A Journey Home: welcome
A Journey Home: a flipping book about A Journey Home, as well as a two minute clip.
25 September 2020
A Journey Home
Welcome letter
Dearest all,
Welcome to A Journey Home …
As we write this, we imagine Earth steadily making her way around our closest star, the sun. Circled by our single moon, in exquisite alignment with eight other planets. A form of cosmic harmony within an infinite universe holding a cacophony of galaxies.
Just past the equinox, bringing spring to some and autumn to others.
We are so excited to start gathering with you all, preparing for A Journey Home. While Tuesday is our introductory meeting, we write today with a brief welcome outline. Some small pointers.
Firstly, it’s wonderful you have chosen to create this journey for yourself, with us. Well done!
Now ... there is nothing to achieve. No outcomes to reach. No boxes to tick. No reports to write. Just a safe, quiet space where the invitation is to breathe. To spend the next nine months in a very special place. Almost like a secret garden - a retreat in everyday life. Listening deeply. Contemplating, caressing and creating. It is an invitation to nurture soul and spirit through exploring stories. In delight, joy and sanctuary.
This is a counterculture that is not of grandiosity, nor striving. It’s more like a whisper of a breeze through the grasses of the savannah. A little magic, quirky questions, and a wiggle of genius. And suddenly the ancestors may be curious enough to arrive. They too are part of any journey home.
Couple of things.
Perhaps treat A Journey Home as a nine-month vigil. An inner pilgrimage, which asks soft attention, navigating the rapids of 2020 from an internal compass that thrives with connecting to community. We are around 150 strong. Teachers, contributors, participants. We all participate, we all teach, we all contribute. And our journey is really how we do this. No destination.
We see the conversations and workshops as unscripted acupuncture points within each theme. To trigger, provoke, disrupt and disturb. These may be tiny ripples that find their way into the nooks and crannies of our daily practices, journaling, art, work, conversations and everyday being.
Our virtual community space:
Mighty Network - we’re aiming to become one! And it’s also actually the name of a tech platform just for A Journey Home, just for us.
We will meet here for all our sessions. It will become a treasure trove of fascination, divided into our themed topics with relevant materials, recordings, calendar reminders, etc.
There is space for us all to contribute. To learn about each other, and to share.
Ruby, Christabel and Eve will add readings, resources and suggestions for each theme, by the first day of that month. We will try not to get too carried away, and keep the themes lean and focused. Ours is not the journey that is trying to be all things to all people. That tends towards noise, confusion and often overwhelming. Our attempt will be discernment, refuge and sanctuary in filtering through the plethora of what’s available.
Each talk and workshop will be recorded, there for you in case you’d like to refer to them again, or in case you miss one.
A Journey Home
30 September 2020
Getting going, general
Good morning...
It's a really good feeling .. to wake up to the almost-full-moon, and know that we are on our way. Still gathering, the way one does before a big journey, and also already on our way.
It was so moving to see your faces yesterday (evening for us, and 1 in the morning for Aakash in Kathmandu, Nepal!)
Thank you for your presence, the feeling we made together, and our intentions - core to any journey. No aims, no outcomes, just pure intention. And an open heart.
For those who were not able to make it - we missed you. Ruby is downloading the recording as I write. Some new people still arriving - it will be ready for you.
As part of orienting, here are three questions perhaps to hold as we enter the portal of A Journey Home:
What is precious to me?
What is Earth calling for from me now?
And, for what would I readily die?
When things are precarious, as for so many of us they are .. let us be the guys excavating a little more, contemplating a bit, building discernment in everyday life.
For some of us it is now spring. New life bursting all around. What might be new in your own life? For some, autumn. A time of harvesting, and letting go.
For all of us, tomorrow is full moon! Known by many names: Harvest Moon; the Travel, Dying Grass, Sanguine or Blood Moon; the Chinese Mid-Autumn, Mooncake, or Reunion Festival Moon; the Chuseok Moon; Tsukimi or "Moon-Viewing" Festival, the Potato Harvest Moon or Imomeigetsu; the Pavarana, Boun Suang Hua or Boat Racing Festival Moon; Vap Poya; and the Moon at the start of Sukkoth. (NASA Science).
Modern times (and London cloud!) separate us sometimes from lunar cycles. Or reduce her beauty to the cycles within women, forgetting the wider connections to the end of monsoon, travels of the Algonquin hunting to prepare for winter, and the ways of a multiplicity of festivals made sacred by those creating them.
As you begin to gather your notebook, pen, ways of creating space for yourself, try and create one full moon celebration for each of the moons we are together. Can be as simple as acknowledgment. A small vigil, being with her special light. A meal with your children outside. Something that, like the spring tide, or biodynamic farming, connects your own fullness with hers.
Christabel, Ruby and I had a lovely, quiet chat after our gathering yesterday - gently settling and holding you all into our dream worlds. I woke from a dream laughing with my beloved sons…
Thanks again. It's a good day to have a good day.
Eve
5 October 2020
A Journey Home
Getting Ready …
Hello dear all,
It's blustery, here on the River Thames where I'm living in a tiny houseboat. Thick, grey cloud announcing full on autumn. Even the swans seem a little restless... and the Canada geese quiet for the first time in ages. The tide is high, in its infinite flow connecting me and my beautiful feathered neighbours to the ocean.
Relating.. relationships.. an eternal koan. Complexity at its zenith. Ruby, Christabel, Merlin, Pat, Riane and I have been sinking deep this week into beginning our month's theme. A minute portal into what it means to be human. Pat's irrepressible laugh, sensing our journey, Merlin's intense, humorous curiosity and Riane's delicate intelligence are already creating an invisible membrane - none of them have ever met physically or otherwise. They are excited, and so are we. A little nervous.
It's edgy times. We invite you to prepare for our Relating session as a two-hour stint. No interval. No set breaks. And no break-out rooms. It's a time of deep listening, deep concentration. As long as a movie. Yep, it needs a bit of stamina. We are big on flow - and find contrived breaks strangely distracting. The invitation too is to write questions, comments, observations in the Zoom chat.. and we will do our best to weave this altogether into our big home brew.
Notebooks, pens, popcorn (joke), imagine a fire and a circle of people. Some telling stories. Looking deeply into the flames and letting them speak - and whatever it is that may be speaking through them. Taking the time it all needs. When we do it this way, time seems to fold in on itself.
Looking very forward to being together again - and much love from a very wild river,
Eve
