The cozy space of Lyra House in Denmark welcomes us due to the caring stewardship of our host Karuna. It is an all day event—we will provide the coffee, tea, and snacks, but bring your own lunch and a contribution to the community meal in the evening.

A prerequisite is attendance at one of the storynights in Albany https://events.humanitix.com/the-apple-thief-live-in-albany-or-wa (Dec 10 Wednesday) or Denmark https://events.humanitix.com/the-apple-thief-live-in-denmark-or-wa (Dec 12 Friday). You may attend a storynight without committing to the Saturday and may join after the evening if you wish,

On Saturday evening, we will have a pot luck community meal together—dishes need to be prepared at home and brought with ingredient labels to help people with allergies. (Bring your own lunch, and we will provide tea and snacks for the break.)

Full Tuition $195
Partial Scholarship Rate $165
Full Scholarship Rate $135
9:30am to 9:30pm AWST UTC +8

Modernity appears as a monstrous force that strives for standardization and worships the large and the "great." In the meantime, actually great expanses of the formerly "natural" world are diminished and shrunk to park like starvation. The marginal energies, and the strange and other-than-human- members of the Earth community, from platypus to octopus, from kangaroo to elephant, have something essential that is needed for our psychic survival as the "imaginarianists" of the world. Some tribal peoples have called this gateway to communing with nature and the "Other World," and had a deep language called ritual which brought humans to the intersection of nature and imagination through story, music, and dance.

This ancestral intelligence and perspective teaches: "What is ill in This World, can only be healed in the Other World, and what is ill in the Other World can only be healed in This World." On this day we will explore and step into the doorway between the worlds, following some of the threads of the story evening that preceeds the day.

Dagara Elders (ancestors) Malidoma and Sobonfu Somé brought the sophisticated ritual knowledge of the Dagara tribe from Burkina Fasso (West Africa) to share. Elders believed that the modern world would steamroller the tribal knowledge if it was not recognized that indigenous wisdom was worth keeping alive. Malidoma came to understand (as other indigenous teachers have as well), that every person can be said to have an "indigenous soul" inside.

The centers of power in the modern world want us to forget our native human capacity to connect with each other, nature, and the mythic imagination. That capacity remains stubbornly in our memory, can be resuscitated, and redeemed. Every person has something of value to contribute to this idea of cultural revival so that life can "jump up alive" in defiance of the dark forces of destruction. There is no 'belief" required, just an open mind and heart to see if there is something that you can adapt in your own way courageously.

In the evening we will have a community meal. Bring your contributions, and again, please label ingredients for allergies. It is a guarantee that the people attending will be good, the story will be good, the food will be good, and the location will be good. You are welcome, just as you are, be yourself.

Facilitator is Randy Jones, author of "Medicine Without an Expiry Date: Indigenous Remedy for Modern Trouble," introduction by [Ancestor] Elder and Diviner, Malidoma Somé, PhD. Find full information at https://wildgenius.guide

Co-faclitator is Tim "Tricky" Singer, who brings 35 years of award winning theatre and arts experience to the task of helping to guide this journey into the Other World.