GATHERING SHARDS RETREAT
A 5-Day Nature-based Healing Retreat for Healing Shame in Dolores, CO
CLIMBING | YOGA | SOUND HEALING | CAMPING
August 7 - 11, 2026
If you’ve experienced trauma and struggle to embrace yourself in your most vulnerable moments, this retreat is for you.
Gathering Shards is a nature based healing retreat designed to support you in releasing shame and exploring what it means to embrace all parts of you regardless of how ugly they seem on the surface.
This program is all about listening to ourselves rather than managing ourselves so that you can show up confidently when your trauma starts to run the show. This is not about cutting out behaviors or parts of you you are ashamed of. This is about actually seeing them for what they are–ill-equipped younger parts of you screaming for help and just trying to survive the moment.
Through the natural joys and challenges that come with being in wild spaces, you will learn what it means to respond to yourself with compassion and tend to the parts of you carrying wounds from long ago. You will be led by guides who are versed in the tandem flow of inner and outer journeys and who will support your unique path with skills for embracing all parts of yourself so that you can redirect them in ways that help you thrive in life and relationships. Together, we’ll discover the lessons the natural world generously offers us when we choose to spend time with ourselves and others in these wild spaces.
Through sound healing, yoga, rock climbing, meditation, and mind-body workshops, you’ll have space to reflect both alone and in community, and feel fully present with your body, emotions, and the raw beauty of the landscape around you.
This trip is for you if you have subscribed to labels like “too broken,” “crazy,” or “an anxious person” and are ready to create safety for all parts of you by becoming your best friend and ally.
What to Expect:
Camp: Ground yourself in simplicity, connecting to the rhythms of nature under the backdrop of sandstone and starry skies. Escape from the chaos of day-to-day life so that you can experience yourself with clarity and depth
Yoga & Meditation: Restore your body and mind through yoga and meditation practices designed to help you reconnect, release tension, and return to the present moment.
Healing Workshops: Learn skills for seeing yourself deeply and engaging the parts of you that you are ashamed of in ways that allow for healing and movement in your life.
Sound Healing: Experience the release and deeper healing that comes through the use of sound.
Therapeutic Rock Climbing: Encounter yourself and heal shame through therapeutic climbing exercises. Experience outdoor adventure as something that takes you beyond play and into a life-changing space.
Group Discussions: Share and reflect with others on the journey. Discover new insights through connection with people who get it.
Solo Time: Carve out moments of solitude in nature to deepen your self-awareness, reflect, and reawaken the parts of you that have been asleep and are ready to come alive again!
Meet Your Leaders:
Christie Morgan
Therapist & Retreat Facilitator | LPC, WFR
Christie is a relational trauma adventure therapist who is passionate about inviting people into wild spaces where they can have genuine encounters with their own wildernesses within them. Her work is centered around creating a space where people can return home to the parts of themselves that have been buried beneath their trauma. Christie believes that no one is past the point of healing and that fostering a compassionate and hospitable spirit within ourselves is one of the most important tasks we can do in the healing process.
Christie’s passion first developed when her own childhood trauma led her to walk through her own healing process both through therapy and thru-hiking. Prior to becoming a therapist, Christie was as an outdoor instructor in California, where she created healing spaces for parents and teens to heal their relationships with each other through backpacking and rock climbing.
When Christie is not supporting others on their journeys home to themselves, she enjoys adventuring with her husband & kiddos, running ultras, climbing, backpacking, and creating art.
Maria Vachlon
Outdoor Instructor
Maria comes to this trip as an experienced outdoor guide who genuinely loves being outside with other people. In 2017, she thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, an experience that deeply shifted her life and set her on the path into the guiding world. Not long after, she began working as a wilderness therapy guide with teens, a role she held for five years while leading extended backcountry trips and learning how to support groups through challenge, uncertainty, and the quiet in-between moments. These experiences and roles led to Maria returning to school to obtain her Masters of Social Work, and now Maria is employed as a therapist.
Maria believes a lot of meaningful healing happens by moving our bodies, sharing effort, and spending time away from screens. Outside of work, she spends most of her time climbing, backpacking, trail running, and living on the road with her cat. She’s excited to be part of a trip that feels grounded, connected, and real, and to share a few days of walking, eating, laughing, and being out there together.
Steve Peak
Yoga Instructor
Steve discovered yoga at a young age, and the connection was immediate– more than the physical practice, the art of moving meditation and a mirror for self-reflection. Over two decades, he has studied under many teachers across a range of traditions, including yin, ashtanga, restorative, hatha, and kundalini. His teaching style is fluid and intuitive, shaped in the moment by the energy of the room and the needs of those present. He holds space with intention–creating an atmospher that is in tune with nature, safe, warm, welcoming, and deeply calming.
After a life of world travel, he was called to Dolores, CO, to put down roots and build something lasting. As a steward of the land, he is devoted to cultivating community and tending to a place where people can come to heal, experience medicine, find nourishment, and create meaningful memories. For him, the land and the practice are inseparable– both an offering and a blessing.
Emma Kelleher
Sound Practitioner
Emma has been studying the power of sound since 2015 and has a wellspring of knowledge and training. Her foundation in Acutonics Sound Therapy, group sessions, and 1-0n-1’s allows her to integrate this practice into yoga, massage, and energy work. With her deep love of music, expressive vocals and multi-instrumental practice, she has created rich, immersive sound journeys & teachings.
Emma continues to evolve as both a student and a teacher of sound and healing modalities to bring fresh insights, ancient knowledge, & devotion to all that she offers.
The story behind Gathering Shards
Only a month after attempting to end her life, Christie found herself in glass blowing studio in Kenya, where her whole life turned around. The artist there was gathering broken shards of glass from the slums in Nairobi, melting them in the furnace, and blowing them into beautiful works of art.
Walking amidst the beautiful pieces of glass glistening in the light, Christie felt a deep connection to the glass. For so long she felt like that broken shard—too sharp and dirty to be claimed as beautiful or worthy—yet she was entering into the furnace of healing, where she would soon be restored.
The restoration was not a result of cutting out the ugly parts of her, but creating a space of belonging for them within herself. In gathering them back to herself and tending to them with compassion, she finally felt alive again.
This experience has become the lens through which Christie approaches her work with clients. She is passionate about creating safe spaces for each of us to gather back the parts of us that we think are too broken and give them a space to belong and transform.
Gathering Shards is an experience of transitioning from shame, fear, and isolation to a deeply intentional, loving, and connected life.
5 days/4 nights of nature based healing
Three delicious meals each day
Yoga & meditation sessions
Abundant space to connect to yourself, others, and nature
All group gear (first aid, cooking gear, maps, water purification, etc.)
Climbing Gear Rentals
Campsite & land use fees
Daily guided group discussions
Mind-body workshops to reconnect with your body as a guide toward wholeness
Sound healing journeys
Included:
Investment:
Early Bird Pricing (Register by March 31): $1200
Regular Pricing (Register by May 15th): $1300
Example Itinerary
Day 1:
Meet and Ground
Orientation + Gear Check
Dinner & Get to know each other
Opening ceremony & Sound Healing Journey
Day 2:
Morning Yoga and Meditation
Healing Workshop & Group processing:
Therapeutic Rock Climbing
Dinner & Reflection time
Day 3:
Morning Yoga and Meditation
Healing Workshop & Group processing:
Therapeutic Rock Climbing
Dinner & Reflection time
Day 4:
Morning Yoga and Meditation
Healing Workshop & Group processing:
Solo time
Dinner & Reflection time
Day 5:
Morning Yoga and Meditation
Sound Healing Journey & Closing ceremony
Goodbyes
FAQs
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Click the “Apply” button and fill out the application form. The retreats are by application only.
Early bird deadline: March 31
Registration Deadline: May 15
After submitting your application, you will receive an email from me letting you know if you are offered a space in the retreat.
Your space in the retreat is reserved upon submission of the $250 security deposit.
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You can choose to fly into Cortez, Colorado. We will arrange for someone to pick you up and bring you to the retreat.
If you choose to drive, you are responsible for your own transportation to and from the retreat area. On our form, you can opt-in to coordinate carpooling with other participants on the trip!
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All meals are provided! Plan to bring your own snacks, warm beverage of choice, and foods you can’t live without :)
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Plan to bring your own personal gear including: backpack, sleeping pad, sleeping bag, clothing, and personal accessories.
You will be provided with a complete packing list prior to the trip.
We will provide all group gear (water purification, bear canisters, stove, first aid, maps, etc).
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Yes! We will meet prior to the trip to make sure that you have everything you need to have a successful retreat.
Throughout the retreat, our guides will be teaching you everything you need to know to enjoy your experience. No prior experience is necessary.