Join us Sunday, Nov 2 for a day of ceremony, guided movement and meditation practices and invitations into land-based and communal rituals.
Click here for more info and registration
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“Silence is a form of hospitality to what is most tender in us. It offers a courtesy of attention and witnessing that is often lacking in our cultural attitudes.” Francis Weller
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From my latest newsletter:
October Greetings,
As the seasons turn and darkness descends, I’m witnessing many changes in the air, the land and in the inner realms of myself and the people around me. The transition from Summer to Fall tends to have quite an impact on the body and the psyche. Are you feeling it?
Fall offers us a beautiful invitation to turn inward. This season tends to be a time when people put more energy into nesting in home spaces, work or studies, crafts and rest. We tend to direct less energy toward being social.
As a result, we often find ourselves in fewer spaces of connection and community. As social mammals, our wellbeing (mental, physical, spiritual) can be impacted by the experience of spending more time alone.
Time alone can be healing, rejuvenating, confronting, lonely, agonizing. The whole spectrum.
Here’s the paradox – by coming together with intention and practice, we offer each other permission to be profoundly alone and to be held in that aloneness. To be profoundly alone with ourselves is, in my view, both a basic human need and oftentimes a struggle.
And here’s another paradox – we are also never alone. We are surrounded by an animate, ensouled world in which plants, animals, skies and stars and rivers, ancestors and land are speaking and dreaming. When we get quiet enough within ourselves, we afford ourselves the opportunity to sense into voices, images and messages from beyond ourselves.
I have come to know that for myself, the support of community and a solid container helps me to go deeper within myself, deeper within practices, deeper into mystery. This is why I’m so drawn to retreats. Sharing space with people – often silent space – helps me tap into myself in a way that I simply cannot access on my own.
Join Colleen and I on November 2 when the veil will be very thin. This will be a gentle day of ceremony, practice, emergence and connection. As a community, we will co-create spaces for connection with self, land, each other and Spirit.
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EVENT DESCRIPTION:
The flow: Our day will begin with an opening ceremony where we’ll co-create an ancestral altar and set intentions. From there we’ll practice embodied connection through guided movement and meditation practices. We’ll have an extended and silent lunch break where folks will be invited to go out onto the land to make offerings and hold self-designed ceremonies. Suggestions on how to do this will be available and in the event of heavy rain, participants will have the option to continue their practice and create ceremony indoors. Our afternoon will include some guided, community-based activities and group sharing, as well as a closing ceremony.
We anticipate the day will be emergent and co-creative. No prior experience with ceremony or meditation is required. We honour that we are all at different stages of our journeys and value the diversity of backgrounds and perspectives that come together in community offerings.
This offering is inspired by multiple lineages and teachers, including but not limited to Joanna Macy, Deep Ecology, The Animas Valley Institute, Francis Weller, Zen Buddhism, and Perdita Finn.
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YOUR HOSTS
Kalen Colson, RCC (they/them) is a nature-based therapist, certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher and a land tender. Kalen has been studying and practicing group facilitation, land connection work and cultivating ceremonial spaces for over a decade. Currently delving into the practices of deep ecology and soul work, Kalen is living the questions of how their work can support decolonization and right relationship with the land and its first people. For more information about Kalen visit: www.pivotintoharmony.com
Colleen Browne (she/her) has been meditating for 15 years. She lived at Tassajara Zen Center (the monastery for San Francisco Zen Center) for 3 years, is a certified Mindfulness Meditation and Yoga Teacher and hosts a weekly meditation gathering at her home in Shawnigan Lake. Lately she has been exploring ancestral work with Perdita Finn and expanding her understanding of Sprit.
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YOUR CONTAINER
Located on the traditional territories of the Hul’qumi’num’ speaking peoples of the Cowichan tribes, The Land is 10 acres of relatively wild and secluded forest about 10 minutes from Cowichan Station and a 30 minute walk from the Koksilah River. Kalen has been stewarding The Land since 2021 with a vision for holding nature-based therapy retreats and practices. The land has power, running water, an outhouse and a gathering space for events and workshops.
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