Golden Week Women’s Retreat in Beautiful Shiga Prefecture
With Liane Wakabayashi and Rebecca Otowa
Thursday 4/28 to Sunday 5/1
Regularly: ¥60,000 Special discount: ¥45,000
To request a full schedule of activities and register:
lianewakabayashi@gmail.com or call Liane at 090-4122-6626
Come join a small group of awesome creative women at Rebecca Otowa’s historic home, featured in her memoir “At Home in Japan,” (Tuttle Publishers 2010). Getting away from city life can be life transforming. Enjoy this deep relaxation time drawing, painting, writing, walking in nature, touring the nearby Lake Biwa area, eating beautiful wholesome meals that we cook together and laughing lots.
Japan offers us a second childhood and then it gives us a chance to redefine the woman who may have grown up twice. In this retreat, we explore this woman we’ve become through art and writing.
Enjoy ample drawing time, writing and discovering the many uses of the Genesis Cards for intuitive companionship from start to end of the creative process. Enjoy as well silent nature walks in the peaceful expanse of fields and gentle rolling hills around Rebeccas village. And a special feature we’re excited to share with you— a 25 hour experience of unplugging from electronic devices so that you can truly hear yourself think and your intuition answer. Rebecca will lead us in a workshop introducing sacred geometry and how art created with signs and symbols can offer us deep reassurance and faith in the magnificent benevolence and order of the universe. Or as Liane would put it, “the experience through art of knowing we are exactly where we are meant to be.”
Our home and fully equipped art studio for three nights will be the beautifully preserved, antique farmhouse belonging to Rebecca Otowa’s family for 19 generations. To reach the Otowa home, it’s an easy one hour express train ride from Kyoto station to the closest station to her home, where Rebecca and Liane will pick you up and drive the 40 minute drive back to her village.
Liane Wakabayashi, creator of the Genesis Cards and author of a work in progress–The Wagamama Bride, and Rebecca Otowa, a student of many interests, including the Western Magical Tradition, share a love of writing, drawing, painting, and spiritual exploration. Liane is raising her two teen children in Setagaya, Tokyo with her husband Aki. Rebecca Otowa lives in the rural Shiga countryside, in the home where she raised two sons and now welcomes her grandchildren when they visit from overseas. Between them, Rebecca and Liane have lived in Japan for nearly 60 years, discovering each other through the Association of Foreign Wives of Japan. They dedicate this retreat to women who seek a break, time to reflect and recharge, whether single, married, or somewhere in between. This workshop, as always, will be a deep yet relaxing immersion in Genesis intuitive art techniques, with a special focus on drawing the rustic charm and nature’s bounty to be discovered in the Shiga countryside. Beginners are most welcome.
Directions to get to Rebecca’s house: From Kyoto station take train to Omi-Hachiman station (35 minutes). Express trains leave on the hour and half hour.
From Omi-Hachiman station, it is a 40-minute drive to Rebecca’s home or a local bus that leaves hourly from the station. We can pick you up at the train station around 12:30 pm. Participants are encouraged to take a train which will get them to O-H all at the same time or at most, 1/2 hour difference. (we can always wait around a bit).
Retreat includes: 3 nights shared room accommodation, five workshops,
Vegetarian and fish-themed dinners, Japanese and western-style breakfasts
Art supplies and Genesis Card set (¥2,900 value included in the Early Bird Special payment. Please bring new B4 Sketch Book and Smartphone for taking photographs of your artwork–or your favorite camera.
*Lunch is not included. Reasonable Indian restaurant and other options are in nearby villages.
For a printer-friendly version of this flyer email: lianewakabayashi@gmail.com