Dear travellers of rough waters You are warmly invited to join in this 3 YEARS PROGRAMME for the reGENERATION of our SOULS VOYAGE: a SCHOOL and SANCTUARY for the SOUL TWO RIVERS rivering through the 3 years programme Sept 2024 to Dec 2026 - Registrations are open until June - limited to 25 students ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TWO RIVERS rivering through the 3 years programme 1 - FEEDING and LEARNING of the LANGUAGE of SOUL Altar making - wild offerings - sacred postactivism - unlearning practices - feeding the soul - Grief Composting - fierce love - soul activism - intuitive writing - die the small deaths - welcome the rebirths - eARTh ART making beauty... 2 - BECOMING a DOULA for the birthing of ELDERS guided by a cohort of teachers and by my twin books: 9 passAGES to Die Alive and PathoSophy: A Living Art- Wisdom born of Grief and Suffering ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The next Q&A session with Azul Thome the creative visionary behind it is this Tuesday 9th April 5pm EET (Eastern European Time) for 90 minutes max. CHECK YOUR TIMEZONE I am so moved to now be ready to present to you the hive of 2024 and part of 2025 after much dreaming, spinning and weaving through the winter and early spring. While the world is falling onto itself, Soul is like a great underground River of deep imagination. We will voyage to and with Her in much praise and offerings. I PRESENT TO YOU THE ENSOULING CREW that will guide, challenge, inspire, feed, teach, share and accompany you on the VOYAGE! They come to you with their Water Body and a Sentient Being. The cohort is not only human. That was also a long time longing, to see teachers and guides with their wider family of entanglement… Here they are! With profound gratitude for their souls and medicine. FOR MORE INFORMATIONS
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TITHING 10% of the profit will go to a project that loves Life, . It is part of the sacred way of tithing (giving 10% of your profit to a project that tends to Life to keep the sacred energy flowing) | THANK YOU To the Forest of Devon in England to entrust me with her vision. To dear Stu for his art, his gentle grace and courageous willingness to be touched and transformed by the story and the Four Sisters. Thank you so much for his gift of the 13 illustrations. I want to thank also my brother Mathieu Thomé for his steady holding and feedback. Valerie Teller and Lut De Naeyer for their ongoing support and Shante Zenith, Helena Ter Ellen, Carole Thomé for the proof reading, the french translation and generous presence. |
AZUL VALERIE THOME To create a first book is an incredible experience of reciprocal transformation and learning! To have carried the original vision for 5 years, to see it change and transform and to accompany it to is full maturity has changed me indeed. These Four Sisters are good company for our troubled times. They offer the wisdom we might all long for from our Elders. The story, or rather the vision, first came to me around 5 years ago, while walking in the forest in Devon, England. I 'saw' the last forest on the Earth, I saw the Four Sisters (they were not called that then) . It was like a day dream, deep time where the past, present and future are a whole experience. I did not realise then that the vision longed to become a little book, a prayer, an instruction and a way to bring soul back to the frontline of our lives. The story has ancient and new guidance. It can be read to children and adults. It can be used as a way of journeying in systemic constellation , a community ritual or a solitary map to feel more alive and in life. When in 2017 the original vision was activated by 18 women in Belgium, I held an all night vigil guiding us all through the meeting of the Four Sisters: Grief, Love, Death and Rebirth... Each of the Four Sisters were dressed up and placed around a circle of empty logs in a forest on the north of the country...it was touched by Grace and brought Soul to the frontline of our lives. I knew then that the vision now brought into form needed to be shared wildely and widely...but how? 9 months ago I contacted Stu to see if he would do the illustrations. He said yes and we went on a journey that needs to be heard. Here is my BIO and WEBSITE | STU MCLELLAN Stu McLellan is the talented illustrator who created and gifted SOULand with the 13 illustrations. We worked for 9 months to birth what is now an integral part of the story. Our working together was alive, rich in heart. WITH STU's WORDS (the text has been shortened- you can find it in full on his website) ...Azul's work embraces that, and much more, that invites us into life in fullness, welcoming love and grief and death and rebirth. This invitation presents both deep sighs of relief and a stirring to courage in the face of things our culture often mutes or runs from, that pokes a finger into our fears. And so the possibility of working on drawings to accompany this story was something that I felt I wanted to accept... ...To represent four Sisters, as a man. To feel the depth and vitality of the story and. To present a story that involves encountering wildness and shadow as well as the fire of community and intimacy... ...Encountering life and finding that these Sisters are longing for us to sit with them, they are longing for our company, for our conversation, for our vulnerability and willingness to offer ourselves in service to all life. There is something the resonates deeply about that circle of empty logs. I feel the truth of that image for us as species and I know that what they ask is communal, yes, and also deeply personal. .... ...The non human presence, of the raven and badger and fox and dragonfly also grew over time. And so they are here. They still invite me to make eye contact with them. To ask me what it is I will do, what will we do, to walk into that forest with Hamsat, in meeting those sisters and allowing our eyes to meet. In returning to those empty seats and adding our offerings to the fire. It is a very beautiful, moving, achingly poignant story. I'm struck by Azul's courage in seeking to live out Hamsat's example and with extraordinary energy offering waymarkers for all our journeys. May this story be such an offering." Stu's BIO and WEBSITE |
The Message of Water was given to Azul Thomé on 2nd December 2016 by the River Dart, Devon, UK after she fell on her knees asking the river how to love when there is so much loss? | "I was deeply touched by this message and felt the water call me to translate her words into the spirit of a song, that Mother Water could speak through music to our hearts and call us home... |
For all the people who have died of Corona virus without company or honouring and who are dying in mass now.
Grief is a wild lady who asks much of us, in exchange she might guide us to a place a deep belonging, to the eye of the hurricanes.
From a point of SEPARATION,
we come through a GATE OF GRIEF,
into a space of INITIATION of maturing practices
to come back through our GRATITUDE to our natural state of BELONGING.
Soul whispered to me of "pathosophy" (the wisdom of suffering) since being a child.
It will be through our willingness to be tempered, to walk with a broken heart, to compost collectively our immense grief and the courage to make amend, restore and regenerate the soil & soul of our beautiful home that we may know what it is to be a true human being. Whether we like it or not we are being initiated and 'passaged' into the next phase of being humans here on Earth. Like many of you I was diagnosed, pathologised, institutionalised and medicalised due to behaving 'oddly' and attempting suicide a few times. | Since being a child I have been wondering how to transform suffering into wisdom, into a gift for Life. As a Soul Activist ~ my whole life is now radically (rooted) in service to the sacredness of all Life. That clarity of purpose is a great ally. To be a Give Away for the thriving of all life, as all other species do, is a sort of homecoming in a world filled with homeless orphans lost between being alive and dead. Whether we like it or not we are being initiated and 'passaged' into the next phase of being humans here on Earth. All rites of passage can become a sacred initiation or it can stay a rough unprepared, unaccompanied and unwelcome initiation. It is up to us and to our capacity to create the world of our longing, the world of Soul, the world of the Soul of our Earth. Soul will always take us to the next edge of maturation and Homecoming. Our separation with all that Matters, with all that is made of matter is making life so very ill. It will be through our willingness to be tempered, to walk with a broken heart, to compost collectively our immense grief and the courage to make amend, restore and regenerate the soil & soul of our beautiful home that we may know what it is to be a true human being. |
Life is challenge. Life works us ~ as would a blacksmith who take a piece of steel to shape it gladly through fire, water and pressure ~ instructed by the movement of Soul.
SInce I was conceived suffering was breathing her sulfurique breath down my neck
Life tempered me through great and regular sufferings from birth propelling me to a multitude of foster care 'homes', through being a war child in Beirut then a refugee in France, to then being regularly and brutally violated until early adulthood by two adults who were perhaps to traumatised to mature.
What a fierce and fine training for where we are as a species.
Soul called me to her bosom when i had given up on humans relations including my own possible humanity. I created havoc bringing much suffering to my immediate surrounding. The claws of our colonising culture grabbed me ruthlessly.
Like many of you I was diagnosed, pathologised, institutionalised and medicalised due to behaving 'oddly' and attempting suicide a few times.
Each Death visited event happened at the crucial stages where my Soul called for a rite of Passage, when my psyche was ripening for an initiation into the next ecosophical manifestation of what being a true human means.
Our society does not want true initiated subversive and mature humans
Soul saw through the thick spell of pathologies (the science of suffering) and spoke to me through the seasons of the wild lands, earth rooted art and the sacred ways of the marginals and outcasts.
Soul whispered to me of "pathosophy" (the wisdom of suffering) since being a child.
I "knew" somehow that all this suffering will eventually be of use to others and to Life.
Earth told me and deeply dreamt me through earth~based ceremonies, deep rituals, renegotiating ancestral contracts and mending what was broken through Making the world of my Longing.
Each longing being a thread of Soul's wild imagination for a balanced way of Life.
She, Soul, speaks through you as well, through your deepest longings. I would say dare your life to give that longing to the thriving of Life. What else is there to do?
So i propose that there is a deep wisdom belonging to our earth that knows when our soul needs an initiation ~ that time requires a death of one state of being to transmute into the more mature state so we can serve life fully ~ all in response to the community we live in of humans and non humans.
Most of us have not been ‘passaged’ , have not been guided by the initiated Elders nor the mycelium of deep connection with all our relatives, them beings trees, animals, fungies, the living and the dead, the visible and the no-thing.
I propose that ~ Our earth’s wisdom and care weave her psyche within ours through Pathosophy.
'SOUL Activism is when Maturing as a Species becomes a Graceful and Rebellious act!'
We sit in Council of all Beings, we Tend to the Children of all Species, we Initiate our Young ones, we claim our Elders, we Ancestralise our Dead and we recreate Community as a service to all of Life. Our Declaration is : "no laws and no decisions shall pass that in any way could harm the children of all species" FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE DURING THE EXTINCTION REBELLION INTERNATIONAL ACTIONS IN LONDON 7th to 20th Oct 2019 | Earth Wisdom Tenders We are called the ‘Earth Wisdom Tenders’and are an eclectic group of people who are learning to deeply listen to the earth and the non human world, to honour their wisdom and knowledge, and to hear what they need from us right now at this time of crisis and extinction. We are guided by the wisdom of the past and indigenous cultures and peoples of the present, we work with the cycles and rhythm of the earth, the planets and cosmos and with what we perceive as the great mystery. Many of us feel grief and great poverty that we have lost these missing practices that were and are woven in intimacy with our living world. In the past we may have been labelled as pagans, druids, witches or hippies. This longing to find a place of belonging and healing has created a re-emergence and a rewriting of these ancient ways, through ceremonies, rituals, initiation and rites of passage, to enable our deep soul connection and wisdom to reawaken. We sit in Council of all Beings, we Tend to the Children of all Species, we Initiate our Young ones, we claim our Elders, we Ancestralise our Dead and we recreate Community as a service to all of Life. We are called the Earth Wisdom Tenders : Tending to all Life on Earth in our troubled time "We are Earth Wisdom Tenders... When all sentient beings are our sisters and brothers When we remember that we belong to the living web of Life When no laws and no decisions shall pass that in any way could harm the children of all species When we know that our Earth talks through us of her deep knowledge and wisdom We are Earth Wisdom Tenders when no land, no waters and no one is owned, colonised nor commercialised for power and control. Our dear Earth is 4.5 billions years of age, she is our Wise Elder whom we learn from and tend to”. With Love and Cœurage Earth Wisdom Tenders |
"Oh Liberty, hear us, and speak in behalf of but one individual, for a great fire is started with a small spark. Oh Liberty, awaken but one heart with the rustling of thy wings, for from one cloud alone comes the lightning which illuminates the pits of the valleys and the tops of the mountains. Disperse with thy power these black clouds and descend like thunder and destroy the thrones that were built upon the bones and skulls of our ancestors."
— Kahlil Gibran
All Welcome | These Bones represents all our Ancestors who have not been Honoured ~ of all Species. These Bones represent our Mother Earth Stones Everyone longs and deserves an honorable ancestralising It is our Duty of Care to tend to our dead We will Gather the Bones, sooth them with pigments, red ochre and oil, we will create an altar on site and let the tide take our prayers. It will be temporary Altar for the Ancestors of All Species to be tended to, blessed and loved with courage. We will seek the support and healing from the Well and Wise Ancestors to gather and bless the living to thrive during the Actions and beyond BRING: Drum Rattle Pigments and oils Songs |
What does it take to shift from a Rough Initiation to a Sacred Initiation?
“Grief is subversive, undermining the quiet agreement to behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small.
There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviors of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the soul. Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life-force.... It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness.
Grief is alive, wild, untamed and cannot be domesticated. It resists the demands to remain passive and still. We move in jangled, unsettled, and riotous ways when grief takes hold of us. It is truly an emotion that rises from the soul.”
― Francis Weller
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