The Soul-Anchor Series
Retreats/Workshops
Yoga & Conscious Breathing
One-Day Transformational Workshop
The Soul-Anchor Series is a collection of half-day retreats/workshops held seasonally at Yellow Rock Sanctuary. Each season offering three unique experiences that can be attended individually or as a connected journey series towards transformation.
Each workshop is designed and led by Marcus McKeown; writer, high-performance coach and teacher of non-duality & present-moment awareness. Every session combines grounded psychological insight, critical thinking and spiritual depth to help you live with more clarity, balance and authenticity.
How it works
Three workshops per season
Attend one, two or all three as a progressive series
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Time: 9 am – 2:30 pm (includes organic ‘farm-to-fork’ lunch from the YRS gardens)
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Cost: £100 per person / per workshop or Book all three for £75 each (£225)
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Winter Series Dates: Jan 10 · Feb 7 · Mar 14
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Spring Series Dates: Apr 18 · May 9 · Jun 6
Each series follows the natural rhythm of the season:
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Winter invites stillness and healing
-
Spring calls for renewal and wise action
Winter ‘Soul-Anchor Series’The Season of Stillness
A journey from healing, into silence, into peace.
Retreat/Workshop 1
Healing Without Drama – Wholeness Remembered
Many think of healing as something mystical or dramatic. In truth, it is simple. Healing happens when we stop trying to fix and begin to see life clearly, according to life’s way, not your idea of life’s way.
This workshop explores Christ Consciousness, the universal presence that Jesus embodied beyond religious interpretation: awareness, compassion and direct knowing. We look at healing not as an act of faith but as a natural return to what you already are. For many people, especially those seeking understanding outside formal religion, the mention of the name Jesus can trigger anxiety. However, Jesus is not what or who, you have been taught to believe – he was an awakened man who knew of the illusions of life and how to know freedom from pain & suffering. But his story is very different to anything you may have heard before…
What Will You Learn
-
How to move from effort and control into acceptance and flow
-
Why genuine healing requires responsibility, not ritual
-
Practical ways to bring wholeness into everyday life
Date: Saturday 10th January
Time: 9am – 2.30pm (lunch included)
Cost: £100 per person
Are you ready to stop trying to heal — and instead remember that you are already whole?
Retreat/Workshop 2
Silence As The Teacher – Learning to Listen Again
Silence is not empty, it is alive. In this immersive half-day retreat you’ll get to know and understand silence as an active presence that restores clarity and balance. Through guided reflection, powerful teachings and shared insight, you’ll rediscover how silence recalibrates the nervous system and opens intuitive intelligence.
This experience will help you see how, from the nothing of silence comes everything. Once you come to terms with the ‘truth’ of how this world and life really work you will redefine your perspective of life and self. It is then you will become the great student to the greatest teacher of all that is, silence.
When you sit in silence long enough you begin to see that life is always speaking, not through noise, but through movement, synchronicity, feeling. The stillness doesn’t remove you from the world, it places you right at the centre of it. From that centre the chaos begins to make sense. You no longer react to life, you move with it. You realise that silence is not withdrawal but it is a contact, it is communion. In that space, old identities lose their grip and what remains is the awareness that you were never disconnected at all. Everything has been waiting for you to stop trying to fix it and simply listen.
What Will You Learn
-
How to use silence to access inspiration and gut instinct
-
How to recognize the difference between quietness and avoidance
-
How to sustain presence amid distraction
Date: Saturday 7th February
Time: 9am – 2.30pm (lunch included)
Cost: £100 per person
When the noise of life fades, what truth begins to speak?
Retreat/Workshop 3
The Contradictions of Life – Finding Peace in the Paradox
Life rarely offers straight lines. Joy and grief, strength and vulnerability, certainty and doubt coexist in every authentic life. This workshop explores how to hold paradox without breaking and how the tension of opposites becomes a doorway to freedom. Expect reflective dialogue, writing and simple presence-based exercises that help you stay steady through uncertainty.
Based on his book, ‘The Contradictions of Life’ Marcus will guide you through the kind of mindset required to understand how life really moves and what is behind all the so called ‘illusions’. This workshop will bring you to a new level of insight as to why things are as they are, why there is so much hurt when there could be so much love, why there is so much greed when sharing could be the way. This is the workshop where the magician tells how the magic is done.
There comes a moment on the path where you realise that healing doesn’t mean fixing everything, it means learning to live within the great tension of opposites. Peace is not the absence of contradiction… it is your ability to sit still in the middle of it. This is where you stop needing certainty and begin trusting the deeper rhythm of life. It’s not always clear, but it’s always calling you to presence. This is the workshop that gives language to what you already know deep down.
What You Will Learn
-
How to hold opposing truths without anxiety or judgment
-
How paradox fuels creativity and maturity
-
How to find calm within conflict
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius
Date: Saturday 14th March
Time: 9am – 2.30pm (lunch included)
Cost: £100 per person
Can you meet life exactly as it is — even when it refuses to make sense?
Retreat/Workshop 1
The Art of Discernment – Making Wise Decisions in a Chaotic World
Discernment is the master skill of conscious living, its the ability to see clearly and act wisely amid noise, emotion and pressure. This workshop blends self-coaching principles so you can begin to ask yourself the kind of questions that show you where you are hurting yourself & how to set yourself free. You’ll learn what it means to be emotionally & psychologically mature mature. You will be introduced to critical-thinking tools that will enable you take a step back, even form emotionally charged situations and remain centered. you’ll learn to navigate life from grounded intuition rather than reaction.
With the skills and insights of this workshop there will be nothing stopping you from experiencing a significant shift in how you move through the world and your experience of life.
What You Will Learn
-
How to separate intuition from impulse and emotion from truth
-
How to apply critical thinking without losing compassion
-
How to make high-clarity decisions that align with your values
Date: Saturday 18th April
Time: 9am – 2.30pm (lunch included)
Cost: £100 per person
If you could trust your own inner guidance completely, what would you choose next?
Retreat/Workshop 2
The Way of Inner Sovereignty – Standing Rooted in Your Own Presence
To live sovereignly is to belong fully to yourself, not in isolation but in awareness.
It’s the ability to stand as a conscious, responsible being rather than as a product of conditioning, approval or fear. In practical terms, sovereignty looks like:
-
Making choices that arise from clarity, not reaction.
-
Setting boundaries without shutting others out.
-
Being guided by inner truth rather than the shifting opinions of the world.
-
Taking full responsibility for your emotional, financial, and energetic state.
A sovereign person is not ruled by outer authority, nor enslaved to inner chaos. They live from alignment: head, heart and action integrated.
The Spiritual Dimension – Sovereignty within Non-Duality
In non-duality, there is no separate “self” to be sovereign. There is only one awareness expressing as many forms. Yet in embodied human life, sovereignty is how that awareness matures through you. Think of it like this:
-
Without sovereignty, spirituality becomes dissociation. People talk oneness but avoid responsibility.
-
Without unity, sovereignty becomes ego. People claim independence but remain trapped in fear and control.
-
True sovereignty holds both: I am one with all life… and I am fully responsible for how that life expresses through me.
What Will You Learn
-
How to create clear inner and outer boundaries
-
How to transform reactivity into grounded response
-
How sovereignty builds authentic relationships and leadership
Date: Saturday 9th May
Time: 9am – 2.30pm (lunch included)
Cost: £100 per person
Where in your life are you still giving your power away and what would change if you stopped?
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Retreat/Workshop 3
The Love of Wisdom – Philosophy for the Soul
Philosophy simply means “the love of wisdom,” yet wisdom isn’t found in theory… it’s discovered in how we live. This half-day workshop opens philosophy as a living practice, not an academic subject. It’s for anyone who wants to think more clearly, act more consciously and live with grounded purpose.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates
Together, we’ll explore how timeless insights from East and West, from Plato’s pursuit of truth to Lao Tzu’s effortless action & to Marcus Aurelius’s stoic clarity can illuminate modern dilemmas: stress, decision-making, leadership and relationships. Marcus translates these classical and mystical teachings into real-world tools for presence, critical thinking and inner steadiness.
“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.” — Lao Tzu
Through short teachings, reflective dialogue and guided practice you’ll discover how philosophy and non-dual awareness meet… where thinking becomes clear, emotion becomes steady and wisdom becomes lived experience.
What You Will Learn
-
How to apply philosophical principles to daily decision-making and conflict resolution
-
How to move from mental noise to reflective, grounded awareness
-
How to live a purpose-led life guided by truth rather than habit
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius
Date: Saturday 6th June
Time: 9am – 2.30pm (lunch included)
Cost: £100 per person
What would your life look like if wisdom, not worry, led the way?
Please Note:
Following the workshops you are invited to remain in the sanctuary, if your schedule allows and enjoy the stillness, the peace and the tranquility of Yellow Rock. However, we would ask that you take note of the following: Solemn Silence is observed throughout the Sanctuary each day from 2:30pm–6:30pm & 9:30pm–7:30am. Phone use is also limited to preserve the stillness of the space.
Please Note:
Following the workshops you are invited to remain in the sanctuary, if your schedule allows and enjoy the stillness, the peace and the tranquility of Yellow Rock. However, we would ask that you take note of the following: Solemn Silence is observed throughout the Sanctuary each day from 2:30pm–6:30pm & 9:30pm–7:30am. Phone use is also limited to preserve the stillness of the space.
Please Note:
Following the workshops you are invited to remain in the sanctuary, if your schedule allows and enjoy the stillness, the peace and the tranquility of Yellow Rock. However, we would ask that you take note of the following: Solemn Silence is observed throughout the Sanctuary each day from 2:30pm–6:30pm & 9:30pm–7:30am. Phone use is also limited to preserve the stillness of the space.
Please Note:
Following the workshops you are invited to remain in the sanctuary, if your schedule allows and enjoy the stillness, the peace and the tranquility of Yellow Rock. However, we would ask that you take note of the following: Solemn Silence is observed throughout the Sanctuary each day from 2:30pm–6:30pm & 9:30pm–7:30am. Phone use is also limited to preserve the stillness of the space.
Please Note:
Following the workshops you are invited to remain in the sanctuary, if your schedule allows and enjoy the stillness, the peace and the tranquility of Yellow Rock. However, we would ask that you take note of the following: Solemn Silence is observed throughout the Sanctuary each day from 2:30pm–6:30pm & 9:30pm–7:30am. Phone use is also limited to preserve the stillness of the space.
Please Note:
Following the workshops you are invited to remain in the sanctuary, if your schedule allows and enjoy the stillness, the peace and the tranquility of Yellow Rock. However, we would ask that you take note of the following: Solemn Silence is observed throughout the Sanctuary each day from 2:30pm–6:30pm & 9:30pm–7:30am. Phone use is also limited to preserve the stillness of the space.
Spring ‘Soul-Anchor Series’The Season of Renewal
A movement from clarity, to strength, to wisdom.
Winter ‘Soul-Anchor Series’
The Season of Stillness
A journey from healing, into silence, into peace.
Spring ‘Soul-Anchor Series’
The Season of Renewal
A movement from clarity, to strength, to wisdom.
Retreat/Workshop 1
Healing Without Drama – Wholeness Remembered
Many think of healing as something mystical or dramatic. In truth, it is simple. Healing happens when we stop trying to fix and begin to see life clearly, according to life’s way, not your idea of life’s way.
This workshop explores Christ Consciousness, the universal presence that Jesus embodied beyond religious interpretation: awareness, compassion and direct knowing. We look at healing not as an act of faith but as a natural return to what you already are. For many people, especially those seeking understanding outside formal religion, the mention of the name Jesus can trigger anxiety. However, Jesus is not what or who, you have been taught to believe – he was an awakened man who knew of the illusions of life and how to know freedom from pain & suffering. But his story is very different to anything you may have heard before…
What You Will Learn
-
How to move from effort and control into acceptance and flow
-
Why genuine healing requires responsibility, not ritual
-
Practical ways to bring wholeness into everyday life
Date: Saturday 10th January
Time: 9am – 2.30pm (lunch included)
Cost: £100 per person
Are you ready to stop trying to heal — and instead remember that you are already whole?
Retreat/Workshop 1
The Art of Discernment – Making Wise Decisions in a Chaotic World
Discernment is the master skill of conscious living, its the ability to see clearly and act wisely amid noise, emotion and pressure. This workshop blends self-coaching principles so you can begin to ask yourself the kind of questions that show you where you are hurting yourself & how to set yourself free. You’ll learn what it means to be emotionally & psychologically mature mature. You will be introduced to critical-thinking tools that will enable you take a step back, even form emotionally charged situations and remain centered. you’ll learn to navigate life from grounded intuition rather than reaction.
With the skills and insights of this workshop there will be nothing stopping you from experiencing a significant shift in how you move through the world and your experience of life.
What You Will Learn
-
How to separate intuition from impulse and emotion from truth
-
How to apply critical thinking without losing compassion
-
How to make high-clarity decisions that align with your values
Date: Saturday 18th April
Time: 9am – 2.30pm (lunch included)
Cost: £100 per person
If you could trust your own inner guidance completely, what would you choose next?
Please Note:
Following the workshops you are invited to remain in the sanctuary, if your schedule allows and enjoy the stillness, the peace and the tranquility of Yellow Rock. However, we would ask that you take note of the following: Solemn Silence is observed throughout the Sanctuary each day from 2:30pm–6:30pm & 9:30pm–7:30am. Phone use is also limited to preserve the stillness of the space.
Please Note:
Following the workshops you are invited to remain in the sanctuary, if your schedule allows and enjoy the stillness, the peace and the tranquility of Yellow Rock. However, we would ask that you take note of the following: Solemn Silence is observed throughout the Sanctuary each day from 2:30pm–6:30pm & 9:30pm–7:30am. Phone use is also limited to preserve the stillness of the space.
Retreat/Workshop 2
Silence As The Teacher – Learning to Listen Again
Silence is not empty, it is alive. In this immersive half-day retreat you’ll get to know and understand silence as an active presence that restores clarity and balance. Through guided reflection, powerful teachings and shared insight, you’ll rediscover how silence recalibrates the nervous system and opens intuitive intelligence.
This experience will help you see how, from the nothing of silence comes everything. Once you come to terms with the ‘truth’ of how this world and life really work you will redefine your perspective of life and self. It is then you will become the great student to the greatest teacher of all that is, silence.
When you sit in silence long enough you begin to see that life is always speaking, not through noise, but through movement, synchronicity, feeling. The stillness doesn’t remove you from the world, it places you right at the centre of it. From that centre the chaos begins to make sense. You no longer react to life, you move with it. You realise that silence is not withdrawal but it is a contact, it is communion. In that space, old identities lose their grip and what remains is the awareness that you were never disconnected at all. Everything has been waiting for you to stop trying to fix it and simply listen.
What You Will Learn
-
How to use silence to access inspiration and gut instinct
-
How to recognize the difference between quietness and avoidance
-
How to sustain presence amid distraction
Date: Saturday 7th February
Time: 9am – 2.30pm (lunch included)
Cost: £100 per person
When the noise of life fades, what truth begins to speak?
Retreat/Workshop 2
The Way of Inner Sovereignty – Standing Rooted in Your Own Presence
To live sovereignly is to belong fully to yourself, not in isolation but in awareness.
It’s the ability to stand as a conscious, responsible being rather than as a product of conditioning, approval or fear. In practical terms, sovereignty looks like:
-
Making choices that arise from clarity, not reaction.
-
Setting boundaries without shutting others out.
-
Being guided by inner truth rather than the shifting opinions of the world.
-
Taking full responsibility for your emotional, financial, and energetic state.
A sovereign person is not ruled by outer authority, nor enslaved to inner chaos. They live from alignment: head, heart and action integrated.
The Spiritual Dimension – Sovereignty within Non-Duality
In non-duality, there is no separate “self” to be sovereign. There is only one awareness expressing as many forms. Yet in embodied human life, sovereignty is how that awareness matures through you. Think of it like this:
-
Without sovereignty, spirituality becomes dissociation. People talk oneness but avoid responsibility.
-
Without unity, sovereignty becomes ego. People claim independence but remain trapped in fear and control.
True sovereignty holds both: I am one with all life… and I am fully responsible for how that life expresses through me.
What You Will Learn
-
How to create clear inner and outer boundaries
-
How to transform reactivity into grounded response
-
How sovereignty builds authentic relationships and leadership
Date: Saturday 9th May
Time: 9am – 2.30pm (lunch included)
Cost: £100 per person
Where in your life are you still giving your power away and what would change if you stopped?
Please Note:
Following the workshops you are invited to remain in the sanctuary, if your schedule allows and enjoy the stillness, the peace and the tranquility of Yellow Rock. However, we would ask that you take note of the following: Solemn Silence is observed throughout the Sanctuary each day from 2:30pm–6:30pm & 9:30pm–7:30am. Phone use is also limited to preserve the stillness of the space.
Please Note:
Following the workshops you are invited to remain in the sanctuary, if your schedule allows and enjoy the stillness, the peace and the tranquility of Yellow Rock. However, we would ask that you take note of the following: Solemn Silence is observed throughout the Sanctuary each day from 2:30pm–6:30pm & 9:30pm–7:30am. Phone use is also limited to preserve the stillness of the space.
Retreat/Workshop 3
The Contradictions of Life – Finding Peace in the Paradox
Life rarely offers straight lines. Joy and grief, strength and vulnerability, certainty and doubt coexist in every authentic life. This workshop explores how to hold paradox without breaking and how the tension of opposites becomes a doorway to freedom. Expect reflective dialogue, writing and simple presence-based exercises that help you stay steady through uncertainty.
Based on his book, ‘The Contradictions of Life’ Marcus will guide you through the kind of mindset required to understand how life really moves and what is behind all the so called ‘illusions’. This workshop will bring you to a new level of insight as to why things are as they are, why there is so much hurt when there could be so much love, why there is so much greed when sharing could be the way. This is the workshop where the magician tells how the magic is done.
There comes a moment on the path where you realise that healing doesn’t mean fixing everything, it means learning to live within the great tension of opposites. Peace is not the absence of contradiction… it is your ability to sit still in the middle of it. This is where you stop needing certainty and begin trusting the deeper rhythm of life. It’s not always clear, but it’s always calling you to presence. This is the workshop that gives language to what you already know deep down.
What You Will Learn
-
How to hold opposing truths without anxiety or judgment
-
How paradox fuels creativity and maturity
-
How to find calm within conflict
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius
Date: Saturday 14th March
Time: 9am – 2.30pm (lunch included)
Cost: £100 per person
Can you meet life exactly as it is — even when it refuses to make sense?
Retreat/Workshop 3
The Love of Wisdom – Philosophy for the Soul
Philosophy simply means “the love of wisdom,” yet wisdom isn’t found in theory… it’s discovered in how we live. This half-day workshop opens philosophy as a living practice, not an academic subject. It’s for anyone who wants to think more clearly, act more consciously and live with grounded purpose.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates
Together, we’ll explore how timeless insights from East and West, from Plato’s pursuit of truth to Lao Tzu’s effortless action & to Marcus Aurelius’s stoic clarity can illuminate modern dilemmas: stress, decision-making, leadership and relationships. Marcus translates these classical and mystical teachings into real-world tools for presence, critical thinking and inner steadiness.
“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.” — Lao Tzu
Through short teachings, reflective dialogue and guided practice you’ll discover how philosophy and non-dual awareness meet… where thinking becomes clear, emotion becomes steady and wisdom becomes lived experience.
What You Will Learn
-
How to apply philosophical principles to daily decision-making and conflict resolution
-
How to move from mental noise to reflective, grounded awareness
-
How to live a purpose-led life guided by truth rather than habit
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius
Date: Saturday 6th June
Time: 9am – 2.30pm (lunch included)
Cost: £100 per person
What would your life look like if wisdom, not worry, led the way?
Please Note:
Following the workshops you are invited to remain in the sanctuary, if your schedule allows and enjoy the stillness, the peace and the tranquility of Yellow Rock. However, we would ask that you take note of the following: Solemn Silence is observed throughout the Sanctuary each day from 2:30pm–6:30pm & 9:30pm–7:30am. Phone use is also limited to preserve the stillness of the space.
Please Note:
Following the workshops you are invited to remain in the sanctuary, if your schedule allows and enjoy the stillness, the peace and the tranquility of Yellow Rock. However, we would ask that you take note of the following: Solemn Silence is observed throughout the Sanctuary each day from 2:30pm–6:30pm & 9:30pm–7:30am. Phone use is also limited to preserve the stillness of the space.
