Sacred Wild Initiation & Mentorship:
Ecstatic Dance Journey
Facilitator & Circle Weaver Certification
Why Do I Frame Ecstatic Dance Journeys as Sacred Rituals for Community?
“Ecstatic Dance” means different things to different people. To me, Ecstatic Dance Journeys are a form of MEDICINE. A Medicine for our time.
When we weave intention, ceremony, community, and the sacred together, we create a potent, unique alchemical container for healing.
Our culture is starving for a sense of healing and wholeness.
Ecstatic Dance Journey are more than simply playing music and dancing freely, though some see it like that. If you are wanting to hold space for your communities to heal, then it is imperative to make space for your community to sit with and within the sacred.
African shaman, Malidoma Patrice Somé explains beautifully the way ritual, community, and healing work together:
“Ritual, community, and healing – these three are so intertwined in the indigenous world that to speak of one of them is to speak of the all.
Ritual, communally designed, helps the individual remember his or her purpose, and such remembering brings healing both to the individual and the community.
The community exists, in part, to safeguard the purpose of each person within it and to awaken the memory of that purpose by recognizing the unique gifts each individual brings to this world.
Healing comes when the individual remembers his or her identity – the purpose chosen in the world of ancestral wisdom – and reconnects with the world of Spirit. Human beings long for connection, and our sense of usefulness derives from the feeling of connectedness. When we are connected – to our own purpose, to the community around us, and to our spiritual wisdom – we are able to live and act with authentic effectiveness.”
The Healing Wisdom of Africa: Finding Life Purpose Through Nature, Ritual, and Community by Malidoma Patrice Somé
This Sacred Wild Initiation & Mentorship Is Unique
Unlike other programs that put the focus on the mechanics of Ecstatic Dance Facilitation, this Sacred Wild Initiation & Mentorship Course focuses on personal and spiritual development while preparing you to facilitate sacred Ecstatic Dance Journey Events, and weave circles of various types.
While the basics of facilitating an ecstatic dance will be covered (opening/closing circles, set list creation, music selection, guiding participants, setting up an altar), this unique training and mentorship program is designed to support and nourish your personal and spiritual growth.
In my eyes, this is sacred work. Similar to a traditional shamanic journey, Ecstatic Dance Journeys lead and support people in accessing the invisible world. As a Sacred Wild Ecstatic Dance Facilitator, you will be guiding people into shifted states of consciousness. This work is powerful, purposeful, and requires reverence. This work is not something to be taken lightly, or treated glibly.
This world is desperately in need of the holy. We need people willing to stand in the liminal spaces and lead participants into the dreamtime. It is time to dream a new world, and we need leaders and guides ready to weave and hold sacred space, and bring forth the medicine of movement, heart, and soul.
Does this resonate with you? Are you ready to carry this type of medicine and responsibility? If so, read on…
APPLY HERE
What Can You Expect To Gain From This Certification Course?
-
Learn and grow in a supportive and encouraging community
-
Develop a deeper more integrated spiritual practice
-
Develop the ability to subtly guide a group energetically and verbally
-
Gain confidence in your intuitive abilities
-
Confidence in organizing, weaving, and facilitating Ecstatic Dance Journeys, as well as other Ceremonies and Sacred Spaces as a Certified Circle Weaver
-
Resources and confidence in curating a set list that moves participants through an Ecstatic Dance Journey in a graceful, soulful way
-
Understand the history, lineage, and purpose of ecstatic dance, and shamanism,
-
12 week course, Zoom meetings, community sharing, personal mentoring, and more
How Is This Course Different From Others?
-
This Certificate Training Program emphasizes personal spiritual development as the foundation of a successful competent Ecstatic Dance Facilitator and Circle Weaver
-
Intimate personal mentoring to empower you in developing confidence in your position as a leader, spiritual author, organizer, and ceremonialist
-
Emphasis on personal spiritual development
-
Begin facilitating ecstatic dance journeys and weaving sacred space while in the course
-
In-person capstone Ecstatic Dance Journey and Certification Ceremony
What We Will Cover In The Course:
Week 1: History and Lineage of Ecstatic Dance; Shamanism
Week 2: Four Directions/ Seven Directions
Week 3: Energy, Intuition, Attunement, and Boundaries
Week 4: Intention, Values, and Ethics
Week 5: Working With Sound (Weaving a play list, using instruments purposefully for ceremony)
Week 6: Honoring and Creating Sacred Space
Week 7: Movement Lexicon: Body Exploration, Nervous System Regulation, Breath is The First Medicine; Trauma Informed Concerns and Guidlines
Week 8: Creating a Flow: Designing Ceremony (Dance Agenda; Ceremony Creation; Tapping Into Your CreativePowers)
Week 9: Intimacy, Vulnerability, and Barriers
Week 10: Exploring Fears and Apprehension / Imposter Syndrome
Week 11: Building Self-Confidence and Self-Esteem
Week 12: Sharing, Integration, Expansion
What Else?
-
Weekly Zoom meetings
-
Weekly Spiritual Development Practices and Check-Ins
-
Group chat / Community board
-
One-On-One meetings with me to check in, offer support, guidance, and encouragement.
-
Curated Set Lists and music to use
-
Supplemental reading assignments for personal spiritual development
My Philosophy
I believe my role as a healer, guide, medicine woman was chosen from a very young age–perhaps since birth. It has taken me decades to claim this, and I do not share this from a place of ego. On the contrary, my heart has always had a longing to serve as a place for the healing of the world. It is not me. It is the love I open to and allow to move through me, that guides me… to lessons, teachers, books, experiences… here.
Through this desire to serve I have studied with various shamans, wise women, healers, and other practitioners. I have been a recipient, a student, a guide. I have been most comfortable as a student because it is seen as the most humble archetype, but I am being called to stand and claim my role as teacher.
I have been a healer for many years. As a baby healer in my teens, I didn’t have much guidance or knowledge– I read books, followed my heart, worked with my chakras, meditated, prayed–practiced. One of the books and teachers I see as pivotal to my “great awakening” (as I have had many awakenings over the years) at the age of 20, is A Return To Love by Marianne Williamson. I still see love as the guiding force and true north in everything I do.
Twenty-five years ago I went to massage school, became a Reiki Master, and began to explore various other Energy Healing techniques, practicing yoga, recognizing the power of breath, and honing my spiritual practices.
Today, I am an Artist of The Spirit Certified Energetic and Spiritual Life Coach trained by Diana Adkins and HeatherAsh Amara (both studied under Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements. As such, their teachings are anchored in a vibration and lineage of Toltec wisdom.) I am a biodynamic craniosacral practitioner trained by Giorgia Milne in Touch of Presence, I practice massage, and am a shamanic practitioner leading people into their energetic, spiritual, and emotional bodies in order to clear stagnant energy and inspire growth, insight, and expanding light. I lead Ecstatic Dance Journeys for community, and various other circles for healing, wholeness, and awakening.
I am also an artist. As a circle weaver, ceremonialist, Ecstatic Dance Journey Facilitator, healer, and medicine woman, creativity is imperative. While ritual suggests a rhythm one can rely on, spirit moves in eternity, and the only place where eternity touches time is the present. Each present moment is unique and sacred, and by trusting in the guidance of source we flow to the medicine.
While I have specific topics we will cover each week, part of what you will receive through studying with me is a transmission. What does spirit want to teach through me? We only discover that in the moment, and I want to acknowledge and honor this truth. We may veer and flow into other topics or be guided to work with various elements/practices. Be open to this.
If you choose to work with me, with the group we gather together, please know that my hope and intention is that we will develop and form a strong nexus of support with and amongst each other. My hope is that this bond will extend past the time of our course, and continue on because this work intensifies and gains energy as we continue to pour back into each other.
If you are called. I look forward to joining with you in the sacred liminal space we weave together.
Are you feeling the call to develop your spiritual practice with other devoted, soulful healers and guides, and weaving sacred spaces for you community ?
Apply Here!
Blessings of Love, Light, and Expansiveness
Suzette Winona Summers M.A. (Suzy Hawkfire)
Certified Artist of the Spirit Energetic and Spiritual Life Coach
Sacred Wild Healer (Massage, Craniosacral, Shamanic Practitioner)
Ecstatic Dance Facilitator
Circle Weaver
Artist
Eternal Student
Mama
