For ten years, every Spring, the fairytale-like town of Sintra, Portugal, became a meeting place for stories.
It was here that Moonluza hosted the International Seminar on Fairytale and Storytelling Therapy, a project born from its founder Adriana Jurczyk Duarte’s lifelong fascination with fairytales, stories, myths and legends — and with their power to touch, transform and connect us.
Adriana divides her life between two countries: Portugal, where she has made her home, and Poland, which she has never stopped missing. This longing eventually led her to discover the therapeutic potential of stories through her own experience. She began writing a fairytale inspired by the legends of her home village and the mountains of southern Poland.
Writing became a journey back to the landscapes of her childhood — to the mountains, forests and rivers she carried within her. By allowing imagination to run free, she created a bridge between the childhood world she had left behind and her new homeland in Portugal, and especially the magical and inspiring town of Sintra, which she had fallen in love with.
And from this personal journey, Moonluza’s first and dearest international gathering was born.
For a decade, the Sintra Seminars brought together people from different countries and professional backgrounds to explore the many faces of fairytale and storytelling therapy. Their programmes offered a rich diversity of perspectives, approaches and practices, exploring ways of working with fairytales, stories, myths and imagination in therapeutic, educational, artistic and personal contexts.
But the Sintra gatherings were never only about presentations.
They were about meeting, sharing, experiencing and creating together.
There were workshops and talks, conversations over coffee, unexpected encounters, creative explorations, and, of course, our much-loved Storytelling Evenings — along with time to discover the magic, history and hidden corners of Sintra itself.
In March 2026, Moonluza and its beautiful Moonluzan community celebrated the 10th Anniversary of the Sintra gatherings — a decade filled with stories, friendships, discoveries and encounters from many different corners of the world.
And as every good story knows, sometimes a chapter must end so that another can begin.
During this new chapter, Moonluza will continue creating gatherings, seminars and shared explorations (both online and in person), allowing us to meet across distances and keep our community connected but with in new forms and in new locations.
Our next online journey will take us into Stories of the Trees, exploring trees, seasons, memory, transformation and the stories we carry within us.
And then, in Spring 2027, the journey will lead us back to where Adriana’s own story began — to the mountains and forests of Southern Poland.
We hope you will join us for the next chapter. 🌿
 Upcoming gatherings
Stories of the Trees: Flowing Through Seasons and Change
21-22Â November 2026
Online via ZOOM
A two-day conference continuing the journey we began with Stories of the Land (you’re very welcome even if this will be your first gathering with us).
Across cultures and throughout human history, trees have stood as symbols of memory, transformation, resilience, and renewal. Rooted deeply in the earth while reaching toward the sky, they have long inhabited mythology, spirituality, psychology, and storytelling traditions as living images of connection between the visible and invisible dimensions of life.
Stories of the Trees – Flowing through Seasons and Change is a two-day online gathering inviting participants into a contemplative exploration of these symbolic and imaginal landscapes. Moving through themes of rootedness, memory, seasonal change, transition, and becoming, the gathering creates a reflective space where myth, psyche, nature, creativity, and lived experience may enter into dialogue with one another. Rooted in dialogue, imagination, and shared inquiry, Stories of the Trees offers a contemplative space in which scholarly reflection may meet lived experience, and where myth, psyche, nature, and creativity may enter into conversation with one another.
Taking place in late autumn — a season of transition, release, and inward movement — the gathering offers us an opportunity to pause at the thresholds of change and reflect on what is being transformed within us and around us. Like the rings of a tree, our lives carry traces of what has been lived, endured, relinquished, and renewed.
Programme:Â HERE
FEE:Â 60EUR
Registrations:Â conferences@moonluza.pt
International Symposium on Fairytales, Stories and Creative Arts Therapies – In the Heart of the Forest
26 April – 1 May 2027
Międzylesie, Lower Silesia, Poland
The International Symposium on Fairytales, Stories and Creative Arts Therapies is an international gathering dedicated to the exploration of stories, imagination and the creative arts as sources of knowledge, connection and transformation.
It brings together perspectives from creative arts therapies, psychotherapy, psychology, storytelling, literature, education, arts and cultural studies, alongside the lived experience and creative practice of those who work with stories in different contexts.
The programme will offer a rich combination of presentations, experiential workshops, creative practices and opportunities for dialogue, creating space not only for sharing knowledge but also for experiencing, questioning and discovering.
We believe that some of the most meaningful encounters happen between disciplines — and between people.
For this reason, the Symposium welcomes an intentionally diverse international community. Researchers and practitioners, therapists and artists, storytellers and educators, academics and curious explorers will meet not only to present their work, but to listen to one another and discover unexpected connections.
Two days before we enter the Symposium
The gathering will begin with two full days of Pre-Symposium Workshops.
These days will offer a more intimate and experiential beginning to our journey, with extended workshops allowing participants to immerse themselves in particular approaches, practices and themes.
After these two days, we will enter the four-day Symposium, with a programme of presentations, workshops and shared conversations.
Together, the six days will form one continuous experience — from deeper exploration in smaller groups to the wider international exchange of the Symposium.
Programme:Â Available soon
FEES:Â Available soon
REGISTRATION:Â conferences@moonluza.pt
