What you'll find here

Science and ritual, woven together

Evidence-based guidance from a naturopathic doctor, alongside ritual as intentional practice — the quiet anchor that helps a new habit take root and stay.

Built around you

We begin with your own body, your values, and the changes that will make the most difference in your life. Your path is yours.

Held by the land

Galiano Island, the ocean, the old forest. The land is part of the experience here — a place that slows you down and invites you back to yourself.

The retreat experience includes:

A few unhurried days held in a beautiful place. Cozy log-cabin accommodations above the Trincomali Channel, chef-prepared meals from local ingredients, and across four days:

Daily meditation and gentle movement to begin each morning with intention

Personalized health teaching to understand what your body needs

Somatic movement and time in nature to release what you've been carrying

Chef-prepared, artisinal and locally-sourced meals to fuel your body and soul.

Ceremony woven through each day, drawn from the four elements

Real, restful time to reflect and simply be

The days move at a gentle rhythm — grounded teaching and workbook reflection, woven together with ceremony, movement, and plenty of open time outdoors on the land. The learning is hands-on and warmly held, with space to take notes, ask questions, and rest between sessions. You'll leave with practices on the page and in your body, ready to carry into real life.

The four days

Across the four days, we move through the Medicine Wheel and the four elements as a living map for change. Air brings clarity. Fire brings transformation. Water brings listening and flow. Earth brings integration. Each day builds on the one before it, carrying you from insight into embodied practice, and from understanding into a rhythm you can take home. Throughout, Dr. Alex's evidence-informed health teaching anchors each day, so the science of what your body needs and the ritual of how you live it move forward together.

Day One — Friday · Air

Clarity, breath, beginning
.Air is the element of arrival — the place where we create space to hear ourselves again. As we gather on the land, we begin to soften the noise of daily life and listen for what is asking to be seen, named, or understood. Through opening circle, breath, reflection, and deep rest, we orient to the retreat, to the Medicine Wheel, and to the intention each person is carrying. This first evening is gentle by design: a threshold into the days ahead, and an invitation to begin again with more spaciousness and clarity.

Day Two — Saturday · Fire

Energy, transformation, courage.
‍Fire is the element of honest change — the place where we meet what is ready to be released, reclaimed, or chosen differently. Through teaching, movement, and somatic practice, we explore what you truly want and what pulls you away from it. Fire helps us see where our energy is leaking, where our courage is needed, and where old patterns are ready to be transformed. As evening falls, we gather around the fire to let transformation move from understanding into something felt in the body.

Day Three — Sunday · Water

Flow, adaptation, listening.
‍Water is the element of deep listening — the place where we soften, receive, and learn what wants to move. After the clarity of Air and the transformation of Fire, Water invites us into tenderness, intuition, and relationship with the body's quieter wisdom. Through meditation, gentle movement, time in nature, and practices near the water's edge, we explore what support, nourishment, and rhythm could look like in your real life. Water reminds us that healing does not always come through effort; sometimes it comes through allowing, adapting, and learning to be carried.

Day Four — Monday · Earth

Grounding, integration, commitment.
‍Earth is the element of integration — the place where what we have learned begins to take root. On our final morning, we gather the pieces: the insight, the release, the practices, the commitments, and the truths that have become clearer over the weekend. Through grounding practice and closing ceremony, we turn toward what you are carrying home and how it can be lived in simple, steady ways. Earth reminds us that transformation becomes real through repetition, devotion, and the small rituals that hold us after we leave.

Accommodations

Bodega Ridge sits on Galiano Island with sweeping views of the Trincomali Channel and the surrounding Gulf Islands.Each log cabin has a private kitchen, living room, three bedrooms, and 1.5 bathrooms. Private one- and two-bedroom cabins are available on request in Bodega Cove for an additional cost.

2026 RATES BELOW FOR REFERENCE ONLY

Single Occupancy

Queen Bed, regular rate $2,900

Double Occupancy

Shared Queen Bed, regular rate $2,400

Please register in pairs

Why ritual and science belong together

Science helps us understand the body. Ritual helps us live in relationship with it.

During the retreat, Dr. Alex offers personalized, evidence-informed health teaching so you can better understand your own biology, patterns, and needs. Anastasia holds the ceremonial arc of the retreat through the Medicine Wheel, the four elements, circle, movement, reflection, and embodied practice.

Together, these two approaches support something deeper than information alone. You come to understand what may help your body, and you create practices that make those changes feel meaningful, repeatable, and possible in your real life. Science shows you what your body needs. Ritual is how you live it.

Meet Dr. Alex

Dr. Alex Chan is a licensed naturopathic physician and the clinical heart of Ritual + Science. Years of patient practice have given her a deep understanding of how physical, biochemical, and mental-emotional health connect — and a firm belief that wellness is personal. Across the retreat, she offers grounded, evidence-informed teaching to help you understand your own biology, patterns, and needs: your energy, stress, sleep, digestion, nervous system, and the foundations that shape how you feel day to day. She begins with each person's own goals, values, and biology, shaping strategies that fit a real life and grow with it.

Meet Anastasia

Anastasia Chomlack co-created Ritual + Science and holds its ceremonial heart. A Métis circle keeper, retreat leader, and guide in embodied ritual, she works with the Medicine Wheel as a living map for transformation. Her spaces are gentle, grounded, and honest — created for people to meet themselves clearly, listen deeply, and remember the truth that already lives within them. Her work weaves ceremony, somatic practice, community, and elemental wisdom, guided by the belief that transformation lasts when it is held by ritual, relationship, and the body.

‍***The Medicine Wheel is shared here through Anastasia's own Métis lineage, lived practice, and responsibilities as a circle keeper, with reverence for the many Indigenous lineages that carry wheel teachings in different ways.

Where knowing becomes action