Shaping The Sacred: A three-week online series exploring essential practices for sculpting a meaningful life

"...Tell me, what is it you plan to do / With your one wild and precious life?" 

- Mary Oliver (From the poem, "The Summer Day")

Faced with global crisis, perhaps it may be necessary that we become troubled into an awakeness that moves us into radical participation with Life. If crisis is a turning point (in the original sense of the word), might we take this as a summons to soulfully engage with this "one wild and precious life" that we have each been gifted with. As many wisdom traditions, poets, elders, and revered healers counsel: it is only with whole-hearted, embodied, and skilful participation with the raw material of life that we can begin shaping an existence that not only ignites our inherent aliveness and genius, but that also begins transforming our existence into an alchemical tincture that enriches culture, nature, and all our relations.   

This is an invitation to radically participate with the multi-storied substance of life, to re-member that our lives are Sacred through our earth-walk, our daily practice, and the beauty we make.   

This is an invitation  to reverently come together in community, to pay attention to the wisdom of our dreams, to listen to the whispers of the more-than-human world, and to curiously explore the workings of what master storyteller, Michael Meade, refers to as our "inner-other-under world." 

As in the European folktale of the "Six Swans," perhaps we are each being invoked by our deepest essence, mythopoetically-speaking, to begin weaving medicinal shirts from the threads of our inner & outer nature that will begin breaking cultural curses of entranced slumber, and revive our ancestral capacities to respond to crisis in beautiful, wise, and heart-awakened ways.  

"There's a thread you follow, it goes among things that change, but it doesn't change....you don't ever let go of the thread" - William Stafford (From the poem, "The Way it is")

In this three-week series of Shaping the Sacred, both individually and as a group, we'll explore an introduction to soulful practices that will likely draw us closer to the territory of this sacred "thread." We will enter into an open dialogue with soma (body), psyche (soul), inner and outer Nature, and the Mystery - through intentional consultation with your dreams, the land where you live, your animal body and unconscious, and our collective group field. This will be an embodied soul-education of sorts, attempting to draw-out and coax the inherent meaning that lies beneath the surface of your everyday reality and move you into a wilder and more expansive conversation with life. This container is intended to be a gentle, creative, and courageous sanctuary for you to explore these practices as deeply and vastly as you desire. 

These three, 2-hour intimate gatherings will include a synthesis of somatic grounding, nature-based inquiry & ritual, poetry, story, embodied dream-work, spontaneous movement and music, writing practices and journaling exercises, parts-work, sacred silence, dyad sharing and witnessing, authentic expression, and council-style sharing. This will also be an emergent space to allow the group-field to express itself and stir us into becoming aware of whatever intelligence wants to arise during our time together. This space celebrates and welcomes individuals from diverse life experiences, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, sexual preferences, and gender identifications. 

Together, may we find the courage to sculpt our lives into medicine for these times, in service to all our relations. 

Welcoming your wild and seething multitudes, 

~ Alexandre Jodun 

(For Alexandre's Bio, click here)

“The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle." - Terry Tempest Williams

EVENT DETAILS:

YOUR INVESTMENT: 

Options:

• Full-rate: USD$85 
• BIPOC-rate: USD$50 
• Pay What You Can Afford: (Min. USD$25)

TIMES & DATES: 

[Pacific Timezone] 4pm-6pm Saturday August 20th, August 27th & September 3rd 2022 , Online via Zoom 

[Melbourne, Australia Timezone] 9am-11am Sunday August 21st, August 28th & September 4th 2022, Online via Zoom

This three-week gathering is limited to 8 participants and is setup to be an experiential, group-oriented, and emergent offering, and thus we ask that you only register if you can foreseeably participate live for each session and commit to engaging in the practices for the duration of the series. As this will be a confidential space, and due to the nature of this work, the sessions will not be recorded.

Note: A preparation email will be sent to all participants prior to each call, including details of prepatory practices to complete prior to each session.