The Nayri Niara good spirit Festival is a three-day gathering of music, ceremony, knowledge sharing and arts, held in a stunning cultural landscape that is lunawunna alonnah, Bruny Island, Tasmania. The Festival is a powerful opportunity for Indigenous and non-indigenous people to share knowledge and ceremony, honouring ancient traditions and contemporary innovation. For more information and festival tickets go to: https://www.nayriniaragoodspirit.com/
Jess will offer a series of talks & workshops at this event.
TALKS:
- SKY DANCERS
- THE POWER OF A GENEROUS GAZE
WORKSHOPS:
- TRUSTING THE GROUND BENEATH US
- MOUNTAIN LIKE SITTING AND MUDRAS
SKY DANCERS
This talk will explore a contemporary translation of ‘feminine embodiments of awakening’ as presented in the Buddhist tradition. These women were known as sky dancers. These female meditators are often depicted as straight- shooting women who ‘delight in being untamed,’ and ‘revel in their own freedom.’ How, as men and women working together, can we support the flight and the positive impact of the ‘sky dancer’. How, as women, can we access and utilise our clear-eyed wisdom and compassion in order to benefit and enhance the culture around us?
THE POWER OF A GENEROUS GAZE
The Buddha wanted to strip people of their attachment to status and power and call them back to the forest to sit quietly under trees, in order to feel life simply and directly again. He was a social revolutionary who saw through the prejudices, preconceives ideas and limiting views of his time. Every human being, he declared, has intrinsic worth and is capable of developing wisdom and compassion. He took the spiritual power out of the hand of the authorities and gave it back to the people.
How can we fearlessly keep looking with clear eyes to today’s challenges? How does a generous gaze affect ourselves, and the people and country around us? How can we listen and dig deeper? How can we begin to lift the barriers created between us?
Workshop 1 exploring meditative practice
TRUSTING THE GROUND BENEATH US
– A guided lying down meditative practice.
We can all, at times, through different challenges, lose our sense of naturalness and feel cut off from life. In this workshop we will explore meditative practices that help us to rest and dig deeper than habitual thoughts and day-to-day preoccupations. We will re-connect with the nourishing support of the ground. It is sometimes said that our capacity to feel nourished and soothed depends largely on our capacity to relax into the ground beneath us.
Let us explore this practice of ‘letting go’ together!
Workshop 2 exploring meditative practice
MOUNTAIN LIKE SITTING AND MUDRAS
-Belly breathing and embodied gestures
Meditation practice can foster inner resourcefulness and steadiness to meet all of our experience- the inevitable ‘good and the bad.’ We will explore a simple sitting meditative practice, known as ‘calm-abiding’, that assists in developing this mountain-like quality of clear seeing and tender hearted bravery. Once establishing this steadiness, we will flow into simple, potent, and expressive movements, known as ‘mudras,’ that reflect and empower deep states within.