The wilderness has always known how to call us back.
Five nights, Spring 2027. A small group. One private sanctuary in the Colorado mountains.
What is The Wild Gathering?
There is a reason every initiation story begins with a journey into the wilderness.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés teaches in Women Who Run With the Wolves that the wild nature calls us outward — into the woods, into the untamed — because it is there that the instinctual self remembers itself. The wilderness is not an escape from life. It is a return to it.
The Wild Gathering is a five-night immersive retreat held in the Colorado mountains. Ashley designed it as the kind of experience she could not find anywhere else — one that holds clinical depth and sacred presence in the same container, in the kind of landscape that does its own quiet work on the soul.
The mountains do something that a treatment room cannot. And the treatment room does something that the mountains cannot. The Wild Gathering holds both.
What the Days Hold
Five nights of complete immersion, Tuesday to Sunday, Spring 2027.
Individual Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy & EMDR
Each participant receives two individual low-dose ketamine-assisted EMDR sessions with Ashley during the retreat, 90 minutes each, with a full non-dosing day between them to integrate. Ashley blends attachment-focused EMDR with IFS to create an experience which allows you to reparent your inner child. This is not group therapy — it is private, clinically held, and tailored to where you are. A third session is available as an add-on, limited to two spots and approved in advance by your prescriber.
The Medicine Is You
At The Sacred Becoming, ketamine-assisted EMDR is more than a treatment — it’s a journey back to yourself.
The ketamine state creates a rare window of neurological openness. Within that window, we work with your internal system using Attachment-Focused EMDR and Internal Family Systems (IFS). We meet your Protector parts with curiosity and care — and when they feel truly seen, they soften. In that softening, space opens for the exiled inner child: the younger part carrying the original wound, the unmet need, the pain that’s been hidden away for years.
This is where the real healing begins.
Rather than looking outward for repair, this work cultivates the relationship between your adult Self and your wounded younger parts. Your own compassionate presence becomes the reparenting force — meeting the inner child with the love, attunement, and safety that was always missing. The change that comes from this isn’t fragile. When safety is built from the inside out, it doesn’t depend on anything external to sustain it.
You don’t leave needing more of the medicine. You leave as the medicine.
Complete Somatic Immersion
Daily somatic yoga held as a group with a co-facilitator, evenings closing in restorative practice, and sound bath woven through the week. Movement, breath, and vibrational medicine as preparation for and integration of the deeper work. The body that has been bracing gets somewhere to release, and the nervous system is taught, again and again, that it is safe to stop.
Nature Ritual
The land itself is part of the container. Guided time in the Colorado landscape as a somatic and spiritual practice in its own right.
Sacred Circle
Every evening, the group gathers. You can speak or not. Being witnessed counts either way.
Functional Health Support
Trauma is not only psychological. Chronic stress leaves fingerprints on the body: sleep, thyroid, inflammation, blood sugar, iron, vitamin D, hormones. Unaddressed, those make emotional work harder and integration shakier.
Vicki Bradley, APRN, MSN, FNP-BC, is the retreat’s functional health nurse practitioner, offering guests a consultation and comprehensive blood panel before the retreat, a private consultation during the week where your labs, history, and what’s surfacing come together into a personalized plan, and follow-up after you return home to support integration on the physical level. Her services are optional, billed through her own practice, at discounted rates for guests not using insurance.
Ashley, Present Throughout
Ashley does not disappear between sessions. She is present for every circle, every meal, every moment the group gathers. Her sustained presence is part of what makes this container different..
The Intimacy of the Group
The Wild Gathering holds a small number of participants. This is not a large retreat center with dozens of strangers. It is an intimate circle — chosen carefully, held with intention.
The group dynamic is medicine in itself. To be witnessed by others who are in the same descent, to witness them in return — this is a form of healing that individual work alone cannot provide.
What’s Included
Two low-dose ketamine-assisted EMDR sessions, 90 minutes each, with a full day between
Daily somatic yoga, evening restorative practice, and sound bath
Nightly sacred circle, plus opening and closing circles
Five nights in a shared room in a private mountain home
All meals
One post-retreat integration session, plus an optional follow-up integration group
Not included: travel to Colorado, your prescriber’s medical screening and medication (billed through her practice), Vicki’s functional health services (billed through her practice, discounted for guests not using insurance), and card processing fees (bank transfer and check avoid these).
The Investment
Early application: $5,000. Standard: $5,500. This is not a vacation cost. It is a life investment — in days of depth that will continue to move through you long after you return home.
The Wild Gathering is a private pay offering. No insurance is accepted. A $1,000 deposit holds your spot, and payment plans are available. Your balance must be paid in full 7 days prior to the retreat date.
How to Apply
The Wild Gathering is offered by application and consult only. Space is extremely limited, held a small number of times per year.
If this is calling you, begin with a consult. We will talk about where you are, what you’re looking for, and whether the Wild Gathering is the right container for this moment in your becoming.
Questions? Reach Ashley at Ashley@Ashley-Hartman.com