I am returning from a journey. A journey into the mystery and magic of life. I travelled with 25 women (and two children) who all long for a life that is more connected to Mother Earth, to Soul, to the Feminine.
Four of us had called the gathering. Our sense was that our gathering would allow the feminine impulse to manifest through us, allowing the rising feminine an embodied access to our world. Of course she is all around all of us already – but it is our experience (and that of many others too) that she is now seeking to enter the world of humans more fully once more, to inspire and invoke a different way of relating to the world – after centuries of patriarchy, dominion over nature, and an overriding experience of the universe as one massive clockwork.
In coming together as a collective with the specific intention to open to, and express the sacred feminine, we felt that we would throw wide open the gates, allowing more fully what is already flowing through each one of us.
And it feels like this is what we did. It feels like we became a portal for a wondrous power – that is accessible to all humans, but perhaps more easily accessible by women at this time – because it is a deep reconnecting with the mystery, with the earth, the moon, the elements, the flow of life – which all reside in the feminine, whether we inhabit a male or female body.
We danced and swam and laughed and cried – just as we had said we would – and it was a truly magnificent experience.
We hosted the group with the intention to share its gifts fully – and they did. Our time together became a co-created beautiful dance with some offering bio-danza, five rhythms, yoga, voice work, astral travel, body painting, story-telling… and much more and all of us offering our questions and themes for exploration ranging from sacred sexuality, making a life doing what we love, the role of our monthly cycles, and more.
It was powerful, potent, beautiful, magical, mysterious, joyful, sensuous, ceremonious, ordinary and utterly delightful. All those together. It was one of the most healing and fulfilling gatherings. We did not gather to heal, but in how we came together this followed naturally. I gathered with a desire for vision or clarity and I quickly let go of any agenda – realising that it was simply the Is’ness of how we were with each other that was my lesson, the deep imprint on my soul. I know now that we can live a different way and that we can live a different world into being. I saw that if we could simply come together in these ways, deep wisdom would become available to us.
It seems that it is time to stop running so fast – even with good intentions for feeding the hungry and cleaning the rivers… This is not where our salvation lies – faster, more manic attempts at resolution. I saw that to build the container out of which wise action can arise may be one of the most important things we can do at this time. Not as single stand-alone events, but as growing webs of community living, gifting according to each of our gifts, and each of our needs, learning together, and allowing natural rhythms, natural time, spirit, nature and soul to enter us and to work through us.
I felt that if we could live like this – together – we would be wise beyond any of the challenges currently facing us. Trying to solve them all, from this place of mess is such a sad delusion. Perhaps the most radical thing we can do is to stop and to regather ourselves in sacred community, out of which will surely spring wisdom, clarity and the capacity to respond well to the challenges we have wrought for ourselves.
I could share some of my conclusions and insights from the retreat, but i think these are almost arbitrary – I think it will serve more for me to share how we flowed together, the simple structure we followed and what we did as a lesson for new (or ancient) ways of gathering that allow for flow and wisdom and healing.
Stay tuned more to follow…
Dancing Universe 