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Resonant World #107
It’s rare to meet people with the depth of presence I encounter in Dallas Gudgell and Roberta Boyce.
It’s even rarer to have an opportunity to bring such deeply valued friends together for a series of dialogues to explore key concepts on the path of awakening.
Earlier this year, Dallas, Roberta and I recorded four hour-long conversations, starting with the theme of the “Self” — the core essence that lies beyond the personality. (You can hear this dialogue in the above podcast. We’ll share the remaining three dialogues over the next few weeks).
We imagined our gatherings as a forum to invoke the traditions represented by Roberta’s lineage — a line of gifted intermediaries with the spirit world from Barbados — and Dallas’ heritage as a wisdom carrier of the Yankton Dakota, from northeastern Montana, whose great uncle was the last Yankton chief, John Lone Dog.
I shared from the perspective I’ve been developing via my studies of the relational and mystical principles of healing individual, ancestral and collective trauma via the two-year Timeless Wisdom Training with Thomas Hübl and team. (Resonant World #47: How to Heal Collective Trauma).
A special energy of care, receptivity and exchange infused these gatherings, which we’re naming Enter the Way of Wisdom. Roberta summed up our intent like this:
“The heart of Enter the Way of Wisdom is discourse, and real communication — where we have the possibility to come away feeling something different. We’re not dogmatic about the points of view that we hold, but instead we’re wise enough to listen with an open heart to what others may say, and allow ourselves to be changed by it.”
We hope you’ll find the recordings a nourishing place to spend a little time, and perhaps recognise elements of your own process in our quest for deeper understanding, and to express more of our essential selves.
Weaving Connections
For me, bringing Roberta and Dallas together in conversation in this way was especially rewarding.
I’d first met Roberta by attending crystal channelling workshops she’d been leading in a studio in the basement of Buddha on a Bicycle in London’s Covent Garden before the pandemic. Genevieve, Matilda and I later accompanied Roberta on a retreat to connect with sacred waterfalls, chapels and other power centres in Wales, and I’ve come to develop enormous respect for Roberta’s work as a guide and channel. (You can find out more about her transformational Essential Sacred Self work with individuals and groups here).
I got to know Dallas not long after, during lockdown, when he co-facilitated a series of 11 weekly online gatherings for friends and colleagues with his long-time friend
, creator of , whose work on climate trauma was one of the inspirations for launching Resonant World. (Resonant World #1: “Climate Trauma”).The quality of the relationships that participants established gave me an early taste of the power of online healing work, which I’ve since explored in depth via trainings with Thomas Hübl. (Resonant World #10: How Collective Healing Works).
As our friendship deepened, Dallas has been a key interlocutor in helping me begin to develop a more personal, and at times vulnerable, relationship with the collective trauma fields of racism, colonialism and the genocide of Indigenous peoples — topics we explored in a previous podcast published in February, 2021.
Roberta offers one-to-one sessions and group work to activate deep and lasting transformation via her gifts as a channel and crystal practitioner. Her work centres on dissolving limiting patterns and creating structures of self-support in which to thrive.
Dallas offers services including life coaching, individual and organization consulting and professional development consulting, and cultural competency training.
‘What my Energy Feels Like’
Our dialogue on the Self very quickly reached an understanding of the foundational role our connection to this inner core plays in our relationships.
Roberta began our conversation by noting that we can’t begin to attune to others until we’ve attuned to ourself:
“Who you are really has to be the starting point,” Roberta told us. “There is no relating if we can’t first find who we are.”
Dallas underlined this point from a Dakota perspective:
“I bring that cultural perspective of an earth-based culture that is centred around relationship,” Dallas told us. “And in order to have healthy and productive and valuable and useful relationships, at their core, the teachings are that one has to understand who you are, the Self.”
With this relational foundation in mind, we then explored how we could begin to connect more deeply with the Self — including through the kind of large-group processes I’ve been studying in the year-long Collective Trauma Facilitator Training with Thomas. (Resonant World #79: Why I’m Training as a Collective Trauma Integration Facilitator).
Roberta said:
“There’s a felt experience to this: There’s a very real, physical thing that happens, that allows us to actually feel ‘that’s what my energy feels like.’ It doesn’t feel like this history, or this story, or this experience. It actually has this particular quality, or flavour. When you have many people bringing that in, it’s almost like creating a hub, creating a circuit — almost as if there’s a larger central nervous system that’s surrounding us, that’s finally been able to breathe.”
Other themes included:
The relationship between “vertical alignment” and being effective in the world
Self lives outside of the stories we tell about ourselves
Our latent capacities to help one another integrate trauma, reconnect to Self
Acceptance of our shadow material opens the door to deeper relationships
Role of ritual and ceremony in cultivating connection to Self
In Dakota tradition, healing takes place in the “dark light” of the inner world
Connecting to Self builds a container that allows us to host more of the world
How Self provides a “landing space” for all of our parts, including those we might reflexively push away
We hope you draw as much inspiration from the conversation as we did, and that you’ll stayed tuned for the next episode, which we’ll publish next week.
And we’d love to hear any resonance in the comments.
More About Roberta
“I am Roberta Boyce also named Gur Seva. I’m a professional practitioner in Spiritual and Energetic Activation and founded Essential Sacred Self in 2012.
“My close connection with the realms of Spirit began in childhood. Both my parents come from families that are gifted. Through my father’s side the gift is mainly Psychic, from my mother’s side mainly Healing. I am gifted with a beautiful blend of both.
“I had my first memorable out-of-body experience at around 11 when walking to school. It happened, that a short distance from home, I was suddenly lifted out of my body and shown how Everything is Interconnected. That there is no separation, that all is Energetically as One, in this World and Universally. It lasted a fraction of a second, yet it set the course of my life.
“As I grew so did the calling to become fully aligned with my abilities, and this childhood revelation. Leading me to train at the prestigious college of Psychic Studies, following this with study in London and Luxor with the then New Consciousness School, and to Central and South America, where I trained in Qigong during my time in the former, and plant medicine during my time in the latter. Throughout each training, I found myself focusing on the fundamental truths that lie at the heart of all true Spiritual and Energetic practices.
“It was during my time in Luxor, Egypt, while sitting in a super meditation in the Temple of Hathor that I received my first download connecting me with a past life there in which I worked with crystals and sacred geometry to help people expand their consciousness and thus improve their holistic well-being. This began my offerings via Essential Sacred Self, where I formulated a series of transformational methods to support people in opening to, and living out their Potential. The Potential that is encoded within, untouched by distortions.
“In 2014, I found my Sat Guru, Ratu Bagus, and through his unique tutelage I found myself going on to train as a Kundalini Yoga instructor, integrating the technology of this practice into the ESS package.
“It is by combining my gifts and my training that I weave a space of Expansion through which to Evolve myself and Evolve the systems of support I offer to help others Grow into and Live out their Pure Potential.
“With Infinite Gratitude — Om Swastiastu — Sat Nam — Aho!”
More About Dallas
J Dallas Gudgell has nearly four decades of experience in environmental science, lobbying, human rights advocacy, social and environmental justice, K12 general and special education teaching, higher education adjunct teaching, life coaching, individual and organization consulting and professional development consulting, cultural competency (DEI) training and public relations. He has been a backcountry backpacker since the age of 13.
In his hometown on the Fort Peck Reservation in Poplar Montana, besides working as an environmental scientist for his tribal government; he was chief of the local volunteer fire department. In Idaho (the past 30+ years), he worked for Idaho DEQ, environmental/conservation NGOs, and worked closely with elected officials on issues involving education, indigenous concerns, climate justice, human rights, and environmental protection and conservation. His vast community service includes many NGO associations and leadership positions as well as being a spiritual leader at the Idaho Veterans Administration, where he conducted clinics grounded in native cultural framework of the lodge (songs, oral history, and traditional behavioural health practices).
He considers himself a “decorated” father with grown children, young twins, foster children, and grandchildren. He keeps active through backyard construction projects, skiing, hiking, running, mountain biking and has recently taken to running 5K and 10k fun runs with his twins.2
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I served as a co-host on two previous editions of this gathering (previously known as the Collective Trauma Summit) and believe it provides enormous value. I receive a share of any conference packages purchased using the links on this page.
Way of Wisdom Dialogues Part One: the "Self"