Bright Wood School of Presence & Healing
beginning July 28th:
The Valley of Not-Knowing
journey into a vast field of pure potential
while grounded in stillness, silence, joy, connection,
spaciousness, devotion, & truth.
Join a group that is safe, supportive, and deeply nurturing as you begin to open into the vast field of simmering potentiality…the Unknown.
Life deposits us right in the center of not knowing all the time. Have you found yourself there lately? Is there something that you really really think that you have to figure out? Something that you think, ‘yes, seriously, I have to know this thing’.
Well, it could be you’ve landed in the right place at the right time coming to this group course. Spending time in the unknown, learning to allow its mysteries to permeate your life, can bring renewal and clarity like nothing else.
We are not taught here in our world of humans to trust the great unknown at all. Rather, we are taught that we’d better get out of any kind of not-knowing ASAP. Culturally we’re babies in the whole realm of the great unknown. We worship knowing, knowing, knowing, and figuring it out as fast as possible. To do otherwise is often even seen as irresponsible (the opposite is true).
The immense unknown is the place where any real transformation, renewal, rejuvenation, and inspiration is born. To allow something truly new to come forth all preconceived notions have to fall away so we can see. Preconceived ideas and beliefs coat the world with an opaque scum, preventing us from truly seeing a new solution, way of being, or life purpose.
It makes sense when you think about it - Einstein put it well - ‘"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." And “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
Learning to relax into the energy field of not-knowing is a total game changer. It takes a confusing, frustrating, or scary experience and fills it with ease, lightness, and infinite possibility in the flash of an eye. Space opens up, potentiality simmers and vibrates all around you. Relaxing into the truth of not-knowing also has the side effect of ripening the process, even speeding it up in certain cases, but of course you can’t do it for that reason because as soon as that agenda gets mixed in, even the barest hint of it, you are right back into fear.
~
The Bright Wood School of Presence & Healing is a contemplative group course specifically created for those who are ready to shed the mind’s habituated compulsion to always know, and open into the vast field of infinite, vibrating potentiality where all real inspiration and transformation originates.
Enter a Group energetic container of connection & shared Intention
devoting time & practice to the unknown, inquiry, & deep grounding has a ripple effect of benefits.
You can expect:
A safe place to begin to open into the unknown. It can feel like a frightening place, but only because of what our mind projects into it. The benefit of being in a group is that we will foray into the unknown together. Yes, eventually we go alone, but you don’t have to start that way.
A structured way to begin to really explore the unknown. Some structure is good when you go into the unknown, and the format of the class, your classmates, and the curriculum helps provide a sense of safety and structure. Like training wheels for the unknown.
True Knowing. Eventually, and this is not the actual goal of the semester, but eventually, actual true knowing is revealed by abiding in the unknown. Strange but true. Once this real knowing hits you, there is no denying what you have been shown. You Know with a capital K, and no person, institution, or previous unconscious conditioning can tell you otherwise. This can be terrifying or relaxing, but there is always some sense of in-breath when this real Knowing hits. The being can feel the bedrock nature of the Knowing, and there is relief in that.
We will practice reversing the learned behavior of fear and anxiety when presented with an unknown in our life. We will practice relaxing into the unknown when the unknown comes along. If this sounds revolutionary, its because it is. We are habituated to freak the heck out when we don’t know something, and culturally we take it as our honor-bound duty to figure it out at all costs. We’ve moved so far from understanding the benefit of relaxing into the unknown that it can even seem negligent to not get all het up and figure something out with our mind. If we really were applying just our logical mind to an unknown, that would be fine, but usually we are applying a giant wad of unconsciousness and trauma informed beliefs to making a decision, not the logical mind.
Puttering! Relaxing into the unknown! Yes, by purposefully inviting the delightful energy of puttering into your life you can start to soften the ancient ropes of the ‘I-’Know mind noosed up tight around all real creativity, juice, and fun. Puttering is a familiar experience to many, and much less intimidating that straight up swan-diving into the Void of the Unknown. We’ll do a little of both, but trust me, puttering is a solid teacher.
We will also learn to really and truly recognize the energy of fear. Basically the thing that will pop people into unaligned action is listening to fear. So, it is important to get very very familiar with the energetic signature of fear, even if it’s really subtle, so that we can notice when it is informing our decision.
The ability to hear your intuition more often and more clearly. In large part we are able to hear our intuition, or the messages of the unknown when we take time to listen. True listening has no goal, no object, no agenda. Only when there is pure listening and nothing but pure listening can you hear what the other is saying, and in this case the other is the unknown, or perhaps you call it God, universe, life, real self.
Other general benefits of being in The Bright Wood School:
Less reactivity.
Friends, help, support from your classmates and Evangeline. Don’t underestimate this!
More insights and realizations about patterns in your life, family, and community.
A place of stability that does not change with what happens around you.
A growing ability to unhook your well-being from the circumstances of your life.
A growing capacity to truly BE with those you love, connected, present.
A steadily growing capacity to truly BE with yourself, and gently see the unconscious material that is operating.
spend 13 weeks learning to trust and lean into the unknown.
Over time the group sessions cultivate and support a palpable, deeper than personality and ego connection within the participants.
Classmates often tap into universal truth and goodwill during class, and share insights that tend to augment each other’s healing. The emergent quality of connection in class is much greater than the sum of its parts.
There is a shared sacred place of communion and support that exists outside of time and space, by nature of this virtual group, classmates learn to tune into this place at will when they need it.
The Bright Wood School of Presence & Healing is designed to provide a structured, safe, and gently guided place for people to enter into a period of sincere and consistent self inquiry, meditation, and spiritual practice. The School draws from the many techniques, spiritual tools, and energetic practices that have yielded the most shifts with clients, and on my own healing journey.
The Bright Wood School of Presence & Healing
Beginning July 28th
The School follows a schedule of 3 weeks of live sessions followed by a week of personal integration. Live meditation sessions run the entire 13 weeks. (see below)
Module 1+2: Sacred Not Knowing We will explore getting easy, or relaxing, in not knowing. Do not be fooled, being relaxed in the unknown is not something that we learn in our culture!
We are taught to figure it out and know at all costs. This is so habituated that we don't even realize we are doing it. But, for anything truly inspired and new to be birthed into our life, we must open to the field of infinite potentiality that is the unknown.
We will look at the various universal blocks our conditioning raises in the face of not knowing, and gently look under the hood and see what we can see. We simply have not been raised and taught to trust the potent transformative vitality of allowing the unknown to inform our lives. Let's learn so we can let go of the old and open to the NEW.
These modules will include the delightful energy field of puttering.
Module 3: Working with Fear around the Unknown. We will practice getting closer to the energy of fear, and learn to discern its signature voice and the felt sense of it in the body. Sitting with the pure energy of fear is a very good thing to become comfortable with, and the power of fear to rule your decisions and life diminished the more you befriend its company.
There are very specific ways to invite the energy of fear to leave the body and energy field, and once learned can be used in many situations to expunge fear from your system.
We will practice dropping the habituated resistance to this powerful energy, and spend time sitting with it without language and story. Once the language and story melts off of fear it is free to move and release, usually down and out of the body through the root chakra and feet.
Fear always come as a teacher. This module will support us as we open to this sometimes formidable guide, and learn to lean into fear rather than shut down or suppress it (that doesn't work, noticed yet?). Usually, once there is a big release, a new vitality and peace can enter the system.
Weekly Live Session, Fridays, 11am - noon. This is the live class where we meet and spend time learning, interacting, and inquiring into the coursework. Participants report that these sessions are incredibly supportive and caring, and the energy of friendliness and camaraderie can be drawn upon throughout the rest of the week. The live sessions follow a schedule of 3 weeks on, 1 week off for personal integration.
Weekly 30-minute Check-in, rotating schedule, course begins with Wednesdays @ 12:45pm. New this semester! The group receives so much benefit from connecting. We have added a weekly check-in to support everyone, exactly where they are - good, bad, the ugly :).
Weekly Meditations, rotating weekly schedule.
Two live meditation group sessions per week. The days and times vary so that you can make it to some or all of these. One session is silent meditation, and one is guided. These meditation sessions are the bread and butter of any healing work. This is a dedicated time in which people have a way to integrate whatever is coming up, be held by the group container, and give attention to developing that inner stability, peace, and stillness that is essential for abiding transformation. The meditations are set on a rotating schedule that changes over the length of the course. It is expected that participants will probably not be able to come to all of them.
Communion. There is an aspect of the group which is more difficult to describe as I have not come across it outside of the work I do, so I'm not sure how to language it. There is a kind of deep 'going in' that happens in the groups that I have lead. It is deeply connecting, and incredibly nourishing, and most likely the most powerful healing aspect of the School.
A group Facebook page where participants can share experiences, and support and interact with each other. The weekly meditation schedule is listed on this page, as well as any recordings, supplemental guides, and support.
Weekly course work in the form of simple prompts, short readings, and inquiry questions to facilitate a deepening of experience.
Join the Bright Wood School of Presence & Healing
Begin your journey Home.
$1111
pay in full
$395
3 installments
"The door to God is the insecurity of not knowing anything. Bear the grace of that uncertainty and all wisdom will be yours."
Adyashanti
A beautiful, exquisitely worded description of an experience in Not-Knowing…
“I believe there are techniques of the human mind whereby, in its dark deep, problems are examined, rejected or accepted. Such activities sometimes concern facets a man does not know he has. How often one goes to sleep troubled and full of pain, not knowing what causes the travail, and in the morning a whole new direction and a clearness is there, maybe the results of the black reasoning. And again there are mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood, and the stomach and chest are tight and electric with joy, and nothing in the thoughts to justify it or cause it." ~ John Steinbeck
In this video I interview a long-term client about her experience with stillness and silence. We talk about how she first touched upon it during a private session with me, how innately familiar it was once she got there, as well as how spending time there, with me and on her own, has impacted and enriched her life. Enjoy :)
Bright Wood zoom link
Bright Wood Calendar
“The time with Evangeline was spent going deep into thoughts and traumas that have haunted me for most of my life. In that time and space, I was able to say things out loud that I’ve never been able to speak about with anyone. The compassion she had towards my innermost deep, dark secrets was unparalleled. The weight I felt lifted off my shoulders after each session provided me with a sense of ease & lightness.”
— NYC