Wild Wisdom School One - Day 2

Written by Clare. 

"Under the Apple Tree"

How to describe this gentle work, which seems so simple, yet yields so richly? 

A journey; one foot in front of the other. Like setting out on a pilgrimage; there is excitement and anxiety, disappointment and delight, frustration and ecstasy, all curiously woven into a slightly tight coat. I have learnt, now , that I have only to sleep in this new coat a few nights and the discomfort goes away, it stretches like a new pair of shoes, until it is perfectly moulded to my body. And so I keep coming back to this seemingly, oh, so gentle work because it changes me in ways I can’t quite understand. 

It appears so very ordinary on the surface; we arrive, a group of people, a mixture of ages and backgrounds. We share a little news.

After a break  we begin the journey into the calendar of the year. This setting out on a journey; one foot in front of another. The familiar turns around the wheel of the year. We took paper and pencils and started to draw and to write as Sam talked us through, from Mid-Winter to Mid-Summer and back again. We learnt of Pagan festivals and Christian ones, of where they meet and complement each other. Personally, I delighted in the feasts of Mary, Mary the Virgin; her birth and death, Mary Magdalen around the same time as the Pagan Lughnasadh or harvest. I was warmed to make a connection with the flames of Pentecost in May and the Beltane fires that I am more familiar with.  I could feel those eager Disciples of Christ in the upper room, sitting together as the flame of the Holy Spirit poured over and into them. To me it felt ecstatic, exquisite, filled with the sensuality and joy that I have often disassociated from Christianity and attributed to Earth based traditions. Working with the calendar in this joint way helped me to feel into the possibility that early Christianity was originally also an Earth base tradition. That early Christianity followed the wheel of the seasons and the earth, in the same way as the Pagan traditions. It’s just that now it takes some investigation to link the traditions back to the earth; but the parallels do seem to be there.

In the afternoon (after a delicious bring and share lunch) there was an opportunity to do some movement outside beneath the apple tree, make lanterns from glass and leaves and paint, or simply reflect with a walk or reading. This time is in silence and the Pagan rebel in me struggles to be with so many interesting people and not be allowed to talk with them. Or is it ‘the rules’ that I battle with? The silence has an impact on me and I imagine that each of us experiences it in our own way. Afterwards Sam led us in a guided meditation as a prelude to sharing.

The highlight of the day, for me, was the ceremony that we co- created in the afternoon; each one of us invited to make a suggestion – a song, a dance, a poem….as we lit candles to our Beloved Dead, our ancestors , the room was filled with lightly dancing emotion. It seemed to me that our ancestors were warmed by the candles, that they drew in close and listened to our breath, that they sat in near to us like excited children, thrilled to be invited to this party. The candles shimmered. There was an excitement, a tremulous joy in me to be sharing this emotion, this ritual with other human beings. It was allowed and it was true, soft, intimate and beautiful.

Then the room emptied and Sam, Beth, Jan and I were left in the loving embrace of the warm energies generated through the day. With a deep sigh, we sat down with libations of gin and tonic - the gin being a particularly special brew created from foraged botanicals on the Isle of Islay, a hunter-gatherer spirit you could say!

As I left on Sunday evening with my usual feeling of excitement, irritation, frustration and delight all woven into a slightly tight cloak; I took note of my negative feelings and wondered at this strange business of being human. I am familiar with the term ‘healing response’ where some struggle preludes a healing shift in energy. Rationally I know this is a good thing yet the immature rebel in me (is this the ego?) makes a fuss about the tightness of the coat. Moving, moving, on this journey, on this pilgrimage to the heart.

A good night sleep and the new coat is already becoming more comfortable.  A new coat for the winter, it needs to be warm and it needs to be strong. The memory of those shimmering candles and the true, soft, intimate beauty will help.

 

Wild Wisdom School One - Day 1

Written by Beth.

"Held by the Great Mother"

A new year, a new group, a new beginning...

Our beginning in time is right at the beginning of the Universe; before heaven and earth, before light and dark, before day and night, and a long long time before man and woman.

Our beginning in this moment is in silence, and in a union of sung voices, singing together a chant from the One Spirit Interfaith Foundation (each line sung three times);

Into Her Presence, will I enter now.

Into His Presence, will I enter now.

Into The Present, will I enter now.

Into Our Presence, will I enter now.

We gather as a group of seeking and inquisitive individuals, gathering together in a circle of shared wisdom, gathering to form community and companionship on a journey into the deep roots of our spiritual heritage. 

What is our spiritual heritage? In today’s culture I feel it is split. For those who are drawn to our native traditions, it seems to me that the choice is predominantly either Christian or Pagan, the names of which sound apposing of each other. I’d like to let go of these names which have been ascribed in hindsight, and enter instead into the life of the Spirit beyond category, honouring its multiplicity of expression. What riches can be found by stepping into the fluid waters of our spiritual story, swimming in the flow of the river underneath our own feet, resurfacing the stories of our ancestors, and following our own personal relationship to the divine in the world around us? And importantly, can we rediscover the sacred relationship between masculine and feminine; reuniting Priest with Priestess, God with Goddess, History with Herstory…

This is the journey of Wild Wisdom School; it is a journey of integration, of healing wounds and of making whole. 

On this beginning day, we explode with the big bang and journey through the story of the Universe (using Carl Sagan’s ‘Cosmic Calendar’ http://palaeos.com/time/cosmic_calendar.html ), landing in the initial pages of the human story, where man and woman roam these lands as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Guided by a story created and told by Sam, we enter the imaginal world and become a salmon swimming up the River Dart, from the sea at Dartmouth to the source pool, where life begins and ends. Salmon becomes human, and as Grandmother (whose tribe’s winter camp site is located on the land surrounding the River Dart), we feel the darkness of the cave calling us unto our human death, calling us back into the womb of our Mother Earth. I was deeply moved by the mutuality of Grandmother and Grandmother Salmon; the shared but different relationship to home and to life and death, and the continuing cycles of life. This is a story based in the Mesolithic/Middle Stone Age period somewhere between 13,000 and 6,000 BCE, sculpted by Sam through imaginative and meditative methods while drawing upon local archaeological findings including cave art, settlements and burial sites. By meeting local prehistory/herstory through the imagination, I feel a more direct relationship to our past in a way that only the imagination is capable of. What’s more, the cultures we are looking at were oral cultures, so the very act of sitting together with a storyteller provides a tangible relationship to our ancient ancestors as a continuation of this tradition.

With our hearts and imaginations enlivened, we entered more deeply into the archaeology of the local land and the scientific understanding of the Universe story. Fact entered into dialogue with imagination, and a lively discussion ensued, flowing into a discussion filled lunch. In our ‘digestion period’ after lunch, all that had been conjured up in our hearts and minds guided us on individual wanderings and wonderings, following our hunter-gatherer senses to wherever we were drawn. Some were led to create (a video journey into deep time called ‘Peels Through Time’); some to gather (a garden salad of 20 different species foraged from just outside the window); some to wandering around the local area, some to wandering through books and some to wondering in the imagination.

We ended with a co-creative and collaborative ceremony, integrating the whole day into a stunning array of offerings, poetry and choral music, and ending as we begun in a union of voices around our centrally created altar. “Blessed be our voices”, as one of us beautifully said, and blessed be our first steps together in fellowship, into the deep soil that holds and feeds the roots of souls.

A Sacred Marriage

The third weekend of Open Spirit took its travellers into enquiry and experience of sacred marriage. Through story and practice we brought masculine and feminine into divine union. First of all we travelled back to Ancient Mesopotamia where his/herstory and myth revealed hidden layers of the stream from which our society has been built. Familiar and unfamiliar stories met in a setting that birthed civilisation as we know it today. The familiar was Abraham, the not so familiar was his wife Sarah, and the even less familiar were the stories of their Gods and Goddesses – Ningal and Nanna, Inanna and Dumuzi. As the wife of Abraham, Sarah’s voice is not heard in the Bible. However, deeper study raises her voice and fleshes out her bones so that we can now see a fuller depiction not only of Sarah herself but of Abraham and the world in which they lived. Why is it relevant to re-look at these stories? Because, as spoken by Dr. Savina J. Teubal, “For millennia, Western society has been based on codes of behaviour affirmed or implied in our sacred scriptures.” If the feminine voice is not heard in scripture it won’t be heard in society, and it won’t be heard in ourselves. Whether we are male or female, the feminine is an essential energy; it is the second half of the whole. 

 

What does this mean in practice? How does the rediscovery of the feminine speak to our ways of knowing?

  

This brings me to the second half of our weekend, in which we explored the origins and experience of four fold knowing, an ancient model that finds manifestation in many forms and in many traditions. In the Christian tradition its home is in the practice of Lectio Divina, meaning sacred reading. Aligning ourselves with the Celtic tradition, we began with the ‘Big Book’ of Nature, and intended to later move on to the ‘Small Book’ of the Bible (however, with the richness of our day and encounters of the Big Book, the Small Book had to be let go of for another day).

The four fold way of knowing is a holistic method for invoking head, heart, body and spirit in an encounter and enquiry of another. It is a sacred marriage of active and receptive, speaking and listening, outwards and inwards. On paper the four ways move from number 1 to number 4, from body to head to heart to spirit. However, in practice, particularly as the practice develops in oneself, it becomes a circular movement, even as one member of the group named it “spiralling knowing”, where with each circular movement through each muscle of knowing the subject is known more and more and more.  

The act of ‘allowing’ to couple ‘asserting’ is an essential move towards deeper knowing of the other. In the act of allowing we open to the other and hear in a way that assertion does not permit. To know is to be in relationship with, to be intimate with. And this requires a movement in as well as out, receptive as well as active, feminine as well as masculine. This is the sacred marriage, and in sacred marriage authentic relationship is born. Perhaps in developing our abilities to be in authentic relationship with all things, we might truly be able to value diversity and equality of all beings and different ways of knowing. What if our spiritual communities mimicked the biodiversity of an ecosystem?... allowing diversity to feed and nourish the community, creating resilience rather than conflict…

What about church as symbiotic ecosystem………?

My encounter with the Cedar Tree

Helen's poem

If God

be a tree

don’t forget me.

If God be tree

let me hide in thee.

If God be tree,

wide and strong,

so many branches

to choose from,

let me be one.

You spread so wide

and sure,

Your blessing spreads

over my head,

Your roots flow like

waves cresting into

the soil,

root me.

If God be tree,

let me take refuge,

and a nut, and squirrel

be.

(By Helen Raphael Sands)

Juliette's Tree

(By Juliette Rich)

Merrivale Field Trip

A field trip to Dartmoor in January could be a challenge, but having negotiated some very icy roads on the way to Merrivale, we were blessed with one of those rare, clear and cold winter days. The moors were dusted with snow and lit with that pure winter light under a vast blue sky. Even though we were on the high moors, there was very little wind and so it was a completely magical experience.

Having been inspired by our exploration of hunter gatherer cultures to wonder and wander more freely, we didn't pore over maps and guide books but set off to explore this ancient sacred landscape in a more open and intuitive way. When you don't know for sure where you are going, a distant standing stone really does draw and guide and soon we found ourselves standing at the opening of a wide avenue flanked by double stone rows, with the musical water of a little leat meandering along one side.

With a village of round houses to our right and a landscape of burial cairns, a stone circle and standing stone to our left, it felt as if we were entering and moving through a liminal space between the everyday world of the village and the sacred space of the ancestors. It was easy to feel the power of this sacred landscape and to imagine how awe inspiring a shared ritual would have been here.

Damson Libation

As we processed to the end of the avenue, some of us prepared to make our own shift of awareness and offered a libation to the ancestors in a hollow on the crown of the final stone. Walking then to the stone circle, it seems we were each inspired by grounding and orientating ourselves within this sacred vessel that is held within the encircling hills. Some of us heard and saw vast presences in the long lines of the landscape and others in the shapes of the stones, which seemed to affirm the history we have been studying about how the creation of stone circles & rows could have been ritual processes expressing the coming together of communities, with the megaliths representing the beings of earlier sacred trees or human ancestors. We were blessed to have a young open spirit, Laura, with us and below are her impressions of the stones:

Open Spirits and Stone Circle

The Magical Circle

Today I went to Dartmoor and I went to a magical circle of stones. My name is Aledy Brinkworth and this is my story to tell;

I went to Dartmoor and there was snow there! I built a snow duck but my hands soon got quite cold, it was still lots of fun though and I love snow. Then we walked on a bit further and there was a row of stones on either side of me. At one end there was just one stone and at the other end there were two stones next to each other like an archway.

We walked on a bit further and there was a magical ring of stones. First me and my mum walked all the way round the outside of the stones. Then we walked all the way around the inside. It was so magical. 

On the first stone I saw in my imagination a lady dressed all in black, staring at me with yellow eyes and an owl sitting on her shoulder. 

On the second stone I saw a kind of oval with the head of a rhinosaurs and the head of an elephant. 

On the next stone I saw a pretty young lady with blond curly hair and a light dress with colours of green and pink and yellow and bits of blue.

 The next stone I walked past in the circle was like the lady in my mums book; Mrs Greenfields. She has bushy, twiggy , green hair and a long dark green dress on. She smiled at me. 

At the next stone there was an old crooked lady, bent over with a walking stick and a long pointed nose. She was clinging on to the rock and told me that she was so bent over because she had done so much spinning.

 I saw on the next stone a dog, just a dog. I put a lot of description with the other stones but I don’t really know what to tell you about this one but I just know that it was a dog.

 The next stone I saw was a lady sitting on the stone. She had bouncy golden hair and a cat purring on her lap. She was wearing a long golden dress which matched her hair.

 There were twin girls on the next stone, both with bunches. One had brown hair and the other red. The red haired girl was wearing a tee shirt and the brown haired girl was wearing dungerees and a yellow tee shirt.

 The next stone was a tortoise who had a deep voice, “Hello Laura” I waved and he tried to wave back and fell off the stone, so I put him back. 

On the last stone was a howling wolf.

Then me and my mum walked around the circle and said goodbye to all our new friends. We walked out of the circle.

Sky gazing with the support of Merrivale standing stone

After exploring the circle and its nearby standing stone, we closed by gathering around a nearby circular burial cairn to share a simple communion of damson liqueur (created by Wood Sister and friend, Jo Swift) standing side by side within the vast space of the land as perhaps loved ones had once gathered for the original burial. We thought about what we had learned about similar remains found nearby at White Horse Hill, about which I wrote the following in our notes:

The burial site revealed the cremated remains of a young woman wrapped within a bear skin and laid on top of a calf leather and nettle fibre sash or cloak. Also within the bear skin was a lime basket containing beads of amber, tin, shale and ceramic (evidence of great trade networks, often using rivers & water) and spindle wood studs, along with a flint flake and copper pin. These were all placed within a box or ‘kist’ of granite slabs packed with moor grass and meadowsweet flowers. I find such a sense of love and care in these details which are so like the way we too choose special places and offer tokens and flowers when our loved ones die. 

Wending our way homewards afterwards, we finished our field trip with a delicious pub lunch in Princetown. Looking back now, I am struck by how familiar the sacred space of Merrivale felt and how close I felt to those who had created, loved and celebrated within it four thousand years ago. Being in a sacred landscape takes us beyond ideas, even spiritual ones and into shared sacred experience. Walking with reverence, gathering in a circle and feeling held by a greater space, celebrating and honouring life and death and marking the sacred cycles of nature which we are part of - these are universal experiences which go beyond words and which we can share across cultures and even across time.

A Cauldron of Bright and Dark Knowledge; Reflection on the 2nd Weekend of Open Spirit

I would like to dedicate this blog post to my dear friend Kirsten Llewellyn who is currently making her departure from this world after suffering a series of strokes.  She is caught between light and dark, and as a result I also feel caught between light and dark. 

It was 6 weeks ago now that the Open Spirit group met for our second weekend together, so this post is coming later than I would like, if only for the sake of my memory. However, I feel a deep sense of meaning in writing this post in the context of what is happening, with a more real reflection on the themes of our weekend which were “Bright and Dark Knowledge” and “Faith”. What is the knowledge I am procuring from this period of darkness, unknowing and loss? In the present I feel it is a knowledge of the body, an experience only my body can make sense of when tears are able to flow. My head confuses the situation and only distances me from the reality of what is really happening here. I wonder whether this dark knowledge will one day transform into something articulated in wisdom – and perhaps that is what bright knowledge is. Moving to the theme of faith, mine has been tested this week – I have a very real sense of how fear is the antithesis of faith, and drives out any possibility of trusting that all is held in Something Bigger. As the fear has subsided, faith is being felt again, faith that Kirsten’s life and my life and all life is held in Love, and that just as Kirsten’s body and spirit will transform, the grief of all those she has left behind will also transform.

Moving from present to past, our Open Spirit journey took us to the beginnings of human manipulation of the landscape – to the Neolithic period, and beyond into the Copper, Bronze and Iron age. While we cannot know the minds of these early humans, studying their impacts on the Earth that still remain is a window through which our tools for interpretation can look. It seems that expressions of a faith in something sacred at the heart of life date right back to these initial imprints on the land. It is deemed very likely that some of the ancient human sites we have discovered from this time were used for ceremonial purposes, and as such are known today as ‘sacred sites’. In all the different ways that the sacred was expressed or interpreted by these early humans, and likewise by the many different faith groups today, I feel united by the flame at the centre that lights up the darkness and draws in our gaze.

This brings me to the second part of our weekend – our Holding Sacred Space Workshop. “Faith” was put into the question of how you hold space for people who might have differing faiths – what is it to be a group of people meeting on shared enquiry and shared practice rather than on shared belief. We have to begin from the premise that there is no absolute truth, that one person’s reality may be starkly different to another’s, and how one person witnesses that reality depends upon perspective which depends upon a whole host of factors. When truth is held lightly in this way, there is a greater spaciousness that allows not only respect for other truths but room for other truths to interact and speak to our own. I am reminded of a quote from Rudolf Steiner saying that…

“One does not attain to knowledge by insisting absolutely on one’s own point of view, but through willingness to immerse oneself in alien spiritual streams.” (The Essential Steiner, p.16)

As the day progressed, a group with differing opinions manifested with gritty and sometimes uncomfortable discussion ensuing. However, with the intention of dynamic and open enquiry, the space felt held and safe.

This intent has huge implications for situations of today, without even needing to mention recent examples of religious violence. It is a radical and much needed move; from dogma to enquiry, and from compliance to practice.

Wild Church

Dartington Yew

One of the hopes for Open Spirit has been that it might stimulate some of us 'in offering and being involved with interspiritual services or 'future church'. So it's exciting to feel the Spirit already moving and to see the beginning of one such offering already beginning to emerge. Sam and Beth have started to reconnect with local Christian congregations and to dream up a 'Wild Church' that we hope may bring established and emerging Church together and also offer a new way of celebrating the sacred that is welcoming to all and that draws us out into the wild, in celebration of the community of all beings and the spirit of the earth.

As we enter the new Christian year today, on the first Sunday of Advent, we are looking ahead to our first event next Sunday, December 7th. Beth and I will be joining the established congregation at Dartington Church for their Sunday service at 11.15am, at which visitors are always welcome. We hope some members of the congregation will then join us and there will also be a warm welcome to people of any faith or none to come along for a 'Bring & Share' Advent Sunday Lunch in Dartington Village Hall from 1pm. Lunch will start with a natural blessing and conclude with an invitation for donations to cover costs and to raise funds for Dartington's LandWorks Project, which is a work based training scheme providing a supported route back into community for current and ex-prisoners.

After lunch, from perhaps 2.30pm we'll be exploring some Wild Church, starting with some reflections and meditation to awaken our senses, before setting off outside into the twilight for a silent walk to the ancient yew by the old church on the Dartington Estate. Any and all are welcome to join us in this celebration of the spirit of wild. We'll close with a short, simple, elemental ceremony and blessing by the yew, with the option to 'walk and talk' back to our starting point for those that wish.

We will walk whatever the weather, so do come prepared with strong shoes and good waterproofs. Some of us love the dark and will walk unlit into the gathering night, but do bring lanterns if you wish.

This event will be the first in a series of Wild Church gatherings on a similar pattern on the first Sunday of the month. We are planning a month by month pilgrimage up the River Dart towards the source... and perhaps also back down the river towards the sea. We are still building our website and Facebook page but do look out for River Dart Wild Church and we hope you come along along and join us in 'bringing Spirit back to Earth'!

Held by the Great Mother

During our first Open Spirit day, Held by the Great Mother, we took inspiration from our Palaeolithic ancestors whom it seems expressed something of their sense of the sacred through travelling deep into the dark womb of the Goddess in underground caves. Around the world there remain many examples of ancient sacred art created with natural earth pigments and charcoal on the walls of caves, some in places that lay deep underground in complete darkness.

The lighter openings of caves and rocky overhangs also offered shelter and camp sites, especially it seems by the sea and during the winter months, as food would continue to be available there for hunter gatherer people. I remember visiting a site in Scotland where the rock is still stained black by the smoke of ancient fires and where great heaps of discarded shells (shell middens) have been found and excavated by contemporary archaeologists.

Some of the earliest burial sites in Europe have been found in the UK and are also in caves, such as the so called 'Red Lady' of Paviland in South Wales. 'She' actually turned out to be a palaeolithic man (currently dated to around 32,000 BCE) who seems to have been ceremonially buried in a red dyed garment with hoops and wands of mammoth ivory and a collection of perforated periwinkle shells, perhaps a necklace or for divinatory use. (See the book 'Pagan Britain' by Bristol University professor  and historian Ronald Hutton for further reading).

Here in Devon we are blessed to have another significant ancient cave site on our doorstep, so when our Open Spirit group was looking for our first field trip, Kent's Cavern at Torquay was our obvious choice.
So a handful of us set off for Babbacombe on a lovely sunny November morning. Having gathered a little late for the first guided tour, we got off to a good start by shouting and staggering along in the darkness of the caves in search of the rest of the tour party, only to discover they were in fact all standing behind us, no doubt rather bemused by these odd women! It's fair to say that we were probably a thorn in the flesh of our tour guide with a combined tendency to break out into sacred chants, ask too many questions, get out sketchbooks and wander off the beaten track into the dark rather than being good and sticking to the well lit and well trodden paths.

We did have a wonderful time though and there is something very special about journeying into the earth in this way. The caverns themselves are very beautiful with their pillars of calcite in different forms and many still in the process of forming and so slick and shining with moisture in a way that seems both strangely molten and solid at the same time and with some of the fantastic shapes reflected in dark pools of water.

We stood in a bear's den and were shown the bones of animals that had lived in the caves long ago, sometimes alongside our early human ancestors... But perhaps the most powerful moments, certainly for me (Sam) was that of all the lights being extinguished, such that we could really experience the rare and complete darkness of being underground. Later, walking into the dark caves on my own, with no sense of where I was other than the feel of the earth beneath my feet, I felt rested by the depth of this darkness and by the way it slowly sharpened my other senses to the music of dripping water and the cool tang of the air. Contemporary culture is so well lit and so visually dominant and often over stimulating - so, if you are reading this, why not close your eyes for a moment and cup your hands over them... take a few slow breaths and rest in a few moments of deep, dark stillness.

Emerging later from the caves, we walked down to the sea close to Ansty's Cove. Following recent mornings of study and meditation on local geology, with the Wood Sisters Celtic Circle, it was a particular pleasure to meet the limestone and red sandstone cliffs and find many beautiful stones on the shore. Some of our hardier members stripped off for some wild swimming and then we all gathered in a circle to create a natural altar and share a spontaneous silent communion (featuring a breaking apart of 'the small orange of Christ' in place of the more common communion wafer and spring water in the place of wine). We then headed home for hot chocolate, so all in all, it was a great day of good company and wild and wonderful explorations.

Holding Sacred Space

Day 1: Holding Self to Hold Others 

It is Sunday – our traditional day of Sabbath, which means the day of the week that people for many hundreds of years have been dedicating to spending sacred time together. Our ‘holding sacred space’ workshop is an explorative enquiry and embodied practice into how we can create sacred space for ourselves and others, and in doing so begin to develop a collaborative way of ministering.


The questions that opened our day together were…
What do you long for?
What is sacred space and how is it different from normal space?

Into the pot were placed longings for deeper relationship, for community, for a remembering and renewing of our traditional sacred space, for a rebalancing of the sacred masculine and the sacred feminine in the wider world and in one’s life, an honouring of both the light and the dark, the external and the internal...

We followed this with some musings on the responses of what sacred space means to us. The photograph above reveals some of the words and phrases that emerged in the group.

The model for holding space is one developed by Sam and is based on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. This is a model of four worlds, which when mapped onto ourselves begins at the level of Body or Physicality, and then Self or Psyche, then the Bigger Self or Stable Witness, and finally Divine Being or the All.

To hold space for others we must hold space for ourselves. Holding space for ourselves is based in the capacity to consciously inhabit these four worlds; that means being embodied, becoming aware of the self, expanding awareness to the bigger self, and having a sense of being held by ‘the All’. It is not a one way transcending ladder through each world, but rather an inclusive journey through each world, so that each one is acknowledged and present, and you are therefore able to hold space that invites all these dimensions in others.

Knowing these different worlds in ourselves, we can become better aware of what resources each dimension needs to thrive. What I need on a bodily level is different to what I need in spirit, and in fact the tangible realisation of my day was that often how I feed myself in body is in response to hunger on a deeper level for connection. It is evident to me that we live in a society transfixed on bodily needs – exemplified in the over-consumption of food, entertainment, sex, drugs, etc. This kind of feeding gives us a shallow and temporary sense of fullness. It is unable to reach the depths of hunger of our human soul – the need for true relationship, love and nourishment. In our world today, Sunday is no longer such a sacred day. The churches are emptying and the shops are full. But can shops really replace what our sacred houses provide? There is a fundamental difference between the two – shops feed only our material needs whereas sacred space has the potential to feed all.

Our sacred house for this journey is Juliette’s beautiful home in Dartington, and here on this Sunday we collaboratively created sacred space for ourselves and one another.

Articulated by one group member:
The day reminded me of contemporary accounts of Jesus' community; at a time of turbulence and great spiritual anticipation, where people gathered in small, intimate gatherings within the home, long before the great cathedrals were built and long before their revelations were to become a religion.  

The altar at the end of the weekend with additions of soil and rock, poem and tree.

The Restoration of Love

Day 1: Held by the Great Mother

Our altar at the start of the weekend

This blog post marks the first weekend of Open Spirit’s brand new and pioneering course, and it also marks my first contribution to this journal.

After many hours spent this summer in Sam’s garden discussing the work I was developing for my holistic science dissertation, I am now entering into the work that Sam has been developing for the past 30 years, work that she calls holistic spirit. The movement from holistic science to holistic spirit is evidently a fluid one, and actually if I am honest holistic spirit has been what I’ve been studying all along! Really, there is not much difference. Both are explorations into the nature of being human, of being animal, and of being creatures of the universe.

What does the word ‘holistic’ mean? The word finds its root in the Greek word holos, meaning whole. Its most dominant usage has been in the context of holistic medicine or holistic therapy, which examine the whole of the person rather than dividing the person into separate parts. In the context of science, holistic means to utilise our whole selves in the scientific enquiry, exemplified by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who used direct perception and imagination to come into relationship with his study subjects and therefore encounter his study subject in their wholeness. So, what does holistic mean in the context of spirituality? What does it mean to practice holistic spirit? What does a holistic spirituality look like? Following on from a thought of one group member, I will leave these as open questions with no answers and carry the question marks with me as I journey through the year.

What I do know is that when I read the vision of Open Spirit, it felt like a meeting of words on paper with unspoken and unknown words in me. There was such a deep understanding and a deep connection, I could barely contain my excitement. When the day finally came to begin our explorations into holistic spirit, I found myself a little overwhelmed. On the invitation to introduce myself to the group and to say a little about what my intentions were with this course, the bigness of what all of it meant to me felt like a wordless ocean, ebbing and flowing through every cell. The words that came out did not do justice but they were to do with developing an embodied spirituality authentic to my own native traditions. Basically it’s about returning home; to myself, to community and to the Earth.

We began our journey of the day by placing our human story in the context of the wider story of the Universe, and arrived in human form as hunter-gatherers. Hunter-gatherers we became, first through a trance telling from Sam, and secondly through our own meanderings, foragings and beings. Here is an account of group member Kengo’s experience with the curious eyes and inquisitive hands of a hunter-gatherer…

I got up and went outside, towards the explosive reds of a maple with the sun behind. For this exercise, we were to spend one hour alone, in silence, in the spirit of our innate hunter-gatherer, lead only by that which most draws us in. Amongst the dazzle of five-pointed leaves, I came across a small wind chime held by the alert figure of a robin. His handsome red chest crafted from stained glass, fluidly mixing with the buff and brown of his plumage. So much care to capture his essence, how the wire frame turned into his spindly, poised legs. 

Kengo's sketches

I continued to saunter around the garden and noticed an earthen figure of a hare looking up at me from between two flower pots. Its eyes were of a steely glaze, ears pulled back with a look of wild determination. What was it that was drawing me to these objects? It struck me when continuing my journey into the dark corner of the garden. Hanging shamelessly upside down from a string was the figure of a bat, wings outstretched, revealing its little rodent body. I chuckled to myself. It was made from plastic, a cheap child's toy with visible mould lines, but unmistakably bat-like nevertheless.

Whoever made this, probably a Chinaman, had taken the time to look, as I have, and notice what makes a bat, a bat. As had the creator of the robin and the hare. I stepped back and realised the placement of the figures; the robin high up in the maple tree, the hare, hiding between the flower pots and the bat in the dark corner of the garden. I was moved by this sensitivity, how we as humans, create figures that give us joy inspired by the beings we share our world with and then we even place them where they would feel most at home.

Before this day, I had been feeling unusually black in my heart, mourning the catastrophic damage that we are causing to our planet. Trivial as it may first seem, in this hour I touched a glimmer of hope, amongst all the madness, of an aspect of the human spirit that if fully embraced, could just save us all.

I end with deep gratitude for this first step in our journey into the restoration of love, and with a poem from group member Abigail and a tree from Juliette…

Child of the Earth

Art piece created by Juliette

Heart beats blood
swallowing death
swallowing terror
listening to the stories
she can  barely speak
I can barely listen to

She trails her violation
an endless ghost of extinction
in this insane world

horror upon horror
human cruelty
and the pull to love
and the need to trust

myopic repetition
ruthless suppression
no voice for the raped
no justice in death

only in the lightening of the edges of clouds
and the shimmering of insects
and the climb of the rose
only in the steady, persistent joy at waking to the sun,
knowing warmth loves us into being
can we know we are of the earth and made by the stars

Holistic Spirit

Invitations for the new Open Spirit Courses are going out today!

After months of conversations, planning, writing and preparation it feels deeply meaningful to send out invitations, dates and details and then wait and watch as the mysterious spiritual alchemy of a group coming together unfolds.

I experience all spiritual community as emerging mysteriously from the deep stream of life. My role initially seems to be a kind of quiet listening... to hopes and longings, needs and questions... both within myself and others until a certain kind of purpose or beginning starts to crystallise.

After quiet conception, there's a gestational growth spurt of active organisational work, as basic structures, from course outlines to venue, start to take form and move towards a new birth.This early stage isn't possible without some parenting and support, such that already 'two or more are gathered' like a seed crystal holding the blueprint for a community to build on.

So I'd like to acknowledge the encouragement and enthusiasm of Beth Thomas, who will be assisting me in offering these new courses. I've been privileged to supervise Beth as she writes her dissertation for an MSc at Schumacher College, in which she is making her own exploration of the fourfold way of knowing so central to my own understanding and experience of holistic spirit. I'd also like to honour the generosity of Juliette Rich who has offered to be our host in her newly refurbished and beautiful period home and garden in central Dartington (picture above). A loved and lovely home base is such a helpful vessel and holding for group work.

I'm also deeply grateful to soul friends Helen, Jan, Karen, Debbie and others who have shared their hopes and longings and encouraged me to share my own and create this new beginning. Everything emerges out of relationship, with the Source and with each other. Thank you.

Quest 2014

The third and final of our Open Spirit resurrection appearances, took place in the Wood Sisters Red Tent at Quest in late July where Open Spirit hosted a full day programme on Sunday 27th of July with a theme of Welcoming the Sabbath Bride.

Our Quest weekend had started on Thursday as members of all the Living Spirit groups, Wood Sisters and friends got together to transport, raise and decorate the Red Tent as a sanctuary space for Quest Festival. It was a real pleasure to bring all these different people together, including men and women across several generations (from mid teens to great grandmothers) and create community together for the weekend.

Intergenerational Red Tent Raising!

Sam started the morning with a moving meditation on being held by the Great Mother. It was a great blessing to start the day with about 30 women gathered together in stillness. Open Spirits Juliette and Hilda then held open sanctuary space, while outside the Red Tent Katie kindly 'womaned' the stall and welcome desk.

The entrance to the Red Tent and Welcome Area

After elevenses, Sam's workshop on the Divine Feminine transported us back to the Biblical times of the Matriarch Sarah through a trance telling of her story which rooted back into Ancient Mesopotamian culture and religion, portraying Sarah as a priestess of Ur. (Based on the book, Sarah the Priestess, written from her doctoral research by Savina Teubal). For some participants this gave a whole new perspective and connection with the Hebrew Bible and the matriarchal roots of Judaism and Christianity.

More open sanctuary followed, held this time by Totnes Vicar Debbie Parsons and artist and writer, Helen Sands, with soulful harp and singing from musician and thanatologist, Abigail Robinson. After lunch our final workshop was given by Ian and Gail Adams of Beloved Life who introduced us to several female mystics from throughout the ages, from a Desert Mother to contemporary poet Mary Oliver. Quotes, reflections and original poems from Ian's new book Unfurling were woven together beautifully with time for quiet, sharing and a simple ritual.

Heaven and Earth...light shines from the roof wheel to beside the altar

The day and the weekend concluded with a collaborative ceremony co-ordinated by Debbie, Helen and Sam. We gathered through silence and song and then named some of the aspects of the Divine feminine & masculine which had been invoked during the day... Nanna and Ningal, Inanna and Dumuzi, Asherah and Yahveh, Mary and Jesus... and engaged with the following words from Clarissa Pinkola Estes & the Bible, illustrated with a simple mime

From 'Untie the Strong Woman' (Blessed Mother's Love for the Wild Soul)

'The Mother I most often carry with me everywhere is the Woodsister La Nuestra Señora,
Our Lady of Guadalupe, she whose mantle is fashioned of moss from the north side of trees at sunset, she who has star shards caught in her wild silver hair.Her gown is soft, coarse-woven cloth with the thorns and weed seeds and petals of wild roses caught in it.
She has dirty hands from growing things earthy, and from her day and night work alongside her hard-working sons and daughters, their children, their elders, all.'

'Any human being needing comfort, vision, guidance, or strength is heard by the Immaculate Heart.....And thus, Blessed Mother arrives immediately with veils flying, to place us under her mantle for protection, to give us that one thing the world often longs for so :
the warmth of the mother's compassionate touch.'

'...and we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Source of all Being are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to the other.For this comes from the Source who is spirit.'
(2 Corinthians. 3:18) 

Then we shared a collaborative ceremony of passing on the veil or mantle of priest'hood' and taking it in turns to give and receive blessing, closing with a final circle of hebrew song and shared prayers of thanksgiving which made a beautiful conclusion to our time in the Red Tent. Deep thanks to all who worked so hard throughout the day to offer a warm welcome, inspiration, creativity and sanctuary.