Join Us for a Four-Month Expedition Through Sacred Lands and Cultures, Exploring the Landscapes of the World and the Landscapes Within.
We will trace the footsteps of women who came before us - the Amazon women of the steppe region, medicine women of the Andes and North America, women of the sea in Polynesia, Saint Brigid of Kildare - and more.
Through creative expression, ritual, and reflection, we will inhabit these lands, step into the lives and archetypal energies of these women, and uncover what they can teach us about ourselves.
This series includes an optional follow up one-to-one integration session to help you explore what emerged through the course, so you can work with it in a real way, and create a plan that allows it to take shape.
Live Zoom Classes. Join from wherever you live!
Starts: Sunday, April 26, 2026
Duration: 4 months, one Sunday per month
Dates:
-
Sunday, April 26
-
Sunday, May 17
-
Sunday, June 28
-
Sunday, July 26
Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM PST/1:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST
Overseas: Evening Class, match your time zone to Vancouver BC Canada
Course Fee:
$385 CAD/$285 USD with integration session
$275 CAD/$205 USD without integration session
Language: English
Class Hours:
8–9 hours in total, depending on the optional integration session. The course also includes a private gallery space and ongoing connection with the instructor and the women in the circle. Gathering one Sunday per month creates space for a slower, more spacious learning process, allowing insights and creative exploration to unfold between sessions.
What You Will Experience
Each gathering is an invitation to slow down and enter more deeply into the lands and stories we are exploring together. Through reflection, ritual, and creative practice, we will step into the worlds of the women whose footsteps we are tracing - the landscapes they lived in, the cultures that shaped them, and the archetypal energies they embody.
As we inhabit these places imaginatively and symbolically, they begin to mirror our own lives. The deserts, oceans, mountains, and sacred sites we encounter become ways of understanding the landscapes within ourselves - our strengths, our longings, and the questions quietly asking for attention.
In each class, we’ll explore what emerges for you through creative expression and reflection. You’ll also be in the company of other women who are engaging with these stories and archetypes in their own way, creating a space of shared discovery and insight.
Along the way, we will draw inspiration from women artists, poets, and storytellers connected to these places and traditions. By the end of the journey, you may find yourself feeling more connected to your own inner landscape, with new clarity about what is unfolding in your life and what is calling you forward.
Who This Is For
This program is for you if you want to:
Come Home to Yourself
-
Feel more grounded, calm, and clear in this season of your life
-
Strengthen your capacity for reflection, presence, and deep listening
-
Experience moments of clarity—glimpses that reveal who you are becoming
-
Reconnect with the deeper landscapes within yourself
-
Explore your relationship to land, place, ancestry, and belonging
-
Discover what the lives and archetypal energies of women across cultures can illuminate in your own life
Light a Creative Fire This Season
-
Feel creatively awakened through reflection, ritual, and expression
-
Create meaningful work inspired by the lands, cultures, and stories we explore
-
Connect with a supportive circle of women walking a similar path
-
Feel re-inspired, curious, and creatively alive as the journey unfolds
Class Themes
Sunday, April 26 2026
Women of the Steppe: Strength, Freedom, and the Call of the Wild
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM PST/1:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST (Overseas Sunday Evening)
Begin our journey on the vast grasslands of the Eurasian steppe, where legends of the Amazon women emerged - skilled riders, warriors, and leaders who lived with remarkable independence and strength. Through reflection and creative exploration, we’ll consider what their lives reveal about courage, sovereignty, and freedom.
As we imagine the wide open landscapes they inhabited, we’ll explore where these same qualities live within you. What parts of yourself long for more space, autonomy, and untamed expression? Through creative practice, you’ll begin discovering what the energy of these women awakens in your own life.
Sunday, May 17 2026
Women of the Andes: Earth Wisdom, Healing, and Sacred Relationship
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM PST/1:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST (Overseas Sunday Evening)
Travel to the high mountains of the Andes, where women have long served as healers, midwives, and keepers of sacred traditions rooted in deep relationship with the earth. In these cultures, mountains, rivers, and stones are living presences that guide and sustain life.
Through reflection, ritual, and creative expression, we will explore what it means to live in right relationship with the natural world. What wisdom might the medicine women of these lands offer about balance, healing, and listening to the subtle guidance that arises from the earth and from within yourself?
Sunday, June 28 2026
Women of the Waters:
Polynesian Ocean Wisdom and the Sacred River Traditions of West Africa
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM PST/1:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST (Overseas Sunday Evening)
We’ll draw inspiration from Polynesian cultures, where the ocean has shaped navigation, survival, and spiritual life for generations, as well as from West African traditions connected to the river and sea through figures such as Oshun and Yemaya. In these traditions, water is understood as a living presence that carries wisdom, emotion, creativity, and transformation.
Through creative reflection, we’ll explore the symbolism of water and what it teaches about surrender, flow, and adaptability. What might the ocean and river reveal about the movements within your own life - the tides of emotion, creativity, and change that shape your path?
Sunday, July 26 2026
Brigid’s Flame: Creativity, Renewal, and the Sacred Fire Within
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM PST/1:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST (Overseas Sunday Evening)
Our journey closes in Ireland with Saint Brigid of Kildare, a beloved figure associated with creativity, healing, poetry, and sacred fire. Brigid represents the spark of inspiration that brings new ideas, healing, and transformation into the world.
In this final gathering, we’ll reflect on what has emerged throughout our journey across lands and traditions. Through creative practice and reflection, you’ll gather the insights, symbols, and energies that have spoken most strongly to you, discovering how the flame of inspiration can guide your next steps.
Integration Session (Optional)
Weaving the Journey Into Your Life
After the course concludes, you have the option to schedule a one-to-one integration session. This is a space to reflect on what emerged during our journey across lands, cultures, and archetypal energies, and to explore what felt most meaningful or alive for you.
Together, we’ll revisit the insights, images, and creative expressions that surfaced during the program and consider how they relate to your life right now. We’ll look at the themes that continue to resonate, the questions that are unfolding, and the directions that may be quietly calling you forward.
The intention of this session is to help you gather what you discovered and translate it into something tangible—so the inspiration, clarity, and creative energy from the course can continue to take shape in your life.
Between Classes
Between monthly sessions, you’ll spend time in the natural world exploring your connection to the landscapes that are calling you, and noticing the changes and shifts unfolding within you. You can record your experience in any way that feels natural—creative writing, photography, painting, sketching, or simply wandering and observing the ecosystem around you.
Who Will Love This
This course is for women who want to come home to themselves — to slow down, listen deeply, and reconnect with what is unfolding in their lives. It is for those who feel drawn to explore the wisdom of women across cultures and landscapes, and to discover what their stories, traditions, and archetypal energies might awaken within you.
It is also for women who feel a pull toward creative expression and want a space to reflect, create, and explore what is emerging in this season of their lives.
No artistic experience is needed. Just a curious heart and a willingness to listen.
Facilitator
Rachel Schmidt BSW, PLC
%20(Facebook%20Post%20(Square)).jpg)
✨ I created this course for women who feel drawn to certain places, stories, and traditions - and want to understand why. For those who sense that landscapes hold meaning, and that the lives of women across cultures can reveal something about their own path.
Perhaps you’ve stood in a place that stirred something ancient or familiar within you, felt a quiet recognition when hearing the story of a woman from another time or land, or sensed that certain landscapes and archetypes carry messages meant for you.
This program is a four-month creative journey across lands and cultures, exploring the wisdom of women who lived in deep relationship with the places that shaped them - from the open steppe to mountain villages, sacred rivers, and the sea. Through reflection, creative practice, and ritual, we’ll explore how these landscapes and stories can illuminate the landscapes within ourselves.
I use nature-based mindfulness, Psychosynthesis, and contemplative arts to support women in reconnecting with the deepest parts of themselves—often through the stories, symbols, and archetypal energies that arise when we encounter land, culture, and creative expression.
I live in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada, surrounded by forests and lakes. With a background in social work and over 30 years of experience in the helping professions, I draw on my work in counselling, teaching, holistic wellness, and the visual arts to create reflective and meaningful learning spaces. I’m also trained in Psychosynthesis, a depth-oriented coaching approach that honours the whole self.
A mother, artist, and lifelong lover of the natural world, I feel most at home outdoors—especially when paddling my kayak across a quiet lake beneath a sky full of stars.
These online gatherings are designed as thoughtful, creative spaces where women can slow down, reflect, and explore what is unfolding in their lives through connection with land, story, and the wisdom of women across cultures.
Self Portrait: Ecological Kinship Workshop
What Women Are Saying
"This course opened something in me I didn’t even know I was searching for. Exploring the lives of women across cultures and landscapes helped me see my own life in a new way. The creative practices and reflections felt deeply nourishing, and the conversations with other women were thoughtful, honest, and inspiring."
— Amy, 41