The Summer of Soul

I am sitting here with my laptop while Anton, my kid's dad, wire brushes the leaking shower as part of the repair operations. I have been going swimming every day for the past three weeks. It will be good to have a working bathroom again, and I am so grateful for his help. Last week, I was over at Anton's filming the Open Studio, and it was such good fun. I am looking forward to editing the film and revealing the story of Anton Beaver's incredible new paintings. I have also been busy finishing the edits of two Appletree films for PAMIS, which will soon be ready to show! This has also set me off on creating some animation, which I can see is going to be a new creative love! Another project I have recently embarked on is for Screen Education Scotland with a group of people with PMLD. We are helping them to make a film! Oh my goodness, I am learning to listen in new ways and am so grateful for Maureen of PAMIS and all the carers and parents for helping me to reach into the hearts, minds, and souls of the filmmakers! It is utterly a joy to be working with them. The project is called 'In the Shadow of the Dragon.' It is taking me back to Dollar and the Ochils as we are based at the Japanese Gardens there. I am counting my blessings for a year that is already so full of soul-opening experiences. The truth in my heart is this - we are heading towards a Summer of Soul.

Soulful life is reached when each of us can be seen and made room for in our innate ways. Usually, this is accompanied by the exposing of what is false or unkind and the collapse of structures built to protect what is hidden. So when soul retrieval comes along, it is well and truly needed! I have discovered that there are so many ways to retrieve the soul. When I first learned about soul retrieval, I worked with the idea that soul loss would be located in the lifeline. My journeys would take me on soul retrieval expeditions to different parts of a life. Quite quickly, it became apparent that I was being taken into ancestral soul loss or into archetypal spaces that often came through nature or land and mythology associations that had been blocked off. Soul journeys would take me to cul-de-sacs or landslides where I would stand and wait for my guides to come back with soul pieces for someone that were often in different lifetimes and involved spirit animals and deities from other cultures and expressions. In time, I saw how shamanic work for me needed to expand into a systemic model in order for me to map and place what was showing itself as ready for return. And so the Circle of the 4 Directions came into being.

Over the years, I have been working with both shamanic and constellation models to support the release of blocks and open up a culture that prioritizes making soul-flowing containers. I have found that the best container of all is one that lets truth find its place where it has been unable to show itself. This means the building of sturdy and unconditionally compassionate spaces. The caves, standing stones, rivers, and the drum have taken me into the heart of what these spirit-held spaces look and feel like. There are centers of powerful intent all around our planet that have been here for millennia. As far as I know, when I journey to the future, they are fully in place again in time. I guess our job right now is to restore them. The mystery school courses and shamanic theatre work with the land have all taken me to a place where I can meet the ancestors and the future ones for me to work out where it is best to place focus in these times. Their message is to help build community and bring through the best story for the earth with creativity and love. Recently, the message has been to focus on soul.

Exploring Soul Retrieval: A Summer Journey of Restoration and Discovery

So I am making a course with this focus. It brings together everything I have learned about soul retrieval over these last twenty-two years that I have been working with the practice. A soul journey with Soul Retrieval will take a small group of us through the summer months from 7 June - 30 August. The current group in the year-long Shamanic Practitioner training is diving into Soul Retrieval work for people and the land right now, so we will also be opening up deep questions about soul and restoration. In both of these cases, I will be able to really ask: what does soul retrieval need to look like right now? What will the spirits show us is needed? How can we restore as much soul as possible and bring focus to restoring a container for soulful flow?

I am beginning a new year-long Shamanic Practitioner training from 21 June. Both the year course and the three-month Soul Retrieval training are online and are half price for payments in full before 15 May, or until the first three places of each course are taken.

The Summer of Soul is where we are going. The time is ready. Would you like to join us?

https://www.visionanddrum.co.uk/soulretrieval