Darkest Night: Dancing In Our Shadows

SHADOW AND LIGHT SOURCE BOTH
by Rumi

How does a part of the world leave the world?
How does wetness leave water?
Don’t try to put out fire by throwing on more fire!
Don’t wash a wound with blood.
No matter how fast you run, your shadow keeps up.
Sometimes it’s in front!
Only full overhead sun diminishes your shadow.

But that shadow has been serving you.
What hurts you, blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest.
I could explain this,
but it will break the glass cover on your heart,
and there’s no fixing that.

You must have shadow and light -source both.
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.
When from that tree feathers and wings sprout on you,
be quieter than a dove.
Don’t even open your mouth for even a coo.

DARKEST NIGHT: Dancing In Our Shadows

*please note details below re arrival times & agreements

Welcome to ‘Darkest Night’, our winter solstice celebration & ceremony! To you we bid welcome, fellow human… frail & tender & bruised from a life well-traveled… hopeful yet resigned, empowered yet diminished, loving yet fearful. While our shadows are ever-present, we live in an agreement reality wherein recognizing, owning and dancing with our shadow is something we’re often left to do alone, without support, without witness.

This night we gather to spend the darkest night of the year together, in communion, in ceremony, in reflection, in reverence and in dance. As light or heavy as it may be, come with an open heart, and bring what shadows may persist… that we may do some deep work together to navigate the collective unspoken depths, as we begin the long beautiful transition from the darkness… back into the light.

COMMUNITY POTLUCK

We’ll open the doors at 6pm sharp and commune together until 7:30, when we’ll begin to transition ourselves – and our space – towards the ceremony and evening. If you’re able to do so, please bring 1 item that will feel good to make, feel good to eat, and feel good in our bellies as we dance later into the evening. Please LABEL your items & ingredients clearly so that everyone can make informed decisions on their meal.

To ensure the container is powerfully set for our evening, during the opening ceremony new guests will not be welcomed into the space. SO – please arrive before 7:45pm OR after 8:15pm. (Ideally – come around 6pm to join us for the meal and connect with your community!)

OPENING | GUIDED REFLECTIONS (DYADS)

Jason Guille & Alex King-Harris
* bring a journal & a cushion to sit on 🙂

After opening the circle and setting the container together, we’ll get cozy for the thinking/reflecting/sharing part of our evening. Jason & Alex will offer you a series of questions to prompt personal reflections on the year that’s past, and participants will be paired up together for solo journalling and then, if & as you feel called, to share your observations, reflections and experiences. This will be a time not of coaching or advice, but rather of deep reflection & LISTENING.

We’ll move through a series of guided explorations around our habits, resentments, stuckness, wants, relationships and incompletions. Here we’ll build a powerful bridge from the mind & the past… into the body & the present.

GUIDED CACAO CEREMONY

Ocian Flo & Jazmin Love

Cacao is considered to be a healing plant for inner growth. It is a very gentle and non psychedelic supporter that allows to open the heart to reconnect to our inner wisdom and true self. Cacao helps, unlike other substances, to do the shadow work from the heart instead of the brain.

Cacao is like the archetypal mother that gives you love and compassion, that nourishes and nurtures you and gently supports you on your personal growth and your path to wholeness. She opens the door but you need to walk through.

DARKEST NIGHT DANCE TEMPLE

Jazmin Love, Dance Temple Victoria

The ecstatic dance journey is a free-style movement experience featuring juicy, soulful beats by Jaz to inspire deep and wild embodiment. The invitation is to dance with your shadows and to move from the inside out, while remaining non-verbal, as a way of deepening into the journey. Sounding is welcome. This is a safe, sacred space for you to embody and express your whole self.

Jazmin Love is a co-founder and facilitator of Dance Temple Victoria. She has been facilitating ecstatic dance journeys for four years and is passionate about embodied movement as a means of awakening, transformation and authentic expression. She has a lifelong background in dance and is inspired by creating sacred space and designing music sets for unleashing the wild within.

SOUNDSEED MEDICINE JOURNEY

Ocian Flo, SoundSeed Medicine Journeys
ft Alex King-Harris (Rara Avis)

SoundSeed Medicine Music can be described as a shamanic journey. Laying down, participants can go into a deep almost a trance-like state. Ocian guides participants into the breath, the body, and the mind to create a safe container for us all to work with the sound as therapy or medicine. This is a practice of witnessing and listening deeply to how your body, both physical and energetic and your mind, both emotional and mental, responds to the different sounds during the session.

As a sound practitioner since 2010, Ocian gracefully weaves in a plethora of modalities to create one-of-a-kind experiences, every time. Ocian is a visionary, an intuitive, a spiritual teacher and coach, using frequency and vibration to harmonize the body, mind and soul. These sessions include Crystal Bowls, Crystal Lyre, Crystal didjeridu, Zaphir and Koshi Chimes, Rattles, drum and others, along with her etheric and powerful voice. As she works, Ocian can hear, feel and sometimes see the underlying vibrational and energetic patterns held within the body or group energy field. She uses this clairaudience to offer an awareness of these patterns, with a reminder of the power of our personal beliefs, stories, and most importantly, our own ability to be the catalyst for our own repatterning. This work offers each person the potential and the power of self-healing and self-awareness.

Ocian will be initially joined by Alex King-Harris, who has spent the past 20 years training himself to listen deeply. The result of this practice is that when he is in a room filled with magical beings who are also willing to listen deeply, improvised songs can come through direct from the Great Mystery. They’re unprepared, raw, unfiltered and depending on the setting, transformative. Alex’s intention at this event is to make himself available to this Cosmic Muse and hopefully make something happen that speaks to the hearts, bodies and minds of those gathered.

AGREEMENTS & NOTES

COME FOR THE EVENING: To ensure the container is powerfully set for our evening, during the opening ceremony new guests will not be welcomed into the space. SO – please arrive before 7:45pm and plan to be with us for the evening. If it’s really not possible to do so, we will welcome latecomers 8:15pm-9:00pm and THEN WILL BE CLOSING THE DOORS. No entires will be allowed after 9pm. For the best group experience possible, do try to come for dinner if it works – and please arrive before 7:45pm if at all possible.

CONFIDENTIALITY: This gathering is intended to allow us to do some of our shadow work together, in a safe container. Some of us may move through various emotional spaces, or share personal stories not intended for the world at large. What happens here, stays here, and by attending you are agreeing to this principle of honouring each other through confidentiality.

DETAILS & FLOW OF OUR NIGHT

6-8pm :: Potluck Dinner – connection & communion
8-9pm :: Opening & Orientation – Guided Dyads & Reflections
9-10pm :: Community Cacao Ceremony
10-11:15pm :: Darkest Night Dance Temple
11:15-12 :: Soundseed Medicine Journey
12am :: BLESSINGS & CLOSE

hosted at Sunset Labs
bottom of Herald St behind Value Village
requested donation $10-$20 (includes your cacao)
(nobody turned away for lack of funds)
this event is drug & alcohol free

blessings!