September Outdoor Gathering
September Message: The Call of the Heart
Sept. 21, 2025
✧ Featuring Heart Leader Lori Frison, MS, LPC.
Lori is a licensed psychotherapist and relationship coach whose intention is to help take the mystery out of healthy and happy love relationships. Lori also studied the powerful healing practices of Peruvian shamanism from the Q'ero tradition for several years. She enjoys sharing her love of earth and shamanism with others through nourishing Despacho and Fire ceremonies.
✧ Connect with Lori on her website, on Facebook, and on Instagram.
OPENING CIRCLE | Fall Equinox Celebration:
✧ We enjoyed our fourth gathering in nature this past weekend, coming together in Carver-Roehl Park. We began by sharing our intention for our time together, and reflecting on the changing of the season from summer to autumn.
✧ We were inspired by an excerpt from Kat Villain’s “The Wild Rhythms: Whisperings from our Earth to Weave us back into her Web.” The excerpt is from the Autumn chapter, and it reads:
“Autumn is a majestic turning point, representing a culmination of experience imprinted by all that has happened before. It's the breath out after the fullness of summer.
Autumn is the harvest, and all creatures begin to gather and store for winter's dark night. Ever so quickly, form changes. This time, instead of rising up to the sky, energy quickly descends earthward. Animals burrow, roots descend, leaves fall, and a new wind blows.
In autumn, everything is moving toward dormancy, for in winter, the animated life above the soil begins to rest.
The harvest of summer’s bounty begins with autumn's changing temperature. It is met with the sun's declining rays following the summer solstice. Nearing the autumnal equinox, there is an accelerated dimming of the solar rays.
This urgency is felt inside as all creatures gather for the deep knowing of winter’s pause. Each inner compass attunes to the decreasing light, the atmosphere has a few more warm bursts until the air's cooling streams blow, and energy starts to contract back to the center. A sense of urgency prevails amongst the community to prepare for a new way.
The art of autumn is the ability to let go, wilt, and descend. In autumn, it is to know that the sun exists even when it is night, the wheel turns and rotates, and culturally the more this process is allowed to happen, the easier each transition becomes. When seasons are moved through well, abundance and evolution are a byproduct.
Autumn is the communal preparation, and holding close to your heart the timeless rhythms that exist beyond the current moment will allow all to make it through, for each dawn is a dialogue with spring, even in autumn’s setting. That which can’t be seen resides regardless.
Autumn is the great discernment. What do you take with you? Which direction do you choose to go?”
"The Wild Rhythms” by Kat Villain
Excerpt from the “Autumn” chapter.
Order the e-book from her website.
Order a physical copy of the book from her website.
✧ After the reading, Lori opened up sacred space for our Despacho ceremony, and shared the history, meaning, and lineage of the tradition.
SPIRITUAL PRACTICE:
✧ Despacho Ceremony led by Lori Frison
A Despacho ceremony is an act of love, a sacred way to remind us of the connections we share with all beings, elements, spirits, and sacred places. At the deepest level, it is an opportunity to enter into the essential unity of all things, the living energy of the universe.
The Despacho is an offering or gift to the earth or the Spiritual realms for all that we have received from them. Together, the group made an Ayni Despacho, from the Q’ero tradition of Peru, to offer gratitude for the many blessings in our lives. The Anyi Despacho is based on the principle of reciprocity or Divine exchange. It is an acknowledgement and gift of the heart, of gratitude, to the energetic or formless realms.
The ceremony was a beautiful way to pause, and reflect on what we have cultivated throughout the year and to express gratitude for the blessings that sustain us—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
CLOSING CIRCLE:
We closed the gathering with our reflections and an invitation for all to share what resonated with them.
✧ We sang our community blessing.
✧ We stamped our ancient hearts on the canvas to preserve the memory of all who gathered with us on this day.
COMMUNITY BLESSING:
✧ The heart knows. We go into the heart to remember, we go together, and we belong.
SPIRITUAL INVITATIONS FOR SEPTEMBER
✧ Attune to the call of your heart. We invite you to practice The +❤HeartMath® Heart Lock-in® Technique (see below for instructions), or another spiritual practice, daily, and notice how your practice impacts your life. Learn more on our previous blog post, or on their website here.
✧ Continue the practice of intentionally acknowledging your blessings. One way Lori shared was to reflect on what you are grateful for as you walk in nature. You can gather leaves, twigs, nuts, and other natural materials as you walk, blow your gratitude to the objects, and then create a design with what you’ve found as an offering, like a Despacho.
NEXT GATHERING
✧ Sunday, Oct. 5th, 10:00 - 11:45 am
Centering Message: “Spiritual Care in the Midst of Transition”
Location: Mocha Moment: 1121 Center Ave, Janesville, WI
Featuring Heart Leader, Tim Dean.
Tim has served as a Lutheran pastor for nearly 30 years, and he deeply appreciates and honors the diversity of faiths, including those who identify as “seekers” without a specific tradition. Tim is a graduate of the Spiritual Guidance Program of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. He welcomes and wholeheartedly affirms the gifts, relationships, and callings of LGBTQIA+ people. In spiritual guidance, Tim enjoys accompanying others in discovering, naming, and being open to the mysterious loving presence arising within and around them.
