Courses
“We must get back into relation…. We must once more practise the ritual of dawn and noon and sunset…. The ritual of the moon in her phases…the ritual of the seasons…the ritual of the great events in the year of stars…. It means a return to ancient forms.”
~ D.H. Lawrence
2024
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FREE 3-PART INTRODUCTION:
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INVITATION:
Many who have gone uninitiated into the reality of a relational world long to reclaim an ancestral wisdom of belonging; but with so few intact lineages left to us now, we are often at a loss as to how we:
*reconnect with traditions that evolved from the worldview of other times and places without diminishing their power and intent by practicing them out of context
*approach such practices from an understanding that tradition means “a delivering up, a handing down, a surrendering over” of teachings to be interpreted by and made relevant to present generations so that they remain a living expression of our relationship to life
*reject reconstructionist and reductionist treatments of these traditions so that they do not become performative or transactional
*bond with the land we find ourselves on and the traditions that arose from it in ways that do not appropriate or colonize
The integrity of these intentions rests on beginning where all ancestral traditions first arose from: a deep embodiment with the cycles – the spiritus, the breath – of place. Our restoration back into this shared spiritual ecology starts, as artist and educator Martín Prechtel puts it, with becoming “indigenously at home right in the lost place where we have drifted to” – a respiration with interbeing we need look for no farther than:
*the daily solar, monthly lunar, and yearly celestial cycles
*the seasons and their directional weather patterns
*the landscape and its features, flora, and fauna
*the elements
That we are born from, into, and with these rhythms that animate life – with the inspiration of ascent, increase, and expansion, the expiration of descent, decrease, and contraction, and the two subtle pauses that bridge them – was foundational to the ancients’ understanding of the universe and their purpose within it, both seen and unseen. To reconnect with the ancestral traditions that evolved from this spiritual ecology we have only but to come back into presence; we have only but to breathe.
Come join us over the breath of a year as we gather to explore this “respiration” together through embodiment practices, living resources, and shared insights.
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ONLINE:
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TIME:
2:00pm-3:30pm EST
DATES:
Sunday, March 24th: “Landing and Locating”
Sunday, June 23rd: “Becoming Place”
Sunday, September 22nd: “Inviting the Imaginal”
Sunday, December 22nd: “Feeding Beauty”
FEE:
$125 CAD
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INCLUDES:
*4 live/recorded gatherings (Zoom)
*a printable guidebook (made available upon registration)
*all handouts and additional resources (emailed after each session)
REGISTRATION:
Opens Monday, January 8th, 2024.
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Email Erin Holtz Braeckman at villageyogastudio@hotmail.com to register.
In support of social and environmental justice both locally and globally, a portion of all proceeds are donated to:
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​YWCA Crossroads Shelter, Kawartha Food Share, UN Refugee Agency, Ontario Nature,
YES Shelter for Youth and Families, Lovesick Lake Women's Association
FREE Spiritual Ecology "Breath of the Year" printable template --->