LOVE - NATURE/MAGICK
Earth Dreaming Arts ethos:
Life is magickal and Love is the animating force of the universe; it is the creative imperative. I am talking here of divine Love, a fierce and sometimes challenging Love, that is so much greater than ourselves; Love that breaks hearts and minds open; Love that offers meaning when all is uncertain; Love that offers comfort when all is chaos; Love that offers acceptance when all seems hopeless, but that always offers a deep sense of knowing, of belonging, of trust in the more than. It is a Love that prompts us to stand for ourselves, for those we care about and for the Earth we live on because we are all intimately connected, linked by this thread of Love.
The stories we have been told, that the mind is more important than the body; that thinking is more valuable than feeling; that science provides the only Truth have left us confused, lonely and isolated. These stories and beliefs have created blocks and obstacles to the flow of Love through us and out into the world. Allowing ourselves to be curious about the stories and belief systems that lock us in such isolation opens the way to dissolving the barriers and inviting Love to flow freely. This is not to say it makes life easy, but it enriches it, re-enchants it and offers us belonging.
Earth Dreaming Arts has been created to offer opportunities to explore new and different stories and possibilities that spring from this place of Love. As my teacher Shiloh Sophia says, may all our choices come from Love.
AIR– Intention & enquiry
Intentional Creativity
The journey always begins with an intention. It is the key to Intentional Creativity. I would add that it is the key to all magic. The intention may take the form of a question, a prayer or a recognition of the need for change or healing. The intention, the enquiry, opens possibilities and potential that have not been thought of or considered before.
“Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” Rainer Maria Rilke
Beginning with an intention invites curiosity. This is curiosity in the process, in the land through which the path travels. What flowers grow by the path, what birds are in the air, how does the breeze feel on the skin? What words long to be expressed? What colours call to be used, what shapes want to appear and how does it feel as you witness what emerges? These are the sorts of enquiries that both help us as we set out on the path, but also as we travel on. Enquiries help to release the need for certainty, and this expands our horizons.
EARTH – Embodied Practice
Movement
Feelings are…” the bodily glue that sticks our reasoning and our common sense together. Feelings are somatic events that embody our values and concerns. They signal what we care about: what gives our lives meaning and direction.” (Guy Claxton – Intelligence in the Flesh)
I feel movement is the poetry of the body. It speaks eloquently of what ails us, of how we have lost our way and how we have separated ourselves from the natural world of which we are a part. The body does not lie, though the mind often overrides the messages and guidance therein. By bringing our attention to the body, how it moves, how it feels and noticing its signals, the stories and images it holds, we can begin to learn its language, and if we learn its language then we can open direct communication with our inner world, our soul; we remember who we really are and why we are here. In the process we reclaim our relationship with the world, nourish ourselves and restore balance to our lives.
In my years of practice, I have noticed how often we are deeply affected by something but cannot find words to express that feeling. The body, however, is eloquent and by tending to it we can unlock the language we seek and release the wisdom held within. The body speaks of the soul’s longing. Therefore Earth Dreaming Arts work is an embodied experience that uses movement and somatic awareness to unlock creativity and transform our perceptions
FIRE – Wild Soul Language
Poetic Language
Language is vital in helping us to understand, to name what we experience and what we know. When we meet someone new, perhaps someone who speaks in a foreign tongue, it can be a struggle to comprehend each other unless and until we learn something of the other’s language. Imagine, therefore, that the Earth and the more than human beings that live here alongside us are speaking to you but in a language you do not know or have forgotten.
They are!
Imagine too that your own Soul speaks to you but in a tongue that seems foreign to your ears.
It does!
They all have wisdom and guidance to offer. They are all waiting to meet you in relationship. Learning the language they use enriches the connection. Creating image is part of this learning, but words, which are powerful, magickal tools, are necessary too.
Using Intentional Creativity, Earth Dreaming Arts invites the images, Soul, the Earth and the more than human beings to speak. Give them the pen and see what unfolds from the mystery.
This is mythopoetic language robed in rich metaphor and symbol, a feeling language that does not always make sense to the rational mind. It can present as fragments, phrases and words that seem hesitant to come forward. Yet sometimes it can appear fully clothed in colourful raiment as story, song, poem, as if landing in your lap like a gift from the gods, and perhaps that is what it is.
WATER – Intuitive Art
Art
Earth Dreaming Arts uses drawing, painting, crafting and earth art as some of the main tools of exploration and uncovering that which wishes to be seen. This is not about talent or skill. Rather this process of intuitive creating and in particular Intentional Creativity, is designed to help us access our own information, our deep knowing and wisdom to help us live our lives such that our inner world and our outer world are in coherence. The paper, canvas, board, fabric, ground is a portal, a sacred threshold that opens into our inner world.
SPIRIT – Ritual consecrating life
Ritual
The word ‘ritual’ can conjure an image of organised religion for many, but ritual is, in essence, creating space that enables us to Listen! It allows us to step from day to day life into a sacred place where we can sit in circle with our deeper self, our soul knowing. It can offer us altered perspectives and perceptions of our self and the world around us. It can elevate the mundane aspects of our lives into sacred connections.
“More than a symbolic act, ritual is a powerful cultural technology that puts us into connection with the invisible and holy elements of nature, creating occasions for us to express our feeling life in the open, weaving us deeper into togetherness.” Toko-pa Turner
