CIRCLING BY THE SEA
Relating arts Retreats 2025
A week of Surrendered Leadership,
Embodiment and Nature Connection
in beautiful Norway.
August 4-10
August 25-31
With the Relating Arts retreats we invite you into an exploration of body and mind, moving towards effortless being and action in everyday life. The retreats are intimate experiences for max 13 participants and takes place in the beautiful archipelago of Southern Norway.
An invitation to grieve and celebrate life with us
Our lives are transitioning. After 12 years of partnership we have now moved apart and are slowly orienting our lives in new directions, but the depth, warmth and love between us is still very much there. Calling it friendship seems as unfitting as when we originally met and refused to call ourselves partners for years because the box somehow had the wrong shape for what we shared.
We have been talking about these retreats we have planned and if we should do them at all as our context has shifted so much. As we were talking about it today, what seems important is to welcome others into the transition we are going through and allow that to inform the work we will do during the retreats. It also means that the main themes present for us are:
Grief of endings and the joy of new beginnings.
Celebrating love.
Hope. Trust in life and the future.
This might seem a bit of a strange invitation. Mixing what is deeply personal to us with the practices and work that is most important to us. But that seems to be pretty consistent with who we are and how we want to be in the world. It also seems a more honest invitation, and – we imagine – one that can also touch something in most people, no matter where they are in life.
Peter Munthe-Kaas & Ronja Lofstad
June, 2025
Circling
Surrendered Leadership
Authentic Relating
Nature Connection
Tai Chi and Qigong
Body Therapy
Dates in 2025:
August 4-10
August 25-31
Programme
Each retreat starts off with a 2½ day immersion where we dive deeply into practice together and create a container for living from authenticity, presence and aliveness. The following days of the retreat we invite you to practice self leadership (with our support) into what is most important for you. We will facilitate morning and evening sessions to create a frame around these open explorations.
The unstructured time will also be a chance to enjoy what the local area has to offer: organized fishing trips, oyster safaris, island explorations, mushroom picking, expeditions to the local bronze age settlement, swimming, sun bathing, forest walks and bike trips to local, scenic villages are among the possible options.
While the main scheduled activities at the retreat are based on Authentic Relating, Circling and Surrendered Leadership, we will also weave in other practices such as sitting meditation, bodywork, embodiment practices and various aspects of relating to nature.
Relating Arts
Immersion
The retreat kicks of with a 2½ day immersion intended to bring us all into a solid frame for self-practice the rest of the week.
Surrendered
Leadership
Every day will start with a Surrendered Leadership session where we connect as a group.
Relating in and with nature
We are inspired by how our interpersonal relating can be influenced by the nature around us.
Embodiment
Practice
We will lead various embodiment practices inspired by elements from Tai Chi and Manuvision Body Therapy.
Explore the land and the ocean
Explore the archipelago of Southern Norway by land or sea. Visit the local forests or go island hopping by boat.
Locally sourced produce and seafood
We grow most of the produce ourselves in the garden and will go fishing to bring you seafood straight from the ocean.
SOME WORDS FROM OUR PARTICIPANTS
I found Peter and Ronja’s stewardship of the retreats I attended to be wonderfully empowering. Their gentle prompts and hints heightened my awareness and allowed me to see myself and others with much more clarity and love than I had been able to on my own. Really appreciated their presence. Would love to work with them again.
Oli
2024
The week in Norway was memorable and I always look back to it fondly. I cannot express enough how special this time was for me, meeting people at such a deep level and getting to know myself more intimately, feeling my own limits and edges around sharing connection with others while sharing daily meals and routines.
Filip
2024
I can’t talk about the retreat without mentioning the absolutely gorgeous location, at the bottom of a beautiful fjord, lending a energy of calm and a vacation feel to the immersion, accentuated by the spacious programme that allowed plenty of time to bask in the sun, paddle paddle board or row in the beautiful fjord, go fishing, hiking or take a trip to the nearby town.
Morten
2023
After being home for a while I realized that the retreat has changed a lot for me. I was a beginner and got so much support so that was no problem. The food, the place and the beauty of it all at so many levels, inner and outer, made it an amazing week! I am really deeply grateful.
Eva
2023
PRICING OPTIONS
We have various options for accommodation available depending on your budget and your need for comfort and privacy. All prices include a full vegetarian/pescetarian meal plan based on the vegetables of the season and the catches of the day.
Double Room
We have four double rooms spread out in the house and the adjacent building.
€1250/person
Dorm
Large and light dorm on the 1st floor of the house with 4 single beds.
€1050/person
Bring your own tent
Bring your own tent + sleeping gear and put it up anywhere in the garden.
€950/person
Sign up for the August 4-10 Retreat
Sign up for the August 25-31 Retreat
Venue
You are invited into the heart of Peter’s childhood for an all inclusive retreat, surrounded by nature and the sea. We will share three meals a day of healthy, delicious vegetarian/pescatarian food based on home grown vegetables, self caught fish and berries and mushrooms from the local forest.
We want to have the retreat at this venue to create an intimate, personal and most of all real setting for exploration of what it means to be human.
Kaasestua
MEET THE FACILITATORS
Peter Munthe-Kaas
