Inside A Yoga & Writing Retreat In The South Of France

The Le Grand Banc retreat centre in the Haute Provence offers a rare alchemy of writing and yoga, with award-winning author Susan Elderkin and acclaimed yoga teacher Tashi Dowa. Annabel Heseltine could write a book about it…

Review: The Mindful Yoga & Creative Retreat At Le Grand Banc, Provence

Deep marine-blue wings fan fat juicy-gold tentacles, or in other words, a violet carpenter bee hovers over Jerusalem sage. I am sitting on a cracked bench warmed by a French sun, staring at an exuberant bee floating over a yellow petal and wondering how to describe it in a way that is exciting, original and brilliant. Isn’t that what any writer wants? Right now, however, I’m struggling. The most basic writer’s directive is ‘show don’t tell’, but I seem to be falling far too easily into the telling and struggling to show. As my pencil stub shrinks, so too do my literary pretensions, along with my ego. And then with typical writerly procrastination, my stomach chimes in a cacophony of gurgles, reminding me that it’s tea time. I potter off down the tiny street in search of a cacao bliss ball.

In the winter kitchen – half inside for chilly evenings, half out where a warm sun slants through a bamboo roof onto a scrubbed wooden table – I find other writers in similar predicaments. There are 18 of us gathered from around the world on a writing and yoga retreat led by acclaimed author Susan Elderkin, who has two award-winning novels and an MA in teaching literature in her pencil case. She’s teamed up with Tashi Dawa, an Aussie yoga teacher with an infectious smile, whose asanas are sculptured by Buddhist philosophy (her name means Happy Moon in Tibetan). Dawa is a free spirit who wings her way around the world, moving from retreat to retreat rather like the carpenter bee searching for its pollen. 

This golden alchemy of writing and yoga was recognised and orchestrated by their mutual friend Jax Hill-Wilson, who manages Le Grand Banc for the inventor and entrepreneur Cosmo Fry. At first sight, it’s a tiny village of tilted cottages tucked into a reddish cliff-top surveying a lavender-scented valley high up in the Haute Provence. It’s guarded by Jax’s cute little cyan deux chevaux, which, Jax tells me as we rattle around sandy bends, often has to be conscripted to remove limpet-like guests who don’t want to leave. 

On this occasion, the limpets consist of an international medley including a human rights lawyer and mediator straight out of Middle East negotiations; a doctor; several yogis who sometimes come to the writing sessions; an elephant conservationist from Thailand; and a hunter from Kenya, alongside filmmakers, script editors, and published authors who range from mid-seventies to a fascinating creature with golden curls, a collection of enchanting straw hats, and a manner of the Bloomsbury group, though she later revealed that she was just 22. 

But why would I be surprised? Le Grand Blanc’s history is infused with literary and creative romanticism. I just had to close my eyes and slip through a 30-year-old time capsule to my first wide-eyed introduction by Cosmo to his father, the inventor and chocolatier Jeremy Fry, who was dressed in a flowing kaftan. In 1956, Fry, a father of ten who was the third in the menage-a-trois with Anthony Armstrong-Jones and Princess Margaret, bought the village (abandoned after two world wars and an active resistance wiped out two generations) and turned it into a home and a sanctuary for myriad guests. Like us now, they slept in the cottages, each transformed into a self-contained bedroom and bathroom, some with their own kitchen. Most of these guests were artists of some sort who were escaping the austerity of a post-war world where homosexuality was illegal. To the surrounding villagers, it was a scandalous place.

The ethos has always been that while all are invited to gather around a long table hanging over the clifftop, everyone has to contribute. Once, I arrived to see Cosmo’s brother, Frances, building the swimming pool; today he runs Hotel Rajakkad, the Indian palace that Fry moved from Kerala to Tamil Nadu in 20,000 pieces. Under the stairs there’s a five-foot bird gifted by Picasso when he came for dinner. Andy Warhol prints line the winter kitchen walls; Craige Aitchinsons are everywhere. 

Now, in a way, LGB has reclaimed its artistic roots; creativity seeps out of mellowed crazy paving, its energy dancing in the shadows, longing to be unleashed by Elderkin. Twice daily she leads us through writings, readings and exercises like this one now, where I am being encouraged to find a different way of seeing. And, somehow, she manages to take eighteen wannabees, self-selected only by a shared and personal desire to transmit ideas and experiences onto an empty page, and turns them into writers, nurturing, steering, always finding something to compliment, never criticising, so that with her encouragement a furry cat becomes ‘a fussy cat’ and a page of handwritten notes becomes a chapter.  

Jax was right about the limpets. She knew that just like the crumbling Apollo found down by the chickens I might have stayed forever. As it was, while everyone else came for one week,  I stayed for two and left with stronger thighs, the bones of a book, and a confirmed return date for this May, just in case I haven’t finished it by then.

BOOK IT

This year’s retreat writing-yoga retreat at Le Grand Banc with Susan Elderkin and Tashi Dawa will take place from 18 to 24 May, with prices starting at £1,600 pp. tashidawa.com

LGB offers creative retreats including teaching calligraphy, painting, meditation and yoga throughout the spring and summer. For more information, contact Jax Hill-Wilson at Immersion Retreat Ltd.