This weekend (friday-saturday-sunday) I attended a workshop by Phyllis Curott for the Ara Lowlands group in Otterlo. The theme was "Dancing with your shadow". In this case shadow stands for the not-so-positive parts of your personality: vices, "negative" emotions, things you hide or deny. Phyllis taught us exercises and gave us tools to retrace, face and embrace them. It was heavy stuff and hard work, but very rewarding! I really had a breakthrough in dealing with the ugly-me-monster. Where years of therapy didn't succeed in changing my distorted body image, a simple (though not easy...) exercise turned out to be the boost into the right direction. A major step. There's still a lot of work to be done in that area, but for the first time I believe I can beat this.
Alongside the hard work we had a great time too! It was good to see Phyllis again, to talk to her and work with her. During the first two workshops the groups were large, now we were with only nine (including Phyllis and our "goddess-mother"). Saturday night we did a wonderful ritual. It was the first time we wore our green robes. We also made several shamanic journeys.
We'll hear a.s.a.p. when the initiation will be. We hope in september / october, but it depends on the deadline of Phyllis' new book.
I was home at half past seven last night. I'm exhausted, but that was to be expected. The fabulous weekend was more than worth it!
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i've been very intrigued by the shadow archetype ever since reading Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Face over fifteen years ago. since then i've followed its frequent appearances in my dreams with interest instead of panic. the understanding of it has deepened my own story writing.
ReplyDeletei bet this workshop was enthralling