SOUL VISION:
A Lions’ Gate & Visioning Retreat with Kundalini Yoga & Art Therapy
August 6-8, 2026
What to you want?
It’s the question I’ve asked every client for twenty-five years — and almost no one can answer it, and yet it is the question that governs what you choose to do throughout your entire life. Soul Vision is a retreat that helps you not only answer that question but also draw the blueprint (literally) for your next six months, years, or the rest of your life. Held during the auspicious Lion’s Gate weekend, you will answer this question through art therapy, Kundalini Yoga, connecting with the land and in the dynamic company of others doing the same.
August 6-8, 2026
Sometimes you need to step out of what you already know, so you can meet who you want to become.
Psychology looks back. This weekend looks forward.
I'll say this as someone who has staked a life on the field: psychology is built largely on the past. We go backward — into childhood, into the wound, into the long story of how we came to be the way we are. That work matters. And in our devotion to excavating what happened, we grew fluent in the language of injury and nearly mute in the language of desire.
We can map the shape of the cage in exquisite detail. We rarely practise imagining the door.
This retreat is the door.
It asks something harder of you than remembering — it asks you to imagine. Less a flight into fantasy, more the exercise of imagination as the muscle it is, gone slack from years of being called impractical. It means moving past the edge of what you already know, which is uncomfortable by design. And it means setting down a few things that feel safe mostly because they're familiar but they are no longer aligned. You know what I’m talking about.
Your mind thinks in pictures.
It’s time to create the vision of what you want.
The Practices
Clinical depth and creative freedom, held in one room.
Less about fitness, more about coming home to the body and clearing the channel so a vision can move through you.
Kundalini Yoga
The most direct route to what you want runs through the hand more than the to-do list. We think in pictures — so we paint the future before we name it. A real vision board you build by hand and carry home.
Art Therapy
The breath is the most faithful tool you own for changing how you feel. We use it to settle, to open, and to listen.
Breath & Nervous System
Sixty acres of forest, river, and sky doing half the work. Here, nature is a co-facilitator more than a backdrop — she holds our dreams and prayers, and she feeds us.
The Land
The food is part of the medicine. The art is the other food. Someone lovingly feeds you while you feed your dreams — seasonal, home-cooked, and yours to simply receive.
The Table
You do this in the company of others asking the same question, which changes everything. Instead of circling it alone at 2am, you're held in a room that wants you to find your answer.
Community
On the night of 8/8, an all-night gong bath at the peak of the portal. Sound as a doorway. (Optional.)
Sound & Gong
Retreat Schedule
Arrive Thursday at 4pm. Leave Saturday with a blueprint you can see.
Thursday — Arrival & the Opening Question · Aug 6
4:00 pm — Arrive, settle into your room, walk the land
5:30 pm — Opening circle — we begin with the question: what do you want?
7:00 pm — Nourishing dinner, prepared for you
8:30 pm — Evening Kundalini & breath — dropping out of the head, into the body
Friday — The Visioning Day · Aug 7
7:30 am — Morning Kundalini yoga & breathwork (optional)
9:00 am — Breakfast
10:00 am — Art therapy I — creating the road map, by hand
1:00 pm — Lunch, then open time on the trails and by the river
3:00 pm — Art therapy II — gathering the visions: six months, one year, five years
7:00 pm — Communal dinner, fire, and the easy company of others
Saturday — Sealing & Close · 8/8
7:30 am — Movement & meditation
9:00 am — Breakfast & final integration of your vision
10:00 am — Closing circle — what surfaced, and what you're carrying home
11:00 am — The weekend closes
Saturday Night: Lions Gate Portal (Optional)
Stay for the peak of the portal.
The old traditions kept this window — the sun in Leo, Sirius rising — as a doorway for intention and for calling the next thing toward you. On the night of 8/8, those who wish to stay on for an all-night gong bath: hours of sound washing through the body while your fresh-drawn vision settles into your bones. It's where the blueprint stops being paper and starts being yours.
What's Included
You bring the question. We hold everything else.
Two days of guided visioning — Art therapy, Kundalini yoga, breathwork, and creative inquiry, led by a psychotherapist and art therapist.
Art materials — A wide selection of materials are offered for your creative expression. You will be asked to bring images of special significance.
A room at the lodge — Pick your own accommodation.
Nourishing meals, prepared — someone feeds you while you make and rest. Seasonal, home-cooked, with teas and snacks in between.
60 acres to think in — forest trails, the Beaver River, the Bruce Trail, the sauna, two hours north of Toronto.
Optional Portal Night Gong bath — On August 8th there will be an all night gong bath at the lodge. More information here.
In transition: You feel the old chapter closing — an empty nest, a career plateau, a Tuesday certainty that there's more than this. The next one is still out of view. This is where it takes shape.
Building something. You're a business owner or maker who needs to see where you're going before you build it. The next move gets drawn here, where there's room to think.
A dreamer with real work in you. You carry ideas that matter and want a dependable practice for meeting your intuition and moving them from imagination into form.
Ready to answer. You've done the therapy. You know your patterns. The step left is to picture the future on purpose. You're ready.
Longing for company. You want a room of people building real things — honest, generous, each glad to be in the work together.
Come if you are:
Testimonials
Being on the land, in silence, and connecting with such wonderful humans helped me feel lighter — and see life and the world from a different perspective. There was something truly magical about the place and the experience as a whole.
— SEED Lodge retreat participant
Your Guide
I'm Esther — a psychotherapist, art therapist, and Kundalini yoga teacher with over twenty-five years in clinical practice spent asking people what they want.
I've learned that a vision only holds when the whole of you makes it. So we work on three fronts at once — the body, through Kundalini yoga and breath, the visioning mind (so you can picture what you actually want); and art, because we think in pictures, and making the image by hand is what moves it from idea into form. In these conditions when it’s safe enough to set down the performance and start imagining — and something real takes shape. This retreat is built from this.
Magic truly happens.
Choose your room.
Call it a soul check-in.
This retreat is the chance to ask yourself:
Am I aligned with my true self, walking my own path?
Where do I actually want to go — AND what does it look and feel like once I'm there?
Wouldn't it be wise to know your answer — so you can live your life on purpose?
FAQ — Before You Decide
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Yes — especially then. This is a visioning practice, and what you make stays yours, shared only when you choose. We think in pictures long before we call ourselves artists. The image work is closer to seeing than to performing. Experience optional, talent optional — willingness is the whole ask.
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Use it however you like. The Lion's Gate is a window the old traditions kept for intention and visioning — the sun in Leo, the star Sirius rising, peaking on 8/8. We honour the timing. And the work itself stays grounded: the science of mental imagery, the way the nervous system responds to a vividly pictured future, and art therapy as a visualization method. Treat the portal as poetry or as power — either way, the work holds.
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The core weekend closes Saturday at 11am. On the night of 8/8 — the peak of the portal — you can stay on for an all-night gong bath: hours of sound moving through the body while your new vision settles in. It's an optional add-on you choose when you register, and it includes an extra night in your room. [Confirm pricing and capacity.]
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The honest translation is usually: I'd love to feel I deserve the time. Here's the reframe — a couple of days getting clear on what you want saves you years of moving in a borrowed direction. Put it in your calendar, and your life begins to organize around it.
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Bring yourself, comfortable clothes, and a willingness to be a little uncomfortable. All art materials, meals, and your room are included. Rooms run $888 (semi-private), $1,333 (private), and $1,555 (ensuite) CAD, all eligible for psychotherapy insurance.
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