A Sharing from the Women’s Retreat

17-19 September 2026
Lina Qadri

There are gatherings that you organize, and there are gatherings that somehow begin to organize something inside you. The women’s retreat at Satyam was the second kind. I have been sitting with it since those three days, trying to understand what exactly happened there. And perhaps the truth is that I don’t want to explain it too much. Some experiences become smaller when we try to put them into big words.

What I remember most is the feeling in the space. Women of different ages, different religions, different histories, different languages, different relationships to this land. Jewish, Muslim, Christian. Palestinian, Israeli, and women carrying other places and stories within them. Some much older, some very young. Some who came with years of experience behind them, and others who were still discovering parts of themselves. And somehow, for a little while, all of those identities could simply breathe in the same space.

This is not a small thing. We live in a reality where we are constantly reminded of the categories that separate us. Who we are. Where we come from. What language we speak. What we believe. Which side we belong to. What our history has done to us, and what we believe has been done to us.

But at Satyam, I watched something else happen. I watched women become curious about one another before becoming afraid of one another. I watched them listen. I watched them laugh together, cry together, touch each other’s hands, hold each other, translate for each other, make space for one another. And I watched something that I find particularly beautiful in women: the ability to move between strength and tenderness without needing to choose one.

There were moments of deep vulnerability. Conversations about the body, sexuality, motherhood, relationships, ageing, desire, pain, identity, and the things women are so often taught to keep private. There was a workshop where the body became part of the conversation in a very direct way — through sexuality, touch, the abdomen, and the stories we carry physically. There was laughter, embarrassment, curiosity, courage. And there were moments when the room became very quiet, because something real had been touched.

I remember watching a young woman speak with such openness and intelligence, while also moving naturally between languages so that others could participate. I remember another woman, older and incredibly elegant, carrying a kind of wisdom that did not need to announce itself. She was simply there — open, curious, alive — and I found myself thinking about how beautiful it is to see a woman continue to expand rather than become smaller with age.

These moments stayed with me. Because sometimes we speak about generations as if they are separate worlds. But watching these women together, I felt that perhaps what we need is not always to agree with one another, or even to understand everything about one another. Sometimes we simply need to be close enough to witness each other. To see the woman behind the category. The woman behind the religion. The woman behind the nationality. The woman behind the political position. The woman behind the age. And perhaps most importantly, the woman behind the story she has been carrying for years.

For me, this is where Satyam becomes real. Not in the big words. Not in the idea that we have somehow solved anything. We haven’t. The reality outside the gates of Satyam is still complicated, painful, and often unbearable. The histories are real. The inequalities are real. The fears are real. The wounds are real. We don’t erase any of that by sitting together around a table. But we can create a small space where another possibility becomes physically experienced. Where the nervous system can soften for a moment. Where someone can hear a story they have never heard before. Where someone can discover that the person they were taught to see as “the other” is also a woman who laughs, worries, desires, remembers, grieves, dreams, and needs to be held.

And perhaps this is why the retreat moved me so much. Because it wasn’t theoretical. It was embodied. It happened through food being shared, through conversations late at night, through tears, through laughter, through someone translating for someone else, through women checking on one another, through the quiet moments between workshops. Even the practical difficulties — the water, the internet, all the little things that inevitably happen when people gather — became part of the experience. We dealt with them together. We kept going. And I found myself caring about the smallest things. Did everyone eat? Does anyone need anything before going to sleep? Is someone overwhelmed? Does someone need a quieter corner? Is there enough water? Does someone need company? For me, holding a space is also this. It is not only facilitating a workshop or creating a beautiful program. It is noticing. It is sensing what is happening in the room. It is knowing when to speak and when to step back. It is making sure that people feel that someone is there.

And I think this is one of the things that made me happiest during those days: seeing the space take care of people. Satyam itself felt different. Warm. Alive. Soft. There was something almost domestic about it — women moving around, eating, talking, resting, disappearing into conversations and reappearing laughing. The place felt less like a venue and more like a temporary home.

And maybe that is what I will remember most. Not one particular workshop. Not one particular conversation. But the image of women who did not necessarily arrive with the same language, religion, politics, age, or history — and yet, for three days, found ways to meet each other as human beings. There were tears. There was laughter. There was discomfort. There was courage. There was tenderness. There was joy. And there was life. Real life.

I think we need more spaces like this — not spaces that promise to make our differences disappear, but spaces brave enough to let our differences exist while we remain human with one another.

That, for me, is Satyam. A place where we don’t have to pretend that the difficult things don’t exist. A place where we can bring them with us — and still sit together. Still breathe. Still listen. Still laugh. Still hold each other. And sometimes, for a few days, remember what it feels like to simply be women together.