Naked Voice Facilitators Association

NVFA North America Gathering May 2009—A Wonderful “First”

On May 8-10, 2009 the North American Facilitators, Graduates, and Students held a gathering near Columbia Falls, Montana, USA. The intention of the weekend was to share skills, deepen our Naked Voice practices, and nourish and support each other in both our personal use and our more “outward” facilitation of this work: see photos here.

After a beautiful opening circle at Katherine’s Cross home on Friday night, the days began with shared silence and Shintaido warm-ups, and went on to include such diverse and interesting sessions as: Continuum movement, spontaneous song-making, harmonium lessons, expressive movement, an on-the-spot concert, basic NV practices, Triads, and of course lots of singing and chanting. Those who were able to stay until Monday also had the opportunity to sing for 15 minutes while the whole group Witnessed. Personally I found it inspiring to experience the diverse ways in which people are practicing and sharing the Naked Voice work.

One of the highlights for many of us was the Saturday-night bonfire and sing-a-long down by the river on Katherine’s land. We shared songs—new ones that we had written and also some oldies but goodies—and enjoyed the mountain air while we waited for the full moon to rise.

I think we all agreed that the weekend experience was deeply nourishing, and felt like an expansion and anchoring of the NV essence and community here in North America. Katherine’s beautiful, magical, intentional home and land was a large part of that, as was the full moon, the well-appointed workshop space, the quality of food everyone brought to the potlucks (which, as someone commented, was a great indicator of the strong intentions everyone had for the weekend!), and the wonderful and unique contributions that each of us made through sharing skills, practices, songs, words, and silence.

In fact, the consensus was that we need to do it again! Definitely at about the same time next year, possibly in either Montana or near Calgary as that would be most central. One of the new opportunities that came out of the gathering is the initiation of a North American NVFA practice call, once every two months. On our August practice call, we will likely set dates for the next year. So stay tuned: if you missed it this year, you can mark it on your calendar for 2010!

Pamela Alexander
Calgary AB CANADA