IDMA Conference in Portugal 2006
“Shamanism and Regression”
2006 Conference
Held in the exotic setting of the Quinta da Calma Yoga Retreat Centre, near Faro, Algarve, Portugal.
What a fabulous trip!!! So much to see and do! People to meet! Places to see! Lessons to learn! Past lives triggered left and right! Soul retrievals along the way – a little piece here, a little piece there! So much fun, so profound, so healing!
Forty-two participants, from all over (United Kingdom, Austria, Portugal, Australia, Holland, Ireland, Trinidad and, if you count Roger’s three places of habitat, then add Brazil!), gathered for an informal dinner on the Thursday evening, followed by an evening’s exploration of Faro, led by Roger and Mark.
The first full day of the conference began with a morning workshop “Healing the Ancestors: A Group Ritual”, led by Marina Murphy of Trinidad. Using natural materials, Marina created sacred space outdoors and a beautiful shrine, stunning in its natural simplicity and very moving on a spiritual level. We were invited to find something in nature to contribute to the shrine. To the live African drumming provided by Marina’s assistant, Sandra, we found ourselves on our feet learning how to loosen up both body and spirit, letting the energy of the earth move through us. It was exhilarating and freeing as the beat of the African drum resonated on a very deep level, moving move into trance. Marina spoke about the responsibility the living have to clear their unfinished business before they die so they can become good ancestors. We then danced into the every of something that was blocking us, in which an entire scenariou and story emerged just like a bardo experience.
In the afternoon, Brenda Blair from Ireland led us in a workshop “Embracing the Divine Feminine” in which we journeyed to meet our unique Divine Feminine to ask her to unveil her hidden depths within us, and then we embodied Her through dance. One exercise was particularly fascinating when we chose our partners intuitively and danced each other’s Divine Feminine.
Our evening session was led by Manuela Maciel of Lisbon who presented “Psychodrama with the Ancestors”. This evening was full of so many new possibilities and left us all wanting more. We did several group exercises, one being the family psychodrama, and another a larger version using more family members. It was helpful to experience another modality that Roger drew upon in formulating DMP.
Our final day, Saturday, was led by Austria’s Noora Gröger led our final day, Saturday. It was a full day of “Introduction to Shamanism for Regression Therapists”. Noora moved the group from one journey to the next without missing a beat. She kept a tight schedule and covered everything from the Journey to the Power Animal to the more advanced “Soul Boat”. Through the day, many profound healings happened.
Saturday evening was Party Time, with a sumptuous dinner, wonderful entertainment from Arabic musicians and an Arabic bellydancer, followed by a riotous Fancy Dress Party – now where did all those scary characters come from?
A week full of sharing and learning culminated in my reflection of all of the new acquaintances and friends that
I made. It was humbling to be in another country and look back at my own. My world got both larger and smaller in
the space of a week. Roger’s dream of getting his work out to the world took a quantum leap this week. Everyone at
the conference was able to feel it and knows that their work will likewise catapult. The momentum created through our coming together will not stop, but rather will continue on like the proverbial snowball, getting larger each year. With every session we do, we touch and change the lives of people we don’t know. This week I met some of them.
Patty Hall
Guest Presenters
Nora Ingeborg Gröger is a master shaman who has integrated traditional and modern therapeutic practices such as family constellation, Upledger cranio-sacral and regression into a unique and powerful synthesis. She not only studied with and visited Tuvan and Siberian shamans in central Russia but also has deep hands-on knowledge derived from Brasilian, African and Native American shamanism. Michael Harner and Sandra Ingerman were her modern shamanic teachers, Sandra for many years teaching at Nora’s famous KIWA Institute in Salzburg. A graduate of Roger’s programme, Noora has co-taught Integral Regression Therapy (or DMP) with Roger at KIWA for the last three years.
Marina Murphy is a shamanic healer who has worked for many years with Malidoma Some in Britain and West Africa leading ancestral healing ceremonies. She currently lives in Tobago and takes groups to West Africa for shamanic initiation.