STAR ZONE

— SAUNA FEST 26 MAIN SPEAKER —

In this workshop Ben Warren takes the participants on a journey into the deeper depths of Awareness, setting out the path to experience more peace, love and joy in one's life and surroundings.

A former Clinical Nutritionist and founder of a well-known wellness brand, Ben Warren experienced a profound awakening in 2019 that changed the course of his life. Leaving behind the speed and striving of a corporate lifestyle, Ben was called into a quieter, more spacious way of living—one rooted not in doing, but in Being. From this shift, the Centre for Beingness was born.

Now living simply on the Mahia Peninsula in northern Hawke’s Bay, Ben continues to explore what it truly means to be. His days are shaped by presence, community, surfing, meditation, kirtan, and the pleasures of good coffee and nourishing food.

Ben’s work is an invitation to rest in the awareness behind all experience. He shares this through weekly online gatherings, retreats, and live events that are simple, spacious, and quietly transformative—held with warmth, humility, and a deep love for truth.

— SAUNA FEST 26 MAIN SPEAKER —

This keynote lecture explores the concept of salutogenesis — the study of the origins of health and wellbeing. Moving beyond the traditional focus on illness, salutogenesis invites us to ask a different question: What supports human health and allows us to flourish?

The lecture will introduce the fundamental principles of salutogenesis and offer a deeper understanding of the dynamic processes that sustain physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing. Particular attention will be given to the role of inner resilience, meaningful engagement with life, and the capacity to maintain balance in times of stress.

Alongside the conceptual perspective, the talk will also include practical suggestions and simple exercises that can be integrated into everyday life to strengthen health, awareness, and vitality.

This keynote aims to inspire a renewed view of health — not merely as the absence of disease, but as an active, living process that can be consciously cultivated.

Muka Wānanga: Threads of Wellbeing is a transformative workshop led by contemporary Māori artist, orator and healer Arapeta Hākura and Ziggy Raven. Participants will connect with the language of the woven Universe through the hands-on processing of Muka Harakeke (flax fibre), where indigenous epistemologies of health and wellbeing emerge naturally through practice.

In this Wānanga, each participant will learn traditional skills of extracting muka to create sacred cordage. The workshop honors ancestral knowledge while fostering personal connection to Māori healing traditions. Participants are encouraged to bring a taonga (treasured object with a small hole) to be adorned with their handcrafted muka, creating a meaningful keepsake that embodies the workshop’s teachings.

Through this intimate engagement with traditional materials and methods, participants will discover how the physical act of creation becomes a pathway to deeper understanding of wellbeing and connection to the natural world.

Sync with the Moon is a cyclical, holistic yoga practice inspired by the rhythms of the lunar cycle. Each month, we move through 12–15 synergistic sequences that open, strengthen, and balance the whole body. As the moon waxes, we build energy and expansion; as it wanes, we ground and release. This practice cultivates awareness, vitality, and harmony with nature. At the festival, Alessandra will guide a lunar-inspired flow of mindful movement, breathwork, chanting, and inner connection.

This Slow Flow will be a gentle, breath-led yoga flow designed to ground the body and calm the mind. Moving slowly and intentionally, you will be guided through mindful movement, breathwork, and moments of stillness to cultivate presence and inner awareness with meditation. Suitable for all levels, this class is ideal for anyone looking to slow down, reset, and reconnect

We’ll begin with a short meditation and gentle warm-up to help you arrive fully into the space. From there, you’ll be guided on a dance journey through the chakras — starting at the base and moving all the way to the crown. Each set of music is tuned to the frequencies of the chakras, supporting release, balance, and deeper connection.

The soundscape has been lovingly curated in collaboration with Mohua’s (Golden Bay) own DJ Aquapoodle — a delicious blend infused with the spirit of Aotearoa. This experience can help you release blockages, notice areas of stagnation, and leave you feeling rejuvenated with a clear energetic channel and aura.

No dance experience needed. Just bring your curiosity, a water bottle, and clothes you can move in.

Come as you are — leave feeling grounded, uplifted, and renewed.

Erin will share some of the science behind sleep and dreams. In groups we'll explore some of the different types of dreams and look at pealing back the layers of perception. As individuals we'll write down what we can remember of our own dreams. In the second part we'll use some techniques to get clear on a dream/ intention/ sankalpa we want to manifest. In the final part I'll guide participants through a Yoga Nidra practise which is a type of yoga that works on the mind on the edge of consciousness and subconscious. There will be time to journal, share and ask equations at the end.

A yoga session that will strengthen your connection to Terra (our mother Earth, Papatuānuku) and Soma (your body, Tinana) through a carefully curated flow of shapes (yoga asana) and breath. Meditation in motion, you will be mindfully guided to follow your breath as you move through a simple yet profound series of yoga shapes designed to awaken the energy flow through your body in connection to the environment around you - the ground, the trees, the sky. No previous experience required.

Would you like to explore connections between the skies and the soil? Build biodiversity, fertility and abundance? Eat nutrient dense food? Do you desire to create ease on our planet and within ourselves at the same time? Are you looking for a holistic approach? Then come along and learn in this wonderful workshop!

During our time together we will explore the wisdom of nature, and the human being, through the frameworks of anthroposophy and biodynamics. Steiner’s biodynamics is a form of agriculture similar to organic farming, but is a deeper holistic, spiritual, ecological and ethical approach to gardening, food and nutrition, that brings ease to ourselves and the land.

This workshop is perfect for anyone growing their own food, or those that have an interest in nutrition, building soil health and climate resilience, or simply a curiosity for the interconnected nature of our universe.

A gathering at sauna fest to come home to the womb space, through somatic sacral-centered yin yoga, womb meditation, guided self-womb massage and sacral sound journey.

For those who feel called to rest deeply, and reconnect with their creative essence—whether they have a physical or energetic womb—all welcome in the space.

For over 5,000 years, the Indian subcontinent has nurtured a vast, complex relationship with the fundamental question: "Who am I?"

In this interactive session, we will journey through the history of inner science, exploring the profound insights that have arisen from the systems of Yoga, Vedanta, and Asiatic mysticism. We will trace how these methods of exploring the body, mind, and infinite awareness have evolved alongside human society.

Crucially, we will also turn a critical eye to the present day, discussing how the modernization and commodification of the spiritual quest have impacted the authenticity and potency of these ancient methods. This is not just a lecture; we will incorporate the group’s wisdom to explore the landscape of this eternal relationship between the individual and the infinite.