JAPAN WOMEN’S RETREAT
All-Inclusive Local Experience – May 9th-16th, 2027
Minakami, Japan – meaning “where water remembers”
Feeling the call for connection that feels your soul?
For rejuvination that truly restores your mind, body and soul?
This retreat is for women who are committed to deepen their connection to their true nature and inspired to do so weaving the Japanese ancient wisdom and culture of harmony with the natural world in a close sisterhood circle.
You might be feeling culturally lost in the modern world, and yearning for the nurturing, grounding, and inspiring experience to renew the connection to yourself through crafts, nature and cultural immersion, visits to sacred sites and shrines that people have revered and cared for for thousands of years.
Together, we will return to what is real and meaningful, as the gifts of Japanese wisdom ease the pressures of modern life. We will steep in the sacred aliveness of Shinto, where nature is felt as living and revered. You will see beauty through shibui, the quiet elegance of simplicity and ichi-go ichi-e, treasuring each moment as once in a lifetime. And you will follow the intuitive flow of the enso, the circle that reflects the interconnectedness of spirituality, nature, and beauty on the journey of life.
Depart from the retreat with renewed connection to yourself, and with the new, yet ancient remembrance of Japanese wisdom. Rejuvenated, inspired, grounded, nurtured and cleansed of the accumulated “dust”, as shiny as you always born to be in this world.
What You Will Receive
Potent Availability To…
- Relax, restore, and return to yourself, steeped in the reverent stillness of Japan’s nature and culture.
- Rekindle your feminine aliveness and your kinship with all life, seen and unseen.
- Purify, let go, and release the burdens you’ve carried, and shine as you were born to.
- Embrace your innate beauty and authentic essence in a safe, loving sisterhood circle.
- Reawaken your creative muse and inner child through craft, play, and free expression.
- Quiet your mind and spirit to meet sacred presence through Zen practice.
- Discover the gifts you carry from your matrilineal line and honor the ancestors who walk with you.
- Emerge renewed, grounded, and inspired to carry inner quietude and deep listening back into daily life.
Retreat Activities & Ceremonies
- 4 hot springs soaking experiences, including a riverside spa, to purify, relax, and restore.
- Traditional matcha and Cha Dao tea ceremonies to awaken reverence and ecstatic silence.
- Shinto shrine and Jomon heritage site visits to connect with our ancestors and the elemental spirits of the land.
- Shinrinyoku, the Japanese practice of “forest bathing,” to breathe in the stillness and vitality of the forest.
- Zen meditation practice to quiet the mind, plus cacao and fire ceremonies to open the heart and celebrate your transformation.
- Hands-on traditional workshops, including indigo dyeing, papermaking, and a visit to a craft village.
- Guided mountain hiking and an Oyama mairi pilgrimage to honor our ancestors, the mountain, and the waters we drink and soak in.
- Creative journaling, traditional calligraphy, and reflection to integrate your journey and awaken your inner child’s joy and creativity.
Retreat Itinerary
DAY 1 | Sunday, May 5th | Begin
- Arrive at Narita Airport by 4PM
- Optional Asakusa natural hot spring spa
- Group Japanese style dinner
DAY 2 | May 10th | Ground
- Breakfast
- Tokyo zen garden & opening circle
- Bento box lunch experience
- Group bullet train experience to Minakami
- Rest and unpack at retreat house
- Group Dinner
- Offering blessing
DAY 3 | May 11th | Purify
- Breakfast
- Shrine visit & Japanese wisdom
- Spring water harvest & cultural orientation
- Lunch
- Creative Journaling Playshop
- Hot springs soak
- Group Dinner
- Rest & relax
DAY 4 | May 12th | Create
- Breakfast
- Shrine visit & Japanese wisdom
- Open-heart cacao ceremony
- Traditional craft village visit
- Lunch on your own
- Indigo dye workshop
- Paper-making or silk spinning workshop
- Rest & relax
- Dinner
- Circle reflections & meditation
DAY 5 | May 13th | Ancestors
- Breakfast
- Shrine visit & Japanese wisdom
- Shinriyoku (forest bathing) experience
- Traditional tea ceremony at shrine
- Lunch
- Ancient Jomon heritage site
- Hot springs soak
- Dinner
- Rest & relax
DAY 6 | May 14th | Ancestors
- Breakfast
- Shrine visit & Japanese wisdom
- Oyama mairi mountain pilgrimage
- Daffodil flower field visit
- Lunch
- Hot springs soak
- Rest & relax
- Dinner on your own
- Meditation & Reflection
DAY 7 | May 15th | Flow
- Breakfast
- Shrine visit & Japanese wisdom
- Cha Dao tea ceremony
- Japanese calligraphy playshop
- Lunch
- Hot springs spa by the river
- Rest & relax
- Dinner
- Cacao fire ceremony
DAY 8 | May 16th | Complete
- Farewell Breakfast
- Shrine visit & Japanese wisdom
- Closing Circle
- Travel back to Toyko
Creative Journaling Kits
Each woman will receive a creative journaling kit to write, draw, and color your inner musings and reflections as we journey through mystical Minakami, Japan. The journal is a special place to gather the wisdom shared, practice calligraphy, explore personal insights that emerge, and record the whispers of nature that come to you in brushstroke or words. This creative practice helps deepen and integrate the experience, letting it take root and carry its inspiration home with you.
Nourishing Local Foods
Experience the nourishing foods and flavors of Japanese cuisine, prepared by locals for our group. Breakfasts will feature traditional favorites such as steamed rice, eggs, miso soup, and vegetables. For our outings, lunches will be picnic-style bento boxes or rice bowls with protein such as chicken, fish, tofu, or beef. Our group dinners will be shared meals at the lodge including seasonal dishes, natto, and miso. Farming practices in the countryside tend to be organic, and Japanese cuisine is naturally lighter and more easily gluten-free and dairy-free, so we are happy to accommodate both. Vegetarian accommodations are available upon request!
Mountain Retreat Sanctuary
Minakami — ‘where water remembers’.
The retreat will happen in Minakami, in the mountains of Gunma prefecture in Japan. Even with just over an hour of bullet train ride out of Tokyo, Minakami’s nature remains wild — ancient forest, river-carved gorges, mountains that shift color with every season, and living water that feeds and heals life. The area is recognized as a UNESCO Eco-Park for the ecosystem that the generations of people have cared for and preserved, a living, breathing place, and you will be embraced by spirits of nature as exactly as you come.
Your retreat includes a 7-night stay: one night at a 4-star hotel in Tokyo, followed by six nights at our beautiful mountain lodge. Tucked away in the peaceful hills beside a flowing river and surrounded by nature, the lodge is still just a short walk from the nearby town. The rooms are bright and zen-inspired. Our lodge will be your home base for exploring the surrounding area, and a place to gather, share meals, and rest.
All accommodations are shared, double occupancy. For those who prefer more privacy, three private rooms are available at a charming home just down the street for an additional $200 per night.
Your Retreat Guides
Nori is a native Japanese artist, nature guide, and a chocolatier whose life has been shaped by two homelands. Raised in Japan, she’s spent her childhood steeped in the country’s aesthetic and spiritual traditions. Upon coming to America as a foreign student, Nori fell in love with the nature and outdoor lifestyle there. She’s spent years rock climbing and hiking all over the country, and now has spent more than half of her life in America—carrying Japanese lineage into everything she creates, teaches, and holds space for.
Nori is fluent in Japanese language and cultural communication, and has been trained in the discipline of shodo calligraphy since childhood. She also has built a body of work as a self-taught professional artist spanning watercolor, illustration, design, and hand lettering signs. Her works deeply carry Japanese craftsmanship, and are inspired by the wild natural landscapes of America.
Nori also worked as a professional raw cacao chocolatier for 12 years, having privileged to experience the heart opening and healing properties of unadulterated cacao as a medicine. Experiences as a competitive rock climber, performing aerial silks instructor, assistant trainer in Tabata and HIIT strength training programs, and guide to lead people on a day treks into the Grand Canyon, she is well-versed in the world of multi-dimensional transformation in people.
Underneath it all is a deeper current—losing her mother to breast cancer at young age, and having questioned cultural belonging for many years, Nori has been devoted to a path of ancestral trauma, grief and emotional integration work along with a sacred union of masculine and feminine as the most basic unit of the society for years as she understands that healing of the self ripples out to be the healing of the earth.
Nori homeschools her two children in the Northern Arizona wilderness while actively reconnecting with her ancestral roots in Japan. She guides this retreat from a life fully lived across continents, bringing her essence fully and openly.
Sedona-based intuitive healer, artist, and retreat facilitator whose life’s work is uniting our metaphysical reality with our modern world. Drawn since early on to the devotional cultivation and presence of Eastern artists, she has spent her life weaving the sacred into the everyday, carrying that reverence into everything she creates, teaches, and holds space for.
For over 15 years, Bridget has been an international retreat facilitator, leading more than 50 retreats at sacred sites including Hawaii, Mt. Shasta, Sedona, Tulum, Glastonbury, Ireland, and Japan. Her deepest passion is gathering people in person for connective experiences of shared humanity, and she specializes in women’s embodiment and circles. Past participants describe her retreats as life changing.
Bridget is also a professional artist, inspired by Eastern artists who work with chi and presence to make their artwork come alive. Having studied qi gong and other Eastern practices for over a decade, she brings that same living energy to her realistic and spiritual oil and watercolor paintings, both original works and commissions.
A longtime student of Zen meditation and a recent devotee of tea ceremony, Bridget has built a practice of stillness, presence, and ritual that underlies all of her work. Through her weekly Wild & Awake podcast, she shares authentic conversations and practical guidance to help people reconnect with their sacred nature, return to their wild, intuitive roots, and embody their soul purpose.
Underneath it all is a deeper current: the belief that when we slow down enough to truly listen, we remember who we are. She guides this retreat from a life devoted to that remembering, bringing her essence fully and openly.
All-Inclusive Retreat Details
What's Included!
8 Days + 7 Nights
– 8 Days Guided Facilitation: Co-hosted by Nori Nozumi Maestas, a local Japanese guide and retreat facilitator, and Bridget Nielsen, this curated cultural and spiritual journey weaves together forest bathing, a mountain pilgrimage, sacred site visits, sharing circles, creative workshops, cacao ceremonies, and traditional crafts, all in a close sisterhood circle.
– 7 Nights Accommodations: 1 night at a hotel in Tokyo’s Asakusa area with a natural hot springs spa, and 6 nights at our retreat house in Minakami, tucked into the mountains beside the river.
– 17 Nourishing Japanese Meals: Savor fresh, locally prepared Japanese cuisine. The retreat includes: 7 breakfasts, 4 lunches, and 6 dinners. Lunches on Days 2 and 4 and dinner on Day 5 are on your own. Snacks, tea, and coffee are available all week at the retreat house. Gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegetarian options are available upon request.
– Transportation Throughout Retreat: Includes transfers from Narita Airport to Asakusa Station and on to Tokyo Station, a bullet train from Tokyo to Jomo-Kogen Station, rental cars during the retreat, and a bullet train from Jomo-Kogen Station back to Tokyo. Additional travel support in Tokyo and consulting are available from Nori upon request.
– Workshops, Hot Springs, and Experience Fees: Indigo dyeing workshop, papermaking workshop, tea ceremonies, ropeway ride, and onsen hot springs soaking fees are all included.
– Creative Journaling Kits: Each personal kit includes an accordion-fold notebook, pens, and watercolors.
What's Not Included
– Airfare – Airplane tickets to get to Tokyo Narita Airport and back to your home
– Transportation – Transportation fee from Tokyo station after the retreat has ended
– Lunches on day 2 and 4, and dinner on day 5 during the retreat.
Additional trip planning and concierge service, available upon request.
Transportation
– Air – Fly Into Tokyo: Fly into Haneda Airport (HND) in Tokyo, arriving by 4pm on Day 1 (May 9th). Haneda is the closest airport to central Tokyo, about 30 to 45 minutes from Asakusa, where we will stay our first night. Narita International Airport (NRT) is also an option, about 60 to 90 minutes by train from Asakusa.
– Airport Transfer – Both airports have easy train, bus, and taxi connections to our hotel in Asakusa. After you register, we’ll send meeting details and transfer instructions.
On Day 2 (May 10th), we’ll travel together from Asakusa to Tokyo Station, then ride the bullet train to Jomo-Kogen Station, where our rental cars will meet us for the drive to the retreat house in Minakami. After the retreat, the bullet train takes you from Jomo-Kogen Station back to Tokyo.
– Rental Car – We’ll carpool to all of our outings, and there’s always plenty of room for everyone. Nori and Bridget will be driving, and we’re looking for one more woman who is open to volunteering as an additional driver once we’re in the countryside of Minakami. If you’re comfortable driving in Japan, let us know when you register!
Retreat House & Accommodations
– Accommodations: Shared double-room accommodations for a 7-night stay are included in the retreat price: one night at a 4-star hotel in Tokyo’s Asakusa area, followed by six nights at our beautiful mountain lodge in Minakami. The lodge has 2 full bathrooms and 3 half baths, and room selections are offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Minakami is the perfect setting to relax, connect with nature, soak in the stillness of the mountains, and bond with a like-hearted sisterhood.
Private Accommodations: For those seeking more privacy, private accommodations are available at a house down the street for an additional $200 per night, for the full 6 nights we’re in Minakami ($1,200 total). If you choose the private house with a couple of other women, you may need to a rent a car for easy transport.
If you’d like privacy in Tokyo only and are happy to share the rest of the time, you can add a private room for that night for an additional $200.
Refunds & Cancellation Policy
Deposit: Non-refundable, but transferable to another guest or a future retreat.
Cancellations:
- 90+ days before: Full refund, minus your deposit.
- 60 to 89 days before: 50% refund, minus your deposit, or a full credit toward a future retreat or program.
- Under 60 days: No refund. Credit toward a future retreat or program, or transfer your spot to a friend.
If your spot is filled: If we fill your spot from our waitlist, you’ll receive a refund of what you paid, minus your deposit and any non-recoverable costs already booked on your behalf, even inside the 60-day window.
Transfers: Free to a friend at any time.
Travel insurance: Strongly recommended, to cover cancellation or interruption.
Invest In Yourself
Deposit: $695 reserves your spot! Click Here To Secure >> –
All-Inclusive, Early-bird Price $3,695. Includes 8 Days + 7 Night Stay. Payment plans available! Early-bird pricing ends February 1st, 2027. Save $300 with early-bird pricing, price thereafter $3,990.
Early-bird Balance Due After Deposit $3,000. Payment in Full Due 60 days before the retreat begins, March 9th, 2026. To waive the 3% service fee, email me at bridgetnielsen1@gmail.com.
Click the orange button below to register now!
Women’s Retreat Testimonials
When Nori walks in the room there is an incredibly calm and grounding energy that settles in and you just feel at ease and taken care of. If you have the opportunity to take her retreat, absolutely go for it!
During her sessions I’ve always felt so open and inspired and I look forward to any conversation or class I can have with Nori.
I would definitely say that she has helped me get to know myself better and has inspired me to do so many new things! I’m so grateful to know her.
“If you feel the call to attend Bridget’s retreat then you MUST GO! Every aspect of the retreat was intently designed with the utmost love for a truly transformative experience. I came to the retreat feeling very lost and disconnected and left in a state of bliss, feeling more connected to nature and my soul family than ever before. My heart is STILL bursting with pure joy and my creative spark has been reignited! I will forever be grateful for this amazing experience!”
You couldn’t ask for a better retreat!!! The sense of community and connection that developed nearly instantly was amazing. My life has so greatly improved and benefited from all my experiences on this women’s retreat. I couldn’t be more grateful. Thank you!
I’ve attended two of Bridget’s retreats – in Sedona & the women’s retreat in Maui – & they have been not only exceptionally transformative, but also amazing & beautiful experiences. Every single aspect of the retreats has been perfection, from the delicious high vibrational food, to the playful soul-blossoming activities, to the sacred sites that we visit, to the breathtaking places in nature where we meditate & connect with the Earth, to the soul tribe that we journey with on these adventures…
I cannot say enough good things about Bridget’s retreats or about Bridget herself… Her wisdom & balanced energy is a gift to be around. It would be a welcomed blessing to attend many more of her beautiful retreats, as they facilitate my spiritual growth, balance my energy, raise my vibration, & feed my soul in a multitude of ways.
“My time on this retreat was life-changing. Bridget led us on a magical journey that brought us together as a community creating a safe and powerful space for us to embody more of our goddess nature. By the end of the retreat, my body felt satiated, nurtured and rejuvenated.”