04 November 2023

Once Upon a Time There Was a King: Alice and the Shamanic Journey

Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Because children already know that. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be defeated.
(GK Chesterton)

Since the very beginning, humankind has sought to give meaning to life. This understanding comes gradually, experience after experience, from the moment we manage to transcend the boundaries of our “egoic” reality and open up to the profound truth hidden in the depths of each of us.
The search for this truth, more or less consciously, is filling each of our lives with meaning. Many, however, give up along the way, unable to find the “Ariadne’s thread” that could lead them to a deep sense of self, and they live pretending that their life fulfils them; others, instead, devote themselves entirely to this search. They are the Percivals, the Herculeses, the Pinocchios, the Warts: the heroes who, through their commitment, open the way for everyone else, waiting for the others’ time to ripen, the time of the courage to question themselves and to try.
Fairy tales and myths are some of the Ariadne’s threads that a giant of the past left to us, modern people, so that we can recover the wisdom and knowledge that could allow us to become KINGS of our own reality again.
The fairy tale tells us who we are and helps us understand which point of our growth path we are passing through, or in which phase of the “game” of our life we are stuck.

The event “Once upon a time there was a…king” aims to spark the listener’s curiosity and open them to a new, extraordinary perception of reality… through emotion. Emotion is, in fact, the way our deep unconscious reacts to this new awareness. Following that emotion and giving it a voice means opening up to the transformation of who we are, learning to observe the reality we live in.
The moment we “observe”, through our emotions, the adventures of fairy-tale characters, our lives turn into “timeless” events and we are able to grasp the overall design of everything.
Every event, in fact, has its perfect “place” in the design of reality.
The seminar draws on fairy tales to tell the story of ourselves and our experiences.
The message of fairy tales is extremely direct and clear; you only need to pay attention to the details that turn the story into a mirror of our own lives.
During the sessions, fairy tales are used to guide the listener towards a new perception of reality, as well as to teach them to get in touch with their deepest emotions and to learn to welcome them.

Once Upon a Time There Was a King is a multimedia event with stories, images, videos and plenty of opportunities for hands-on experiences, to immerse yourself “for real” in the emotions evoked by the fairy tales presented.
Around 40 fairy tales are presented and analysed during the seminar.
Each meeting is built around a main theme, explored through specific fairy tales and practical meditations

The theme of this first meeting will be “Alice in Wonderland and the Shamanic Journey”

The tale of Alice is a splendid metaphor for the journey into the unconscious. Chasing the White Rabbit, the girl enters a magical world brought to life by all her most intimate and deepest parts. Every tradition has the myth of the journey into the underworld (a symbolic representation of the unconscious), where the ego undergoes a profound transformation and returns to the world with a higher state of consciousness: think of Dante, Orpheus and Aeneas.

In Wonderland, Alice meets her power animal and goes through an inner evolution that will allow her to return to reality completely transformed. In the shamanic tradition, Alice’s journey is called a journey to the lower world. Shamanic cosmogony has three worlds: the middle world, the one we live in every day; the upper world, populated by masters and angelic figures; and the lower world, inhabited by animals. Today’s session will allow you, with the help of the drum, to enter this extraordinary dimension, like Alice, and contact your deepest and purest part. You will have the chance to meet new travelling companions, the totem animals, who will support you in your process of inner evolution and show you parts of yourselves you have never known and that will surprise you.