Returning to the Womb of Earth: Reflections from the Eco-somatics Retreat
This past week, I had the great fortune to be a guest presenter at the 7-day Eco-somatics Retreat in the majestic mountains of North Carolina, alongside two dear friends and collaborators, Azra Bertrand, M.D., and Seren Bertrand.
While I’ve offered Primordial Movement in Azra’s online trainings before, this was the first time bringing the work in person, and it was deeply nourishing. Azra and Seren are gifted educators who create rich and transformational containers. Their work in Eco-somatics and womb awakening - a blend of somatic awareness and ecological consciousness - invites us to explore our embodied connection to the Earth, the cosmos, and the ancestral lineages that shaped us.
Eco-somatics reminds us that healing is not just personal. It’s planetary. It roots us in the truth that we are nature in human form, shaped in every way by our eco-ancestors and the living Earth that holds us.
This, of course, is deeply aligned with the Shamanu: Earth Wisdom Teachings, where your path of reconnection, and return to the wild intelligence of Earth and the cosmic rhythms that shape us. becomes a prayer and a promise to the future.
During the retreat, we explored five stages of human development from conception through adulthood, and how each stage maps onto our ecology through our energy centers, nervous system, and evolving sense of self. It’s a powerful cosmology that reconnects us to our ecological origins - from the heart of the Universe, to the womb of the Earth, to the womb of our human mother and back to the womb of Earth as adults living in co-creative harmony with a living Earth.
My role was to embody this evolutionary map through Primordial Movement, guiding participants into the felt memory of our ecological heritage. These processes are not symbolic, they’re somatic. They awaken the deep intelligence that lives in our bones, pulses through our blood, and sings in our nervous system. When we move from this place, we remember who and what we truly are: an expression of the Earth, animated by cosmic breath.
This particular retreat was designed for practitioners, people committed to integrating Earth consciousness into their work. As Azra beautifully says:
“Transformation and healing start within the place of origin, spiraling out from the ecosystems we inhabit—including our mother’s body and the body of the planetary mother—into the greater containers of time, culture, memory, and perception.”
Finding ways to embody this evolutionary map wasn’t difficult. It was exhilarating. Years of embodying and teaching the Primordial Movement processes as a gateway into our cosmic and Earth-based lineage had prepared me well to support participants in shifting from a consciousness of separation into a deeply rooted, ecologically-integrated experience of belonging.
Because that’s what this is really about: birthing a new story - one that honours the sacredness of the Earth and the long line of beings who brought us here. A story that knows the wisdom of our eco-ancestors is alive within us, longing to be remembered and expressed.
Why does this matter? Because until we can perceive the ecologically interconnected and “magical” nature of reality, we will continue to harm the biosphere, and ourselves along with it.
I’m deeply grateful to Azra and Seren - fierce and beautiful spiritual renegades - for their invitation to bring what I love into such a meaningful space. We dove into the essential questions of our time: What must we do and who must we become to bring our natural blueprint into the world?
Yes, “be the change” may be a cliché by now. But that doesn’t make it any less true.
I’m currently participating in Azra’s online Eco-somatics course, part of his larger diploma training, and will be sharing more as that journey unfolds. The adventure continues, and I’m honored to walk it with so many wise, courageous, and wild-hearted souls.
Lorenna Bousquet-Kacera
Founder of Shamanu: Earth Wisdom Teachings (est 1989) & WomanEarth