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Burial Ceremony

Movement Medicine® - Sweat Lodge - Burial Ceremony - Sacred Plants - Nature Immersion - Sharing Circles

18 - 22nd  of September 2024, near Brecon, Wales

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Dancing with Death Ceremony is an opportunity for recapitulation, a chance to revisit and clean up your personal history. It 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.

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”The dance, Mama earth and benevolent death supported me to be with the feeling of failure that I had been running from and opened up my capacity to be loved now, as I am. I took part with my brothers, friends and met new people all who I feel a deep sense of belonging with, that I know I have always been capable of, though I had forgotten for a while. Thank you so much Keef and Aluna for guiding and loving all of us through such an intimate time out of time.” Edward Thompson, Musician and Movement Coach

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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.

Dancing with Death Ceremony 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.

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As with all Awakening The Wild practices, processes and ceremonies we work with The Arc of Integrity - preparation, process and integration.

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Preparation

Preparation begins as soon as you decide to embark on this soul journey. It has many layers. Including:

• Physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual resourcing.

Individually we will contemplate, reflect, write, spend time in nature and explore what we need to be able to fully step though this initiation portal.  As a group we will utilise the ReSourcing practices of Movement Medicine to discover and strengthen the tools of embodiment, intention and prayerful presence.
We will engage in many exercises individually, in dyads/triads and as a circle to deepen our self enquiry, to clarify our intentions, to explore the questions ‘What is asking to be felt? What is asking to be expressed? What is asking to die? What is asking to be born?’ We will write our own eulogies and dream into what is most important to us in this life. What are our priorities?

• Practical and logistical. We will come to the immersion prepared; with all the tools and materials we need to prepare our grave temples
  

Process / Ceremony

• The ceremonial journey deepens through the process of ‘digging your grave as a meditation on mortality’
• Attend our own funerals
• Enter the grave to dream and pray in conversation with Death as a Benevolent Friend, recapitulate and surrender into the embrace of Mother Earth.
  

Integration

• We will have plenty of space and time to reflect alone in nature and to share in a circle. And we will dance the medicine into our skin, muscles and bones.
• We spend time to vision the next steps on our YES TO LIFE path
• We will commune with the womb-tomb of the the Cabana Sweat Lodge to cleanse and purify and open our pores and portals of possibility; rebirthing into life

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The core practices, processes and ceremonies

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Movement Medicine®

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. During the year-long programme you will have the opportunity to address what is calling for attention in your life - in your body-heart-mind-soul and your past-present-future.

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 co-creative community.” Susannah and Ya'acov Darling Kahn - Co-Founders of The School of Movement Medicine

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Cabana - Sweat Lodge

Cabana 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.

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.

Cabana is also referred to as Grandmother Spider, who works on the web of healing, weaving the threads of our destiny.

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.
You can hear the rush of the river when immersed in the Sweat Lodge - Cabana and cleanse and the herbal bath will further sanctify this experience, as we receive the energy of the plants that wash over our bodies, clarify our minds and open our hearts.

​Aluna and Keef are both 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.

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Sacred Plants: Cacao, Rapé (ha’peh), Sananga

In many traditions Cacao is seen as a sacred plant medicine and celebrated for its capacity to open hearts to feeling, intimacy and deepening grounded empathy. It is known as 'The Food for the Shift'. An Indigenous myth tells us whenever the balance between humans and nature becomes threatened, cacao comes from the rainforest to open people's hearts and return us all to harmony. Ceremonial grade cacao is a sacred plant also known as the “blood of the heart” is an important, powerful, and previously overlooked teacher, facilitator and a medicine. The Cacao Spirit ‘returns’ – from a long history with Indigenous peoples.

Rapé is a sacred shamanic medicine snuff. It has been used by tribes of the Amazon basin for thousands of years and is an essential part of their tribal culture and history. It is administered (blown) into the nostrils with a special blowpipe called a "Tepi". It is traditionally prepared by ceremonial pounding of Tabaco (N. rustica) with tree ashes. South American shamans use tobacco as a sacred, wholesome medicine and there exists a very close connection between tobacco use and shamanism that has little in common with our western way of tobacco use. The intense blow immediately focuses the mind, stops the chattering, and opens the entire freed mindspace for your intentions. Furthermore, this helps release emotional, physical, and spiritual illnesses and eases negativity and confusion, enabling a thorough grounding of the mind. Moreover, Rapé stimulates the mind with its nicotinic content that in turn releases a.o. epinephrine, acetylcholine, and dopamine, supporting an increased focus, presence, and intuition.

Sananga is an intense and powerful medicine which is applied to the eye in the form of eye drops. It comes from the bark and root of a shrub from the family Apocynaceae in the Amazon rainforests and is used as a sacred eye medicine to relieve the energetic system of ‘Panema’ - negative energy/cellular laziness - especially around the head area. It is said to improve sight, colour and sense perception for hunting, as well as clearing energetic mucous around the head which can cause colds, flu, headaches and migraines. It can loosen and dissolve energetic mucus all around the body and its use can help with all kinds of energetic stagnation related to a lack of concentration or insight, or neuroses.

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Nature Wanders & Imaginal Journeys

The elements on the land that will hold us are so alive and vital. There will be plenty of time to immerse in them and to listen and learn from these primal ancestors. Self reflections and creative expressions organically emerge when we meet nature with an attitude of receptivity, reciprocity, wonder, awe, gratitude, curiosity and respect.

​When we wander with wonder and allow our whole being, our soma, to deeply commune with, to be in relationship with, nature a sacred marriage can happen where profound trans species interactions may become more tangible and our imaginations may open portals to a deeper knowing of our wildness and the mytho-poetic language of our souls where there is really no separation between our personal consciousness and the consciousness of all of life.

​When we listen deeply the trees speak deep wisdom on our wild wanderings as the winds dance through the branches and the sky dancers birds sing us back home to ourselves. A multitude of beings may reveal themselves as allies on our personal path when we open our senses to receive guidance.

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The Burial

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 while being held in her embrace, with the love support, guidance and protection of benevolent spirits and by Aluna, Keef and the Awakening The Wild team.

Here is a beautiful personal postcard from the other side of the Burial Ceremony performed as part of our signature Dancing with Death immersion.

“ Last weekend I spent the weekend in Wales diving deep into what it means to die. To welcome death as a benevolent friend. We danced, grieved, cried, laughed all while being held so beautifully by Pachamama. We sat with many powerful plants, the waters, the medicine of movement and the lineage of XamAM Alba Maria @terramirim. There was a lot to take away, many insights into death. Which also I found meant many insights into life. As I now see life is the ceremony for death.

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If there are any parts of myself saying no to death, then I also realise there are parts of me saying no to life. It’s so interesting to see the death we are all facing in our individual lives, in the ancestral lines, in the societal constructs. In this time of great change and remembrance.

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What I learned from digging and spending a night in my own grave was the following.
-Death is an old friend
-To live fully we must embrace death fully
-Choose your truth in its entirety over that of the ‘normal’ worldly path
-I do not need to hold anything, as I am held by Pachamama
-Surrender and letting go can be found in the breath
-I do not want any parts of me to die, but to instead integrate them fully with love
-I am here to hold people through their loss and pain, therefore have much more work to do with grief and the heart
-We have so many resources to call upon in the unseen realms to support us at any time

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So much love and gratitude to Awakening The Wild for holding this powerful journey ” Joshua Swords

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For more information, bookings or to arrange a free consultation call please email or message Keef, keef@bridgingworlds.online / +(0)7834703127

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Contribution

Tuition:

EarlyBird by 18th of  August - £495

Full Price - £595

Mentee Price* - £445

Mentees* are those who have previously or are currently engaged in Awakening The Wild Mentorship Programmes or similar deep work with Keef or Aluna. Note: it may be possible to sign up for ongoing work with Awakening The Wild before this programme starts in order to qualify for the ‘Mentee’ price.

Payment plans available, but 50% of the total tuition price is required as non refundable deposit to secure your place. Remaining payments must be completed by the start date.

Limited BURSARIES available on application.

Bursaries are for students, those on benefits or who are experiencing financial hardship in some way. We have a few bursaries available for each training that are offered at our discretion.

Included

All tuition on immersions, introduction and integration call, peers' support group

Not included

Food and accommodation.

If you want to discuss payment plans, or scholarship possibilities please contact us: keef@bridgingworlds.online

Cancellation policy

We accept cancellations by 18th of August and we will reimburse all monies paid over and above the non refundable deposit. After this date we are not able to offer any refunds.

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Accommodation & Food

The land that will hold us in Llaneglwys, near Brecon in Wales is absolutely stunning, with acres of woodland, a river flowing through, rolling hills and breath taking views of the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains in the surrounding areas. Likewise, the hall where we will dance has gorgeous views of Llangorse Lake and The Black Mountains. We will endeavour to explore as many dynamics as possible out on the land, especially the Cabana Sweat Lodge Ceremony in the woods by the river. The spectacular nature of the Brecon Beacons - lakes, mountains, rivers, waterfalls and ancient woodlands are on the doorstep.

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Accommodation

There are few affordable accommodation options available on the land: several rooms in the house, a shepherd's hut ideal for a couple / comfortable single. On top of that, there are plenty of Airbnb options in the area.

Food

Average of 3 vegetarian, vegan meals provided per day.

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Costs of accommodation and food

Camping + all meals - £215

Twin room + all meals - £270

Double room en-suite + all meals: 1 person - £350; 2 people sharing - £500 ‍

Shepherds Hut +all meals: 1 person - £370 ; 2 people sharing - £540

Or local Airbnb + all meals - £150‍

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We highly recommend that you come a day early and stay an extra night. This will maximise preparation and integration time. There is an additional cost for these two extra nights. So be sure to let us know your intentions in advance.

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Important

When you purchase a ticket you will receive the following attached documents and you must arrange free 30min preparation call.

• A welcome letter
• A disclaimer statement
• Awakening The Wild ‘culture’ docs
• Full ‘to bring list’

In the unlikely event that the preparation call leads us to realise in conversation with you that this is not an appropriate time for you to participate, you will be offered a choice of either a full refund or an alternative programme, such as 1-1 mentoring.

​All participants must read thoroughly and agree to the AWAKENING THE WILD - general disclaimer for the work we offer. Participation in the event assumes agreement with the attached documents.

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About Aluna

Guided by my deep love for the Mother Earth I offer myself in service with devotion, love, respect and gratitude for my life and all of life. I walk the path of self -knowledge. I am Daughter of the Moon initiated by shaman XamAM Alba Maria and a student of life, following the lineage of  The Great Mother and The 4 Elements, Terra Mirim, Brazil where nature is our ultimate and greatest master.

​As a Daughter of the Moon, I dive into the gardens of the female bodies and their nature, guard the feminine principles seeking balance, peace and harmony for all life on Earth. I am guided by Grandmother Moon and Mother Earth, honouring their cycles and multiple faces. I work with the medicine of Cabana -Sweat Lodge and plants, which bring purification and blessings to our womb spaces- portals of life and our energetic centres of our bodies: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

I welcome a deeper relationship with life, with nature and our own true nature: to awaken the wild landscapes that live within, to remember our sacred belonging to our Mother Earth and our part to play in the reverence of all of life and for all our relations.

Together with my husband Keef we formed the project of Awakening The Wild, facilitating range of shamanic work and ceremonial spaces for transformation, healing and celebration. We support and celebrate the movement of community and welcome an authentic relation with the other; whilst co-creating a safer and sacred space where we can call ourselves and one another home. I also offer Integrative Bodywork - The Art of Healing  and share the medicine of Sacred Cacao.

I am also a mother of my darling Willow and as family we live together in Wales, surrounded by mountains, trees, waters and dark sky. This is also a base where we offer most of our work.

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About Keef

As a group leader and guide, I bring 25 years of experience from multiple modalities. To support emergent soul-centric maturity and full spectrum engagement with life, I bring my ongoing experience as an evolving human being and student of life, wife and daughter. I provide intuitive support, creative inspiration, resilience resourcing, fierce compassion, humour, integrity, kindness and commitment.

We are relational beings, we are storytelling beings. I love to inspire passionate purpose and presence, resilience and resourcefulness and ultimately love, compassion and joy. I encourage people to shine their light on their ‘path’, personally and professionally, and to facilitate deepening awareness, responsibility and choice-fulness about the narrative lenses through which we perceive and engage with our lives, our relationships and the beautiful planet we live on.

Shamanism is at the core of this offering and the recognition that nature is our true nature and all life is precious and sacred. Contemporary scientific awareness, ancient indigenous wisdom and the dance of the cosmic joker - who knows he doesn’t know - are the three pillars of my approach. I have been teaching as a fully qualified Movement Medicine teacher for over a decade and I am an initiate on the path of the Great Mother and the Four Elements as guided by shaman XamAM Alba Maria - Terra Mirim, Bahia, Brazil. I am also a multi-qualified Yoga teacher. I am currently a trainee ‘Wild Mind Mentor’ studying the work of Bill Plotkin and Animas Valley and a student of the trauma informed Coaches Rising programme Power of Embodied Transformation. I offer Wild Soul Mentoring for men, women and couples, Awakening The Wild Man - Shamanic Soul Journeys for Men, Wild Heart Sharing Circles for Men and mixed group Awakening The Wild offerings with my wife Aluna, including cabana sweat lodges, cacao and other plant ceremonies, Dancing with Death Burial Ceremonies and Nature Vision Immersions. My soul song manifests through poetry and prose as ‘Pachapapa’.

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