Coming Home to the Wild: Stacey Eastwood’s Story

I Was Staring Into The Eyes of a Lioness.

Not for a second. For a long time. Long enough to see her vulnerability, her presence, her own aliveness looking back at me. In yoga we call this dharana… deep, unbroken concentration, the kind of focus that dissolves the boundary between observer and observed. I wasn’t separate from her anymore. I understood, in my body and my bones, that we are not apart from nature.

We are nature. Part of the ecosystem, part of the circle of life.

When you’re looking into a lioness’s eyes, you can’t think about your phone. You can’t think about your to-do list, your anxieties, or the story you’ve been telling yourself about who you are. You are simply there. Present. Real. And time stops working the way it usually does. It slows, deepens, becomes something else entirely.

That moment changed everything for me. But the story starts long before it, with my dad. 

Photography Credits: Blair Burwood

It Began with a Hitchhiker…

My father didn’t set out to build a Retreat Centre.

In the eighties, Dad was hitchhiking through Africa, moving through the landscape with nothing but curiosity and an open heart. He fell completely in love. With the people, with the wildlife, with the land itself. The African bush has a way of getting under your skin, and it got under his.

That love kept pulling him back, year after year, until visiting was no longer enough. He had to do something that mattered. Dad is deeply passionate about conservation, and after years of supporting conservation efforts in a multitude of ways – too long to list here…

One question became so clear: How can we ask communities to protect wildlife they’ve never even seen?

So he created Koru Camp, a way to bring underprivileged kids, grandmothers, entire communities into the bush to experience the animals, the beauty, and the deep sense of belonging that had been kept from them. And at Sashwa, the retreat centre that donates 100% of its profits to Koru Camp, he made sure every role can be filled by people from the local community, training and supporting locals to step into those roles wherever possible. Dad built something real.

I’m so proud of the change Koru Camp and Sashwa have created, and deeply grateful for everything he has poured into this vision.

Photography Credits: Photos 3-4 by Stacey Eastwood

Growing Up with Bush TV

I felt Dad’s love for Africa long before I understood it.

My favourite memories are of all of us gathered around a campfire under African skies, hypnotised by what we call Bush TV. Even now, the smell of my clothes after a night beside the fire brings the most beautiful nostalgia flooding back.

I was fourteen the first time I went to Africa with my family. I remember stepping out of the vehicle and feeling something crack open inside me. The wildlife, the vastness, the aliveness of it all. It was overwhelming in the most beautiful way, and it never left. It crept under my skin and stayed there, and it still gives me goosebumps.

Then came the lioness.

What the Bush Offers That No Studio Can

Over a decade ago I started guiding yoga and running retreats. I guide Vinyasa, Yin, Yoga Nidra and Empowerment Yoga, where we use journaling, somatic movement and deep questioning to find what’s really stopping us from living the life we want.

Through Yoga Nidra, I guide people into states where the nervous system finally releases what it has been holding, where the old stories can be seen clearly and rewritten. I’ve watched people arrive contracted, afraid, disconnected from their own aliveness. And I’ve watched them remember their power and reshape their lives in the months that follow.

Here’s what I’ve learned: there is a medicine in the African bush that no studio can offer. It lives in slowing down by the river. In watching animals move with complete authenticity. In switching off the devices, stepping out of the noise, and simply being present. That’s where the deepest shifts happen.

Into The Wild

This October From 19 to 23 October, I’m bringing people back to Sashwa for the Into The Wild Retreat. We’ll move through Empowerment Yoga together, sink into the depths of Yoga Nidra, and sit by the river remembering what it feels like to be alive without striving.

You’ll be held the entire way. By the land. By the Sashwa staff, whose open hearts make you feel like family from the moment you arrive and who fill every day with love and laughter. By me. And by a community of people also waking up to their own wildness.

Photography Credits: Liam Baldock

If You’re Travelling Solo, I Know Africa Can Feel Daunting.

Sashwa is different. You land at Hoedspruit Airport, you’re picked up, and within hours you’re held. Safe. Your nervous system can finally relax. You get to be truly present, truly disconnected from the outside world, and truly part of something larger than yourself.

Time here is a deep investment in yourself, one you’ll carry for years to come. And in the spirit of oneness and interconnectedness, that same investment flows outward, sustaining the long-term conservation of the wildlife and the wilderness that make this place what it is.

My dad started Koru Camp and Sashwa because he believed people needed to remember the bush and their connection to nature. I’m continuing that work through yoga and wellness, my life’s passion, because I believe people need to remember themselves. And sometimes, the only way home is through the wild.

Join me at the Into The Wild Retreat, 19–23 October at Sashwa. Book your place HERE or send an email to enquiries@sahwa.org for more information.

With love & gratitude,

Stacey Eastwood