Mariposa: The Art Of Becoming
7 Days 7 Chakras All Your Selves
February 8-15 2026
Todos Santos, Mexico
What Is The Mariposa Retreat?
Mariposa: The Art of Becoming is a week-long retreat in Todos Santos, Baja that weaves expressive arts, somatic awareness, and gentle nervous-system support into a loving container for transformation.
Over 7 days, we’ll move through the seven chakras as creative portals—into your body, emotions, power, heart, voice, vision, and connection. You’ll learn how to experience your chakras as gateways into all your selves.
This retreat is designed for creative, thoughtful, soulful people who sense there is more of them waiting inside—more aliveness, more expression, more truth—so that they can discover their deepest potential and highest purpose.
A 7-day expressive arts and chakra-based immersion for creative, sensitive souls ready to become more fully themselves.
During our week together, you will:
Reconnect with your body through yoga, dance and movement therapy, and other somatic practices
Explore your inner world with writing, collage, drawing, and guided inner journeys
Work skillfully with emotion, shadow, and self-doubt in a trauma-safe space
Be held in an intimate group where your sensitivity and weirdness are welcome
Leave with simple daily practices you can bring home to keep the transformation alive
Keep scrolling to discover Why Mariposa, meet Zoë, and see the day-by-day journey.
WHY MARIPOSA?
People come to Mariposa because they want to:
Feel more alive, expressive, and creatively free
Heal emotional patterns that keep them small
Reconnect with their intuition, pleasure, and inner guidance
Be witnessed inside a safe, nurturing community
Create a shift that lasts long after the retreat ends
A retreat for the parts of you that are ready to surface
Most creative, sensitive people carry a quiet ache — a sense that there is more inside them: more voice, more movement, more truth, more joy. But without the right container, these deeper layers stay hidden.
Mariposa was created for people who feel the call to grow, express, and become — but who need a space of genuine safety, non-judgment, and soul-level guidance to really open.
This retreat is not about performance or perfection. It’s about meeting yourself with compassion. It’s about supporting the body, the nervous system, and the imagination so that transformation happens naturally, without force.
Through expressive arts, somatic practices, guided inner journeys, community, and the seven creative portals of the chakras, you’ll reconnect with the parts of you that have been waiting for your attention
Next: Meet Zoë — your guide for this journey.
MEET ZOË
Your guide into deeper embodiment, expression, and inner healing
I’m Zoë Dearborn — an expressive arts therapist, counselor, and guide with more than 20 years of experience helping people reconnect with their creativity, intuition, emotional depth, and inner wisdom.
My background blends trauma-informed counseling, depth psychology, expressive arts therapy, somatic awareness, meditation, Dance Lab, and intuitive guidance. I work with people who feel “almost themselves” — who sense a fuller, freer, more creatively alive version inside, but haven’t yet found the right support to bring it forth.
My approach is gentle, imaginative, embodied, and deeply human. I’m not here to “fix” you — I’m here to help you listen inward, integrate your many selves, and find the truth that’s been waiting in your body and imagination.
Mariposa is the retreat I created because it’s the one I needed — a place where sensitive, soulful, creative people can feel safe enough to open, express, and transform.
Training & Approach:
M.A. in Counseling Psychology, with a focus in Expressive Arts Therapy
15+ years of experience in counseling, expressive arts, somatics, and spiritual practice
Dance Lab founder & movement guide
Trauma-informed, polyvagal-aware, creative psychology approach
Intuitive, imagination-forward, body-based inquiry
Next: What you’ll experience during the retreat.
WHAT YOU’LL EXPERIENCE
A week of embodied expression, inner exploration, creative awakening, and gentle transformation
This retreat weaves together movement, expressive arts, somatic awareness, imagination, creativity, and guided inner work. Each day offers a different blend of grounding, insight, emotional release, spaciousness, and creative activation — always with plenty of rest built in.
During Mariposa, you will experience:
Daily movement practices, including Dance Lab and intuitive embodied exploration
Guided inner journeys and imaginative inquiry to access deeper insight
Writing, drawing, collage, and expressive arts for emotional integration
Chakra-based “Portals” that open different dimensions of your psyche
Somatic support to ground your nervous system and expand your capacity
Time in nature, rest, quiet reflection, and heartfelt community connection
Rituals and practices designed to help you access your truth and creativity
Space to soften, feel, and reconnect with all the parts of yourself