Notes from We-Space Ireland (May–June 2022) -Part 1

© 2022 by Bruce Nayowith MD Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

In May to June of 2022, I spent 3 weeks in a residential we-space near Bantry, County Cork, Ireland (4 of us the first week, 7 the second, and 6 the third week.) This describes some of the experiences I/we had there.

Future articles based on this experience may cover:

The Format

Lindsay invited a number of people to a residential we-space in a beautiful location in southwestern Ireland over a four-week period. I shall only describe the first three weeks, as I was not present for the fourth.

Of those who arrived while I attended, 6 came for one week, 5 for two weeks, 1 (myself) for three weeks. Lindsay was present for all four weeks. Each week had about a 50% turnover, so there was significant initial configuring and reconfiguring every Saturday and Sunday.

All of the participants knew each other through Stephen Busby's work. ("Guidance for Life on Earth", "Awakening to Higher Frequencies of Love")

The participants attending for each week had met once or twice on Zoom ahead of time.

Once we gathered and settled in, the format was primarily peer-based, emergent. There was morning meditation, circles of sharing and checking in, exploring various topics and group dynamics that arose, constellations based on various themes (generally designed by the Seeker), and walks/explorations in Nature. We took turns cooking and cleaning up for meals.

Some of the novel and creative experiences:

There was a great deal of nurturance, inspiration, and resourcing for some of the participants.

This was a result of the level of interpersonal acceptance and the respect for differences, the way that people were able to presence their needs without being shamed, and also from some of the processes that we did.

Here are a few of them:

1-Structural constellations for various dimensions of the growth process.

Early on, we began to explore some metaphors for emergent process, particularly related to the qualities that seeds need to grow:

After an hour or two of exploring this as metaphor, this constellation form emerged - 4 representatives:

Me-

The Seed-- My thing - that which I want to grow/plant/take root.

The Soil/Field -- that the Seed is planted in. How available, nurturing, and fertile is this?

The Support/Protection.-- The fence around the field. How are things inside held, and how are unwholesome influences kept out?


These were all done blinded, so none of the four of us knew who was whom until they were revealed.

Each person's process was very different from the others in the group.


By the second week, this expanded into "Design Your Own (Transformative/Nourishing) Process." A person would design something they feel drawn or called to, with the help of the group. Then we would either constellate it, or engage in some other process around that. It was very powerful each time.

2- Transmission in Constellations.

Two or three times in one of the constellations, a representative began to experience a significant positive energy stream - much more than human - coming through them. In one, a woman presenced a huge power stream. The energy felt archetypal, and it flowed into me in my representation, affecting my cells.


In another, two reps (including myself) put our hands on another rep, (who, in the constellation, felt that she was paraplegic from a fractured spine), and brought her back to health and ability to walk. One of the representative's transmitted energy was warmer/kinder and more familiar; the other's was more electrifying but seemed to be quite physically activating and healing.

3-The Importance of Nature, the land, and our relationship to Earth

We were very attracted to the lush plant life, waterfalls, rural environment, and mountain scenery.

Besides walks and time spent meeting outside, we spent some time mutually tuning into nature. Different people experienced different frequencies and aspects; together we presenced quite a bit, and through each of us sharing some aspects of our experience with the group, we could connect more deeply.


At one point in time, considering what to offer to the Earth, and how we wanted to be in relation to nature and Earth, there was a sense of "What about not giving something to Earth, but about receiving something from Earth?" Not in a taking way, but like the way we receive a person when we listen to them deeply.

As I checked into what does Earth want from me?, what came was "Let me live in you".


With this, came some opening and inviting of a presence into my mid-abdominal area, as if there was a living presence in my body that was resonant with Earth. This had the effect of adding another processing frequency within me:

[This all connects with what I call Metabiology - using biological metaphors for expanding body-consciousness, rather than mental/abstract metaphors from physics.

Energy moves quickly, but biology grows slowly. Both need to be honored and worked with.]


This had some associations to Gerhard Dorn's work on the three unions that Carl Jung often quoted.

Dan Booth Cohen teaches that people are often connected with this world (First Dimension), and sometimes also with the Spiritual World (the Third Dimension), but often skip over the "Second Dimension" - the Ancestral Realms. In spite of doing spiritual practices, some may stay stuck or feel disconnected because of entanglements with the Family Soul.

[ Of course, Family Constellations are very effective in presencing and working with the Second Dimension, as well as other realms.]


In an analogous way, perhaps some people align their intentions with Spirit (Dorn's First Union), and, at some point, may try to do collective work/connect with the World (Dorn's Third Union), but may omit their animal bodies and the natural world. Leaving this middle stage out creates a major disconnect and less effectiveness, just as not working on the ancestral level can hold people back from their capacities and freedom.


Awareness of this layer of connection and body-intelligence felt very important - it really opened something for me with respect to working with the collective.

Nature is the body. The body needs to be included. The animal body and the body's rhythms and speeds for processing, rest, and nourishment all need to be respected along with the pushing and drivenness of the mental realms and holding active conscious intentions in the linear mind.


The next week, I had an experience where I felt how I had pushed Nature away from me, and longed to reconnect. I stood looking at a hill, feeling myself rolling down the grass in my imagination, and then saying constellation sentences:


"I went away. I left you. I dont remember why, but I left."

"I was so lost..."

"Please. Please take me back."


I was quite teary. This had the feel of the Prodigal Son returning back to his parent house...


I went through a fence into a farmer's field and laid in the grass, as this process continued. I got in touch with fears of nature - bees, spiders, and more, how afraid I was. And how I shut Nature out because of my fear of intrusion, of danger..

A bit later, looking at the river on a bridge, I could feel a sense of "I belong to you. And, you belong to me."


(Lovely how the Family Constellation sentences apply so deeply to this relationship as well...)

Besides the depth of those experiences, I also realized that, for me, I needed to feel my grief of separation from the Earth, before I could grieve for what is happening with or on the Earth. Otherwise, I am coming from a too-detached place, as part of me would still be protecting and separating myself.

This helps me with a way to approach climate activism. It also adds another perspective for people working work with their relationship to nature..

4. A Headdress of Sensing, and its relational role

At some point during the first week, after we had done a few of the Seed-Field-Protection constellations, I felt a great deal of pressure around my head.

As we gathered for a constellation, I spoke: "I don't think that I should do a constellation right now." I mentioned the head pressure.


Lindsay said: "Actually, I feel that I could represent that energy in your head area. Would that be ok?"


I consented, and a very interesting process unfolded.

What she was representing felt very shy initially. It did not want to be looked at; she hid behind a wall with her back to us for quite some time.

I do not remember what allowed her to shift - perhaps I said something, or perhaps another representative came in for The Shield - some kind of protection that had my back. [Or Lindsay may have moved to a different space that allowed the next move.]


She felt that she was being birthed through the wall - right through the wall: not through any opening in the wall, not coming around it. (I still do not understand how that could happen, but that is what she described.)

At some point, around this time (either before or just after coming through the wall,) she described an array of antennae, like peacock feathers with eyes, on top of her head.

These eyes did not see - they sensed.

She had a sense of waving antennae, sensing, like a headdress of feathers that a Native American chieftain would wear - a headdress of sensing antennae...


She then approached me and placed it on my head, for me to wear. After this, she and the representative for Shield stepped back. "It is done, and it is right," she said, followed by a few words about me being handed back what was rightfully mine, and me taking my rightful place...

I kept looking for some form to connect it to, some way to make sense of it. Shield responded with "Just wear the *@! headdress!"


Interesting for me to be holding this function and carrying this sense of being a sensing organism, sharing antennae ...

It is not so much of a doing, rather more of a sensing and reporting/sharing. Others do their thing, and the headdress does its sensing - sensing the existence of various possibilities or life forms that want to come into being


This feels connected to my deep Devotion to Something Not-Yet-Here.

There seems to be a Field that seeks engagement and reciprocity with it. Rather than us trying to find the future, or trying to create the future - both of which are coming from a mindset of separation from it - there can be a call-and-response between us and the incoming future - a relational dance of interaction and creation.

The future calls to us, we call to the future through prayer and devotional work, and we respond to each other.

5. A Holy Living Presence

Early in the second week, there had been a great deal of energy spent on worries and fears such as:

One participant described how she had never seen so much energy spent on these matters. She felt that trauma was taking up so much space, that nothing else could get any attention.

She then tried to bring us back to something that the host was starting to presence:

With much silence, a few words, and some reflections, such as "It is not about you; it is about the baby," a profound energy showed up in the space.

This was not like a diffuse warm or luminous energy. Rather, it had the sense of a being, perhaps a very young or embryonic being, that was being brought into form or allowed to come in because of the invitation and attunement.

I felt that it needed to be energetically held, and allowed to grow.


What struck me the most, was the strong sense of holiness that emanated from/around this embryonic (membrane-being.)

It did not quite have a body, but it did not not have one, either.. There was a sense of something like an amniotic sac, which was there because of our presence.


I have experienced sacred and holy moments before: when alone, with one other person, and in larger groups. What was different here, is that, in those, there is often a palpable spirit or presence that feels suffused in the space, as if within the air itself around and through us.

In this case, it felt as if the holiness was coming into a more biological form - as if it had a discreteness to it, a body of some sort.


As it turned out, this was the evening of Pentecost - when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles. This was also the time of the celebration of Shavuot, when the Torah was given to the Israelites from Mt Sinai.


This experience was the most precious for me of the entire three weeks. It felt as if the Something-not-yet-here was able to show up, to embody or materialize just a bit, and let its presence be felt by several of us.

For me, it was a sense of the holy that might be similar to what is described in the Nativity scenes - a Light coming into the world.


I remember a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh:

"The next Buddha will be the Sangha"


Lovely and as inspiring as this was, sadly it did not return nor did we experience that in such a way again for the remaining 13 days that I was there. (There may be some structural reasons for that, the topic of a future article!)

6. A Resource-Poor Constellation

Halina had the idea of constellating the opposite of a resource-rich field.

"What is possible when resources are removed, that was not possible to happen otherwise?"

"What if we have a field of not-enoughness, which can build resilience, innovation, and inner strength when one has to function alone?"

After she mentioned this, we had a spontaneous constellation that in retrospect was a resource-poor constellation. We did not realize that until after. It felt incredibly under-resourced and rather miserable.

It was quite an unusual experience, and reminded me of the health benefits of Intermittent Fasting. Not pleasant, but perhaps quite useful from time to time in building internal capacities.

7. A Vortex of Vulnerability

During the second week, while experimenting with "Design Your Own Transformative Container," the group did a blind constellation for me, starting with two elements that I chose:

Me

The Vortex- a transformative portal/field that I have felt drawn to say "yes" to for years, and have also been terrified to step into or unable to find at different times in my life.

Others who were present in the circle came into the constellation later as they felt moved.

None of us knew who was whom, as the constellation was blinded to all of us.


As I watched the first two representatives interact, share, and reconfigure, I felt trembling and a great deal of energies moving through my body. One of the representatives felt small, seemed to carry a great deal of shame, and wanted to bow down quite low. She then made other movements with significant humility and a sense of smallness.

I assumed that this rep was myself, and the other was representing The Vortex.


At some point in time they unblinded. I realized that it was not Me, but The Vortex that felt small and was bowing down low! I had a sense that The Vortex, this portal, has to do with Vulnerability.


This was not a glorious nor a "sexy" portal, but it seems to be my way into my future destiny.


(Later on, it turned out that was very resonant with a Resource-Rich constellation that Beth Tener did the same week in the USA, where The Cloud was "What is wanting to manifest" (a positive creation, rather than a trauma).

The Cloud would not enter into the resource-rich field, until a representative for Vulnerability showed up. The incoming potential needed Vulnerability to feel safe and to have a way into the space, in order to manifest.)

In our later conversation about that, Beth reported Vulnerability -- vibrating. The Cloud could go to her, and felt "This is only place in the system where there is life. Here it feels gentle and safe."


If what is needed is more Holding energy than Inquiring Into energy, then this makes sense that an open, available, tender space could allow certain kinds of New Life to come in and be born that might not be possible in a stronger, more powerful kind of energetic environment.

8.Shamanic Aikido

During a triad inquiry during the third week, we were invited to consider something in the world that we find distressing. Then, supported by the presence of the others, we were encouraged to allow energetic movements in us to happen, in the hope that it might allow us to get to the essence of the distress, the energy underneath it.

The first person to share presenced a feeling of disconnection, of being cut off, like someone cutting a tree.

The second described feeling a frantic back-and-forth, trying to make something work, and stayed with that...


During my turn, I began feeling a sense of something driving onward, rolling, like a huge boulder - out of control, crushing humanity and life on Earth.

I could feel these steamrolling energies, a sense that this is how many of us in the world feel now.

This seemed to relate to climate change, consumption of resources, political craziness, gun violence, militarism and more - all seeming to be driven and unable to stop itself.


It felt too big to try to stop it or even to turn it a bit sideways towards some other course.

I spent some time sensing into how to relate to this drivenness, lightly trying a few usual relational engagements:

I remember a sense of "not communism (all the same, collective over the individual initiative), and not capitalism (each for themselves, the individual over the collective), but something else."

As I sat with all of that as an open inquiry, an image came in of an inverted V, like the sharply angled roof of an A-frame house.

And, it was as if that shape formed some kind of holding/containing on top of the boulder, so the boulder could spin inside of that A-roof, but would not keep rolling.


Next came a sense that, while the boulder was lightly held within this containing structure, there could be ways to plug into the boulder from the sides. Plugging into its energy could allow it to support creative movements on Earth, rather than it being so destructive and separate, resisting or overtaking other energies. When plugged into some larger grid, the energy could be shared in all directions, not just driving forward, but that it could contribute, rather than destroy.


I stayed with this for a while, and the others with me shared what came for them..

A sense of "Something has been misplaced."

And, that the right place for this boulder energy was for it to be plugged into the system. In that way, while it was still a wild force, it was not running amok.

Someone said: "It felt like an ancient promise that was remembered or restored."


This image felt creative and hopeful, and I hope to explore it more in the future.

This relational design experience unfolded by engaging in an open way, allowing a different kind of body consciousness. It felt shamanic in the entering into and engaging huge energies with some intention and some agency while respectful of forces much larger than the human frame. It inspired me to experience how something new can come from creative ways of working with evolutionary challenges of our time.

Expanding our energetic bodies feels like a significant factor in this.


This entire process felt like a combination of bioengineering and Aikido:

Having had a few of these experiences spontaneously, I am open to cultivating more of them, as well as encouraging others as well. For now, knowing that these kinds of things are possible feels exciting. This is an area that I feel very drawn to spend time with.

↑