Meet Anat.
Art Therapist in an anthroposophical spirit.
Wife and mother of 3.
Owner Apanema Mindfulness Resort.
This is Anat
Anat is a free spirit. She is 100% the soul of an artist.
You’ll find very intimate bits and pieces of Anat in her paintings.
Welcome to her world. In her daily life she graciously combines art therapy with taoist yoga. With everything she does she travels deeper and deepr into the depths of her being.
I just made a short intro. From now on it’s Anat speaking:
1991. Art studies. London, here I come.
I am inherently drown into worlds of spirit and art. I was only a child when I was finding little small worlds inside each cube I was playing with.
I find myself living and stuying in London for about 4 years.
I choose an institution called The ARTS in Therapy & Education.
Body psychotherapy and art therapy courses. Dealing with the therapeutic application of the arts and creative imagination for a healthier and more fulfilling life.
A set of courses in 7 art forms for therapeutic conversation: Art, Drama/Puppetry, Sculpture/Clay, Poetry, Sand play, Music and Bodywork/Movement.
This world of experiencing art and therapy opened up a world of of deep self reflection. At that time I deepened the intricacies of my being, reflecting on myself and shaping the further challenges of life’s journey.
Touching the concerns and fears on the dark side of the hill, but also seeing things on the bright side of the hill, with compassion and courage.
A foreign land challenges my spirit.
Art therapist. That was my calling.
For years I have been practicing as an art therapist in an anthropomorphic spirit and as a physical psychotherapist.
My calling continued to manifest in this challenging period of the last years… with treating and accompanying children and parents who are experiencing deep emotional conflicts and difficulties.
With great introspection I established a studio and clinic for expression and development, through art creating, playing and painting.
Therapy allows a space containing the emotional states to strengthen self-confidence, the abilities and methods of self-expression.
If you look at these paintings, you get to know me better than my own friends.
Because… Art is pure manifestation of the true self.
Three angels of mine. 2003.
A peak moment in my life: giving birth in a hut with a certified midwife as my partner by my side.
Three days just me and God.
From where did I draw my strength to give birth naturally, like a lioness in the forest? I believe in my body. Nine months before I felt the moment of rooting in my womb and as my body knew how to build a sublime being from the sublime spirit.
An angel was born to challenge nature.
This is how my anonymous sisters gave birth hundreds and thousands of years ago, even before hospitals were developed. Birth is a sublime natural and spiritual event.
My second angel was born and the my third angel came into this world. In the same natural way.
My three angels are the spiritual climaxes that give me the strength of my soul to enter the depths of the forest – life’s challenges.
New worlds open up with Yoga
I’m practicing yoga for about 15 years.
When people hear that I’m doing yoga, they often ask me… “What is Yoga for YOU?”
For me… Yoga is… the unity of everything. Tao, God, cosmos, universe, but more than all – the yoga in me is the freedom that breathes in the womb.
From early 2023 I felt the need to do more than just practicing yoga.
I started guided practice with Zvika, a Taoist Master Key. Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Tibetan Yoga and Taoist Yoga.
During our first practice we raised one hand with a soft and flowing movement. He asked me …. “Who is raising the hand?” He wanted me to see that “I” was not the one raising my hand, because there is no “I” in the body.
So where did the movement come from? And who is the one that decides where it will flow further? Who creates the fetus in the womb? Where does the egg come from? And the seed?
The Qi
The answers are coming to me in practicing the QI in my body.
Qi is the most powerful of sublime intelligence, the embodiment of the spirit of creation in matter in the body. Qi is the life giving force.
The same Qi is present in all creatures, animals, trees, plants, flowers.
But how does the Qi know how to build and create such complex things as my body and the bodies of my three angelic children and all the billions of souls in the world?
Well… it is clear in my understanding but it is not comprehended in my feelings.
The more I practice with devotion, the more I think about the spinning in the small and big microcosmic circles.
The belief that faith is biology is gaining ground.
I felt more and more the authentic power in me to enter the depths of the forest to experience my wild nature and to fulfil my destined journey.
Poros Island, Greece. December 2022.
I travel with my husband to the island of Poros in Greece, to look for a place to call my own oasis of peace and quiet.
At this point in time I don’t know exactly why, but a burning journey in my bones pushes and pulls me beyond my understanding.
I don’t find anything in Poros…
But fate continues to work and refine the reality of my life.
Exactly at this point in time, on the island of Lefkada in Greece, my future partner – Zvika, amidst in his own spiritual journey as a Taoist master….connects Apanema Mindfulness Resort to electricity.
He crossed the bridge to Lefkada for the first time in his life in April 2022. He went up a winding road surrounded by cypress trees to a place where time stands still…
At that time we did not know each other, even though we live and raise families in the same area about 20 minutes away from each other.
Some time later, when the destiny had us to meet in flesh and blood… Zvika said to me:
“I felt your energy practicing Tai Chi with me when I crossed the bridge to the illuminated island, when I walked into the villa complex that sits on the side of a green mountain… I felt a weird sensation as if you whispered in my ears: “We have reached a place together. You are not alone in your journey”.“
Apanema Mindfulness revealed itslef
A place where time stands still. May 2023
I am crossing the floating bridge to Lefkada Island for the first time in my life.
The place is not foreign to me to me at all. A sublime feeling floods the billions of cells in my body – the feeling of “home”.
But I have a house somewhere else, in another country where I raised my family. How can I have the feeling of “home” for another home?
I guess I was feeling a parallel echo in a parallel world where another place was… also home.
We go up the winding road between Cypresses and Pines trees. The road continues between village houses with brown ceramic tiles. Clear blue sky and white clouds.
“Asprogerakata” sign. The car stopped near an iron gate. Two stone pillars lay on the sides of the gate. Rosemary bushes on the sides of the road. The nearby field: ripened grape vines and fig trees.
In full spring bloom I arrive at Apanema Mindfulness. It was the retreat that I started searching feverishly for in 2021.
I find myself stepping into the place on a green mountainside where time stands still…
At sunrise and sunset, we practice on the deck in the Zen garden and on the nearby turquoise beach. Tai chi, qi gong, Tibetan Taoist yoga.
Suddenly a spark shines like a spring sunrise, a dew drop on pink white blossoms, a mysterious gate will be revealed.
What is the sublime gate? Where does it lead to? The fear evokes entering the depths of the forest. Looking around at the mountains, a distant church is ringing bells calling its believers to prayer.
What is my prayer? Breathing deeply into Dun Tien – was this retreat a spiritual event that was going to create a change in the roots of the relationship with myself?
22 months of Taoist Tai Chi Gong Yoga
For the past 22 months I had been practicing Taoist tai chi gong yoga with devotion.
Connecting with every breath to the wild authentic nature.
2025: The start of Wellbeing Retreats in Greece, hosted by Zvika and Anat
After 2 years of developing Apanema Mindfulness into an ideal place for retreats in Greece, Zvika and Anat are now hosting from September to June, one-week Wellbeing Retreats almost once per month at Apanema Mindfulness.
The retreats are meant to be for very small boutique groups of maximum 10 people in the comfort of the private and gated villa complex with pool, sauna, massage, practice studio. See the full gallery of our retreat resort in Lefkada, Greece.
PS. We are also letting our location for any yoga instructor or other wellbeing therapies who would like to organise a private retreat with their own students. Please contact us if you are a teacher, guide or instructor and you are interested in our venue.
Anat. Published books.
I always find new ways of self therapy.
My first book: Breathing Freedom in the One Womb is published October 2024
The process of putting it together was overwhelming but transformational in the same time.
I enter the studio with brisk steps and turns towards the drawing board.
The white board has been waiting for me for a long time…
With a wild brushstroke, diaphragm contracting, letting go breathing into the ovaries, a new dawn is rising, I am not lingering, a sense of fulfilment here and now in this moment.
Strength and abundance fills my being. Love, faith and hope are bubbling in the cells of my body.
A sublime hand helps me to publish my first book of healing.
This is the new book I am working on.
