Wildness

The facilitator guides the group through the following steps:

1. Take a piece of paper and pen and list your desires in this moment. As I read through these questions, listen to your desires fully. We’ll cycle through the five senses twice.
   • What do you want to touch? (Two minutes)
   • What do you want to smell? (Two minutes)
   • What do you want to see? (Two minutes)
   • What do you want to taste? (Two minutes)
   • What do you want to hear? (Two minutes)
   • What has filled your dreams or imagination recently? (Two minutes)
2. Use your list of desires and create a date with your wild self. (Ten minutes)
3. If you’re comfortable, share the play date you created with the circle.
4. After you’ve planned and shared your date, actually go on the date! Be present with the energies that touch your body to fill you with pleasure, energies that flow into and within your ears (sounds), eyes (forms), nose (aromas), tongue (taste), body (touch, emotions, sexuality) and mind (thoughts).
5. Take time to reflect on how the pleasure experiment worked for you and how you could have deepened the experience.

Examples of play dates: 

• I want to cook my favorite Italian meal and enjoy dinner with jazz music and my favorite Merlot.
• I want to make love with my boyfriend in a candlelit shower alive with the fragrance of cedar essential oil.
• I want to enjoy smelling the Lilac bushes at the Botanic Gardens.
• I want to wear my pup gear and be submissive to whatever my handler wants.
• I want to play with all of my erogenous zones while burning sage and listening to dance music.
• I want to swim naked in a lake under the full moon.

This mantra helps us work with fear. It calls on the powerful archetypal feminine energy in the form of Maha Kali—known as the mother of creation and destruction, the mother beyond time and space. She is a force of awakening, eternally devouring what is false and moving us only towards true reality. She illuminates for us how all darkness can be transformed.

Prepare by placing a censer with a charcoal tablet and enough candles for all participants on an altar at the center of the circle. Light all of the candles.

The facilitator guides the group through these steps:

1. Hold a flame to the edge of a charcoal tablet on a censer until the edge glows red.
2. Close your eyes and identify a situation in your life that makes you fearful. (Three minutes)
3. Stay present with the fear energy within your body. Simply hold it compassionately. (Three minutes)
4. Start playing the meditation mantra above.
5. Add two or three pieces of Frankincense resin on to the charcoal tablets.
6. Stay present with the sound of the mantra entering your ears. If your thoughts take over, simply return to the sound of the mantra in your senses. (Three minutes)
7. As you breath in, imagine the sound of the mantra traveling from the base of your spine through your abdomen to your heart, infusing and touching your fear energy (Three minutes)
8. Stay present with the scent energy of Frankincense flowing into your nostrils. If your thoughts take over, simply return to the scent of Frankincense in your senses. (Three minutes)
9. As you breath in, imagine the scent of Frankincense traveling from the base of your spine through your abdomen to your heart, infusing and touching your fear energy. (Three minutes)
10. Ask participants to get a lit candle from the altar.
11. Stare into the flame of the candle. Stay present with the warm light flowing into your eyes. If your thoughts take over, simply return to the light energy in your senses. (Three minutes)
12. As you breath in, imagine the warm light of the candle traveling from the base of your spine through your abdomen to your heart, infusing and touching your fear energy. (Three minutes)
13. Once the mantra is over, add a few drops of Cedar or Pine essential oil to the charcoal tablet on the censer.

This practice can be used with other emotions. The craft in this practice is to learn how to pair the right essential oil or incense with an emotion. There are resources in Thin Places.

The facilitator reads emotions and action urges:

• Do you have anger visiting? Sometimes with anger, you want to attack? (30 seconds)
• Do you have sadness visiting? Sadness can cause you to want to withdraw or isolate? (30 seconds)
• Do you have joy visiting? (30 seconds)
• Do you have fear visiting? Fear can cause you to run away or avoid? (30 seconds)
• Do you have shame visiting? Sometimes with shame, you want to hide or avoid? (30 seconds)

Read the emotions and action urges through at least three times. This is a great springboard for a Heart Circle and the discipline of leading with, “I feel…”

Imagination is the ability to conjure up within our minds sights and scenes to delight the senses and open up the world in fresh ways. We encourage one another to nurture imagination, treasure fantasies and indulge in flights of fancy.

The facilitator guides the group through these steps:

1. Think of a situation in your life where you need answers or pick an emotion you are experiencing. (Five minutes)
2. Close your eyes and imagine descending in an elevator from the 16th floor. (The facilitator counts backward through each floor: 16, 15, 14…2, 1.)
3. As you exit the elevator, imagine the scene in front of you. What are the sights, sounds, aromas, tastes and tactile sensations? Walk around in the scene for a while. (Five minutes)
4. In the midst of the scene, allow your imagination to conjure up a character to speak with you about the situation or emotion you are experiencing. Ask the character, “What do you want?” and “What do you need?” Have a conversation with the character in your imagination. (Five minutes)
5. When you are ready, return to the elevator and go up to the 16th floor. (The facilitator counts forward: 1, 2, 3…15, 16.)
6. You may return in the elevator any time to conjure up the scene and character in your imagination and continue the conversation.

Guidelines for cuddle groups:

Before You Arrive

• Come with an open heart
• Our events are drug and alcohol free (Oxytocin allowed)
• Arrive as clean as a daisy, you’ll be close to others
• Bring pajamas or sweats/tee shirt, you can change at the event (Street clothes are fine, but not as comfy)
• Bring some snacks and drinks to share

After You Get There

• Keep your jammies on mister
• Physical attraction is not relevant (say no to a suggested cuddle position, not to a whole person)
• It is OK to laugh, cry, nap, talk
• If something makes you uncomfortable, take a break and/or talk to the facilitators
• Mostly, just sink in and enjoy!

We end the evening chanting Praise to Androgyne by James Broughton, an American poet and poetic filmmaker, member of the San Francisco Renaissance and a precursor to the Beat poets. Broughton was an early bard of the Radical Faeries, as well as a member of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, serving the community as Sister Sermonetta.

PRAISE TO ANDROGYNE
James Broughton

Praise to Androgyne    the All in One
Praise to his unbelievable truth
He loves us as we origionally were
He loves us as we always are
He is beyond the explicit
He it the total union
He is the transcendent single
He is the doubles champion
He is woman man    He is goddess god
He is the seeder and the seeded
He is the Both    He is the And
He is the source and the sorcerer
He is the her in the he
He is the him in the she
He is the two in the one
He is the one beyond two
Praise to Androgyne    the Irreducible All
Praise to his unbelievable truth
He loves us as we origionally were
He loves us as we always are

I Follow Rivers by Len Dreams

Filmed at Allo das Fadas, the Radical Faerie sanctuary in Portugal.

The facilitator opens the dancing:

1. When you step on the dance floor, include your whole self, even the frightened parts.
2. Allow yourself to dance through your pain and sorrow.
3. Dance with joy until your hard edges and masks fall away.
4. Meet other dancers and weave unbreakable threads of connection.
5. As our dance weaves together community, understand that you are not alone.