When we meet, we share this stepping into the unknown. Though I know the bare bones of our time together I do not know the particular elemental flow that will flesh it out.

I hold the intent of where we are going . . . to the center. But I do not know what movements will take us there. It is from this mutual surrender that the magic of grace is born from within. I too must listen. I too must see into each moment. No two souls have the same web of experience, neither the same joys and pains nor the same dance by which they meet this pain and joy or run from it. No two souls gift the world with the same song of beauty . . . and yet that which prevents us from living this song we share deeply. What you see described below are some of the possible the components of our time together . . . but each person takes in the world and sees it from their own uniqueness . . . some times my greatest service is just taking you to the right places and being quiet.

Extended over three days for a total of 8 to 12 hours with one person.

1. Shamanic Soul Journey (session).
2. Gathering Soul Medicine (Begins from our first meeting)
3. Coming To the Center (Soul journey through the land)
4. Discovering The Spine (The primary movement of your hereness in life)
5. Healing The Dream Body (session).
6. The Direct Path (teachings woven through our time together)

These are the main components.

I call this the Bare Bones because it is simple, direct, and effective without loading up with what is unnecessary and costly. Many people are able to experience great movement with this combination. Many are not necessarily in conflict or pain. They just want to bring the song of who they are more fully into the world. For those who have been hopelessly stuck in a pattern their whole lives, an additional session may serve them. Some also like to bring things together with another journey on the land. The some of sessions may take place in my home. The sequence of these can vary in the order and how much time you spread them out over. The amount of time we are together can also vary and that is why, if possible, I work with only one person on a given day. Much can happen in a short time. We might be together 2 1/2 hours or 4 1/2 hours. We will both know when your cup is full on that given day.

The Soul Journey Session

Frequently, but not always I start with this session. It gives us a feeling/sense of the landscape we need to move into. Imagine if someone could dream the elemental presence of ancient pains and thoughts, bring them forth for you to see them, embrace them, and liberate them, a kind of poem of the soul’s experience, woven with emotional images and sensory details and then guide that soul back to its source. This is the soul Journey session. I am the soul dreamer. Like a dream it is in the surrender to experiencing the dream, (that confounds the mind), that healing and understanding come to you. For some, this is the cornerstone that we build upon. But not for everyone.

Coming To The Center

Our time on the land is an opening to the beauty within and without. It is also a time where we can easily move into a relationship of truth and trust. It is on this foundation that the movement to freedom unfolds. In the physical act of gathering what has been lost, forgotten, discarded, imprisoned, or buried and brought into the medicine circle, the movement that brought you here, to me and this land is listened to and honored.

Gathering Soul Medicine

This furthers this action of honoring and is a sacred, vibrant, thread throughout our time together. All that happens carries the power of a dream. No coincidences or accidents. It could be the ducks taking flight as if born from the river. . . . A small heard of horses blocking our way in the road. . . . the land filled with the moaning of cattle scattered for miles . . . . An eagle, a hawk, sitting, flying, spiraling, held by the wind motionless. Forget general definitions and bookish labels. Feel what is spoken to you in that moment. These are happenings occurring in your dream, asking to be seen, heard, felt, and allowed to live within you. It is a soul journey into the mystery of you so that you may be born into the Great Mystery. Your healing and walk in beauty begin with this sacred Becoming of the Land. What exactly happens is determined by our coming together, as it should be. Gathering soul medicine begins in our first moments together, threads its way through everything we do, and becomes something solid you can hold in your hand, take home and live your life by.

Healing the Dream Body

We are actually doing this throughout our time together. This session is sometimes called for to anchor you here. Because my intent is to empower you, not me, I find more and more that I am spending time on the land with you where you are creating this movement yourself rather than doing this session in my home. I see the body as a wonderful flute, and we are here to let the great spirit come singing through us, each with our own song of truth. The holes of the flute are centers in the body that get gummed up with old trauma and pain. We get out of harmony and our song seems to leave us. Or the channel through which the spirit of one moves gets tied in a series of knots that becomes a pattern of protection. These knots are woven from the fabric of thoughts/beliefs and the elemental substance of emotions. The Dream body session is an untying of these knots so the beauty of our song sings forth. But this unraveling knotted old dreams from our past is what we are doing the whole of our time together.

When people arrive here and we begin our time together it is important for them to embody their intent with some words that carry power and clarity. The image at the top of this page or in view below is a visual statement of the many possible verbal expressions of what we are embarking on:

-To honor the immensity of my soul’s experience without judgment.
-To open to all that I have ever been, past present future
-To listen to the truth that lives within me
-To lovingly embrace all the personalities that move through this space of the self, that I am. (For we are all multiple personalities.).
-To surrender to the great mystery that I am.
-To open my heart to life experience.

These are all actions of self-compassion . . . to love, to listen, to honor, to open, to surrender . . . and the practice of being spacious to what we might usually reject within ourselves. Whatever you have rejected through your soul’s experience will come to haunt you like a hungry ghost. Reject the pain of not being loved and your hunger for this love will rule your life from the underworld; reject hate with moral mindedness and the pain that drives it will remain a stubborn rock in the wall that separates you from peace, from the peace that you are. For many these actions will come forth and be inscribed on ribbons of red cloth, to be taken home and lived as reminders of the practice/action that will bring them to the center. They work with the stones and objects of Gathering Soul Medicine, so you can remember what happens during your time here, and through that remembering continue it in your life.

The Medicine Of One / Direct Path

When I have days I don’t feel good, I practice becoming big sky to the little stormy clouds of pain and loneliness. I give it all lots of space so the clouds may give their gifts of rain and tears. And if I fall into the dark pit of thinking too much, then I just let those thoughts be restless birds in the sky of who I am. I become big sky, the circle of one. This is Known as the Path of the Circle, The Direct Path to the center, and freedom. The door you must pass through is the Question: “Who Am I?” Every answer, every feeling, every thought but a pattern in the maze to the center where it is Quiet . . .

If you wish to enter this experience giving it more focus and intent with fewer distractions than I recommend The Medicine of One Vision Quest.
*Please note this Bare Bones Retreat is not intended for those who are in a state of
acute distress that does not allow them to give attention to our work, to trust what
we are doing, and to be somewhat present.