– Boonath
This Ritual is the first part of a three part series, which includes the two subsequent rituals dedicated to Shakambhari. This series will be all about honouring the beginnings of this cycle of nature that is climbing with the New Year year we are in.
By honouring nature, she in turn honours us and brings life to the seeds that lay in our subterranean soul levels.
In this set of three Growth rituals, we will focus in on nature’s atmospheric vibrations. With this natural support, we shall engage in ancient and magical Tantric ritual formulae – helping us to bring growth to all the flowers and vegetation in the garden of our lives. Lohri is the first of these three January rituals.
Loh means light and gives its name to this festival day of welcoming back the light (read our Blog Post to learn more about this ancient and almost forgotten ritual).
Lohri is also a pagan Goddess that stands between the thresholds of Darkness and Light.
This is an ancient Indian pagan ritual festival that is celebrated on the first dark Moon of the ascending year. Some of the traditions and festivals of Tantra became assimilated into the widespread arena of religion while others remain more obscure or only regionally acknowledged. Lohri, very much a tantric pagan ritual, belongs to the latter, of tribal, shamanic & Shakti traditions
Tantra still thrives in an underground form in the North of India, where many of the ancient natural pagan rites are adhered to, such as Lohri.
What many people commonly do to celebrate the Winter Solstice (21 December) is basically done by Tantrics on Lohri. Fires are built at sunset and circumambulated. Solstice, instead, is seen in Tantra as a solemn time of the year’s longest night; a time when the night forces are in full force and honoured by the Tantrics by immersing themselves fully in darkness.
When a long staying guest leaves our house it takes time to acknowledge their absence and come back to a settled state without them there. This is how Tantrics consider Winter Solstice, which is why they wait to meet Lohri to light the fire – that is, the New Moon phase of the New Year, and not before.
Tantrics allow for the guest – darkness – to leave with dignity and mourn their departure.
Perhaps the modern denial of the night forces is responsible for lighting fires even before the guest of half the year has departed. In the Tantric view it is ungraceful and ungrateful to see off the dark in such a way. For she has given so much. What she has given exactly is for one to discover for themselves.
The Tantric learns to honour the feminine forces of the dark and lingers and pays respect for a while, as she trails off into the shadows.
The festival of Lohri therefore reveals much to us about our relationship to the Dark and the ways in which Modernity has demonised the dark feminine womb power. Lohri reveals how the solar light-oriented face of civilisation does not give honour to the balance of nature’s two ever-present, mutually informing and empowering forces of dark & light.
Lohri reveals that the deepest wisdom, which is the Wisdom of Nature, can easily be glanced at sideways as primitive by the patriarchal eyes of orthodoxy.
And what Lohri perhaps most importantly can reveal to us is to align our currents to what nature is telling and showing us, and not push the guest out of the house before thanking them for the gift of their presence. For in doing so we banish magic from our lives.
The rituals takes place ONLINE, from 7pm until ±11pm Central European Time (CET).
A recording will be made available, if you cannot make the exact date/time. Just specify by email when registering.
To find out how to register and what you will need to follow the practice online, click on the button below.
On these healing circles you will practice a form of Yoga that is rarely available and accessible even in India today. You will take part in a sacred Yogic tradition that roots itself in India’s native shamanic wisdom & Tantric lineage handed down orally between generations of Yogis, Babas, Sadhus and Fakirs.
You will be exposed to the old tantric ways of seeking profound healing and spiritual awakening, including practicing in darkly-lit spaces to quieten the mind and awaken the senses to the body’s subtle energy currents, holding simple postures for long periods of time, and engaging in powerful breath-work to open-up the body and take the mind into altered states of consciousness.
The practice draws on postures seldom used in modern styles of yoga, ancient sequences that honour the mother and the divine feminine, gently opening-up the body to its highest levels of flexibility through minimal effort.
Integral to this experience will be the exploration of sound-currents present in the body (Nada Yoga) – perhaps one of Yoga’s greatest secrets and one of the most powerful vehicles through which the karmic patterns stored in the chakras can be accessed and released in pursuit of profound healing.
Unique to this tradition is its simultaneous employment of Asanas (postures), aerobic & anaerobic Pranayam (breathwork), Mudras (gestures), and Mantras (sacred sounds).
The synergy created by the employment of these various yogic tools will lead you into altered states of consciousness and dream-like experiences aimed at facilitating a greater openness to inward journeying and an easier access to your subconscious.
Because we are going to play with shamanic yogic traditions, the practice will take place outside of clearly time constraints. Generally, the practice will last about 6 hours, but if the group is ready to practice longer we might carry well into the night.
The Circle is open to those interested in the healing path.
Tantra and Yoga practitioners, and those seeking healing, practitioners of the mystic arts. Both advanced and beginners will find a place in this circle.
If you have had or are having psychosis please get in touch directly with us as this is important to know about in this work. The same goes for those with strong mobility issues. Drug and alcohol users also need to inform us of their condition. Thank you.
The practie usually takes place in the dark or darkly-lit spaces.
The pictures below were taken in daylight to capture the flow of a practice.
BOONATH was born into a life of yoga. He grew up between Europe and India and was introduced as a child to yoga through his grandparents who were on both sides yoga practitioners.
His grandparents took him on his first Himalayan pilgrimage when he was just seven years old and he has been exposed to the world of yogis ever since.
Boonath has taken initiation into the left hand path (that’s the path of the heart) and specialises in the branch of Chandra Parampara, that is a secret style of Moon practice that works with the night forces. It is a style of tantra that goes very deep into the subconscious roots It is first and foremostly a Healing System. Most of his family still lives in India and he has been travelling there regularly throughout his life in pursuit of yoga. He has worked closely in apprenticeship with elders in the line of Siddha systems of healing and holds much knowledge in the use of rituals, mantras and body/spirit healing methods among other things.
Boonath has been working in this line and helping people with the implementation of these techniques for over 25 years to successfully overcome mental and physical problems, from chronic pain to addiction.
Boonath’s healing and yoga work sees him travelling across the whole of Europe to give workshops and healing sessions. His travels and yoga workshops continue to benefit people in deprived circumstances.
In recent years Boonath has been living and teaching yoga in Germany where he has a network of students. It was in Berlin that Boonath met Kim, with whom Boonath co-founded Working with the Shadow in 2014.
Formal studies and encounters have all left their impression on Boonath, but his teachings are deeply rooted in the Shamanic traditions of the mystical Babas and Fakirs of India, with whom Boonath has been studying closely since childhood to the present day.
KIM is an Eco-Activist turned Yogi and the founder of Healing in the Willows, the retreat company hosting Working with the Shadow, which he developed in 2014 in collaboration with Boonath, who he assists with the teaching. Kim discovered Yoga in 2005, following a burn-out at work that brought him onto the path of ‘Yog’. Kim had spent over 10 years coordinating international environmental campaigns in Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin for major environmental NGOs, including Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth, ActionAid, and many others.
Kim practiced Yoga with many teachers from several modern styles of Yoga (including Iyengar, Astanga, Vinasa, Bikram, Sivananda, Scaravelli, Kundalini) all over Europe, India and further afield. In 2011 Kim set up a first yoga collective in Berlin, which he then expanded to a new location in 2013, in one of the economically deprived areas of town that was undergoing gentrification. The collective brought together a variety of local teachers to promote yoga on a donation basis within the surrounding community unable to afford the increasing cost of living. It was there that Kim met Boonath and, through Boonath, that his understanding of what Yoga is and what Yoga can do shifted entirely. Boonath’s rare and ancient Tantric lineage revolutionised Kim’s understanding of Yoga and initiated him into a mystical healing journey that impacted strongly also on Kim’s activist work.
Since then Kim has been collaborating with Boonath on developing Working with the Shadow through the retreats, workshops and online classes.
A recording will be made available,
if you cannot make the exact date/time.
Just specify by email when registering.
STEP 1 | Make the payment
either via Paypal or bank transfer (see below).
STEP 2 | Send a proof of payment
(a screenshot will do) to info@healinginthewillows.com
We will then:
STEP 3 | Send you a confirmation email confirming your registration.
STEP 4 | The day of the event, we will send you an email containing:
– all the technical details to connect to the class online,
– suggestions on how best to prepare for the practice (foods and drinks to avoid),
– how to set-up your room for the practice,
– props you might need during the practice (blankets, cushions, etc).
FEES VARY ACCORDING TO INCOME
Please choose the amount matching your current economic situation,
whether you are unemployed, low income or high income.
Please remember that we depend entirely on peoples’ fees for the carrying out of this work:
1 ritual / all 3 rituals
1 ritual / all 3 rituals
1 ritual / all 3 rituals
kim.bizzarri@gmail.com
Account holder: Kim Bizzarri
Iban: IT91A0200870691000003926096
Bic/Swift: UNCRITM1CEC
Bank: Unicredit
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THE SESSION WILL HAPPEN ON ZOOM
We will send you the links and passwords necessary for joining the practice.
All your need your end is a computer / tablet with a camera (preferably, but not essential – it’s important that you can see us), a microphone (so that we can hear you, but it’s not essential) and good speakers / audio,
as it will be fundamental that you hear the instructions.
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We promise not to share your details with third parties & to write only a couple of times a year!