Listen….. listen to the gathering susurrus of the wild river, singing like your blood, casting primal spells of Eros through the land, initiating life. Listen to the soughing of the winds caressing the trees, flowers and tall grasses– and you too!-- sharing their ancient secrets with the day, sustaining life. Notice the murmuring of the sun catching gold fire through the dawn fields, limning the ears of Rabbit and other furred folk, illuminating life; Sense the quiet whispering of night as all form shapeshifts into dreamtime while the stars exult the wisdom of your fine senses, perpetuating life. Hearken to the chthonic mythbeings inhabiting the fierce liminality in the interstices of your awareness, fertilizing life. And under it all, this mysteriously gathered and uncontainable momentum is rippling ecstatically beneath the skin of the land, east to west; the heart of Earth beating her power and passion into each new day……
With the beauty and participation of your presence, this gathering will offer earth honoring practices and ceremonies to cultivate the deep well of inspiration within you and provide nourishment for you to be available to truly listen with a fertile, receptive imagination coupled with a stable ground; to listen without acquisitiveness or unaware projection; listen as we discover ourselves arriving full-bodied, intimately, discretely, within a lovingly tended reciprocal relationship with the spirits of the land where we actually are, whatever our ancestral inheritance or traditions. These beautiful, wise spirit beings we live among include the human ancestral spirits; the land spirits—vegetative, mineral, animal, elemental, devic, guardian; beings of the hidden kingdom and those of liminal space/time. And they are responsive to our acknowledgment, bringing true magic to our lives.
We will have the opportunity to respectfully greet, commune with and tend these relationships and their fields of influence, to learn from and give back to, through the sharing of stories, trance journeys, sound/music/silence, movement, play, creative rituals and ceremony. Under sun and ancient starlight we will have the opportunity to come into deep community together over the course of a weekend, touching in creative, intimate ways some of the most moving and crucial longings and expressions of our breath and blood; the cosmic patterning in our dreams and bones. What does it really mean to be fully, beautifully human on this wondrous, dreaming earth in sacred relationship with our human and other than human kin, seen and unseen, with our earth, and how do we effectively bring these relationships home into our families and out into our communities?
Conscious connection and communication between humanity and the other spirit beings of Earth is essential to knowing who we ourselves really are, and thus how to live in balance, for we are intertwined; weaving, dreaming, en-joying, grieving, tending, dying and being born within and through each other, endlessly. (text: Damaris Chrystal)
Please join us if you can!
When: September 24 and 25th, closest weekend to Autumnal Equinox. Sat. 10am-10pm, Sun. 10am-4pm
Where: Anahata Education and Retreat Center, 811 Dobbins Farm Rd. Floyd VA 24091
Fee: $290.00, non-residential ; includes Saturday night dinner, herb teas and snacks and access to digital documents post-retreat with supportive information for continuing inspiration and practice. If you prefer splitting payment into two separate installations, then upon registration at least a month or more prior to the retreat a payment of $145.00 is required via the payment page on this website, with the second payment being due no later than Friday, September 23rd. If upon registering you are paying the full amount you may do so on my website’s payment page. (All payments made at https://www.damarischrystal.com/payments-1. If you’d like to stay over night either Friday, Saturday or Sunday, please see the options at Lodging below.
Other meals: Anahata can provide lunch both days if desired. $15.00 per meal. Meals are as organic, local, fresh, whole, colorful and delicious as possible. The default is to gluten-free and vegan, with wheat and dairy on the side. Please use this link to order one or both lunches: https://anahataeducationcenter.com/product/retreat-meal/
Lodging: For those who might want to stay over for 1-3 nights Anahata offers the following options: A basic $30/night for bring-your-own camping; $45 for shared room with linens; $70 for private room, all of which include a light breakfast. If interested, please use this link: https://anahataeducationcenter.com/product/accommodations/
Requirements: For Saturday and Sunday if you do not order a lunch, please bring a simple one. Please also bring your own drinking vessel.
We will be gathering mostly outside weather permitting, so please bring something comfortable for sitting, whether a blanket, mat or camp chair, etc. as well as layered clothing options. Something to take notes if needed is also suggested.
Once you are registered, I will send out other suggestions for preparation as well as other supplies you might wish to bring. There will also be one-hour 1/1 personal sessions with me available with no extra fee to be scheduled post-retreat for anyone who wishes support with integrating the retreat experience.
art: Sue Davis(vachonarts.com)
“Damaris is the kind of teacher who works and moves beyond any kind of standard or traditional criteria. It’s not enough to say that you, as a student, will do a great deal of learning. It’s more accurate to say that you will change the way you think, feel and move in the universe. It’s like that. It’s that level of teaching. I am profoundly grateful for what I have received through her guidance, wisdom, and friendship. In short, if you want to understand something better, read a book. If. you want to set your reality ablaze, I present Damaris.”
— K. Klonowski, Cultural Foundations Educator, Independence, OH
For more testimonials, go to https://www.damarischrystal.com/testimonials