The Year of the Body: Week 10

in which the body experiences miracles

Friends, soul writers, mystics, and lovers of prayer,

This has been a week of miracles. Not the miracles that look like buckets of money or anything tangible like that. But miracles nonetheless.

I’m inclined to think these ephemeral miracles—the ones that cannot be corralled into definitions or explanations—are actually the real deal.

All this past week, I’ve been visited by miracle after miracle, usually in the night. I know whose fault this is. Jeanne d’Arc. I invited Jeanne into my life several months ago when I began toying with the call to create The Return of the Witches novena.

If you think “witch” you can’t help but think of Jeanne d’Arc. She, who came close to ending the 100-years war singlehandedly. She, who saved France from extinction. She, who got the King of France crowned when he didn’t believe it could happen.

And who, for her reward, was labeled not a genius or an angel or a goddess, but a witch. You know what they did to witches in those days, don’t you. She was executed in 1431. At 19 years old. And then, the church had the audacity to say oops, sorry, guess we were wrong, you’re really a saint. And canonized her in 1920.

So is Jeanne a witch or a saint? Or are they the same thing?

Me thinks that many, probably most, were, at core, beautiful and even holy beings. It was only control-obsessed patriarchy that labeled them evil.

These women had lives before they had deaths. They had dreams before they were trapped in the claws of patriarchy. I want to get to know their lives, not focus on their deaths.

The first thing that came to me is that the novena had to have 13 witches. And then, I realized that Jeanne wasn’t just one of the 13. Oh no, Jeanne, the most famous and magnificent mystic witch of all time, made it quite clear that this novena belongs to her. She conceived it in my body, whispered the novena’s name in my ear, and started talking about the details. All I had to do was listen and get to work.

But the first thing that happened was my body recoiled. Because deep in my bones, and your bones, is a cellular memory of what was done to witches. Deep in my ears, and your ears, is the panic that rises hearing that word. Deep in my blood, and your blood, is the pain of all who suffered under that label.

So how does one heal? How does one extricate fear that is so old and so deeply buried?

At the same time that I was planning The Return of the Witches, Jeanne d’Arc Listening Novena, I started attending Somatic Writing circles with Tanya Taylor Rubinstein.

I think Jeanne arranged that. She knew that before I could help others heal their buried witch wounds, I needed to heal my own. And where are those witch wounds buried? In the body.

Sure enough, as I began to write in and through and with my body, asking my body to uncover her secret sorrows and release them, the novena began to plan itself.

In the last seven days it’s been a flood. A flood of ideas, partners, images, prayers, songs…. It feels like the novena is creating itself, one sweet miracle after another.

Somatic Writing is a miracle. A miracle of healing.
A miracle of insight. A miracle of surprises. And, not just mine.

As we write in community, miracles flood all our bodies at the same time. My healing is your healing. Your words bless me.

One person awakening awakens all.

It’s a beautiful miracle. And one I invite you to experience for yourself.

I try to communicate how miraculous Somatic Writing is, but I'm a newbie at it, so I asked Tanya if she’d write a message just for you, the readers of Notes from the Field.

Dear New Ancient Friends,

I am so excited to join you all, along with the magnificent Janet Conner in our upcoming, Somatic Writing prayer intensive. As the founder of this method and as a somatic writer myself I know in every cell of my being that life sustaining stories that are arriving through us now will not be created from restrictive forms of writing methodology.

An overly intellectual creative process that doesn’t embody a depth of soul is not only obsolete, it is quite harmful.  The emerging culture is calling for us to reveal deeper truths...the stories that live in our bodies that reveal our deepest essence.

I feel the call of this moment in the collective body is to move beyond "excellence" and into full embodiment, in our being and in our language.

This is a remembrance in our bodies from a time before trauma froze us, made us flee from ourselves.

To help you radically open up your writing process, we will be entering together into deep exploratory circles which utilize what I call Story Archeology. It supports you in mining layers of narrative embedded in your body through personal and historical experiences including but not limited to trauma, ancestral connection and retrieving soul parts from exile including the wild mystic.

This process allows you to connect to the spirit as well as the energetics that reside in your stories.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to share this work with you.

Love, Tanya

_______________________

FRIENDS IN EUROPE

Two members in Europe are hosting watch parties.

• Uma Girish in Germany on Thursdays at 11a CET
• Angela Meakin in England on Thursdays at 7pm UTC.

Members of the intensive are welcome to come to those watch parties no matter where you live.

NO ON-DEMAND VERSION

Typically, my intensives are made available in an OnDemand version after the intensive ends. Somatic Writing will NOT be offered OnDemand. So if you are interested, please register now.

BONUS GOODIES

Tanya has generously given us her foundational materials and teaching videos. It's a somatic writing feast that you can start watching as soon as you register.

SCHEDULE

We gather for 3 live sessions on Tuesday, March 9. 16, 23 from 7-9:15 pm Eastern, and a closing ceremony on Sunday, March 28 at 2pm Eastern. Everything is recorded and available for viewing by noon eastern the following day.

Come and liberate the story your body has been longing to tell you for your entire life.

Somatic Writing Prayer Intensive

to the miracle of freeing the trauma in your body and hearing your own sacred, precious, creative voice speak, 

Janet