Healing and Wholeness Through Shadow Work

Healing and Wholeness Through Shadow Work, a workshop

With Sylvan Redbird and Joan Brooks

Sunday, June 2 from 1:00-4:30pm at Radiance in Lancaster

Prerequisite: Elements of Magic class in Reclaiming Tradition (or equivalent). This workshop draws heavily on the co-created, participatory ritual work of Reclaiming practices.

“For those who can read the body, it holds the record of our rejected side, revealing what we dare not speak, expressing our current and past fears.” ~ John P. Conger, “The Body as Shadow,” Meeting the Shadow

What calls out from within that will no longer be silenced? What stories from the past haunt the happiness possible in the present? How do the cultural shadows of power-over patriarchy define our relationships to our own bodies and sexual expression? What demons sabotage our life dreams and relationships? How do the monsters we hear in our fears and shame and longings challenge us to embrace what we’ve tried to cut from deep within us? And what if we listened to these shadows, danced, and played, and embraced them as deeply held parts of us, might that healing be so potent with the energies we rediscover that great change might truly be possible?

“When shadow work is denied, the soul feels banished, exiled from its inhabitants in the wilds of nature, in the soft nights of lovemaking, or in the sacred objects of art. Then, people suffer anxiety and loneliness, cut off from a sense of place, the mystery of the Beloved, or the beauty of things. But when shadow-work is attended to, the soul feels round, full, sated. When shadow-work is invited into a life, the soul feels welcomed, alive in the gardens, aroused in passion, awake in sacred things.” ~ Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf, Romancing the Shadow

The times we live in, and the work we must bring out into the world as priestesses, healers, activists, lovers, and visionaries will be better served by through our increased sense of wholeness and integration. Shadow work is an important practice for our health and well-being, especially as we step into our personal power and leadership. For what waits in the shadow is often our magnificence as well as those other aspects of ourselves deemed undesirable.

We will listen and learn through ecstatic ritual, trance, voice and movement (don’t let this stop you from joining), and speaking our truths together. We will seek personal healing in a ritual group setting and courageously embrace our power to trust, stepping forward to be agents of change and transformation, for the healing of ourselves and the world.

This workshop will be held at Radiance, 9 W Grant St., Lancaster, PA, across the cobblestones from historic Central Market.  To register, call Radiance at 717-290-1517, or stop in.  Cost is on a sliding scale from $75 to $45, in advance.

Bring to class a yoga mat or blanket to sit comfortably on the floor (chairs are also available), your journal and a bottle of drinking water.