The Honey Temple
Come Dance, Sing, Lament and Nourish in the Tent of Oil and Spice
Three Temple Raisings in the First 100 Days
Jan 17-19 • Feb 28-Mar 2 • Apr 11-13
Introducing the Honey Temple.
A place that has always existed in the in-between, called in when the need for it is there. A place where women remember what it is to be part of one cloth– one earthly, singing, loving, nourishing body– offering our gifts for the filling of the well in ourselves, each other, and the world.
We know in our blood and bones the sensual primordial Mother. The mother culture, the Goddess, the temple of mud, blood and water– of our earthen bodies and how they move with swaying hips, together, long skirts caressing the earth and temple floor, adorned as the earthly goddesses we are, singing our love into being.
Recognize this place of many names that we are calling the Honey Temple.
Come, let down your burdens, your repenting, your striving, your silent turmoil, your simmering rage. Let them melt in this honeyed cauldron of life to be voiced, sung, offered, wept, held, danced and stirred into the wholeness and embrace of the Mother.
There is no mistake that this temple is raised on the eve of the inauguration of one firmly holding the same banner as those who tore down our temples thousands of years ago. And we raise them again, and again, and again because the life force of woman is as whole as it ever was and we do what we do, birth life.
The first hundred days will be our declaration of life.
Three raisings of sound, hearth and song. With bells on our feet, sandalwood on our breasts, and honey on our fingers, we will sing our love and grief for the world and in so doing become so vulnerable to love that we become invincible.
“…through her falling tears she saw a trail marked in red upon the sand. After many moons following it, she came upon a tent set in the barren land. Strange music reached out from the tent and caressed her cheeks. At last, she left her weary wander and dipped beneath the canopy into fragrant warm copper, red and amber light. The tent pulsed with energy, the air infused with the aromas of spice and sweet oil.
Everywhere within that place rolling sounds surrounded her, filling her senses. Songs bathed her, settling on her lips, entrancing and overwhelming her. She let go, and lay down upon the carpet while the tent sang to her. It seemed to her that a honeyed hive of ethereal women’s voices swelled in undulating harmonies, declaring and proclaiming the profound inevitability of life.
She began to remember those songs. Into that tent of oil and spice, the deep music of the living earth was being drawn in, gathered, stored, distilled, a simple ancient alchemy stirred up by the grief and longing of women.”
–Edited excerpt from Carolyn Hillyer’s Weaver’s Oracle
Honey Making Elements
Hearth
Held by Cammie Austin, ‘Birdie’
Birdie is devoted to the sanctity of the temple from the visible to the non-visible. Creating and holding spaces of deep reverence, generosity and love. A mother and a grandmother, a seeker on the path of love and the beauty way. A peacekeeper, dancer and a whirler. She will be holding the Hearth from a place of graciousness, order, consideration and love, inviting us to come into a place of deep nourishment, reverence and mindfulness.
Oil and Spice
Held by Melodie Fallon
Melodie is devoted to bringing beauty into form through the senses. Enlivening our self honor through adornment and tending the temple of ourselves, one another and Gaia, she is devoted to the beauty way of Earth stewardship and seeing ourselves as a mirror of Earth. Her practice of herbalism, womb wisdom and bodywork weaves into her offerings of guided self massage, and ritual self care with plant steeped oils. She invites us into a graceful relationship of honoring soul within the slow, sensuous temple of Self so that we are deeply at home as we generate the ripples of love and beauty out into the collective. You can learn more about Melodie at www.yoursacredvessel.com.
Song
Held by Hannah Reisel
Hannah is a spritely song fairy who catches, carries and teaches songs of joy, love, devotion to the Earth, to each other, our hopes, our longing, our sadness, anger, emptiness, our seeking, and our not-knowing. They gather song-kin wherever they go, bringing together those who wish to worship at the altar of life through song! Hannah is a Goddess of play and expresses their devotion to aliveness through parts play, ritual theatre, song and ecstatic movement. They invite us through song to honor all that is–our grief as well as our joys, our heartache as well as our delight and celebration, our separation as well as our belonging. Hannah is delighted to hold song for this temple to help us re-member and welcome home all the parts of us that long to know they belong to the beauty that is this magical life!
Eros
Held by Raylyn DiPaolo, ‘Rahlune’
Rahlüne is devoted to healing the divide between spirit and matter through the forgotten mysteries of the Goddess Temple Arts. In the name of ecstatic intimacy, she is passionate about walking with individuals, couples and communities through three gates of initiation: shadow dancing through the underworld for authentic soul remembrance, the artful channeling of living, creative energy, and open-hearted, turned-on relating for co-creating a more beautiful world. She will weave the ancient art of bellydance into our gathering in devotion to embodied intimacy and living eros. Learn more about Rahlüne: https://www.rahlune.com.
Mystery
Held by V. Wade
A poet of the veils, V holds the bridge between the worlds of the physical and the unseen. She is deeply connected to the more-than-human-ones and speaks the language of mystery and soul. A dancer, ceremonialist, minstrel, and handmaiden to soul and Source, V. helps us open our eyes and ears to our true nature and to the magic of the earthly, celestial, and more-than-human realms. V. serves as a conduit to pour into the fabric of our being the immense love, beauty and bounty of Mystery.
Heart
Held by Jonah Roberts, ‘Raven’
Raven is devoted to the center pulse of prayer that organizes our very soma into harmony, and to the Heart which, when seen, heard, expressed, loved, juiced and couraged has the power to lift our prayers to the Heart of the World. She is devoted to presence, to the collective, to Earth, to what is real, and to unfolding out of shame, hiding and withholding to truly share ourselves and offer our collective love to each other and this exquisite world. She holds at the center the poignancy between devotion and despair, and the opportunity to be with the fullness of Life in the presence of Now. Raven holds transformational journeys for women through 13 Moons: A year in the Temple, Anima Terra: A Yearlong Journey of Wild Descent and Soul Emergence for Women, and Forest and Village: An Annual Gathering for the Rites of Women.
Flow
We are holding a space such that a number of things may be happening at once as well as space for the organic aliveness in the moment. This is not a retreat in which we all flow through a set stream of doings. Rather we are calling in a living temple that has a full presence of beautiful offerings, all of which are optional. We see the layered weaving, the attunement to your needs and desires in the moment, as well as a steady turn of the wheel of Honey Temple life.
This temple rhythm may look something like…
Friday
We set up the temple with rolling arrival
Dinner
Invoking the Sensual Primordial Mother and the shedding of layers of travel, soot and dust.
Saturday
Morning Ritual Prayer for the World
Sweet Oil and Spice morning self care ritual
Breakfast and temple tending
Belly Dance
Lunch
Entering the song, layering harmonies, heart expansion with craft and healing exchange
Sunset Ritual Prayer for the World
Dinner
Hive Dance pouring our Love/Grief/Longing
Sunday
Morning Ritual Prayer for the World
Sweet Oil and Spice morning self care ritual
Breakfast and temple tending
Belly Dance Devotional Prayer for the World
Lunch
Closing Ceremony – Honey Offering
Temple pack up
Optional Sauna
Come resuscitate your senses in the power of the feminine as an essential, creative, loving life force for the world.
Come Re-Member and bring the scattered pieces back together.
Come dry, leave quenched.
Come weary, leave rejuvenated.
Come alone, leave whole in the somatic wholeness of the collective.
Come hungry and leave nourished and fortified with your cup filled to the brim with Honey.
Come and touch into the Well that feeds both Soma and Soul for these wild, precarious and demanding times.
Exchange
$400 temple offering. Includes 6 meals.
Several spots are available at $350 for Hearth tending exchange. Please inquire.
The Honey Temple welcomes all women – cis, trans or otherwise – and nonbinary individuals who find their homes in women – and femme-centric spaces.
We strongly desire our daughters to feel the magic of women in our collective medicine so we also welcome babies and the young.
Girls 16 and under are half price. Girls 5 and under are free.
Includes all meals from Friday dinner to Sunday lunch.
Sleeping is shared floor space in three open format rooms. Bring your own bedroll. There is option to rent a room onsite, please inquire.
Location
The Center at Orchard Hill in Alstead, NH
