Our Women's Circle Meditation Event
Late on a Sunday afternoon, frost in the air, the last shoppers leaving town and my first women’s circle at the warm and welcoming Cosy Cottage Store in Malton, North Yorkshire. It was a leap into the unknown and one of the last attempts to fulfil my (rapidly expiring) 2024 New Year’s resolution: to make more time and space for myself in an inevitably busy life. Whose life isn’t?
We six women, sitting on cushions, pillows, yoga mats in a circle, spanned youth to pensionable age, from a spectrum of backgrounds and yet one thing united us. A desire to explore this experience and a recognition that with the multiple demands of children, farms, jobs, partners, parents we seldom took time out to reconnect, to think, to meditate or reflect on femininity; or in fact reflect on anything. There was also a promise of ‘cacao’, something sounding ‘chocolatey’ and hence worth turning out for in any weather.
Nicky, our facilitator, didn’t lecture, didn’t preach, wasn’t too ‘woo-woo’. She gently tossed suggestions and trains of thought our way; some of us vocalised responses and some not. There was no pressure. Several jotted thoughts and others didn’t. All of us participated in sharing the promised cacao, in meditation, breath work, relaxation, reflection and gentle, balancing reiki to the soothing sound of Nicky’s music, her drumming and her kind, hypnotic voice.
Two hours were over and we each said ‘goodbye’, back into the chill of the night. So what did I a scientist and sceptic, unaccustomed to spending time in groups of women, either at work or socially, gain from the experience? More than I had expected, certainly. There was a unique connection around the circle; non-judgemental, no heavy therapy and certainly no forced ‘friends for life’ nonsense. A peaceful sharing of time, energy and a celebration of femininity. A heightened understanding of the value of women’s spaces and the unique value they have the capacity to yield.
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