Our lab investigated the intersection between our body-mind-system and the land we are born in, live in or are drawn to. How does being in a heartfelt resonance with the land inform us? When listening to the land, what do we learn about our individual, ancestral, and collective history? Can we feel the interconnectedness of all beings and our interwovenness in the fabric of a place? We explored belonging as a key component of a sense of home.
We invited 21 curious people who seemed dedicated to deepening their experience of a specific place and committed to the year-long process. We explored our inner and outer landscape with exercises, meditation, and creative expression. We held space to witness inner sensations and movements as we journeyed together into our understanding of home.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
We started with 21 participants and ended with 14 at our final session. After session 2 we invited participants to join triads which we recommended. In session 4 we got permission to share emails in the group. We met 12 times, once/month between January 2024 and December 2024.
Sessions 1. - 2. We started with acknowledging our intention. Already introducing some of our working principles, like active listening and attunement, 3-sync. Meditation, contemplation and artistic expression. We collected/explored what could be resources for this journey, what nourishes and supports us on the way.: specific places, moments on your own, situations with friends, art, literature, and poems.
Then we started to explore how and where in our body we feel at home. We discovered that it is possible to feel at home in different places/realms, like creativity, spirituality, or even muteness and phantasies. etc., that these places can re-comfort us, especially if the physical place we live or lived at does not so much feel like home.
Sessions 3-4 We stayed together as a whole group of 18 and each person shared their impulse to be in the lab. We oriented participants to attune to their embodied experience as they listened to each other. In the next session people explored what does the land feel like in the body? People shared in triads and then came back to the whole group for harvesting.
Session 5: We contemplated our childhood home and landscape. Drawing a kind of map of both on two sheets of paper. We invited participants to stand on these papers/drawings to sense how the experiences of our early years informed and shaped their sense of feeling at home/belonging/not feeling at home/not belonging. We also touched on the feeling of belonging in the lab and how this is a reflection of our belonging to home.
Session 6-7: In session 6 we started to explore deeper the meaning and archetypal potential of different landscapes, like deserts, forests, ocean, lakes etc. for our lives. Which landscape calls you, what touches you and or surprises you? In our next session we invited a being or ancestor into the field. Participants shared their experience and the voices of these various beings. We explored how a specific landscape and the beings of this landscape can inform/support us finding our way home. After greeting the beings and asking permission to enter their world we invited participants to make contact with the being. They asked this being 3 questions: What do I bring – capacities, relations, etc., that can help me to find my way home? / What is in my way on my way home? What prevents me from finding my way home? / How could you help me to root myself in the land and find my way home?
Session 8: We spent our time as a whole group asking participants to reflect on where they were on the journey. Feelings of curiosity, gratitude, shame, disorientation were part of the field. In session 9 we explored how we sense the land, exploring land/place inside of ourselves deepening the exploration of physical experience. Around the hearth of our imaginations we received the blessing of our ancestors.
From those that stayed for the whole journey there were reports of experiencing home more explicitly in their bodies which was reflected for some people in a more stable experience of home externally. The feeling of belonging and home became alive in the field of the group though the journey of our lab. It was present in the insights of the participants that were shared during our final session. The participants also found their belonging in feeling reflected in the experiences of others. The lab created a group coherence around home and belonging having made the year long journey together.
"The lab has helped me to pay attention to my inner and outer journeys. The work with the Ancestors was really powerful as well as the discovery that I am a collector and gatherer of such a rich variety of valuable values, strengths and traumas too. I do feel connected to my ancestors’ lands and the brave roots and home that they built with their own hands and hearts. There is gentleness, kindness and playfulness too...and I am content that the journey continues!"
"The Lab has been a life changing experience. It has worked all through the year as a pilgrimage. In my Lab "Finding our way home" I have experienced many emotions month by month that have brought me to connect and embody more in such a way that after the process I can say that I feel absolutely at home. The group has been beautiful. The Presencing and deep listening. I have gained this knowing that I am home in my heart and wherever I am."
"That there is something about the maintained focus and intention on a theme - such as ours of "finding our way home" - and that the monthly check-ins with people around the world focusing on this one theme is very potent! (…) I changed from external blame, trying to control and make external factors different... to focusing on Self and what beliefs I have that aren't serving me, but are re-creating traumatic events or challenging life lessons that keep repeating in cycles"
"It is a highly transformative experience. It seems at first that not much is happening, we start slow and smoothly, and we deeply connect, and all is reflected in the outside world around us. I feel seen, heard, understood, and the deeply rooted traumas dissolve and the energy starts to flow impacting health and well-being. When I started the lab "Finding our way home", (…) I didn't have a clear sense of where I belonged and of my real home..Now...I can happily say that I feel home."
"The sessions are really refreshing and the facilitators and participants are sharing from their hearts, experiences and wisdom. I am extremely grateful to be part of this transformative and shared journey! If you wish to look within, I recommend you to participate in one of the next labs. The fact that we all chose this specific lab, brings us together as a soothing and caring community."
"I have delved deeply into sensing HOME in my body and earth. I've held myself gently in not knowing and feeling at times unanchored. The journey together grounded me in an embodied sense of rhythm and movement and home. I am deeply aware of how attunement to our bodies helps me ground into landing in belonging. (…) How to explore my sense of home has greatly widened through this work this year."
Crisis Trauma Relief
Trauma-Informed Practice
Collective Trauma Integration
Community of Practice
Raising Awareness
Overview
What we do
Who we are
Підпишіться на наші інформаційні листи. Допоможіть нам зцілювати колективну травму та зменшувати негативні ефекти для нашої глобальної культури.
Ingrid Pickel 
English