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FACILITATING THE FEMININE
Reimagining individual and collective action through nurturing the feminine
The complex challenges our world now faces are born from
an extractive mindset that has come to dominate our cultures.
Changing the world means changing our approach:
we invite you to explore the feminine.
Facilitating the Feminine is a five-day retreat-based course,
rooted in the Aura methodology.
Please register for
Facilitating the Feminine
before 21st March 2024
We aim to work on a
first-come-first-serve basis
When and where:
1st - 5th May, 2024
4 night stay with all meals provided
Arrive 4pm on 1st May,
Depart 11am on 5th May
at Bertha Retreat, Boschendal, Dwarsrivier Valley,
Stellenbosch, South Africa
Hosted by
Renata Minerbo
Eve Annecke
Meliny Swarts
Ross van Niekerk
THE CHANGE WE ARE IS THE CHANGE WE CREATE
The Aura methodology embraces and enhances parts of ourselves that are too often suppressed,
through the ancient art and practice of women’s circles.
Our intention is for the Facilitating the Feminine retreat to empower participants to work differently,
to host women’s circles of their own, and to offer Aura methodology to their families and communities
to amplify and enhance feminine ways of being as pathways to radical transformation.
Many of us dream of a better world and seek to create that reality.
With enthusiastic intention, we set about creating
vision and mission statements, strategy, outcomes,
evaluation plans, reports and management systems.
All our imaginings, poetics and inspiring aesthetics are
translated too hastily into ‘words everyone can understand’.
Without noticing, we unconsciously become drawn into
replicating the very systems we so fervently wish to change.
This neglect of the artistry and poetry innate within all of us often leads to deep burnout.
Exhaustion, martyrdom, and feeling hopelessly inadequate in the face of everything we are expected to be
sullies even the simplest and purest of our efforts towards change.
In this mindset, we can never do or be enough.
A PATH WE WALK TOGETHER
Facilitating the Feminine explores ways of being that radically subvert the status quo,
offering time and space to explore perception, and, in becoming different ourselves,
to notice the world simultaneously responding differently towards us.
Aura has been working with extraordinary women activists for the past four years and
as seasoned activists ourselves who have made countless mistakes along the way,
our intention is to accompany you on a journey that is co-created:
an interior and collective exploration where the more-than-human landscape of Boschendal
becomes as much a teacher as the women with whom we journey.
Can the feminine, with its infinite mystery and wonder, truly be ‘facilitated’? We make no grand claims.
Only from experience, we do know that softening our hearts, gazing into feminine principles and
attending to simple wellbeing practices can be counter-intuitive yet powerful pathways to change.
In ourselves, and in our action in the world.
Fall in love with the world again and again.
Create enchantment in everyday life.
Act in the world in flow, discernment and beauty.
Work with radical change, and modest effort.
Putting our analytical minds aside for a while,
this is time to experience,
to be present,
and to rest.
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IS FACILITATING THE FEMININE FOR ME?
Listen for that quiet voice within, that curious urge that won’t go away.
That feeling might be all you need to know.
If you do feel drawn to this experience,
follow that energetic pull you might feel in your body because in the end,
that’s usually the real reason we sign up for something different.
Join us on this embodied journey if:
You are a mother, activist, artist, professional, community worker,
unemployed, academic, consultant, journalist, teacher, volunteer,
or anyone else who would love to explore ways of being
that are nourishing, nurturing and regenerative
You are someone who would like to change things
You would like to start a women’s circle
You’re curious, and can’t quite put your finger on it
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Facilitating the Feminine introduces participants to Be The Earth’s Aura methodology as a way of knowing and being differently, with the possibility of holding their own women’s circles and impacting their action in the world.
Participants will encounter:
WOMEN’S CIRCLES
Circles of women have existed for time immemorial. What might these mean now in a world beset with inequalities, ecological crises and war?
THE MORE-THAN-HUMAN WORLD
Exploring and enhancing our connections with cosmos, ancestors, mountains, plants, animals and the invisibles: dreams, art and poetics.
CYCLES OF NATURE
What might living within cycles evolved over billions of years feel like?
BECOMING MIDWIVES OF CHANGE
Questioning high levels of control demanded by the need for certainty, are there ways of inviting, nurturing and sharing responsibilities as part of holding and creating space? It’s about being present, and letting go.
HEALING PRACTICES
Many women hold silently in their bodies acts of unspeakable violence. We explore embodied practices of soft healing.
STORYTELLING
Space to invite and tell stories as responses to what it means to be women in a more-than-human world. Qualities of conversation, and listening with the whole body.
LIVING IN THE GIFT
What might creating a gift culture feel like? Thriving and flourishing when the odds seem so highly weighted in the opposite direction.
WHAT DOES IT COST?
Our dream is to make all our retreat-based courses accessible and diverse.
We ask for a financial contribution to honour your commitment to this process, and
as a gift to other women unable to afford the full price of this experience.
Please see below, and select an option that best suits you:
R0
up to R50
between R50 and R250
between R250 and R500
between R500 and R1000
over R1000
We truly value each and every payment, and we trust that you will pay what you can.
No woman will be turned away for lack of funds.
Please register for Facilitating the Feminine before 21st March 2024
You can find our registration form HERE.
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Illustrations by Nomita Khatri
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