Retreat for Gender Justice & Healing in Medicine - Summer 2025, hosted by the AMSA Reproductive Health Project: B. Camp - A Retreat for Womxn, Femme & Nonbinary People in Medicine (August 7-10, 2025)
To rest, to resource, to reclaim & to rejuvenate by having fun feeling free 

What if the answer to our collective liberation requires first that you feel free? What if the answer to systemic injustices lies within the space where you show up for yourself in pleasure and with love for all the parts of you before you do so for anyone else? What if you could alchemize the stress, overwhelm, and pressure you feel into something meaningful and miraculous? From the creatrix of Circle Alchemy, a healing circle space for processing the COVID pandemic through story and emotional authenticity, comes a new vision of fun for womxn for our collective healing.  

Welcome to B. Camp where we play with the archetype of The Bitch to bring more joy and pleasure to a world filled with gloom, doom and way too much stress. By learning to love all of the parts of ourselves (so that we might do the same for others). By finding the feeling of freedom from within without bypassing the hard stuff. Through ceremony, ritual, shadow-pleasure integration practices and breathwork, B. Camp will teach you how to begin to feel free to live the life you deserve. Come B. free with us! 

What does the B. stand for?

Be You!

Be Your Bitch!

Be Free 

by 

Being Embodied 

and 

Breathe.

B. Camp is for you if:

You are feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, and/or filled with mortal exhaustion about anything and everything (work, systemic oppression, your mother, your life purpose, your stuckness, etc). Therapy has not worked or does not seem to feel like enough for what you really need in your soul to feel alive. You like to laugh and wish you had more time to FEEL fun, BE fun, and DO fun things. Traditional methods of mindset practices to resolve stress and overwhelm have not worked; you seek something deeper and more embodied. You are intrigued by the idea of working with both shadow and pleasure practices. You want science + lived experience to inform your transformation. You identify as a Bitch! Or you are Bitch-curious!

What is a Bitch? A Bitch is the archetypal representation of the divine feminine warrior. She stands for her divinity and the divinity of all beings. She knows clearly when to state her "Yes" and when to state her "No,” and she deeply upholds this in others. A Bitch is royal, and she freely feels all of her emotions with discernment of how and when to express them. (This is unsavory to those who disdain freedom in others and, thus, she is infinitely sovereign.)  A Bitch is the embodied reclamation of the patriarchal denigration of this term. While her pronouns are frequently, she, a Bitch is not bound by gender. A bitch is beyond gender, and she lives within womxn and all humxns. Join us to find out why we do deep work with The Bitch and honor her many forms within us all!

This 4-day / 3-night camp retreat, Thursday, August 7 through Sunday, August 10 at Quaker Center in Ben Lomond, CA (just outside Santa Cruz) will offer a digestible amount of information for you to better understand the science of stress, the benefits of breathwork, why the intellectualization of liberation is not working and why subconscious awareness and heart-centered embodiment are required for individual and collective transformation.  B. Camp is an interactive process that will invite you into the experience of transformational breathwork and heart-centered practices to feel the transformation that is possible when you feel free and connected to your inner Bitch. You will leave with a renewed sense of self, an understanding of what freedom feels like and why feeling free is so necessary for a better world, and you will come away with connection to a burgeoning community of Bitchez dedicated to doing this deep liberation work so that we might all be free.

Using a gentle, non-cathartic style of breathwork as the principal healing modality to integrate and cultivate spaciousness (freedom) within, we will play and practice together with shadow-pleasure integration practices and heartwork alchemized and synthesized from anti-racism collective liberation, trauma-informed psychology, somatic embodiment, and mysticism. We invite you to invite your own authenticity to be the guide that reminds you what freedom feels like and what is possible for you, those around you and the world when we begin to feel free.

If you, like us, desire for all beings to be free, we invite you to join us to learn how to feel fully free and liberated from within. B. Camp is the beginning of the transformational inner work required to feel free. And!...It will be as much fun as it will be deep! 

This retreat is for folx in medicine identifying as cis and trans womxn, femme, and nonbinary people. B. Camp will be led by a multi-generational, multi-femme-expressing team of Bitchez and we are so excited to welcome you to the best camp experience you know you want and you definitely deserve. This space is for those of you who loved summer camp, who never went to summer camp, and for those of you who have any lingering PTSD from summer camp. All of YOU is welcome here. Retreat space is limited to 20 participants to preserve the container of this sacred work. Sign up now to secure your spot.

Welcome! We cannot wait to meet you!

Logistics and costs to attend: 

  • All participants will arrange their own travel. Nearest airports are San Francisco (SFO) and San Jose (SJC). Free transportation between the airports and Quaker Center will be provided. Participants who drive will be able to access free parking at Quaker Center. 
  • A travel reimbursement fund (up to $400) is available for student/resident/fellow participants.
  • There are no other out-of-pocket expenses for student/resident/fellow participants! The AMSA Reproductive Health Project will apply a $500 scholarship to fully cover the $500 registration fee for each student/resident/fellow participant, which also covers all meals and lodging.
  • Post-training physicians will pay a registration fee of $999, payable directly to the retreat facilitator, Annelle Taylor, NP-C, WHNP-BC (Circle Alchemy). The registration fee is inclusive of housing and meals. Post-training physician participants will also arrange and pay for their own travel.

Location: Quaker Center, Ben Lomond, CA

Dates: Arrival - Thursday, August 7, 2025; Departure - Sunday, August 10, 2025

Hosts: AMSA Reproductive Health Project & Circle Alchemy (Annelle Taylor, NP-C, WHNP-BC)

Questions: Contact Dr. Jeff Koetje (jkoetje@amsa.org)

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I am confirming that I understand that I will be responsible for arranging my own roundtrip travel to SFO or SJC, with an ideal arrival time of 4:00pm PT or earlier on Thursday, August 7, and an ideal departure time of 2:00pm PT or later on Sunday, August 10. (Free transportation between the airports and the Quaker Center will be provided.) *
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Please share some of your experiences, observations, and/or reflections on your own gendered positionality within medicine, and/or what you've observed or experienced with respect to medicine's attitudes, behaviors, and actions in relation to gender, gender construction, and gendered power dynamics (e.g., politics/policy pertaining to gender, reproduction, and family planning, including abortion). (100 words) *
Please share what draws you to this retreat, and what you hope/desire to experience, gain, or take-away from the retreat. (100 words) *
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