A time to rest with the Land, and create in Community
Creativity in the forest
Relational ecology: The Great Reciprocity at the heart of the universe
In the darkening time of the year people all over the world light candles, make fires, drink tea, and create together. People sing songs, create dances, play drums, tell stories, play games, share food, and gaze into the fire and the candle-lit faces of their companions. Humans have done this together for tens of thousands of years, perhaps because creativity offers solace for the heart and soul in dark and challenging times.
We are flowing into the darkening time of the year. And, we are living in the midst of great challenge and great suffering. Many of us are carrying grief for the destruction of the climate, the suffering of Earth, and for our tangled relations with one another. Creativity can light a soul fire to warm the heart and the psyche. Embodied creativity in community with the beauty of the Forest is healing magic indeed.
Dear tender hearted being, I invite you to join me for this nourishing gathering on Saturday November 2nd, from 10 am -4 pm. yes, A time of gentle, dynamic, playful, and heart-warming creativity in a beautiful lake house in a gorgeous forest.
at W̱MÍYEŦEN Nature Sanctuary, (wh-my-eh-then), The Place of the Deer). Time inside the Nature Kinship House and among the trails through the forest.
magic * collaboration * relational ecology * Healing Arts
magic * collaboration * relational ecology * Healing Arts
saturday nov 2, 2024
From 10-4 we will gather to warm the embers of the creative fire.
Specifically, what will we do?
We will begin our time together with a land blessing and a somatic landing practice.
We will weave somatic practices that support relaxation and offer kind care for our nervous systems, and spend time forming a group field of welcome and gentleness through call and response in playful creativity.
We will explore practices of relational ecology: sensory relations with this profoundly beautiful forest, experiencing our place within the Whole, and weave this creative inspiration into arts practices: image making, writing, and movement.
During the day we will gather within the Nature Kinship House as well as outside on the Land - so do wear layers, clothing for a wander outside and for movement inside. Some of our practices will be in the full circle, some in dyads and triads, and some in reflective solitudes.
Our day will include gentle movement, time resting with Earth, sensing into somatic practices that offer comfort and enlivenment, playful image making, quiet reflective writing, shared embodied storytelling, and warming meditation practices.
Please wear clothing suitable for the weather of the day, dressing in layers and with comfortable shoes for walking.
Bring water, snacks, a lunch, a journal, and any art supplies you would like to make use of. Some nourishing art supplies will also be provided.
We will create a gathering of warmth, gentleness, curiosity, and restoration.
Earth welcomes our bodies into attunement with gravity, and the play the the wind. Earth offers so much soft landing for aching hearts.
Playful, gentle Creative Expression weaves us into the whole, tends our place in the here and now.
Creative expression makes space for the currents of the heart to speak - through metaphor, shape, gesture, vibration.
This magic opens our relations with mystery.
Improvisational creativity in community is an ancient practice that calls us deeply into Life.
Payment options, sliding scale:
$120 (Supporter), $100 (Sustainer), $80 (Community), or $50 (The Full Hearted Welcome)
The intention of this pricing model is to help make the event more accessible to more folks. We respectfully ask anyone in a more advantageous position to please consider the Supporter or Sustainer, with the aim of providing some support to others in the community with more limited financial resources. Thank you!
reserve a spot
FAQs
I’m moving through a time of grief or low energy, is it okay to come as I am?
Yes. This workshop is gentle, spacious, welcoming, and tuned to folks as they are for real. This is an accessible building. There will be Gentle pacing, time to rest into quietude, solitudes, inner mystery, relations with Earth. A full-hearted welcome to be true to one’s own needs and one’s own heart. No need to perform any particular way of being. This space is supple and ready to welcome you as you are.
Is this a queer welcoming environment? Is this a bipoc-friendly environment? A neurodivergent friendly space? A disability welcoming environment?
Oh fully yes. Queer, Neurodivergent, and unilaterally Deaf bicultural facilitator tending a social-justice praxis environment. A space for resting into the real landscape of our biodiversity in all shapes, sizes, colours, variations, neurotypes and needs. A legitimate and important question to ask, friend. Yes, full hearted welcome and wise relations of biodiversity practiced here.
can I leave early if i need to do so?
Yes. Completely. Please arrive to being on time at 10 for our Land Blessing. Then, flow through the day in a way that works for you. Our rhythm will be intentionally attuned to those present and what is needed.
We are moving through times of great challenge, deep grief, and intense fear. We are immersed the tension and tipping collapse of a colonial system that is not life-centering - a tilting of life as we know it that is full of possibility as well as danger.
In the midst of these fraught times, singing, moving, and resting together, communing with the Beauty of Earth and with one another in dynamic creativity is wise and life-affirming. This work tends the impact of the onslaught we are facing, and supports our capacity to do the creative and deep work we are here to do.
Here, in this retreat place is a generative and creative nook in the woods: for feeling, remembering, unforgetting, visioning, unfolding, warming, reciprocity, co-creating nourishment in the midst of all the currents of grief, fear, uncertainty, and longing.
All is not lost. Life is still breathing.
"Humanity is facing important questions: will we be able to steer creatively through this period of cultural transformation? Will we manage to co-create a life-sustaining and regenerative human civilization expressed in a vibrant diversity of locally adapted and globally collaborative cultures?”
— Daniel Christian Wahl, from Designing Regenerative Cultures
Eagle Poem
By Joy Harjo
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
at W̱MÍYEŦEN Nature SanctuarY
wh-my-eh-then
The Place of the Deer
1772 Millstream Road, Victoria B.C. V9B 6E4
Saturday Nov 2, 10-4