A working sample of the inaugural cohort — the studio of hands-on healing brought into medicine work. Structure, syllabus, developmental arc, and twelve-month calendar.
Shamanic Bodywork is the studio of hands-on healing brought into medicine work — for bodyworkers, somatic practitioners, and massage therapists deepening their gifts into spirit-bridged practice.
Why this one, of the six.
This sample stands as the shape. Refine in your voice.
The first cohort sets the shape of all the cohorts that come after. These are the load-bearing decisions.
The first cohort is named for what it is. Future cohorts may be named for the season or year they convene in.
Twelve months, equinox to equinox. Long enough for genuine transformation. Short enough to commit to fully.
Weekly online practice circles, monthly online intensives, four in-person retreats anchored to the equinoxes and solstices.
Min six, max nine. The size of a held container — intimate enough to know each person deeply, large enough for the cohort field to teach.
Weekly online practice circle (90 min). Monthly online intensive (full Saturday). Quarterly in-person retreat (3–4 nights). Integration calls every 3–4 weeks.
Written application (essay questions). Required intake call with Adi Marie at the standard Sacred Reciprocity rate. Selection by composition, not first-come.
Cohort begins at the September equinox, closes at the September equinox one year later. Applications open in early summer, close in mid-August.
~52 weekly circles, 11 monthly intensives, 4 quarterly retreats, plus integration calls and assisting hours. A serious commitment.
The Sacred Reciprocity tiers.
Patron
$24,000
per year · $2,000/mo
Full reciprocity. Supports the inaugural cohort and seeds the scholarship fund for those at the Accessibility tier.
Abundance
$18,000
per year · $1,500/mo
For those in steady professional flow who can fully meet the cohort and are not stretched.
Community
$12,000
per year · $1,000/mo
For those committed to the work whose current means require a gentler tier. Honored without need to explain.
Accessibility
By application
1–2 slots per cohort
Need-based partial-to-full coverage, funded by the Patron tier. Reserved for those whose calling is clear and whose access depends on it.
All tiers include all retreats, all intensives, all circles, all integration calls, and all materials. Retreat travel and lodging not included.
What transformation moves through a student in twelve months. The arc the curriculum is designed to hold.
A person with a calling. Some practice already in motion — therapy, coaching, healing arts, ceremonial sitting. Senses they are meant to hold space for others but does not yet have the form. Comes seeking the bones.
The sovereign self established. Daily practice grounded. Lineage attunement begun. The student now stands in the field of the cohort, the field of the lineage, and the field of their own awakening medicine. The Map is becoming theirs.
Technical skill emerging. They can read the field, recognize voltage and amplitude, support a held container without dropping the thread. They have assisted in ceremony. Their individual specialty begins to surface. They navigate.
The practitioner’s stance integrating. Ethical foundation solid. They have run their first witnessed ritual outside the cohort. Their unique thread is articulating — the specific terrain they were born to walk. They walk the terrain.
A ceremonialist now emerging in their own context. Their own community knows them as the one who holds. Their sustainable rhythm is set. They have entered the amakua field of the school. They serve.
A practitioner who holds ceremonial work in their own life and community, in service to others, with ongoing relationship to the lineage and the school. They are now a node in the field. What flows through them flows through the lineage now.
Each quarter anchors one of the four movements. Theory and practice braided. Each closes with an initiation that marks the threshold crossed.
The student is introduced to the anatomy of energy, the layers of the body, what touch carries beyond the physical. The map of the body as ceremonial terrain.
First Conscious Touch
At the opening retreat, each student gives a 20-minute conscious-presence session to one peer, witnessed by Adi Marie. The first formal moment of bodywork-as-ceremony.
The student learns diagnostic touch — the body as oracle. Reading what is held in tissue and energy.
First Diagnostic Read
At the winter retreat, each student gives a 45-minute session to a peer, witnessed, and articulates what they read in the body. Adi Marie integrates with each student afterward.
The student begins to work the energy/somatic field with intention. Sessions are now real — they shift the field, not just witness it.
First Sovereign Session
At the spring retreat, each student gives a full 90-minute session to a peer they have not yet worked with, witnessed and integrated.
The student offers sessions to people outside the cohort. They become a practitioner in their own community.
Graduation — Entry into the Amakua
The closing retreat is the graduation ceremony. Formal recognition as a Shamanic Bodywork practitioner of The Animist Apothecary. Entry into the lineage field.
For the inaugural cohort, the team is small and trusted. Faculty becomes real after the cohort proves the model.
Adi Marie
Holds the curriculum, teaches the intensives, leads the retreats, conducts the witness integrations. The lineage carrier.
To be named
A trusted ceremonial colleague who has held space alongside Adi Marie before. Holds container during retreats. Available for student integration calls between intensives.
To be named
A trusted body worker or somatic specialist. Holds the embodiment thread through the year. Supports the trauma-informed dimension of the work.
2–3 across the year
Brought in for specific transmissions — a lineage holder, a peer practitioner in a complementary tradition, a specialist on a particular dimension of the work.
To be named
Handles applications, payments, scheduling, communications, retreat logistics, materials distribution, and the student portal.
To be named
First point of contact between sessions. Coordinates integration call scheduling. Holds the day-to-day relationship with the cohort so that Adi Marie can hold the depth.
For the inaugural cohort, several roles may be held by the same person or by Adi Marie herself. The structure expands as subsequent cohorts begin to overlap.
Twelve months, equinox to equinox, with four retreats anchored to the wheel. Sample dates for a September 2026 cohort — adjustable to whichever year the cohort lands.
Written application released. Intake calls scheduled rolling.
Final intake calls held mid-August. Cohort selected by August 25.
Welcome packet, reading list, retreat logistics, integration cadence set.
September 22–26, 2026 (4 nights, in person, equinox-anchored)
Saturday, October 17 (full day, 8 hours)
Saturday, November 14 (full day, 8 hours)
December 19–22, 2026 (3 nights, in person, solstice-anchored)
Saturday, January 16
Saturday, February 13
March 20–24, 2027 (4 nights, in person, equinox-anchored)
Saturday, April 17
Saturday, May 15
June 19–22, 2027 (3 nights, in person, solstice-anchored)
Saturday, July 17
Saturday, August 14. Final portfolio review begins.
September 22–26, 2027 (4 nights, in person, equinox-anchored)
This is a working sample. It is a real, concrete shape — not a placeholder — but every load-bearing decision in it is yours to confirm, adjust, or refuse.
The Sacred Reciprocity tiers are drawn against the high tier of comparable year-long ceremonial trainings in the field; they can be raised, lowered, or restructured.
The dates assume a September 2026 cohort opening. If that timeline is too compressed, the same architecture maps cleanly to September 2027 with another full year to build the curriculum in detail.
The studio named here as Shamanic Bodywork is one studio of six. Once the inaugural cohort runs and closes, its lessons inform the design of the next studios in the school.
The sample is a beginning, not a commitment. The commitment comes when a date is set.