Calling in the Wishes!Sending out the Grief!
I was gifted an amazing opportunity to co-create an interactive installation for the Healing Village at Arise Festival. It has exceeded all of my expectations for collaboration, creation, participation, and beauty. My heart is brimming with gratitude.
After a brief conversation about my Wishing Well at Enchanted Forest from last year, I found myself in a whirlwind of creation. I didn’t know exactly what I was creating but I knew I was bringing the opportunity for wishing and manifesting to Arise.
I had the joy of collaborating with Damien, Greg, and Beth AKA the Grief Freak, and we conceived of a spiraling temple where wishing and grieving, two extremes of human emotion, could dialogue, expand, manifest, and release.
Beth came up with the truly ingenious plan to tie together sticks into portable panels. Two altars would exist at either end of the double spiral. From these altars individuals were invited to add their own mark on the installation. It was a brilliant plan!
So rarely a vision comes together in reality with such ease. When Beth and I first came together to work on the “Healing Helix” we were both visited by snake energy. I found a fully intact snake skin in my yard moments before gathering the first sticks from my spring deadfall, and Beth’s cat found a snake in her yard when she went home to put together her first panel. What a fortuitous visiting!
Beth (the Grief Freak) and I building the “Healing Helix” Credit: Beth Erlander
The “Healing Helix” began its time at Arise as bare skeleton. People at the festival were immediately called towards its simple beauty. As the weekend unfolded it only became more poignant. The Wishing Well was covered in hundreds of wishes concealing all manner of wondrous desires to be called in. The Grief Altar was adorned with hundreds of bundles made from fallen bracken.
As part of the weekend at Arise Beth and I both held events to amplify the power of “Healing Helix.” I offered two Wish Dances, where I gathered an intimate group around the Wishing Well and we embodied our wish through a guided dance. Beth led Grief Ritual.
I was deeply moved by the ritual, experiencing and moving my own emotions. And after we gathered all of the bundles from the weekend and burned them in the sacred fire at Wisdom Village, letting all the Grief go.
We let the Grief go, and the Wishes have been collected. I will be weaving the wishes into a magical rope of manifestation over the next few months, creating a lasting monument to the dreams that were called in at Arise.
Be sure to follow Beth and I on instagram to see even more pictures & video of the installation, and also so you can see what continues to grow from the “Healing Helix” at Arise.
Blessed Be.
The “Healing Helix” on Day Three photo credit: Beth Erlander
