Prayers in the Dark: Tending Our Visionary Fires

Place of event: Beautiful and silent place in the middle of the woods, 400 meters from the Baltic Sea. Map of the place

Limit: 16 persons

Costs:

1100€ if staying in equipped overnight tents

1300€ if staying in a double room

Event description: WE LIVE AT A PIVOTAL MOMENT IN EARTH’S HISTORY, a time of extraordinary challenge and uncertainty in which our precious world — with its endangered creatures and imperiled ecosystems — hangs by a precariously thin thread. The human species has entered a collective dark night — perhaps a necessary one. At an hour like this, each of us must dare to walk directly into the fires of love, bravely relinquishing old modes of being and surrendering ourselves to what is beckoning from the human soul and from what Thomas Berry calls, ‘the Dream of the Earth’.  While cooking in these fires, as we behold the breath-taking beauty of our world as well as its immense suffering, what visions might emerge from our prayers in the dark?

“In a dark time, the eye begins to see…” — Roethke

Radical personal and cultural transformation at this time requires a descent into the depths of soul, an initiatory journey that reveals our hidden and unique gifts, as well as a descent into the inescapable grief and despair evoked by a sober view of contemporary Western culture and the real possibility of self-inflicted extinction. The descent to soul enables us to cultivate our innate visionary skills, respond creatively to the dangerous opportunities of our times, and achieve real change in our world.

On a journey such as this, we encounter both demons and angels, fears, wounds, and the shadowy aspects of previously denied elements of our psyches, as well as awe, wonder, and enchantment. Your unique role in the larger Earth community is revealed in the mysterious symbols, metaphors, images, dreams, and numinous encounters that weave together your mythopoetic identity, which is your greater story or personal mission, “the truth at the center of the image you were born with,” “the largest conversation you can have with the world”. Your mythopoetic identity is your indispensible guide in fulfilling your purpose in this time of planetary crisis.

Prayers in the Dark is a wild invitation to enter the cave-womb of transformation and experience states of non-ordinary perception through a variety of practices and processes rooted in art, imagination, and the body. Our soulcraft practices will include dreamwork, council, shadow work, self-designed ceremony, conversations with the sacred Others (including cactus, sky, hawk and stone), creative expression, gentle wild yoga and movement, soul tasks in nature, befriending the dark, and sacred wound work.

Will you dare to dive into the holy dark mystery at the center of your life? Are you willing to reclaim your true voice and bravely add your song to the uni-verse, the symphony emerging at this pivotal moment in the Earth story? Are you willing to risk a radical re-imagining of your life’s purpose and return with sacred gifts for your people?

During our five days together, we’ll listen to and track what arises in our body, dreams, hearts, and imaginations, and follow our allurements. We’ll begin and end our days with prayer ceremonies, to listen and honor all the Others. We’ll live embraced by a desert community and pray to be sung to life by the profound truth of our own visions.

…Let us pray dangerously.

Let us throw ourselves from the top of the tower,

let us risk a descent to the darkest region of the abyss,

let us put our head in the lion’s mouth and,

direct our feet to the entrance of the dragon’s cave.

Let us ask for nothing less than the Infinite to ravage us.

Let us ask for nothing less than annihilation in the Fires of Love…

— Dangerous Prayers, by Regina Sara Ryan

The Guide:

Rebecca Wildbear: Rebecca is a river and soul guide, compassionately helping people tune in to the mysteries that live within the wild Earth community, Dreamtime, and their own wild Nature. She gently ushers people to the underground river of their greater story, so they may surrender to their soul’s deepest longing and embrace their sacred gifts, live a life of creative service, and rediscover their deep belonging to the Earth community. A therapist and wilderness guide since 1997, Rebecca utilizes her training and experience with yoga, meditation, Hakomi, and somatic psychotherapy to support individuals in discovering and manifesting their soul gifts. She also leads Animas programs and is on the faculty of Nosara Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. Rebecca is the creator of Wild Yoga™, a sacred way of breathing and moving, aligned with Earth and Soul.

Doug Van Houten: Doug draws on the wisdom of the natural world, depth-psychology, eco-psychology, dreams, somatic knowing, poetry, and many pan-cultural, soul furthering practices that includes: The Way of Council, vision fasting, trance dancing and conversations with the more than human world. Doug’s true calling in life is to support others as they uncover their own unique gifts and in so doing, transform their lives in service to what Thomas Berry called ”The Great Work” of our times. Doug is also an ardent beekeeper, a visual artist, a wily wanderer, a dream tracker, an emergent ceremonialist, a heart-centered activist, and a budding yoga instructor interested in new forms of yoga and somatic practice.  His website is www.bodyartsoul.org