Sauna & Song 4/24/26

Description

Join us for a community song circle led by Catherine Lightfoot.

We’ll start the evening off with a sauna at 5 pm (bring water and a towel)

Potluck in between (bring a bowl and eating utensils and something to share).

We’ll start the song circle around 7:30. It’s okay if you can’t make it for the sauna and just want to come for the song circle. Just let us know!

First community song circle? Here are are some words from Catherine, whose nourishing work you can find on her website:

What is a Song Circle?

In the format of a song circle, songs are shared that are simple, easy to learn and memorize, and then all sung together,
sometimes with layering harmonies and different parts! You don’t need to be an expert at singing at all. Not only is it a
powerful way to sing outside of societal ideas of what a “good singer is” but to practice stepping into opening your voice
and heart in a supportive and loving group container. Song Circles are interfaith gatherings that facilitate joy and peace,
by this we mean peace as way of life, a culture, a path.  It upwells as a generative force of happy living, a current by
which nature re-balances itself and self-organizes.

‘In my experience it’s an incredibly euphoric experience of belonging.’ ~ Madrone

Song circle participation tips

* Merge ~ listen closely to honor, synchronize, and harmonize with the person leading the song.   If you are new
to the tune or rendition, listen to a couple rounds first, visualize the images, feel the message, then move into
the song
* Presence ~ support the sacred silence within and between songs, for the spaces between are the source and
context
* Deepen ~ breath thru your heart, and sing from your soul; experience, deepen, and integrate the songs message
into your being
* Allow ~ In group-led sessions, provide space for, and invite those less confident, or less extroverted, to share
their song

Song Circle sharing norms, values, and courtesies

* Song Circles are a communal singing gathering; it is not an opportunity to give performances, or create an
audience

* The singing voice is the primary focus.  Please do not bring any instruments, thank you!
* It is understood that the passage of songs from one tradition, lineage, or culture, to another involves the need
for permission. Unless otherwise stated by the originator of a song, or made explicit by a tradition, this
permission is considered to be implicitly granted by those, native to that culture, who share and teach songs.
That is, we would not know these songs if they were not taught to us.
* With the caveat of permission recognized, this event offers a safe space for anyone to sing any song from any
culture or tradition they feel moved to connect with.  To honor this soul call, we acknowledge that such
appreciative engagements with songs are primarily matters of the heart, between the person and the spiritual
agencies that call them.
*  The working premise of this event is that there is no ultimate ‘right’ way to sing a song.  Outside of helping a
song sharer to remember a melody or lyric, or with pronunciation and translation, one cannot ‘correct’ a song
that is presented at Song Circles, one can only, respectfully, offer other version(s) of that song.
* Some people have vulnerabilities with sharing their voice before others.   It’s an edge, a risk for some, often at a
very deep level where reside other associated traumas and esteem issues.   Please be gentle, kind, and by
default, supportive if you feel the need to give feedback to those who have shared a song

Feeding the Songs

Following a song offering there is often a few moments of silence.  This to
digest the experience, and allow some expansiveness for the sing to waft out
into the air-looms, to return to Spirit.  Following this stillness, some may
choose to speak to the song itself, conveying how it has affected them in
some, usually positive, way.  Like:   ‘thank you song for. . .’  Such acts of
feedback and appreciation, besides allowing the singer to learn yet more
about the song and its effects on others, treats the song as the sovereign,
living vibrational signature that it is, and ‘charges’ the song with the beneficial
energies born of such honoring.   A song so ‘fed’, grows and matures in
agency, and becomes yet more effective to go out and do its good work in the
world.

About Catherine Lightfoot

Catherine is a woman of the woods and keeper of the Four Baskets Healing
Process. She is trained in psychology and as a traditional midwife. She has also
studied yoga and personal spiritual development at a small spiritual school in southern India. During her time there, the
divine plucked the strings of her heart and she hasn’t stopped singing since. Catherine has learned at the feet of many
indigenous teachers and is blessed to have gathered spirit songs from around the world and loves to share them with
others. Catherine homesteads in the Missouri Ozarks and can often be found walking barefoot in the creek or singing to
the moon.