Ecstatic Medicine Reflections

This summer I have been facilitating Ecstatic Medicine Vocal Circles as a workshop coordinator at several festivals: Emrg'n'See, Mystic Garden Party, Beloved Festival with the next and final workshop festival facilitating occuring at Symbiosis. This has been an amazing experience for myself as a facilitator, and I feel that I have been learning a lot about how to be a facilitator and guide through these experiences, and have been receiving nothing but amazing feedback and love from my work. For this, I am so grateful - and I am looking forward to returning to next year's festivals to facilitate more workshops, hopefully to build my practice to include more Qi Gong, and to have an album to be able to offer to all those who have expressed interest.At Beloved, as I introduced my workshop, I felt exhausted and low energy - I was scheduled in the morning, and I am not a morning person. I did not show up feeling ready at all, and I felt disconnected and nervous as I began speaking in front of the largest group I'd ever seen. Typically, in Ashland, the Vocal Circles have been no more than 8 - and at Beloved, I had a group of perhaps 40+. And as I introduced my work, I explained that I am new to being a guide and facilitator; that I've only been doing it for a few months and that I'm still very much in my infancy of learning how to be a facilitator. I've always been the student - but to now be the teacher - what a role reversal for me! But one of the gentlemen in the workshop said to me afterwards that I'd gone from "beginner to pro instantaneously". How sweet; that was gratefully received.Being a teacher / facilitator has been a major process for me in learning how to step into my power with my voice and my spiritual practice. A year and a half ago, I was excited to be a teacher - feeling that I had a lot that I had to teach, but nervous and insecure in stepping into that powerful role. Something I will never forget is a statement my teacher, Wilbert Alix, said to me during my Trance Dance Facilitation workshop - he said: "You cannot be a teacher if you haven't learned how to be taught. You must learn how to accept authority before you can become an authority." And it hit me in my core like a jab in my weak spot, and I realized that he was so right. I'd been anti-authoritarian and headstrong my whole life - I hadn't fully learned how to accept teachers, even though my life has been peppered with important and profound guidance from teachers, role models and mentors along the way. But to a certain degree, with my Leo / Aries archetypal energy, I've been bucking at authority and wanting to do things my way - and that began with my relationship with my mother. I always wanted to be in charge - I wanted to be the powerful woman, the mother in my relationship with my mom. It was hard to surrender to her power over me as a child. I fought against it.And in much the same way, I have fought against teachers throughout my life and always wanted to do things my way. It's only been in the last few years, when I've had such intense experiences that have forced me to be humbled and learn how to surrender to the process in power over me and learn how to receive the wisdom and teachings from the universe through the fire of initiations and challenges, have I finally come to appreciate the importance of accepting authority before becoming an authority.But one cannot become an authority without fully owning that power, and stepping fully into it. And on the precipice of teaching and facilitating vocal circles, I was nervous and filled with trepidation. I did it as an experiment to get over my anxiety, and it has become successful in terms of the impact it has been having on those people who have been coming to the circles. I have been learning a lot from the experience of stepping into that role as guide and facilitator, and from receiving feedback from those that have been coming. Taking baby steps towards the maturation of being a teacher.A year ago, I was in Manhattan and went to visit a psychic in Soho who took one look at me and read me like a book. She described all this stuff that was going on for me in detailed perfection, point by point - blow by blow. It was amazing. And one of the things that she described was that she saw me being a teacher, workshop facilitator and speaker, and that I would be taking people around the world to Sacred Sites and initiating people into the energy at Sacred Sites through my work as a teacher. She saw my blockages, and their source, and saw what work I needed to do and receive in order to clear myself to be stepping into my power in my work. It was amazing to receive that reflection, and to see through the eyes of another what my own soul's yearning is - to be a facilitator and guide for others, and to bring people to sacred sites and access the timeless wisdom voice of Earth Energy through using Voice, Sound, Guided Meditation and QiGong / Movement Meditation.So, I am excited to do my work of offering these Ecstatic Medicine Vocal Circles - and I am excited by the luminous love and appreciation I have received in response to the workshops. I have been loving witnessing all the people coming to the workshops and opening up to themselves in a deep way, moving through blocks and resistances they carry in their voice, becoming comfortable with being fully themselves. The most essential intention of my work is about assisting others in embodying their divine essence self; through opening the heart and accessing our authenticity and liberation through the voice and guided meditation. I only hope that through my work, healing of the heart is enabled and a greater sense of wholeness of self is achieved. And in my work, I devoutly pray to the compassionate nature of the Divine Mother to come to our hearts and help us achieve the balance and healing we each need to receive.And I am ever so excited to return to next year's festivals - where the burgeoning Visionary Community comes together to bathe in love, creativity, dance and bliss - as we point the fingers towards the Moon of the upliftment of humanity as the transformation of consciousness on Earth evolves!Painting by Amanda Sage