Mission

Sacred Poetry Circle’s mission is to foster deep connection through sharing expressive poetry and practicing space holding.

History

Sacred Poetry Circle is just beginning. We co-created our first circle March 9, 2025 as part of our Poetry in the Park gatherings. We have been doing this each Sunday at Haw Creek Park, Asheville, NC.

Founder

Sacred Poetry Circle was created by me, Alia Vera (she/they). I also facilitate the circle, though it is my desire that we co-create the space together. It’s been a long time dream to be a part of sharing poetry in a sacred way like this. I have been writing poetry as long as I can remember. It’s an intimate part of my life, a way I express myself, and something that is very vulnerable for me to share. I have some poetry collected online at SoulCommuning.com. I studied poetry while earning my associate’s degree in English Literature where I was part of a poetry club. We always met outside and we just shared our writing, played songs they were writing, and talked about how poetry was impacting our lives. That always stayed with me. Poetry remained deeply relevant when I was studying Cultural Anthropology receiving my bachelor’s degree and completing some graduate studies as well. I loved focusing on symbolism, mythology, ritual, and semiotics. I found rich meaning in the stories and practices each culture shares. It’s no wonder that I am also very interested in Jungian psychology and how consciousness and unconsciousness so often seek expression through symbolism and meaning making. I muse on the dreaming, the natural world, and how consciousness bridges these experiences and beyond.

Professionally, I have done quite a bit with web design and web marketing, so I have a lot of fun with this website and doing creative social media posts. That career was eclipsed by a call for deep healing. I worked with Western medicine and also took a holistic path. Meditation, embodiment, inner work, attachment healing, trauma work, mindful movement, and shadow work have all been guides on my healing journey, a journey that is ongoing.

I have been honored to integrate many powerful teachings and practices on this path. I have sat with and done walking meditation with Thich Nhat Hanh at Deer Park Monastery. I have meditated for years with close students of Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. David Cabrera brought mindful movement and Qigong into my meditation practice. I worked with psychotherapist, author, and spiritual guide, Matt Licata in his healing community for two years, exploring where embodied psychology meets the mystical. I am a certified yoga teacher through Asheville Community Yoga and continue my training. I deepened my sacred witnessing practice through a space holding training with grief tender Josh Fox. I’m attuning to the earth through a gardening and permaculture apprenticeship with Wild Abundance. I’ve spent signifiant time in psychoanalysis, Jungian analysis, and working with Somatic Experiencing as a client with a variety of skilled practitioners. I have practiced rituals of the Wheel of the Year as a member of a Druid grove with Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF). My greatest teachers have been the trees, how they root into the earth and reach their branches to the sky. The ocean has taught me what it is to be vast and connected out beyond my imagination. I have studied under the birds who speak in their own language to those who would listen. I work with the energies of my dreams and mystic vision states, touching into the wisdom of my higher Self and the universal unconscious. Living as a human in this world teaches me everyday and I live in wide wonder of how much there still is to discover.

I share this because some have wondered what this group is all about and why it was started. It’s not so much about me, but rather what I seek in this world. I seek deep emotional connection with others and community. I seek space to be vulnerable, to express my emotions and wild visions. I seek to be present in the depths of others opening their hearts and sharing their souls. I struggle to be vulnerable sometimes, especially in groups. I love how a compassionate container can allow for so much opening. When I am in spaces that set agreements, set intentions, and ground into a practice, I feel the protectiveness drop away. I experience the act of circling together as an act of ritual that transitions me and the circle holders from the mundane into the sacredness of the in-between, the liminal. The circle is a space where identities step back to allow for the rising of true being. I hope to co-create space where I feel free to be open and share myself and my writing. I hope to co-create space where new writers feel comfortable to share their works, maybe even for the first time. I hope to co-create space where everyone feels free to express themself and to be seen and heard. I reach out tenderly to ask you, will you come co-create the Sacred Poetry Circle with me?