Below are some of the great workshops lined up for Healing-the-Spirit
2006. Workshops are listed alpha by title with
a brief description and the names of their presenters. To learn more
about a particular presenter, please browse
the presenters page.
Alchemical
Fire Circle Pre-Heat
Amy, Whittney and Mike
Our All Night Fire Circle is an organic, improvisational,
magickal working where the group and each person in the group can
plug in, get juiced up, work through and express their connection to
Spirit. Our intent is for people to find, in their work and
the spontaneous connections that happen aound the fire, a pathway to
healing and personal transformation -
Spiritual Alchemy.
We believe that even the most experienced improv artists, healers
and Alchemists benefit from a repertoire of what they can do to help
focus them and prepare them to jump into the world of pure Improvisation
of Spirit. The intent of these 2 workshops
is to work together and share some chants, rhythms, and meditations
so we can learn from each others' repertoires and have an experience
of connecting, focusing and expressing ourselves with each
other in Circle. Building this mutual support we believe will
make it that much easier to feel safe to reach for the Gold and experience
Spirit Saturday...
We encourage anyone planning to attend any part of the Alchemical
Fire Circle to attend one or both workshops.
Exploring
Mandalas
Amy Lawrence
Mandalas tap into the power of sacred geometry and symbols. Their structure and
order link them to ceremonial magic. Their symbolism is nonverbal and provides
a direct route to the subconscious. Our playful exploration will focus on the
practical applications of mandalas in healing and transformation.
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Henna Adornment
Mike Miller
Henna body art has been practiced as a form of ritual adornment in
cultures around the world for centuries. A typical application of henna
dye to the body can result in what looks like a brown, orange or red
tattoo that gradually fades over a period of several days up to a
few weeks. We will briefly go over recipes and practice how to go about
simple designs, finishing with actual applications to the
body in intentional space.
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Introduction
to the Seven Sacred Truths
Arakeane and Selene
Energy work can be enhanced when one increases one's own personal
confidence and one has a better grasp of spiritual anatomy. This
course first concentrates on building self-esteem through a brief
discussion and a series of exercises that focus on spiritual energy
realization. Although these exercises can be likened to throwing
one into a spiritual lake and seeing if you can swim, there is no
danger as you will have trained lifeguards standing by. Regardless
of how well you find yourself able to swim, there will be no doubt
that the spiritual (water) exists and that by building up your confidence,
you can do better and better with your spiritual practices.
The second part of the class discusses the Seven Sacred Truths of
energy that are revealed by using your chakra as a lens to focus power.
Each chakra has a relationship to your spiritual and physical anatomy.
For example, a person with a stomach ache may be experiencing anxiety
over a trust issue.
If the trust issues are too intense, this can lead
to other problems like ulcers and bulimina. Examining the symptoms
through the lens of the third chakra, identifies this problem in more
detail than one might get from a simple full body scan. Discussing
the situation with the patient, may reveal the nature of the trust
issue and suggest third chakra work that would help the patient, such
as confidence exercises and NLP minimization. The key to success is
to impart a clear understanding of the sacred truth of the third chakra
to the patient, which is "Honor
Oneself".
We will briefly discuss each of the chakras during the class and we
will be happy to continue the discussion after class for those who
wish to get more in-depth. We will also be happy to discuss self-help
issues with anyone who has a specific problem that they are working.
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Intuitive Development
Beth Lynch
Everyone has the natural ability to receive intuitive information.
If you have forgotten the time when you talked to the animals as easily
as you talked to your friends or when you knew things intuitively and
trusted that knowing, this workshop provides a fun and exciting opportunity
to remember and practice this skill.
The goal for this workshop is for you to leave with the knowledge
and skills needed to enhance your intuitive potential. After a discussion
of the principles of telepathic communication and intuitive knowing,
we will spend time doing exercises and receiving feedback from Beth
and the other participants.
This is a fun, noncompetitive workshop where you can relax and be
open. We will start exactly where you are and move forward from there.
Please bring a small personal object to use in one of the exercises.
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Lift
Your Voice in Praise to the Gods
Whittney Matlock
In many spiritual traditions the voice is considered the ultimate
tool for creation and spiritual union. Our voice should be one of
the tools always available for us to use in magikal space, yet, in
the modern Pagan world, many of us are mute. Maybe you don’t
know the words. Maybe you don’t know the melody. Maybe someone
told you that you could not sing. None of this is important! We have
voices so we can lift our spirits to the realm of the Gods.
Here we will start by teaching you the basic
techniques needed to produce sound without damaging your voice. With
a good foundation built, we will explore the expression of Spirit
through voice. We will play with simple toning to hear the song that
Spirit inspires within you. We will also work with some “old” standard
Pagan Circle chants and introduce some new ones
for you to explore.
Spirit
is singing all around you. Open your heart, release your fears and
join in the celestial chorus. Awaken, rejoice and sing!
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Myth,
Ritual, Action!
Mike Miller
Myth isn't dead or static. It's a living creative process. Our
ancestors told Myth stories. They also performed rituals marking or
celebrating important events. I believe they were and still can be
very strongly interconnnected. We all have been to modern rituals where
the centerpiece of the ritual contained a story or Myth either told
or acted out. But our stories and Myths also contain the blueprints
for modern rituals if we look at them closely enough. In this workshop
we will each tell a myth/story, then we will all discuss how parts
of the story can be interpreted to convey the real actions to be performed
in a real modern ritual. Time permitting, we will then perform them.
Please come to a class able to briefly tell the story of a myth that
is important to you.
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Trance
Postures
Whittney Matlock
Our bodies are equipped with an amazing input device called the human
nervous system that is always with us and working for us, informing
all the conscious and subconscious decisions we make in our everyday
lives. What
if we could harness the power of our marvelous input system to feed
specific information to our conscious and subconscious mind during
ritual and trance work, too?
Dr.
Felicitas Goodman, in her research into the ritual use of trance
at the Cuyamungue
Institute, demonstrated that our nervous system can do just that. She
and her research teams investigated
the body postures represented in pre-industrial
art and discovered that our ancestors left us clues
to the greatest gift they could give us - how to use our bodies
to tune our minds to specific areas of trance consciousness.
This workshop
will explore Dr. Goodman’s work, briefly covering
the sources of her research and the 4 ingredients of trance state. Most
of the workshop time will be spent experiencing 3 of the 58 best-researched
trance postures for ourselves and discussing the visions they help generate
in sacred space. Please bring a notebook and writing implement to record
your experiences and please arrive on time. Once intentional
space is set, the doors will be closed so there will be no distractions.
If interested in suggested reading, you may browse
the resources page.
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Warping Space and Time
Arakeane and Selene
For centuries, science has been seen as a tool to discredit the Wiccan
practice. As we move into the 21st century, the tide has turned.
Science is now illuminating Wiccan practices and establishing scientific
evidence that substantiate Wicca and magickal practices in general.
There are many Wiccan practices where alteration of space and time
is helpful. For example, we know energy disperses with distance. If
one wishes to send healing energy, it is helpful to warp space to bring
the receipient as close as possible before dispersing the healing energy.
Wiccans have been warping space and time by their will for some time
now. This workshop presents sound scientific information and theoretical
scientific methods that support warping space and time. Each of the
underlying mechanisms which make this feasible are presented. The discussion
is adaptable to the level of detail that participants wish to pursue.
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If you have a workshop idea you would like to present at Healing-the-Spirit,
please email
Whittney with the phrase "Healing-the-Spirit Workshops"
in the subject line to discuss your workshop idea.
Thank you.
Dark Blessings.
