Video: Incidentals perform “Trees Grow Tall”

Jayne the shamanic practitioner taught us this song. She is also the one providing beautiful harmonies for it. Jayne says that since the time we recorded it, her student and she have come up with tons more verses for the song.

First meeting – and we’re rolling!

Cover of Women Who Run with the Wolves

At our first meeting on 6 September we, the eager learners of frame drum and explorers of the Sacred Feminine, had an opportunity to meet each other and to watch fascinating presentation from our guest teachers, Filo and Jayne. Filo danced a fiery Red Taranta dance, and Jayne took us on a Shamanic journey. They will be teaching us this and more at their sessions, on 4 October and 8 November respectively.

We also had a chance to start looking at Women who Run with the Wolves book. Some of us read it in the past, some of us had just started reading it. Concerns were raised that 1. It is geared to women, whereas our group is open to men as well, and 2. The book is too A.long, B. hard to get into, C. nothing special – just common sense.

As for the first concern, what I as a facilitator can say is that perhaps we can excuse Dr Estes for writing  book aimed specifically at women, and using “she” and “women” in her text all the time, as pretty much every other book we have read in our lives – from the Myths of Ancient Sumer to Dan Brown have been all written by men, for men, and using “he” and “man” as interchangeable with “human being”.

Aristotle considered women more void of shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive than men. Aristotle denied women free speech and access to proper education And yet we are invited to study Aristotle’s philosophy and accept it as one of the foundation stones of our modern Western civilisation. So, I guess we can swallow some “she” and “woman”.

The group agreed, at the same time, that all people have feminine and masculine parts to their psyches, and that our patriarchal society suppresses the feminine both in women and in men, which does not serve any good to anyone at all. Thus recovering the Sacred Feminine is deemed a worthy goal.

We have agreed to stick with Women who Run with the Wolves for a short while, until proven that it is of no use to us. We can then switch to any other book, poetry, music or any source at all that would inspire us to revive the Sacred Feminine.

Here you can listen to Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes‘s interview for Karen Tate’s radio programme Voices of the Sacred Feminine.  Karen Tate is an advocate of Goddess as an archetype, an ideal, a deity – whatever suits each individual. She is an author of books Sacred  Place of Goddess and Walking an Ancient Path.

At the next meeting, 13 September. We will be learning the basics for frame drums following the course developed by Layne Redmond: we will learn doum, tak and ka strokes in upright and sitting position, and looking at the Introduction and Chapter One of Women Who Run with the Wolves.

Related articles

• Life is hard, part 77 (lachristagreco.com)
• Wet, Dark & Tangled: The Unthwarted Feminine. ~ Karen Chrappa (elephantjournal.com)
• Attributes of the Sacred Feminine (intothesacredfeminine.wordpress.com)
• Reflection for today…Failure Is A Greater Teacher Than Success- Dr.Clarissa Pinkola Estes (mysoulsonice.wordpress.com)
• Hymns from the Hive: A Review of Layne Redmond’s Bee Album (pythonessandbee.wordpress.com)
• My Favorite Goddess (In Three Parts…) (tuesdayswithannie.com)
• The Goddess (brianrushwriter.wordpress.com)
• on retreat (sarah-w-bartlett.com)