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July, 2008
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Vol 4, Issue 1 |
Explorations in
Kindness
Exploring the Spirit of Play
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 I am sure many readers have noticed that images of me often feature my dogs. This one is of me with my Great Pyrenees puppy (yes, he's still a young'un!), Sym. Others are of me with my little Pug named Wee who was rescued from the Charlottesville SPCA. I also introduce a new workshop with my colleague, Gail Todter, that merges shamanic practices with her use of horses as teachers. I don't yet know a lot about horses, but my dogs remind me to not take life so seriously and to play often. They keep me laughing and in the groove of my natural spontaneity. This issue of my newsletter explores the connection between play, creativity, spirituality and healing. It also challenges us to consider the role animals can play in our healing and the healing they may need, as well. The
human and animal experience is often challenging, messy, troubling and painful. As the Buddha says, we will invariably experience old age, sickness and death. Yet if we get mired in our suffering, we forget that life is also joyful, profound, and inspiring. We forget how to play. We forget to dance and to make love. After a forest fire, the earth sends up new shoots. After war, a community begins to rebuild. Writing, making art or just playing a simple game of hopscotch can help us restore our sense of safety, trust and faith in ourselves and others. The process may be slow, but little by little, new sprouts of comfort and even outright ecstasy will return. Dogs, cats and horses know this and so do I!
Yours warmly,
Rachel Mann
Founder and Owner
MettaKnowledge for
Peace, LLC
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Freeing the Spirit: Shamanism and Integrative Horsemanship
A New Collaborative Workshop
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In this Halloween weekend workshop, Gail Todter (for more on Gail, see below), health educator and founder of Integrative Health Services, teams up with MettaKnowledge for Peace to offer participants a unique opportunity for personal growth through engagement on the ground with horses and in the spiritual dimensions offered by shamanic healing practices. Working with horses provides opportunities for reflection, insight, re-creation. Horses, like shamanic healing practices and ritual, provide a connection to nature and help us reclaim our own innate beauty and power. We will spent a day and a half in a lovely post and beam barn and in the fields and corrals of Galleywinter Farm in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and cultivate the energies of healing with the help of Gail's herd of 6 horses. Basic practices we will work with include mindfulness, horsemanship, loving kindness practices, and the rituals of stone and fire from the Q'ero of the Peruvian Andes. For more information, click here.
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The Spirit of Play: Creativity, Spirituality and Healing
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 | | Dogs take play for granted. We have a lot to learn from them. Many
of us have forgotten the art of play. Play is anything that involves
spontaneity, creativity, the use of the imagination, the use of our
bodies in athletic or fun ways, and relaxation. Often we believe that
we are not playful, creative or artistic. We think that when there are
so many problems in the world around us and when there are so many
people and animals in pain and suffering, how can we justify doing
anything fun? How can we find the time to do anything lighthearted when
there is so much to do to help others?
Some of us also think that only "talented" people can make art. "I'm
not talented," we say. "I can't paint, write, sing, draw, dance." You
name it. All of the ways that we have been given to enjoy ourselves are
somehow only within reach of the most gifted. There are many reasons
for this rooted in the way our culture has removed storytelling,
artmaking, singing, and other creative outlets from being part of the
ordinary day-to-day enjoyment within families and communities. We are
saturated with images of famous, "talented" people who do these things
for us on television and radio. However, at a more basic level, our
beliefs that prevent us from playing are rooted in the challenges of
trauma, stress and violence.
People in helping roles often neglect playing and, like their
clients, patients, or sick and ill loved ones, even forget how to play.
In this way, they become very much like those they are seeking to help:
survivors of violence and other kinds of traumas themselves often have
forgotten this wonderful human capacity for joy. Many religious
traditions frown on activities that engender playfulness, such as
dancing, singing, lovemaking, and other creative uses of the body in
service of generativity. Further, when your life is in danger or you
are constantly at risk for being criticized, all you have time for is
to be vigilant in developing and maintaining strategies to protect
yourself. Click here to continue.
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MettaKnowledge Fall Workshops
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The Art of Surviving Compassion Fatigue
In this workshop, we explore the meaning of compassion and its
manifestations in our own lives and work. We explore why we have
compassion fatigue and how to address it constructively so we can
continue our work with a sense of energy, hope, and optimism. For more, click here.
Where: Canterbury House, Charlottesville, VA
Date: Friday, September 26
Exploring Dimensions of Spirituality on the Front Lines of Violence: A Workshop of Personal Exploration
Where: Galleywinter Farm, Afton, VA (outside of Charlottesville, VA)
Date: Friday, October 24
Story and Healing in Action: Embracing Diversity with Compassion in our Workplaces
In this workshop, through the lens of storytelling and its power to
inform and heal, we will explore with compassion and curiosity
interracial and interethnic tensions in our workplaces with the goal of
developing a deeper understanding of what causes these problems and to
learn tools for addressing them. For more, click here.
Where: YWCA of Southampton Roads, Norfolk, VA
Date: Friday, November 7
The Shamanic Spirit of Play: Finding Wholeness Through Creativity
In this workshop, we engage our natural spontaneity and courage to be
ourselves through play, shamanic ways of seeing and art. The focus is
on releasing old patterns of struggle and trauma using methods from
age-old shamanic healing practices. For more information, click here.
All daylong workshops cost $95 (includes refreshments and lunch)
To register, click here.
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| Animals Need Healing Too! |
 Animals in our world take on many burdens and face many challenges.
Like humans, they can experience trauma, abuse, neglect, abandonment,
and illness. However, unlike humans, unless they have been terribly
abused, they do not lose a sense of connection with the living source
of life that feeds all creation. Nonetheless, their bodies, minds, and
energies can become imbalanced.
Animals grieve when they have lost a
loved one, they feel anxiety when circumstances change, and they
struggle against aging and sick bodies, wanting like any of us to be
active and well. They also take on a great
deal of our emotional baggage for us and are great teachers about our
own shadows. For more, click here.
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Featured Colleague: Gail Todter, Founder and Owner of Integrative Health Services
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 Gail Todter has become a highly valued friend and colleague of MettaKnowledge for Peace. She gave me courage to start my own business helping others--to follow my vision, as this is what she has done with her life. Gail is a tall, sinewy, blue-eyed presence who commands respect just because of her soothing and caring presence. Visiting her 21-acred Galleywinter Farm which sits in a gentle cove below Afton Mountain is a rare treat. There is her post and beam barn that Gail built with her own hands which smells of cedar. One side is lined with horse gear; another opens out to a view of the rolling landscape. Surrounding the barn are rolling fields for her 6 horses, Felipe, Clary, Ali, Dulci, Blaze, and Sunny who work with her to teach her clients the practices of mindfulness, to adopt positive health habits, and to be more empowered in their lives. Her two dogs, Bonnie and Jade bring a great deal of spontaneity and play to any setting. For more information about her workshops and private sessions on nutrition, fitness and for her Horse as Teacher and Empowered Women series, go to her web site. She can also be reached at: gail@leadingforth.com. |
 When one studies violence in depth, as I have, it is impossible to confront the damage done to all of us--humanity, the earth, and yes, animals and other living creatures of all kinds--without thinking about healing. It is impossible to see an animal suffering from abuse and to not know that they need emotional and often spiritual healng as much as humans do. I know from my own life, as well, about how much animals bring to the table to help others heal. Lily, my girl pictured here who died in 2006, taught me so much throughout her life and even in her death that feeds me still today. Animals more than humans live in the present and are willing to give so much of themselves. They are a living, breathing lesson in the power of compassion. I am therefore committed to bringing a message of hope and healing to all and to insist on the power of animals to be participants in our individual and collective healing from violence and trauma of all kinds. Part of that is how they teach us how to play and find the spark of creativity, of something divine in and around us, and their unbounded enjoyment of the Living World!
Warmly,
Rachel
Founder and Owner
MettaKnowledge for Peace, LLC
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