SOULand takes me on an epic eARTh and Grief pilgrimage in 2018

~ SOULand ~ "a Hospital Sanctuary and a Programme for the care, health and maturing of the human SOUL"
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SOULand is a vision that gathered around my eyes in 2015, a Place (a working Water Mill still to be found) and a Programme for the Care, Maturing and Homecoming of Soul.
It is the vision of an alternative offering to medication, alienation, depression, suicide, homelessness and the repeated cycles of traumas and shocks.
It is a Place and a Programme of regular Collective Grief Work, of Initiatory Practices and regular Rite of Passage, the Accompaniment of our Dying world, the Welcoming and Making of our New one.
A place where we Make together the World of our Longing through eARTh, Beauty, Sacred Arts, Dance, Ceremonies and Rituals that acknowledge the sacred needs of our starving Soul in our time of profound crisis and thresholds.

This Vision of SOULand gives such great colours and meaning to my life, I am grateful for it. May all doubts and limitations be welcome to seat in council. 2018 is calling for a greater leap of faith and trust that we are part of a mending web of support and creativity. SOULand is my Give Away, my Life's work. I am blessed to present it you!

Let me share some of the training for the Work. It took me almost a life time to survive and bring meaning and soul to the predicament of my tempered life. I have been experiencing since birth ongoing life threatening abandonments, repeated brutal foster care, regular diverse abuse, ongoing betrayals, deep shocks and traumas, war as a child, rape, ongoing shaming violence, alcoholic mother, addicted parents can take one into many directions.

The list above looks to me totally similar to what our dear Earth has suffered with such dignity and grace. My devoted Teacher. I am blessed!

​The results of such a forging and tempering rough initiations calls us to one or all three of the following paths:

1. Suicide and Death
2. Pathologies existence, Isolated and highly Medicated.
3. or...An ascent into gathering the bundle of our threads to weave a life of SOUL. SOULand is that path. A path of courage, beauty, depth, connection and meaning with Grief, Love, Death and Life tightly woven in the Conversations..

SOULand Programme started in 2015 with

• Grief Composting Circles (Ongoing Rituals for Collective Grieving),
• eARTh ( Art infused with Rituals informed by Earth for the Thriving of all Life)
• the Black Tent Councils (Initiatory ceremonies for Menopausal Women).

In 2016 a series of ceremonies for the wellbeing of Water
In July 2017 WomBelt: Weaving Women back into Matter was successfuly launched

​In 2018 due to an increase amount of invitation in various countries I made a leap of faith and widened the vision to a SOULand Pilgrimage: 13 Lands, 13 Rivers, 13 Hosts, 13 Pilgrimages. to then perhaps be blessed with the ability to write a Book weaving the threads emerging from the questions below:

Do we need such Places and Programmes? What does our Soul need to thrive? What happens when Soul starves or does not get fed what she needs? Is our Soul traumatised?

What are the consequences of a traumatised & starving Soul on our human and non human communities?
We need to move from MentalCare to SoulCare? How? Who knows about this? How to repair and create a Soulful culture?

Some of the questions and seeds I will bring with me on my bundle and SOULand Pilgrimage in 2018.

If you would like to support this epic SOUL journey please email me: [email protected]. I am about to launch a crowdfunding Campaign to support the travelling and living costs while on the road for the SOULand Pilgrimage.

With a tender and passionate heart, thank you!
Azul-Valérie Thomé
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http://www.souland.org/souland-programme.html

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Feel free to email me: [email protected] if you are interested in any of the above, to host SOULand, to participate in on elf the various workshops, councils, ceremonies and training available for women and men.

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