The Sweat Lodge is a sacred place where we clean our bodies, emotional, spiritual, mental, physical and release anything that is ready to be released that is no longer serving us. It is a place for dreaming new visions and re-programming ourselves, reclaiming original imprints of ourselves, blessing and healing hearts, bodies and minds. It is a place of giving thanks for the blessings of life and send prayers for all our relations.
This is an ancient ritual that taps into the ancestral wisdom of our grandparents, the human ones and the elements: fire, earth, water, air. We enter the womb of the Great Mother to be re-born again. In that sense it is both womb and tomb, and symbolises the cycles of life, death and rebirth.
The Cabana is also referred to as Grandmother Spider, who works on the web of healing, weaving the threads of our destiny and unites us. She is very generous to those who are open to receiving and going through the portal of possibilities that she opens for us in our bodies, hearts, minds and souls.
Aluna and Keef are initiates of the Brazilian shaman and psychologist XamAM - Alba Maria from Terra Mirim, Brazil. The cabana is therefore deeply aligned with this lineage and is part of the path of the Mother Goddess and the 4 Elements.
Movement Medicine is a body based movement meditation practice that will reconnect you to the wisdom of living from the heart, the joy of knowing who you are and the satisfaction of making your unique contribution to life. It will deepen your connection to yourself, your creativity and the integrity and guidance of your own soul.
"Movement Medicine is shamanic medicine for our times. It gives us direct, embodied experience of the dance of life that’s going on inside us and all around us. As a species, we face enormous challenges right now that we see as arising from the story of separation; separation between body and spirit, between individuals and nations, between the human world and the web of life we are part of and depend upon. Simply put, Movement Medicine reconnects us, deepening our capacity for empathy and compassionate being and action. Since prehistory, dance, song and ritual-making have played an important role in the human community. Movement Medicine is a contemporary expression of this inheritance. It marries ancient and modern wisdom, and supports you to experience the transformative power of your own potential in a co-creative community.” Susannah and Ya'acov Darling Kahn - Co-Founders of The School of Movement Medicine.
There are a multitude of dynamic practices that are in the shamanic universe. Many are traditional and continue along specific cultural lineages and many are emergent and contemporary.
Within Awakening The Wild our shamanic offerings have emerged from three distinct sources and two primary lineages.The first source and lineage is rooted in our initiatory training with XamAM - Alba Maria - from Terra Mirim, Brazil and are part of the lineage of The Mother Goddess and the Four Elements. The second source and lineage is rooted in The School of Movement Medicine; especially for Keef who was a first generation apprentice and is now a Senior Teacher. Other contributory threads come from other teachers and sources such as the indigenous Amazonian Huni Kuin tribe.The third source is through direct experience - channelling - and emergent inspiration.
The dynamics that incarnate through this source are mysterious, spontaneous and intuitively manifested in the moment. Whilst their source is mysterious, the efficacy and congruency of these dynamics are rooted in nature and in our carefully cultivated integrity and commitment to a our duty of care for ourselves, our community and all of life.
In all ‘shamanic’ traditions around the world there is a deep understanding of and alliance with nature and all of life. The inextricable interconnection and interdependence of life is a known reality. Whilst there a many idiosyncratic stories, cosmologies and practices that are culturally specific, all nature-based spiritual rituals and ceremonies understand the interweave between the human heart- body-mind-soul-spirit and the ‘spirits of nature’; whether literally, metaphorically or in imaginal realms communication through symbolism - dreams, omens - direct physical interactions or other means between humans and the rest of nature is an essential source of experiential wisdom within shamanism.
Most traditions talk of the ‘spirits’ of nature, be it the primary elements, as in the spirit of water, or specific plants, animals, minerals, places and so on. These ‘spirits’ are beings that we as humans are consciously or unconsciously in relationship with all the time.
Shamanism invites us to bring conscious awareness and responsibility to our active participation in and cultivation of those relationships. Hence, we may come to know certain plants, animals and other ‘spirits’ as allies, guides, teachers. For example, plant medicines are often seen as a teacher plants or curative ‘doctor’ plants that open our consciousness to new dimensions of awareness and self knowledge and we may or may not commune with that plant in ceremony. Likewise, a particular animal that we have a relationship with may be seen as a power animal. A particular location - an ancient tree, a hillside boulder, a waterfall- may become a power spot for us that we have a reciprocal relationship with.
A primary resource and arguably the most potent medicine is community.
In these Community Medicine Circles, we will have the opportunity to share our process to be witnessed and to witness each other.
The invitation is always - What is asking to be felt? What is asking to be expressed? What is asking to die and what is asking to be born? The material you bring is whatever is emergent, whatever is hot. It may explicitly relate to the practices and processes we are exploring together or it may have a wider lens regarding what is alive for you in your life.
There are many ceremonies across time, space and culture that invite a deep self reflective engagement with the reality of our mortality as sentient beings. The Burial Ceremony is one such initiation.
It is as much an initiation into life as it is a deep conversation with death.
It is as much a deepening into the wild embrace of Mother Earth as it is a surrender to the inevitability of our mortal demise.
It is as much the opening of a portal to love and ecstasy as it is an opportunity to fully feel and express our embodied grief and human suffering.
It is an opportunity for recapitulation a chance to revisit and clean up your personal history.
Essentially, recapitulation is the process of reclaiming energy that is locked up in past events and interactions; to find peace, acceptance, forgiveness; to take responsibility and offer apology, gratitude and prayers for all beings everywhere.
Ultimately it is an invitation to fully say YES to this one precious life and an invocation of Death specifically as an ally, a benevolent friend.In simple, practical terms: we will dig our own graves and spend the night in deep conversation with life-death-rebirth in the womb-tomb of mother earth.
As with all Awakening The Wild practices, processes and ceremonies we work with The Arc of Integrity - preparation, process and integration.
The primary focus of Wild Soul Mentoring is 3 fold - ‘soul revelation’, ‘soul retrieval’ and ‘soul cultivation’. It is all about creative energetic evolution through deep imaginal journeying, Movement Medicine, self-enquiry and feedback with fierce compassion.
The ‘soul revelation’ piece is about learning to listen to and feel deeper into all that is asking to be felt, expressed, alchemised, dreamed and realised from the depth of our being human.
The ‘soul retrieval’ part is about releasing and harvesting potential life energy, power and creativity that is locked up in our conditioned stories about ourselves, the world and all of life. The gifts in our wounds, the gold in our suffering.
The ‘soul cultivation’ aspect is about stepping through portals of possibility and awakening potential within us.
It is about developing and embedding practices, processes, rituals, ceremonies and stories into our moment-to-moment, day-to-day life that weave golden threads of remembrance and incarnation into our being.Primarily this ‘remembrance’ is the recognition that we have, and have always had, a vast reservoir of resourcing, creativity, vitality and medicine available to us in any given moment that can nourish us through the inevitable cycles, waves and spirals that make up the terrain of personal path. The ‘incarnation’ part is about active participation with this as love-in-action in all of our roles and relationships. It is perfectly practical and intended as a tool kit - or medicine bag - for living a more fulfilling life where the mundane and sublime are interwoven and we develop the skills for sustainable, nourishing and abundantly meaning full relationships with all aspects of our self, others, community, ancestors, spirit, soul and all of life.
Time alone in the wild, looking into the mirror of nature and the mirror of one’s own nature as nature has been practised in a multitude of ways across time, geography and culture arguably ever since the first emergence of self-awareness in human beings.
Communion with all of life - animals, plants, minerals, the elements, the stars, sun and moon- away from the day-to-day disturbance and distraction of other human beings and human culture - has long been recognised as essential medicine on the path of healing, wholing, developmental passage rites, initiation and self realisation. It is often seen as essential for the health of the individual, community and the particular ecosystem in which we live.
For the Wild Nature Vision Immersion we spend between 12 and 24 hours, in deep prayer and contemplation, solo, in a special place that calls to us in the magical woodlands - from sunset to sunrise, sunrise to sunset, sunset to sunset or sunrise to sunrise. Whilst this practice is closely related to Vision Quest, it is not a Vision Quest as such, which usually takes place over several days and nights and is a powerful medicine in its own right. It is certainly inspired by our multiple immersions in Vision Quest on our personal journeys. It also has a fasting element to it. It is a powerful introduction to this type of practice and in our experience is likely to be both challenging, charming and revelatory about the landscape of our psyches, souls and the mystical ancient lands that hold us for this precious immersion.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)