Grab a cup of warm tea, and your journal, although I won’t keep you long on this screen.
The medicine to be found is outside with the slowing touch of the earth’s cooling Fall & Winter hands. As we begin our journey, I want to invite you to get re-acquainted with our beloved teacher - the earth and it’s darker seasons. On this welcome page I have a few introductory audios to give an overview of the course and how to interact with the material in the coming weeks.
To ease into the journey enjoy the acknowledgements and poem below,
I’m so excited you are here!
Gratitude & Acknowledgements
I set a prayer and intention that the creation of this journey, and the web of healing that is generated from it return to my greatest mentors and guides. Their medicine, love and care is woven throughout this entire offering. May it be a reflection of the beauty they imbue our world with.
To my family - my mother Kulvinder Dhaliwal, my siblings Harmeet and Chaninder, to my long chain of cousins, aunts and uncles who aren’t afraid to blur the line of what it means to be a sibling and family.
To my chosen family who aren’t afraid to blur the lines of what it means to be family.
To my teachers, Rob Taylor and Shayne Case. You helped me build banks for the river of my gifts so they could flow out into the world to nourish life.
To my earth elders. To the lands where my ancestors are rooted.
To the lands where I live and the original Indigenous stewards of those lands - the Mississauga’s of the Credit First Nation and the Haudenosaunee.
To my ancestors: Biji, Babaji, Thaiji, Noory Kim Lee, all the women before me that had to hold their power quietly and close to their chest.
This is the web that holds me and all those I have the blessing to link arms with, including you. May you feel the strength of this web as well as your own as you venture into the darkness. May our webs weave with one another.
Winter’s cloak
BY JOYCE RUPP
This year I do not want
the dark to leave me.
I need its wrap
of silent stillness,
its cloak
of long lasting embrace.
Too much light
has pulled me away
from the chamber
of gestation.
Let the dawns
come late,
let the sunsets
arrive early,
let the evenings
extend themselves
while I lean into
the abyss of my being.
Let me lie in the cave
of my soul,
for too much light
blinds me,
steals the source
of revelation.
Let me seek solace
in the empty places
of winter’s passage,
those vast dark nights
that never fail to shelter me.
REFLECTION
From your previous experiences of Winter and darkness, what feels familiar in this poem? What feels foreign? What generates curiosity?
AUDIO
Welcome to Dance with Darkness
AUDIO
Navigating the journey