Our Spring Family Reunion

at The Mountain Retreat & Learning Center
Highlands, NC

April 22-24, 2016

two Nights Lodging & Meals: $237.15

Catching up with old friends and making new ones is at the very heart of every GSV gathering. 

Yes, we have a compelling theme and our schedule includes a number of ways to explore your understanding of Inner Marriage through ritual, story sharing, meditation, movement and touch. There will be community led workshops that include Dream Work, a Meditation connecting us to our inner lover, Restorative Yoga, Play and Writing.  Saturday night’s events include a GSV 2016 riff on two classic Greek themes. Prepare to laugh, learn and open your heart.

That said It is what you bring to The Mountain (your love, your fears, your humor, your yearning) that creates magic and allows the weekend to come alive far, far more than the sum of its parts.  

Our family Spring Reunion and Retreat is only a month away.  Your presence, and that of your friends, will only make it richer.  Scholarships are available, so please don’t let a tight budget keep you at home.

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Presenter Update

On Saturday morning Andrew Lawler will set the stage for Andy Foskey, John Schendel and Gary (Pleasure) Kaupman to share their very personal and very different stories about Exploring Inner Marriage. After we’ve heard those stories, Andrew will lead us on an Inner Marriage Meditation followed by sharing in small groups.

You met Andrew and Andy (Ann Dee) Foskey last month. Here’s a bit of background on John and Pleasure.

John Schendel attended his first GSV gathering on September 13, 2001. Describing his

journey he says “Inner marriage for me is a crude, willful attempt to reunify the masculine, feminine, old, and young inside of me who have always been just one despite what my wounded, unsettled body thinks it knows.” He and Gary have been friends for longer than either can remember.

Gary (Pleasure) Kaupman started coming to GSV gatherings about eight years before there was a GSV. Asked about their conscious inner marriage exploration which started three years ago, Pleasure says, “Wow! I’ve understood inner marriage in my brain for most of my life, but coming to understand it in my body led to an understanding and healing that I could never have imagined.”

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Yin and Yang
(made very simple) 

You know the symbol; it is almost ubiquitous in our binary culture. It’s easy to see the black (yang) and white( yin ) sides of the circle as being in opposition to each other, but that is not what Chinese philosophers had in mind in the fourth century before common era as they pondered the world around them.

They saw ying and yang as different but complimentary energies that create a whole larger that the sum of its parts. (If you have been to a GSV gathering, that’s a concept that you likely understand easily.) The little dots of opposing colors present in both yin and yang are there to remind us that everything has both yin and yang energies.  

In Daoist Metaphysics the distinctions between black and white, masculine and feminine, thinking and feeling are understood to be perceptual rather than real.

Together, and in balance, they create the Tao/Dao which can be understood as our spiritual path.

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(If you need help registering call The Mountain
at (828) 526-5838 x218)

Exploring Inner Marriage

at The Mountain Retreat & Learning Center
Highlands, NC

April 22-24, 2016
Two Nights Lodging & Meals: $237.15

Several folks have asked ‘How am I going to benefit from exploring inner marriage?”

It’s a good question.

Different traditions and philosophies approach this question through different lenses, but they all come to the same conclusion: this exploration is a vital step on our journeys to becoming whole.

Another way to say that: these explorations can help us move from ego-centered consciousness to a soul-centered consciousness.

Or in the context of the hippies and flower children and “make love not war” you might think of inner marriage as the path to deepening your internal love of self which allows your external expression of love to be more authentic.

How are we going to do this come April 22-24?

We’ll start on Saturday morning by listening to the stories of three folks whose approaches and experiences with inner marriage are very unique and different.

Andy (Ann Dee) Foskey is longtime friend of co-convener Romer Taylor and newcomer to GSV. His explorations on this path began organically when he was quite young.  Ann Dee is a Librarian who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  “I love the feel of the wind in my beard, but I don’t mind friendly fingers either…”

We’ll introduce the other story tellers in our next update.

After we’ve heard these stories, Andrew Lawler will use a guided meditation to help us go inside, explore our own unique masculine and feminine energies, and encourage them to begin a dialog with each other. Andrew is a writer who lives in Asheville, NC and is on the faculty of the Body Electric School. He has been in Inner Marriage Counseling for more than a decade and has a deep knowledge of this exploration. His wisdom provided an essential piece in co-convener Gary Kaupman’s understanding of his inner marriage.

The remainder of the weekend will provide a number of opportunities to continue these explorations through movement, meditation, touch, writing, dreams, play, and song.

 

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The Marriage of Shakti and Shiva

(made very simple)

In the tantric understanding, the god Shiva is the symbol for consciousness, the primary masculine energy. The goddess Shakti is the symbol for activating power and energy, which is the primary feminine energy. Kundalini/Shakti is the feminine energy that resides at the bottom of the spine of every individual.

Consciousness/Shiva is the top most chakra, the head. In order for Shakti and Shiva to live in harmony, Shakti rises up to meet the Shiva with the goal of inner marriage and a life filled with pleasure.

When Shiva’s wife Sati (who was an incarnation of Shakti) died, Shiva was so overcome with grief that he isolated himself from the whole world. He retired into a dark cave buried amongst the snow covered peaks of the Himalayas and became inclined towards asceticism, rejecting the outside world.

Shiva’s meditation practice was so focused and so deep that he acquired great knowledge that filled his body with heat and energy. Problem was, all this knowledge was within Shiva and of no use to anyone else.

The other gods got worried and started invoking the mother goddess, Shakti, who appeared before them as ‘Kundalini’ a coiled serpent. In answer to their prayers, Shakti said that she would coil herself around Shiva and would wean out his knowledge and energy for the good of the world. Shakti then took birth as Parvati and united with Shiva again.

Together, completing each other, they become the divine parents and constitute the whole of the universe. They are inseparable; neither exists without the other.

If you would like to know more about a practical understanding and use of the Shiva/Shakti legend, we recommend the book “Kali Rising: Foundational Principles of Tantra for a Transforming Planet” by Dr. Rudy Ballentine, a past Keynoter at GSV.

 

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We are pleased that Jason Buchannan will be joining our team as Faerie Wrangler for the Spring Retreat. His initial job will providing support to the presenters to be sure they have the support they need to make their contributions rich and meaningful. And to wrangle Gary and Romer if they stray from the pasture. Jason makes his home in Raleigh, North Carolina where, when not working in consumerism with plants, he can be found organizing young adult resistance movements that work to reclaim self and divinity.

 

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Merry Meet! Merry Part! And Merry Meet Again!

Gary, Romer and Jason

 

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(If you need help registering call The Mountain
at (828) 526-5838 x218)