Today we’d like to introduce you to Angelina Hensley.
Hi Angelina, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My husband and I were visiting Asheville, NC, and really loved the area. We both had lifelong dreams of stewarding a retreat space and had been looking in Northern California, where we lived. We decided to look for spaces in the area and found the property on a website called Find the Divine. Immediately, we knew this was the place we had been dreaming of. Within four months, we sold our house, bought the property sight unseen, and moved across the country on a spirit-led adventure.
We host women’s circles and retreats with the intention of building community and helping people connect with the more-than-human world. Much of the work here involves looking to the wisdom in nature and her cycles —the moon, the seasons.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Of course, life involves struggle and challenges. We are meant to grow our ability to meet and overcome these obstacles. Mostly, we feel so grateful for the ways that spirit has blessed us and made what we are doing here easy. There have been magical synchronicities, and we have found our community and people in the most unexpected ways. I try to listen to where I am guided and what I am meant to do, and trust that everything I need will be provided.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Licensed as a marriage and family therapist in California and Tennessee, I specialize in somatic and eco-approaches to psychotherapy, clinical supervision, pedagogy, research, community building, and social change. I am an Associate Professor and Program Chair for the Counseling Psychology Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. I teach the Body-Oriented Psychotherapy course in the Mind-Body Medicine Program at Saybrook University. As a guide and mentor for mental health professionals, I provide a supportive atmosphere where students can open up to more and more of their authentic soul self.
I believe in the power of circle-based, participatory, and empowered learning spaces. I facilitate deep academic inquiry that engages bodily knowing, heart, the natural world, expressive arts, dreams, and ritual. As a somatic and nature-based psychotherapist, I am interested in researching mind-body approaches to wellness and using the felt sense in research methodology.
My life’s work has centered around community building and grassroots social change. Because I believe in the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible, I have been a circle keeper and teacher in community settings, nonprofit organizations, jails, prisons, and university classrooms. I know what is possible when we show up together, for one another and the more-than-human world. I believe in magic and know that we need it to be able to face the inevitable human suffering in life. We also need regular engagement with beauty, a solid support system, a sense of humor and hearts full of courage. Working with me is about gathering and growing these essential ingredients. I help people grow skills and capacities to weather life’s challenges, learn through difficulty and embody resiliency.
At Terre Madre, we facilitate women’s ceremonies and rituals for personal, collective, and planetary transformation & healing. These practices help us connect more deeply within ourselves and with one another and receive medicine & wisdom from the land, seasons, ancestors, guides and the land. I love to garden, cook, practice herbalism, do yoga, and dance.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
Everything I know I learned from a mentor. If you find someone who is doing something you want to do, ask them to teach you, and try to work together. As women, especially, we are taught to compete. It is so much more powerful to lift one another up. If you are looking to build community, start with a prayer and intention. Dream into what you want that to look and feel like, and see if you can access a feeling in your body of what it would be like to have what you want. Feel gratitude that this or something better is available to you. I am a big fan of vision boards. I just found one that I created 20 years ago, and was so thrilled to see that I have created all of what I hoped for back then.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://terremadreretreat.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terremadre.retreat/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelinahensleymft/
