Training
The SAF does not in itself offer training, however we are grateful to our Elders and teachers who have been working and offering regular workshops and training in India, based in Bangalore and over distance, since 2016. All the modules of training are a result and culmination of decades of research and practice by Elders John-Luke Edwards and Béatrice Simmons, and you read and find their wisdom and words in these pages.
Any who wish further information or considering taking up training would need to engage with these elders, or designated registered teachers.
"The moon is within me, and so is the sun."
Kabir
Dreamweaving, the craft of the Seanachais, the Storyteller
The Seanachais were the storytellers of our Ancestral roots.
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They were makers of great magick in the art of creating living worlds, which the hungry childlike listeners could be brought to, journey in, and experience.
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The Seanachais wove dreams.
They created patchworks of lives, which could be experienced through all senses.
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Storytelling is an art of true magic, making the impossible possible and the improbable probable.
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To be Seanachais is to have a spirit connection with the breath, soul and song of the world.
So that that song could be sung to and reminded to those who could not hear.
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This is an experience to evoke and tune the inner storyteller to the song of the world,
And open their awareness to bring the magic of the Traditional Stories alive.
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A 2-Day Workshop of Magic
Arrows of the Soul: Practitioner Training
The Arrows of the Soul ceremonial workshop is a powerful process of self-enlightenment, almost in a sense a self-exorcism. It opens closed eyes to the primal wounds of souls and the pain that have been endured through those wounding’s, as an initiation from the dark place of our psyche to the light of our compassion.
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The carrying of a person through this process requires a practical and intuitive application of compassionate skill.
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This Practitioner training is presented as both a cognitive and spiritual learning, requiring the student practitioner to engage at a client level to fully understand the skills and applications needed to conduct a client through painful shadows and painful enlightenment.
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Working with a skilled trainer and in collaboration with group process, the student practitioner comes to understand the wounds of ghosts which wait for recognition and resolution.
Spirit Drum Making
The spirit drum is the outward expression of our song and dance with the ancestral spirits, and theirs with us.
Some might say it is as a cellphone to God!
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The Spirit Drum is an external embodiment of our lives. It expresses our joy and sadness and is an implement of prayer; as such it tells the story of our relationship to the divine.
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A two-day workshop, for anyone interested in learning an ancient craft of making a very special personal tool for expression and connection with their own hands, that will last their entire lifetime. This may be an opening for a Healing Drum Circle, as we begin to understand the drum and its presence as a spiritual and prayer tool.
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With locally sourced dyes and frames, and ethically sourced hides.
Mystical Mountain: the Apprenticeship to the Pathfinder
Guided by the ancestral story of the First Return and its telling of the desire of the Ancestral Spirits to share the Great Song, there is a tradition of human guides, Pathfinders. These pathfinders serve as teachers and spirit guides to the community.
Pathfinders undergo intensive training and quest, observing the world about them, learning from the ways of the creatures of the forest. This ‘training’ culminates in a sacred initiation of surrender to this service to guide the community back to the Great Forest and our own Heart. Ceann-Iuíl; Pathfinders – animist priestly warriors and healers, walk in the shadow places and as warriors fight the ghosts that haunt the destiny of the soul. Ceann-Iuíl live in appreciation of their part in the yearning of remembering.
It is through their flames of passion that they illuminate the path for others. But to be such a bright and fierce fire, Ceann-Iuíl set their souls and hearts aflame; this is their willing sacrifice.
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Apprentices will work towards developing the sacred skills and knowledge underpinned by the personal soul awareness discovered in Earth & Stars. It will be on this which is founded their Ancestral & Spiritual interaction, service and relationships. This path is such that we become the dreamers for others; that with the flames of our own hearts, we will see in the darkness without fear, but with love.
Initiation is the taking of the Blue Robe, an immersion into the eternal river Avon Gorm, the river of sapphire stars. St Francis said, “That once having spoken to God, it is our duty to return from the sacred mountain and tell others what he said.” Initiation is more than just a change, rather it is a gathering of nourishment for others.
This journey of deep wisdom and practice will be somewhat like a flowing river, touching and gathering theory, skill and practice, developing ourselves to be Ceann-Iuil; animist practitioners, priests and healers.
Forest Bearing
Many come as honoured guests and friends to sit in the light and warmth of the Sagh’ic Community Hearth, they are a warming of hearts in themselves. Bhfuil Treibhe Na Ùranach or Forest Bearing is the ceremonial process of those who wish to be inducted formally into the Sagh’ic tradition and to be of one blood with the Community and its teachings.
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This ceremonial induction is one of taking warrior-hood and as such is a testing and proving of the warrior heart and breath. The Sagh’ic Warrior-hood is genderless and thus open to all genders.
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The Three-Moon ceremony takes the form of a quest for the wild heart of the warrior and the name of that heart, which is conferred as the tribal name.
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“In the Deep Dark Green, in the lands of Branòrd, Rùinidh, Lonn Lasail, Ceàrdach, Mórcoth, Bruail, Géibhis-glois, and the shores of Bhás, come walk with the kindred of the Sagh’ic.”
