I have just returned to Astoria after a dreamy week spent in Philo, California on the banks of the beautiful, aquamarine of the Navarro River with the most amazing bunch of people from all parts of the globe eager to cross thresholds to self and mystery.
This was a five day immersion program titled: Soul Centric Dreamwork led and held by Bill Plotkin and Mary Marsden of the Animas Institute. I believe there were twenty-two participants?
The magic is with me and there’s something to be said about gathering and opening with a tribe of people who not only understand what you’re doing, but are actively participating in such living themselves.
We begin with a poem, and as a poet I am intrigued with the reverence this organization holds for poetry, the language of soul. We end our time together arm in arm, a tight circle of shining people in full, embodied song.
I filled a heft of pages in my journal with notes, dreams, drawings, impressions and invitations to soul, too much to convey here and really much of it better left sacred and personal. But, there in the beautiful wild, I encountered both myself and other in a next step to evolution and will share with you an invitation with the purpose of courting your dreams in the waking and sleeping realms.
Your soul task begins with a wander on the land, a waking-dream, a threshold-crossing. Find a place where you feel safe and won’t be disturbed. Imagine removing your skin or the suit you wear (habitual mind) and find a place in nature to hang up this skin, to commit to being more raw and soft. Be sensually drawn into the land--be drawn to another other—perhaps, a tree, a rock, the river….
Have an open conversation with nature. Share your most recent night dream with this other. Embody the feeling of the dream. Be open to answers and synchronicities. Make sure to thank the other after your conversation and then pass by where you’ve left your skin. You can either put the protective skin back on or decide to enter into the everyday softer and in the dreamlike state to see what unfolds, remembering you can zip back into your skin whenever you’d like.
Without going into great detail, I left my skin on a cactus with apple-sized seed buds and found myself in conversation with pink Feldspar on the banks of the Navarro!
A strong image of hanging up one's own skin. You have truly chosen an adventurous place for your skin. Well, thank you for sharing some not too personal things of your meeting.
I am already looking forward to my time in Italy, where we will live in a secluded house and safely hang our skins in the wind where they can flutter.
Hopefully we will also enjoy some mushrooms.
That your meeting began with a poem fits your preference for it, doesn't it? Poems are compressed madness when they are well written and the incomprehensible thing about them is what is indescribable between the lines and yet gives access to something else.
Be greeted warmly, distant and yet close friend.
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Your time in Italy sounds amazing! Yes, I hope you do enjoy some mushrooms in all of your delicious nakedness!
Yes, I very much liked the incorporation of poetry and the reverence shown that kind of soulFULL writing, what comes out from beneath and/or around the regular thinking mind.
Smiling for your warm greeting and wishing you the same :)
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