Weaving is Healing two-day workshop Melbourne Sept 2024 : Part 1 of 2

The two sessions of Part 1 comprise of a coil weave workshop ('lazy squaw' stitch) and a palm inflorescence basket making workshop, on 14 and 15 September 2024, respectively. They are available as single day workshops but are best done together, and are perfect for beginners as well as advanced weavers. Please note that this is not an Indigenous workshop or a technique indigenous to Australia, but a workshop that embraces creativity, ceremony as well as community to promote healing processes in an organic and soulful manner.

Part 2 is on the 21st and 22nd September and will include the twist weave technique and a string bag making technique using pandanus as well as New Zealand flax (phormium tenax).

This is a opportunity to join René Bahloo from Weavery, to sit and weave together in circle. It's much more than a skill-building, tuition-based workshop; it is a space where wisdom is shared, experienced and breathed together as the workshop unfolds itself, wrapped with the fibre of life as well as the fibre of nature, and deep human connection.

10.30am till 3.30 pm. $120 pp. per day, $220 for both days.

The workshop will be facilitated through means of a ceremonial space where you will be nurtured and held safely in a circle of like-minded beings, sharing and breathing and creating together.

This is an opportunity to experience the ancient art of basket weaving as a deeply mindful and contemplative practice. It is a space of sharing, creating, being and breathing, conducted through ceremony and celebration of life. Using natural materials from the land, you will learn to weave individual strands of fibre together to form a whole creation, while recognising and acknowledging the mirrors and metaphors that bind us together with nature and each other.

Like a weave within a weave, this has the power of revealing a way of being that is nurturing, growthful, enlightening and honouring of the energy of creation. Together we will weave baskets that hold in their fibres all of the stories we share, flowing in symphony with the songs of nature as they unfold around and within us.

Extra pandanus fibre will be available to buy on the day, if needed for future weaving projects or expansion of your current one.

Please bring a chair, cushion or mat to sit on, and something savoury to share for lunch.

Tickets can be booked online or by emailing to organise a direct deposit / cash. (direct deposit bypasses the eventbrite fee).

[email protected]

(0438)162552

René Bahloo is a creator and facilitator of ceremonial spaces that are rooted in the healing power and wisdom held within the ancient art of fibre weaving. Through her lifelong interest and pursuit of knowledge that draws us in closer relationship to our soul and subsequent experience of aliveness, René walks with a philosophical and practical understanding that speaks to the magic (and music) of the weave of life, available in each present moment. This is a magic that is often hidden by our perceptual filters, yet it exists regardless, and is a deep source of freedom, joy and healing waiting to be recognised and consciously engaged with, like a beloved friend. René facilitates workshops and spaces where she weaves with the fibre of these strands of knowledge and wisdom in a way that is multidimensional, in honour of the fractal patterning of the creative universe. Her work is also very practical and down-to-earth, using plant materials and basket weaving techniques to illustrate and enhance understandings of spiritual concepts which in turn promote connection and open-heartedness amongst participants, in a fun and lighthearted, yet profound manner. René’s background as a qualified visual artist (first class honours) and psychotherapist, as well as her extensive life experience with (and deep ongoing connection to) Indigenous shamanic/earth-honouring families and cultures, enhances her intellectual, creative and spiritual capacity to speak eloquently to this interconnected weave of life. René brings you a gift: a direct demonstration and embodiment of the experience of her own aliveness, and beautiful fallible humanness, through radical honesty as well as authenticity to the moment, and inspires us to remember, to love and to honour all parts of our soul expression in the world, no matter how they show up, in the spirit of ‘already being whole’.

Host or Publisher René Bahloo