says Mary Oliver in her beautiful poem, Wild Geese. Its the time of year when you might hear the call of Wild Canadian Geese flocking as they prepare for their yearly transatlantic flight, and if you do, my invitation to you is to just let their calling reverberate a little in your body and notice what happens. Do you get a sensation? A feeling? A thought?
This month at The Soul Shed the Deep-Mapping your instincts course begins. Rooted in the wisdom of the chakras and the understandings of humans as three centred beings found in Enneagram wisdom, our time together will explore the instinctual knowing we all have access to.
But why do this? Why get to know the soft animal of your body better? Arent we better off ignoring it and getting on with our busy lives? Won't slowing down affect our functionality and output? Aren't instinctual drives to be overcome with more civilised and problem-solving parts, less irrational parts of our being?
If you've landed here its probably because you've recognised that your soul is actually making quite a lot of noise crying out for something a bit more or different to that. Your inner wild geese might have been calling you vociferously for quite a while. The idea of some restful and restorative creativity and self-care, or the possibilities of exploring your inner map with curiosity and enquiry, might be very appealing. And if that's so, you are in good company here.
In this short clip I talk a little bit about this reclaiming of these pieces of our inner map. It's different for each of us, and thats what makes doing this work in community so potent. We learn from one another. And in using our own square mile of location as the territory we explore in, the outcome is a deepened relationship to the space around us, sky above us and ground beneath us. We become more present to ourselves. More embodied in our lives.
I'll give you an example of my own recent deep-mapping. I have begun a simple practice of sitting on a bench in my little garden early morning, with a cup of tea, and photographing the square of sky I can see from there. Of course, it looks different every day. Sometimes there are wispy clouds to see, sometimes a red kite is soaring, other times flight trails from the planes headed home or away. Its shade of blue is surprisingly varied, other days it is grey, or includes some pink.....But there is something in my paying attention to it each morning that enreals me in a way that is restoring something to me. Sky feels increasingly a part of me, its expansiveness and its wonder, and I somehow, become more a part of sky- connected to its expression of life. And knowing that the piece of sky above you will be the same but different, takes me back to Mary Oliver's Wild Geese again. Did you give it a listen? In her words, in sharing my piece of sky with you I'm 'announcing my place, in the family of things'.
Here are some Deep-Mapping opportunities coming at The Soul Shed. Id love to welcome you along to. In addition to the forthcoming online Course Deep-Mapping your instincts, I also offer One to One online deep-mapping sessions Please do get in touch if youd like a call to discuss these or any Soul Shed offerings. Im on Whats ap at +44 (0)7833997043 or connect@thesoul-shed.co.uk And if you are more local then do check out the mask-making and deep-mapping day with the trees at Farnham library and our creative collaging and deep-mapping event at Gilbert White's house , both in October.
References.
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver in 'Wild Geese selected poems'. 2004. Bloodaxe books.
Wild Geese image. Ian Cummings. Unsplash.