Wild Stillness Journeys
About Wild Stillness JourneysJourneys into Presence, Place, and Story
Wild Stillness Journeys are immersive journeys designed to slow you down and bring you fully into the present moment — not through retreating from the world, but by stepping more deeply into it.
Each journey invites you to cultivate awareness, presence, and self-connection through lived experience: walking ancient lands, engaging with culture, listening to story, creating with your hands, and spending time in nature. These are not tours in the traditional sense, and they are not passive retreats. They are carefully held experiences where learning happens through being there — through attention, curiosity, and meaningful participation.
At the heart of Wild Stillness Journeys is the understanding that mindfulness and self-awareness are not separate from the world around us. They are shaped through place, through culture, through the rhythm of daily life, and through moments of genuine connection. Each journey blends reflective practices with hands-on creative experiences, storytelling, cultural immersion, and time to simply notice what arises when you slow down and listen.
Every tour is intentionally paced and thoughtfully curated, allowing space for reflection, creativity, and rest, while also offering rich encounters with the land and its stories. The focus is not on ticking off destinations, but on experiencing each place with depth, respect, and presence.
Each journey is designed as a lived experience, inviting you to learn through direct engagement with place, culture, nature, and creative practice.
❋ Immersive ExperiencesMindfulness and self-awareness are woven gently throughout the journey through reflection, sensory awareness, creative processes, and moments of intentional pause.
❋ Presence in PracticeEvery tour is carefully curated and guided, offering structure and support while allowing space for personal exploration and meaning to emerge naturally.
❋ Expertly GuidedOur next Wild Stillness Journey…
Impressions of India
A Creative Pilgrimage through Tamil Nadu
20 Sept - 2 Oct 2026
Location: Tamil Nadu, India
Facilitator: Jan Carey, Director - Centre for Mindful Education, Author of Wild Stillness: A Journey into Mindfulness, Creativity, and the Sacred Wisdom of Nature.
Tour overview: Impressions of India is an invitation to meet India through the quiet language of mark making, colour, and texture — a journey shaped not only by the places you visit, but by how those places imprint themselves upon you.
Hands on workshops include: Block printing, Eco-Fabric Printing, Marbling, Sand Rangoli, Natural Dye Making, Flower Garland Making…. and much more!
Making, noticing, and being — all part of the journey.
Our Experience with Retreats and Immersive Journeys
We have facilitated many retreats and immersive journeys over the past years, each shaped with care, intention, and a deep respect for place, culture, and people. These experiences have grown organically through long-standing relationships, repeated visits, and a genuine love for creating spaces where participants feel supported, grounded, and inspired.
Rather than offering one-off travel experiences, our retreats have evolved through listening, learning, and returning — refining what truly supports presence, connection, and meaningful engagement.
India Immersions – Journeys Through the Heart of the Land
India has been a central part of our retreat work for many years. We have previously guided multiple journeys through Tamil Nadu and other regions, offering participants a gentle, well-held introduction to the depth, beauty, and complexity of the land.
These retreats have focused on cultural immersion, sacred spaces, storytelling, reflective practice, volunteering and service work, and time to slow down and absorb the experience beyond surface impressions. Participants have consistently shared that these journeys felt grounded, thoughtfully paced, and deeply supportive — particularly for those visiting India for the first time.
Our familiarity with the regions we visit allows us to design experiences that balance richness with calm, helping participants feel oriented, safe, and able to truly engage with what the land is offering.
Bali Retreats – Mindfulness in Action for Educators
We have facilitated numerous retreats in Bali, primarily designed for educators and teachers seeking practical, embodied ways to cultivate presence, attention, and self-awareness — both in their own lives and within the learning environments they create for children.
Set within Bali’s serene natural landscapes, these retreats used the island’s beauty and rhythm as a living classroom. Participants explored what it means to hold awareness in everyday moments, developing mindfulness not as a concept, but as an applied practice woven into movement, creativity, reflection, and daily life.
A key focus of these journeys was translating personal experience into professional practice. Educators were supported to explore how presence, attention, and relational awareness can be integrated thoughtfully into educational settings, supporting wellbeing, connection, and learning for both teachers and students.
These Bali retreats have been deeply valued for their balance of restoration and application — offering space to reconnect inwardly while also providing clear, grounded pathways for bringing mindful awareness into classrooms and living.
Mindfulness & Wellbeing Weekends
Over the past 8 years, we have also facilitated a series of Mindfulness and Wellbeing weekend retreats, primarily for educators, designed to offer accessible, restorative experiences within a shorter retreat format.
Each weekend retreat has explored a different focus, allowing participants to engage with mindfulness in ways that feel relevant, practical, and supportive of their professional and personal lives. These retreats have included themes such as cultivating presence, managing stress and overwhelm, reconnecting with purpose, and nurturing wellbeing.
In recent years, mindful art and nature-based practices have become a strong and meaningful focus within these weekends. Through creative workshop exploration, time outdoors, and gentle reflective practices, participants have been supported to slow down, reconnect with themselves, and rediscover creativity as a pathway to awareness and renewal.
These weekend retreats have been valued for their warmth, depth, and accessibility — offering educators time to pause, reflect, and return to their work with greater clarity, presence, and resilience.
Meet the Retreat Facilitator
Wild Stillness Tours are facilitated by Jan Carey, an educator, writer, and retreat guide with a deep commitment to cultivating presence, awareness, and meaningful connection through lived experience.
Jan has spent many years working in education as a teacher and school leader, as well as facilitating mindfulness workshops, retreats, and professional learning experiences for educators. For the past eight years, her work has focused on supporting people to develop practical, embodied tools for self-awareness, attention, and presence — not as abstract ideas, but as skills that can be lived, practised, and integrated into everyday life.
A significant part of Jan’s journey has been shaped by her long-standing relationship with India. She has spent extended periods living in India, immersing herself in the culture and undertaking volunteer work, allowing her understanding of place, rhythm, and tradition to grow slowly and respectfully over time. These experiences have deeply informed the way she designs and facilitates retreats — with sensitivity, care, and an emphasis on gentle immersion rather than overwhelm.
Jan is the author of Wild Stillness, a book that reflects her ongoing exploration of mindfulness, creativity, and connection with nature. Her facilitation style mirrors the heart of this work: calm, thoughtful, and experiential, with a strong emphasis on presence, reflection, and creative engagement.
Across all Wild Stillness Tours, Jan brings together her background in education, her experience facilitating retreats, and her lived relationship with place to create journeys that are well-held, accessible, and deeply human — offering participants both guidance and space as they step into each experience.