Have you ever been so inspired and so moved by someone or something that you just had to share it with others?
This is how and why The Southeast Women’s Rhythm Retreat came to be.

Back in the summer of 2007, I had the most wonderful opportunity to join my friend Rebekah Carder on a magical weekend journey to the Catskill Mountains of NY and attend the 10th Happen’n Womyn’s World Drum and Percussion Retreat. The producers of the Happen’n, Ubaka Hill, Fre Atlast, Leaf Miller , all the women who taught the various percussion classes in Taiko, Shakere, Afro-Brazilian rhythms, native American, and African , just to name a few, and all the participants inspired and energized me so deeply that I knew that the Southeast needed to have something like this too! So why was I inspired and why was I so moved by the retreat and what was it that I wanted the women of the south to experience too? Women from all over the world, of different cultures, different lifestyles, were connecting and sharing of each others lives; their talents, their spirits, their passions, their struggles, their inspirations, their voice, their dance, their ups, their downs, and all done in a peaceful, loving, nonjudgmental environment.  There was such a feeling of peace and serenity, camaraderie, a feeling of being safe to be yourself and to be as creative as you wanted to be, to reflect, and to rediscover self. I truly believed that with help from my biz partner Colleen Caffrey we could make it a reality in Georgia! After leaving NY, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Visions of sugarplums danced in my head and I was pumped!

Photos from The Happen’n 2007