Al-Andalus and the
Inner Seasons

Our home for this retreat is a rustic villa tucked into the hills of a little village called Órgiva, in Andalusia, where the Sierra Nevada meets the valley in folds of olive groves and running water. Rooms are shared and simple, built not on luxury but on nearness, to the land, to each other, and to Allah.

Órgiva carries the weight of the final chapter of Muslim Spain. This was Morisco (the term for Spanish Muslims) country, the last refuge of those who would not abandon their faith even when forced to wear another one, the mountains that sheltered them through rebellion and, finally, through exile. Their presence still lingers in the mountains and in the water channels that still run through the valley, in the quiet defiance the land seems to remember.

Today, Órgiva holds a different but related thread: a living Muslim community, drawn here by the same mountains that once hid the Moriscos, still finding in this valley a place to seek nearness to god. Throughout the retreat, we will walk through this history, tracing what remains and what was lost, and finding, in the mountains that have always held onto faith against the odds, our own inner strength.

We wake before the sun, in the crisp hush of the Andalusian winter, and gather for fajr as the sky over the mountains turns from black to grey to gold. There is a particular kind of presence that only comes at this hour, before the valley wakes, before the day asks anything of you.

From there, the days move slowly and deliberately. Gentle movement to settle the body. Long walks into the hills, where the crisp winter air fills your lungs, and the mild sun warms your skin without demanding anything back. Meals built from what the valley itself grows, prepared by a private chef nourishing you from the inside out.

At the heart of each day are the somatic sessions themselves, held by certified practitioners, where we will learn how emotion settles in the body, how it can move again when it's finally met with attention, and what this has to do with drawing nearer to yourself and therefore Allah, not despite the body, but through it.

Hannah and Safiya bring together two threads of the same work: the body as a place of healing, and faith as the ground it stands on.

Hannah is the founder of Nora Wellbeing and a certified somatic practitioner in Mizan therapy, facial and head massage, and lymphatic drainage. Before this work, she spent years as a diplomat, delivering women's rights and health programmes around the world, and holds an MSc in Health and Population from the London School of Economics. Nora Wellbeing grew from the same conviction that shaped her diplomatic work: that a woman's body holds wisdom worth listening to, and that healing happens through ritual and presence, not just treatment.

Safiya has spent over a decade supporting women's health through Mizan Therapy and holistic bodywork, trained and later teaching under Bushra Finch, the founder of Mizan Therapy. Based in the Granada region herself, her path into this work grew from her own experience of cyclical health, pregnancy, and postpartum, and from a belief that the body holds wisdom worth listening to. After a two-and-a-half-year apprenticeship, she now teaches on the Mizan practitioner courses herself, passing on to others the same work that once transformed her.