The Art of Unity

Holistic expressive & healing arts camping retreat

Ananda Unity and The Beehive Community are inviting you to The Art of Unity camping retreat in Kineta, in a beautiful place close to Athens right at the beach!

Are you searching for an opportunity:

to reconnect with the inner self-feeling bliss and integrity?
to enjoy the sense of being whole and one with nature?
to look deep inside and express yourself freely in a safe space?
to get into real touch with like-minded people, co-creating unity in community?

From the very beginning of humankind, we knew how to come close to each other and how to live in unity. It was the need for survival, as well as the wisdom of evolution that brought us together. So in this way, we created civilizations based on the simplicity of essential elements and kept this unity growing: the breath, the fire, the heartbeat, the importance of communication, and creativity.
The Art of Unity is a way to remember the above qualities.

How can we nourish our souls, hearts, minds and bodies together to make this world better?

Unfortunately, in today’s toxic society, we learn to survive through separation, antagonism, and division. This has become a big burden to our happiness and flourishing – as in this way- we can not thrive in a community.
Let’s explore together how through unity, we can have so much abundance and bliss!

Our great facilitators will bring the quality of unity in their unique way, co-creating a program which you will have never seen before.
We will experience relaxation, playfulness, togetherness, flow, inspiration, body activation, rejuvenation and the sense of community and freedom. We will also benefit from practices that allow us to care for ourselves and others, through authentic connection and what we call the Culture of Care.
Through meditation, mindful practices, Yoga sessions, Expressive Art Therapy, Contact Dance, Tao Practices, Improv Theatre, Cacao and Fire ceremony, and the tools of Effective Communication, we will explore the ways of Unity within our world, and how to perceive everything as One.

We are mirrors to each other!
Let’s surrender together to the embrace of the Uni-verse, to create a better version of our modern reality!

The wellness center Quantum Blossom is hosting us in Kineta, in a beautiful place with a big garden right next to the sea. From Athens by car it takes about 40 minutes, the suburban railway station of Kineta is nearby as well.

Bring your own camping equipment. The camping area is specially designed for this purpose with lots of trees.

See photos of the space here

To book a place for the retreat it is required to pay a deposit of 100€ by 5th of June for the early bird price or by the 23rd of June normal price.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner is served, all vegan and especially designed for detox.
We kindly ask you not to use drugs or consume alcohol during the retreat.

What practices are we going to explore?

Contact Beyond Contact with Felix Metzger

It is a dance and healing practice that integrates Authentic Movement, Contact Improvisation and Passing Through with practices of qigong, yoga, healing modalities and energy work, mindfulness and leadership skills, proprioceptive and exteroceptive senses, somatics and principles of behaviorism, as well as the philosophies of Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism. These practices are well-woven together to create a holistic integration of the Body, Mind, Heart and Spirit.

Effective communication with Christina Papadopoulou

with ourselves and those around us is perhaps the most important ingredient for a happy life that leads to self-actualization and well-being. Effective Communication consists of theory, practices and tools that empower people to work on and improve their listening and speaking skills. How can we become active listeners and effective non violent speakers? How can we speak clearly, with flow and rhythm, expressing our thoughts, feelings and needs in a non-violent way.

How can we connect on a deeper level with people and deal with conflicts or disagreements in a more effective way? How can we activate empathy and build equal, resilient, authentic, respectful relationships through Active Listening and NVC?

Fire Ceremony with Valeria Koudoumogiannaki

From the beginning of humanity, fire was very important both in its practical use and its symbolic dimension. It was the one that gathered the tribe in a circle, in celebrations and in all kinds of rituals. But also was and always is, an element of union with ourselves as we learn to connect with our inner flame. For the shamans, healers, druids, etc. it has a transmuting power, as it can alchemize the heaviness of our soul into light. In our ceremony, we will draw on the way that even today the Incas use fire ritualistically to bring harmony and unity to their communities, with great respect for the sanctity of nature and spirit. We will also get inspiration from the ancient Greek traditions. The first part of the ceremony will follow a specific structure, but after space will be given to the spontaneous, to storytelling, to the song that speaks to the heart and jamming. Its an experience that will connect us to each other as well as to the primordial and fast-paced way of facing fire through the wisdom of becoming.

Despacho ceremony with Valeria Koudoumogiannaki

In Spanish the word Despacho means “dispatch or transfer”. The despacho is a traditional Offering Ceremony from the Tradition of the wider Andes region of South America, which we address to the forces of the Universe and Pachamama, Mother and Father Earth. It helps us to consciously align our personal energies with the cosmic ones. It is an excellent harmonizing tool for a community, on the material, relational level and also in the immaterial world. It helps with continuity and balance. For our retreat, the emphasis will be on understanding oneness, and what those elements are that need balancing, and balancing them together. We will use seeds, herbs, flowers, fruits, wine, sugar and other materials and together we make a beautiful mandala that we will give to the element of fire, so that our prayer and dreams are immediately heard by the universe.

Expressive arts therapy with Valeria Koudoumogiannaki

Expressive arts therapy is a deeply transformative way of therapy, that supports personality development in a very creative way. The participation of the unconsciousness and especially through the body is a direct expression of all that we have within us, the gifts, abilities, shadows, repressed in a way that is healthy, rich, inspiring, that releases the vitality and precious parts of the self that are very important for personal flourishing and well-being! In the 3-hour session we will work together on issues related to the sense of unity, and what obstacles we find personally. Also, we will try in a creative way to find possible solutions and transformations. What is my personal myth, which are my personal symbols? How does my consciousness perceive unity? What about my unconsciousness? How can I bring together parts of the Self that feel divided, in an expressive way? These are some questions we will work on together.

MirAnanda Yoga with Miranda Korovila

Miranda’s course is aimed at all levels of practitioners.
Hatha Yoga Flow is an innovative combination of traditional Hatha Yoga with elements from Ashtanga Yoga and joint-warming dance movements. Ideal for beginners and advanced practitioners, it enhances strength, balance, and flexibility. It cultivates a meditative relationship with the body through breath observation.

Massage Thai Oil with Miranda Korovila

It is a massage where oil is used and it can cover all the needs of a tired body.
We can insist on specific areas that are most in need and intuitively give healing relaxation and energy release.

One-on-one shamanic sessions with Valeria Koudoumogiannaki

We can work together with the healing power of shamanic practices that are connected with the Peruvian tradition and also the ancient Greek. You can choose an issue that is important to you and with the assistance of Valeria, you will find the next step of solution and personal growth using the wisdom of ancient ways of healing and the 4 elements.
If you want to know more click here: https://flourish.gr/en/shamanic-sessions/

Our facilitators:

Felix Metzger is an artist and activist from Germany, he gained a Master’s degree of Sociology at the University of Freiburg. Since 2017 he has lived in Athens and later on became co-founder of the cooperative and workshop collective The Beehive Community.
For The Beehive Community he is organizing and facilitating workshops that try to combine activism and healing with arts, his latest discovery and passion is the dance healing practice Contact Beyond Contact.
He is involved in various groups of Improvisation Theatre and Contact Improv Dance. His mentor is Julianna Bloodgood who is running seminars of voice and body release as well as performative techniques.

Christina Papadopoulou studied Marketing, Communication and Advertising in Athens and Business Administration in London and is a co-founder and legal representative of the cooperative and workshop collective, The Beehive Community.
She facilitates sessions, workshops and seminars to empower individuals and groups on how they can improve their communication skills. Moreover, she offers consultancy services to social enterprises, cooperatives and associations on how to organize their work, promote their services and achieve wellbeing at the workplace. She has been trained in the Ulex community in Catalonia in facilitating workshops aimed at empowerment, resilience and enhancing communication skills of individuals and groups.
She is a very experienced activist in the field of Social Solidarity Economy. She is a member of the Cooperative Plato’s Academy Cafe, was a founder member of Time Bank of Athens-Syntagma Square Initiative and a member of the coordinating team of the self organized Festival for Social Solidarity Economy (2012 – 2017), UniverSSE the 4th European Social Solidarity Economy Congress (2017) and the European Conference for an Unconditional Basic Income (2018).

Valeria Koudoumogiannaki is a psychologist, with a master’s degree in positive psychology, and with training in expressive arts therapy. She has her project called flourish.gr, and actively participates in The Beehive Community. She also works with shamanic practices that she has learned from various teachers from Greece and abroad while emphasizing alternative healing methods and mindfulness. She is also an activist and with a great experience in the organisation of events like the Festival for Social Solidarity Economy. For years she has been coordinating women’s circles and other ways of empowerment, creation, solidarity, and unity for all genders. She has also a long-term experience in shamanic ceremonies that highlight nature as sacred, and for the last year she has been coordinating ecstatic dance, cacao, and blue lotus ceremonies. One of her main goals is to support people to create a world free of patriarchy and capitalism. So that we can build together a world based on collective processes as well as cooperation between people and especially with nature, in order for us all to flourish.

Miranda Korovila

Miranda is registered with Yoga Alliance for the 500h Hatha yoga training. She is a practitioner of Ashtanga Yoga and she is trained in Perinatal Yoga.
She has completed the 10-day Vipassana silent meditation in India.