The Source
Where begins the Source of a certain thing? An Event, a creation, a manifestation? When I watch the Magic of Life working, I see that each one of us has a pulsating Source in themselves - the power wanting to manifest itself in a certain way, wanting to stream, create certain forms, meet other streams; and that somewhere on the way, for a shorter or a longer moment, these Sources merge into One - because they come from the One.
This is the place where I want to honor the Source of All Things and the Streams which merged into One on the Field in Lamkowo during the summer 2014. I also want to share the story of their Streaming and Merging Together.
For me personally this story started from coming into this world as a child of certain parents; Bożena Beba, whose love for the Truth and for natural methods of healing inspired me to live in honesty and discover natural way of living; and Klemens Kosakowski, who gave ma an example of what it means to walk your path with courage and power, following your own freedom.
At the beginning of the 90-ties, when I was still a teenager who didn't have any idea about what her life can become, my father decided to buy few pieces of land. At that time, just after the socialistic system collapsed and just before EU came in, farmers used to sell land for very small amounts of money. My father whereas, who himself was born and grown up in the countrysite, was carrying a feeling in his heart that "the land is treasure", something priceless in its nature, because even if you have nothing else, the land will always feed you.
At that time this kind of feeling was an abstract to me. Grown up in a city, on the second floor of a block of flats, taught that my main task is to learn, because this is what will assure my place in a society, I was walking my father's land with my head in the clouds, completely not understanding what could the earth under my feet serve for.
But somewhere these two paths started meeting. Antropological studies, during which a vivid interest in the organization of the primal societies and natural ways of healing awakened in me, brought me to learn bodywork techniques first at The School of Massage and Medical Techniques from Far East in Poznań and later at shamanic workshops offered by Wojtek Jóźwiak. When after finishing the studies I came back to my hometown, Olsztyn, there was already an awakened desire pulsating in my heart to experience something else than a scientific career, something which still didn't have a name, but was connecting with wilderness, authenticity, the power of being rooted in the body and the excitement of Real Life.
Since I started following this desire, it met me first with Tanna Jakubowicz-Mount, who became a mother of my first initiations into freedom, and in the same time it took me to "Węgajty" Theater, where I started gathering first expieriences of participating in a kind of community connected by passion, work and creativity.
In 2006, encouraged by my mother, my father donated to me 10ha of land in Lamkowo. Some way it was still an abstract, a notarial act, a piece of paper saying that there and then I became an owner of 10ha of land, but in the same time, when we came out from the notarial office, somewhere deep in my body I found a new feeling, a feeling of safety, unknown until now, coming from being connected with a certain piece of land on this planet. A feeling telling me that whatever happens from now on, there is always a place where I can come back, rest and regain my powers. A comforting feeling.
Many things fell apart for me in the coming years. Devoted studying of "Who am I?" koan resulted in loosing more and more convictions, ideas and habits of being and receiving more and more dreams, visions and emotions, tearing me apart. The disintegration was a surprise to me. I didn't know back then how much you need to give away to make it possible for What Is There in You to manifest Freely. How much place you need to make before the Dreams Can Come Through. There were weeks, months and years when it seemed that on the other side of the dreams there is only despair. And still there was always something that made me go further, into the depth.
During these years, the years of the disintegration, I met many beautiful people whose paths became my inspiration and who supported me in finding my own way. Next to Wojtek and Tanna, mentioned above, there was also Margo Mama Tika, whose Women Circle I was participating in when living in Warsaw, Kasia Auli Barszczewska, thanks to whom I got to know Birth Into Being movement, Andrzej Młynarczyk and Monika Podsiadła, who introduced the basics of permaculture to me and Daga Gmitrzak, whom I met when she was assisting Tanna, and whose voice moved my heart deeply. There were more of these kind of people. Here I mention only the ones who came to Lamkowo the last summer.
The antropozophical knowledge says that in his process of growing into maturity, a human being shapes following "bodies" during four seven-years stages. Until the seventh year our energy is focused on developing a physical body, next seven years we develop an etheric body, then an astral body and finally, between the 21st and the 28th year, our "Self-Body" or "the Self" emerges. At the end of this process, if it's going correctly, the soul of a child disconnets from the energetic systems of the parents and enters his/her own path of Self-Realization.
I've heard about this theory just about two weeks before my 28th birthday, when shaking and on the border of madness I came to Węgajty in order to present a story of Clarissa Pincola Estes about The Woman-Sceleton. I felt like this woman - dead and "trumbling down" from fear. My heart was beating with about a hundred beats per minute and there were all kinds of energetic sensations moving through my body - spirals on the chakras, feeling orgasmic bliss in turns with crumps of panic fear and general feeling of "spacing out" or being disconnected. It was all accompanied by "receiving visions".
The visions were not any specific pictures, but rather clear recognitions about why did I come here, on this planet, in this life and what is there for me to fulfill. Almost every morning I was waking up feeling a spiral above my head and a kind of Clarity, which was "pooring into" me. The Clarity was comforting. There was warmth and sweetness in it. And it's in this Clarity where it was becoming Clear to me that I'm here to remind myself and others about the ancient understanding of feminity, about the primal connection with Nature and in order to call together a community of people living close to their Hearts and close with the Nature on the land which I received from my father.
The receiving of the visions and the Clarity was comforting, but what was coming afterwards was like a hell. When the spiral above my head was gone and my body was going out from a kind of trans state, I was becoming overwhelmed by a terrible feeling of panic and fear coming from the fact that I didn't have any idea where to start from. What to do? I was flouncing. I didn't understand how, from the place where I was back then, was I supposed to start a community on the land in Lamkowo. After almost a year of living in Warsaw and another unfulfilled relationship, I was back again to my hometown, living with my mother in the metioned block of flats on the second floor, working part-time, a bit in the Theater and a bit in a Higher Private School.
I felt exchausted and somehow unpresent. Because of intensifying energetic experiences and the heart palpitations, I had a feeling I wasn't able to work anymore. Disconnected from the circle of the shamanic friends from Warsaw, who used to be my support group, I was experiencing strong loneliness and I didn't know how to share what I was going throgh with the people from artistic and scientific circle which were sourrounding me.
The antropozophic teacher met in Węgajty was one of the few people who brought some light in the darkness in which I was dwelling back then. The theory which she shared with me, helped me to understand that even though extreme in its form, what I was going through was kind of "natural" experience for this stage of life when "the awakening Soul" was becoming to realize "Her Self" and her individual path.
This understanding brought me some reliefe, but it didn't remove the feeling of disarray, fear and disconnection. In the beginning of September 2008 I was already so exhausted with the state I was in that I decided to go for psychotherapy. After a serie of questions about my childhood and clasifying my shamanic interests as a form of escaping reality which should be rooted out during the therapy process, the therapist recommended me a visit at a psychiatrist with indication for prescribing psychotropic drugs in order to release "the signs of illness".
I came back home feeling even more despair and disarray and still, when I sat down in an armchair, I saw A Very Clear Choice in front of me - either I'm going to believe the Clarity, which was pouring down my head every morning, bringing the visions of fulfilled, free life and I take as True everything that my Heart recognizes as Truth or I'm going to decide for so called "official way" of traditional psychotherapy, psychotropic drugs and rooting out the kind of "distortions" as shamanic interests.
And seeing clearly these two paths in front of me, and feeling all my despair of being torn apart and not-knowing, I surrendered and I saw the stream of prayer pouring out from my Heart and streaming up to the Source of Clarity, from which the recognitions has been flowing down on me until now, and I saw my Heart calling to the Source - "Guide me, I give it all to you, I trust you, guide me where I need to find myself."
It would take long to describe what exactly happened next. It's enough to say that since then I started feeling guided. From today perspective I would rather say that Surrendering Includes the Guidance, that the surrendering opens the way for the guidance, which is somehow "just waiting" to pour down in the space of the Open Heart.
At that time it wasn't clear to me. My surrendering was chaotic, many times unsure, entangled into doubts and insecurities, ragged, and still the signs which I was receiving on the way and the following experiences made me grow in confidance and clarity about the fact that I am guided. Into what? Into Unknown, which is the Fulfillment. How? Step by Step, following the voice of the Heart, following the feeling in the body. And the further you go, the more the aim, any aim, disappears, and the steps become more secure, more alive, joyful, pleasurable, until you completely forget that you were supposed to get anywhere, because the dance, the dance in the Open Space of the Heart, becomes the only aim and the fulfillment. And this is when you discover that you are exactly where you were supposed to find yourself.
At the beginning of this process I found myself in Holland. Very suddenly and unexpectedly. Few days after the prayer of surrendering bursted out from my Heart, one of my far friends asked me if I would like to host her friend, Etira, who was looking for a place to spend a night in my town. I felt "yes" and the next day after this memorable night, which Etira, the Mother of Elfs, spent in my room, I was already hitchhiking on my way out from Olsztyn into Unknown.
Why? Because I was ready, ripe for going this way. Because the story about living free life, which Etira shared with me, and what was radiating from her presence, moved me so deeply that in the morning I packed a backpack, I called my workplace saying that I'm quiting and I went out to stand at the road to hitchhike. I didn't know where I was going and when I'm going to be back. I knew that I want to experience what The Mother of Elfs told me, that when you follow your heart, you receive everything which is necessary on your way.
And that's what happened. The path took me to Amsterdam, where Etira and Jaskon used to live at that time on a squat and where they agreed to receive me. At the time when I arrived there, about a month after leaving Olsztyn, I was already almost free from any heart palpitations and panic fears and after spending another month in the house full of freedom, I completely forgot about them. The blessing of living together with Etira and Jaskon and learning from them was given to me for about half a year. For another four years I was given a blessing of living together with Ania Dudyńska, whom I got to know via Etira.
This is the place where I want to honor the Source of All Things and the Streams which merged into One on the Field in Lamkowo during the summer 2014. I also want to share the story of their Streaming and Merging Together.
For me personally this story started from coming into this world as a child of certain parents; Bożena Beba, whose love for the Truth and for natural methods of healing inspired me to live in honesty and discover natural way of living; and Klemens Kosakowski, who gave ma an example of what it means to walk your path with courage and power, following your own freedom.
At the beginning of the 90-ties, when I was still a teenager who didn't have any idea about what her life can become, my father decided to buy few pieces of land. At that time, just after the socialistic system collapsed and just before EU came in, farmers used to sell land for very small amounts of money. My father whereas, who himself was born and grown up in the countrysite, was carrying a feeling in his heart that "the land is treasure", something priceless in its nature, because even if you have nothing else, the land will always feed you.
At that time this kind of feeling was an abstract to me. Grown up in a city, on the second floor of a block of flats, taught that my main task is to learn, because this is what will assure my place in a society, I was walking my father's land with my head in the clouds, completely not understanding what could the earth under my feet serve for.
But somewhere these two paths started meeting. Antropological studies, during which a vivid interest in the organization of the primal societies and natural ways of healing awakened in me, brought me to learn bodywork techniques first at The School of Massage and Medical Techniques from Far East in Poznań and later at shamanic workshops offered by Wojtek Jóźwiak. When after finishing the studies I came back to my hometown, Olsztyn, there was already an awakened desire pulsating in my heart to experience something else than a scientific career, something which still didn't have a name, but was connecting with wilderness, authenticity, the power of being rooted in the body and the excitement of Real Life.
Since I started following this desire, it met me first with Tanna Jakubowicz-Mount, who became a mother of my first initiations into freedom, and in the same time it took me to "Węgajty" Theater, where I started gathering first expieriences of participating in a kind of community connected by passion, work and creativity.
In 2006, encouraged by my mother, my father donated to me 10ha of land in Lamkowo. Some way it was still an abstract, a notarial act, a piece of paper saying that there and then I became an owner of 10ha of land, but in the same time, when we came out from the notarial office, somewhere deep in my body I found a new feeling, a feeling of safety, unknown until now, coming from being connected with a certain piece of land on this planet. A feeling telling me that whatever happens from now on, there is always a place where I can come back, rest and regain my powers. A comforting feeling.
Many things fell apart for me in the coming years. Devoted studying of "Who am I?" koan resulted in loosing more and more convictions, ideas and habits of being and receiving more and more dreams, visions and emotions, tearing me apart. The disintegration was a surprise to me. I didn't know back then how much you need to give away to make it possible for What Is There in You to manifest Freely. How much place you need to make before the Dreams Can Come Through. There were weeks, months and years when it seemed that on the other side of the dreams there is only despair. And still there was always something that made me go further, into the depth.
During these years, the years of the disintegration, I met many beautiful people whose paths became my inspiration and who supported me in finding my own way. Next to Wojtek and Tanna, mentioned above, there was also Margo Mama Tika, whose Women Circle I was participating in when living in Warsaw, Kasia Auli Barszczewska, thanks to whom I got to know Birth Into Being movement, Andrzej Młynarczyk and Monika Podsiadła, who introduced the basics of permaculture to me and Daga Gmitrzak, whom I met when she was assisting Tanna, and whose voice moved my heart deeply. There were more of these kind of people. Here I mention only the ones who came to Lamkowo the last summer.
The antropozophical knowledge says that in his process of growing into maturity, a human being shapes following "bodies" during four seven-years stages. Until the seventh year our energy is focused on developing a physical body, next seven years we develop an etheric body, then an astral body and finally, between the 21st and the 28th year, our "Self-Body" or "the Self" emerges. At the end of this process, if it's going correctly, the soul of a child disconnets from the energetic systems of the parents and enters his/her own path of Self-Realization.
I've heard about this theory just about two weeks before my 28th birthday, when shaking and on the border of madness I came to Węgajty in order to present a story of Clarissa Pincola Estes about The Woman-Sceleton. I felt like this woman - dead and "trumbling down" from fear. My heart was beating with about a hundred beats per minute and there were all kinds of energetic sensations moving through my body - spirals on the chakras, feeling orgasmic bliss in turns with crumps of panic fear and general feeling of "spacing out" or being disconnected. It was all accompanied by "receiving visions".
The visions were not any specific pictures, but rather clear recognitions about why did I come here, on this planet, in this life and what is there for me to fulfill. Almost every morning I was waking up feeling a spiral above my head and a kind of Clarity, which was "pooring into" me. The Clarity was comforting. There was warmth and sweetness in it. And it's in this Clarity where it was becoming Clear to me that I'm here to remind myself and others about the ancient understanding of feminity, about the primal connection with Nature and in order to call together a community of people living close to their Hearts and close with the Nature on the land which I received from my father.
The receiving of the visions and the Clarity was comforting, but what was coming afterwards was like a hell. When the spiral above my head was gone and my body was going out from a kind of trans state, I was becoming overwhelmed by a terrible feeling of panic and fear coming from the fact that I didn't have any idea where to start from. What to do? I was flouncing. I didn't understand how, from the place where I was back then, was I supposed to start a community on the land in Lamkowo. After almost a year of living in Warsaw and another unfulfilled relationship, I was back again to my hometown, living with my mother in the metioned block of flats on the second floor, working part-time, a bit in the Theater and a bit in a Higher Private School.
I felt exchausted and somehow unpresent. Because of intensifying energetic experiences and the heart palpitations, I had a feeling I wasn't able to work anymore. Disconnected from the circle of the shamanic friends from Warsaw, who used to be my support group, I was experiencing strong loneliness and I didn't know how to share what I was going throgh with the people from artistic and scientific circle which were sourrounding me.
The antropozophic teacher met in Węgajty was one of the few people who brought some light in the darkness in which I was dwelling back then. The theory which she shared with me, helped me to understand that even though extreme in its form, what I was going through was kind of "natural" experience for this stage of life when "the awakening Soul" was becoming to realize "Her Self" and her individual path.
This understanding brought me some reliefe, but it didn't remove the feeling of disarray, fear and disconnection. In the beginning of September 2008 I was already so exhausted with the state I was in that I decided to go for psychotherapy. After a serie of questions about my childhood and clasifying my shamanic interests as a form of escaping reality which should be rooted out during the therapy process, the therapist recommended me a visit at a psychiatrist with indication for prescribing psychotropic drugs in order to release "the signs of illness".
I came back home feeling even more despair and disarray and still, when I sat down in an armchair, I saw A Very Clear Choice in front of me - either I'm going to believe the Clarity, which was pouring down my head every morning, bringing the visions of fulfilled, free life and I take as True everything that my Heart recognizes as Truth or I'm going to decide for so called "official way" of traditional psychotherapy, psychotropic drugs and rooting out the kind of "distortions" as shamanic interests.
And seeing clearly these two paths in front of me, and feeling all my despair of being torn apart and not-knowing, I surrendered and I saw the stream of prayer pouring out from my Heart and streaming up to the Source of Clarity, from which the recognitions has been flowing down on me until now, and I saw my Heart calling to the Source - "Guide me, I give it all to you, I trust you, guide me where I need to find myself."
It would take long to describe what exactly happened next. It's enough to say that since then I started feeling guided. From today perspective I would rather say that Surrendering Includes the Guidance, that the surrendering opens the way for the guidance, which is somehow "just waiting" to pour down in the space of the Open Heart.
At that time it wasn't clear to me. My surrendering was chaotic, many times unsure, entangled into doubts and insecurities, ragged, and still the signs which I was receiving on the way and the following experiences made me grow in confidance and clarity about the fact that I am guided. Into what? Into Unknown, which is the Fulfillment. How? Step by Step, following the voice of the Heart, following the feeling in the body. And the further you go, the more the aim, any aim, disappears, and the steps become more secure, more alive, joyful, pleasurable, until you completely forget that you were supposed to get anywhere, because the dance, the dance in the Open Space of the Heart, becomes the only aim and the fulfillment. And this is when you discover that you are exactly where you were supposed to find yourself.
At the beginning of this process I found myself in Holland. Very suddenly and unexpectedly. Few days after the prayer of surrendering bursted out from my Heart, one of my far friends asked me if I would like to host her friend, Etira, who was looking for a place to spend a night in my town. I felt "yes" and the next day after this memorable night, which Etira, the Mother of Elfs, spent in my room, I was already hitchhiking on my way out from Olsztyn into Unknown.
Why? Because I was ready, ripe for going this way. Because the story about living free life, which Etira shared with me, and what was radiating from her presence, moved me so deeply that in the morning I packed a backpack, I called my workplace saying that I'm quiting and I went out to stand at the road to hitchhike. I didn't know where I was going and when I'm going to be back. I knew that I want to experience what The Mother of Elfs told me, that when you follow your heart, you receive everything which is necessary on your way.
And that's what happened. The path took me to Amsterdam, where Etira and Jaskon used to live at that time on a squat and where they agreed to receive me. At the time when I arrived there, about a month after leaving Olsztyn, I was already almost free from any heart palpitations and panic fears and after spending another month in the house full of freedom, I completely forgot about them. The blessing of living together with Etira and Jaskon and learning from them was given to me for about half a year. For another four years I was given a blessing of living together with Ania Dudyńska, whom I got to know via Etira.
First at a squat, where except from Ania, Robert Tydrych was living as well. Later on a squat which we squated ourselves, together with Ania. And finally in a rented, beautiful two-floors house with a garden, which "came to us" almost as a gift through one of the magical Connections of Circumstances.
At this house, at the famous Wenslauerstraat 63, fifteen minutes away biking from the center of Amsterdam, I've spent few best years of my life, exercising freedom and opening to the flow of co-creation.
At this house, at the famous Wenslauerstraat 63, fifteen minutes away biking from the center of Amsterdam, I've spent few best years of my life, exercising freedom and opening to the flow of co-creation.
Together with Ania we were organizing mantra singing evenings and drumming concerts, we were hosting the Grandmothers from Grandmothers Circle the Earth Fundation and Kambo ceremonies. During that time I started offering regular Full Moon Fire Ceremonies for Women and many bodywork workshops. I also decided to register a company, named „Freedom Journey”, this way giving an official character to my work, based on offering Lomi Lomi Massage and holistic bodywork.
Taken by the flow of Life I almost totally forgot about the vision of the community on the land in Lamkowo. I wasn't even sure if I ever gonna come back to Poland. It also didn't matter. I felt good. Life was giving me new possiblities. In the spring 2010 I started participating in a serie of tantric workshops, offered by Marcia and Rakesh (Art of Loving) and I felt becoming open for new quality of experiencing love and creating relationships.
Taken by the flow of Life I almost totally forgot about the vision of the community on the land in Lamkowo. I wasn't even sure if I ever gonna come back to Poland. It also didn't matter. I felt good. Life was giving me new possiblities. In the spring 2010 I started participating in a serie of tantric workshops, offered by Marcia and Rakesh (Art of Loving) and I felt becoming open for new quality of experiencing love and creating relationships.
When the summer came
Marcia and Rakesh invited me to give individual bodywork sessions to the participants of their summer retreat. This is how, for the first time, I found myself at Aardenwerk Vakantie, where the retreat was taking place. This week was for sure one of the main crucial times in my life. It was here where I met Salvador Nicolai,
with whom we have been walking together the tantric path till now and with whom I indeed have been discovering a new quality of experiencing love, being a woman and cooperating in a partnership.
It was also here where I started recognizing for the first time what it can be to live in a community, in the Nature and in the space of Open Heart shared with other people. Organized by Ben and Eleonora Acket Aardenwerk became for me a great inspiration, but also a new family, both in spiritual and actual meaning, when it appeard that Salvador is Eleonora's cusin, cooperating with Aardenwerk already for a while.
Starting from this memorable summer, we were spending at Aardenwerk each holiday. It was happening in different location, because it didn't have a stable place, it had though quite a stable form - tipi village, a big, round community tent (Ben-Do) and a kitchen tent connected to it; all hand made by Ben; a circle of open-hearted people, with children, with tents, with kempers and music instruments; workshops in range of shamanism, bodywork, Tantra or artistic development; together eating, together washing the dishes, singing mantras at the fire, basking in the sun.
For about two next years it seemed that I don't need anything more. Following tantric workshops, belly dance classes, learning more about bodywork, cooperating with different teachers, growing in the relationship. Until exactly on the 21st of December 2012, at the meeting celebrating "The End of the World" according to Maya's Calendar, which a friend of us organized, suddenly, during a together meditation I realized that I'm coming back to Poland. Suddenly. That it's time to go back. And that's it.
It was one of these incomprehensible things such as: "What? Coming back? But with what? For what? How?"
And once again there was no direct, simple answer for these question. There was though a growing feeling, which initiated another disintegration time in my life. This time I was better prepared and much more sobber, but some amount of feelings of not knowing, despair, being torn apart and struggling accompanied me anyhow. Surrendering is an art of letting go the attachment to a certain form. It comes easier at the stable times, when the existing form is just transforming, it becomes a bigger challange at the time of disintegration, when the Big Wave of Life annihilate the existing form in order to create a completely new one.
At first then I started feeling that I'm not able to work with people anymore in the sense of offering bodywork sessions or workshops, that I need a brake, because something new is getting born in me and is tearing me apart. Then the house got finished. The magical house at Wenslauerstraat, where we could live for a very symbolic amount of money, because it was supposed to be demolished, got the demolition term. Moving out from Wenslauerstraat could have become a good moment to round up my staying in Holland, but I felt it's not the time yet. I organized, this time alone, a new place to live in Amsterdam and just after I went to Poland for Birth Into Being training with Elena Tonetti-Vladimirova.
It was also here where I started recognizing for the first time what it can be to live in a community, in the Nature and in the space of Open Heart shared with other people. Organized by Ben and Eleonora Acket Aardenwerk became for me a great inspiration, but also a new family, both in spiritual and actual meaning, when it appeard that Salvador is Eleonora's cusin, cooperating with Aardenwerk already for a while.
Starting from this memorable summer, we were spending at Aardenwerk each holiday. It was happening in different location, because it didn't have a stable place, it had though quite a stable form - tipi village, a big, round community tent (Ben-Do) and a kitchen tent connected to it; all hand made by Ben; a circle of open-hearted people, with children, with tents, with kempers and music instruments; workshops in range of shamanism, bodywork, Tantra or artistic development; together eating, together washing the dishes, singing mantras at the fire, basking in the sun.
For about two next years it seemed that I don't need anything more. Following tantric workshops, belly dance classes, learning more about bodywork, cooperating with different teachers, growing in the relationship. Until exactly on the 21st of December 2012, at the meeting celebrating "The End of the World" according to Maya's Calendar, which a friend of us organized, suddenly, during a together meditation I realized that I'm coming back to Poland. Suddenly. That it's time to go back. And that's it.
It was one of these incomprehensible things such as: "What? Coming back? But with what? For what? How?"
And once again there was no direct, simple answer for these question. There was though a growing feeling, which initiated another disintegration time in my life. This time I was better prepared and much more sobber, but some amount of feelings of not knowing, despair, being torn apart and struggling accompanied me anyhow. Surrendering is an art of letting go the attachment to a certain form. It comes easier at the stable times, when the existing form is just transforming, it becomes a bigger challange at the time of disintegration, when the Big Wave of Life annihilate the existing form in order to create a completely new one.
At first then I started feeling that I'm not able to work with people anymore in the sense of offering bodywork sessions or workshops, that I need a brake, because something new is getting born in me and is tearing me apart. Then the house got finished. The magical house at Wenslauerstraat, where we could live for a very symbolic amount of money, because it was supposed to be demolished, got the demolition term. Moving out from Wenslauerstraat could have become a good moment to round up my staying in Holland, but I felt it's not the time yet. I organized, this time alone, a new place to live in Amsterdam and just after I went to Poland for Birth Into Being training with Elena Tonetti-Vladimirova.
When I came back I wasn't able to find myself in Amsterdam anymore. The ten days of Birth Into Being took me into the space inside of me which was yelling for true freedom. Not the freedom of running a company named "Freedom Journey" and collecting more experiences in the City of Freedom where everyone can be who they want to be. It was about something deeper, something that was yelling at the bottom of my belly calling me to go back to Poland, build a house on my land, grow roots, plant trees, bear children, allow my juices to flow to the earth. It was about the total freedom, which is the total surrendering.
After two months during which I was still trying to stay and work in the City of Freedom, The Great Universe had mercy on me and I lost another house - which was also rented on a temporary, not a very sure base. It was another moment of surrendering, which this time took me to Rhenen, a small town in the central Holland, where Salvador just rented a house.
After two months during which I was still trying to stay and work in the City of Freedom, The Great Universe had mercy on me and I lost another house - which was also rented on a temporary, not a very sure base. It was another moment of surrendering, which this time took me to Rhenen, a small town in the central Holland, where Salvador just rented a house.
It wasn't easy time for us. Me after loosing ground under my feet, which living and working in Amsterdam was, and in the same time experiencing the growing desire for going back to Poland; he taking a challange of sustaining the material base of our living in this situation and being confronted with my unreadiness for fully receiving the gift of together life which became our experience. Autumn 2013 was for us the time of confronting dark sides of ourselves and our relationship. And still at some point the light started emerging from the darkness.
What saved us was the potential of the space. The house with a garden in the secluded, small town at the Rhine river appeared to be a perfect space for hosting all kinds of meetings and mini-workshops. This showed up to be a perfect occupation for me at that time and for us together a chance of creating mutually satisfying life.
What saved us was the potential of the space. The house with a garden in the secluded, small town at the Rhine river appeared to be a perfect space for hosting all kinds of meetings and mini-workshops. This showed up to be a perfect occupation for me at that time and for us together a chance of creating mutually satisfying life.
Permaculture workshps with Lien De Coster, which transformed the garden space, initially filled with concrete, into an oasis of natural blooming; singing mantras evening with Eddie Boschma; Night with the Gongs with Jarek Zagrobski; Full Moon Ceremonies at the Fire for Women; Ceremonies with Sacred Plants; all this caused that Rhenen became finally my home and a ground where I could grow into the next steps.
And how interesting that exactly when I already gave up my desire for going back to Poland, saying "yes" to what became my life in the little town at the Rhine River, it was then that the Sky opened and The Stream of Light came down on Earth.
And how interesting that exactly when I already gave up my desire for going back to Poland, saying "yes" to what became my life in the little town at the Rhine River, it was then that the Sky opened and The Stream of Light came down on Earth.
A slight opening in the Sky appeard already at The Christmas Eve 2013, which we spent together with Ben, Eleonora and their children.
Family, joyful time with chocolate fontain instead of the wafer and fire in the tipi that thanks to Ben and Eleonora's kindness has been standing up in our garden already for few months. None of us would think that this first together Christmas Eve can be the last one or at least a one rounding up some together chapter. And still it's exactly during this meeting that the Aardenwerk creators announced to us that after the seven years of organizing the Festival something finished for them and that there will be no Aardenwerk the coming summer.
Opening in the Sky or Emptiness in the Belly? Because what do you mean saying that there will be no Aardenwerk the coming summer? If not Aardenwerk, then what? We started joking about some options. Aardenwerk going underground. Ha, ha. We will act from the hiding. Ha, ha. Or maybe Aardenwerk in Poland? Ha, ha.
Well, anyhow. Christmas, Christmas and After Christmas. So that's it. Until half of January. Because then Birth Into Being with Willow Proctor was taking place in Amsterdam. Willow asked me for organizing this workshop already in July, when we met in Poland during the training with Elena and my base was still in Amsterdam. Everything that happened later made me doubt my ability of fulfilling this task a big time, but The Stream of Life was taking me this direction on and on, even when overwhelmed with everything I was sometimes trying to get out of it.
Family, joyful time with chocolate fontain instead of the wafer and fire in the tipi that thanks to Ben and Eleonora's kindness has been standing up in our garden already for few months. None of us would think that this first together Christmas Eve can be the last one or at least a one rounding up some together chapter. And still it's exactly during this meeting that the Aardenwerk creators announced to us that after the seven years of organizing the Festival something finished for them and that there will be no Aardenwerk the coming summer.
Opening in the Sky or Emptiness in the Belly? Because what do you mean saying that there will be no Aardenwerk the coming summer? If not Aardenwerk, then what? We started joking about some options. Aardenwerk going underground. Ha, ha. We will act from the hiding. Ha, ha. Or maybe Aardenwerk in Poland? Ha, ha.
Well, anyhow. Christmas, Christmas and After Christmas. So that's it. Until half of January. Because then Birth Into Being with Willow Proctor was taking place in Amsterdam. Willow asked me for organizing this workshop already in July, when we met in Poland during the training with Elena and my base was still in Amsterdam. Everything that happened later made me doubt my ability of fulfilling this task a big time, but The Stream of Life was taking me this direction on and on, even when overwhelmed with everything I was sometimes trying to get out of it.
At the end the workshop with Willow in Amsterdam took place and appeared to be one of the greatest blessings of my life. Contact with the Birthing Field is already a blessing in itself. In the Field everything comes back into the primal Oneness, and what seemed to be extreme and disconnected, finds a together path.
A wounded nervous system tends to "think" in the categories "either - or", resulting from the experience of inner suffering and disintegration. "A Bath" in the energy of The Birthing Field brings back the feeling of inner connection in the light of which "this and that" becomes together possible.
A wounded nervous system tends to "think" in the categories "either - or", resulting from the experience of inner suffering and disintegration. "A Bath" in the energy of The Birthing Field brings back the feeling of inner connection in the light of which "this and that" becomes together possible.
The Field "organizes" also opportunities by meeting people and connecting the Streams of Their Together Desires. And that's how during the Amsterdam workshop, from one word to another it became clear that Willow likes to continue offering Birth Into Being and she appreciate cooperation with me, I love organizing workshops and I have a piece of land in Poland and Eleonora, who also was there with us, doesn't want to facilitate Aardenwerk anymore, but would be very happy to share her experience and support a continuation of this kind of event if somebody else would like to take it over. And suddenly, bum, Thunder From the Sky - we are going to organize Aardenwerk in Poland, in Lamkowo, with Birth Into Being!
From this place the energy bursts out like a wild river. Everything, Everything appears to be ready. My father with an offer of financial support; Monika Podsiadła and Andrzej Młynarczyk ready to help with preparing the project of the space and bulding the festival facilities; Tanna, whose family appears to live in Lamkowo, offers her supportive presence in the space during the first three weeks of the Festival. In March I'm going to Poland. Via Kuba, Tanna's son, I get to know Robert Walczak, who becomes an invaluable source of support and information; Ania Drońska from Radosty hosts us like a family when together with Andrzej and Monika we come to prepare the project of the space.
From this place the energy bursts out like a wild river. Everything, Everything appears to be ready. My father with an offer of financial support; Monika Podsiadła and Andrzej Młynarczyk ready to help with preparing the project of the space and bulding the festival facilities; Tanna, whose family appears to live in Lamkowo, offers her supportive presence in the space during the first three weeks of the Festival. In March I'm going to Poland. Via Kuba, Tanna's son, I get to know Robert Walczak, who becomes an invaluable source of support and information; Ania Drońska from Radosty hosts us like a family when together with Andrzej and Monika we come to prepare the project of the space.
The list of the Festival offers becomes longer than expected. When I'm back to Holland in the beginning of April, the program is already set up for four weeks. Monika Owoc makes logo, and Magda Wałecka a flyer. At the end of April we organize collecting blankets and kitchen stuff, so when we are driving to Poland in the half of May, the whole car is fully packed with gifts. Darek and Giovanna Kurzatowscy, who are hosting us on our way in Germany, add to it another load. Robert Walczak agrees to store it all at his house until we organize the space on the field. New volunteers subscribe.
At the beginning of June Salvador is coming back to Holland and I organize digging a well and bringing the yurt, which we ordered from Krzysztof Kolba from Limanowa. On my way back I pick up Andrzej and together with arriving volunteers we are starting to prepare the festival village.
The rest of this story you can see in the form of pictures at the pages: Preparations i Festival. What I want to add here is that today, almost a year after the Festival started, I see that it was a rounding up of some chapter and a beginning of something that I completely didn't expect. Our plan was to go back in the Autumn to Rhenen, where we still had the house, cats and freshly registered company. We imagined moving to Poland in stages, taking time for building a house here and organizing more festivals. However the magic of the land in Lamkowo appeard to be so powerful that it didn't allow us to go back...
At the beginning of June Salvador is coming back to Holland and I organize digging a well and bringing the yurt, which we ordered from Krzysztof Kolba from Limanowa. On my way back I pick up Andrzej and together with arriving volunteers we are starting to prepare the festival village.
The rest of this story you can see in the form of pictures at the pages: Preparations i Festival. What I want to add here is that today, almost a year after the Festival started, I see that it was a rounding up of some chapter and a beginning of something that I completely didn't expect. Our plan was to go back in the Autumn to Rhenen, where we still had the house, cats and freshly registered company. We imagined moving to Poland in stages, taking time for building a house here and organizing more festivals. However the magic of the land in Lamkowo appeard to be so powerful that it didn't allow us to go back...
This way some chapter rounded up in my life. The chapter of travelling, wandering, finding, struggling and performing great deeds, from which the Festival was I think the greatest. For "the great deeds" I consider the acts which connect great vision and great tension coming from trying to pack the vistion into a certain form. The Four Weeks of the Festival were for me a wonderful training of letting go of this tension and allowing Reality to manifest the way It wants, embracing It with love. This training I have been joyfully continuing afterwards, first living alone on the Field and later spending winter in an over a 100 years old house in the neighbourhood (I share about these experiences in the text Brud, smród i ubóstwo and Rewolucja Marchewki i Czterech Ścian, if you feel like translating it with Google).
What resulted from these lessons is a feeling of deep rest and a blissful realization that I don't have to perform geat deeds anymore, that I ARRIVED WHERE I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE, and I can simply stream with Daily Life, allowing The Perfectness of the Things to Manifest in Its Perfect Form. What it means in practice is that I have no more plan. Instead I have a recognition that the vision that I received about seven years ago, is already happening. That it has been actually happening all these years, but blinded with my fear and doubts I wasn't able to admit this. Now I am. I watch this unfolding with tenderness. In silence. Without a logo. In immersion. I watch how the Streams of Life are merging, creating Perfect Forms. I watch the Fulfillment which emerges from Surrendering.
What resulted from these lessons is a feeling of deep rest and a blissful realization that I don't have to perform geat deeds anymore, that I ARRIVED WHERE I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE, and I can simply stream with Daily Life, allowing The Perfectness of the Things to Manifest in Its Perfect Form. What it means in practice is that I have no more plan. Instead I have a recognition that the vision that I received about seven years ago, is already happening. That it has been actually happening all these years, but blinded with my fear and doubts I wasn't able to admit this. Now I am. I watch this unfolding with tenderness. In silence. Without a logo. In immersion. I watch how the Streams of Life are merging, creating Perfect Forms. I watch the Fulfillment which emerges from Surrendering.