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I spent last week by the beautiful river Salaca together with twenty amazing souls from our new visions mycelium - resting, walking, listening, sharing and nourishing one another. It was our annual Becoming Taiga gathering, where we convene to look back at the year, learn from one another and resource for the year ahead doing the work of healing, justice, cultural activism and more in different corners of the world. These gatherings are always magical and unique but this was one had its extra special gifts: Eight years after planting the first seed of this community together with my beloved friend and co-conspirator Agnieszka Bulacik we have now stepped back from the core organizing work and passed on the holding and weaving of this community and movement to four incredibly talented and passionate humans that are part of this community. Tina, Romy, Agata, Pati - its really a dream come true and may your magic grow and deepen with this path. I spent the week in a tent - watching the stars as I went to bed, listening to the owls as my lullaby, and waking up with the sight of the river. A week with almost no phone coverage and no wifi which allowed for a rare experience of a prolonged undiluted presence in the world and with that came so many moments of awe and insight. There was also a lot of magic and mystery weaving through the week. We had a beautiful evening session of sharing stories of exactly this - moments of magic and mystery in our lives. We lied on mattraces outside stargazing and screaming of joy every time someone saw a star fall. We went to the forest together and all got lost and dispersed and had the feeling afterwards that we had fallen under the spell of Vadātājs - a mythical trickster in Latvian mythology that can lead you astray and make you lose your path. And when we finally refound each other and returned to our camp, the stone I had put in my pocket had turned into a frog - I kid you not! All this made me reconnect with the powerful medicine of enchantment. Enchantment, as Sharon Blackie writes, has nothing to do with fantasy or escapism - it is founded on a vivid sense of belonging to a rich and many-layered world and a full-hearted participation in the adventure of life. An understanding that we are not isolated beings moving through an inert landscape, but actual expressions of the living world. The week of “becoming Taiga” was a precious reminder of how deeply in love with the world I feel when I open myself to being enchanted by it. This is medicine I want to keep finding my way back to and invite others to look for together with me. As a practice of staying soft, present, and daringly caring for the world that is also us. As a practice of the ethics of love. How do you relate with this? Do you have a story of magic or mystery to share? I would really love to hear.
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