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Gene Keys Sage Retreat Community

Composting
What Hurts

Inviting you to pause, breath, sense, feel and write with us.
Can I add this pain, this shame, this anger, this grief to the pile — and let it become?
Compost with us
What this is

Nothing in life
is wasted

It can become the most fertile soil for our growth.

In a garden, nothing that falls is thrown away. What has died, what has broken down, what smells like an ending — it all goes to the pile, and the pile becomes the richest soil there is. Your inner life works the same way.

Composting What Hurts is a guided group descent: we take what we've been carrying — grief, shame, sadness, other people's judgments and projections we've taken personally — and we return it, consciously, to the earth of our own being. Not to get rid of it. To let it become.

Regeneration does not happen despite the waste. It happens through it.
What to expect

The shape
of a session

1

We arrive

Landing together — no rush, no performance. All of you is welcome.

2

We ground

Breath and body first. Orientation to the now — because wisdom doesn't rise from the mind alone.

3

We write what's present

Pen to page, unfiltered. Naming what we're carrying, exactly as it is.

4

We compost

A guided visualization: returning what hurts to the pile — through movement, breath, and the elements.

5

We listen & write

From the quiet after the release, we listen for what rises — and write what wants to be written.

6

Invitational sharing

Share if you wish, exactly as much as you wish. Witnessing, not critique.

7

Soul Medicine closing

We close with poetry and presence — a blessing for what's now in the ground.

This is for you if

Bring whatever hurts

You're carrying grief, shame, or an ending you haven't known where to put
You've taken on judgments, criticism or projections that were never yours to carry
You're contemplating your Gene Keys and want to work with the shadow, not just read about it
You want to feel what your writing can do when it's a compost heap, not a performance
You're ready to discover what grows on the other side of what hurt
A note on scope: this is therapeutic, group-held work — it is not therapy, and not a substitute for it. If you're in acute crisis, please reach for clinical support first. This work meets you in the aftermath, not the emergency.
From the circle

What people
have carried out

"This was such a cozy, safe hug of a space. I really treasured it — I didn't realize how much I needed it."

Corry MacDonald

"This session opened something up in me — my creative expression, the thing my soul has always wanted to do. The gift is exponential."

Dominee
Join a circle

Composting What Hurts — Live

Currently offered live in the Gene Keys community at 4:00 PM GMT. Sunday 25 October is the next circle, the second to last this year. The last circle stays on the third Sunday, 15 November. If you'd like to be part of a future circle — or bring this experience to your own community — reach out and tell me what's alive.

Register for a session
  • WhatLive group circle · ~90 minutes
  • WhenSunday 25 October · 4:00 PM GMT
    Check your local time →
    Last circle: Sunday 15 November, the third Sunday · 4:00 PM GMT
    Check your local time →
  • WhereOnline · in the Gene Keys community
  • BringA pen, a page, and whatever hurts