Embedded in Winter is the promise
Of Spring. As we experience rains,
Snowstorms, and wind, I am reminded of
Our vulnerability within the larger elemental
Powers and the need to offer shelter,
Companionship and warmth to one another.
May all the beauty of this planet be with you,
Inside you, around you. May our
Hearts make a surrounding Circle,
Touching each other and the Earth,
Knowing how blessed we are to be
Dwelling here.

 As the turning of Ages brings incredible change to the world, it also serves as a backdrop to monumental breakthroughs in our personal lives. I have not been immune to this, and am now, personally, right at the center of my own most challenging cycles.

People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I think that what we are seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane resonate within our innermost being and reality, and that we actually feel our aliveness, giving our life full of meaning, and allowing the effervescence of life to imbue everything we touch.

I encourage you to learn about your body’s wisdom, to know directly the many experiences that the mind forgets or refuses to process. Beginning in childhood, we learn to ignore signals from our bodies in order to cut ourselves off from painful experiences, as if our bodies were enemies that should be avoided. The body is not merely a receptacle for housing one’s true self, the soul, or the spirit. Because we are an embodied species, there is no real separation between inner and outer landscapes. Inevitably, the psychic, emotional, and spiritual events of our inner lives are dynamically reflected in our comportment of the outer world. Only by re-awakening our capacity to receive, understand the signals and sensations of our bodies can we come to full awareness of our experiences and eventually achieve integration. Accordingly, seeking somatic forms of healing encourage us to heed the body’s messages, thereby releasing blockages in the tissues and pathways that inhibit access to unconscious material. This creates opening the door to spiritual understanding and maturity.

I believe that body therapy coupled with verbal therapy is a dynamic style of therapy that strives to bring about positive, long-lasting change that helps people to become aware of and to better understand the body/mind relationship. It is impossible for a person to completely release suppressed feelings in a strictly verbal therapy when muscular tension and armoring are holding back the feelings. The client can discuss his/her feelings forever, but if the feelings remain trapped inside the body, talking will not be able to bring about long lasting changes until those feelings are released physically.

I invite you to join me in this work of integration. Through process bodywork, movement, conscious breathing, ritual practice, meditation, sensing, inquiry, super-ego disengagement, and massage, we will seek to bring an awareness of the body’s wisdom to our spiritual practice. By sensing the meaning and vision through the body, we may cultivate our awareness of its messages, live more comfortably as integrated persons, and joyfully celebrate our embodiment.
 

The 2007 workshop information for Into The Heart of the Indigenous Soul: A Women’s Circle is online, as are photos from the 2005 workshop.

I've posted an excerpt from my journal to share my Africa Kontumbli initiation without losing the integrity, potency, and magic of this rite of passage.

	More than anything, our world hungers for healing. Yet, few people have the courage to genuinely respond to the call to heal others. Rowena is an example of what it means and what it takes to bow to this call to save and protect lives. Through her mouth come words of tears, the tears of the grief stricken world as she confronts with boldness the overwhelming pain that roars in the psyche of her people. Her hands radiate the dart of change while her touch transforms radically. Anyone longing to breathe through the barrier of stuck-ness should knock at her door.
	― Malidoma Some, PhD
	Rowena holds a safe environment that allows me to delve deeply into myself and the Mystery. Through her intuitive yet practical teachings in meditation and self-inquiry, I'm learning to recognize and dissolve the personality structures that separate me from Essence. Her healing touch experienced through massage and bodywork has provided healing on a physical level and freed my soul to experience essential states. She is a gift!
	― Marian Gage
	Rowena Pantaleon is a healer of extraordinary power and compassion. My life has changed profoundly through my work with her. She helps others by forging a path: she models what she teaches. To meet her is to want what she has found. To work with her is to learn how hard-won it is. Rowena is an inspiration to me: in her Presence, in her ability to listen to the body's wisdom, in her unflagging determination to grow, in her devotion to helping others heal, in her profound willingness.
	― Dr. Terri Elliott
	This work is touching and expanding places I ignored in my life. I truly feel alive in my body for the first time.
	― TLC
	Rowena holds a safe environment to allow me to delve deeply. Through her intuitive yet practical teachings in meditation and self-inquiry, I'm learning to recognize and dissolve the personality structures that separate me from essence. She is a gift!
	― M.G.

Vision Quest

Nurturing the Soul Through Rituals and Goddess Pele in Hawaii

The Path of Fire and Water: Women's Rituals and the Sacred