New life

As the days lengthen in the Northern Hemisphere, and we approach the midpoint between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox, the first signs of new life are emerging from the earth.

I have spent many hours in the past two weeks getting to know unhoused folks at four “Safe Spot” camps here in Eugene. My job is to support our residents in cultivating intentional community to facilitate healing from the trauma of homelessness and create conditions favorable to remaining in long-term housing.

One young man, in his 20s, stands out to me. Shy and soft-spoken, this fellow grew up on a ranch in Texas. While I don’t know the particulars of how he ended up on the streets of Eugene, I do know that he takes pride in his job, rides a push scooter regardless of the weather, and enjoys tending to five small garden beds, 1 foot x 3 feet in size, within the confines of the chainlink fence that surrounds his Safe Spot community.

After regaling me with stories of how locals have egged their shelters, jumped over the fence at 3 am, and keyed their cars, it became clear to me that the fence and locked gates serve to protect the unhoused from the housed population at these sites, and not the other way around.

I inquired about three tiny garden beds arranged in the shape of a triangle next to this young man’s hut, a small sanctuary of soil atop the slab of gray concrete that this community calls home.

These small beds don’t look like much, but the young man spoke of growing parsley last year, how he enjoyed pouring a cup of water on the plants in the heat of summer, and how he’d like to grow some new things this year.

Then he brightened: had I seen the garden beds over by the gate? I hadn’t and walked over to find dozens of garlic shoots filling two small garden beds.

“Those are from last year,” he said, happily, and I realized that these shoots represented the possibility of new life after death. He had watched the garlic shoots die back last year, chose not to harvest the bulbs, and is enjoying the first signs of new life emerging from the soil during the winter, a time of year that is especially hard on the unhoused.

While this young man enjoys the safety a fence and a locking door provide, his temporary shelter doesn’t have electricity. Living without heat, the dark and cold of these months take their toll on the body, yes, but even more on the spirit. 

My friend tending to his small gardens in a sea of concrete speaks of so many things, like the wisdom and folly of cultivating intentional community among the unhoused on these unforgiving streets as well as the healing power of tending to small pockets of life wherever we are, whatever our life circumstances. 

What might the image of these garden beds, or the example of our unhoused teacher, suggest to you?

Speaking of new life, this circle will now be held on Fridays from 4-6 pm PST to accommodate my new work schedule. For those who cannot come on Fridays, my sincere apologies. For those who can now attend our circles, welcome.

Council

When we meet in our weekly circle, we use the practice of Council to surface our intentions for in-sight meditation using the sacred drumbeat:

When listening, listen from the heart without analyzing, agreeing, or disagreeing.

When speaking, speak from the heart, naming what is alive right now.

Be lean of expression, going to the core of what needs to be spoken.

Be spontaneous, trusting what comes, rather than what one has rehearsed or what one thinks should be said.

With deep respect for each others’ privacy and the transiency of the moment, we keep confidence regarding what is spoken, not engaging with participants over what is said nor sharing specific content with others.

RSVP

Our free soul-tending circle will be held this week on Friday, February 3, from 4-6 pm PST/7-9 pm EST.

Feel free to email me at anna “at” gaiaanimism “dot” com for this week’s zoom invitation.  All skill levels are welcome.

Courage to act

You are invited to join us for a soul-tending circle this Wednesday, January 25, from 5-7 pm PST.

Using the sacred drumbeat to connect to the wisdom of the heart, gathering with intention around the fire of sacred community, this circle is meant to help us root in the deeper wisdom and love that upholds and supports us in every moment.

Only with practice, friendship, and time set apart from the demands of the day, can we glimpse and become acquainted with the Love that generously provides all the ingredients we need for life.

I’ve been thinking a lot about spirituality as I meet with unhoused folks living in shelters without electricity and running water this past week. Really, at the end of the day, what good is it? 

In the practice of spirituality, be it meditation, prayer, sacred circle, or sit spot (as some examples), we practice devotion to something larger than ourselves. For me, that being is Gaia, but for you, “It” might be something or someone else. 

To me, the point of spirituality isn’t found in the names of our Gods or the practices themselves, but instead in what the discipline of devotion engenders in each of us. 

A spirituality worth its salt helps us to learn what is ours to learn, embrace what we’ve previously held at arm’s length, and supply the courage we need to move into action.

I feel so much better a week into it, y’all. This was the next logical step on my journey. Without this sacred community and practice, I wouldn’t have said “yes” to the challenge.

Thank you. I hope you can join us this week. 

RSVP

Our free soul-tending circle will be held this week on Wednesday, January 18, from 5-7 pm PST/8-10 pm EST.

Feel free to email me at anna “at” gaiaanimism “dot” com for this week’s zoom invitation.  All skill levels are welcome.

The journey continues

After several years of hosting our online journey circle on Wednesdays 4-6 pm PST, the time will change to Wednesdays from 5-7 pm PST/8-10 pm EST.

I accepted a position with Community Supported Shelters this week to help create intentional community among unhoused folks living in temporary shelters in Eugene.

What was a search for very part-time work, 10-12 hours a week, turned into a 30-hour-a-week position. I am over the moon to get to hone my relational skills and build community while helping folks transition from life on the streets into stable housing.

Per capita, Eugene has the largest unhoused population in the US:  http://www.citymayors.com/society/usa-cities-homelessness.html

This new job will force me to restructure my work with Gaia Shamanism, which was already in the process of being reimagined for 2023.

I will be dropping the word “shamanism” from my practice (for more reasons than I can enumerate here) but will continue the work of building spiritual community and fostering earth connection, as well as bringing action to the forefront of the practice, purpose, and function of spirituality in our world.

Because of this new job, I will focus more on group work in what will be called Gaia Spirit Rising, be it soul-tending circles, forest therapy walks, or exploring the practice of “engaged animism” while de-emphasizing my one-on-one spiritual guidance work with the exception of those folks who are already in Wayfinding with me.

My first day of work is Monday at 9 am.

The journey continues. 

I hope you can join us this week at the new time.

Council

When we meet this week, we will use the practice of Council to help us surface our intentions for our meditation using the sacred drumbeat:

When listening, listen from the heart without analyzing, agreeing, or disagreeing.

When speaking, speak from the heart, naming what is alive right now.

Be lean of expression, going to the core of what needs to be spoken.

Be spontaneous, trusting what comes, rather than what one has rehearsed or what one thinks should be said.

RSVP

Our free soul-tending circle will be held this week on Wednesday, January 18, from 5-7 pm PST/8-10 pm EST.

Feel free to email me at anna “at” gaiaanimism “dot” com for this week’s zoom invitation.  All skill levels are welcome.

Drumbeat and preparation for circle

If you’ve never joined us before, or it’s been a while, check out this link to get ready: 

https://gaiaanimism.com/online-journey-circle-checklist

Resolving to be ourselves

Resolving to be ourselves 

Instead of resolving to improve ourselves in 2023, perhaps the most radical gift we can give our troubled world is to simply be ourselves. 

A wise woman once told me: “To be yourself is to fulfill the will of God.”  

There is only one you, after all. 

Surely we can only repay the wild extravagance of this singular existence by living who and what we are out loud and in color.

But after a lifetime of trying to fit in, cuss less, make more money, get in shape–whatever formula of self-revision you favor–it can be damn hard to locate the authentic Self.

In this week’s soul-tending circle you are invited to explore the dark waters of the heart with the help of the sacred drumbeat. 

What guiding lights will present themselves to help you remain true to the deep Self in the year ahead?

Happy New Year, y’all!

Way of Council

At the start of each soul-tending circle, we will use the Way of Council to help us surface and articulate our intentions:

  • When listening, listen from the heart, without analyzing, agreeing, or disagreeing;
  • When speaking, speak from the heart, naming what is alive right now; Silence is welcome;
  • Be lean of expression, going to the essence of what needs to be spoken;
  • Be spontaneous, trusting what comes, rather than what one has rehearsed or what one thinks should be said;
  • Confidentiality, with deep respect for people’s privacy and the transiency of the moment, participants are encouraged to not engage with other participants on things that came up during council, and not to share its specific content with others.

These guidelines are not rules. They are practices that invite us to appreciate the immediacy of the moment and place faith in ourselves and others. 

RSVP

Our first free soul-tending circle of 2023 will be held on Wednesday, January 4, from 4-6 pm PST/7-9 pm EST.

Feel free to email me at anna “at” gaiaanimism “dot” com for this week’s zoom invitation.  All skill levels are welcome.

Solstice

This Wednesday, we will be celebrating the solstice, the furthermost pole in the sun’s dance with Gaia in our final weekly journey circle of 2022. 

You might wonder why it matters to take time and mark these moments of the celestial dance between light and dark, and why our ancestors did so in cultures across the world.

The summer solstice tends not to get as much attention as the winter solstice. Times of sunshine and ease don’t orient us to the sacred in quite the same way as the wintry seasons of darkness, cold, illness, and precarity do.

The same is true with our lives; when things are flowing and going well, connecting with the spirit world simply isn’t as compelling as diving into this world. 

My son, who is now 18, got mad at me yesterday for coming into his room to ask him questions while he plays video games. He wanted me to be more like the mother of a friend of his who texts her son when she needs something. “But you’re old! You’d never agree to do that!” he fumed.

And indeed, he’s right on one count: I won’t agree to text the person in the next room. Reflecting on the colony of family life, an experience that encompasses both stings and honey, I realize that my son and I are both right. And right on time. 

My son is entering the season of full sun in his life, a time of power, action, and warmth. Abundance is clearly found “outside” himself in the big broad world, much the way honeybees forage out in the fields for nectar and pollen in the season of plenty. The dark honeyed inner realms of Soul and Spirit aren’t even an afterthought for my son who has yet to taste the challenges of winter. For this mercy, I am grateful.

But as an individual, and as a collective, we are tilting toward the winter. Our ancestors were visited regularly by the dark season in a way most of us have not experienced in our lives: a time when material abundance and ease were severely limited, illness and death drew near, and inner spiritual stores proved vital to sanity and survival. 

Most of us, even 55-year-olds like me, haven’t tasted a real winter yet.

And so we mark these days, not quite knowing how to burrow deep into the starry silence of our souls, call the earth back from her slumber, or face the pain, the breaking, and the loss involved in tilting toward the dark hemisphere of our lives. 

Nor can we, children of an artificial and unrelenting summer, fathom how profoundly we hunger for a honeyed taste of the eternal, the experience of community, or the blossoming into soulfulness wrought by the dark days of winter. 

In our Solstice journey circle this week, may we receive an inkling of what our ancestors felt and knew about the power of these dark months. May we use this time well.

I hope you can join us this week.

RSVP

Our free online journey circle will be held on Wednesday, December 21, from 4-6 pm PST/7-9 pm EST

Feel free to email me at anna “at” gaiaanimism “dot” com for this week’s zoom invitation.  All skill levels are welcome.

Drumbeat and preparation for circle

If you’ve never journeyed with us before, or it’s been a while, check out this link to get ready: 

https://gaiaanimism.com/online-journey-circle-checklist

Winter snows of grief

Last week in circle, we used the Way of Council to explore journey intentions. It was such a fruitful practice that it will become a regular feature of our weekly journey circle.

Instead of rummaging around in your mind to select a journey intention in advance, why not join us with the aim of journeying on what is most alive for you when you find yourself in the listening presence of others? 

Last week, as this week, I am grieving the loss of a dear friend, elder, and teacher of mine. I visited her 5 days a week over the past year and now, suddenly, she is gone.

Numb with winter snows of grief, I simply didn’t know what to journey on. But last week, the honest sharing of the circle in Council, combined with our journeys, helped me to find beauty, tears, and meaning in the season in which I now find myself. 

Perhaps you, too, would benefit from an experience of spiritual community this week. 

Please join us.

Practices of Council

When listening, listen from the heart without analyzing, agreeing, or disagreeing.

When speaking, speak from the heart, naming what is alive right now.

Be lean of expression, going to the core of what needs to be spoken.

Be spontaneous, trusting what comes, rather than what one has rehearsed or what one thinks should be said.

RSVP

Our free online journey circle will be held on Wednesday, December 14, from 4-6 pm PST/7-9 pm EST

Feel free to email me at anna “at” gaiaanimism “dot” com for this week’s zoom invitation.  All skill levels are welcome.

Winter Solstice Forest Therapy Walk

In observance of the winter solstice

Gaia Shamanism is offering a virtual forest therapy walk

Wednesday, December 21

 9 am-noon PST/noon-3 pm EST

Rain, snow, or shine

Suggested donation: $20

******

Celebrate the darkest of days in the Northern Hemisphere with the Gaia-centered spiritual practice of a forest therapy walk.

You can join us with your phone or computer to experience deep time and nature connection from your backyard, local park, or nature preserve.

I will offer a series of invitations to help you drop in, slow down, and reconnect with the more than-human world.

We will gather for heart-centered sharing as a community between invitations on Zoom.

Feel free to email me with any questions and to reserve your spot, click on the payment link below:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=4GKTM48WGSBJN

I hope you can join us! 

The earth is my religion

The earth is my religion. Gaia is my Source, Mother, and Life.

In her omnipresence, Gaia bears witness to every moment of our lives. At death, she gathers us back into her bosom that we might return to Oneness in her dark embrace.

All beings find their home and support in her. Held in the gaze of Gaia’s equal regard, all beings are found worthy of her unconditional support.

If you are matter, you matter.

******

Schooled in the written word, our society has become illiterate in the unifying language of stars, asters, and starlings found beneath, behind, and beyond words.

And, having taken leave of our senses, we have lost touch with the soil and the soul.

Though we are immersed in Gaia’s living language of body, being, symbol, season, and event, we stammer and blink, uncomprehending, in the face of her proclamations.

Believing ourselves separate from our One Body, the earth, we wander these sacred lands orphaned, anxious, bereft. We suffer lives of estrangement from our kin: river, tree, ancestor, stranger, wind.

To say nothing of ourselves.

******

Yet Gaia speaks and continues to speak through her presence. The rivers and trees declare her ways.

In this time of fires and floods, drought, and hurricanes, Gaia bids us return home.

To our bodies.

To our senses.

To the dark realms of the heart.

To intimacy with the holy “other.”

Gaia demands that we re-member, return to our shared body, and bless and be blessed through relationship and reciprocity with the living earth.

******

No matter the depth of our spiritual poverty, no matter how high the mountain of generational trauma and grief, there is yet hope. 

Still. 

For we are shaped, formed, and in-formed by her humble and mighty Presence over the course of our days.

Gaia’s teachings surround us. The ritual turning of the seasons situates our life within the context of sacred ceremony, whether we notice or not.

We swim in the sacred waters of Gaia’s womb for the whole of our days. Texture, scent, weight, bitterness, breeze, breath, touch, color, sweetness, and song bathe us in her Love and carve out mighty canyons in the common sandstone of our hearts.

******

In these times, as in all others, our spiritual work is to be present to Presence, come what may.

In these times, as in all others, Gaia invites us to listen with our whole being–body, mind, and soul–that we might learn from the trees and the honeybees, the inmates, and the refugees.

In these times, as in all others, with hearts broken and brave–then and only then–we will recall the wordless language of our common origin, a language both foreign and familiar, a language forgotten yet recorded in our bones, still.

In these times, as in all others, we who are lovers of the One Life will express our spirituality by tending to “others” in ways both practical and poetic. And by caring for these members of Gaia’s body, we discover that her body, their bodies, and our body are one and the same. 

The earth is my religion. Gaia is my Source, Mother, and Life.

******

Winter Solstice Forest Therapy Walk

In observance of the winter solstice

Gaia Shamanism is offering

a virtual forest therapy walk

Wednesday, December 21

9 am-noon PST/noon-3 pm EST

Rain, snow, or shine

Suggested donation: $20

Celebrate the darkest of days in the Northern Hemisphere with the Gaia-centered spiritual practice of a forest therapy walk.

You can join with your phone or computer to experience deep time and nature connection from your backyard, local park, or nature preserve.

I will offer a series of invitations to help you drop in, slow down, and reconnect with the more than-human world.

We will gather for heart-centered sharing as a community between invitations on Zoom.

To reserve your spot, click on the payment link below:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=4GKTM48WGSBJN

Way of Council

As we approach the solstice, you are invited to join us around the imaginal fire this week with a slightly different format than usual.

Instead of selecting your journey intention in advance, we will practice the way of council to help us arrive at our journey intentions.

The intentions of council are as follows:

When listening, listen from the heart without analyzing, agreeing, or disagreeing.

When speaking, speak from the heart, naming what is alive right now.

Be lean of expression, going to the core of what needs to be spoken.

Be spontaneous, trusting what comes, rather than what one has rehearsed or what one thinks should be said.

My hope is that this process will help us to uncover journey intentions that are more alive for us than the mind-made variety, within a container of heart-centered listening and witnessing.

I hope you can join us for this special journey circle this week. 

RSVP

Our free online journey circle will be held on Wednesday, December 7, from 4-6 pm PST/7-9 pm EST

Feel free to email me at anna “at” gaiaanimism “dot” com for this week’s zoom invitation.  All skill levels are welcome.

Potluck

In honor of US Thanksgiving, our journey circle this week will be an opportunity to gather with spiritual family before the holiday.

This an invitation to come as you are, not as you are not. 

If you feel gratitude and want to journey on that theme, great, but if this holiday brings up grief, anger, indifference, or something else in you, please feel welcome in bringing a covered dish of those experiences, as well.

Exploring the terrain of the heart within the unconditional embrace of a gathered community feeds the soul–both of ourselves and others. 

There is no set theme for this week. Instead, consider this circle to be a potluck of mutual sharing and varied intentions.

And lastly, if you are struggling spiritually this holiday season, please reach out to me for free one-on-one shamanic guidance sessions. There is no reason to walk alone. 

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all! 

RSVP

Our free online journey circle this week will be held on Wednesday, November 23, from 4-6 pm PST/7-9 pm EST

Feel free to email me at anna “at” gaiaanimism “dot” com for this week’s zoom invitation.  All skill levels are welcome.

Fruitfulness

We are not isolated individuals but exist, grow, flower, and bear fruit as a single body. 

Somehow, remembering that our uniqueness is grounded in Oneness is reassuring to me. 

Our souls’ journeys are related, bound together, and mutually reinforcing over the course of a lifetime, whether we know one another or not. 

Each person who takes a deep breath and steps into the world with who they are, and what they are here to do, emboldens a host of others to do the same, whether they know each other or not.

We are all united, part of Gaia’s body, on a journey of becoming fruitful, learning how to feed Life with our very lives.

This week, you are invited to journey with me on questions related to the theme of fruitfulness, such as: What does it mean to be fruitful at this stage of your life? What do you long to offer to a hungry world? What connections do you need to cultivate to grow fruitful?

As ever, whatever other intentions you wish to bring to the journey circle are welcome.

RSVP

Our free online journey circle this week will be held on Wednesday, November 16, from 4-6 pm PST/7-9 pm EST

Feel free to email me at anna “at” gaiaanimism “dot” com for this week’s zoom invitation.  All skill levels are welcome.

Looking forward to seeing you soon!