The River Beneath
all Rivers
November 11th to 14th, Gold Coast Hinterland.
A rendezvous with the real, through four days of seasoned guidance into the many faces of meditation, vigil + good human companionship.
For meditators, practitioners + people with an appetite for a life of depth. Become more vital, available and responsive to Life.
“Under the motorway, a smaller road; under that, a lane; under the lane, deer hoofprints.”
– Martin Shaw
Meditation is extraordinarily simple. We have made an almighty project out of it.
Simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy to practise.
You’re a dedicated sort when it comes to what’s important to you, but you do tend to find it tricky to drop the projects, schedules and tasks and create enough time for sinking into a deeper, stiller divine ground beneath all the things.
You already value depth.
THE DIFFICULTY IS GIVING YOURSELF ENOUGH SUSTAINED CONTACT WITH THAT GROUND FOR IT TO BECOME GENUINELY NOURISHING RATHER THAN A QUICK DROP IN AND TOP UP.
AS MARY OLIVER REMINDS US, TO PAY ATTENTION IS OUR ENDLESS AND PROPER WORK. A GLIMPSE CAN BE PROFOUND WITHOUT BEING SUSTAINED ENOUGH TO NOURISH YOU. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SEEKING DEPTH AND BEING NOURISHED BY IT.
The dominant conditions and rhythms of contemporary life provide stimulation readily, while deep nourishment can be easier to neglect. Stimulation isn’t bad. Stimulation and nourishment simply aren’t the same thing. And when we are thirsty, it can become harder to discern what actually feeds us.
GLAMOUR CAN MORE EASILY IMPERSONATE BEAUTY; STIMULATION CAN IMPERSONATE VITALITY; BUSYNESS CAN IMPERSONATE PURPOSE. AND PERHAPS SOME OF WHAT WE ARE HUNGRY FOR IS A MORE-THAN-HUMAN CONNECTION.
HUMAN RELATIONSHIP IS ONLY ONE AXIS OF RELATIONSHIP. THERE ARE NEEDS AND FORMS OF NOURISHMENT THAT MORE INFORMATION, STIMULATION, ACHIEVEMENT AND EVEN HUMAN RELATIONSHIP CANNOT ENTIRELY FULFIL.
The spiritual marketplace can give us things about the thing. Teachings, books, practices and retreats can be genuine doorways and point towards the thing. But a pointer cannot substitute for the encounter it points towards.
There’s a patience to it that’s needed.
THE EFFORT TO SEIZE THE EXPERIENCE CAN BECOME ANOTHER LAYER BETWEEN US AND THE EXPERIENCE.
So, as William Blake instructs, “Dip him in the river who loves water.”
The River Beneath All Rivers is less razzle-be-dazzle and more a Touching of the real thing.
The real thing is tricky to name and impossible to grab hold of, yet remarkably palpable.
We’re not trying to manufacture an almighty spiritual experience or wrestle something mysterious into revealing itself. There’s no checklist, overexertion or great spiritual heist.
Instead, we tend the conditions rather than force the encounter.
We carve out enough time, hang out with the right sort of seasoned, light-handed guidance that doesn’t crowd the encounter, and steep ourselves until we can recognise the River by feel.
We do this through the many faces of meditation, contemplative and elemental vigils, simple ceremony + plenty of good human companionship.
Until it becomes perceptible, mutual, unmistakable. Most importantly, recognisable in ordinary Life.
A natural by-product of this kind of sustained contact is that you become deeply relaxed, profoundly available, and responsive to Life.
Time away is valuable and important, but it needs to be worth it. This is worth it.
You’ve got an eye that can discern beauty from glamour; we’d be honoured by your company.
ABOUT THE EXERIENCE
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ABOUT THE EXERIENCE •
How The River Beneath All Rivers Flows
A four-day immersion designed to deepen the cadence of your inner tempo.
To leave you more settled, less easily recruited by the shiny things and more available for what actually matters. The days move in a gentle rhythm:
Community → Solitude → Community.
Venue and Location
EcoView Retreat, Gold Coast Hinterland (Tallebudgera Valley, 15 minutes from the airport).
The retreat will be held on Kombumerri Country, Tallebudgera Valley, set on 70 acres of rainforest, where we’ll hold vigils and encourage you to explore in solitude.
Private eco-villas and decks, dedicated practice spaces, infrared saunas, hot and cold plunge pools, hot tubs, fireplaces, and plenty of natural walking tracks to explore.
Practice + Experience
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Practice + Experience •
There are many ways we’ll practice meditation, but we want to keep it simple. Kurt is Kurt; extraordinary in his ability to guide people towards the River beneath all rivers. His skill and experience here are unparalleled. We don’t need to add bells and whistles.
You are in seasoned hands.
Other pieces of what goes down include contemplative and elemental vigils, which are periods spent together or in solitude introducing ourselves to the rainforest, bodies of water, sitting with the fire + letting the practice deepen beyond the cushion.
There’ll be gentle morning movement, working with the fascial slings, breath awareness + light energy work to wake up, energise and open the system for the day.
We’ll hold Lodge to open and close our time together.
Time wandering alone, tending the land, building small altars + making good use of the water, fire and facilities around us will be woven into the mix.
In the evenings, we’ll hang out by the fire at night. Bring an instrument if you play one. These evenings are for food, song, laughter, camaraderie + the ordinary pleasure of being around good humans. Relaxed and always optional.
Our Meditation as A Way of Being program
is included in the retreat investment, and we invite you to watch this 8-week series before arrival. It will significantly deepen your receptivity to everything you experience during these four days. You will receive lifetime access upon purchase.
Our work is responsive to the group, so we won’t be running a strict itinerary. The main practice period will generally run from 9am–4pm, with community gatherings, rest, and solitude around it.
How will we all hang out together and what’s it like?
With a strong background in vigils, ceremony + Rites, community is a central part of the experience. To us, community isn’t just nice company around the edges. It helps the experience become metabolised. Hence the rhythm:
Community
→
Solitude
→
Community
→
Community → Solitude → Community →
We tend to attract rad humans. Deeply genuine and generous ones. Not perfect, not necessarily ‘nice’. Rad. From all walks of life, with big stories and unresolved human parts, just like everybody else.
Part of what makes the people who gather expressly fabulous is how different they are. But there are usually a few things in common: humility, depth + people who really, truly care and are allergic to holier than thou attitudes or spiritual performance. You will find darn good people here.
relish in some time alone
Sometimes life is demanding in its different phases, and company isn’t what’s required. Know that solitude is part of the rhythm, rather than something you need to excuse yourself for. If the forest walks, your bed or the villa deck sings your name we encourage you to respond!
PAST EXPERIENCE AND SUCCESS
“Kurt is a masterful weaver. One who brings light to the veil almost without trying. He has a unique way of illuminating what is unseen while also revealing a quiet remembering. It often feels as though he is sharing from beyond the veil while simultaneously being a warm, steady light within it.
And Amber is right there beside him, creating the safety to stay even in the most confusing or void like spaces. There is something indescribable about the permission they create together. They don’t simply guide you into the unseen; they help you feel, experience, and integrate what you find there in a way that can be carried with you beyond the event or container itself.
Together, they create a rare space where the unseen can become something felt, known, and transferable.”
AMANDA CURRY, Somatic Inner Child Healing and Breathwork
BEN GROVER, Men’s Work
AND MORE…
“Amber and Kurt are the lighthouses. They help us to recall what it is we know in our bones. What we can’t put words too but feel deeply. For helping us to remember who we are in the simplest of ways, that deeply excavate our core. Amber is a fierce lioness, poignant to the point but soft, and a loving safe place to land. Mother Nature rolls through her veins. Kurt, an elder who shows the way without always using many words. Other world drifter with deep listening and presence. His ability to help us enquire around all things is glorious.
Anything that these two facilitate, it is life changing, if you are willing to surrender yourself to finding your own light, your North Star. You will be loved unconditionally, held, challenged and will become more you and far more expansive. You will only gain from this experience. They are the absolute real deal and I’m so grateful I have been on many light finding missions with them and journeys of remembering.
EMMA RENNIE-HYNES
“This is the kind of retreat where, when you know, you know. Kurt and Amber meet you in that place, and just seem to know exactly what threads to weave or pull on.
Listen for the call, you’ll know if this is for you and if so, they will walk with you in the most beautiful of ways with deep care, love and respect 🧡”
HANNAH, Counsellor
“Kurt and Amber are deeply embodied facilitators. They’re both genuine, kind, real, humble and deeply devoted to the path of truth and service in the way they walk and this is evident when in their presence.
It’s a blessing to have found teachers that truly walk their talk, reflect in an honest way and guide you back to YOUR own inner wisdom.”
Jaz Taylor, Sound Healer, Women’s Circle Holder
“I would absolutely recommend doing any retreat work or any type of work with Kurt and his team. He's always genuine, always hones in on his people, his clients, and those around him. What you get out of the experience of time with Kurt, one on one or as a group at a retreat, in a breathwork session, or a meditation, it's always extremely valuable and beneficial. The value for money is great and just the humanness and genuineness. I'd recommend Kurt to anyone, because he's amazing and what he has to offer is amazing”
Gavin Mathieson, Student
“What's shifted for me in that time… is that image of myself of having to be perfect in all of the subconscious ways that I held that image of myself as being perfect and doing the right things and being a good girl and being a good human, and being a good citizen in this world, and helping others… I had to get really honest with myself and take a whole lot of responsibility and kind of really shatter that image of perfection and realise the depths of the humanness in me and in the shadow of that, that you find your true brilliance.”
JESS SMITH, Physiotherapist & Energy Healer
Daily Workings
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Daily Workings •
DAY 1
Arrive 9:30am, settle in, opening practice, Sweat Lodge, dinner + evening together.
DAY 2
Morning practice, meditation + teachings, vigil + solitude, embodied practice, simple ceremony, fire, song + prayer.
DAY 3
Morning practice, meditation + teachings, time on the land, embodied practice, rest + solitude, 5Rhythms in the evening.
DAY 4
Closing practice, Sweat Lodge, breakfast together + depart 10am.
Days two + three are our full practice days, roughly 9am–4pm with a lunch break. The shape is intentional, the particulars remain responsive to the group.
Over the course of the four days you will NOT be walking away with a goodie bag of tools.
Sorry, dears. It’s not how we roll when it comes to this deeper work.
Because
1. You encounter something rather than merely understand it.
Four days give us enough time to move beyond ideas about meditation and into direct experience. You begin to recognise the River by feel.
2. Some things lose their grip.
Urgency, ambition, appetite and all the things constantly recruiting your attention have less pull. They’re still about; they’re not the pace setter quite so much. In a nutshell, you become harder to hurry.
3. You recover something.
People often locate something of great worth that had become difficult to feel: a sense of enoughness, a pleasant weight to their presence, their attention, their relationship with mystery.
We don’t manufacture this. We’re more like banks to the River, tending the conditions in which something already there can become perceptible again.
4. You bring it back with you.
This immersion is the live version of Meditation as a Way of Being. Four days in resonance with such a gentle state lets it gain legs. Aka, go home with you.
Our culture is moving fast enough to make us believe we need same-day delivery.
You don’t have to.
Direct experience is the medicine here. By coming together in person, these teachings can move from concepts held in the mind to realities lived in the soma of our bodies.
The more we learn to walk between the two shores, the stillness of meditation and the dynamic movement of everyday life, the more fluently they begin to meet. Stillness is no longer confined to the meditation cushion. It begins to walk with us in conversation, relationship, work, challenge + joy.
One day we realise we are no longer moving between two separated shores. We are simply carrying the ground of stillness as we walk.
For those who’ve completed the online program, the full Meditation as a Way of Being course is included with your registration; please move through the teachings beforehand so we can begin the retreat with a shared foundation.
The aim isn't to become good at meditation. It's to make the distinction between meditation and living less and less relevant.
investment
Pathway One
$3,400 AUD
For Existing Meditation as a Way of Being Students
Pathway Two
$3,800 AUD
For Newcomers
payment plans
There are 3 and 6 month payment plans available that incur an additional 10% fee of the total price.
All prices displayed are subject to an additional 3% payment processing fee for transactions made through Squarespace. If you would like to save on these fees, please reach out via hello@isomameditation.com to opt for direct bank transfer instead.
Inclusions
Four-day, three-night retreat at EcoView Retreat in the Gold Coast Hinterland
Accommodation in the eco-villas
Private room upgrade available for $500+All meals + snacks, prepared by our in-house chef
Full access to the eight-week Meditation as a Way of Being program, with lifetime access
All retreat practices, teachings, vigils, ceremony + experiences
Full use of the retreat facilities, including infrared saunas, hot + cold plunge pools, hot tubs + the surrounding 70 acres
BOOK VIA APPLICATION
Confirming your spot is done via application. The application process is a simple, straight forward questionnaire where you're invited to tell us a little bit about yourself, why you feel this retreat is important for you to attend at this time, and to also inform our team in how we can best support your experience.
Once your application has been received, our team will review it and get back to you within 24hrs during Mon-Fri. Upon a successful application, you'll be sent your preferred payment link and your spot will be reserved for up to 7 days to make payment, before it's released to the next person.
Your Teachers
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Your Teachers •
The River we’re pointing to deserves it’s own place as a teacher here. Hand on heart, if it doesn’t make sense now, it will after the retreat. Just like a mountain exposes your injuries, this down below all things terrain has the knack for both holding and humbling.
Kurt is your essential guide of this territory that requires subtle handling, and Amber points the torch back to the path home.
If you want to venture into the deep waters, it’s smart to have guides who have themselves ‘touched the bottom’ and also know how to recognise and work with what comes back.
The River Beneath all Rivers is the lived expression of more than two decades Kurt has spent in sustained practice and direct encounter. Thousands upon thousands of hours in meditation, ceremony and contemplation.
His teaching comes from having stayed close to these waters for a very long time. Kurt has 20+ years of meditation and contemplative practice and 15+ years guiding groups. He is a Certified Melchizedek Method Trainer, ceremonial facilitator, sound practitioner and multi-instrumentalist, with extensive experience in rites of passage, ceremony, prayer, devotional practice and intuitive + energetic work.
Amber will be sitting at the right hand and tending the human terrain around meeting this space, bringing more than 15 years of experience facilitation Rites of Passage immersions and retreats.
Some of the more official qualifications held in, Ancestral Healing (Ancestral Medicine, Daniel Foor) Initiation and Ritual, Death Walker Training (Zenith Virago) Process Orientated Facilitation (David Bedrick), Somatic Therapy and Bachelor of Medical Science with mentorship and experience in Gestalt Therapy, Attachment and Development. Currently in study under Lee Tree for Holistic Psychotherapy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Still have questions? We’re a small, friendly team. Reach out via hello@isomameditation.com
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The River Beneath All Rivers is for meditators, practitioners and people with an appetite for a life of depth. You don’t need to be an expert meditator, just an open mind and genuine curiosity.
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No. If you are new to Meditation as a Way of Being, the full 8-week online program is included in your retreat registration. We ask that you move through the teachings before arriving so that we have a shared foundation for the four days together.
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There is no particular level of experience required. What matters more is your willingness to slow down, participate, explore and be with what is here.
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No. Community and good human companionship are an important part of the experience. There will be periods of solitude and silence, but also teaching, shared practice, meals, ceremony, conversation, laughter, fire and time together.
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Not in the traditional sense.
The retreat isn't oriented around deep personal rupture, intensive trauma processing or trying to achieve a particular healing outcome.
Our focus is on creating the conditions for the whole system to slow down, reorganise and deepen its relationship with what is beneath the surface.
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There will be gentle opportunities to tend to what emerges, with experienced guidance and support.
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Days two and three are our main practice days, generally running from around 9am–4pm, with a lunch break.
The days may include meditation, teachings, embodied practice, time on the land, vigils, solitude, ceremony and elemental practices.
Mornings may include gentle movement, breath awareness and light energy work, while evenings create space for community, fire, food, song and rest.
The itinerary isn't rigid. We respond to the group and to what the experience is asking for.
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Accommodation is in the eco-villas at EcoView Retreat, set amongst 70 acres of Gold Coast Hinterland rainforest.
There are private rooms within the eco-villas, with a private-room upgrade available for $500 AUD.
The retreat also has dedicated practice spaces, decks, fireplaces, infrared saunas, hot and cold plunge pools, hot tubs and walking tracks.
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Yes. A private room upgrade is available for an additional $500 AUD.
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All meals and snacks are included and prepared by the in-house chef.
If you have dietary requirements or allergies, please let us know when completing your retreat application so we can best accommodate you.
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We strongly encourage you to treat these four days as genuine time offline. Leave work at home.
Our invitation is to put phones down. It’s one of those things that can take us away from presence. If you want your phone, be extremely mindful of your use. Upon arrival, we will have a phone box available to drop your phone in. We encourage this so you don't have that mental reach.
You can absolutely contact family and children when you need to.
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Existing Meditation as a Way of Being Students
Pay in Full — $3,400 AUD
3 Month Payment Plan — $1,247/month
6 Month Payment Plan — $623/month
New Students
Pay in Full — $3,800 AUD
3 Month Payment Plan — $1,393/month
6 Month Payment Plan — $697/month
Squarespace payments incur an additional 3% payment processing fee. Direct bank transfer is available if you would prefer to avoid this fee.
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Your investment includes:
Four-day, three-night retreat
Eco-villa accommodation
All meals + snacks
Full access to Meditation as a Way of Being, with lifetime access
All retreat practices, teachings, vigils, ceremony + experiences
Full use of the retreat facilities
Access to the surrounding 70 acres of hinterland