‘It’s about using the body you have’
A workshop offering healing, new growth and emotional release will take place in the city next month.
Coinciding with Ireland’s first St Brigid’s Day bank holiday on 6 February, the 4th annual Goddess Brigid workshop will take place at Triskel Arts Centre from 1-5pm.
The event is run by Embodied Archetypes Workshops, a series established in 2012 to explore how the archetypes can open doors to a more wholesome and integrated version of one’s self.
Founder of Embodied Archetypes Workshops, Lewis Barfoot, is a former doctor and has spent the past 20 years working as a performer, theatre maker, singer and director.
Lewis describes archetypes are basic patterns of behaviour that manifest through any human.
“There's a really beautiful quote, not from me, but from a woman called Caroline Myss: 'These archetypal patterns can awaken in us our own divine potential and they help us shed light on the little-known corners of our souls and amplify our own brilliance',” Lewis told the Cork Independent.
Lewis said the workshop on 6 February is directed towards people who are looking to change, shake up their lives and to grow.
“It's a combination of teaching technique around voice, like pure voice training, breath training, body work and then applying body work and voice work into a creative expression which is also a sort of emotional expression of something,” explained Lewis.
She continued: “I'll be reading and sharing bits of poetry. They will also be reading and sharing bits of poetry and using that as inspiration to then move.
“Then I will take people on a guided journey exploring aspects of Brigid which then explores their body and voice. There's breath techniques and what I'd call movement medicine.
“There’s a ritual keening session which is going to make people cry and they will release something, and then there will be a lot of self-soothing to reharmonize the nervous system.
“It's not about ticking boxes and being choreographic, it's about using the body you have.”
When Lewis first established the workshop series in 2012, she says it was the result of a transition from the expectations of her family to answering the call of her own soul to do something creative and to express herself.
“It was partly my own transition from being a doctor and being in a really brilliant working environment, but I was sort of following the career path and expectations of my family, you know, being a good girl, being bright and smart and doing the right thing. Actually, I was ignoring what my own heart was calling me to do,” she said.
The Goddess Brigid workshop is open to adults of all ages, with 16-18 year olds invited to attend with a guardian. For more information, visit embodiedarchetypes.com.