Grandmothers’ Garden:
A place to awaken the secret of your resilience and
creative power.
Is there a wild and tender part of you that has always longed to be nurtured in the garden of a wise woman?
Grandmothers’ Garden is a monthly circle for women of all ages that can help you:
Break cycles of exhaustion and burnout
Gain confidence in your ability to find your way through any situation
Strengthen your intuition
Do anything with a sense of ease and flow
Have a sense of purpose and orientation to the future that gives your life meaning.
Connect with people who help call forward your best self
Guided by Emily Jarrett Hughes, a mother, healer, dancer, and wisdom teacher, Grandmothers’ Garden will help you grow into your wisdom.
What is so secret about your resilience and creative power?
The wisdom teachings that awaken ease, intuition, hope, and purpose are not really secrets.
The open secret is that words only point to their wisdom.
True understanding happens in a place beyond words. That is the secret place.
It is the knowing we have in our bones.
That’s why Grandmothers’ Garden transmits wisdom teachings through a combination of:
Entering into myth and sacred stories
Connecting with nature and the wisdom of each season
Ancient meditative movement practices
Guided meditation
Pauses for written or sketched self-reflection
Small group sharing
All woven together for you in an expertly facilitated space.
Grandmothers’ Garden
With Emily Jarrett Hughes
Dance, Healer, and Wisdom Teacher
In-Person, Minneapolis
Once a Month on Mondays, 4-6 PM
Five units organized around seasonal themes
September and October
Ancestor Connection: Find your place in a lineage of past and future ancestors
November and December
Befriending the dark: tapping into the wisdom of the Black Madonna
January and February
Purification and dreaming: healing karmas and preparing for the next year of growth
March and April
Healing with the Land: learning to live with deep reciprocity with the nature
May and June
Healing with the Body: both caring for our physical bodies and developing our embodied healing presence.
The Grandmothers’ garden your soul has been longing for.
Like in a fairy tale, imagine you have been in the woods and come upon a garden of healing herbs, food, and flowers tended by a wise old woman. This woman invites you into her garden to be nourished and nurtured by her love and wisdom.
What is this grandmothers’ garden?
If you felt love from your grandmother, her love is a garden waiting for you.
This is a symbol and separate from whether or not she actually had a garden.
There are many grandmothers supporting you, far beyond your ancestral line.
Any woman who has inspired you with her life can be a grandmother for you in this garden.
In this Grandmothers’ Garden you are invited to encounter the ancient world-view of sustainability, community, and reverence for the Earth embodied by the dancing village grandmothers in the Balkans, Greece, and Asia Minor.
Pioneering dancer and scholar Laura Shannon is the “grandmother” of this approach.
The grand-mother is also a gate for understanding the not just grand, but great act of mothering, of the sacred feminine and life-giving mystery.
We know the grandmother through her garden.
You will learn how to align with the seasons and elements of nature.
Whether or not you have children, and no matter your age, you are a grandmother of the future.
This circle is a garden that grows powerful grandmothers of the future.
This is not a dance class
While the ancient, earth-based world view encoded in traditional dances is the primary inspiration for this circle, Grandmothers’ Garden is not a dance class.
The heart of our time together is a creative blend of learning through reflection and connection. Movement, often a simple and very gentle traditional dance, will help us begin and end each gathering, creating our container.
If you have never danced before, fear you have two left feet, or have an injury that limits your mobility – no problem! Everything is gentle and adaptable and the point is the inner experience and understanding it awakens.
If you are curious how an ancient worldview of reverence for the Earth has been preserved through dance – but are not sure you are ready to dance – this is the opportunity for you!
If you have been dancing with me and feel hungry to explore another layer of understanding about the dances, this opportunity is also for you!
Grandmothers’ Garden is part of the garden of Wisdom Dances offerings which also include a weekly dance circle and seasonal celebrations.
An extraordinarily comprehensive women’s circle.
Every gathering incorporates the body, nature, ancestral lineages, and the perennial wisdom tradition.
Sometimes the most meaningful sharing we do with each other is non-verbal.
Sometimes we can’t fully access the magic of embodied experiences until we’ve had a chance to speak them out loud.
Clear facilitation guided by the principles of hospitality, generosity, and respect, ensures each person feels heard and cared for.
This circle extends a wide welcome to the great diversity of womxnhood.
We are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For
If you are hungry to live in a world that honors the interconnection with nature and each other, you have a vital contribution to make.
You are the one the ancestors have been waiting for.
Your gifts are needed in their full glory in this moment.
The more you live your love with power and delight, that loving ripple will be felt far into the future.
Grandmothers’ Garden is the place you didn’t realize you were waiting for, and it is waiting to bring forward your resilient, wise, and powerful self.
Register below for the upcoming sessions!
Fall and Early Winter Season with
Grandmothers’ Garden
Mondays, 4-6 PM at Signature Arts Building in Minneapolis
Click here if you want to be put on a waiting list for an online version of this class.
Fall Season
$65
Ancestor Connection: Find your place in a lineage of past and future ancestors
September 29: You are the wildest dream of the ancestors. This class will help you develop your connection to the ancestors who come before you that give you strength and courage.
October 27: The future is yours to dream. Clean out your literal or figurative closets by exploring what inheritances we want to pass on or transform. No matter your age, starting to live with the intention of becoming a great ancestor awakens a powerful sense of purpose.
Early Winter Season
$65
Befriending the dark: tapping into the wisdom of the Black Madonna
November 17: The Black Madonnas are more than just Christian icons, they are embodiments of miraculous power and divine intervention. The ancient spiritual lineage of the Black Madonna carries the legacy of ancient goddesses like Isis and Demeter. As we prepare to enter into the darkest season of the year, we will explore the interconnections between how we relate to the Dark, to Earth, and the Black Madonna.
December 15: As we approach winter solstice, we will prepare ourselves for deep, soul renewing rest. Befriending the dark can help us transform our fear of death, and help us find a greater source of continuity in the midst of chaotic change.
Register for both
$115 - Save $15!
My name is Emily Jarrett Hughes and I am a healer, teacher, dancer, and mother living in Minneapolis.
I completed a two-year intensive training in women’s ritual dances with Laura Shannon which is the foundation of my approach. The weekly dance circle and seasonal celebrations I lead are dedicated to joy, community, and connection to nature. I get tremendous satisfaction witnessing how dancing helps women cultivate their inner authority, a grounded sense of purpose, and ease amidst change.
I am also a qigong healer and love to teach qigong to help others activate their own healing power. I am a Spring Forest Qigong Certified Instructor and Healer.
