Kangaroo Island Australia
I don’t know about you but looking out into the field of current possibilities, I go WTF? Someone asked me the other day what the apocalypse would look like, “I think we’re already in it”, I said.
There’s a suspicious plane crash in Iran, many of the dead are students, under 30 years old and linked somehow with Canadian universities. There’s a local Persian student I sent a message to offering my support. We were seated across from each other at Christmas dinner and I got to hear the most beautiful and astounding things about Persia; art, history, architecture and her family. Then mere days later there’s tragedy. There’s political rhetoric a public dance of the seven veils and BAM!; death, suspects, mourning, uncertainty, thoughts & prayers, more suspicion, grief, funerals, remembrance, flags at half mast, love lost, humans remembered, anger suppressed/expressed.
Who can make sense of the senseless?
And the fires, those Australian fires. A few weeks ago I found a map and list of all the fires burning. Each mark on the map had a damage report that included the size of the fire, estimated number of structures damaged, lives lost and how much of the fire was under control. What truly threw me for a loop was that one of the fires was 118,000 hectares. Do you have any idea how large that is? In 2003 there was a fire here in Kelowna and that fire burned for months, destroyed 239 homes and caused the largest post war mass evacuation of Canadian citizens since the second world war. That local fire burned 26,000 hectares and it was only one fire. The Australian map listed hundreds of fires and many of them were over 118,000 hectares and that was before Christmas. Before Christmas was before the big burn on Kangaroo Island, the loss of Koala life and the massive loss of kangaroo colonies. It was before humans escaped to the ocean for shelter and before people were incinerated in their cars trying to escape. So I say, with all sincerity, WTF?
If you’re human, these disasters will bring up all sorts of emotional responses not the least of which include anger and grief. Someone asked me why I would do a retreat on rage, “Who wants to feel that?” she said. Well, here’s the deal, you’re feeling it anyway or some such expression of it, there’s lots to be angry about (as if your childhood wasn’t enough) so why not take the opportunity to move it through your system? The Sacred Rage Retreat offers an opportunity to express how you really feel in a safe and immersive environment. It’s an opportunity to transmute those just-under-the-surface emotions and attach them to thoughts that will propel you forward, will get you thinking about solutions, acting in response to those lousy situations around you and being an active problem solver without the charge attached. What family, what community and in what world is that not a healing and healthy response to our current personal and public demise?
Connect with me, perhaps it’s time move that emotional energy through you and out the other side. Winter is the perfect time to go within, deep within.
unconventional-methods.com
Lori Mairs
art@lorimairs.com
250-861-8781
January 24, 25, 26 2020
The Land of 7:30 
What will be the medium, is it through art that the rage is expressed?
Hi Margaret, no it isn’t but great idea!
The Rage part is the first half of the retreat and the ‘getting to (a greater) purpose’ is the second part. We work through the rage first by unpacking what it is, how it appears in your life (lecture/talks/sharing) and we go through a series of exercises to express it- BIG expressions of it. I teach you how recognize patterns that connect and how they emerge as ‘soft annoyances’ but can be an indicator of a deeper emotion, I teach you how to properly yell into a pillow (when, where, why, how), and I teach you how to recognize and ‘catch’ the annoyance before it turns to a projection on yourself or others.
The aim of the retreat is to leave with insight into the workings of your own emotional expressions and by default you get this insight into others. The aim is to also provide you with practical tools you get to have for life and the equipment to follow through with those tools.
Anger has such a bad reputation, it’s been demonized and treated with contempt as if it’s a mistake that we have it. Truth is, anger is the correct response when we witness/experience injustice to ourselves or others. Our anger/rage is the very thing needed to propel us forward, to seek answers and do our part to make a better world for the next generations. When we recognize injustice then truly express our rage/anger then we are set free to take action fro a place of compassion and clarity. If we skip the part of the expression we take that rage with us into the next steps and any good we are trying to achieve will be coloured with this emotion laying as a subtle energy under our skin and will emerge as a projection and that doesn’t serve us or our cause.
Please don’t hesitate to send a note or book a call if you have any other questions. 250-861-8781