SOULand: Making the World of our Longing ~ has recently become SOULand : Making the World of Earth's Longing Making the World of Earth's Longing Longing is the language of SOUL. A current moving through us, whispering wildly to us how to come back Home. Most of us behave as if we were homeless to our SOUL and orphaned to our Earth with great consequences. When we feel deep longings moving through our bodies and through our dreams we are blessed by SOUL. So what happens to these Longings? Why are we in such dire state if SOUL constantly speaks through our imagination, hearts and dreams? Are they like seeds falling on concrete? What does our SOUL need? These longings moving through us... could be bringing us to one of the initiatory gates of grief. Grief of not being welcome, wanted, enough, or of not knowing enough, have enough support, money, skills etc...Paralysis, shame and envy can become the new guests in our beings. Grief is a gate that most of us want to avoid at all costs, even if it costs us our lives ~ therefore we never move beyond the call of SOUL. An initiation to empower us to create the world of our longing is miscarried. We stop, numb and stay small not to feel our sadness, our numbness, our fears and anger. We are not skilled in Grief neither in Love. A terrible poverty takes place in our heart and imagination. SOULand provides collective spaces for the release of our sacred grief, so we can meet ourselves as creative gifted human beings ~ a little more empowered and resourced to make the World of our Longing as a great gift... Initiation Initiation is a invitation to wildly court and lean into the SOUL of four Sisters - Grief, Love, Death and Birth. There is no true initiation without the ‘small’ death of our personality, our set positioning in life or our childlike naivety. A well held initiatory ritual will bring us closer to a homecoming, a return to our interconnectedness with all of life, transforming our sense of being homeless or orphaned into belonging. Most importantly we move from being zombies in our lives to being fully aware of our death and therefore offering our lives fully for the thriving of Life... https://www.souland.org Facebook Page Grief Composting Circles and Apprenticeship The Grief Compositing Circles are communal rituals of 4 hours infused with beauty and connection with all beings, humans and all others. Grief in this context is the welcoming of anger, fear, sadness, despair, numbness and the mystery of all these emotions as we welcome them in a collective safe space. The Circles hold an important part in total darkness as if in a compost heap, a womb or a kiva. Sounds and wailing are freely used to encourage our wild and sensuous selves to be present. Wild means of nature, not feral or out of control! CIRCLES: https://www.souland.org/grief-composting.html TRAININGS: https://www.souland.org/training.html FACEBOOKGROUP https://www.facebook.com/groups/griefcompostingcircles/ The Message of water Water is SOULand’s main guide. One grey day of December I found myself by the river Dart in Devon who gifted me with an astonishing message of Love. ‘’My dear child do not worry about me, Water. I recover quickly with the song of our birds, the love of trees, with movement, moments of rest and the prayers moving around our Earth. I regain balance with your heartfelt tears, your remembered songs added to the ones of so many now. Do not focus your energy on 'Saving me'. Something way more profound is taking place right now, listen and observe! All of us; Soil, Water, Plants, Air, Animals and all Ancestors are Calling you Humans, to us so we can Save your species. We know and have known for a while that you do not have much time left if you do not wake up to your birthright Belonging to Earth and come Home soon, real real soon. We keep dying, we keep Giving Away our Lives to shake you up from a deep and very long amnesia. Once you can allow the truth and quality of such Love to permeate through your traumatised being and desolate soul you will wake up from a life time of anaesthesia to your immense grief and capacity for Love. When you create containers of sacred beauty that opens your Heart to what Love truly is then you will realise with a massive sob that you were loved all along, always have and for ever by all of Us who you think You are Saving! You have five years as a species to Wake up, Mature and Remember in your bones that you belong to Life " https://www.souland.org/water.html Conversations with Grief and Water Conversations with Grief of Water is a series of interviews with women and men engaged fully with our collapsing world, our dying systems and our grief. People engaged with deep love and longing to fully participate in our world in ways of soul and beauty. They respond to the message of Water received on 2nd of December. So far I have spoken with and recorded Joanna Macy, Simon Be, Li An Phoa, Jon Young, Francis Weller, Manda Scott, Pat McCabe, Megan Hollingsworth, Stephan Harding, Pablo Servigne and Stephen Jenkinson… each one bringing a thread for a cloth weaving in the past, present and future… I anticipate mystery and our bone memory to be awakened by it. https://www.souland.org/conversations-with-grief--water.html Earth Temples on the edge of cities I have a vision of an Earth Temple at the edge of every town and every city. A circular womb-like place of astonishing beauty celebrating all of creation .. a place to rest into, reflect, pray, listen, speak and sing to all sentient beings and restore our animist selves. After a year of dreaming, drawings of the Earth Temple have arrived. It is 25 Meters wide. Blessed by 2000 generations of ancestors. 4 living entrances and a Kiva in the centre. A Feminine shaped Temple for all. Made of the local material found on site. I am calling for a meeting with anyone who resonates with helping create the first Earth Temple - Makers, Cobbers, Strawbellers, Glassmakers, Carpenters, Alchemists, eARTh Artists, Planners, Weavers of Natural Laws, Shambhala Warriors, and other cracked and called human beings. https://www.souland.org/earth-temple.html Life Cairn in Totnes Every 24 hours, between 100 and 150 species of animals, invertebrates, fungi and plants go extinct. They will never court, sing, nest, seed, or dance their life-bringing rituals again. They are not dead - Death being food for the birthing of new life, no they are extinct! ... Can we ponder on the difference in our own heart and the impact on our soul? We are increasingly noticing that we need to gather and rise up in circles and community groups to meet the enormity of the consequences of our long term disconnection to the interconnectedness with all of Life thus bringing up an immense grief, un~skilled and feared in many of us. On the 1st December, the Totnes community is invited to create a Life Cairn, a memorial for the honouring of Extinct Species. Please join us if you are touched by the 6th massive extinction of Life on Earth and want to give Away your gifts, broken hearts and talents to this offering. Artists, singers, musicians, children, elders, mothers, fathers, lovers of all sorts and all two, three and four legged welcome! https://www.souland.org/life-cairn-in-totnes.html See Life Cairn in Totnes Event on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/1773741646245298/ "WomBelt: Weaving Women back into Matter" Our womb is a place of great wisdom for ourselves and one another, to stand soulfully and maturely on and for our Earth's wellbeing. Any trauma will create a dam and a great blockage to the river of our lives. A Wombelt is made using the backstrap weaving method. Making a Wombelt is a ritual, a rite of passage, a way back to mattering, to honour our womb and the space holding it. We are weaving ourselves and our stories back together for one another, to skill up, to mend, to actively pray for one another. Because we Matter, we are matter, mater, mother, Earth... Life Belts A day ritual of backstrap weaving for men and woman called to make the world of their longing by weaving the soul threads of their lives around a tree. Collective Wombelts WomanFest, the first All Women Radical Participation festival. Azul wove for three days. She invited the women to respond to the question ‘What is your deepest wildest longing?’. 73 women wrote their response onto a roll of fabric. Each scroll was inserted into the weaving, therefore creating a collective Wombelt of our deepest and wildest longings. At the closing ceremony, the belt was given away and wrapped around the hips of Tanya Jacut, the visionary woman of this festival. Oxford Storytelling festival Azul was invited to weave her Wombelts. She decided to create only one ~ a collective Life Wombelt weaving people’s longing into it. She invited people to respond to ‘What is the world of your longing and belonging?’. Their responses are written on little fabric scrolls and inserted in the weaving. There is 108 responses offerings in this belt. The belt is to be given to a cave yet to be found. A cave, a Kiva is an Earth womb able to listen to such a soulful gift. https://www.souland.org/wombelt.html https://www.facebook.com/wombelt/ Inner Council of a Woman Queen The archetype of the Queen when welcomed in its entirety is in service to something bigger than herself. The Queen with her King learns to listen and protect life both within the inner council and within her community of human and non-human beings. The other 8 archetypes of the woman are then at her service. They are the Mother, the Child, the Nun, the Maiden, the Lover, the Huntress, the Magician, the Crone. Listening to our inner council brings us to meet our inner archetypes, to welcome their lights and their shadows, to nourish decision-making for the thriving of Life. Each flag became an invitation for the Daimon of one archetype to find the place to belong and share their deep wisdom. The meeting of the archetype and the other than human invites and welcomes an animist understanding of our archetypes. This is a generous response to a prayer for soul sanity. https://www.souland.org/inner-council-of-a-woman.html Inner Council for men and women to come 2019 Returning to Earth what was stolen Returning to Earth our silver, gold, precious stones, diamond, ivory, coral, platinum. All those have been extracted with terrible violence and destructive impact to all living beings. The mining destroys rivers, people, animals and whole ecosystems to feed our greed and addiction to power. I invite us to join me as I also return the result of my time as a goldsmith and silversmith in our mountains, forests, rivers and seas. To feel our sorrow, say sorry and make amend to come back momentarily to some resemblance of sanity. We can then honour our creativity and the alchemist in us by using local and renewable material in a sacred way again. https://www.souland.org/returning-to-earth-what-was-stolen.html EARTH WISDOM TENDERS - DECLARATION AND PRAYER OUR DECLARATION, ACTIVE PRAYER and VISION STATEMENT Earth Wisdom Tenders is FOR ALL SOUL ACTIVISTS WHOSE FAITH, BELIEFS AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICES ARE ROOTED IN EARTH WISDOM. Earth Wisdom Tenders We are Tending to all life on Earth in our troubled time, we are an eclectic group of people who are learning to deeply listen to the Earth, to the visible, the invisible and to 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. Honouring the wisdom of the Earth and Indigenous cultures, we work with the cycles of nature and the cosmos, and what we perceive as the great mystery. Longing for a place of healing and connection, we seek to create 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 Earth Wisdom Tenders…... When all sentient beings are our sisters and brothers When we actively remember that we belong to the living web of Life When all laws and decisions consider the wellbeing of the children of all species When we trust that our Earth can talk through us of her deep knowledge and wisdom When we stand for all land, water and all beings to be free from ownership, colonisation and commercialisation… When we understand that we are all re-apprenticing to these ways 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 www.earthwisdomtenders.net FaceBook: GROUP 
6 Comments
from Grief Composting to Deep Belonging |
 "SOULand is a response to our uninitiated, traumatised, collapsing and transforming world. "Initiation is a invitation to wildly court and lean into the SOUL of four Sisters - Grief, Love, Death and Birth. There is no true initiation without the ‘small’ death of our personality, our set positioning in life or our childlike naivety. The Message of Water | SOULand: Making the World of our Longing... Longing is the language of SOUL. A current moving through us, whispering wildly to us how to come back Home to Anima Mundi ~ The Soul of the World. What does longing have to do with an Apprenticeship to Soul and Grief? . Most of us behave as if we were homeless to our SOUL and orphaned to our Earth with great consequences. When we feel deep longings moving through our bodies and through our dreams we are blessed by SOUL. So what happens to these Longings? Why are we in such dire state if SOUL constantly speaks through our imagination, hearts and dreams? Are they like seeds falling on concrete? What does our SOUL need? These longings moving through us... could be bringing us to one of the initiatory gates of grief. Grief of not being welcome, wanted, enough, or of not knowing enough, have enough support, money, skills etc...Paralysis, shame and envy can become the new guests in our beings. Grief is a gate that most of us want to avoid at all costs, even if it costs us our lives ~ therefore we never move beyond the call of SOUL. An initiation to empower us to create the world of our longing is miscarried. We stop, numb and stay small not to feel our sadness, our numbness, our fears and anger. We are not skilled in Grief neither in Love. A terrible poverty takes place in our heart and imagination. SOULand provides collective spaces for the release of our sacred grief, so we can meet ourselves as creative gifted human beings ~ a little more empowered and resourced to make the World of our Longing as a great gift... ~~~ Grief Composting Circles The Grief Compositing Circles are communal rituals of 4 hours infused with beauty and connection with all beings, humans and all others. Grief in this context is the welcoming of anger, fear, sadness, despair, numbness and the mystery of all these emotions as we welcome them in a collective safe space. The Circles hold an important part in total darkness as if in a compost heap, a womb or a kiva. Sounds and wailing are freely used to encourage our wild and sensuous selves to be present. Wild means of the sensuous land and waters, not feral or out of control! The circles weave also the work of Francis Weller ~ Joanna Macy ~ Sobonfu Some ~ Steven Jenkinson and Martin Pretchel among others. ~~~ Conversations with Grief and Water Conversations with Grief of Water is a series of interviews with women and men engaged fully with our collapsing world, our dying systems and our grief. People engaged with deep love and longing to fully participate in our world in ways of soul and beauty. They respond to the message of Water received on 2nd of December. So far I have spoken with and recorded Joanna Macy, Simon Be, Li An Phoa, Jon Young, Francis Weller, Manda Scott, Pat McCabe, Megan Hollingsworth, Stephan Harding, Pablo Servigne and Stephen Jenkinson... each one bringing a thread for a cloth weaving in the past, present and future... I anticipate mystery and our bone memory to be awakened by it.  |
March 2019 ~ Apprenticeship to Soul and Grief Composting
"Thank you SOULand for turning your gentle light onto long forgotten place and spaces which were desolate and ghost like within me. " Apprentice
"The strong, robust and respectful container you wove created a space for me to express my grief in all its wild forms. I love that.
The emphasis on personal responsibility and sovereignty is a welcome addition to allow me to find my own way." Apprentice
More voices ~ What did some of the Apprentices say after the first level of Apprenticeship to Soul and Grief Composting this March? They were invited to write a letter to SOULand...
Dear SOULand,
It’s as if I took the long road back to this place and though this journey was long, the calling was longer.
Without knowing it fully, I have been carrying this place in my bones for a very long time and so I was welcomed back, back into the loving arms of my sorrow, my grief, my loss, my darkness and all of this I have felt from others also.
I was weary of carrying such burdens alone.
I went through forests of fear and disillusionment for decades. I fell into despair and thought it was my “sickness” to bear alone. To have my love and grief turned into sickness was another grief in and of itself. That shame around these precious truths almost persuaded me to take my own life.
And now, here in this village. I come to know a family of hearts, a container for my deep truths and I am witnessed, held, praised and loved for them.
Now I can find myself a home in a land between, the valley of death and the illusion of the world around me. Another continent is rising out of the sea and on it is this plateau, this safe haven island, village. It is a place where I can hold my hands out and in one hand hold the darkness and the other hands hold the hope.
That this bridging is happening later in life is a blessing in truth. I needed to drop to the soul of my longing and rise again, alone, so that I would even recognise the place of “Soul Land”.
The tools and vision woven here, I pray will continue to nourish me, in my mind, body and soul until the day I die.
Blessed be SOULand,
Charlotte J. Kessler
~~~
Dear Souland,
Deep Gratitude for your heartful, bold and essential work. For weaving your life, art and longings into your offerings and for waking up and calling out ours. I am completing feeling inspired to create an altar for all of the meaningful threads and a void from where they came from. Thank you Azul for your bold and humble presence, for your depth-honoring and life bringing insights, for the clashes of your heart and the shared tears of our souls. With love and deep gratitude,
Halina
~~~
Dear SOULand,
Thank you for offering me a place in this circle you hold in love, in nature amongst awakening humans. Thank you for your weave of traditions which has enabled me to touch in just enough to my longing, my grief, and my gratitude so that it feels like a beginning that will move through me, whilst also being an honouring of all I have lived with and through until now. In my own words of this morning : I was mush for the first two days and now on the third day I feel clear enough to feel excited to go back to life with a rich renewed soil and seeds replanted, ready to be tended daily with my altar and committed practice. I feel re-woven.
Azul, how you show up as teacher, human and Queen spirit gives me strength and courage to keep opening up and sharing more of myself. I could learn more from you and I have plenty to live on with. Thank you so much. Thank you for how you listened to the energy in the group and responded to our needs. I felt loved well.
Love,
Mari
~~~
Thank you
Heart Full to burst ~ We untangled to re-weave ~ Your presence is something I can lean on. Thank you for being yourself and for calling a circle of sanity which is a beautiful bubble of reality in these unreal and insane times. I feel relieved and not alone. I am quite isolated and burnt by community so I have new faith in people.
Love,
Camel
~~~
Dear SOULand,
I love being led by a woman. An elder who is choosing to take loving responsibility of her experience and wisdom to share it with the world. I have learnt through your modeling how it is to embrace the sacred masculine and sacred feminine within. I have witnessed and embodied the experience of being led with the spirit of love, the flow of water, depth and groundedness of the Earth, the wisdom of the winds of change and guidance of spirit.
I leave feeling nourished. It has been a journey so physical that my body aches and it feels good. I found it hard to access the grief I expected to show but instead touched new and unknown or unexpressed priorities. I felt held and loved. I felt like we are doing something important. We are. It is not a course. Through touching and experiencing the release of the collective grief it has loosened the stuck bits in me.
The first day was very full. I was tired when I arrived and quite fearful of my exhaustion after the first day. I’m not sure if that is a necessary part of it or if it is not.
I am leaving inspired to do all of the homework that was set for beforehand. I means more to me now. I love the weave. It enables me to see a little more how I can weave together the strands of my own journey, into something cohesive and my own, everyone’s honouring the deep and diverse lineages. Thank you. Wopila Mitakuye Oyasin, All my relations.
Leona
~~~
Dear SOULand
I am so grateful for the offerings you are bringing to us at this time.
The past three days at the Apprenticeship has met my longing for so many things that have been lost to me and that I need. I felt the loving preparations you had made to receive us and was really touched by the beauty and care we were given.
The strong, robust and respectful container you wove created a space for me to express my grief in all its wild forms. I love that.
The emphasis on personal responsibility and sovereignty is a welcome addition to allow me to find my own way.
I am leaving today having reclaimed some of my birthright and with a clear map to continue my journey home. With thanks and deep love, Linda
~~~
Thank you SOULand for turning your gentle light onto long forgotten place and spaces which were desolate and ghost like within me. For your work, courage and vision to take yourself to depths inside enabling a spacious landing place for us to arrive to be opened, unearthed and aired into the vitality of wholeness and being.
The honoring of this sacred act and emotion and the reverence with which you delicately ease her flowing through us enables us to welcome this passing and arriving within us.
The tapestry is woven from so many delicate and beautiful strands. Colours we have long forgotten about now no longer faded into memory but woven with grace and gratitude.
I take home with me a welcome returning and opening of simple sacred values. Of new openings in the spaces between our togetherness where new life can emerge.
~~~
As a collective of apprentices we spent three days in the rich embrace of SOULand. It is now a few days further along the road that I can reflect on the qualities of that embrace and give echo to what struck me and stays with me as I integrate and walk along.
SOULand is a place that opens with a question: What is your longing? Are you ready to die for it? Are you ready to give yourself away to it? What do you have to give ? Can you keep giving regardless of the rest? Can you move with grief away from lack and complain towards giving and repairing?
Over and over, SOULand presents me with the occasion to give, repair and be of service. This spring, we gathered as apprentices to Grief and Soul. Once more, I felt the confirmation that grieving collectively is a gift to life, to the lives of our ancestors and to the life that is to come. It is the freeing of the river that clears my vision of stiffening regrets. In the darkness of our Grief Composting ritual, I experienced tears of despair, transformed progressively into a screaming desire to live, and finally rested into a quiet readiness to appreciate what is and come back home to laughter. In darkness still, I could hear our individual voices merging into a large song of grieving, loving and questioning what aches.
Here we learn how to sit with each, supporting each other and not saving each other, entrusting the expression of our grief to the alchemy of compost.
~~~
Time is dense as every-thing, every-one and every of their expression is amplified by the attention it is gifted within the very particular embrace of SOULand.There is consistency in this attention, there is commitment, there is the belief that over time and breakdowns, there is the possiblity to transform all that matters. Here I learn to make prayers, to say them out loud, to infuse them into what I do. I am encouraged to make mistakes, to stumble and fall, and stand back again. SOULand cultivates deep care and beauty and asks us to visit the edges of this comfort where the fertile soil lies to grow our longings and bring them into form.
Titiane
~~~
Dear SOULand
I am deeply appreciative of the weaving and crafting of what SOULand offers. It is so much more than the welcoming of grief in community - and this is essential and life serving work enough! For me I glimpsed and was deeply nourished by seeing the bigger fabric of what SOULand does. I saw and felt the importance of personal practice and finding ways to connect to what we value. I saw how important it is to feel, express and begin to live our longings. I saw the essential nature of prayer and praise. I’m left feeling richer and more human, more woven than before. Azul’s love for this work and for the world shines through what she does. It is rare to find both depth and ease, playfulness and humility in a person. I can highly recommend spending time with Azul and anything she offers
With gratitude
Peter
It’s as if I took the long road back to this place and though this journey was long, the calling was longer.
Without knowing it fully, I have been carrying this place in my bones for a very long time and so I was welcomed back, back into the loving arms of my sorrow, my grief, my loss, my darkness and all of this I have felt from others also.
I was weary of carrying such burdens alone.
I went through forests of fear and disillusionment for decades. I fell into despair and thought it was my “sickness” to bear alone. To have my love and grief turned into sickness was another grief in and of itself. That shame around these precious truths almost persuaded me to take my own life.
And now, here in this village. I come to know a family of hearts, a container for my deep truths and I am witnessed, held, praised and loved for them.
Now I can find myself a home in a land between, the valley of death and the illusion of the world around me. Another continent is rising out of the sea and on it is this plateau, this safe haven island, village. It is a place where I can hold my hands out and in one hand hold the darkness and the other hands hold the hope.
That this bridging is happening later in life is a blessing in truth. I needed to drop to the soul of my longing and rise again, alone, so that I would even recognise the place of “Soul Land”.
The tools and vision woven here, I pray will continue to nourish me, in my mind, body and soul until the day I die.
Blessed be SOULand,
Charlotte J. Kessler
~~~
Dear Souland,
Deep Gratitude for your heartful, bold and essential work. For weaving your life, art and longings into your offerings and for waking up and calling out ours. I am completing feeling inspired to create an altar for all of the meaningful threads and a void from where they came from. Thank you Azul for your bold and humble presence, for your depth-honoring and life bringing insights, for the clashes of your heart and the shared tears of our souls. With love and deep gratitude,
Halina
~~~
Dear SOULand,
Thank you for offering me a place in this circle you hold in love, in nature amongst awakening humans. Thank you for your weave of traditions which has enabled me to touch in just enough to my longing, my grief, and my gratitude so that it feels like a beginning that will move through me, whilst also being an honouring of all I have lived with and through until now. In my own words of this morning : I was mush for the first two days and now on the third day I feel clear enough to feel excited to go back to life with a rich renewed soil and seeds replanted, ready to be tended daily with my altar and committed practice. I feel re-woven.
Azul, how you show up as teacher, human and Queen spirit gives me strength and courage to keep opening up and sharing more of myself. I could learn more from you and I have plenty to live on with. Thank you so much. Thank you for how you listened to the energy in the group and responded to our needs. I felt loved well.
Love,
Mari
~~~
Thank you
Heart Full to burst ~ We untangled to re-weave ~ Your presence is something I can lean on. Thank you for being yourself and for calling a circle of sanity which is a beautiful bubble of reality in these unreal and insane times. I feel relieved and not alone. I am quite isolated and burnt by community so I have new faith in people.
Love,
Camel
~~~
Dear SOULand,
I love being led by a woman. An elder who is choosing to take loving responsibility of her experience and wisdom to share it with the world. I have learnt through your modeling how it is to embrace the sacred masculine and sacred feminine within. I have witnessed and embodied the experience of being led with the spirit of love, the flow of water, depth and groundedness of the Earth, the wisdom of the winds of change and guidance of spirit.
I leave feeling nourished. It has been a journey so physical that my body aches and it feels good. I found it hard to access the grief I expected to show but instead touched new and unknown or unexpressed priorities. I felt held and loved. I felt like we are doing something important. We are. It is not a course. Through touching and experiencing the release of the collective grief it has loosened the stuck bits in me.
The first day was very full. I was tired when I arrived and quite fearful of my exhaustion after the first day. I’m not sure if that is a necessary part of it or if it is not.
I am leaving inspired to do all of the homework that was set for beforehand. I means more to me now. I love the weave. It enables me to see a little more how I can weave together the strands of my own journey, into something cohesive and my own, everyone’s honouring the deep and diverse lineages. Thank you. Wopila Mitakuye Oyasin, All my relations.
Leona
~~~
Dear SOULand
I am so grateful for the offerings you are bringing to us at this time.
The past three days at the Apprenticeship has met my longing for so many things that have been lost to me and that I need. I felt the loving preparations you had made to receive us and was really touched by the beauty and care we were given.
The strong, robust and respectful container you wove created a space for me to express my grief in all its wild forms. I love that.
The emphasis on personal responsibility and sovereignty is a welcome addition to allow me to find my own way.
I am leaving today having reclaimed some of my birthright and with a clear map to continue my journey home. With thanks and deep love, Linda
~~~
Thank you SOULand for turning your gentle light onto long forgotten place and spaces which were desolate and ghost like within me. For your work, courage and vision to take yourself to depths inside enabling a spacious landing place for us to arrive to be opened, unearthed and aired into the vitality of wholeness and being.
The honoring of this sacred act and emotion and the reverence with which you delicately ease her flowing through us enables us to welcome this passing and arriving within us.
The tapestry is woven from so many delicate and beautiful strands. Colours we have long forgotten about now no longer faded into memory but woven with grace and gratitude.
I take home with me a welcome returning and opening of simple sacred values. Of new openings in the spaces between our togetherness where new life can emerge.
~~~
As a collective of apprentices we spent three days in the rich embrace of SOULand. It is now a few days further along the road that I can reflect on the qualities of that embrace and give echo to what struck me and stays with me as I integrate and walk along.
SOULand is a place that opens with a question: What is your longing? Are you ready to die for it? Are you ready to give yourself away to it? What do you have to give ? Can you keep giving regardless of the rest? Can you move with grief away from lack and complain towards giving and repairing?
Over and over, SOULand presents me with the occasion to give, repair and be of service. This spring, we gathered as apprentices to Grief and Soul. Once more, I felt the confirmation that grieving collectively is a gift to life, to the lives of our ancestors and to the life that is to come. It is the freeing of the river that clears my vision of stiffening regrets. In the darkness of our Grief Composting ritual, I experienced tears of despair, transformed progressively into a screaming desire to live, and finally rested into a quiet readiness to appreciate what is and come back home to laughter. In darkness still, I could hear our individual voices merging into a large song of grieving, loving and questioning what aches.
Here we learn how to sit with each, supporting each other and not saving each other, entrusting the expression of our grief to the alchemy of compost.
~~~
Time is dense as every-thing, every-one and every of their expression is amplified by the attention it is gifted within the very particular embrace of SOULand.There is consistency in this attention, there is commitment, there is the belief that over time and breakdowns, there is the possiblity to transform all that matters. Here I learn to make prayers, to say them out loud, to infuse them into what I do. I am encouraged to make mistakes, to stumble and fall, and stand back again. SOULand cultivates deep care and beauty and asks us to visit the edges of this comfort where the fertile soil lies to grow our longings and bring them into form.
Titiane
~~~
Dear SOULand
I am deeply appreciative of the weaving and crafting of what SOULand offers. It is so much more than the welcoming of grief in community - and this is essential and life serving work enough! For me I glimpsed and was deeply nourished by seeing the bigger fabric of what SOULand does. I saw and felt the importance of personal practice and finding ways to connect to what we value. I saw how important it is to feel, express and begin to live our longings. I saw the essential nature of prayer and praise. I’m left feeling richer and more human, more woven than before. Azul’s love for this work and for the world shines through what she does. It is rare to find both depth and ease, playfulness and humility in a person. I can highly recommend spending time with Azul and anything she offers
With gratitude
Peter
Here is the rest of the emerging SOULand Events for 2019/2020 ~~~ with strong love ~~~
Azul Valerie Thome
I am writing with gathering butterflies in my belly to let you know about the most adventurous vision I have ever followed and activating as I type ~ it is called : SOULand Pilgrimage 2018 which started on 2nd January this year by the river Dart~ 13 Lands, 13 Water, 13 Hosts and 13 Pilgrimages completing on 21st January 2019. It will be followed with a book ~ gathering the harvested of shared stories of the many ways and practices for the caring, feeding and maturing of our Human Soul.
I will be travelling with SOULand's bundle of Grief Composting, WomBelt: Weaving Women back into Matter, Soul&Sanity making conversations with Grief, Love, Death and Life the four sisters of our last forest.
We will offer Water ceremonies. One2One mentoring will carry on for a handful of people. eARTh infused with rituals will be the gold thread of the pilgrimage.
The relationship between Water, Women and Soul will also inform the ongoing active prayer journey.
You can follow me and join us if you can in Totnes, California, France, Sicily, Belgium, Malvern, Ireland, Scotland, Bristol and Totnes for our LIFE CAIRN.
Switzerland, Canada and Slovenia are also being considered at present...
See HERE for full list of the various countries I will be actively praying with and where I will share what is emerging.
I will be moving following the invitations, what is being revealed and the rhythm of the moon throughout the year.
There are ways of supporting this SOUL maturing Pilgrimage journey with our newly hatched crowdfunding ~ set up by two dear sisters who have my back!
If you want to be kept informed about SOULand Pilgrimage 2018 enter your email HERE to receive SOULand Newsletters
Blessings on all our journeys and offerings as we get increasingly tempered and more than ever...needed! .
Azul-Valerie Thome for SOULand and for my mother (who died 3 months ago) and the 2000 generations behind...it is time to live this wild and precious Life while we can...for the living and for the dead.
Thank you for reading and for your support. See you perhaps weaving the gold thread somewhere on our astonishing little blue Home.
I will be travelling with SOULand's bundle of Grief Composting, WomBelt: Weaving Women back into Matter, Soul&Sanity making conversations with Grief, Love, Death and Life the four sisters of our last forest.
We will offer Water ceremonies. One2One mentoring will carry on for a handful of people. eARTh infused with rituals will be the gold thread of the pilgrimage.
The relationship between Water, Women and Soul will also inform the ongoing active prayer journey.
You can follow me and join us if you can in Totnes, California, France, Sicily, Belgium, Malvern, Ireland, Scotland, Bristol and Totnes for our LIFE CAIRN.
Switzerland, Canada and Slovenia are also being considered at present...
See HERE for full list of the various countries I will be actively praying with and where I will share what is emerging.
I will be moving following the invitations, what is being revealed and the rhythm of the moon throughout the year.
There are ways of supporting this SOUL maturing Pilgrimage journey with our newly hatched crowdfunding ~ set up by two dear sisters who have my back!
If you want to be kept informed about SOULand Pilgrimage 2018 enter your email HERE to receive SOULand Newsletters
Blessings on all our journeys and offerings as we get increasingly tempered and more than ever...needed! .
Azul-Valerie Thome for SOULand and for my mother (who died 3 months ago) and the 2000 generations behind...it is time to live this wild and precious Life while we can...for the living and for the dead.
Thank you for reading and for your support. See you perhaps weaving the gold thread somewhere on our astonishing little blue Home.
13 months international journey for the re-infusing and re-weaving of Soul into our lives
16/12/2017
SOULand Pilgrimage 2018 second land and water is in San Luis Obispo in February
We will be creating spaces for Soul to feel welcome again. We will learn with passion and little patience to feed, care, court and praise Her back into being.
I look forward to a deep and wild conversation with you all in the company of Grief, Love, Death and Life as if our Wild and Precious Life truly Mattered.
Azul-Valerie Thome
| Azul-Valérie Thomé is hosted by Donna Helete San Luis Obispo is the first stop on Azul's 13 month international SOULand Pilgrimage in service to the care, health and maturing of the human soul. She brings with her a vision, sacred questions and a bundle of soul nourishing practices and rituals, including the Grief Composting Circle and the WomBelt workshop to bless, heal, celebrate and protect women's wombs, divinely timed offerings that are in such need right now. Azul Valerie Thome will be traveling from the UK this February on the first international stop of her 13 month SOULand Pilgrimage generously hosted by Donna Helete. Registration for Workshops & Trainings WomBelt Workshops & Apprenticeships for Women ~ 2/7 (Wed.) For all women - all day ~ 2/18 (Sun.) For all women+apprenticeships - all day Each WomBelt (event & apprenticeship) = £65 = $95 depending on exchange rate ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Grief Composting Circles ~ 2/11 (Sun.) Circles for Men and Women - 3pm-7pm Grief Composting Circle = £20 = $30 depending on exchange rate ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Grief Composting Circle ~ Basic Training ~ 2/23-2/25 (Fri.-Sun.) 3 Day Training, all day each day. Must attend all 3 days. Non residential. Grief Composting Training = £380 = $550 depending on exchange rate ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Other offerings during the month of February include Individual sessions of Soul&Sanity (50 min.) with Azul in person or via Skype eARTh commissioned art work. Art infused with rituals infomred by our Motehr Earth for the Thriving of Life. Please email Azul directly for an initial chat on Skype: [email protected] Grief Composting Circles are regular collective grief rituals informed by the work of Sobonfu Some, Joanna Macy, Francis Weller and Azul-Valerie Thome WomBelt: Weaving Women back into Matter are events that bring 13 women together to bless, heal, celebrate and protect their wombs, the wombs of other women and of Mother Earth herself through the art of traditional backstrap weaving combined with story sharing and prayers. |  Azul-Valerie Thome of SOULand  Hosted by Donna Helete  |
“Tell me, what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” ~ Mary Oliver
More about SOULand Pilgrimage 2018:
This coming February, Azul-Valerie Thome will visit San Luis Obispo on the first international stop of a 13 month SOULand Pilgrimage which will launch from Azul’s home in the UK in January 2018. She will weave her visit to 13 lands, 13 rivers, 13 hosts, along with 13 prayers into a book in 2019. Donna Helete will host Azul during her stay.
She brings with her a Vision of a place called SOULand in Europe. A Water Mill/ land based Hospital and School for SOULand practitioners. A Place and a Programme to learn and remember rituals and practices for the care, health and maturation of the human Soul.
Azul brings with her sacred questions:
How do we remember, repair and create a soulful culture?
Azul brings with her a bundle of soul nourishing practices and rituals with the intention of giving people the experience of soul tending and training those who wish to carry on these practices.
Descriptions of Events and Offerings
Grief Composting Circles that weave together the traditions of Sobonfu Some, Francis Weller and Joanna Macy along with Azul’s own wisdom teaching.
The Circles are a 3.5 hour experience while the training is 3 days long.The Grief Composting Circle Training is for men and women wishing to hold circles for the well being of their community. In order to sign up for the training, it is best to have had the original experience of the Grief Composting Circle so please plan to sign up for both.
WomBelt: Weaving Women back into Matter. For Women. This full day workshop brings 13 women together to bless, heal, celebrate and protect their wombs, the wombs of other women and of Mother Earth herself through the art of traditional backstrap weaving combined with story sharing and prayers.
eARTh: Art infused with ritual, informed by Mother Earth, for Life. Azul will bring some eARTh pieces for sale and is open to commissioning new works in a collaborative process.
One2One: Soul&Sanity - Azul will offer a limited number of individual coaching sessions while she’s in town.
We hope you will join us on this pilgrimage to bring these soulful gifts to our community.
Azul and Donna with the support of a great community
SOULand Pilgrimage San Luis Obispo:http://www.souland.org/california-feb-2018.html
SOULand:www.souland.org
More about SOULand Pilgrimage 2018:
This coming February, Azul-Valerie Thome will visit San Luis Obispo on the first international stop of a 13 month SOULand Pilgrimage which will launch from Azul’s home in the UK in January 2018. She will weave her visit to 13 lands, 13 rivers, 13 hosts, along with 13 prayers into a book in 2019. Donna Helete will host Azul during her stay.
She brings with her a Vision of a place called SOULand in Europe. A Water Mill/ land based Hospital and School for SOULand practitioners. A Place and a Programme to learn and remember rituals and practices for the care, health and maturation of the human Soul.
Azul brings with her sacred questions:
- What does our soul need to thrive?
- What happens to Life when Soul is starved or traumatized?
- What are the connections between Soul, Women and Waters?
- Is the state of our Waters connected to the state of our Soul?
- How do we move from mental-health to soul-health?
How do we remember, repair and create a soulful culture?
Azul brings with her a bundle of soul nourishing practices and rituals with the intention of giving people the experience of soul tending and training those who wish to carry on these practices.
Descriptions of Events and Offerings
Grief Composting Circles that weave together the traditions of Sobonfu Some, Francis Weller and Joanna Macy along with Azul’s own wisdom teaching.
The Circles are a 3.5 hour experience while the training is 3 days long.The Grief Composting Circle Training is for men and women wishing to hold circles for the well being of their community. In order to sign up for the training, it is best to have had the original experience of the Grief Composting Circle so please plan to sign up for both.
WomBelt: Weaving Women back into Matter. For Women. This full day workshop brings 13 women together to bless, heal, celebrate and protect their wombs, the wombs of other women and of Mother Earth herself through the art of traditional backstrap weaving combined with story sharing and prayers.
eARTh: Art infused with ritual, informed by Mother Earth, for Life. Azul will bring some eARTh pieces for sale and is open to commissioning new works in a collaborative process.
One2One: Soul&Sanity - Azul will offer a limited number of individual coaching sessions while she’s in town.
We hope you will join us on this pilgrimage to bring these soulful gifts to our community.
Azul and Donna with the support of a great community
SOULand Pilgrimage San Luis Obispo:http://www.souland.org/california-feb-2018.html
SOULand:www.souland.org
River of Words and Images by Azul Thomé:
A place to lay what moves, touches and inspires.
Categories
All
Activism
Beauty
Death
EARTh
Extinction
Grief
Imagination
Life
Love
Mentoring
Pilgrimage 2018
Sacred
Seeing
Soul Health
Training
Vision
Water
WomBelt
Women
Archives
April 2024
February 2022
August 2021
June 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
July 2020
April 2020
February 2020
January 2020
November 2019
September 2019
July 2019
May 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
October 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
May 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
RSS Feed