Journey into the Dark with us
A deep winter community adventure
As each year passes, and with every turn around the sun I find myself craving the darkness of the winter. The bear living deep inside me speaks even more loudly as the first frost descends and bands of sleety rain move through the valley where I live. There is a particular madness to our frenzied busyness as we approach Christmas and the New Year and I yearn for something different, more ancient.Â
To retreat inwards feels normal, to rest feels normal. To bed in and stoke up the fire as a place for dreaming and connection, that feels normal too. Yet it feels so far from the reality of the descent into winter in these modern times, so uncomfortable we seem to be individually and collectively with the idea of sitting with the trouble. So distrustful of true silence and so quick to banish the darkness that we forget that it is the fertile source of all becoming.
But I also notice a trap, how easy to over romanticise the idea of wintering in these old ways. It would also have been a time of intense not knowing and anxiety.
Would the winter be particularly cold or long or wet or windy?
Have we stored enough food?
Will we even make it through?
What if the light doesn’t return?Â
Our modern ‘not knowing’ might not be so visceral and more existential but its clear we are in dark times. What if the light doesn’t return seems like an appropriate question to ask right now.
An invitation into something deeper
This January we’ll begin our fourth deep winter crew learning adventure.
What would it be like to consciously go into the dark in community?
How can we use it as a container to begin to root our intentions for where we place our energy as the light returns and do so in relation to the web of life?
They say it is at its darkest just before dawn, so we’ll gather online just at the point where it feels like the dark will go on forever. After the bright lights have been put away, when our bold New Years resolutions for the future are flagging in the cold January wind, just when the doubting questions are at their loudest.
Going into the dark is an ancient technology, the fertile place through which everything is born. We will come together to find ways to embrace the softness of the dark and nurture the creative stirrings of what lies within us. It will be a place to gather close, to pay attention to visions and dreams of what might need to be born into the light.
Over 5 weeks we’ll embark on a slow, emergent, creative process together. We meet on consecutive Thursday evenings from 19:00 - 21:00 GMT.
In our first three sessions (23rd and 30th January and 6th February) we deepen into relationship with one another, a small intimate crew around our virtual fire. We’ll work with creative practices to explore the questions and possibilities we’re holding, the seeds of potential and the places that need to be let go of, composted deep in the earth. We’ll also start to build some practices to deepen our connection to the more-than-human world around us with experimental invitations to venture into the places that we live in.
It all builds towards a solo experience, a Threshold Walk. It is a self-paced and self-placed experience, intended to be taken in the place of your choosing, ideally in the place you live or where you find yourself at that moment. Depending on your needs it can be taken from before dawn to after dusk, over a whole day, but it doesn’t have to be, it could be a gentler, slower experience. We’ll work with you to find the experience that best meets your needs, energy level and the questions you are holding. It will take place on either Saturday or Sunday 8th or 9th February.
The questions are key. This is an intentional ceremony, not just a walk. To take our deepest questions alone out onto the land is an ancient technology, not just a mindfulness hack. How can you become so deeply entangled with place that it begins to speak through you? What messages are there out there if you build a devotional practice, to listen with your whole being in the deep silence of a mid-winter dawn?
We return on the Sunday evening (9th February) to our virtual fireside and through the practice of Council we will share the stories of our time, and through creative practice we’ll start the tender, emergent process of paying attention to what we received, what gentle threads of becoming are there?
Our final session, (Thursday 13th February) is dedicated to the incorporation process. Incorporation, is literally the process of embodiment, to make ‘of the body’, Reconnecting to your initial question and what came up in the solo we’ll work with a range of integration practices to help you embody the change as the light grows.
Who will you become in service of life on Earth ?
This is the fourth time we have offered this experience and each time a small, intimate crew has gathered in the darkness from many places around the world. As we’ve each embarked on our Threshold walk ceremonies it has been a sweet medicine to feel the presence of others doing the same thing in their place, alone but profoundly together. As we shared our stories in that ancient way in community, their threads begin to weave themselves together in the darkness. An alchemical moment when we recognise the entanglement of our human longing, in a more-than-human world.
If you are curious to find out more find all the details here.
We believe in the need and potential of inter-generational learning spaces and offer a number of discounted spaces to young people aged 18-25 yrs in education and/or part time work. We also offer payment plan options if spreading the cost would allow you to participate.
This journey will be guided by myself, Dan and Ally Kingston.
With love and solidarity in these dark times.