I was super happy to be in the #avalon room @glastonburygoddesstemple room facilitating for 3 days during my time in #glastonbury last month

"Avalon, island to which Britain’s legendary king Arthur was conveyed for the healing of his wounds after his final battle. It is first mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (c. 1136), while the same author’s Vita Merlini (c. 1150) described it as “the island of apples [‘Insula pomorum’], called fortunate.” It was ruled by the enchantress Morgan le Fay and her eight sisters, all of them skilled in the healing arts.

Geoffrey may have been attempting to connect his “island of apples” with Celtic mythology’s traditions of an elysium; and the name Avalon is certainly close to the Welsh word for apple, afal. Sir John Rhys, however (Studies in the Arthurian Legend, 1891), preferred to link the name Avalon with that of Aballach, a (hypothetical) dark Celtic divinity. Avalon has been identified with Glastonbury in Somerset, and this may be connected with Celtic legends about an “isle of glass” inhabited by deceased heroes. It is equally likely to have been an attempt by the monks of Glastonbury to exploit the Arthurian legend for the benefit of their own community."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Arthurian-legend

"The Isle of Avalon : Glastonbury has a long tradition of being ‘The Isle of Avalon’ where King Arthur went after his last battle. The monks of Glastonbury Abbey claimed to have found his grave in 1191.

Jesus is said to have come to Glastonbury as a boy, travelling here with Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph was a tin merchant and had travelled to England's south west for this valuable metal.

Legends of the Tor : It's said that beneath the hill there's a hidden cave through which you can pass into the fairy realm of Annwn. There dwells Gwyn ab Nudd, the lord of the Celtic underworld, with the Cauldron of Rebirth.

Later tradition has it that the Holy Grail lies here, brought by Jesus’ uncle, Joseph of Arimathea. The Cauldron and the Grail were both the object of quests for King Arthur and his knights."

Somatic Shamanism is a practice undertaken in a grounded, non-bypassing, and safe way. Shamanism is the life path of one who knows. The Tree of Life is the entryway of connection and travel whilst journeying. In the case of Somatic Shamanism the entry point is the body. Somatic means of the flesh and so this shamanic process cultivates your own 'fleshy knowing'.
​
Shamanism is the oldest spiritual practice known to humankind. Every culture had its own shamans - medicine women and men - and so we are all able to access our own shamanic lineage - our fleshy knowing and innate ancestral wisdom. Somatic Shamanism connects you to your body and invites you to experience it as a portal to the intelligence of your forebears. Your blood, your organs and your bones - all aspects of your embodiment - contain insight and perception.

This workbook offers you an overview of shamanism and the concept of the Tree of Life. It contains a structure and a set of exercises that take you in and through the body to activate and engage your shamanic self and knowing.

"Embark on a powerful journey of self-discovery – or indeed rediscovery – between your body "your fleshy knowing", your relationship with the natural world, and your ancestral heritage as you become the Tree of Life! Through beautiful rituals and practices illustrated with inspiring artwork alongside wonderful insights, Kay Louise Aldred gently guides you every step of the way on your path to exploring Somatic Shamanism. Her wealth of knowledge, vibrant personality, and unique spiritual vision shine throughout – and allow you to easily explore your oneness with the earth and to re-energise or re-awaken this deep interconnectedness. This powerful offering published by Girl God Books is a must-read for anyone who wishes to tap into their inner shamanic relationship between body and spirit."
-Barbara O'Meara, Visual Artist, Writer and Celtic Shamanic Practitioner

"Where our minds are vexed by modernity, with even our wilder hopes limited by reason and logic, our creaturely bodies house and animate our strangest imaginations. We live all possibilities out loud through our bodies. We speak through our skin. We wield the intelligence of the flesh, our "fleshy knowings" as Kay Louise Aldred describes them. Move through this workbook like a prayer; it's a beautiful and timely achievement."
-Danielle Dulsky, Founder of The Hag School, Author of The Holy Wild: A Heathen Bible for the Untamed Woman and Bones & Honey: A Heathen Prayer Book

Check out the Online Course here.

​Futuristic is the key word of my growing season.  

What does this mean?

"strange and very modern, or intended or seeming to come from some imagined time in the future"

Cambridge Dictionary

Recreation of ancient ways is not enough. We are not meant to go backwards. We do not live in non-tech Merlin times - & neither would we want to when we reflect on the poverty & disease, misogyny & feudalism, of that era!

We can't escape the present, the demands on our nervous systems, or where we are now as a collective.

Humanity in 2024 requires a futuristic focus & approach which does not bypass or try to escape the reality of human life & current oppressive arching paradigms.

Any approach has to be relevant to all bodies & accessible to everyone. And it has to be humane & humanitarian in focus.

WE NEED INNOVATION & TO CREATE NEW WAYS.

Pivot fully to present & future generations - that will automatically call in ancestral wisdom & heal the past.

My offering to the future = #embodiededucation #embodimentspirituality

What's yours?

Another focus is authentic union.

I can't stress this enough. Spiritual & devotional practice is not a performance.

God/Goddess transcend binary gender constructs & conditioned understanding of these.

I prefer translating it into sensation & energetics - pulse & zap, magnetic & electric.

The aim is a harmonious union within & without

The future #embodimentspirituality #embodiededucation

You won't get this until you see it feel it
 

Another focus is Eldership.

Futuristic Eldership

Eyes fully open to the now.

I spent too long pining for the return to an ancient time which I was viewing through a conditioned rose-tinted lens, sneakily forged in the colonial & patriarchal overarching binary narrative & gender role fire.

Futuristic Eldership is beyond individualism & the binary. It's the hollow bone of unity & community-based service of present & future generations.

The future = #futuristicelders #embodimentspirituality #embodiededucation

Another focus is engagement.

I recently saw a @scienceandnonduality_ post which said you will never convince me that a solution to a problem is to kill children.

And I agree.

And as the siege & evacuation are now ordered on Rafah & I feel hot fury & cold collapse simultaneously I remind myself of my commitment to not become numb, indifferent or accepting of violence against children & women as normal.

And so in waxing moon, I use my intention & ritual & my tiny platform & own voice to once again join the mighty voices around the globe tirelessly campaigning to end war & violence against women & girls.

Engagement ...

Once I got back into my body - & went #inandthrough sensation & emotion - & found the safety, wisdom & trustworthiness of my #feltsense #fleshyknowing & my own flesh, I didn't want to look #outandup again.

And then I realised that's the POINT of healing!

It's to engage with life, to risk, to connect, to thrive & to offer back.

My offering to the future = #embodiededucation #embodimentspirituality

Where are you in your journey?
 

​Looking ahead to the autumn.
 
I'm celebrating being selected to present on #embodiededucation our @girlgodbooks published manual live at this conference

24th International @eurotas.world @aleftrust Conference: CREATIVE BRIDGES

EMBODIED CONSCIOUSNESS, PSYCHE & SOUL IN RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

4-8 SEPT 2024
OXFORD, UK

“Creative bridges” are spaces where we transcend the restrictive and regressive forces that confront us in what is clearly a transitional age. By forging new connections, we create paths that may lead us wisely into the next phase of cultural and spiritual evolution.

Bridges lie at the core of our work as practitioners, researchers, and scholars. We bridge across cultures, across academic disciplines, between the science and practice of spirituality. We draw on ancient spiritual, mystical, and shamanic traditions, forging bridges to contemporary inquiry in areas of psychology, sociology, anthropology, ecology, and the study of consciousness – to name but a few! Our visions for this conference include bridges into the future, that we might pass on to coming generations wiser and more wholesome ways of being in community with one another and with all life on earth. We bridge between theory and practice, weaving holistic and transpersonal insights into the quest to nurture social and cultural change, to evolve our humanity beyond individualistic, mechanistic, and egocentric values.

In convening this conference, we aim to enable transdisciplinary dialogue, bringing transpersonal psychology into fertile connection with allied disciplines, nurturing the wellbeing and flourishing of humanity in relationship to nature: our deeper nature and nature at large. Only by dwelling in, re-evaluating, and re-imagining our relationships can we evolve new visions and pathways that will feel authentic and credible in our contemporary contexts. At this time of uncertainty and transition, we offer the EUROTAS 2024 conference as an incubator of new possibilities, a gathering to showcase what is new and vibrant—in research, in ways of practice, and in performance.

 

​Embodied Education - supports us to choose our teachers wisely and teachers to teach well.

1️⃣ EDUCATE: through education an alternative way opens up for us

2️⃣ EVOLVE: through education, we transform and,

3️⃣ EMBODY: do & be differently.

Therefore, we need to choose our teachers wisely.

A teacher's quality of education is a combination of their own ...

1️⃣ KNOWLEDGE: academic learning & rigor

2️⃣ MASTERY: professional training & skills ... and,

3️⃣ WISDOM: own lived experience of evolution.

A teacher's credentials are important: are they educated themselves & fully qualified to teach? As is evidence of experience: have they taught before?

Finally, it is wise for us to assess the teacher's self-awareness, self-responsibility & maturity, alongside their authenticity, integrity, and congruence. Do they walk their talk? Have they integrated & embodied change?

The extent to which a teacher has evolved directly correlates with the extent to which they can facilitate our evolution. 

We need to choose our teachers wisely.
 
The future = #embodiededucation

#educateevolvebody & teachers with #knowledge #mastery & #wisdom is needed every learning & development setting : including #school #university #personaldevelopment #selfhelp #spiritual #religious #communuties #therapeutic

Dan & I write more about this in our book Embodied Education: Creating Safe Space for Learning, Facilitating & Sharing & Facilitating which is available now from @girlgodbooks or online stores.

 

​How do I choose my teachers?

How do I discern the validity & integrity of a spiritual practice or teacher now?

Through the extent to which they/it cultivate my ability to be more resilient in engaging with humanity & to be more fully human, humane & humanitarian

And that they walk that talk

FULL STOP

​We are meant to evolve.
​
We are meant to EVOLVE: mature, progress, metamorphose, unfold, expand, grow, and move forward.

Last weekend @acornretreat I facilitated the final deeper immersion of this year's Somatic Shamanism #somaticshamanism medicine wheel journey where EVOLUTION was the focus.

Evolution is a maturation process - it's low & slow. Gradual, contained, titrated.

And that's why all personal development 'healing' & well-being practices need to be based on what I call 'embodiment spirituality' & 'embodied education'

Going #inandthrough our bodies & #tangibledivinity to our #fleshyknowing - this leads to the evolution process.

Our bodies LEAD THE PACE.

Facilitated by a trauma-informed, nervous system friendly, neuroinclusive & non-bypassing teacher.

If it's not evolution, change & transformation won't actually 'stick'. Indeed there may be regression, & more harm than good may occur.

Choose what you learn, how & from whom, wisely.

The future =
#embodimentspirituality #embodiededucation

​Untangling from 'drama' & the repetition of patterns does not involve dissociating, avoiding or escaping - it's not an 'up and out' practice.

It does not 'keep the peace' or 'surface-level' skim.

Untangling from 'drama' & the creation of new ways of being & doing involves being fully human, in the here & now, appraising & rooting - anchoring into our fleshy knowing - it's an 'in and through' practice.

As we fully feel, see & assess what is - accepting our current situation - it is then we can make choices. From here change can happen. From here we can co-create with spirit, lifeforce, energy.

 

​Somatic Shamanism with Kay Louise Aldred

Somatic Shamanism is a practice undertaken in a grounded, non-bypassing, and safe way. Shamanism is the life path of one who knows. The Tree of Life is the entryway of connection and travel whilst journeying. In the case of Somatic Shamanism the entry point is the body. Somatic means of the flesh and so this shamanic process cultivates your own 'fleshy knowing'.


The purpose of Somatic Shamanism is for you to access your fleshy knowing and in doing so, release blocked energy, emotion and sensation – and so improve all aspects of your health and wellbeing: physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. The added benefit is that through this you also gift liberation to, and improve the wellness of, your ancestral lines. As traditional shamanic teaching suggests, what you resolve for yourself you do for seven generations before and seven generations ahead. You no longer repeat and instead you repair.


Once we connect to ourselves as The Tree of Life – we feel and know our roots, our ancestors and we connect to the alchemy and magic of our sun self, moon self, star self, fruit, bird, animal, plant, fire, water, air and spirit selves and release the belief that is separation between us and them. We also learn that our organs have spirit keepers and that we are directly connected to mythical beings. Indeed, that we are spirit, god, goddess – our flesh is them.


The workbook offers you an overview of shamanism and the concept of the tree of life. This online course take you through exercises from the workbook, which take you in and through the body, to activate and engage your shamanic self and knowing.

​
The course includes 2 videos and 12 audios which outline and discuss the content of chapter, demonstrate and facilitate activities and exercises from the book.

Having your own copy of the workbook is mandatory and essential before you begin.