Full Moon Opening Event: Dinner Social Club

“Rhythms & Rituals” – A Full Moon Sensory Feast

📅 8 August | 6:00 PM
📍 C*SPACE Berlin

Join us for a special Full Moon Dinner to open the Alchemising Presence retreat, an intentional evening to slow down, tune in, and connect and experience presence through food, ritual & community. 

The dinner will be a sensory journey through unusual, diverse, colourful Gujarati (Western India) cuisine prepared by Urvi Parikh , a strategist & cultural researcher, passionate about exploring foodways, culture and heritage of Western India. 

We will explore the 5 senses — sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, to be fully present in the moment. Through the food, we’ll also engage with a broader spectrum of flavours: not just sweet, salty or spicy, but also bitter, sour, and astringent,  inviting you to taste with awareness and curiosity.

The evening includes:

• A short meditation to arrive in the body
• A multi-sensory vegetarian dinner exploring texture, flavour, and connection (please with us if you’re vegan)
• A simple full moon ritual: setting intentions and preparing dessert together
• Space for mindful conversation and shared reflection

Why join?

This dinner is more than a shared meal. It is a gentle immersion into sensory presence, rooted in food, flavour & ritual. It’s an invitation to notice more, feel more, and gather in intentional company.

This opening night mirrors the themes of transformation, rhythm, and embodied presence explored in the Alchemising Presence workshop series (9–23 August) — but you can join the dinner independently, even if you’re not attending the full retreat.

👩‍🍳 This evening is prepared by Urvi Parikh (a strategist & cultural researcher fond of culinary history & evolution) and co-hosted by our other Summer Residency Creatives Katelijn Verstraete (energy practitioner and creative facilitator) Clara Reichertz (movement and meditation educator and practitioner), Kelly Reedy (artist, educator and art therapist).

💸 Sliding Scale: 25-35€

GET TICKETS

🔥 Weekend 1: Inner Alchemy through Qi Gong & Art

A 4-part series – Inner alchemy of Qi Gong and Art: a weekend workshop sensing, moving and creating with earth, water, air and fire

📅 9–10 August | 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM and 2:30 PM – 5:30 PM

📍 C*SPACE Berlin

Awaken your senses through Qi Gong and creative expression as we explore earth, water, air, and fire. Move, meditate, and shape your inner world into art—clay, watercolors, Chinese ink…. Let the elements guide you from stillness to transformation.

The 4 workshops are guided by Clara Reichertz (movement and meditation educator and practitioner) and Kelly Reedy (artist, educator and art therapist) and supported by Katelijn Verstraete (energy practitioner and creative facilitator)

What to bring to the workshops:

• Comfortable clothes for all workshops

• Mediation cushion or yoga mat for workshops 9-10 august

• Clothes that might come dirty or else bring an apron for the creative expression part of the workshops

💸 Sliding Scale: 25-45€ per workshop

Tickets for each element workshops are here. Choose which one (or all) you want to book:

GET TICKETS

🌍 Earth – To Be

9 August | 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM 📍 C*SPACE Berlin

Bringing Form · Grounding · Belonging

Through meditative qi gong we will ground into the body’s weight and presence, to connect with other qualities of the earth element personal to each individual. Our art practice will invite us to shape clay into vessels that symbolize our inner home—an expression of how we hold and support ourselves. These containers may also carry seeds, planted with intention, that will grow over the course of the retreat as quiet affirmations of life and belonging.

💸 Sliding Scale: 25-45€ per workshop

Tickets for each element workshops are here. Choose which one (or all) you want to book:

GET TICKETS

🌊 Water – To Feel

9 August | 2:30 PM – 5:30 PM 📍 C*SPACE Berlin

Emotion · Fluidity · Longing

In our Qi gong meditation session, we will listen to the inner tides, attuning to the emotional body. Our artmaking becomes a watery meditation: perhaps painting with evaporating water, sweeping liquid across large surfaces, or blending ink in a floating dance of color and form. In these transient creations, we practice letting go, honoring impermanence and the beauty of emotional truth.

💸 Sliding Scale: 25-45€ per workshop

Tickets for each element workshops are here. Choose which one (or all) you want to book:

GET TICKETS

🌬 Air – To Love and Be Loved

10 August | 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM📍 C*SPACE Berlin

Lightness · Connection · Intellect

We begin with breath-based qi gong and group explorations of spatial awareness and relational movement. In our creative practice, we use our breath to guide ink across paper—tracing delicate, branching forms that echo the natural world and our internal landscapes. These gestures of wind and spirit reveal how lightness, curiosity, and connection are vital to our shared humanity.

💸 Sliding Scale: 25-45€ per workshop

Tickets for each element workshops are here. Choose which one (or all) you want to book:

GET TICKETS

🔥 Fire – To Act

10 August | 2:30 PM – 5:30 PM📍 C*SPACE Berlin

Transformation · Power · Creative Will

We activate our inner fire through qi gong and alchemical meditation, cultivating vitality, purpose, and creative power. In the art process, we work with flame—safely and symbolically—to transform what has come before. Whether through burning intentions or releasing the past, this is a ritual of cleansing and renewal, aligning with the full moon’s invitation to complete, shed, and begin again.

💸 Sliding Scale: 25-45€ per workshop

Tickets for each element workshops are here. Choose which one (or all) you want to book:

GET TICKETS

🪞 Weekend 2: The Silent Mirror

Cultivating Presence through Interoceptive & Meditative Arts

📅 16 August | 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM 📍 C*SPACE Berlin

Discover the language of skin and breath—mirroring, percussing, and tracing emotions in shared space.

The Silent Mirror invites participants into a deep, body-based exploration of inner listening and reflection through interoceptive and meditative arts. Rooted in the themes of mirroring and attunement to the self and others, this workshop weaves together rhythm, sensory exploration, calligraphic dance with Chinese brushes, reflective poetry, and sound bath meditation. Through gentle movement, creative expression, and stillness, participants are guided to tune into the quiet wisdom within, cultivating presence, awareness, and embodied connection.

A workshop guided by Kelly Reedy (artist, educator, and art therapist) and Luisa Henz (artist and educator)

💸 Sliding Scale: 25–45€

GET TICKETS

🌳🥣 Weekend 3: Roots and Rituals

Connecting to the energies of nature with tree qigong and ritual making

📅 23 August | 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM 

📍 Meeting place Strandbad Weissensee

GET TICKETS

🌳 Tree Qi Gong and Ritual Making

📅 23 August | 9:30 PM – 12:30 PM

💸 Sliding Scale: 25–45

📍 Meeting point: Strandbad Weissensee

Harness the energies of trees to root yourself strongly in the present and connect through grounding and centering practices with helping trees. Tune into the healing power of trees to enhance the perception of elemental energy in yourself. Allow the trees to support the exploration of your inner landscape to find harmony and stability. We will be going Weisesee for this tree qigong workshop.

At the end of the workshop we invite you for an act of creating and offering as a sacred practice that nurtures balance- between humans, nature and the divine. Inspired by the ‘canang sari’, a Balinese daily offering ritual, we create small offering baskets with natural materials infused by personal intentions. The basket acts as a symbolic reflection of the universal holding space, representing both the maker and the community.

🌀 The workshop is guided by Katelijn Verstraete (energy practitioner and creative facilitator) and Kelly Reedy (artist, educator and art therapist)

GET TICKETS

Katelijn Verstraete – Cultural Boundary Spanner, Creative Facilitator and Energy practitioner

Katelijn is a cross-cultural network weaver with 25+ years of trust-building through cultural and artistic exchange between Asia and Europe. She is a creative enabler who bridges sectors, languages, cultures, and geographies. As founder of ReflAction Works (Singapore / Brussels) she merges her work as cultural strategist with cultural research, creative facilitation and evaluation with a passion to amplify culture’s role in society. Her work thrives in the intersections of arts, education, wellbeing, inclusivity and ecology, driven by a belief that “boundary spanning is key to building trust between people.” Her 35-year immersion in Chinese language, Asian cultures and philosophy, interest in holistic lifestyles and inner call for somatic and spiritual practice lead to her interest in intuitive development, energy work with trees, yoga and inner alchemy qigong.

As the host in residence for C*SPACE Berlin in summer, she brings her experience in creative curation and facilitation and her passion for arts and wellbeing together in the August

Clara Reichertz – Movement and meditation educator and practitioner, Bodyworker

Clara is dedicated to exploring the depth of our shared humanness through the practice and teaching of yoga, qi gong, meditation, and traditional Thai massage. To her, these disciplines are not separate paths, but interwoven expressions of the same source—each one informing and enriching the others.

Originally trained and working for many years as an architect, Clara’s journey into bodywork emerged from a personal inquiry into movement, breath, meditation, and anatomy. This exploration gradually unfolded into a wholehearted commitment to embodied living.

With a great deal of curiosity, a deep interest in the inert individuality of each body and an understanding of its tremendous intelligence in adapting and self-healing, Clara aims to support this potential so it can express itself organically.

Kelly Reedy – Artist, Educator and Art Therapist

Kelly Reedy is an experienced therapeutic arts-based workshop facilitator with an M.A. in Art Psychotherapy from LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore. Drawing on over two decades of research into Asian ritual art traditions and their psychological underpinnings, she has developed innovative approaches that integrate these art-making practices with mindful creativity and the cultivation of self-compassion. As a practicing visual artist whose mixed media works have been exhibited internationally, Kelly brings a dual perspective as both artist and therapist to her workshops, guiding participants in discovering their own creative voices while fostering self-compassion through ritual-based art practices that serve as a bridge for expression and healing.

Luisa Henz – Facilitator of Meditative Arts, Educator and Handpan Artist

Luisa Henz is an interdisciplinary arts facilitator who holds intentional circle spaces for meditation, introspection, and creative expression. Her work centers around guiding individuals—children and adults alike—into deeper presence through the meditative arts, with a strong emphasis on sound, rhythm, and movement. Luisa grew up in Singapore and spends most of her year based in Vancouver, Canada where her most recent Artist-in-Residence projects foster creativity, self-inquiry and community belonging in schools and community spaces.

Luisa’s workshops draw on the gentle, meditative tones of the handpan—an instrument she plays as a form of somatic listening and emotional grounding. Luisa designs experiences that nurture interoception, presence, and creative exploration through sound, movement, or visual storytelling. Each session becomes a space of restoration, a chance to tune into inner landscapes and cultivate a calm, centered state of being.

Urvi Parikh – Strategist and cultural researcher

Urvi is a strategist and cultural researcher interested in how meaning takes shape across brands, behaviours, and everyday rituals. With over 15 years of experience across Asia and Europe, her work spans brand strategy, design and communications, and behavioural insight. A large part of her practice lies in decoding the visible and invisible patterns that shape how we live, connect, and imagine the future.

Outside the world of brands, she draws on the same practices of observation, synthesis, and storytelling to explore food as a cultural artefact. Through her ongoing project Jaman, she draws from the foodways of western India to reflect on history, belonging, identity, and the socio-political textures of everyday life. Often working through participatory formats, from sensory dinners to narrative workshops, Urvi treats cooking and hosting as embodied forms of storytelling.

Born into a family where food was not just nourishment but also about roots, communal identity, care, and conversation, she sees her work as a bridge: between past and present, personal and collective, traditional practices and contemporary contexts. Her belief is simple: food is not a trend or a performance; it is a deep, living system of meaning.