bodyaltar, in the night garden

nondual animist gatherings with dare (online)

aka The Death Practice Group

 

My initial idea is to host one gathering a month for 13 months. Each gathering will be recorded and made available for donation purchase so that those who cannot attend live can still engage on their own schedule. Those who pre-register and attend live will have the opportunity for live feedback on the Views & Methods presented in that gathering. My aim for the content is something like 60/40 View/Methods. Within the cycle of 13 months my intent is to flesh out a very complete ecosystem of Death Practice — which includes View & Methods on Dream & Dreaming Paths, Perception as a creative act, Breath, Sound, Movement, Conceptual & Non-Conceptual Practices, Divination, Ancestor Relating, Spirit Jobs, Death Clowning, etc — that can be realized and received by anyone who has the intent to enter into relationship with Death as the base. This is neither Beginner nor Advanced, so let me elaborate.

 

For many people, their karmic shapes (natal fate, epigenetic inheritance, cultural position/conditioning, etc) require of them to diligently enter into a developmental process by which they could stabilize their “self”, their “mind”, their worldview, enough to enter into a conscious de-stabilizing practice or process that would nourish their nondual nature. This developmental process is similar to “training wheels”, and without it, many people will “crash & burn”.

For these folk, Animist Arts offers many other kinds of containers that titrate experience in very gentle structures and sequences.

 

However there are some people who have been “initiated” via their karmic shape to have already “touched the end” in such a way as to inform their entire path. These people can deal with a more No-Holds-Barred approach to practice. A more secular, bones & roots approach to what they already know is inevitable and already always happening. These folks are candidates for entry into a Practice Group, based on Practice Lineages.

 

A Practice Lineage differs from other kinds of lineages because in this arrangement, everyone knows they are responsible for checking their own roots, their own base. In a Practice Lineage or Practice Group, the “teacher” or host is not playing the role of parent or guardian or enlightened guru/buddha. The relationship each participant has with the practice IS the real teacher. The host (in this case, me) shares their own relationship with the real teacher as honestly as possible, in real time, with as little pretense as possible, hence No-Holds-Barred. Any concepts or abstractions shared (View teachings) are merely to assist real practicing, real relating with practicing itself.

 

Practice means “On Purpose”. Death is the only guarantee we are ever given, so it will happen to us regardless of whether we consciously engage with Death as a Practice, on purpose. In that sense, the entirety of existence IS Death Practice. But, joining a Practice Group or being part of a Practice Lineage means that you understand the benefits of aligning with an intentional re-prioritization of your behaviors and worldview in order to more fully enter into honest relationship with what is.

 

This series of gatherings is not a facilitation training. Animist Arts will be offering a year-long training container in early 2023 that will focus on facilitation, group process, Deathclown, and our “Play & Pray” approach to designing and facilitating experiences for self & other. For different containers, check out our Between Sun & Moon events, our Playground monthly subscription tier that includes live drop-in sessions and recordings library, as well as our We All Go Home ritual veneration events, and stay tuned for other introductory or short form series this summer and fall.

 

‘Bodyaltar, in the night garden’ is where we will focus on all the many aspects of Death Practice for no other reason than the internal calling of practitioners to become intentionally closer to Death as base.

 

The donation amount for these gatherings is minimum $50 usd or as much as you would like to support me. For those who don’t know, this container developed partly because I needed to find a way to subsidize my own medical bills in a way that was win-win for all our relations, and a way for people to have sessions with me that both lessened the individual cost and distributed the social resources in a group context.