Workshops

Afro-Caribbean Dance as Your Offering with Johnny Scovel

This year we will learn specific dances from Haitian and Cuban religious traditions that use dance as a vital part of one’s personal offering within ceremony.  With live musicians playing for you, you will be led through the exploration of these group and individual movements and encouraged to bring them as your offerings at the fire.

 

Creating Ensemble – Playing with Intention and Connection with Aidan Talbot

What is “ensemble” and how does it relate to the Pathway of Music at SpiritFire? Ensemble is an experience in which we co-create art (music, dance, etc.) by actively listening and watching each other and responding to changes within the group and within the art.  Musically, we are an improvisational ensemble. This is very exciting and to some very scary, because while the Path of Music is open to all, playing music for ritual fires (and often in service to the path of Movement and Voice), does require a sense of listening and awareness that can be difficult to master without experience.  Ensemble is not only created by listening to the people next to you, or the people with whom you feel the most connected, but rather listening and watching across the space. It is not arranging pieces and being directed by a single leader – rather, it’s staying connected and knowing how to decide what is needed in the moment, be it instruments, dynamics, silence or sound.  Come and work with Aidan and deepen your connections to other musicians and the ritual process itself!

 

Spirit Medicine, Soul Retrieval with Erika Kluthe

Spirit medicine is the conscious and purposeful working with one’s own energy. Through trying out/being guided through various healing techniques and modalities participants will experience their own energy bodies/systems and will learn how to self-soothe, consciously retrieve what may before have rested in shadow, and self-heal. The aim is to show ourselves that we are able to participate in our own healing at the subtle level. Participants will walk away with a set of tools they can use at any point on their individual journeys. Speaking of tools, yoga mats and any yoga props (bath towels work!) one may wish to bring are welcome and could prove useful. Soul retrieval, for the purposes of this particular workshop, is a practice of dropping in to one’s self, to enter a deeply relaxed state/expanded state of consciousness via pranayama, Kundalini Kriya, movement, and healing exercises (both physical and energetic). This is an invitation to inquire inside as to what, and where located, could be an energetic or psychological blockage between the essential, fully-aware self:(the happy, peaceful, grateful, exuberant folks we are at our core) and a tight or anxious , uncomfortable or unconscious self.

 

Healing Touch for the Fire Circle with Asherah Allen

Would you like to be able to offer massage relief in a conscious and skilled way for your fellow drummers and dancers? In this workshop, Asherah will offer techniques to relieve the common aches and pains associated with our ritual play.  Come join us as we dive deep into this fabulous Seva that will leave your sisters and brothers feeling their best and ready for another night of bliss.

 

Polyrhythmic Playing in 12 with Carl Bridge

Polyrhythmic Playing in 12 with Carl Bridge While we play many rhythms in 4/4 signatures, there are a wealth of feels that depart from these familiar frameworks. Call it what you will 12/8 or 6/8 – these feels can range from more familiar feelings of a waltz to complex off-beat patterns that can leave even accomplished players grasping for a foothold. In this workshop we will look at how bells, shakers and clave patterns can serve as a foundation and offer a key for players to find the pulse within as we approach a variety of rhythms.  Participants are welcome to bring any drum or instrument, but we will spend a good deal of our time looking at basic patterns for which bells, shakers or clapping will be ideal!

 

SHAMANTRA with Saffire Bouchelion

Deepening into Pulse; Deepening into Breath; Deepening into Self Expression beyond the Mind; Deepening into Community

This work centers around creating a deeper sense of embodiment, self empowerment and self expression through the use of movement, sound and rhythm. We discover, reclaim, and cultivate as we create music together, dance together, and explore together.  We also explore pulse, beat, and rhythm. When we are in relationship to the same pulse we are in relationship to each other and community is created.

 

Dancing with Different Archetypes with Tiffany Grey Bridge

In this movement workshop we will embody different architypes and shift our skins from one to another. By exploring our relationship and body connection with the animal and plant world as well as multiple different human energies we get to experience what it would be like to intentionally shift ourselves, our thought patterns, our typical body movements and explore where else we can go. We invite you to embrace an array of metaphorical masks and shed your walls and resistance to play as we bring out our protective beast, joyful child, seductress, deep thinker, heavy stone, tree standing tall or willowy and so many more.

 

Sing your Sacred Soul Song with Sulis Sunrise Sophia

Have you been dancing around the fire late at night and sometimes you join in a chant, but sometimes maybe there’s some other sounds that bubble up or spontaneous words that you hear inside your head, but maybe you feel too shy to bring them forth? This class is for those of you that want to play with your voice, open up your throat chakra and practice what it’s like to sing from that internal connected with spirit place. We will build a safe container together We will explore the fears that come up when we step out into the void, we’ll do some warm up vocalizations together and there will be an invitation to feel what it’s like to step into the fire and sing your soul song while being supported by the group.

 

Heroes And Goddesses: Bringing Your Sacred Self to the Fire with Mark and Ahriana Platten

Whether this is your first sacred fire, or you’ve done this work for years (or even lifetimes), your preparation before entering the fire circle will change your experience. How do you call forth your highest self, the Hero or Goddess within, and enter the circle in a way that invites profound transformation. We’ll explore ancient practices and modern metaphysics to introduce personal rites and rituals for awakening your indwelling Divine.