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Dear Ones, My husband told me NOT to use the photo above I made on the shores of Denmark because he finds it morbid but I’ve decided to keep it because it speaks to me of that beautiful liminal territory embodied by both mist and ocean - and what can emerge from leaning into these formless | not yet known spaces. Over the past few years, I have been reflecting and creating in response to the theme of inscendence which I’ve also called following the river underground. If you read my sporadic newsletters you might remember me writing about an encounter with a womb cave in my Grandmothers garden. I’ve been following this thread in various forms and this brings me to… In the Belly of the Night, This is Geeta’s & my offering in January in Sweden, where we’ll be sharing about how we might, in relation with the rhythm and the cycles of the whole year, court the winter. And cultivate a deeper listening, a curiosity and sensitivity to what she has to say. Those of you who remember my no-moon night gatherings on the south downs called Romancing The Dark will already have a sense of this territory. What Geeta and I are dreaming into is a collective mid-winter ritual, a nest to gather together and connect to that space of hibernation and gestation during the darkest months. Entering in the belly of the earth, into a kind of dreaming den (in the sauna that floats on the lake at our venue). ————————————————————————————————- What do animals dream of when they are hibernating? In the northern hemisphere several animals hibernate during the winter months - from hedgehog to dormouse (which is called Siebenschlaefer - seven sleepers in German) and bats. And to a lesser extent badgers who enter into something referred to a winter lethargy! I wouldn’t know anything about that ; ) Badgers slow down so much that they go into a deep sleep for days or even weeks during times of harsh weather. This sleep is called a Torpor and while it isn't quite as deep a sleep as hibernation, it’s enough that it would take a particularly loud noise to wake them up.
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