As Monday’s fiery Leo New Moon/Mars ingress Sagittarius approached, I knew intuitively that this would herald a very significant crossroads for this here fiery, double Sagittarian, 73-year-old crone woman. That my activity level would suddenly ramp up. And yes, it has. In spades! In fact, acceleration began this past weekend with the Hildegard Festival, and my presentation on Hildegard’s World View/Cosmology. I will post more photos and stories from that magical event, but not yet. Too much to attend to first! As you shall see! Read on.
Today is the day that I want to invite especially my readers who live in northern California, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho to read on, because I have a proposal for you.
Here it is, in summary form, and detail. The summary is this: I am going to be taking a road trip north and then east through the above states, from the Bay Area to Seattle, then spiraling east and south down to Ketchum, Idaho. I plan to take four weeks for the journey, hopefully stay overnight at people’s homes, and, if invited, offer any one or more of four evening presentations. In exchange, I am willing to read my host’s astrological chart(s). The evening presentations will be by donation only, to help with expenses along the way. Here are the four possible offerings:
EVOLUTION OF GREEN ACRES VILLAGE: www.greenacresvillage.org
A detailed visual documentation of the organic, messy, co-creative process that is transforming a typical 1950’s core suburban neighborhood in a midwest university town into a resilient permaculture village. Includes stories of integrating personal and collective shadow material plus Q&A. Two full hours.
BABY PICTURE PROJECT: www.babypictureproject.com
We gather to spend an intimate evening with our baby pictures, passing them around as we tell personal stories about how and why we picked this particular photo. The goal of this project is to help us begin to remember who we really are underneath our cultural masks. Up to 2 hours.
[This event includes a preparatory ritual: please go back through your early pictures to find one that shows your original nature, before you were socially conditioned. What would happen if we all began to show each other who we really are, even in casual conversation — or at the bank, or in line at the grocery store? What would happen if we begin to see the beautiful, vulnerable, innocent child inside the man who wears a police uniform? Our baby pictures dissolve not just our social roles, but our culture and our language. Hey! I invite you to create a teeshirt, or a button, adorned with your baby picture — and wear it, in public.]
THE ABOVE/BELOW, SACRED/SENSUAL WORLD-VIEW OF HILDEGARD VON BINGEN
The 12th century Benedictine Abbess Hildegard von Bingen, known as the Sybil of the Rhine, is justly famous for her startlingly original and rhythmically complex sacred music. She is also widely praised as the visionary, mystic, author, herbalist, counselor, seer, gemologist, healer, leader, and founder of two nunneries who, in personal correspondence and on preaching tours, fearlessly challenged the corruption endemic in both Church and State during an age that in many ways mirrors our own.
Who is Hildegard, what makes her tick, how does her mind work, and what are the larger historical forces that produced her?
What does 12th century Hildegard have to offer us in the 21st Century?
What would she be telling us if she were alive now?
Let us become the Hildegards of our time.
Slide show with 46 images, quotations, and discussion. Two very full hours.
EXOPERMACULTURE FREE-FOR-ALL: www.exopermaculture.com
I invite whoever wants to join me in freewheeling stories and discussion of whatever most interests you from the many subjects addressed on the now four-year-old exopermaculture blog “Bridging/Blending Above and Below.” From UFOs in the skies to on-the-ground experiments in community; how external crises mirror internal ones; epistemological and ontological conundrums in the internet age; multidimensionality; stories of “integrating the shadow,” both personal and collective; astrological perspectives on public figures and events — and much much more! Pick a topic to begin, and let’s roll. Up to two hours.
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If you notice, two of the presentations are with power point slides, suitable for either small groups or a more public showing. The other two work best as intimate, small group discussions. Any of them would work well preceded by a potluck.
Why This Road Trip?
“Well, it all began” — as Arlo Guthrie sang out his Alice’s Restaurant — when I realized that the North American Permaculture Convergence, which early this week I suddenly agreed to attend, September 14-18, in Hopland California, is to take place almost exactly one month prior to the Kreilkamp Sibling Reunion, planned for October 14 – 19, near Sun Valley, Idaho. Since I try to limit flying, given its energy footprint, I couldn’t stomach flying to and from both these events. So, in a flash, I decided to fly to the first one, rent a car, do this road trip, and then fly home from Boise six weeks later.
Already, before I even get this post up, two events are scheduled: 1) a workshop on the Evolution of Green Acres Village at the NAPC (the organizers accepted my proposal this morning!) and a Hildegard event (which has already morphed into another Hildegard Festival, though not as extensive as the one last weekend in Indiana) the weekend of September 30-October 1 in Seattle, which my brother-in-law John is organizing, and my brother Mark has agreed to lead a Dance of Universal Peace by Neil Douglas Klotz, called “Greening with Life,” — in a nod to Hildegard’s celebration of “veriditas,” that force, that fuel, that LOVE which unites the Cosmos above with Nature below.
On my spiral journey, I am especially interested in holding Baby Picture Project and Excopermaculture discussion evenings, since not only do they work best in small intimate groups but as such are also easily organized — with family, friends and/or neighbors. But I will also do the more formal and public Green Acres and/or Hildegard presentations, if called upon.
Still interested? Read on.
Sketch of Tentative Itinerary:
9/13-9/18:fly to California, NAPC
9/18-9/21 Bay Area
9/21-9/26 drive north to Seattle with stops along the way, the route to be determined
9/26-10/2 Seattle area
Already scheduled, at St. Catherine’s in Seattle:
9/30 – Hildegard lecture in evening
10/1 – Hildegard festival (I will be present; others will offer various Hildegard skill-sets: gemstones, tinctures, plants and healing techniques, labyrinth, music); morning and afternoon with lunch
10/2 Spokane? Coeur d’Alene?
10/3 Helena? Hamilton?
10/5 – 10/9 Jackson
10/10 – 10/12 Twin Falls
10/13 — 10/18 Sibling reunion Elkhorn, near Sun Valley
10/18 Fly home from Boise
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So there you have it, Ann’s spiral journey road trip, to meet and greet, to stay overnight, to have good, meaty discussions in various formats, and just in general, to herald the new world arising within the ashes of the old.
Please contact me, if interested in hosting me overnight, with or without one of the four possible offerings: arkcrone@gmail.com.
Thanks, and blessings!
