The Radical Wise Wild Women Circle:
A Somatic, Movement Medicine, Voice And Ritual Based Journey For Midlife Women
It’s an intimate seven-week online journey to support women to navigate midlife in a dignified, liberating and empowering way so they can radically embrace themselves and the natural wild intelligence and wisdom of this life cycle.
By application only.
Welcome!
Dear One,
If you are on this page, you are at the significant threshold of your days: midlife.
This is a love letter and a warm invitation to join a strong circle of women. I’m sharing a lot of details here. So please feel free to print this off, grab a cuppa, make some space, put on some music, and allow yourself to dive in and read. You can take breaks and move your body if you need, so you can feel how these words land and resonate. Perhaps you will need to read this piece more than once.
You know that midlife is an initiatory threshold.
And the world is at an even greater threshold. We live in a time of global distress and spiritual crisis.
Deep in your bones, you know that now is the time – to offer your gifts, guidance, magic and visions both to the world and future generations. It’s time to step into your role of life protector and wisdom keeper—all the while honouring beauty, interbeing and reciprocity.
To share your sacred offerings, you intuit that you need to land more profoundly and softly in your animal body. You understand that the deeper the roots, the stronger the trunk and branches. You sense that there’s a healthier way to be in your body (opening up to feeling, honouring and listening in an intuitive ‘mammal’ way). And in that state, it will be easier to reach genuine self-fulfilment and give your gifts without burnout.
You know deep inside you that the more you hold the relationship with your body, heart, mind and soul sacred, the more you can contribute to the flourishing of life on the planet. These aspects are interrelated. They need to be balanced.
At midlife, the veil becomes thinner between the visible and the invisible. It is a dance full of paradoxes, a heroine’s journey where the soul simultaneously travels inward and outward. If you pay attention, it is the most regenerative, revolutionary, and radical time.
The journey toward transformation at midlife is not easy or linear. It is a spiral. Sometimes you feel sad, lonely or stuck. Lack of sleep! Hormones out of whack! Raising anxiety! Mood swings!
You understand that self-care is not negotiable and needs to be looked at in the light of interdependence, community and practices that re-connect us to the living world around us.
You know that the connection between your body and the body of the Earth is vital. You’re clear that you are healthier when generously giving to the world. You’re dedicated to finding a way of living that’s generous to yourself and your community at the same time.
If you read this, you’re a woman in midlife, tired of the menopause taboos, being nice and polite, making ‘should’ lists, pleasing people, and doubting yourself.
Of course, there are consequences if you ignore the calling of the radical wise, wild woman. Perhaps you have already paid the price in the past.
What are these consequences?
Five Consequences Of Not Listening To The Call Of The Radical Wise Wild Woman
Consequence#1: You are easily overwhelmed because you spend too much time in your head. You don’t lean into support. Or perhaps you haven’t fully mastered the art of balancing ‘being’ with ‘doing’.
Consequence#2:You feel alone or isolated. In our modern society, many suffer from the disease of separation. We don’t depend on each other anymore for our well-being. Gifts, giving, generosity, receiving and reciprocity create health, wealth and relationships. You fell into the trap of independence and being a super strong woman.
Consequence #3: You sense that part of you has become domesticated. You feel in your bones the danger that your wild spirit may have been tamed. You know the cost of not allowing your essence to roar like a lioness, fly free like an eagle – expanded and connected to the spirits of the land and all life. This is a terrible loss that you cannot afford. It is deadly to the soul.
Consequence#4: You experience resentment when you sense that you didn’t follow your inner guidance, gave too much energy to something that wasn’t worth it or drained you, your generosity wasn’t reciprocated or said ‘yes’ when in reality you wanted to say ‘no.’
Consequence#5: You feel exhausted when you don’t give yourself permission to be held by life, rest, surrender, relax, sleep, do nothing, pamper yourself and trust that seeds grow in the deep dark soil. You have been on overdrive, consumed by linear patriarchal models of productivity and can’t any longer give from an empty cup.
I am thrilled to invite you to be part of the Radical Wise Wild Women Circle, a Somatic, Movement, Voice And Ritual Based Journey For Midlife Women.
We gather to plant and tend the seeds for personal and collective transformation, balance, belonging and kinship with all life.
It’s an intimate seven-week online journey, open to a small group of women so we can have a safe and confidential container.
No previous experience in dancing or singing is needed, only the willingness to be open and curious, and join a supportive environment.
The programme is open to women who identify as women of all body shapes and abilities.
This programme could be a beautiful fit for you if you …
- Are longing to welcome your wisdom, authority and medicine fully and offer your sacred creative gifts in service of the flourishing of all life.
- Wish to be part of a courageous circle of women who walk with each other in vulnerability and strength, offering and receiving support.
- Trust your process and know that your body, psyche and soul always strive for wholeness, even when things feel rough.
- Are tired of being in your head, putting other people’s needs first, looking for wisdom outside of yourself, or searching for approval and external validation.
- Know the importance of finding simple, practical tools to regulate your nervous system, feel safe, more resourced and nurtured.
- Have a deep yearning to feel more connected to the sacred, feel at home in your body and follow your natural rhythms.
- Are curious about creating simple rituals – through dance, voice-work, and sacred art and altars at home and outdoors.
- Are longing to feel more confident with your singing and speaking voice.
- Are drawn to personal, systemic, collective healing and transformation work that combines somatics (holistic body-oriented approach), creativity (Movement Medicine, dance, songs, voice-work), relationships (e.g. restoring kinship and intimacy with yourself, others, community and invisible realms and all life on Earth), and a grounded and Earth-based spirituality (e.g. ritual, reverence for the Earth, animism, magic, archetypes, connection with the elements).
- Are ready to embrace your inner critic creatively and stop worrying about being criticised as a crazy, lunatic, irrational, exaggerated, over-sensitive woman.
- Have a core healthy sense of yourself. You are drawn to a no-nonsense and down-to-earth approach.
- Have a sense of personal, intergenerational, and collective trauma without needing to focus excessively on the past. You want to look at what brings you, others and the world more strength, life force, joy, resilience and vitality.
- Are ready to dance your socks off, say a big YES to yourself, cheer on your fellow women, have fun, cry, laugh and embrace your irreverent, bold, eccentric, magical, sensitive, playful, abundant, sensual, defiant, incorrigible, quirky, radical, wise and wild self! All with the support of a solid and powerful circle.
Hello, I’m Laura Valenti.
The work I offer is about creating a sturdy, alchemical, collectively-held clay pot of community and medicine in which we welcome ourselves and each other as the women that the world needs, while old patterns are bubbled away and new dreams come into being.
I am passionate about what I do. When women embrace midlife as an initiation, they share their sacred gifts and create new soulful narratives in service of the flourishing of all life. They become more instinctual, love themselves more and change the world. When they come together with a powerful intention, they are a true force of nature and become beacons of light.
I was born in Italy, where I lived until my late twenties. I have struggled with self-hatred, depression, shame, despair, suicidal thoughts, and addiction to drugs, alcohol, and dysfunctional relationships throughout my life. I often put myself in situations that endangered my life. When I was thirty-three years old, I got non-Hodgkin lymphoma and luckily fully recovered from it. My mum died of a brain aneurysm when she was thirty-four. I gathered that it was no accident that I got ill; it was a wake-up call that sent me on a deeply spiritual, personal and professional quest.
I sat around many campfires and ceremonies worldwide and slept under the stars. I walked in pilgrimages sometimes for more than twelve hours in the rain and snow in the High Andes and never felt more alive! Somehow, along the way, I discovered voice, dance, ritual, community and movement as forms of medicine. For many years, as a prayer to give thanks to life, I danced in ceremonies for three days with no food and little sleep.
I’ve trained formally and informally in various modalities over the last 20 years. All of this has resulted in the work I do.
I am a qualified Movement Medicine teacher, holistic voice and sound therapist, somatic and trauma-informed coach, somatic stress release practitioner, ritualist and intuitive singer. I’ve also studied physical theatre, laughter yoga, clowning, polarity therapy and indigenous wisdom. And I’ve shared my work internationally.
” Laura, I am struck by your tenancy and urgency for change and growth. As a woman in menopause I am grateful there are women ‘in my corner’ that are offering us new and shame free ways of being in this stage of life. Thank you for being a guide.”
~ Susan Doerksen Castro, Integral Master Coach
” Thank you again for your wonderful dance sessions. I’ve experienced a lot of facilitators’ work, including myself, and you stood out. I thought you did it brilliantly. I realised, surprisingly, thanks to your guidance, that what I wanted to bring more into this year is ecstasy! “
~ Debra Hall, Soulmaker, Poet, Artist, Healer, Rite Of Passages’s Facilitator
What You’ll Get When You Join The Radical Wild Wise Women Circle
- Seven weekly, 120 min online group sessions.*
- Recorded sessions that you can rewatch at home.
- A deep dive into simple and powerful tools (from vocal to breathing exercises, embodiment, centering and nervous system repair practices, visualisation, connection with archetypes, and inner child reconnection, dreamwork).
- Email after each session that includes links to any additional recommended resources (books, podcasts, articles, quotes, videos, music, etc.) and suggested home practices or exercises.
- One week support via email after the last session.
- Two one on one sessions
- Discounted further sessions, should you need them
Questions & Answers
What will your weekly group sessions look like?
6.30-6.45 pm (UK time ): arrive in the space, gentle music, stretching
6.45- 7.00: quick check-in
7.00-7.15: vocal practise and warm-up
7.15-8.15: Movement Medicine dance, voice-work, somatic practice, nervous system repair exercises (this may include dividing the group in breakout rooms, sharing in smaller listening circles, journaling, drawing, etc.)
8.15- 8.30: Q&As, sharing in circle and integration
The above is an example of the structure. It may change depending on the group’s energy, what is needed and alive, and the weekly theme.
In between sessions, you will be invited to play and practice at home, do exercises, journal, spend time outdoors, create an altar, mandala or artwork. This is not mandatory; you are also invited to tune in with your rhythms.
At the end of the programme, if you wish, you will be assigned to a peer-support group (two – four people per group), so you can check in with each other for at least three months.
The investment:
This group is for midlife women committed to growing, owning their medicine, and offering their gifts to their community. Your precious time and energy will be the most significant investment you will make in this programme. It will require you to show up and do the work.
The investment:
THE COST:
The cost is 400 euros, you can pay upfront and get another one on one session included, or in two instalments of 200 euros.
*Individual sessions will be tailored to your needs and can include:
- Holistic, somatic stress release, and trauma-sensitive coaching
- Holistic voice therapy
- Movement Medicine
- A blend of the all above
This individual session will be a time for you to go deeper, reflect on your process, ask questions and gain extra support.
I will donate five per cent of the income to the TreeSisters.
What will the flow be from week to week?
Each week we will dive into a different theme.
Week 1: Introduction – She-Wolf
Intuition and sensuality – Power and mastery – Singing the bones of the Radical Wise Wild Woman
Week 2: She-Beaver
Creating – Action – Body-Heart Alignment – Collective dreamwork
Week 3: She-Turtle
Grounding – Slowing down – Honouring Mother Earth inside and around us
Week 4: Community Ritual
Munay Ki- Rite Of The Womb- Reconnect To Your Womb –
Release Shame – Plant seeds To Become A Stewardess Of The Earth – Embrace self-love and the gifts that you want to offer
Week 5: She-Spider
Weaving and belonging – Strengthening our circle
Week 6: She-Lynx
Listening to your inner core wisdom – Reclaiming lost treasures
Week 7: She-Black Panther
Surrendering – Embracing the unknown and the mystery – Integration
The Four Core Elements Of The Programme:
This is a programme for women who are drawn to a personal and systemic approach to transformation, which is a combination of:
ELEMENT ONE: SOMATICS AND EMBODIMENT
‘Knowledge is only a rumour until it is in the muscle.’ – Asaro Tribe of Indonesia
Together, we’ll explore somatics and embodiment practices. ‘Soma’ in Greek means body. Somatics is a methodology that leads to a transformation that includes our whole being, psychobiology and creates a new memory in our muscles. Change does not happen (only) through cognitive processes and can’t be rooted only in concepts.
At the core of this programme, the intention is to reconnect to our bodies, gut feeling, kinaesthetic intelligence and inner sensations. There is a wild, raw power and intelligence that lives within us. We evolved by moving freely outside the wilderness, developing coordination, strength, and agility!
However, we have been disconnected from our bodies in industrialised countries, both personally and collectively. This wound profoundly impacts our relationship with ourselves, our planet and each other.
We will cultivate daily practices that support your embodied awareness and nervous system repair on an ongoing basis. In this way, you can loosen the mind’s grip, spend less time in your head and start feeling more safely through all your senses and home in your skin. By doing so, you can tap into the more comprehensive living intelligence of your body and wake up parts of you that have been dormant. In this way, you can experience life around you afresh through your embodied experience – your beating heart, butterflies in the belly, your breath. This is key for a deeper attunement with yourself and the living world around you.
Our culture rejects older women’s bodies, potency and sensuality. We come together to re-member and mend this wound.
ELEMENT TWO: EARTH-BASED SPIRITUALITY
‘In the past, I have been a cloud, a river, and the air. And I was a rock. I was the minerals in the water. This is not a question of belief in reincarnation. This is the history of life on Earth.’ – Thich Nhat Hanh
Mother Earth is alive, and we are part of Her. We are made of the same material; what we do against the planet, we do against ourselves. Intelligence lives in plants, mountains, waters, and animals, and we’ve forgotten how to relate to it. We’ve been cut off from the sacredness of all living things and the Web of Life. Our ancestors lived in communion with all creation and understood the interdependence of all life. They honoured the dead and had a direct relationship with them. The havoc and rise of mental illness that we experience collectively are also rooted in the lack of reverence towards the ancestors and the living planet.
You are an elemental being made of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, magnesium, sodium and many other minerals. The Earth, fire, water and air also live inside you.
In each session, we will honour the Elements and our relationship with some archetypal forces in the animal realm.
Throughout the whole programme, there’s going to be an invitation to find a spot outdoors where you can meditate, dance, create a mandala, and honour your non-human kins.
We will have community rituals, which have been lost in our society, to mark midlife as a sacred initiation. We can remember our mythic nature and what matters to us in this way.
Rituals are containers of transformation: a space where it’s possible to get to know oneself in more depth, make offerings in reverence to ourselves, Great Powers, those who came before us and those who have not arrived yet.
ELEMENT THREE: RELATIONSHIP AND CONNECTION
‘Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers it back.’ – Plato
Everything in life is a relationship.
The programme is an invitation to honour and restore sacred kinship with yourself, others, community, our non-human kins, and the invisible world.
The community aspect of the seven weeks together is vital. Transformation does not happen in isolation but connection. In times of crisis, we may require even more substantial holding and companionship.
Something is compelling about being witnessed, supported, heard and validated by another human being. Indeed, it is uplifting to be mirrored by kindred spirits when learning new things and updating our self-image.
Sometimes, you need a compassionate witness to be with you without needing to fix, save, change, or give you advice. Offering each other loving presence and companionship is crucial for transformative work.
We live in the narrative of separation, but we need each other! Human beings are mammals and wired for connection. We co-regulate our nervous system together. Lack of love and harmony with each other creates disease.
We need each other to embrace midlife as a sacred initiation and answer to the call of the radical, wise, wild woman.
In this exploration, we include our relationship with the invisible world.
We will dance, sing, celebrate our relations with ourselves, others, community, the invisible world and the Great Mystery.
ELEMENT FOUR: CREATIVITY
‘Where we stopped dancing, singing, and being enchanted by stories is where we have experienced the loss of soul.’ – Gabrielle Roth
In the circle, we’ll embrace creativity as a tool to connect your unique soul blueprint and enhance your embodied imagination.
We’ll use various creative practices and modalities so you can expand your vocabulary of expression and, more broadly, your capacity to respond rather than react to life.
We can plant seeds to dream and create new narratives and ways of being in this way.
Life grows from compost. We can transform anything into gold – it’s an alchemical process – through your creativity and dancing, moving, shaking, playing, singing, and making poetry.
In each session, we will integrate movement (i.e. Movement Medicine practice), song, voice-work, and journeying with archetypes. These tools can bring more freedom and flexibility to your body and deepen your intimacy with yourself and life.
We will journey deep into our embodied relationship with the Elements that live inside and around us through Movement Medicine practice. This modality is a form of meditation in movement. It is an invitation to awaken the dancer within each of us and live from our heart’s intelligence.
We’ll explore a creative and embodied connection to your voice (metaphorical and physical; from singing to breath-work, making sounds or noises, long exhales, toning, humming). This exploration is not about sounding nice but about embracing the potency and medicine of your voice, your primal musical tool. These are potent ways to practice being vocal, assertive, loud, expressive, visible, taking space, and speaking your truth.
All of the above will enhance your sense of rhythm, your capacity to listen, improve your communication skills and be more in tune with yourself and others. It is also an invitation to become the artist and creator of your life.
Ultimately, this is about becoming more powerfully who you are, having more agency in your life, and potency so you can create what your heart desires. This journey is about answering the call of the radical wise, wild woman.
I have a special place in my heart for you if you…
- Have a sense of humour. You understand that a spiritual journey can be pretty uncomfortable. Yet, you can laugh, don’t take yourself too seriously and enjoy the ride.
- Feel politically homeless in the current turbulent climate, don’t resonate with polarised views, extremist positions of any kind or discrimination towards those who think or behave differently.
- Are open to embracing the world’s current challenges as an opportunity. You have a non-dogmatic approach to life and steer away from truths set in stone.
- Aren’t afraid to start something new and be a beginner. You are a life learner, which keeps you humble whilst pursuing new understanding.
- Trust the intelligence of the human heart and its intuitive guidance. You know that emotions are not ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Ultimately, love is the greatest healer that brings compassion to yourself, others and the planet.
- Are tired of gurus, repeating affirmations, spiritual bypassing and being told that you need to stay happy or positive all the time.
This work won’t be a good fit if you…
- Want this journey as a substitute for therapy or haven’t done any personal therapeutic and spiritual work so far.
- Feel stuck in a helpless or victim position, lingering in the past, pointing fingers at others and unwilling to take responsibility for yourself and your part.
- Are in new age spiritual circles of ascension paths (that look at the body as something to transcend), or focus on ‘high vibrations vs low’, ‘positive vs negative’, without being willing to descend into the depth of one’s dark material and do the nitty-gritty work.
- Look at ‘manifestation’ or the law of attraction as a way to get more stuff or money without further exploration of collective systemic issues behind it, like white privilege, cultural appropriation, and new forms of colonialism.
- Don’t believe in the invisible world, that everything around us is alive and has intelligence, or think that the spiritual world is too ‘woo-woo’.
I genuinely feel that we are here as humans to shine light onto each other, and we need each other to thrive.
This programme is by application ONLY. There are LIMITED spots available, as the process is intimate, profound and powerful.
With love, gratitude and respect,
Laura
PS: While you may already have all sorts of associations, resonance and meanings related to the adjectives ‘wild’ and ‘wise’, I want to add something beautiful about the etymology of the word ‘radical’. It comes from the Latin word ‘radicalis,’ which refers to roots. It is about being in one’s truth and essence.