Sol Retreat Yucatán, Mexico 2024 - Aftermovie
The aftermovie captures the three‑day Sol Retreat held in the Yucatán jungle, blending guided meditations, primal movement exercises, group sparring, and a Mayan‑themed expedition that includes a hike to ancient ruins, a temazcal sweat lodge, and animal‑tribute rituals. Throughout the footage, Sol Brah and various participants lead sessions on humming meditation, breathwork, and discussions that challenge mainstream germ‑theory health narratives, urging personal research and a nature‑centric view of optimal health. The retreat emphasizes community bonding through poetry sharing, shared meals of raw animal parts, and reflective dialogues where attendees describe feeling renewed, more connected, and transformed. The narrative interweaves playful banter, philosophical musings (e.g., references to Sheldrake, Yoda, and cosmology), and logistical details (e.g., split‑gender sparring, water‑only runs) to illustrate a holistic, experiential approach to personal growth and alternative wellness.
Chapters
Welcome, welcome!
We pretty much cleared them out. We've got glass waters, olive oil, coconut oil, essential oils, you name it. Stacked natural organic stuff. Stuff because that's how we do it.
It's like 4 or 5 feet.
Slowly its wings grew out, but it was unaware of its use.
What happened to its wings?
Were the others—
professional baseball teams and stuff like that. What up? And then he just like— I'm gonna start obviously, and then we're just gonna go clockwise and everyone's gonna share their piece of written poetry. Readings, whatever you guys chose to bring. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowance for their doubting too, if you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies, or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise. Knowledge and self-awareness I took a leap of faith, departing from the conventional path to attempt to carve my own.
I got a little piece of wisdom that I just came up with just on the spot. I was thinking about my little brother, and there's a lot of people that always like take poos with their phones. I think that's valuable time to kind of like— I mean, that's excrement, right? Like you're getting it out of your system. It's also time to like receive. So next time you are in the bathroom, put your hands like this, kind of make an A, and remember Eclipse. I am agile. I am charismatic.
I am lucky.
I am intelligent. I am perceptive. I am strong. And I am durable, which is endurance.
We start with a humming meditation. You may have done this before. You may have just hummed because it's a fun thing to do. That's good. But it's actually a very powerful and simple tool that you can use whenever to kind of permeate your brain and rattle your skull a little bit with this self-made intonation. So we're going to be doing something like this.
Try and just be really loose in the shoulders, really loose in the knees, really loose in the hips. Just start to slowly lift up like the neck, shoulders, upper spine, toes, legs, hips, knees.
So there's a whole host of other glaring scientific fallacies occurring in the viral and germ theory worlds, and there's a whole bunch you can get into, and I hope you do your own research and try and prove me wrong if you have, you know, preconceived notions that I also had before about, ah, viruses do cause disease. But I'll leave you with the introduction to it all and why we should not believe things until they are proven rather than just taking the crowd or the news to say this is what's happening and then, you know, be scared because of it. I share this with you all to bring you into a new paradigm of health, one of optimal health, happiness, love, of self-reliance, of truth, and of a reverence and connection to nature, of which we are indeniably part of.
Say you're at a work party for Christmas. And you and your 25 workmates are partying, and one person walks in who is ill, throwing a fever, or just about to throw a fever, they don't quite realize. And 8 people get sick, but not 25, but everyone has been in this close proximity to this person, shared the same air, probably drank from the same cup, ate the same finger food. Food, everything like that. But only 8 get ill, not the rest, not everyone. So why would that be the case if we're all just like petri dishes ready to soak up bacteria at any, any occasion?
But that's a really good point. If anyone ever does feel lightheaded or the tunnels are coming in, the first thing that I want you to do is to take your hands and your eyes and look for the ground. And go hands on the ground. And then if you do end up having to pass out, you can just go take a nap and you're gonna be super okay. Okay, we're gonna be watching out for you. Let's all stand up.
You can go on the cushions as well.
Yeah, we're gonna do one get down to the floor and get back up just so we're good. So get down to the floor, practice it, make sure there's no wall behind your head. You're not Slam your head.
Breath in and out.
Take a breath, hold it, and then— take a big breath in and go. Full belly, all the way down, all the way up.
Keep going, keep going.
When you hear the word Primal, what do you think of? So this is how the concept that I've really been playing with, which is the primal movement that we all did from an early age. It's incredibly miraculous because before we learned how to speak, we taught ourselves how to do— like we talked about walking, cows don't do it, you know, like no other animal does this insanely technical movement, bipedal walking. We all taught ourselves how to do that. Our mother didn't say, "Put your left foot here and then your right hand here." Worried? Then I want your full foot on the deck, but we've got the outside edge of the deck that we want to practice putting the ball of our foot on and our heels off. So let's all get into a place where we can place our feet on the ground or off the deck, and then our hands. We're gonna start breathing, breathing into our— breathing into our nose, big exhale through your mouth. Our hands off the chair, find your glutes, find your hamstrings, press your feet into the air for 10, 9, 8. We've got just 5 more minutes. There's a lot of pressure, this is a big demand on your body.
So Sheldrake was a scientist in the early, well, mid-20th century. He kind of got, he was a Cambridge Fellow and he got basically outlawed or ostracized for his views on reality and consciousness. I just thought I'd put this quote at the beginning because the cosmos as a developing organism over an eternal machine is the theme that we're going with for today. One of the themes.
Outside? It's awesome. Oh yeah, yeah, he's gonna get one.
Nobody— hey, everybody just spawned right in. Like, you can spawn yourself in and you can spawn other things in that you want.
This was— it's a local cow, obviously. The chef brought it. So props to the chef. He brought this huge sack of milk on his little motorbike. That's amazing.
Wow.
Yeah, shoutouts to him.
Straight from Aunt Bessie this morning.
Combat, violence, or martial arts training before, that everyone in this circle is part of your family, your brotherhood. They're your teammate.
Be involved, but please This is a—
Guys and girls split. We did some sparring. Girls had their time out here. I think we just elevated. That's what it feels like. And, uh, can't wait for tomorrow as well.
I am absolutely ready for today. I'm expecting fun, I'm expecting something crazy, and I'm expecting Jan to kick our ass in the best way possible. It's always fun when we go with Yon. There's always an adventure. You never know anything, but he's always got you. He's gonna test us.
I love it.
Mayan expedition day. Where are we going? We're going to some ancient ruins, magical place in the jungle. We're having a large hike to get there, so we're going to test people's hiking abilities, their cardio. We're going to honor the animals of the jungle through some of the challenges what it is that we do. And at the end of that, temazcal, which is a steam experience. What do they call it? Steam room? Sweat lodge. Sweat lodge. That's what I'm looking for. Sweat lodge experience with a shaman and give everyone the full Mayan jungle Yucatan experience. To connect to nature as much as possible, that they are not just a tree. So try to tap into that, try to engage as much as possible and absorb as much as possible, help each other out as much as possible, and have fun. Yeah.
All right, so we're here at an incredible Mayan ruins.
We're the only people here.
This is a private expedition for us. And if you can see behind you, this is where the Mayans would park their cars, mainly Ferraris and Maseratis, before they come into their village. It was a no-car a village for them back in the day. What you actually see here, it looks like just a bit of jungle and parking lot, but there's a mound there to the right which is an archaeological site in its own as well. They had to rejig the construction here to stop the decimation of that specific piece of archaeology. You'll see bits of this village here which was inhabited for hundreds and hundreds of years for a specific reason which Armando If you look at a stone, chances are that stone was used for something around here.
When the falcon wasn't in the underworld, the falcon was above the canopy. Surveilling the landscape, and the shaman would attempt to see through the eyes of the falcon in order to navigate the best routes on a hunt and also on warring raids against other groups and other societies of the Mayan. The way the Falcon sets off is like this, and we're all going to do this together. I'm forward to a sprint. We're going to lean Nice, nice.
To the deer as their primary source of meat, but they revered the deer as the king of the forest, and not only did they eat its They also took pride in having the deer as a sign of opulence, as a sign of prosperity, and as a sign that the forest was healthy. The deer were often sacrificed to the gods and tributed, and in some Mayan art, deer are associated with the motive of death too, but In the animal kingdom, especially in this forest, the deer were the nimble creatures that could stalk and jump and run through the jungle effectively. So our resident deer is Logan, who is going to show us how we can perform a tribute to the incredible king of the jungle, the deer.
Viewed as significant.
Especially since we have 4 protectors who are here not to protect us, but to protect this, and we are the invaders.
We're trying to make as little noise as possible, as if you were trying to move through the jungle undetected.
We're going to move back to the car, but in a very particular way. We're going to stalk as the jaguar stalks, and this means as low to the ground as you can without touching the ground on hands and feet. As little noise as possible, and I don't want to see anyone get up and walk because this is meant to be a challenge. During this, feel how the jaguar would feel. Channel that spirit. Just as we have honored all the animals, we can tap into that energy if we give it reverence and really embody it while we're doing this. It's not just an exercise activity. So we can start from here.
When the Spanish started conquering, groups of people started fleeing south this way and started making settlements in different areas. Of course, kind of like way before, looking for water first and then the rest.
350 years before Jesus Christ, was born, and we were able to immerse ourselves in that. But, you know, nature has completely decimated this place in less than 150 years. This is the post, kind of, end of the Mayan civilization here, and it really relays kind of how quickly, like, the forces of nature can reabsorb human activity.
Looks like wood.
Yeah.
Who has seen human bones before in real life? I hadn't until now.
Everybody having a good time?
Yeah!
Cool.
So I'm excited to chat with you guys here. Obviously, I have the tough task of following up Bam on the fitness side, and it's been really cool. We were together for 4 or 5 days before the event, and just like, it's just awesome, you know, sharing ideas with smart people and challenging your own ideas. So I have the tough task of following that up, but I'm gonna be talking to you guys today about smarter strategies for building strength. So yeah, everybody, if you don't have your stuff, get ready to rock. We're gonna go down to the dock and do, uh, just kind of work through a few of these things. Nice little workout. Cool guys, so just to give you kind of a walkthrough of what we're going to be doing. It's not going to be crazy, crazy intense. I just kind of want to work you through a few of the concepts that we discussed. I think it's really good, like kind of building on BAM, see then feel, right? You get to think about it and then now we'll get to work through it. So you asked about how I kind of get into the rest, digest.
Blue water, your car in the driveway. I say, got attention, do what I say. On time, on time is what the time say, 'cause all I want to do, yeah, is run shit up with you. Yeah, after all of them things we been through, got to look around a little. Just look. All I want to do is hit the gas on and run shit up with you. And from the lab, all of them things we been through 3 deep breaths together.
Make this the deepest one. Take a moment, appreciate where we are and what we we've done over the last couple days. Have appreciation and gratitude for each and every one of you in this circle. This is going to be a beautiful meal, and I'd like to take a moment to appreciate the work of the chef, everyone who worked that we don't see— the farmers, the truck drivers, everyone that goes into us Having this beautiful, wonderful, abundant meal, it may not necessarily be part of our daily gratitude, but all of those people contributed to this spread in front of us.
Source and simulation. So in life, we all are responsible for developing our own cosmology. Who's familiar with the idea of cosmology? Couple, couple of people. Okay, so I'm sure you're familiar with the idea. And what cosmology is basically is the idea that something created all the things. And if you don't believe that, then we'll say theoretically we say something created all the things.
Don't be mean!
You'll break the bag.
In ancient Sparta, and how they used to train the youth, they would send young boys out on these 10-mile runs, and they would give them each a sip of water. If they didn't spit the water out at the end of their run to show that they held it the entire time, they would beat them up as a punishment. So we're gonna recreate that. We're gonna take a sip, and if I don't see that spit out at the end of the run We'll see what happens.
But it's a challenge.
It's, uh, it's going to pretty much force you to only nasal breathe. You don't have an option. If you swallow, maybe you're going to get dehydrated. You're like, I really want to swallow that water.
Don't.
So that's the challenge that we're going to get into here. It's not going to be too far, but, uh, I think we'll see with this edition, it's, uh, it's a lot of fun. So start that one halfway, send it that way.
Yeah!
Woo!
Woo!
We have here raw heart, raw liver of the lamb, and we want to honor the entire animal that we're eating tonight, nose to tail. That's what this is about, to the end. And it's one of the best experiences I've ever had in my life. So I just want to thank each and every one of you for coming along for the journey. So Nick comes to the end of the, uh, Sol Brahm Retreat. Can I just ask you how you felt coming in, what brought you here, and how you're feeling going out?
Yeah, coming in, it's like a bit of a trusting process. It's a mystery box. I didn't know what to expect. My intuition leading me here was thinking that I could pick up on some positive energy, some good energy. I feel like we all kind of curate our own energy, and I have mine, everyone else has theirs, and so maybe I could pick up on some other people's energy and walk away with that. But while I was here, I found I learned a lot of other things.
Well, I was quite excited to come to the jungle because like I knew what we were getting signed up for. We all like We all like being deep. There's no Wi-Fi here, no EMFs. So I was quite excited to come. But I tell you what, it's been more than I thought it would be, in all honesty. I had such a good time. I met so many different people, but we all made such good friends, I feel like, even from all different places of the Earth.
I feel like a new person. All this energy we had here, the different people, they added a little piece to myself. And that just feels really refreshing, and I can't wait to get back to Costa Rica and give it to other people. I feel recharged. I feel like I've been able to let go of things, and it was sort of a catalyst for me and charged me with the energy that I want to bring to the world. Deep inside, I was looking for a friend, and I think I found it. I know, I'm so happy. Like, she's my angel. I feel like I've known you for so long and it's been 3 days. Yeah, yeah, we've been— we're like souls that have been like floating around looking for each other.
Coming in, didn't know it was going to be anything like this, to be honest.
I thought we were literally just going on a hike until we got here.
It's so interesting because everything that you guys are teaching, you can obviously see it works.
It's true.
And it's, it's like exactly opposite of what we're being taught, and that's That's what I love. That's exactly what I love. Yeah.
Sounds kind of corny, but the letting go thing. You know, you kind of set these expectations for yourself in the past, and at the time they're in the present moment. But you got to have faith in the fact that you know what your own— what yourself is doing. You know, you kind of— you program yourself in the present moment, and then at a certain point You have to tell yourself that my hands are tied and the die is cast, brother.
Would you recommend people thinking about a Sol Retreat to go to the next one?
I would answer that question with a Yoda quote. I think Yoda said it, I don't know. But there is no try, there's only do or do not. It's up to you, you know, it's a choice, it really is a choice. And it's up for you to to make that choice. Nobody else can hold your hand through this life. You gotta call the shots.
Totally blew away my expectations. Uh, yeah, you like organized just a really excellent trip. You know, having you here as well as the other teachers that you brought, it was like a total package of learning all sorts of new things about like fitness and spirituality. And you know, some of the friendships I made here I think will be people that I'm friends with for a very long time.
