A Beginning
This story starts with the deterioration of a romantic relationship, that led me to thoughts of suicide. I felt so disempowered, so unwell of body and mind, so weak of soul, so broke, and so alone. I was in the darkest time of my life. I was so sad I was considering suicide. Then completely out of the blue an old friend phoned me who I hadn’t spoken to in years. He asked me how I was and I had no energy left to pretend with my usual positive upbeat response, so my truth came out. He just told me that I should “Talk to Keef”. At that point I had no mind to resist a friend’s recommendation, and I called him immediately.
Talking to Keef Wesolowski Miles about how I was really feeling and what was going on for me was a revelation. Unlike everyone else, he had no personal advice for me, and didn’t try to rescue me. He just listened and understood somehow. It was the first time I had actually felt actually heard in months really. He told me he had a ceremony coming up in a couple of weeks, and invited me to join. There was also another man coming up who lived nearby. Again when an old friend recommended something to me I trusted them, and I felt like I had nothing to lose, so I just went.
I had no idea what to expect as I had never done anything like this and had previously been pretty adverse to doing things I branded as ‘hippy bullshit’. But I was open minded enough to try it out of desperation. I just knew that I felt extremely sad and unwell and needed to find some healing in my heart and my soul. Something or maybe everything had to change, and I didn’t know how to do that on my own. Till this point nothing anyone had said or done had made any bit of difference. I felt truly stuck with my overwhelming feelings of despair. I didn’t have a diagnosis but I’m pretty sure I was depressed, and suffering from anxiety too.
The question being asked of us 15 men at that ceremony was ‘What is your relationship with the feminine?. I sat around the fire looking at these men, some tall, strong and athletic, some small, some round, and some thin. When it came to my turn to share I told my story with tears in my eyes. Someone asked me to speak up, so I raised my voice. I spoke about being taken advantage of, by giving so much to a woman I was obsessed with that I drained myself and she took everything. I spoke about being kept up every night by her paranoid jealousy. About being given affection, and at the same time being told I was bad and wrong. I talked about having no boundaries and being walked all over. So much so she told me “you’re a doormat and that's why I can walk all over you”.
As I spoke my tale of woe, every man around that fire put his hand to his chest, a hand signal that meant ‘I too have experienced what you’re going through and I know how you feel. There’s tears in my eyes writing about it, even now. It was the first time I had felt so witnessed, so seen, so heard, so empathised with. I was not interrupted, not disrespected, not told what to do, perhaps for the first time in my life. The debilitating veiling of shame started to lift for the first time.
The other men spoke of their own pain and suffering in their own lives. Then I suddenly had perspective. Real men with real stories, putting down their armour to sit as a community of brothers supporting each other with presence. I put my hand to my heart many times as I listened, and felt deeply for their pain. I also celebrated their power, and strength as they did mine. They called each other “brother” as a term of affection, and it seemed to explain that sense of being there by each other’s side, no matter what you’re going through.
We sat for sweat lodge, and we danced outside. That is the first time I heard the phrase Movement Medicine, and my first experience of it. To me at that time it was some men flailing about like idiots, and that was my judgement, of them and myself. But I also enjoyed it, and it was ridiculous fun too! I’d always enjoyed dancing, since my raver days. So much was unfolding for me at that time that I barely noticed it to begin with.
Then the lockdowns came. I learnt to set boundaries in relationships. I started to work with a brilliant therapist, who helped me rebuild my self love. I found a new romantic partner who supported me and wanted me to be well. I joined Keef’s online men’s groups, and continued to receive the medicine of being witnessed and contributing my experience to the groups. I found new work and rebuilt my design career, and got myself out of debt. I was very fortunate. I lived in the countryside looking after a beautiful garden with nature all around, and had friends and family close by too. Still without those men in those groups I don't think I would have coped and grown like I did.
The Return
Then years later, after another breakup I found myself alone again, and the feelings of depression and anxiety started to creep back in like old friends from my past who decided to stay. I decided to spend a year focusing on my new project of running a market garden, something I had wanted to do for years since learning permaculture and urban farming in Mumbai, India’s years ago. And since growing up on a farm I had felt more and more drawn to nature and exploring my role in her grand expression. At the same time I knew that without the support of community and guidance, I would struggle with my mental health so I committed to doing four ceremonies with Keef that year.
These included the Phoenix process, and a death and burial ceremony. Each ceremony featured Movement Medicine and I slowly started to feel.
Each time I felt more and more empowered. More and more healed. More vitality returned to me. My body became stronger again. I tried to follow the words of Ram Dass: “Quiet your mind. Open your heart”. I tried to let go of judgements, and found joy wanted to spring forth, more tears wanted to spring forth. We explored the chambers of the heart. I felt like I started to get out of my own way. Most of the time the work was just turning up and having faith in the process. Yes at times I felt like an idiot and stood back from a room full of dancing men and thought this is a strange thing indeed. But now I felt the importance of what was happening for me personally, and for each of them as individuals and us as a group. I even convinced my brother who hates dancing to join a group of 25 men prancing about in a hall in Wales.
It was a glorious moment for me, I felt I had really stepped out of so much pain, and into so much lightness and energy. I felt so energised and elated, my head was in the clouds. And then In a single moment, I took my eyes off the satnav on a junction that I didn’t realise was a junction on the way back from the ceremony that night. I slammed head on into an oncoming vehicle. Suddenly I was inside a smoking vehicle with flashing lights, without thinking I checked my body for injuries and I was ok. I got out of the car and checked the driver and passengers of the other vehicle. Luckily everyone was ok. Some kind people came out of a house, took the two passengers in for tea, and told us that was the fifth time there had been an accident that year on that junction. Both cars were written off. I was in shock but happy to be given another chance at life.
I was happier and more energised than I had been for a very long time and yet almost lost my life. My energy had been ungrounded and that was a warning sign that deep roots were being asked for. I had decided to close my market garden project, due to not having enough support, and with my mother’s declining state of health with Alzheimer’s I had to focus on myself, her and my family. I had to start again.
So my question was ‘what next?’. I decided to take a deeper dive and join Keef and his wife Aluna and their organisation Awakening The Wild in as many of their offerings as I could. It was an opportunity for ongoing commitment to my own health and wellbeing and the many forms that it takes. It was also a commitment to the community of the human and the more than human worlds of which we are a part. A commitment to the healing path, and a better world for all. I had joked with my brother previously “Maybe I’ll become a shaman!”.
And so the dance became a regular practice. I joined Keef’s ReSource Online Movement Medicine Course for 6 months of dancing and sharing. I signed up for the Movement Medicine Initiation ceremony in Poland, and the Summer Longdance, as well as every ceremony Keef and his wife Aluna were holding this year. I continued to show up for the online men’s groups, to listen even deeper, and to show up for those men as other men showed up for me. I started to ask deeper questions of myself and of them.
My Rebirth
At this same time my mother’s condition deteriorated further and her care needs were becoming more and more difficult to manage. My brother, my sisters, all her carers and me were with her as she very slowly died. A slowly forgetting death that took years, with certain aspects of her dying before others. Her anxiety and her depression swing making way for a childish fun loving innocent side to her. She slowly lost control of her ability to manage her bodily functions, having to be changed and washed daily, and eventually needed spoon feeding. It was a very difficult and painful time which brought us many gifts as well. It brought us closer together as a family. We had arguments and saw more authenticity in each other.
As she died I was grieving daily, which made working impossible. I lit a candle, and I danced, I dreamt and I wrote, and I cried. Anger flowed freely. Laughter did too. I felt more connected to my friends and housemates and every day I reached out for support in my community. It gave me so much focus on what truly mattered to me. At that time I met someone special, my instinct told me we could have a wonderful relationship together. That had to go slow as I was grieving and that process took centre stage. It was wonderful to feel loved and held at that same time, as holding myself and others in my heart.
I made myself clear to her that I wanted a future of deep commitment and to build a life with someone, to raise children and live a life of limitless potential, of kindness and mutual support. I made this proposal to her and she accepted. Together we created a container to nurture this relationship together. We danced with the beauty and the passion of new love, and we are learning to meet, befriend and dance with our shadows now too. The beauty of our relationship continues to unfold now.
My mother passed away before she could meet my new lover, although they met at her funeral. It was a day of joy, and fun, and tears, as mum would have wanted, with live music, poetry, and many wonderful folks from her beloved town. Her sheep wool coffin was decorated lovingly by my two sisters with an image of the tree of life. My brother and I both made speeches. I wore feathers in my hat. We filled her grave ourselves. She now overlooks the river Dart in Devon. A place she dearly loved, and the place of her children’s births.
She loved to dance, you see. And I realised that she had shared that gift with me too. She too brought her joy with her as a gift for others. She didn't care what other people thought she looked like. I call her in now as I dance. She looks down at me and laughs. Always encouraging me. Sticking her tongue out. Calling forth the dancing fool.
Recently I reached a milestone in my journey, the workshop Initiation with the founders of Movement Medicine, Ya’Acov and Susannah Darling Khan. I arrived a day early in Poland before the Initiation workshop started and sat in Krakow main square. I ordered a beer and sat alone feeling truly at peace. I hadn’t left my home country of Britain since 2017. And finally I had arrived at a new chapter of my life. I felt so free, that I was choosing my own destiny. I wept. I was so happy. I ordered another beer to celebrate. My mum would be so proud of me I thought, coming here and doing something wonderful like this. For following my heart and walking my own path.
The workshop was immense. I had finally taken a major step towards being part of a global movement of healing. I had done so much inner work, cried so many tears, felt so much pain, raged with my anger, befriended my fire, found my internal warrior. Danced with my wise elder and so many shadow aspects of myself. I felt respect and pride for the work I was doing, for the gifts I bring, more than ever I wanted to share them with others. I danced in that room with 150 people, 133 women, and 17 men, and realised I now had a wonderful relationship with the feminine within myself and within other women and men. I could feel how far I had come since that first ceremony almost 5 years ago.
I was now firmly on the journey of transformation, of empowerment, of discovery. Of diving even deeper into love for myself, and wanting and able to share more and more with others. I was being asked to stop holding back my true self. I expanded into that space and loved it. And this time I felt grounded in my own practice, with my own journey with my community, with my body. My body that I had been loving, and moving like never before. My hips were strong, my spine straight, my breath deep. My mind is playful. I realised for the first time ‘I am a dancer’. I cried every day with tears of joy. I looked deeply into the eyes of others, and met them as equals. I watched them with admiration, I heard their life stories, their struggles, their joys. I celebrated them and they celebrated me.
New dreams
Afterwards I felt like my clothes didn’t quite fit right. My bedroom was a mess, my finances low. My heart was full. My dreams were full of intricate landscapes, stories and powerful characters. They had become bigger and more immense just as they had done when I was a teenager and had learnt to lucid dream.
But this time I was not controlling them, just receiving them. Letting them have their own way with me. At the ceremony I had felt my wings begin to spread, and now I need to work on the solid foundations from which to leap into the next adventure, and I need the air and fire power with which to create this new future dream, bigger and brighter than ever before. I need to build that energy again so that I can start to weave my dreams into the fabric of my reality, and start building the better world I know is possible.
I have now signed up for the Movement Medicine Apprenticeship next year with David Mooney and Yasia Leiserach in Hungary 2024. Not particularly because I want to be a Movement Medicine teacher but really because I want to see what a wonderful life I can have. And I’ve learnt that the more I learn to love myself more deeply and open my heart to all aspects of myself, the better it is for the world. I now have the guts to follow my dreams, and I would encourage you to do the same. If you are alive then you can transform your life. Someone wiser than me once told me ‘What the world needs is people who have come alive’. And that’s what’s been happening through me, and that is what I wish for all your beautiful hearts.
Sky
