Personal Growth on the Wheel of the Year

The group will meet for two hours on Thursday evenings 7-9 pm UK time close to the relevant Sabbat (Solstice, Equinox, or cross-quarter day).  

Proposed Thursday group meeting dates: 

• 25 September for Fall Equinox

• 30 October for Samhain

• 18 December for Winter Solstice

• 4 February for Brigid/Candlemas/Imbolc

• 19 March for Spring Equinox

• Most likely 30 April, but possibly Wednesday, 29 April, for Beltane/May Day

• 18 June for Summer Solstice

• 30 July for Lammas/Lughnasadh

• 24 September for the closing group around Fall Equinox

If a specific date doesn't work for group members, we'll try to schedule it for a different date that does.  

Overview

It costs me £180 per person to run the group.   Fees are on a sliding scale based on your financial resources.  You may choose to pay all at once before the first group, or in nine payments, one before each group.  

There are four tiers.

Choose Pay It Forward if most of the following best describes your financial situation: 

• I am very comfortably able to meet all my basic needs. 

• I am employed and/or have regular income. 

• I have access to financial savings, inheritance or assets passed down to me. 

• I have disposable income and do not worry about money. 

• I hold economic privilege due to aspects of my identity e.g. race, disability, class.

• Pay It Forward: £25 per session / £225 total

Choose Actual Cost / Standard if most of the following best describes your financial situation: 

• I am comfortably able to meet my basic needs.

• I am employed and/or have regular income. 

• I don’t generally worry about paying my rent or mortgage.  

• I may have savings or assets due to my class privilege or white privilege.

• Actual Cost / Standard: £20 per session / £180 total

Choose Supported / Concession if most of the following best describes your financial situation: 

• I may stress about meeting my basic needs but still regularly achieve them. 

• I have a regular income. 

• I rent or have precarious housing circumstances.  

• I don't have any savings. 

• I hold marginalised identities that impact upon access to money.

• Supported / Concession: £15 per session / £135 total

Choose Extra Support / Financial Hardship if most of the following best describes your financial situation: 

• I often stress about meeting my basic needs and don't always achieve them.

• I am unemployed, underemployed or working poor. 

• I am unable to work, undertaking low/unpaid or care work. 

• I experience financial hardship due to aspects of my identity.

• Extra Support / Financial Hardship: £5 per session / £45 total

Adapted with gratitude from the Radical Therapist Network's sliding scale and Worts & Cunning's Green Jar sliding scale method.

• a comfortable, quiet, private place to join the call

• a reliable and good internet connection

• a commitment to come to all 9 groups, though we will hold the understanding that illnesses, emergencies, and unexpected obligations are real

• a commitment not to use AI in relation to the group, as its abuse of natural resources and its stealing of people's work are antithetical to the understanding of nature as sacred and of each person's autonomy as sacred

• something to take notes with should you wish -- could be a notebook, paper and pen, another device, etc. 

• comfort items, and fidget items if desired -- a comfy blanket or squishie, something to drink, handwork, fidget toy(s), etc. 

Group size 

• around 8 people -- 4 is probably the smallest; 12 is definitely the largest

Overall structure of the year

We'll have some queries that we ask for every Sabbat, and some queries that are specific to each Sabbat.  Queries are invitations for reflection about what's happening for you and what's happening in nature, and how they might be connected.  

You're invited to have a project that you carry over throughout the year.  I'll provide a blank template for you to chart the number of hours of darkness and light at each Sabbat, and see how they change and form a pattern over the year; this is a low-investment project that you can do in ten minutes before each group meeting.  You might choose something else, like a light/dark or temperature chart, drawing, knit or crochet blanket, macrame bracelet, or something for the colours in nature where you are, or something else I haven't dreamed of.  

We'll also have specific activities for each Sabbat, related to the queries, that we'll do usually in "parallel play" during the quiet part of the group, that I'll guide us through.  

You do not have to share anything with the group you don't want to.  Nobody needs to worry about being "bad at art" or "bad at crafts".  The idea is to have an embodied experience related to yourself and nature and the seasons, not to "produce" anything.  This is a judgment-free zone.  Come as you are!

Structure of each group

Outline of how I expect each Thursday to go:

• Welcome

• Check-ins

  • Name and pronouns

  • Where you're joining from

  • Icebreaker, usually something such as three words that describe how you are right now

• First group

  • Orientation to the group overall

  • Create group contract

• Discussion of cross-Sabbat themes and queries; sharing about light/dark chart or other overall project

• Specific Sabbat themes and queries

  • quiet meditative time while doing a Sabbat-specific activity

  • discussion

• Final group

  • Summarising, sharing learning, good-byes

• Check-outs

  • Three words that describe how you are right now

  • One new thing you've learned about this time of year

  • One new thing you've learned about yourself

Please email me at StasaCandP@gmail.com.