Working With the Wild Energies of Late Autumn
Boundaries & Protection for Halloween & Samhain
Friday 30th October 2026, 4pm to 5:30pm UK time
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Working with This Wierdy Wildy Time
When The Two Worlds Amost Touch
As the Autumn tips towards the first few days of Winter, here in the Northern Hemisphere, there is a sense of everything being whipped up and destabilised. The Harvest is done and if it's not done by now, then it's too late, too late, too late. The wind shrieks, rain penetrates in sharp, unwelcome angles and darkness crowds in. How do you manage it?
The mythos of this time of year is that it is when the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest. This is a broadly cross-cultural phenomenon and so ubiquitous as to not be an accident. The dead are close. It is a ghosty time of year.
No matter if you believe in all this or not, the wildness of the weather, can easily elicit feelings of existential unrest and emotional destabilisation. Maybe the fag end of Autumn naturally carries this within it. But add to this, climate shifting big weather events and the craziness being whipped up on the human scene at the moment and it all adds up to a very wierdy, wildy time.
This workshop is an invitation to gather together, settle in, invite in some protective powers, do some banishing of what's no longer relevant, and some gathering in of our precious longings. What resources do we want to take with us into the Winter time? Let's see if we can carve a stable enough path for ourselves through the wild unrest.
🌚🌒🌝🍁🍂🎃
The mythos of this time of year is that it is when the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest. This is a broadly cross-cultural phenomenon and so ubiquitous as to not be an accident. The dead are close. It is a ghosty time of year.
No matter if you believe in all this or not, the wildness of the weather, can easily elicit feelings of existential unrest and emotional destabilisation. Maybe the fag end of Autumn naturally carries this within it. But add to this, climate shifting big weather events and the craziness being whipped up on the human scene at the moment and it all adds up to a very wierdy, wildy time.
This workshop is an invitation to gather together, settle in, invite in some protective powers, do some banishing of what's no longer relevant, and some gathering in of our precious longings. What resources do we want to take with us into the Winter time? Let's see if we can carve a stable enough path for ourselves through the wild unrest.
🌚🌒🌝🍁🍂🎃
'The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.'
~ Rumi
What to expect
And what you'll get out of it
This is a 90 minute experiential workshop. You will be invited to bring materials for drawing and writing and comfortable clothes you can move in.
WHAT WE WILL DO TOGETHER
After exploring our theme briefly in conversation, you will be introduced to a simple, easy to follow ritual structure and some guided somatic visualisations to support a sense of an Earthed quality (the neuroception of safety).
Then we will work with somatic visualisations and creative practice (drawing, writing, dancing) to do two things:
1. Expunge what we want to vanquish
and
2. Protect what we want to hold dear
Then we will explore how we might want to carry these cherished, beloved aspects forwards in ongoing practice in our lives?
EVERYBODY IS WELCOME
You don't need to know anything or have any experience of anything to get something out of it. Simply being born into a body, having an imagination and some curiosity is all the preparation you need.
This workshop might be for you if you feel your curiosity pique as you read this. Maybe you long for a little more ritual support in your life, but are unsure how to go about that. It might also be useful for you if you are someone who finds you get 'stuck in your head' and long to find ways to drop into a softer, more experiential place in yourself.
It might not be for you if you already know you don't like somatics, or creative expression, or ritual and / or you already know you'd prefer to do something else with your time! ;-)
WHAT WE WILL DO TOGETHER
After exploring our theme briefly in conversation, you will be introduced to a simple, easy to follow ritual structure and some guided somatic visualisations to support a sense of an Earthed quality (the neuroception of safety).
Then we will work with somatic visualisations and creative practice (drawing, writing, dancing) to do two things:
1. Expunge what we want to vanquish
and
2. Protect what we want to hold dear
Then we will explore how we might want to carry these cherished, beloved aspects forwards in ongoing practice in our lives?
EVERYBODY IS WELCOME
You don't need to know anything or have any experience of anything to get something out of it. Simply being born into a body, having an imagination and some curiosity is all the preparation you need.
This workshop might be for you if you feel your curiosity pique as you read this. Maybe you long for a little more ritual support in your life, but are unsure how to go about that. It might also be useful for you if you are someone who finds you get 'stuck in your head' and long to find ways to drop into a softer, more experiential place in yourself.
It might not be for you if you already know you don't like somatics, or creative expression, or ritual and / or you already know you'd prefer to do something else with your time! ;-)
Your Guide
Guide Rachel Blackman
Rachel Blackman is the founder of Vibrant Being - Maps of Creation and The School of Bio-Intelligence.
Rachel is a daughter, wife, step-mother, aunty, cousin and a human person. She is also an artist, somatic educator, theatre maker, trainer and mentor. She trained coaches to work with the embodied intelligence at The Somatic School for five years. And now runs her own training, The School of Bio-Intelligence, teaching coaches and trainers to work with Spirit in a safe and nervous system informed way.
Rachel is passionate about nurturing biological intelligence and being in collaboration with The Great Generative Principle. She and has over 20 years of hands on clinical experience as a body worker and more recently a Feldenkrais Practitioner. She also works as a Somatic Coach and Creative facilitator. She has been facilitating people to come into their embodied intelligence and creative agency for over 25 years.
She believes we are a part of a living universe that we have a responsibility to steward and participate in. And that the intelligence of the living world wants to be in direct, conversational relationship with us.
She believes art can be a site of secular, sacred, collective dreaming and that creativity is the birthright of all beings.
Rachel's theatre latest piece is a celebration of the creative potential of failure called, "You Aren't Doing It Wrong If No One Knows What You Are Doing", and is a Brighton Festival Commission. You may remember her best when she had a lot less hair, as Charra in Matrix Revolutions.
Rachel comes from a large family of Australians who migrated - some by choice, some against their will - from various parts of Europe and the UK, including Scandinavia, Scotland and England. She pays homage to the original stewards of the unceded territories of her birth & childhood - The Jagera, Muwinina, Kaurna, Bungalung & Eora Nations.
Rachel lives in Brighton UK with her husband Shad and bonus son Akash.
Image by Shad
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Rachel is a daughter, wife, step-mother, aunty, cousin and a human person. She is also an artist, somatic educator, theatre maker, trainer and mentor. She trained coaches to work with the embodied intelligence at The Somatic School for five years. And now runs her own training, The School of Bio-Intelligence, teaching coaches and trainers to work with Spirit in a safe and nervous system informed way.
Rachel is passionate about nurturing biological intelligence and being in collaboration with The Great Generative Principle. She and has over 20 years of hands on clinical experience as a body worker and more recently a Feldenkrais Practitioner. She also works as a Somatic Coach and Creative facilitator. She has been facilitating people to come into their embodied intelligence and creative agency for over 25 years.
She believes we are a part of a living universe that we have a responsibility to steward and participate in. And that the intelligence of the living world wants to be in direct, conversational relationship with us.
She believes art can be a site of secular, sacred, collective dreaming and that creativity is the birthright of all beings.
Rachel's theatre latest piece is a celebration of the creative potential of failure called, "You Aren't Doing It Wrong If No One Knows What You Are Doing", and is a Brighton Festival Commission. You may remember her best when she had a lot less hair, as Charra in Matrix Revolutions.
Rachel comes from a large family of Australians who migrated - some by choice, some against their will - from various parts of Europe and the UK, including Scandinavia, Scotland and England. She pays homage to the original stewards of the unceded territories of her birth & childhood - The Jagera, Muwinina, Kaurna, Bungalung & Eora Nations.
Rachel lives in Brighton UK with her husband Shad and bonus son Akash.
Image by Shad