One Q Interview: Licia Berry

Good morning Magpie Girl readers, and welcome to our weekly guest post. With the start of a new year comes a new form of guest posting: The One Q Interview. These interviews are designed to give you a nice wallop of insight in a neat little package.  It’s a perfect quick read Monday morning before you dig into work.

This week we have Licia Berry, author, wise woman, and teacher of Faces of Her: An educational and experiential exploration of the Sacred Feminine Within.  Today Licia is giving us what I call the YBH? — yes, but how? —  on how to have meaningful, nurturing family meetings.

Q: In 2007 you, your husband and your two boys sold all your possessions and lived on the road in an RV. In your efforts to “reclaim the heart of your family” you established Pyramid Meetings at The Round Table. Will you tell us about those meetings, how they worked and what their purpose was?

Actually, we did that starting in 2003 (we took a second shorter trip in 2007 to look for a new place to live).  The first trip was 2 years, the second was 6 months.  Even though we were living in a rural town in Colorado for the interim time, we did not feel we were done with our journey until now!

The “Pyramid Meetings” came about as a much needed attempt to bring us into closer proximity as a family, physically as well as emotionally, mentally and spiritually.  The four of us sat equidistant from each other and then brought our focus “up” into a collective one-ness.  Our intention was to save our family, and we felt that the way to do that was to ask for help from our Spirits.  We noticed a feeling of stability in this configuration, like the space was holding us as much as we were holding the space.  Somewhere early in the trip a wooden pyramid was given to us; when we saw it, we realized this was the form our family meetings was taking, thus the name was born. 

We began with a short mediation or quiet time.  This was hard for all of us at first, but eventually we got into a flow and could meditate for 10-20 minutes together.  We would follow up with a few minutes of toning (a formless singing, usually making vowel sounds with the mouth and throat); this seemed to help our bodies kind of “come back into the room” after meditating.  Then we would go around and do check-in, where each person had the floor, uninterrupted, to say how they were doing physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually (or as Aidan says, “in all his PEMS”.)  The job of the rest of us was to listen with as much presence as we could so that the person speaking could really feel heard. 

Then we had Round Table discussion, which was a forum for us to discuss issues or decisions we had to make as a family.  The concept of the Round Table is that all members at the table have equal input.  Equality with all members of our family was a new concept for us, but one we were guided very deeply to integrate.  Our children are immense Beings who happen to live in physically younger bodies.  This does not make them “less” than us; in fact, our experience was that they frequently had answers to problems that Peter and I could not see. 

We find that when we see them as equals there is a flow in our communication and our coexistence that is blissful and respectful.  Peter and I are still the parents; we guide and protect as needed because we have more experience on earth than our children do.  But in all other ways we strive to see them and live with them as equal Beings.  They appreciate this a lot; they are accustomed now to feeling free to express their thoughts and opinions respectfully without penalization.  They are always disappointed and puzzled when other adults treat them disrespectfully or as “less than”.

At the end of the meeting, when everyone felt complete, we would have a family hug.  This was even hard at first for some of us!  But, like the family meetings, it has become a cherished tradition.  The boys are a lot taller now!

So, to sum up, here were the components of our Pyramid Meetings:

1. Meditation
2. Toning
3. Check In
4. Round Table
5. Family Hug

Pyramid Meetings did some wonderful things for us, too many to list here.  It created a discipline of being respectful of each others’ energy, communicating in respectful ways, listening more deeply and attentively, and created a sense of feeling heard and important.  Feeling emotionally safe and present with each other was super important to cultivate.  We learned the ways we had been foisting our projections onto each other, and the ways we were furthering the damaging behavior patterns Peter and I had learned as children.  It also strengthened our concept of the four of us as family, as a unit, and increased our devotion to our family.  Our family needed this healing, as we had been growing apart for some time.  It wasn’t always easy, especially in the beginning; but the Pyramid Meetings created a fast track to that healing of our family heart.
One Q Interviews are posted Mondays at Magpie Girl. Flock members also receive an extended interview with Licia including her thoughts on working with practioners from a wide range of spiritual backgrounds, and her efforts to reclaim the Feminine Divine.  (Join us!) Thank you for being here!

Posted in Interviews, Magpie Girl
Tags: Guest Posts, Interviews |