We had a wonderful time at the Wood Sisters Winter Festival!
As joint festival co-ordinator it was also a very full time… but after months of admin it felt very special to finally focus on my own creative offering for the day and set up the sanctuary with my friend, Miriam, in a beautiful space at the South Devon Steiner School.
There are many magic moments and also challenging ones during a festival, especially when one is holding the overall event, holding a venue within it and offering sessions within both the wider event and the venue – it’s a great opportunity to be big and also to let go at moments and receive and be held by others and to feel held oneself by something bigger still.
Here is a glimpse of some personal highlights:
One: There’s a quiet moment in creating sanctuary space; after a lot of heavy lifting and moving furniture, a great draping of cloths and distribution of everything from flowers and candles, to paper and wax crayons. There’s a Sabbath moment of completed creation, after the candles are lit and before everyone arrives, a moment to step back and see that it’s good and to sink into silence and an opening of the heart which prays wordlessly that this may be a sanctuary for all that enter here, a place of peace, of authenticity, of healing, of spirit.
Two: Walking away, letting go and leaving Miriam to welcome the first Sanctuary visitors – that’s a good gesture to begin the day… to co-create and then let go and let be. Feeling deep gratitude…
Walking in then to the Opening Ceremony and being swept into the dance of winter into spring, of Cailleach and Bride. I’m mesmerised by the giant puppets as they dance together around the central altar with its circles of candles, greenery, snowdrops and a small spring pool – as Sue and I speak the words of an ancient story and invite all present to place their wishes and blessings in the central pool.
Three: After the ceremony I join as a participant in Ian and Gail’s exploration of the spirituality of Imbolc and Candlemas. What a blessing it is to receive their reflections and Ian’s poetry, to feel held and guided in meditation and have someone else watch the time and the group dynamics during an invitation to share with my neighbour, so all I have to do is share and listen – bliss!
Four: I come back into stillness and peace in the Sanctuary with gentle lyre music playing. Then into the rhythm of a day of guiding meditation, trance telling and holding collaborative ceremony. Mostly the space is very full and there’s beauty and depth but not necessarily silence! Heavy duty colouring, whispering children, background strands of music, voices and laughter are all woven into sacred space.
Five: For me there’s always interesting moments in holding sanctuary… how to make sure children are free to light prayer candles while not setting themselves or anyone or anything else alight. How to pitch the words of a guided meditation over an enthusiasm toddler settling in for a long stint of using a hole punch, on a wooden table, for her prayer card. How to simply be deeply present as people come and go and weep and sleep and are hurt and angry and full of joy and love and…
Six: Magic moments as other artists and priests come in to offer stories, music and more. I get to sit back and watch children entranced as Iwan and friend transport us to other places and times… and I am washing along with everyone else by Abigail’s beautiful harp music during ceremony and inspired by Debbie’s steady voice and words during our shared trance telling.
Seven : The day draws to a close and the open sanctuary time is finished. I’m back in the silence after a day of creation, with the candles burning in the evening darkness now and it’s good to feel the fulness of all the living and sharing that’s unfolded here and to feel that fulness of the heart that wordlessly gives thanks and wishes blessings upon all at the Festival and beyond…
And at the last I return to receiving, joining the audience for Carolyn Hillyer’s soul stirring music and words. I’m travelling with her in imagination to the Far North and joining in the passion of songs to herd the reindeer. Then there’s a final moment as Sue, Victoria and I step forward into the dark, mysterious space beyond the light pool of performance, to thank all the artists and volunteers and visitors, all those hundreds of people that have gathered with us to co-create this incredible day.
Living Spirit continues to grow and thrive through the Wood Sisters and the Tree of Life School… while the rebirth of Open Spirit remains in a gestational phase, ‘in the belly’.
But as this small school of the soul grows inwardly, it is starting now to have more of a form again and some new year hopes and intentions are being seeded and starting to put down roots, ready for some early Spring shoots to emerge at Imbolc/Candlemas and beyond. It’s first shoot will be a Christian presence at the Wood Sisters Winter Festival, followed by a Holy Week celebration and a day programme of workshops, meditation and a collaborative communion in the Wood Sisters Red Tent at Quest Festival in July. To start with, here are some notes from the upcoming Winter Festival Programme, introducing some of the themes of Imbolc and Candlemas:
At Imbolc and Candlemas we are half way between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox and enjoying the snow drops and earliest signs of Spring. Bride or Brigid, the goddess associated with Imbolc (subsequently the Christian St Bridget), inspired poetry, bards and blacksmiths and presided over healing springs and wells, among her many other qualities. She was later characterised as the midwife or wet nurse to the baby Jesus. Candlemas is a time to bless all the candles to be used in the coming year and to celebrate women as Mary returned to the temple after her 40 day absence following the birth of her baby. Christians tell the story of Anna and Simeon who welcomed the baby Jesus and his parents to the Temple at this time. Imbolc celebrated the first milk of the season as baby lambs were born. It may translate as “in the belly” – life is stirring but Spring has not yet fully arrived.
Open Spirit will be part of the Winter Festival at the South Devon Steiner School on Saturday February 1st. I, Sam, am joint festival co-ordinator with Sue Charman, my dear friend and sister founder of the Wood Sisters. We have put together a wonderful programme for the day and this year have added dance workshops and healing to our usual rich mix of myth and storytelling, talks, poetry and music, meditation and ceremony, crafts and delicious organic food. The Wood Sisters Red Tent, which we created in 2012 with the funds raised from the last Winter Festival, will be our Box Office for the day and a roaring fire and warm welcome await you there.
On the day, I’ll be hosting the Sanctuary which has a full day programme of its own, starting with lyre music and meditation and moving on to include meditative storytelling and simple ceremony. There will also be times for silent sanctuary and space for writing prayers, lighting candles and just being.
As an Open Spirit at the Winter Festival, I am especially delighted to be joined by Christian friends and fellow/sister priests Debbie Parsons and Ian Adams. Debbie is a priest in the Church of England and works in the the Totnes Team. She has recently founded Sacred Space, an opportunity for people to encounter God through alternative worship. She will be joining me in the Sanctuary at 5pm for an hour of meditative storytelling moving from an ancient pre-christian celtic story of Bride and the Cailleach for Imbolc, through to the Christian story of the Biblical characters, Simeon, Anna and Mary, associated with Candlemas.
Bride and the Cailleach in both story and giant puppet form will also be opening the Festival in the Greenwood Hall at 9.30am, followed by Anglican Priest Ian Adams and his wife Gail, creators together of the Beloved Life Project. Here are their details from the Winter Festival website artists page:
A theme common to the mid-winter festivals of both Imbolc and Candlemas is the possibility of something new being formed as yet unseen, ‘in the belly’ of the earth and ‘in the belly’ of the person.
With a spacious mix of insight, stillness and spiritual practice, we hope that this session may enable you to further deepen your own patterns of spiritual practice, enabling the new thing to be formed ‘in the belly, as yet unseen’, and so to bring goodness to the world.
Gail is a life-coach, mentor and retreat-leader working with insights from thinkers and practitioners in human possibility and becoming: she runs the see:change project
www.about.me/gail.adams
Ian is a poet, photographer, artist and priest, creator of Morning Bell, director of StillPoint, author of ‘Cave Refectory Road: monastic rhythms for contemporary living’ and ‘Running Over rocks: spiritual practices to transform tough times’ (Canterbury Press)
www.about.me/ianadams
For more details about the Wood Sisters Winter Festival, please visit our website
