sustainability
Of the last three trances the team has done, two had half the facilitators drop out at last minute due to illness; the Kali etc trance was just - so big. All three left me and several other facilitators wondering how we can do this work without being utterly whacked when it's over.
I used to witness Reclaiming's approach to those who aspect having a tender, when it's over, and a part of me thought that approach a little precious, a little dramatic. No more. I NEED a keeper when these things end. I have certainly learned not to try to drive before (too much in another headspace) or after (not safe. At all)
Here are my own observations and those of others on the team, on what makes the work too demanding to sustain, the way we've been doing it:
1. My own tendency to go all out. Give me 8 facilitators, I'll plan a trance/ritual that 15 could do comfortably
2. The physical work - like, moving pews at the Friends' meetinghouse
3. My tendency to go prop heavy (for the Baba Yaga trance, we transformed the meetinghouse into a forest)
4. Jasmine says the "go all out" and prop heavy approach, combined with dark, meaty myth, gives women a transformative experience and it's all worth it. I do like that "transformative" part! But she believes the energies of the dark myths really weigh on the facilitators for days. I believe that the facilitators also get to do a lot of transformative work - in particular, the Baba Yaga trance did a great deal to change my relationship with my intuition. But - transformation itself is pretty exhausting, so there's that energy drain as well.
5. The team gets really jazzed about what we're going to do - if we do simpler trances, I'm not sure everyone will be as enthused -
6. the last minute dropping out has been way hard on the surviving facilitators. And couldn't be helped. Luckily, RCGSA is developing very strong women who can step in at a moment's notice - Leilani, at the Baba Yaga ritual, took over two key roles and was fabulous
7. for me, the very most draining thing is when we're in the middle of it and I feel the energy begin to flag, for whatever reason. I have this feeling of my solar plexus reaching down into the earth and just bringing up the energy we need and throwing it into the work. But at the same time, there's this feeling that I'm fading, every time I do it. Especially hard during the Kali etc. trance - in which I was all the transitions - and the Baba Yaga trance in which, somehow, I ended up driving the energy raising (not at all my strong suit)
And what this all equates to is that I am determined to find a better way. I am not willing to feel the way I feel for days afterward (pretty much physically useless, and somewhat mentally useless). I have seen too many communities bleed their priestesses dry, often because the priestesses did it to themselves. One thing I'm hugely grateful for: this team has no personal drama. None! I have been in situations that mixed drama with facilitation before, and the combination is really deadly, to the psyche and the mentality.
Some ideas to make changes:
1. we must get someone on the team who says: and how could we do this more simply?
2. I need to REMIND myself, constantly, that it's what happens in the trancers' experience that makes all the difference - not that we've transformed the meeting house into a forest
3. Heck, I need to just get in better physical shape! (as Suzanne Sterling noted, when I asked how the heck she keeps going, hour after hour, day after day)
4. The team members need to rotate, where half of us facilitate the whole ritual/trance, the other half just show up and support the trance part (which means: I have to let go of some of the control of what happens. And just show up and do an induction, once in a while)
After the Baba Yaga trance, Jasmine and I (who ended up pretty much doing it alone, till the others joined us at the event) fell on each other and made a sacred sister pact NOT to facilitate anything until her Beltaine ritual. We were bled dry. Two nights later we got the idea to do NEXT winter solstice on The Snow Queen - immediately, she went into costume design, and I wanted a chariot for the Queen to ride in.
And I'm telling myself how effective it would be to just have the trancers IMAGINE what the queen is wearing. IMAGINE her chariot. Certainly that seems like one good answer - we take every single aspect of the physical and make it an imagined thing -
Still very glad that April is probably the next time I'll have any ritual trance responsibilities of any substance, at all. Hoping I stick with that -
I used to witness Reclaiming's approach to those who aspect having a tender, when it's over, and a part of me thought that approach a little precious, a little dramatic. No more. I NEED a keeper when these things end. I have certainly learned not to try to drive before (too much in another headspace) or after (not safe. At all)
Here are my own observations and those of others on the team, on what makes the work too demanding to sustain, the way we've been doing it:
1. My own tendency to go all out. Give me 8 facilitators, I'll plan a trance/ritual that 15 could do comfortably
2. The physical work - like, moving pews at the Friends' meetinghouse
3. My tendency to go prop heavy (for the Baba Yaga trance, we transformed the meetinghouse into a forest)
4. Jasmine says the "go all out" and prop heavy approach, combined with dark, meaty myth, gives women a transformative experience and it's all worth it. I do like that "transformative" part! But she believes the energies of the dark myths really weigh on the facilitators for days. I believe that the facilitators also get to do a lot of transformative work - in particular, the Baba Yaga trance did a great deal to change my relationship with my intuition. But - transformation itself is pretty exhausting, so there's that energy drain as well.
5. The team gets really jazzed about what we're going to do - if we do simpler trances, I'm not sure everyone will be as enthused -
6. the last minute dropping out has been way hard on the surviving facilitators. And couldn't be helped. Luckily, RCGSA is developing very strong women who can step in at a moment's notice - Leilani, at the Baba Yaga ritual, took over two key roles and was fabulous
7. for me, the very most draining thing is when we're in the middle of it and I feel the energy begin to flag, for whatever reason. I have this feeling of my solar plexus reaching down into the earth and just bringing up the energy we need and throwing it into the work. But at the same time, there's this feeling that I'm fading, every time I do it. Especially hard during the Kali etc. trance - in which I was all the transitions - and the Baba Yaga trance in which, somehow, I ended up driving the energy raising (not at all my strong suit)
And what this all equates to is that I am determined to find a better way. I am not willing to feel the way I feel for days afterward (pretty much physically useless, and somewhat mentally useless). I have seen too many communities bleed their priestesses dry, often because the priestesses did it to themselves. One thing I'm hugely grateful for: this team has no personal drama. None! I have been in situations that mixed drama with facilitation before, and the combination is really deadly, to the psyche and the mentality.
Some ideas to make changes:
1. we must get someone on the team who says: and how could we do this more simply?
2. I need to REMIND myself, constantly, that it's what happens in the trancers' experience that makes all the difference - not that we've transformed the meeting house into a forest
3. Heck, I need to just get in better physical shape! (as Suzanne Sterling noted, when I asked how the heck she keeps going, hour after hour, day after day)
4. The team members need to rotate, where half of us facilitate the whole ritual/trance, the other half just show up and support the trance part (which means: I have to let go of some of the control of what happens. And just show up and do an induction, once in a while)
After the Baba Yaga trance, Jasmine and I (who ended up pretty much doing it alone, till the others joined us at the event) fell on each other and made a sacred sister pact NOT to facilitate anything until her Beltaine ritual. We were bled dry. Two nights later we got the idea to do NEXT winter solstice on The Snow Queen - immediately, she went into costume design, and I wanted a chariot for the Queen to ride in.
And I'm telling myself how effective it would be to just have the trancers IMAGINE what the queen is wearing. IMAGINE her chariot. Certainly that seems like one good answer - we take every single aspect of the physical and make it an imagined thing -
Still very glad that April is probably the next time I'll have any ritual trance responsibilities of any substance, at all. Hoping I stick with that -