Waking Up The Witch
Tending, listening, and belonging.
A three-day retreat remembering the old ways of tending, listening, and belonging.
There is a kind of witchcraft that does not announce itself —
the kind that rises slowly from the land you walk,
the kitchen where you stir herbs into a pot,
the memory you carry in your bones,,
the quiet knowing that has been with you for years.
Waking Up the Witch is a small, intimate retreat (maximum 3 people) for those who feel that tug.
Not toward performance or aesthetics — but toward place-based, lived, everyday magic: ritual, craft, companionship, and remembering how to listen.
This retreat is for those who want to come home to themselves
through the land, the hearth, the body, and the old ways of tending life.
If you're longing to be rooted and claimed by place and to deepen your relationship with the more than human and unseen worlds. If you seek the profound, the mystical, and the otherworldly.
We are laying a place at our table for you.
What We Do Together
Kitchen & Hedgerow Magic
Simple, practical making: teas, infusions, salves, offerings, kitchen rituals, herbcraft, and seasonal plant work.
Bone Memory & Listening
Gentle practices that help you listen deeply — through the body, breath, stillness, and the land. Explorations at the thresholds of intuition, magic and mystery.
Ceremony & Rituals
Fire gatherings, moonlit offerings, altar making, blessings and ritual as part of ordinary life.
Walking the Woods
Slow time among the trees, listening for their teachings, gathering small treasures, learning the ways of attention.
Rest & Nourishment
Sauna, organic, foraged, homegrown and delicious food, quiet pockets of solitude, the freedom to wander, dream, write, or simply be still.
Story, Conversation & Companionship
Circle time around the hearth, honest speaking, unhurried listening, remembering together.
Nothing is forced. Everything is invitational. The pace follows the land, not the clock.
Who This Retreat Is For
Those who feel ready to slow down and reconnect with their intuition– curious about simple ritual and place-based magic. Drawn to craft, herbs, the woods, and the unseen– longing for companionship with others– needing deep rest and space to grieve and lay down sorrows– longing to feel rooted and in relationship with the world around them
You do not need experience.
Just a quiet yes inside you.
Practicalities
Length: 3 days
Where: The House at the Edge of the Woods, South Downs
Group size: Retreats can be solo or for a maximum of 3 people
Includes: all meals, accommodation, materials, saunas, guided sessions both in the house and the woods.
Retreat Venue & Accommodation
The House at the Edge of the Woods is a beautiful, welcoming cottage set within the South Downs National Park, where the nights are dark and the stars still visible. It is a place shaped by quiet, care, and long attention.
The surrounding food forest garden is rich with life: over sixty fruit and nut trees, alongside berries, vegetables, cultivated fungi, and a wide range of edible and medicinal herbs. Much of what grows here finds its way into the kitchen and onto the table.
The wood-fired sauna is heated using wood gathered from the surrounding woodland and chopped by Emma and her coppicing companions — part of the everyday rhythm of tending and reciprocity that shapes life here.
A ten-minute walk down the lane and across the fields leads into eleven acres of ancient woodland, lovingly stewarded by Emma and a small community of coppicers, craftspeople, and tree lovers. The woodland is not a backdrop, but a living presence within the retreat: a place for walking, resting, listening, and being met by something older and slower than ourselves.
This home, shaped by seasons, ritual, and slow living, is a companion in the work — it softens, holds, and reveals.
Food and Nourishment
Meals are homemade, organic, and often home grown or foraged — broths, herbs, slow stews, fresh bread, garden greens. The kitchen is at the heart of all our retreats: full of fermenting jars, dried herbs and kitchen witchery.
Where you will sleep
Accommodation is shared across two beautiful room within The House at the Edge of the Woods:
One double room
One king room, available to a single person or a couple
Getting here
We warmly encourage participants to travel by public transport where possible.
The nearest train station is Petersfield, with direct services from London and the south coast. The exact location and directions are shared once your booking is confirmed.
We are happy to arrange a lift to and from Petersfield station, so your arrival and departure feel unhurried and well held.
Please Note
I live with two small, non-shedding hypoallergenic dogs. They are very sweet, loving and mostly well-behaved. If you have a strong allergy to dogs then please let me know. There may be the possibility for them to go elsewhere for a few days.
The Exchange — Bespoke Retreats
These retreats are held in a small, intentional container. With a maximum of three participants, the work is shaped slowly and with close attention — allowing for rest, conversation, ritual, good food, and time held gently by place.
The exchange for a three-day bespoke retreat is £800 per person.
A Note on Accessibility
I keep a portion of my time available for those whose hearts are full but whose pockets are currently empty. If you are in a time of genuine hardship, please do not let cost be the reason you don’t reach out. We will find a way that honours us both.
You can read more about my Financial Policy here.
A Note on the Word “Witch”
Here, witch means: Someone in relationship with land, intuition, ancestors, beauty, and the unseen threads that bind a life.Someone who remembers — or wants to remember — their way of tending the world.
Nothing to perform. Nothing to get right. Just a gentle return.