Nouveau Shamanic Cinema: Recent Episodes
Rosa Lewis
Joost Vervoort and Rosa Lewis watch films that play with the concept of reality and discuss how this intersects with imaginal meditation practice, shamanism and dharma.
We talk about all the mythic resonance that overflows from this film and its archetypal depths.
Galadriel's evil mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ7wB4rm5Hw
Gimli destroys the ring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUrJdsN_-B0
Introducing characters as threats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wYaJGnSD1s&list=PLQ4DJ_2CTh6i353HptHEoQhLwX3ZkUjpo&index=9
The Nouveau Shamanic Cinema season one wrap-up, where we reflect on the 14 movies we watched in season one, the paradigms they immersed us in and the revelations each one inspired.
In Paprika a machine that allows you to enter people’s dreams goes missing and everyone starts dreaming and living in the same dream world.
The film inspired amazing conversations about emptiness and form; creativity and boundaries; dream work and the animistic roots of experience.
We also talk about Steve Aizenstat's dream tending: https://dreamtending.com/
And River Kenna's dream return practice:
https://dream.inthewilderless.com/
We watch the Hollywood epic, the Last Samurai, and reflect on the themes of warrior energy, psychedelic therapy and full masculine power.
We discuss evil feminine power, the many ways that it can manifest and how those ways are depicted through the horror film Suspiria.
We watched the Green Knight; we start by introducing the concepts of phenomenal opacity and transparency and discuss getting your head cut off as a metaphor for being in a non-dual flow state with meaning.
We engaged with this film as a soul-realm transmission about letting go of control and finding the courage to step into the flow of life.
We watched Sunshine, with guest David Lassiter, and resonate with the themes of life and death, opening to the full raw intensity of experience and the importance of staying in touch with humanity on the spiritual path.
We watched the Witch and explored themes of how religious beliefs can shape experience as well as evil and the many different forms it can take.
In the podcast where we watch movies as if they are dreams or imaginal practice, we watch Annihilation.
We discuss its themes of reality unravelling, mandelbulbs, refraction of experience, naturalness and the Goddess journey.
'Dreams and imaginal practice allow the body to speak the language of the mind,' Rosa & Joost
For this episode we watched Dune; it inspired conversations about contrasts of realities, the Dune Universe being less sci-fi than consensus reality in some ways and working with mythic content and visualisations.
Some of the things that resonated for us were walking through the fire and staying with the pain to ignite a mystical connection, exploring what the core of humanity is and existential therapy for chosen ones.
We watched Midsommar, a horror film about a cult, after a day of retreat and practice together and used it to explore community, toxic cultures, the risks of collective hypnosis and, of course, love as the antidote to all these things.
Watching IT and discussing Joost's nightmares, alternate realities, loneliness, empowerment of the feminine life-force energy and separation as a fuel for individuation and ultimately connection
We watch Aniara with Odile Strik and discuss emptiness, life and who we'd like to get stuck in space with.
For this episode we watched Event Horizon. We discuss how it evokes and resonates with experiences of the depths of hell.
We also recorded a shared meditative journey where we travelled into the void together, which you can listen to at the end.
Here's a link with instructions for shared journeying if you'd like to explore that topic more: rosalewis.co.uk/retreats/small-group-exercise/
We watch Upstream Color and discuss themes of interconnection and how the imaginal and shamanic realms intersect with human connection.
For this episode we watched Mandy; the 2018 Panos Cosmatos film, starring Nicolas Cage, which has been described as a primal, psychedelic rage-scream of a movie.
We recorded a conversation about the film's themes, its symbolism and how the darkness that it portrays resonates with imaginal practice, shamanism and dharma.