living arts

“We can learn whatever we need in nature because we are part of nature.  Human beings are part of Creation.  We live by the same laws as all of nature.”  Anne Wilson Schaef

This retreat will be held at Crystal Waters Eco-village located at the headwaters of the Mary River. This community is an inspiration for sustainable living with self-sufficient permaculture gardens, unique examples of creative design and intelligent use of natural materials.

This vibrant retreat will combine attentive tuition from a collaboration of experienced teachers in yoga, art and permaculture. You will be guided daily with specific yoga sequences for opening the body, discover drawing as meditation, connect with traditional arts through weaving with plant fibres, and gain hands-on experience in bamboo construction and permaculture gardening, including the harvest and preparation of local bush foods.

As the days unfold at Crystal Waters, your focus will be tuned for well-being as you explore the sacred relationship between your internal and external environment. In retreat you will find quiet, creative space to seduce your mind into meditation, feel nurtured with delicious meals of organic whole foods and allow natures peaceful harmony to calm your spirit.

Weaving Wisdom

“With the most primitive means the artist creates something which the most ingenious and efficient technology will never be able to create.”
Kasimir Malevich

Born in New Zealand, Anaheke Metua moved to Australia in 1987. Annaheke’s connectedness to Maori culture has instilled her with a strong sense of community and been a continual source of strength in her artistic explorations. Passionate in honoring traditional ways, Anaheke works to integrate the essence of natural living into the modern world.
  As an Arts and Permaculture Educator, Anaheke draws from her wide tapestry of experience in fibre art, yoga and permaculture to promote the use permaculture principles for sustainability and to inspire a positive move toward the healing of culture and land.

  Since completing her Permaculture Design Certificate, and Accredited Permaculture Training (Cert II & III) in 2000, Anaheke has been passionately involved in the Australian Community Garden Movement.  Over the last 5 years, Anaheke has vibrantly supported Northey St City Farm in Brisbane, offering School Garden Education, co-ordinating weekly organic community markets and now runs ongoing skill workshops in the artistry of fibre weaving.
  Anaheke’s holistic practices also span Yoga,Tai Chi and Qi Gong. After 13 years of personal investigation, Anaheke chose to specialize in Oki Do Yoga completing her yoga teacher training in 2008.
  Anaheke’s latest creation is “Weva Deva”, a community based project focused on integrating body, mind and spirit through sharing in cultural life skills as a community.
  Anaheke’s joy in sharing her creativity and love of nature is absolutely contagious and she offers her lifework as an artist and teacher with the spirit of a positive attitude, grateful heart and open mind.

Passion for Permaculture!

“Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted & thoughtful observation rather than protracted & thoughtless labor; & of looking at plants & animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system.”
Bill Mollison

Permaculture, from PERManent agriCULTURE, is a practical system of ecological design. Employing powerful natural patterns, you can design & build profitable, sustainable, productive ecosystems that have the diversity, stability & resilience of natural ecosystems.

Bunya’s passion lies in the recognition of the interdependency of all things. Through permaculture, Bunya explores of the elements of Fire, Earth, Water and Air – drawing relationship between these components in our environment and our own physical bodies. Bunya guides us to explore the patterns of nature and recognize their influence on our moods, emotions and relationships. With a more sensitive understanding of nature’s subtleties, we can begin to cross the divide between our inner and outer environments to experience a more unified existence.

Bunya Halasz completed his Permaculture Certificate in 1999 and his Bachelor of Environmental Science in 2004. Bunya’s practical knowledge stems from a decade of investigation into a range of organic farming and permaculture practices used in Australia and New Zealand. For the last 2 years Bunya has continued to share his specialized experience through environmental education at Northey Street City Farm in Brisbane, providing tuition for a variety of permaculture design courses and accredited permaculture-training programs. With a focus on creativity, Bunya’s concept of permaculture encompasses many forms including landscape design, body movement and energetics, rhythm, and food preparation.

Bunya’s physical training in the healing arts includes the Hun Yuan System of Tai Chi and Chi Gung, and Oki Do Yoga, in which he completed his Yoga teacher-training certificate in February this year. Dynamic in his diversity, Bunya also explores the physical realm of Butoh Theatre, Japanese Taiko Drumming and a range of earth arts including Bamboo Sculpture.

Bunya now has developed his own nature education business ‘Seed Within’ offering holistic health retreats that focus on the unification between the personal, cultural and environmental spheres and the harmonizing of body, mind and spirit.

The Yoga of Art

"The constant practice of an Art,

in the end constitutes a kind of yoga"

Auro Bindo, Indian Philosopher.

No Experience is Necessary!! Discover a new way of seeing, a new path to meditation and a new door to creativity! Drawing gives us an opportunity to visually absorb the beauty and fragility of life that surrounds us with full awareness, gratitude and joy! We have never really seen ANYTHING, until we sit and draw it. Through drawing we can re-discover our world!

The drawing sessions are lead by Renae and incorporate simple techniques to awaken sensory perception, loosen ridgidty and develop hand/eye co-ordination. The focus is on process rather than perfected outcome, creating something living in our artwork rather than just a faithful representation. Sessions will begin drawing inspiration from nature and lead into drawing from life models. The opportunity to draw people from life is a privilege, it gives us a chance to observe our own human-ness in another.

Orgasmic Organics!

"Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food." Hippocrates


During the retreat, you will be nourished with a selection of delicious organic foods especially selected for our transition into the summer season. Our produce will be mostly sourced from Crystal Waters and the local organic growers of the region. We will also get to enjoy the Crystal Waters fresh organic sourdough bread, baked in the community’s very own wood-fired bakery.

The cooking style will follow a vegetarian wholefood diet with macrobiotic influence. We will be working with an approach to eating that stems from an intuitive understanding of the order of nature. The focus will be on offering food that closes the widening gap between humans and the natural world. This way of eating aims to find harmony with the environment and balance within the body, as well as improving the connection between person and place.

More and more research is showing the harmful effects that modern, processed food can have on our physical and mental health. By eating natural unprocessed foods that are organically grown, you will start to experience the relationship between what we eat and the vitality of our bodies and our planet. The aim of the menu is to prepare foods that bring us life!

Working in the kitchen to create the nourishing menu with be Bess Hopgood. Bess is a Yoga practitioner and has a keen interest in food preparation that supports a healthy yogic lifestyle. She has been cooking creatively with wholefoods and macrobiotics for over 3 years, with a particular focus in catering for yoga retreats. Bess uses cooking techniques that are in tune with the seasonal changes and works to strengthen the intuitive connection of body and earth.