CALENDAR OF OPPORTUNITIES!!
short list-- see descriptions below
Soulstories-will start again in the Fall
WisdomPlay Retreat & N'ville IONS-Masankho & MorningStar- April 16-18- Discovering the Magic of the Second Half of Life flyer
World Sacred Music Festival- June 4-12- Masankho and MorningStar facilitating the 3rd annual trip to Morocco. Come with us for an INCREDIBLE experience. Details soon at www.morocco360.com
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Several gatherings coming up this summer to connect, create, and cultivate and commune with other interesting people in the Nashville area! Come see what's evolving! Be part of a new beginning!
see the new website www.MorningStarArts.net
Come see what's evolving! Be part of a new beginning.
WisdomPlay: A Spring Weekend Retreat
at The Playroom (some sessions by Percy Priest Lake)
Mark your calendars and reply with YES! to this very special retreat opportunity. Give yourself a wonderful weekend to recharge your batteries, share your wisdom, and be honored in a special ceremony for your special place in the great wheel of life. Join Masankho and MorningStar for two deLIGHTful days with a few other sweet people gathering at The PlayRoom in Hermitage, some sessions beside the lake there. Starting on Friday at 6pm through Sunday 2pm, April 16-18th we'll take some time to reflect on what our lifestories are showing us, let the water teach us about "flow", make collage art, dance, sing, tell stories, laugh, shake out old habits, experience good food, fresh air, warm sun, (if we are lucky), have some quiet time. There is sleeping space for out of town folks, and we'll shape the weekend out of the energy and desires of each soul who shows up. Our very loose theme will be around the "doorway" we face at midlife, a portal for opening our hearts to embracing the challenges and opportunities of aging with grace, adapting mindfully to the many changes going on in ourselves and the world. In this relaxed space you'll find an environment of fun, ease, inspiration, and support in which to explore and play with possibilities for action at this portal in your life.
REGISTRATION- The $150-180 sliding scale includes all sessions, stayover if wanted & Sat. dinner and supplies. Space is limited to 15 lucky people! Preregister and send a check in advance to 309 Canberra Ct, Hermitage, TN 37076 and and get free gifts with a $30 value! We ask that you bring lunch and breakfast foods you like, your favorite pillow, journaling materials, comfortable clothes, and a playful spirit! Don't let $$ be a barrier. If you feel called to be there, talk to us and we can discuss a variety of ways to exchange energy! WisdomPlay2010R.pdf
ElderWisdom
A Cross-Cultural Collage of Stories, Songs and Ancestral Inspiration
A Nashville Institute of Noetic Sciences Presentation-4/18 and a Weekend Retreat 4-16/18
In every culture, and each generation there is a transition at the mid-point of life. There comes a challenging but fruitful opportunity to reflect on how one will choose to embrace the rest of one's life and re-evaluate one's contributions to the world. In times of uncertainty, momentous change, and complexity there is a deep need for the wisdom, kindness, vision and long-range perspective that the leadership of enlightened elders can bring. So much is lost in our US culture when older people are cordoned off in nursing homes, and there is widespread fear of the natural aging process. When elders have an honored place and live within the family circle, there is sustenance and stability flowing back and forth between the generations in many cultures. This is a rarity now here in the West. Will we approach mid-life and embrace the future with a spirit of adventure, or dread? boldness or timidity? expansion or contraction? When we face this doorway at the midpoint of life with courage, and embrace the inevitable changes with grace, a beautiful thing can happen as we open our hearts, broaden our minds, release our fears, deepen our compassion, learn the lessons our lifestories have taught us, and become wise. What are the limitations, habits, or beliefs that stand in the way of our fulfilling our life purpose, leaving a living legacy? What is our particular gift to the world that can come to fruition as we mature?
What wisdom has come to us through our grandparents, through those angels, mentors, and friends, and wise family members, or teachers who provided guidance to us along the way? How do we take on the role of mentor, spiritual guide, healer or teacher to those starting on their own path? How can we fulfill our role as grandparents, or elders in a way that connects our lives with the ancestors before us and in the coming generations in the great chain of being. What is the role of creativity in this transition? In what ways can the arts of storytelling, movement, and singing, silence and energy work be cultivated to deepen our capacity to create cultures of peace, and provide an ethic of open-hearted play in our communities? What is the role of the elder artist in social transformation and planet-wide social evolution? What if we regularly provided opportunities for older community artists and activists, teachers and healers from a variety of cultures to come together and share their stories, dreams and visions with each other and with younger people? What if the content of these wisdom circles helped shape and inform the priorities and politics of their communities? In many indigenous cultures it was a wise council of elders who were keepers of the flame of truth across time and space, who held decision-making power for their villages. What if we created opportunities for people approaching their senior years who feel called to fill the role of Elder who are ready to take an empowering step toward claiming the gifts and duties of that role? We believe that the wisdom of true Elders is absolutely necessary in our modern world as well, if we are to survive as a species on planet Earth. In our modern Western society, the role of Elder is often undefined and dishonored. When each of us comes to this point in the journey we deserve to have ceremonial rituals and a rite of passage at this gate as a way to anchor the Sage's intention to be of service in a particular way at the final phase of life.
Our leaders for this April's NIONS presentation, Masankho Banda and Diana MorningStar Ault, have been exploring these questions and many more since they first began collaborating over 8 years ago in their work as community artists. They each were very strongly influenced by their grandparents, open to ancestral guidance, and now that they are themselves grandparents they are beginning to step into midlife with a dream that is born out of a decades long practice of community building, healing and social change through the arts. In the 20+ gatherings of all shapes and sizes that they have facilitated together they have discovered and delighted in a warm, open-hearted, easy, deeply creative improvisational facilitation style that creates a container of what they like to call "Radical Hospitality", where strangers can come in the door and a few hours later be lifetime friends. Through the forms of artful play, they are planning to begin offering workshops and retreats offering people approaching midlife opportunities to discover and embrace their own unique gifts, passions, callings and spiritual connections that define us as Elders. One of the best gifts of aging is also being able to see the folly of your ways, to have a well-developed sense of humor and to claim freedom, joy and humility.
Their presentation at this NIONS gathering will be a collage of improvised stories, songs, poetry, and dance about their experiences of planting seeds of peace, passion, playfulness and possibility to thousands of people around the world. Come prepared to be inspired, challenged, energized, and invited to get a glimpse into what YOUR ancestors might be calling YOU into, and what your LifeStory is teaching YOU! Maybe you will discover a community of inspired and inspiring elders and form your own wisdom circles as a point of mutual support and sanity in a changing world!
Masankho and MorningStar will be facilitating a weekend retreat on WisdomPlay April 16-18th, at the PlayRoom, and the lake for a group of 15 people who are at this turning point of midlife. If you feel called to create this time and space to reflect on your lifestory, to creatively share what you have learned and are learning, meet other companions on the journey, be supported in moving forward with grace, and honored with a celebration at the portal, please contact us.
YOUR FACILITATORS FOR APRIL's WisdomPlay Retreat April 16-18th are:
Masankho Kamsisi Banda is a warm-hearted multi - disciplinary Performing Artist,Educator and InterPlay Leader originally from Malawi. He brings many unique perspectivesto his work around the world. He was greatly influenced by relationships with his grandparents and the Elders in his African village. He regularly takes groups from the US to his home village and shares the warmth and wisdom, humor and depth of his ancestors in his work as a peace artist. Using the performing arts and InterPlay Masankho motivates and inspires people of all ages to work together to bring about peace, social justice and cultural understanding. For his international peace work through the arts he was awarded an Unsung Hero of Compassion Award by the Dalai Llama. In 1997, he started UCanDanc' African Healing Arts to bring his passion for dance and storytelling to communities across the globe. He's been to Nashville now over twenty times to share his shining presence in the schools, churches, community centers and has been very influential in helping build relationships between people of different cultural backgrounds, in a unique heart-opening way.
www.ucandanc.org 510-773-7328
Diane MorningStar Ault is a longtime community organizer, activist and artist whose purpose is building a mutual support network of community artists as a soulforce for a better world. She was born in Lawrenceburg, TN into a web of close farm family with relationships to grandparents, great-grandparents, spent many years working with national and international grassroots women's groups filled with high-spirited sages, and has been mentored by many a wise woman. She regularly communes with the ancestors through dreams and visions and has been facilitating rites of passages for folks since way before it was cool. After 8 years of leadership in the forms of InterPlay, she is currently designing MorningStar Community Arts, linking arts and social transformation, writing, performing and producing dozens of community gatherings, house concerts, and sacred circles in her home- The PlayRoom. She is planning the 3rd trip to Morocco to visit her grandchildren's other family and experience the the World Sacred Music Festival this summer. She is a devoted grandmother of Ben & Sam, 5, and Kinza, 2, who live next door and remind her daily what is REALLY important.
615-594-4410 www.MorningStarArts.net dianamorningstar@gmail.com
SoulStories:
An Exploration of the InterPlay of Nature and Soul
Starting again in the Fall of 2010- Soulstories is a series of gatherings to share art, spirit, stories, movement, collage, writing and mutual support with other sweet folks and guest community artists! Our "text" will be the lifestories and learnings of each participant with a special interest in noticing/celebrating/deepening our connections in the natural world. We'll share some forms that will aid us in expressing the myriad ways our encounters in/with nature have influenced our lives thus far, and discover some new tools to expand our engagement with the mysteries of our deeper dreams and desires. After some recent experiences with doing the work of SoulCraft and SoulCollage and encounters in nature, Kelly Eagar and I are moved to offer time and space for some deep play-- witnessing to, crafting and and sharing our soul stirrings in simple but profound expressive mediums of story, sound, stillness and movement. In the warm and comfortable, candlelit space of The PlayRoom of my home at 309 Canberra Ct., and with the music of nature and our own voices as soundtrack, we will explore the ways that our lives have been shaped by encounters in the more-than-human world, discover the places of disconnect, and provide opportunities to re-member our place in the Oneness with all that is. Each Winter for several years we have offered these sessions as an opportunity to breathe deep, to focus on having inner stillness, quiet, deep connections with others, and an opportunity to be gentle with ourselves and savor this way of BEing in the world to prepare for Spring and the season of new growth.
Space is limited to 12 so call and reserve your space today. We'll be meeting weekly from 6:30-8:30pm, The love offering requested is $20 for drop ins, or just $60 for the 4 week series.. Please register by calling 615-594-4410 or email- dianamorningstar@gmail.com.
Also, please share this opportunity with your friends!
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Diana (Morningstar) Ault is a community artist, activist, producer, and mostly fulltime grandmother now! She loves creating cultures of peace by bringing people together to play across lines of race, class, and culture, recognizing the oneness and interdependency of all beings.
Come and be part of any and all of these great events and be part of our amazing community of artists! Call 615-594-4410, or email for more information- dianamorningstar@gmail.com
SEE www.MorningStarArts.net
Diane's New BIO at ted.com
