We are wounded in community, and we are healed in community. No way around it. Healing might not come from the community where the wounding took place, but community is needed for healing nonetheless. 

Rich Villodas

Dear Michael,

It’s hot! Everything is heating up: the planet, oceans, tempers, social systems, inflation, fear, and most of our leaders. Never has there been so much hot air spewing out of the mouths of politicians, scorching our brains and frying our nervous systems. Scientists are saying that we are entering the Pyrocene Era–an era when fires are so large, hot, and strong that they impact the earth's climate systems. Scary stuff. What can we do about it? We must come together. Community is the currency of the future. As individuals, we can do little; as collectives, we can do much.

There is no place to run to escape the massive poly-crisis of our time. It’s difficult to contain the overwhelming emotions, sensations, and thoughts that numb and stress our nervous systems. The days of the rugged individualism perpetuating this global cataclysm are over. We need to learn how to think and act like a living system. The Indigenous and our ancestors did. The earth came first, the village, the family, and finally, the individual. Individualism keeps us isolated and unable to tap into the collective wisdom of the tribe. We are a wounded and traumatized species, and we are destroying our habitat. We must come together.

For the past five years, I have been creating trauma healing circles, safe spaces for people to share, support, and honor our

* intraconnected nature. I’m mostly doing this in my community, although I am open to traveling to your community to lead our flagship course, Relational Intimacy. Please send an email to: michael@WellofLight.com if you would like to talk about this possibility.

The next Relational Intimacy workshop will be held here, in Nevada City, CA, on the weekend of August 23rd. Details are below.

If you are local, we offer a free month in our four-month closed circles if you register for the upcoming Relational Intimacy course.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

No matter how much we try to distance ourselves from the plethora of crises in our shrinking global collective, the dark tendrils of fear, stress, and overwhelm are squeezing the life, joy, and vitality out of us. It makes sense to turn our heads away and pretend it isn’t happening because no one person can solve the myriad of problems facing humanity today alone. We need global healing communities to come together in collaboration. Creating pockets of healing, understanding, and mutual empowerment is at the heart of our trauma integration circles. We are all traumatized, whether we realize it or not. If it’s not personal trauma, it’s familial, collective, intergenerational, historical, or geographic. Trauma keeps us feeling separate and interrupts our sense of belonging.

It reduces our ability to be empathetic, compassionate, and to learn from our mistakes and differences. Often, trauma begins in the early attachment phase of our development when we didn’t receive the nurturing, attention, and protection we needed. We don’t feel safe. This is not to blame parents or shift responsibility away from our own agency. Much of our trauma is epigenetic and handed down through generations, creating a kind of repetition compulsion. To self-regulate our emotions and manage overwhelming experiences, we must be felt, seen, soothed, heard, and protected by compassionate allies who can co-regulate with us. This allows us to learn how to connect, interact, and regulate our inner world while supporting our coming together in mutuality with enhanced creativity, innovation, and passion.

When your nervous system is well-regulated and synchronized, you’re able to participate in life, to be passionate about your work, to relate deeply and skillfully with others, and even to grow and change after traumatizing experiences.

Thomas Hübl

Our nervous system has been evolving for hundreds of thousands of years. It is a vast intelligence network designed to protect us in overwhelming situations. Without compassionate and attentive companions to co-regulate with, we cannot navigate our confusing, disruptive, and overwhelming emotions and challenges. Since we were often wounded in relationships, it makes sense that healing and integration can happen in the safe and caring circle of compassionate witnesses.

It is almost impossible to contain emotional regulation when we are attuned to the level of change necessary to avoid the many cliffs on the horizon. Joanna Macy writes that until we can grieve for our planet, we cannot love it—grieving is a sign of spiritual health. I’m currently doing a 40-day grief ritual with some of our circle participants. Let me know if you want a copy of this process, and I will send it to you. We’ve found it to be a very cleansing and healing process. Grieving alone is nowhere near as powerful as in a community. As Francis Weller says, “The core of our grief is the absence of communal practices, where we can be together side by side.”

Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.

Starhawk

I hope some of you will join us in the August Relational Intimacy Course. You can see many testimonies on our website, www.WellofLight.com. Also, if you want to start your circles or join the ones we are doing, don’t hesitate to reach out. Thank you for your participation in the Well of Light programs.

with infinite love and blessings,

Michael

*Intraconnected:  MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging. A wider perspective that unveils a broader than the brain, bigger even than the body―and fundamental to social systems and the natural world.

Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking 

outward together in the same direction. 

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Video of the Month



Francis Weller & Thomas Hübl -Grieving in Community 

Point of Relation Podcast

Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma—and Our World

By Thomas Hübl

This book is one of my bibles. Humans share a fundamental interdependence with one another and the planet itself. Together, we create a relational field that sustains our health and well-being. This guide empowers us to access these inner resources and participate in healing ourselves, our communities, and our world.

Poetry Corner

On Meeting A Stranger

From John O’Donohue’s Book of Blessings.

With respect

And reverence

That the unknown

Between us

Might flower

Into discovery

And lead us

Beyond

The familiar field

Blind with the weed

Of weariness

And the old walls

Of habit.

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile, the world goes on.

Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -



over and over, announcing your place

in the family of things.

About Michael Stone

Michael Stone is a spiritual author, mentor, shamanic practitioner, radio host, producer, and trauma integration facilitator who co-creates individual and group environments and experiences that support people in transcending the myth of separation, and experiencing deep and profound interconnection with others and all of life. He has been teaching and leading experiential events, classes, teleseminars and workshops on Organizational Development, Embodied Shamanism, Moving Meditation, Mysticism, Relational Intimacy, Personal Growth, Trauma Integration and Spiritual Fulfillment for over 40 years. www.WellofLight.com

Soul Remembering and Restoration: Rediscovering Our Essential Goodness

• Somatic Trauma Integration Facilitation
• Group & Couples Counselling
• Movement & Meditation Experiences

To meet the financial and emotional challenges of our time Michael is now offering a sliding scale for therapeutic sessions online & in person.

If you are interested in working with Michael you can set up a 15 minute introductory call here.

For more information click here.

"All this relating makes me hungry!"

Buddha