Into the Woods

Stephen Sondheim 1987 musical Into the Woods weaves together several fairy tales from the Grimm Brothers. Different well-known characters, such as Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella and others, enter the woods to share their stories. The scenery is one of a very populated wood with all sorts of colourful people popping in and out to hold otherworldly conversations. The crossover of their tales invites us to explore the consequences of their desires and what their quest – or in my terms their odyssey with wholeness – reveals to them. The hustle and bustle of the crowdy woods are beautifully captured in Sondheim’s lyrics and music with a fast tempo, more allegretto vivace than andante cantabile, and cascades of words which, at times, can be difficult to follow.

Enchanted woods are familiar archetypes for evoking the bewildering things we can expect to encounter when we walk into the unknown and unfamiliar territories. Like most soul explorers, my regular walks into the woods are solitary expeditions. I occasionally come across some breath-taking and astonishing things, like a white stag, but more often my trips into the woods are precious moments of deep silence and stillness where I can feel myself in new ways and learn to listen, ever deeper, to my inner voice and bespoke guidance.

In this workshop I invite you to join me on a walk into the woods for an experience of quietness and tranquillity.  Through different texts and musical pieces opening up our inditing hearts, we will befriend solitude and loneliness so that we may discover what it truly means to inhabit and dwell in aloneness. This, in time, beckons us to entertain an intimate relationship with ourselves and to connect with our higher self, which I call our sovereign selfhood, the source of our inner guidance.