Charlotte Church’s wellness centre announces last retreats before indefinite pause

Nation.Cymru Staff

Charlotte Church’s wellness centre in Wales has announced an additional retreat ahead of an indefinite pause in operations from December 2026.

The Dreaming, which opened in February 2023, is an “innovative and inspiring” wellness centre in mid Wales offering retreats, as well as an “eight-chapter, land-led online course of ritual, imagination, and intimate practice”.

Writing on their social media on 5 October, The Dreaming revealed they were adding a final WITCH retreat to their schedule from 9 to 13 November.

“This new date was opened to our waiting list first, and now a very small number of places are available… If Witch has been calling to you, perhaps this is your moment,” they wrote.

The five-day retreat is led by Church and dream guide, death doula, and mystic High Priestess Tree Carr, and features meditation, dream-work, and herbalism to “reconnect with nature, self and spirit”.

However, just three days after announcing the additional retreat, The Dreaming confirmed on 8 October that it would be pausing its operations to “germinate new dreams for the future”.

In a statement addressed to its guests, the centre said: “After five years of unfaltering practice, tending with diligence to the dreams of the land and our guests, we announce with hearts-a-brim that The Dreaming will be pausing its work at Rhydoldog from December 2026.”

They shared that over three thousand people had participated in retreats since their opening, including through “pay-what-you-can” schemes priced as low as £1 per night, free-to-attend retreats for NHS workers and activists, as well as retreats for women from marginalised communities and the queer community.

“And then there are the hundreds of amazing people who have joined us as part of our work-exchange and artist-in-residence programmes.”

Explaining the decision, organisers said they needed time to reassess what the centre could offer in a changing world, adding that they must “hibernate” before deciding what comes next.

“It is a different world today than the one we started off in just a short half decade ago. As we stare clear-eyed at the exponentially complexifying crises that have been spreading out ahead of us all like cracking ice, we at The Dreaming need to reassess, with candour and courage what it is we should be offering to be in service.”

“We cannot say when exactly we will be returning from the dream realm, but return we shall,” they added.

The Dreaming’s online course, described as an “eight-chapter, land-led course of ritual, imagination, and intimate practice with Charlotte Church”, will remain available through a pay-what-you-can pricing model, with the lowest tier costing £90 for those “currently navigating financial strain”.

The statement from The Dreaming also encouraged people to sign up to their newsletter, and to get in touch “If you feel like you would like to feed your own ideas into our dreaming”, before thanking “all those who have supported us over the years”.

WITCH is just one of the remaining retreats on The Dreaming’s roster, as well as the Weekly Signature Retreat, a Day Retreat, Samhain Retreat, and ‘Charlotte’s Signature Retreat’ Songs of the Soul.

Although The Dreaming confirmed that it intends to return, organisers did not say when operations might resume or what would happen in the meantime to Rhydoldog, the 47-acre estate Church purchased in May 2021 from the estate of Laura Ashley’s late husband.

Church had reiterated her passion for the project earlier in 2026, telling RTE in February: “I believe more than ever, the world and the people of the world are in dire need of being held through some very difficult times.