist), with the peace of mind that this gives us all.
Thank you for your honesty!
Registration open
Medicine Woman for your personal use
145€
If your intention is to take this journey for your own personal growth, this price includes access to all of the contents, materials and proposals of the online course exclusively for your own personal use.
Medicine Woman for facilitators
245€
If you have experience as a facilitator and, as well as your own inner journey, you intend to use this course in your group work or in your professional field, this price includes permission to share the resources you will receive.
More information
By choosing this option, you are committing firstly to integrating on a personal level the practices that you receive and also to treating the materials with the care and respect they deserve.
If you decide this modality is for you, then at the end of the course you’ll receive an additional module with guidelines and suggestions on how to incorporate the proposals into your work with groups as well as into your professional field, based on the premise that you already have experience in supporting and accompanying others in their personal and spiritual growth.
You will also receive a certificate of participation.
Individual support on your journey
If at any point in your journey you want to comment or work in more depth on any of the course proposals or contents, we offer you the possibility of receiving Gemma’s personal accompaniment through one or more 45 minute long online sessions.
As with most of her offerings, Gemma offers her guidance without any fixed price and even though ultimately it is totally up to you, the suggested donation is between 20 and 60 euros per session.
To find out more about this service and reserve a session, please contact Gemma Polo via email: gemma@mujerciclica.com
FAQs
If you have any doubts about whether this course is for you,
the following questions and answers may help you in your decision:
All this is very new to me. Can I still do this course?
If when you read about this course something resonates inside of you, and you feel the call to open yourself to new learnings and connect with yourself, then it is a good moment to take it! All the contents are written and created with the aim of being as clear and accessible as possible. We always try to explain concepts and words that perhaps aren’t so well known.
Can I use the contents in my circles and workshops?
As we explain in the section on the price of this course, we offer two modalities, and the facilitator option gives you the right to use and share the contents, tools and resources you receive (after having firstly integrated the practices in a personal level yourself).
With this option, you will also receive an additional module at the end of the course containing guidelines and suggestions for incorporating the proposals into your circles as well as into your professional field, and we will send you a certificate of participation.
Are the contents different for the two modalities, personal and facilitator?
The course content is the same for both modalities. ‘Medicine Woman – A Journey to your centre’ is based on the essence of integrating on a personal level all of the proposals and inspirations you’ll receive. Essentially the price difference reflects the way you will use the materials you are given.
Each proposal in the course has a detailed explanation on how to put this into practice, based on our experience of over 16 years of facilitating circles and retreats. You may incorporate all of these practices into your groups if you choose the facilitator option. To help you with this, when you finish the course we will send you an additional module with guidelines and tips for sharing the contents of ‘Medicine Woman’ within your circles and groups.
Do you offer scholarships or reduced fees for this course, if I can’t afford it?
If you feel strongly motivated to do this course online and the cost is a barrier due to your economic situation, we encourage you to explore different strategies, support and resources that could enable you to participate, or perhaps wait until the time is right. If you want to contact us about your situation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via email: contact@cyclicalwoman.com.
Can I still do this course if I don't live near nature?
One of the many beautiful qualities of the Medicine Woman lies in her intimate connection with nature and the elements, so this course contains many proposals around deepening your connection to the elements in a hands-on way. In this sense it’s essential that you have somewhere nearby where you feel at ease and connected to nature. If you live in a city this could be a balcony, a garden or a park.
What happens if my menstrual cycle does not coincide with the phase of the moon and the four archetypes that we will explore during this course?
One of the main intentions of this course is to explore the four archetypes, their qualities, strengths and shadows, and to feel them intimately woven into our own lives, and we do this above and beyond our menstrual cycle, recognising them as energies within us that we can access at different moments.
By exploring the archetypes using the Medicine Wheel, with the Medicine Woman at the centre, we strengthen our capacity to remember and honour the four phases of our cycle, to pay loving attention to them and to know how and when to return to our centre. Sometimes our hormonal changes are very intense and can take us away from our inner wisdom and the Medicine Woman is a guide back to a still and wise place inside.
Can I really become a Medicine Woman in four weeks?
It’s not our intention to put across the idea that if you do this course you will become a fully fledged “Medicine Woman” in 28 days! This course is designed to accompany you as you awaken to your own gifts and wisdom, as a path of connection to the Medicine Woman within you (and in all women), and offer you daily practices that support you on your life path.
This course was originally created in Spanish and has been translated into English by Kirsti Abernethy and Sophia Style.