This short video was made to promote my workshop Astroshamanic Trance Dance in Lancashire in 2014. It explains in brief what the work is about. [The full transcript is shown below the video.]

Full transcript:

The point of the whole work is to get out of the trance of ordinary life, which creates a limited perception for us. We’re constantly busy and engaged with a limited view of life. The work is a strategy to create conditions that allow each person to perceive something beyond their ordinary awareness. It mainly has to do with providing tools for moving into expanded states of consciousness, which are natural for us. We constantly move into expanded spaces when we use our imagination, for instance with fantasies. The point is to allow these spaces to become empowering and enhance our creativity, while also developing clues for potentials in everyday life.

Astroshamanism uses experiences as a way to retrieve fragmented parts of ourselves and to own the paths we project on others and the environment. Astrology is most empowering when used experientially to explore the mystery of who we are. From an expanded perception, we see that we are all the signs, with the potential for all their expressions. Each sign represents a part of our being that we may own, disown, or project on others. Each sign also represents a state of consciousness and a different vibration. The aim is to engage with all of them, acknowledging the vibration we tend to identify with that limits our understanding of ourselves.

For example, someone’s tendency might be to adapt to their environment and the people they’re working with. The first step is finding a common platform to engage with people. What people want from life is the most effective starting point. It doesn’t matter what kind of dreams they have, because that’s where the energy is. We start from the person and their passion, then a vision develops to translate this dream into something practical and visionary.

The second point is to consider what the person doesn’t want, their fears and grievances. The magic lies in allowing the dreams and nightmares to engage with each other, so the nightmares become the fertilizer that empowers the dream to grow and become a reality.

In dance, for example, the first stage is the person dancing their dreams, allowing them to become visible through their body movements. This isn’t a performance, it’s done with eyes closed to allow inner dreams and desires to be grounded in the body’s presence. The second stage deals with the shadow, allowing all the hidden things we’re ashamed of to be expressed through the body. Once these light and shadow parts are grounded and visible, the mystery opens up.

There’s a stage like a bridal chamber between darkness and light, where there’s an openness and intuition to what lies beyond our dualities, fears, and dreams. This is the most important stage.

The facilitator’s role is to provide the setting for an experience and sometimes offer strategic prompts, but not communicate truths because they don’t have any yet. They believe in the experience’s capacity to provide insights and deep understanding.