First workshop day, working with a small group from the Cartshed. There was a huge storm last night and I worried we would have to cancel our walk today. But, the gods were smiling on us and the wind subsided and the pelting rain stopped just as I arrived at the Cartshed. It was still quite grey but Ben (a Cartshed volunteer) had kindly lit the campfire and already filled the urns with hot water for tea so it felt very inviting and homely. The other 3 people who were participating arrived, as did Alithea who was there as extra support for both myself and the walkers. We settled in and I explained what was going to happen and people did the walk, listening to the audio setting off about 10 minutes apart from one another.
Things that worked:
- The four participants varied in age from 16 to somewhere in the late sixties. All four had a really positive experience and the feedback was heartwarming and encouraging.
- Each of the participants shared some of their stories about their own grief journey. One of the participants, who is not much of a talker, opened up to the group and shared heartfelt emotion with the group which he said was something he needed but rarely felt able to do.
- There was a palpable sense of connection between everyone despite no-one knowing each other very well (or at all) and despite the varying ages and backgrounds.
- Alithea gave people some beautiful, accessible and much appreciated techniques for connecting to their inner resources for allowing and also managing difficult emotions.
Things that need improvement for next time:
- Some of the arrows had spun around in the wind and although Ben had said he had checked them all, he hadn’t realised that the walk went around and through the willow beds. I should of course have doubled checked them myself. This resulted in the first walker missing out a chunk of the walk, arriving back to camp fire before the audio had finished which interrupted the experience for her as she didn’t know what to do when she got back. I encouraged her to just keep walking and come back to campfire when the audio had finished. But this interaction with me, rather broke the spell.
- This made me realise I need to give another instruction at the beginning which is to not rush the walk! And of course to always double check the arrows just before starting. As each person came back we talked. But then the talk became chit chat and that focused, reflective energy dissipated. Althea and I decided that perhaps next time we would not stagger the start of the walk so much so that people arrived back within not too long of each other and therefore everyone would hopefully be in a similar headspace for the sharing circle.
