Embracing Descent - Workshop for Women
“To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes, to let it go, to let it go.” from In Blackwater Woods, by Mary Oliver
As the leaves return to the Earth and we descend into the darkest part of the year, I feel called to gather women in a safe and supportive space to honour our own experiences of inner descent and letting go. In nature and folklore, descent/death/decay/winter/letting go are seen as essential aspects of the cyclical creative process which underpins all life. We are birthed from darkness and return to darkness, in each moment, and in the larger arc of out physical life. Yet we exist in a culture which denies, pathologises and promotes aversion to many forms of descent – whether that be the ageing body, menopause, times of grief, PMS or the darker colder winter days.
This 4-hour workshop is an invitation to explore your relationship with the experience of descent - whatever that means to you. Together we will reflect on how patriarchal, consumerist conditioning has influenced our feelings about experiences of descent. We will then turn to nature, folklore, and the direct experience of our cyclical female bodies as alternative sources of knowledge, whose wisdom can be drawn upon to develop our personal relationship to experiences of descent. We will ceremonially co-create an altar to honour ‘descent’ as an essential part of the creative process, and offer ourselves up in dance to this altar, as the skies darken.
The workshop will be partly outdoors, and partly in a cosy yurt. Expect nature connection, embodied exploration, ritual, conscious dance, and sharing circles. No previous experience is required—only a willingness to root into the earthy, cyclical knowledge of your own being and to join in sisterhood as we create a portal of feminine energy to ripple out into the world.
The event will be held at The Urban Yurt - the exact location of this will be revealed upon signing up, but it is located in South Edinburgh, an easy 30min bus ride from Edinburgh City Centre. Please bring a journal and come dressed prepared for the weather, knowing that we will be partly outside in November in order to feel the seasonal descent into winter up close.