Magic retreat, Qweaver
What a joy to be part of Queer Spirit camp this year. Such connectedness, loving kindness, radical realness. It was inspiring, heart-warming and everywhere conversations and questions about magic flowed. It feels there is a great re-awakening of interest in magic, a thirst for knowledge, a surge and urgency understandable in our troubled, fracturing world.
Sensing something of this re-awakening, a few years ago the vision came to me to offer magic-centred retreats for small groups, intentional spaces for supported exploration, empowerment and community growth. How wonderful to see these manifesting and, with deep thanks to Matt Williams, be able to tell you about the retreats on offer next year at the inspiring Asha Centre.
What is my understanding of magic I’m often asked. What a delicious question! Before I say more, there’s a warning to give, for no words are really sufficient to talk about magic and some positively unhelpful. An example of a tricksy word is “paranormal,” often used to label magic happenings. This word is commonly taken to mean not normal, characterising magic experiences as impossible, unreal, outside the natural world. But para is from the Greek, meaning “beside”. So “paranormal” applied to magic experience doesn’t mean magic is outside the natural world, but alongside it, related to it, another level, another dimension we might say now.
Magic is many linked strands like a web. It’s about connecting with ourselves, each other, more than human, beyond human in different ways, opening to sensations, perceptions, feelings, intuitions. It’s about feeling kinship with and honouring of the earth. It’s about taking a step closer to the mystical, the liminal, and embodying this new awareness. It’s about holding an intention to become a magical presence in this realm, a witness, a guardian of hope, a channel for transformative energies to flow through.
All of this I seek to bring into the Magic Gateway retreats, as I create space and guide people closer to magic. The retreats are magical acts too – powerful acts of remembering, reclaiming, renewing. Coming together in intentional community - a communion of souls - the retreat groups delve deeply into magic in the ancient ways we used to follow: learning of magic from the earth, from beings and spirits directly, from each other’s stories and lived experiences, from rituals, from our communities as treasuries of practical know-how, from wise ones, from ancestors.
Here’s some sharings from people about the retreats, in their own words. I’m anonymising them as R and F.
Q Can you tell us about a stand-out moment?
R Dancing together after the fire ritual, magical energy inhabiting me, the group as one, howling together, wild and animal and rooty.
F Co-creating ritual, real sense of presence through, felt really fertile and virile.
Q What’s changed for you since the retreat?
R Everything. Connection to magic awakened, has come into tangible being for me. The retreat was such a rapid vehicle of transformation.
F Life has changed in subtle ways, seeds planted which I don’t have resources to bring out yet but feel growing underground, like bamboo soon to spring up.
Q What would you say to someone who is unsure about coming to a retreat?
R I think new people might be afraid it’s too advanced for them, that they won’t be able to vibe or understand. I’d say to them, it’s the most real you’ll ever feel. The space is completely accepting, so gentle, graceful, caring.
F I’d say growth requires a leap of faith and the only way to know is by doing.
Q What are you hoping for next time?
R Feel my connection to magic earlier was to learn, to get help. Next time I’d want to be able to be in service in new ways.
F I’m hoping for a deepening of connection to presence and to myself, fertilizer for my seeds
Thank you R and F.
And thank you for reading. I’d love to welcome you to a future retreat. Booking is open for the next one, 16th-20th April 2026 at the Asha Centre, in the ancient Forest of Dean near Gloucester. To find out more please contact me via the QS website, by
With love, Qweaver
