A possible Harvest  workshop – depending on the response . . .

It was probably our experience of the Summer Solstice, up high on Ikley Moor, that did it.

We began to talk about how we could share such occasions with a wider group of people – not all of them Companions within the Silent Eye School, but many of them our friends from the wider spectrum of the world’s esoteric schools. We find that each year, in addition to our regular companions, a small group of brave souls, new to the whole thing, will join us for our main workshop and find that they have arrived somewhere where the human qualities are very warm, friendly and challenging.  How to reach all of these and more with the right set of workshops is the question . . .

We’re playing with a new annual concept – it’s called Sowing the Seeds for a Harvest of Being. The Summer Solstice, in June, is the pinnacle of the year, spiritually – everything reflects a fullness of growth and light. Its opposite is the Winter Solstice, in December, when a very different approach is taken as the world “dies” for a second, before moving forwards, again. Between them lie the other two major points of spiritual progression – the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes. We already mark the Spring Equinox with the School’s main workshop in Derbyshire – this coming year will see us challenge everyone to travel back to ancient Egypt and the turbulent events of the 18th Dynasty in a workshop called “The River of the Sun”. What we don’t have is a workshop that corresponds with the end of the Summer and the period of the harvest. Symbolically, the reaping and distilling of that which was sown in the Spring.

So, we’ve decided we should try to do this. To be exact, we’ve decided that we should have an annual theme that involves these two Equinox-based events; the first will be our usual Spring workshop, where we take a single story, told as ritual drama for the weekend and get deeper and deeper into our roles, teasing out some astonishing performances – and the spiritual truth that goes with them. This is already in place for next year, as described. The second workshop will be held in the Autumn, and will, in some ways, be the opposite of the Spring events. Our over-arching theme will be that, in Spring, we Sow the Seeds of learning, but in the Autumn, we will reap a Harvest of Being produced by the effects of those Spring seeds. The events will be free-standing, people may come to either, or, hopefully, both.

The Harvest workshop will be very different from the Spring one. Like the Spring event in Derbyshire, we will be using a sacred landscape.  The Harvest workshop will take place in the beautiful landscape of Ikley Moor, using the attractive but inexpensive Cow and Calf Hotel as a base. Rather than being a tightly scripted weekend, it will follow a very free-form approach, as we inquire into the moment, building up a series of inner explorations and outer rituals by sharing our experience of the landscape to illustrate the principles of Being. In doing this we will, symbolically, reach back to the way the ancients harmonised their lives with this sacred place. If the weather permits, we will even try to journey to the stone circle on the very top of the moor for our final event.

With this in place, we’ll have a Spring focus on a formal, learning workshop; and an Autumn Harvest workshop that focusses on a very different approach – each one will complement the other.  Sowing the Seeds for a Harvest of Being will become our annual approach. Later, we hope to flesh out the Solstice periods by having at least a single day workshop for each.

We think we may have left it too late to do this in September 2014 – but we’re very happy to be persuaded otherwise! We need a core group of around 15-20 people who are interested in the potential event. When we get some idea of possible numbers we’ll send out formal invites, but this process is very chicken and egg, as you will appreciate.

If you are interested in the idea, please contact us at  rivingtide@gmail.com if you interested in attending.

If it’s not possible this year, then look out for the Silent Eye Harvest event taking place in September 2015.

Thank you for your interest and support.

Steve, Sue and Stuart
The Silent Eye School of Consciousness.