Into The Belly of The Bear

An excerpt from Make Your Body the Prayer

Liminal

Call for me in the pause, the gap, the open space. I will bear your trust with my surrendering. All that sings will meet you here in this arrival. Leaning back into a wider belly. Your bones carrying over the memory of gravity to itself. Come now to the still point, beaconing, calling, mysterious life.

Into The Belly of The Bear

The venue for the ancestral healing retreat¹ is a large room with bare white walls and round concrete pillars in the center of an industrial building reclaimed into art gallery space. About 30 of us are gathering inside here, depositing coats and scarves in nests around us, arriving with armfuls of fresh flowers and sacred objects for the communal altar. I am bringing a large artist conk mushroom,² carved with the norse ruin Berkana and the image of a bear.

After the first few hours of introductions and orienting, we begin to create the altar together in the center of the room around a bowl of river water. Together with this group of strangers, I place seeds and flower petals arcing outwards in concentric circles, the living plants a vivid nourishment for winter eyes starved for the vibrance of life.

Once the altar is created, it is time for the trance journey to begin. As each of us finds a place to rest around the room, I feel myself drawn to sit at the edge of the altar next to my mushroom carving. This is the first time I have done trance work around other people. With so many other humans around, it is hard to go to that place inside myself where my ancestors are dreaming.