Table in the Clearing: An Alternative Thanksgiving Ritual.
Sunday November 25, 2-4:30 p.m. at Geryunant.
led by Gena Corea and Helen Hawes
Alienated from a family member? From an old friend? Cut off from parts of your very self? Invite them to come sit around a Table with you. Let them enjoy the comradeship of other exiles invited to the feast. This is a kind of shamanic work: retrieving lost parts of the soul. Calling cut-off-ones to the Table, even though they may not be physically seated there, sets a process of reconciliation in motion. When we reclaim a part of ourselves, we re-integrate it into the fabric of the cosmos.
We have been hosting this Table at a New England prison every Thanksgiving since 2000. (See an account of this by Gena Corea in The Best of Write Action No. 2: The Tenth Anniversary Anthology, 2010.) Year by year, the prisoners, many serving life terms, have developed the Table practice into what it is today. Now we are offering it to the local community at our Geryunant arts retreat center.
When we invite the exiles within ourselves to come and sit around a Table, we simultaneously help our community bring home its own outcasts.
The practice is guided by two certified Focusing practitioners, Gena Corea and Helen Hawes. No experience in Focusing necessary.
Call for directions. Contact numbers: 802-257-3099 or 802-254-6881. By donation.
