Sacred Womb Services
Healing Retreat for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Trauma
June 12 - 15, 2025 Whidbey Island, WA
Now is the time for survivors to unite and together free ourselves from the effects of trauma on our bodies, hearts, minds and spirits. This Healing Retreat offers a ceremonial container for a small group of participants to honor, grieve and celebrate the trials and triumphs in the journey of healing from childhood sexual abuse. Created for survivors by survivors, we use a holistic approach to unravel the pervasiveness of isolation, silence and shame, and to weave together our collective stories while being witness to one another’s individual experience.
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This retreat uses a variety of modalities to explore how childhood experiences are held in the different aspects of self and offers opportunities for release, clearing and healing through talking circles, somatic practice, movement, visualization, singing, a grief ritual, and quiet integration time.
From a past retreat participant:
"I have so appreciated the pace of this workshop, the space that it offered such grace, a wakening of who I am. I really feel like me, in a way I haven’t before. Glorious, beautiful, sacred, tender, amazingly sweet and sensitive yet powerfully strong, sensual, erotic and excited to just be me!"
Who is it for:
The Healing Retreat is for adult survivors* of childhood sexual trauma, defined as any sexual violation experienced by someone under the age of 18.
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The Healing Retreat is open to participants over 18 years old of all genders, racialized identities, and sexual orientations.
This retreat is intended for those who have already begun their healing journey and are seeking more support by working with others within a sacred circle.
*We use the term survivor, and acknowledge that this may not be the term all folks who have experienced sexual trauma may use to describe themselves.
Retreat Location:
The Healing Retreat is held at the Whidbey Institute in Washington State, located on the territory of the Lower Skagit, Swinomish, Suquamish, and Snohomish tribes—the island Tscha-kole-chy, named Whidbey Island by colonial settlers. The Whidbey Institute has been a home for transformational learning for over 50 years.
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The Whidbey Institute is just over a hour drive from the Sea-Tac airport, including a 20-min ferry ride from Mukilteo to Whidbey Island. The island can also be entered by bridge from the north, or by ferry from the Olympic Peninsula. There is a shuttle service that runs between Sea-Tac airport and The Whidbey Institute.
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Accessibility Info:
The Healing Retreat team works to make this experience as accessible as possible. Please be in touch if you have any specific questions about accessibility.
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The sleeping accommodations include a cabin village in the forest and an historic Farmhouse. The grounds at the Whidbey Institute include paved and unpaved paths and grassy areas. Kitchen and indoor meetings spaces are ADA accessible, as well as a number of cabins. Accommodations can be made for those who need support getting from one place to another. ​​
Our COVID protocols:
We will adhere to state and local guidelines for COVID safety protocol. Knowing that these guidelines will likely shift over the coming months, we will be in touch with retreat participants at least one month ahead of time about our requirements.
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Retreat Costs & Application Process:
The Healing Retreat cost includes 3 nights of lodging in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, and nourishing meals from dinner Thursday through Sunday brunch. A self-selecting sliding scale is offered, and payment plans are available. Full payment is requested 1 month prior to the retreat start date.
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Those who are able to contribute at the Pay it Forward or Sustaining rates make it possible for those without financial access to be a part of this healing opportunity. We are so grateful!
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There are Full and Partial Scholarships Available. Priority is given to BIPOC applicants and those with other marginalized identities including queer and trans folks, and people with disabilities.
To help you choose the most appropriate pricing tier for your financial situation, you can visit the following website.
Pricing Scale:
$2100 - Pay It Forward Rate (includes single room accommodations unless requested otherwise)
$1800 - Sustaining Rate (includes double occupancy accommodations, limited number of single occupancy available for additional $200)
$1200 - Actual Rate (includes double occupancy accommodations, limited number of single occupancy available for additional $200)
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Application Process
The application process includes an online questionnaire and a brief follow up call with a facilitator.​ Applications are processed on a first come first serve basis. There is a $50 application fee,* due at the time of application submittal. The facilitation team will work to be in touch with you about your application status within 2 weeks of receiving the application questionnaire and to schedule a short phone or video call. Upon hearing an acceptance from the facilitation team, you will have one week to confirm or decline your participation.**
Please note:
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If accepted to the Healing Retreat, your $50 application fee will be applied to your retreat tuition.
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If you choose to withdraw your participation within one week of receiving acceptance, or if your application is not accepted for this year's retreat, this fee will be refunded to you in full.
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If we do not hear back from you after one week, your $50 application fee will be donated towards then Healing Retreat scholarship fund.
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*If this fee is a barrier to you applying, please email the facilitation team at: survivorshealingretreat@gmail.com.
**Please let us know if you will be offline or will not have access to email during the period of time that you may expect to hear a response from us.
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Free Online Information Session
If you would like to learn more about the 2025 Healing Retreat and meet the facilitators, please join us for an information session on Sunday, Feb. 23rd from 4pm - 5pm PT on Zoom. Register here.
Can’t attend the retreat but would like to make a donation to support scholarships for attendees? Donate at: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/healingretreat
Facilitators:
Katie Spataro, CSB
Katie Spataro (she/her) is a certified Somatic Sex Educator, Holistic Pelvic Care provider and full spectrum doula residing on the unceded lands of the Duwamish people otherwise known as Seattle. Katie studies and practices at the intersections of birth work and sex work, drawing upon the embodied wisdom of these two lineages to support healing of the personal and collective cultural body. Katie blends various modalities of somatic practice, bodywork and skilled coaching in her private practice, and facilitates classes on sexual and reproductive wellness, embodied consent, grief and loss, pregnancy and birth, and erotic education through a trauma-informed and healing-centered lens. www.sacredwombservices.com
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Marisa Withey Byrne
Marisa, or Sasa, (she/her) devotes herself to the transformative, humbling work of uplifting sacred sexual wholeness. As a “light-bearer,” she is dedicated to easing the isolation and suffering of survivors of sexual trauma, supporting people– especially youth– to develop and sustain healthy and holistic relationships with their sexuality, and to educate and hold healing space for those who have caused sexual harm. As an incest survivor, Sasa has found healing through focusing on familial, global, and self-restoration. Her offerings reflect her experience as an advocate, sex educator, council carrier, ceremonialist and rite of passage facilitator. Her Bolivian/ Spanish and Irish/German ancestry, deep connection to Pachamama, belief in the revolutionary power of love, and practice of restorative and transformative justice shape how Sasa shows up to her work and to the world.
Kari Stettler
Kari Stettler, SEP (she/her), supports people feeling at home in their human body, free and spirited, interconnected in the web of life. At its core, her work is in service to healing relations with self, others, our communities and the greater Earth body that sustains us. As a rites of passage ceremonialist, she co-guides an intensive two-year nature based initiation process into adulthood for young women. Kari has been mentored by deep ecologist and eco-philosopher, Joanna Macy, since 2005 and has been a facilitator of grief rituals and group work for personal and collective transformation since 2007. As a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, she works with individuals and groups to support trauma resolution and nervous system health education. Kari lives a land-based life in Sebastopol, California, where she grows food and medicine for her community and tends bees and chickens. www.somaticresiliency.com
Jay Wade
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Jay Wade (he/they) is of Italian, Irish and English ancestry and grew up in the Great Lakes region on the stolen lands of the Mississauga’s of the Credit, Haudenosaunee, Huron and Wendat people. Jay has facilitated programs exploring masculinity, sexuality, gender, sustainable living and nature connection. He is a Certified Sex Educator and a Somatic Coach, and is honored to work with clients who are choosing to explore their relationship to their body, their pleasure and their connections to others. Jay values the importance of ceremony and his interconnection to the non-human world and looks to each in his aspiration to becoming a deeper practitioner of grief and love.