“It’s Important”. “It is love”, wrote Poppy, 8 years old, at the end of our Totnes Life Cairn community meeting.

​We gathered in Totnes, last week, to design together the creation of a memorial for the honouring of Extinct Species for the 1st December 2018 on Sharpam Estate*. 

Most of us had read the IPCC report* adding weight to the Message of Water* and most recently Extinction Rebellion* and Rising Up* all rippling in each one of us as we sat.  

We shared our deep longing to be engaged in the profoundly bewildering times of our collapsing and transmuting world. 

How can our actions really matter? 

How can we attempt to make meaning when reading the published numbers* of our extinct species being between 100 and 150 species a day? 
Every 24 hours ~ animals, invertebrates, fungi and plants will never court, sing, nest, seed, 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?  

​As an designer of eARTh rituals including Grief Composting Circles I know that we cannot and must not meet this stage of awakening alone. 

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 inter connectedness with all of Life thus bringing up an immense grief, un~skilled and feared in many of us.  

We seem to be totally astonished by the depth of our love for our Earth. 

The child’s presence, her holding of Love as a beacon alchemised the space and the meeting. Her mother sat there by her side, strong and open.
I felt that Poppy’s presence brought some sanity to our community. 

I remember doing the Council of all Beings* with a whole classroom in london some years ago. Each child chose an other than human being to speak for and from. Animals, rivers, mountains, tiger, worms and bees entered the class room among others . The children made masks to personify each of the sentient beings. They then spoke from that place sat in council with a talking stick.

I then understood that children know what is going on here on Earth at this time. I feel that children deeply need and deserve beautiful, strong and lovingly held spaces where they can bring their voices to the adults and to each other about what is going on in our world.

Thank you my dear Poppy for bringing your beautiful self and your lion heart to the meeting of the memorial for extinct species - a life Cairn which will be created by our community on 1st December 2018 . 

We will depart from STEAM PACKET INN at 11:30am in a procession towards the site on Sharpham Estate about 30-40 minutes walk away, following the river Dart. 

Each of us will carry a stone representing an extinct species.  We might stop a few times for a song or a poem.  We might carry a mask of be face painted .  We will then, once on the site offered by the Trust, place our stones, naming these animals, plants and other organisms that are no longer on our Earth...  We will then have a grief ritual with music and songs and allow what needs to move, move through us.

After a while we might feel a natural move towards celebrating who is still alive that we long to protect.

It is important and yes it is love! 
Join us! All welcome. 

Azul Valérie Thomé 
More details at SOULand  
Facebook event Page: Life Cairn in Totnes

GRIEF COMPOSTING CIRCLE~ BOOKING ESSENTIAL
14:00 to 18:30 CLOSED CIRCLE

A 4 hours deep and beautiful Ancient Earth Wisdom based Ritual to Compost our Grief and return to Love
Part happens in total darkness.
A space for all grief not only focused on Remembrance day. 
It is not a substitute for regular self care and therapy. 
​
at WOODLAND PRESENTS in Devon
All donations will go towards the creation of our Life Cairn in Totnes  

REMEMBRANCE EVE ~ OPEN TO ALL
19:00 to 21:00 OPEN TO ALL
​
​At WOODLAND PRESENTS in Devon
COME WITH SOME DRY WOOD and A CANDLE
​if you can. 

​We will have a hat going round to harvest donations of a few pounds from each of you to support the happening of our Life Cairn in Totnes on the 30th November. and 1st December 2018 

During a 'Council of All Beings', last month, I was 'chosen' by Extinction. We were to gather on a tiny island in a Belgium lake.

As you can imagine I tried to negotiate a better 'deal' something a little easier like a River or even the last One-Eyed Faisant for example...nothing was to be n-e-g-o-tiated

It was to be... I would represent and speak from Extinction. We all sat as a Council.

For the people who have done this ritual before you know the structure.

First we speak to one other as a Council of All Beings ( apart from humans).
We then address the humans.
We tell them of our suffering and hardship due to their activities and choices.
Then knowing how humans need support to learn and act differently we give away some of our 'medicine', some of our energy/quality/skills and nature .

Extinction spoke through me these words to Humans:
" I am offering you an 'Apprenticeship to Emptiness'. I am offering you the capacity to free yourself of always needing to 'Understand'. Instead I invite you to dive in the Heart and in the Body. To come back into the flesh and to create and birth together a new species . To re-Incarnate into a new Species. "

Could that mean I wonder that the 150 to 200 species of animals/plants and fungi who are being extinct EACH DAY...Could that mean that their songs, their ways of life, their Love for their kins and the web of life... Could that mean that their ways and sensitivities could be what the new generations of human children carry and manifest in our world?

I meet an increasing number of children who are of high connectivity and sensitivity. Children and youths who cannot enter or engage with any of the collapsing systems anymore without great costs to their health and well being. They hear and communicate with plants, animals and their cosmology is present. I bow to their parents who are being initiated by these young being.

So perhaps the 1000's of species being extinct each week.  Perhaps that their energy and beauty are being reincarnated into a new species that look like humans but are a more evolved, connected and awakened species re-in-carn-ated from all that we are loosing right now.

I am opening a conversation would you be touched by this topic.  I hold no fundamental truth but rather I attempt to bring messages that are being regularly passed on from what is perhaps called  the collective imagination,. The very same one that created the world we are now in!

Thank you
Valerie Thome for SOULand.org

No electricity for 20 years, no wifi, internet, mobile phone. They pledged poverty to not take from the already very poor. They make their flour with ancient wheat grown by a neighbour, bake their bread. honey, olive oil, sweet chestnut flour are from their land and sentient beings. Their vegetables are stored in old washing machine barrels to last as long as possible. 
​
Each day the 8 wildish sheep with large bells need tending. They help lessening the fire risk by eating the grass on the many terrasses made by the ancients of this land in the Ardeche in France. 

Each week people from all sorts of background and walks of life, all pilgrims, come to pray and find a portal to spirit again. Some bring walnuts from their fields, butter (getting rarer in France) or chocolate from Carrefour. 
Abundance always seem to enter that space. 

Hermits living near by take care of the flowers for the tiny dark chapel made of schist, stones and local wood...so dark it takes a minute to see the simple icons, the long candle and the quiet welcomed stove in a corner. 

Two 'little brothers' live there in a tiny Monastery 'La Demeure notre Père'. One 'brother' arrived as a young man at 20 years old 43 years ago, Paul. He went for a week from Holland and never left. The other arrived 36 years ago and is now 73, Jean-Michel. They follow and are totally devoted to Jesus and to some books that are not easy to take in as a woman (an other post). ...yet my heart opened like a pear tree blossom in their company this last few days perched in a sweet little wooden cabin by a stream where I lived and prayed.

3 times a day there were set time for praying together in the chapel in communion, in songs and in silence sometimes. I kept staring at Marie, she looked dignified, beautiful and kind there. I needed that energy so gratefully.
It has been a road of real mystery and quite humbling which I needed . 

These people have been sharing their place with a hospitality, generosity and 'bienveillance' that as a non Christian I feel truly blessed by. Their openness to 'the other' has disarmed me...and taught me much. 

Their impact on our earth is like the one of a honey bee... pollinating, creating beauty, living within mystery and of service to the greater whole. 

That perhaps is the important element when setting up a place of sanctuary, that it is of service to a Divine entity. Creation, Pachamama, God, Jesus, Allah or anything else that connects us to the great mystery...then perhaps there is a possibility to get a glimpse at what being a human being could be and offer a place of rest and listening.

They fought, were grumpy, impatient and rough sometimes... They never pretended to be nor wanted to be perfect. Their humanity on their sleeves, knowing themselves, they fell down so many times and kept getting up to stand for life. 

They work all the time through waves of elated exhaustion (63 and 73 they are) ~ welcoming a 'stranger pilgrim' and praying times always take priority. We prayed for two/three brothers to find their way there and stay to help out. And they want to keep working until the last breath...retirement? from what :-) they say?

Everything for them is borrowed and to be tended to. I think it might be love.
They are to me the pioneers of tomorrow. 

Feeling blessed to have followed my broken heart after the suicide of a friend, to share a moment with these beautiful sacred and scarred souls. Thank you! Azul

www.souland.org

On this stormy wet morning, while wandering in the mazes and wild mycelium of psyche, I day dreamt of how to access our innate knowing as women to fulfil our life's  longing. I hear from many is is to bring our greatest gifts to our Pachamama ...  How?

My latest work with WomBelt: Weaving Women back into Matter has been a gold thread to follow into the depth of Soul, into her deep waters and wisdom. Into the healing crisis ...sometimes so very intense and we feelunder such great pressure.

Most of us are still strongly encouraged to be in the Head and in the Heart... why are we avoiding the great wisdom of our Womb? Perhaps because so much grief and trauma is also held there?

The start of an exploratory system emerged then. I am calling it: THE TRIWOMAN’s AGREEMENTS which took me to Life's origin... hang on and sorry if I go to fast...

BACTERIA
So we, Life on Earth,  came out of our Pachama’s womb as simple cells from a single Bacteria ~ ‘Bak: ‘staff used for support’.  It was thanks to the capacity to hold that sort of intense pressure that enabled all our relations to live on the land and breath our air and thrive. 

And what about the Water Bears? the Tardigrade are also Extremophile: The Ones who Love Extremes.

These beings; the 'Staff used for Support', the 'Lovers of Pressure' and 'Lovers of Extremes' can perhaps teach us how to hold the pressure and extremes of our time with a 3.8 billions years old wisdom.  

They could teach us again us, women, to hold the pressure deep into our Womb, our Ocean, while our new emerging world transmute its toxicity and poisonous air and lands into a planet that supports life again ~ with or without us in it.

That is not what matters to me whether we stay or not.  What matters is to return to our humanity, within the time we have, and return to the original web of life. 

So today I am in love with Piezophiles with gratitude for showing up in my life with their wondrous teachings.

Azul 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 
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Grief Composting Circles
~ 2/11 (Sun.) Circles for Men and Women - 3pm-7pm
Grief Composting Circle = £20 = $30 depending on exchange rate
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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
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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:  soulandinfo@gmail.com
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.