Tag Archives: Ceremony and Ritual

The annual build of The Sacred Union Labyrinth by 14 people over the week prior to Woodford Folk festival, coordinated by Robin and organized by a core group of four – Christine, Stephane, Rob and Robin, went very well despite extreme heat and then some rain. The front entrance to the Labyrinth received a new mural art paint job, the guiding pennants got a solidifying make over and a quarter of the stone Labyrinth had some major drainage work done by hand!!! This drainage work turned out to be much needed due to rains during the Festival with thousands of people walking through the pathways then heavy, consistent rain on our pack down day. Huge thank you to our Build Crew team and for Woodford Folk Festival for supporting us as a mini Department and Volunteers. Also big gratitude to Woodford Programming Department for supporting us as a Ceremony team …

Over 300 Woodfordia Citizens, staff, volunteers and Woodford Folk Festival organisers and friends got together recently for a weekend of reconnecting, future planning, ideas generation, music, fun and mural painting. The main highlight was the announcement that the Woodford Folk Festival is back this December, as usual pre Covid, from 27th December to 1st January. The Saturday program of the Citizen’s ‘Gathering the tribe’ weekend began with Robin leading a one hour Reconnection session with participants, followed by a stunning performance by Linsey Pollak. After lunch lots of subgroups formed to brainstorm and develop ideas for getting the word out about the festival, supporting volunteers, forming an onsite logistics working group as well as discussing ideas for The Planting Festival to have a new life and initiate the Conservatree project. Of course there was the now traditional ‘Mad Hatters Tea Party’, great music and entertainment and lots of exciting conversations …

Woodford Folk Festival didn’t happen over the Christmas/New Year period and so the annual Ceremonies at the Sacred Union Labyrinth led by Robin and friends didn’t happen either. To keep the energy of the site and the staff and patrons alive and flourishing the idea of holding ‘Bushtime’ at Woodfordia was born.  Robin was invited to offer a 3 hour ‘Ritual and Ceremony’ workshop at these laid back, lightly programmed bush camping experiences. Surrounded by other diverse and creative workshops, nature and science talks and walks, kids activities, the Lake for swimming, delicious food, fantastic music and relaxed and happy people, it was easy to have a good time. This was able to happen in a COVID safe environment and was designed to cater for up to 1000 people. Robin’s favourite workshop was a ‘Personal Shrine Painting’ two hour workshop with Gavin Ryan, the long standing Artist in Residence who …

The annual Being Woman… gathering is fast approaching with a juicy theme this year –  Nurturing Your True Nature…..Stepping into our Woman’s Way and the workshops will be centred around this theme. This year’s gathering again offers a wonderful range of facilitators and workshops for you to discover and explore the divine feminine source inside you in a way that enhances your self-awareness, relationships and life purpose. There will also be sacred ceremonies to open and close the gathering as well as entertainment on Saturday and Sunday nights. Be true and authentic to who you are and learn to keep your heart open as you celebrate, dance, weave, relax and enjoy the gathering. Robin’s workshop this year will be called – Pathway to Freedom. She’ll also be involved in the Ceremony team again with our Aunties and other wonderful wise women. Tickets are available here.

Both Robin and her partner Rob attended the annual Joining Gathering in September. Robin facilitated a powerful and transformative workshop entitled ‘Supporting Each Other to Shine’         and was able to contribute in a much lesser way than usual in the Ceremonies having mentored and guided other younger people to lead the Ceremonies, and lead they did so brilliantly. Both Robin and Rob were on the panel discussion about ‘Relationship’. A highlight of the event was Rob and Robin stepping up together in the Closing Ceremony to hold the energy of Staff and Basket holder for the next gathering. This means they care for the sacred objects that symbolize the Masculine and Feminine and together with a big circle of other wonderful people, organize the next ‘Joining’ for 2019 on the Spring Equinox weekend, held over 3 days. The venue and exact dates will be announced very soon for ‘The Joining …

What does it take to be an empowered, effective group leader, teacher or facilitator? How do we develop the skills and gather the tools, courage and attitude to be a leader yet also support the empowerment of our groups, each and every participant and honour ourselves at the same time? Robin has been living these questions and discovering some of the answers for close to three decades now. She’s written two pertinent articles in recent years that could be valuable to revisit, especially in the lead up to her new book series ‘Dynamic Teaching and Facilitation’. Both of the articles and her upcoming books address these questions. Five years ago she wrote a blog about her ‘Dynamic Groups, Dynamic Learning’ Methodology entitled ‘Magic Happens in Dynamic Groups’. Many of the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that she talks about in this article help to answer the questions that we’re focused …