BLACK TENT- an all night long-dance grief ritual
Schedule
Sat Nov 30 2024 at 11:00 am to Sun Dec 01 2024 at 03:00 pm
UTC-07:00Location
River Dragon Ranch, Miller Rd, Nevada City, CA 95959, United States | North San Juan, CA
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The oldest psychospiritual technologies known to man are still—perhaps unsurprisingly—the most effective: music, movement, & breath.
Over the course of this night-long ritual, you can expect to dance & employ the medicine of movement. You can expect to share & bear witness to the sharings of others. Story-telling, silence, & ritual theatre will all be invited to the party. After we wake from our sleep, we might share dreams.
The format of this ritual is the longdance, a practice of utilizing the consciousness altering experiences of fasting & sleep deprivation in order to open a portal to what is more real within. This means we will be fasting together & staying awake together in the name of courting what lies beneath. [For the curious monkey mind: We will share a meal together on the afternoon of the first day & break our fast together on the afternoon of the second day. We will invite slowness & rest throughout, with a communal rest period between roughly 3:00 & 6:00 AM.]
After we close the space, you are invited to join us in breaking our fast. We will provide the food. Please also stay on the land, to walk, deepen your prayer & presence to the surroundings, & make your offerings. As you wish.
WHY?
What a thing, this being human. We are guaranteed so little—only an end, but even that, at some unknowable time & place—& the loss of other things to which we’ve opened our hearts.
It is a distinctly modern sickness to deny these realities & avoid feeling the alchemical power of the losses that grace our lives. We lose so much: innocence, opportunities, visions, capacities, humans, animals, skillsets, expected futures. And by denying the truth of this, we fail to wake up to the reality that each loss contains a magical kernel of lifeforce, tailor-made for our individual becoming.
Loss is the forge, grief the fire.
Our ancestors understood this. Our ancestors came together regularly to make of their grief a prayer, an offering for more life. For when we honor what we’ve lost, we make sacred what remains.
When we honor what we’ve lost, we make sacred what remains.
In this container, we come together to pray in this way. To release, grieve, recollect, & remember—that we may stand in the world more simply, honestly, & beautifully.
When we hold onto outdated psychological structures, stale emotions, & decayed embodiments, we inadvertently become dishonest, misrepresenting our hearts by pouring their content through layers we were meant to shed.
There is nothing extraordinary about grieving. The communities that held us forever, until recently, came together to do this all the time. It’s as regular as spring.
This winter, we will come together to remember & give thanks. As simple as that.
PRACTICALITIES
Location: We will convene in the most stunning dance temple, a womb of devotion dedicated to ceremony & magic. The land which homes this sanctuary is 30 minutes outside of Nevada City.
We will begin on time & lateness will not be tolerated.
Investment: $175 before October 1st; $225 thereafter. Please do not let money be an obstacle--reach out & ask for what you need. We will dream into reality with you & see what's possible.
Refund policy: Refunds will not be granted after November 15th.
Registering: This will be a small, deep container. As such, we require all those interested in being there to fill out this application--https://forms.gle/ZnwX7V8XmMXt2cQt9
FACILITATORS
Tess Howell is a 5Rhythms teacher, a SomaSource Dance Rites of Passage Facilitator, a Spirit Rock Dharma Yoga Teacher and is Operations Director at the School of Lost Borders. She is the founder of Wild Moves outdoor dance events and has been taking people on deep-dive outdoor dance experiences in areas of wild beauty since 2012 (www.wildmoves.org) Tess relishes and cherishes space, sky, sea and stillness. She finds refuge in dance, the dharma, badass basslines and beautiful boots.
Si Thacker is a builder, a medicine man, & a master of many disciplines. Gentle & calm, with a clarity honed by years bowed down in sacred devotion to life & her impulses. He is the steward of River Dragon Ranch, a wild expanse of rich forest on the San Juan Ridge of Northern California, complete with dance temple & bathhouse (& also the home of this retreat).
Mackenzie Amara is a soul scientist, embodiment devotee, & alchemist. Trained as a 5Rhythms® teacher, a psychologist, a psychedelic facilitator & a Jungian analyst, she combines the teachings of depth psychology & embodiment to catalyze transformation. A student of her body, depth psychology, and nonduality, she shows an inspired dedication to growth and freedom for all beings. She is a researcher, writer, & teacher with over a decade of experience in group facilitation, ritual, & underworld spelunking. She listens deeply, sees clearly, & is unafraid of the dark within herself & the world.
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Where is it happening?
River Dragon Ranch, Miller Rd, Nevada City, CA 95959, United States, 13920 Miller Rd, Nevada City, CA 95959-9314, United States,North San Juan, CaliforniaEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
