Hello,
Since I began my newsletter The Clearing, there’s been a special extra tier for members who want more than a newsletter. Called The Retreat, and it was a way for me to offer interactive group retreats, featuring creative activities, guided meditations and reflection exercises for people all over the world. They are not writing retreats; they’re rest retreats.
I love these events. A delightful group of people come along, and we spend some time together calming our nervous systems. It’s the kind of work I do at my in-person retreats, but it’s far easier to access.
Until now, it’s been tucked into an awkward corner of Substack that wasn’t really designed to deliver this kind of thing. From today, though, it will have its own home here, The Retreat with Katherine May, and some lovely new upgrades and features.
Here’s what’s on offer:
10 live, online retreats a year (that’s every month except August and December). They take place on the third Saturday of each month, from 4pm - 6pm UK time, which works out well if you’re in the US too (check your time here). The first will be Saturday 18th April.
You can now pay monthly. This was a huge annoyance in the previous format, and we hope it will make it easier for more people to attend, or to try out a session.
There’s an excellent welcome package for new annual subscribers. When you first take out an annual subscription, we send you a welcome package that includes an exclusive art print, a welcome note from me, a signed bookplate, and special postcards, bookmarks and stickers. The art print will change each year - this year’s is created by Anna Brones. See below to learn its story.
We value your renewals too, so the art print will change each year, and you will receive your copy when you renew. For those of you who have been migrated from The Clearing’s Founder tier, you will receive your print when you renew your annual plan.
There will be guest hosts! I’ll be hosting most of the retreats with (who works with me at all my in-person retreats), but every now and then, there will be a special guest host, or Rebecca will take the lead.
They are far more affordable than my in-person retreats. The cost is £15 per month, or £120 for an annual subscription with the delicious goodies thrown in. We pause monthly subscriptions in August and December, when we don’t run retreats. You can give an annual subscription as a gift.
As before, all retreats will be available to download afterwards if you can’t make it on the day.
The Retreat is a sister project to The Clearing, but it exists on a separate site, and will no longer be available as an upgrade to membership of this newsletter. If you want to keep up to date and aren’t ready to join yet, you can be a free subscriber to The Retreat and just receive a monthly letter with our news.
Subscribing via the Substack app may mean a slightly higher cost because of Apple/Google fees. We recommend signing up via the website rather than in-app because of this.
Introducing this year’s art print
Who better to ask to design our annual subscriber gift than the brilliant ?
We gave Anna the brief to create a design that reflected her idea of a retreat, and she responded with this beautiful papercut showing tall pines, a low sun, and a cosy little hut with smoke curling from its chimney. There are definite Scandi influences here, but also a nod to The Clearing’s little blue hut.
We had the papercut carefully scanned and editioned on Mohawk paper by Fullsquare, a woman-owned printers who specialise in bespoke art prints. If you take out an annual subscription to The Retreat, you’ll receive your A5 copy in a flat envelope, ready to frame as you wish.
The original has been sitting in my office for the past few months while we prepared for this launch, but it’s now time for it to find a forever home. So we’re giving away the original papercut to one lucky annual subscriber who joins us in March (that includes existing members). You don’t need to do anything extra - just sign up for a year of retreats, and then someone will prise it out of my hands and we’ll notify the winner at the beginning of April.
I’m looking forward to seeing some of you at the next online retreat! But we realise it’s not for everyone, so rest assured, we’ll be back soon with a Clearing newsletter - and some good news for annual subscribers!
Take care,
Katherine
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