Jo Rockendorfer
Art Therapist & Transpersonal Counsellor
“The doors to the world of the wild self are few but precious.
If you have a deep scar, that is a door,
if you have an old, old story, that is a door.
If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door.
If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that too is a door.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
INDIVIDUAL
THERAPY
The holistic practice of Transpersonal Counselling and Art Therapy is considerate of the body, mind and spirit and combines creative expression to enhance wellbeing.
Engaging in the ancient practice of a community circle encourages stronger connections, the circle becomes a container for truth telling, sacred witnessing, healing and transformation.
Workshops are facilitated through a combination of the creative process, meditation, movement, archetypal myths and reflective discussion/enquiry. This supports movement within our psyche for new awareness, it guides inner direction and develops a surer sense of self.
WORKSHOPS
Puberty is a time of significant change physically, psychologically and emotionally for young people.
The physical and hormonal changes that occur during transitions into puberty are one of the most transformative changes in a humans experience.
Adequate education and awareness are required to properly manage the changes a body undergoes during this period.
RITES OF PASSAGE
Individual Therapy
Click here to read frequently asked questions.
It’s important to find a counsellor who feels right for you. A positive client-counsellor relationship is a necessary ingredient for a successful outcome.
"My counselling process is gentle, client centred, and draws on evidence-based theory and modern techniques but also employs methods that relate back to our ancient wisdom.
I want to invite you to be a co-creator in the process so that together we build your internal resources that helps to guide you into a more resilient, empowered and joyful life."
- Jo
Group Workshops
Workshops
Seasonal Journey Workshop
Celebrating the seasons of the year through time honoured practices helps us to deepen our connection with the earth and in doing so, to deepen our connection with ourselves. Our re-connection with our inner core essence and the earth, enables us to be more fully present for our loved ones when we are with them, better manage stress, and have an increased sense of well-being. The continued changing of seasons also represents corresponding stages of your inner journey.
Autumn is the season known as harvest time and gives us the opportunity to reflect on what we are reaping in our own personal lives.
During this transition time we also celebrate both bounty and impermanence, celebration and gratitude.
Winter offers us the opportunity to rest and dream, we must wait in the darkness of Midwinter, teaching us that drawing inward for a time is necessary for the growth that comes later.
Spring is a time of release, renewal and rebirth. Starting anew, there is a sense of rejuvenation as we orientate to the beginning of longer days and warmer weather.
Summer is a time of solar power and our own internal empowerment often realised through our vulnerability. Holding both the healthy masculine energy of power and the healthy feminine energy of openness.
Dates for 2021
Sacred Circle
Medicine Wheel
The history of the wheel shows us that there was a time when humans were more closely connected with the forces of Nature and the elements of Mother Earth. Where the natural world shared sacred teachings with them and revealed to them how to live in harmony so that in their listening and honouring they could understand the continual turning of the circle of life, death and rebirth.
. This circle can become a map of life and worked with as a daily practice, can bring through a consciousness that offers an opportunity for this living mandala to become a sacred awakening within you.
A series of four workshops that draws on the teachings of the four directions through archetypal energy, the natural world and personal enquiry.
Each archetype taps into the deepest mythic roots of humanity so we too can draw on this wisdom as we begin to collaborate with these archetypes within ourselves.
Dates for Medicine Wheel 2021
Spirit Dolls
Dolls and sculpted figures have been used for spiritual rituals, rites of passage, healing and celebration in many cultures around the world, for thousands of years. Some used specifically for fertility, others as a ‘rite of passage’ helping young girls and boys understand social roles, acting out community events and ways of behaviour.
We tend to see ourselves in the doll. It represents an aspect of the human condition. When one engages with the process of making a doll all kinds of possibilities come to the surface. Doll-making is a way to free oneself of worries, struggles and emotions. Creating a doll, or any art, directly effects the nervous system which controls body functions and the immune system.
A doll can be a tool, it works on the artist as the artist works on it, as you listen It instructs. It contains the sacred being created from your soul self and represents the deep desire of the body to expresses its truth. A doll allows you to truly see who you are.
This one day workshop explores through intention, myth, shamanic journey and the creative process the crafting of your personal doll.
Create a doll that is birthed from your own unique and authentic self, reclaim aspects of your deeper soul self and discover a greater understanding of who you are. The very act of doll making can take you through a process of transformation, awakening and spirtual medicine.
Dates for 2021
Rites of Passage
Rites of passage work calls for a caring, supportive environment for all girls, women and their families. We encourage skills, attitudes and values that promote a positive wellbeing.
This 90-minute talk is arranged for adults only and delivers a greater understanding of the changes that occur in the female brain during puberty.
We look at how that impacts on a physical, emotional and social level.
Participants are equipped with some practical tools to help support the adolescent girl
through this transition time.
“The structure of a female brain at puberty determines not only how they think but what they value and how they communicate.”
Louann Brizendine – The Female Brain.
Dates to be confirmed
Talk
Understanding Your
Teenage Girl
Puberty Workshop
Whats happening to me?
Puberty is a life transition where the brain, body, and soul go through a major transformation that girls can approach with both excitement and apprehension. This one-day workshop endorsed by the Royal Women's Hospital Randwick and designed for the 9 -12-year-old girl explores the changes that happen during puberty in a fun, non-threatening way. We share empowering knowledge, build resilience and self-esteem and offer tools that help support and guide the young girl into adolescence with confidence.
Puberty Workshop
Dates for 2021
Would you like support to nurture and nourish your relationship with your daughter as she walks through the threshold of puberty, leaving girlhood behind to begin her journey of becoming a young woman?
Would you like to spend quality time with your daughter to strengthen your relationship and connection with her?
Would you like to explore positive personal growth in a community of like-minded women?
Does the change in each Earth season inspire change within yourself?
Would you like a guiding map to help you navigate the vast territory of womanhood and life?
If you answered yes to any of the above, we welcome you to Seeding Wisdom, a transformational journey for Mothers and Daughters (aged 9-12).
Between the ages of 9-12 our children experience the early stages and onset of puberty. Pre-pubescence and puberty are times of great change. Personal identity begins to shift, widening to encompass more influence from peers and other significant adults.
Creating safety, strength, courage, sovereignty, connection, and resilience within yourself and encouraging these attributes to grow within your daughter will naturally strengthen the bonds of trust and communication between you both during this time of great change. When we gather in community to explore personal growth, we become both teacher and student to one another, learning and growing together in a field of potential and transformation.
What is Seeding Wisdom?
Seeding Wisdom is a series of workshops over four seasons of the year with a clear focus on:
-
Cultivating ‘seeds’ of positive personal growth
-
Weaving deeper connections with the natural world
-
Honouring mother and daughter relationships
-
Fostering emotional intelligence
-
Nurturing creative expression
-
Practicing authentic relating
-
Growing body wisdom and intelligence
Each workshop aligns with the seasonal calendar and encompasses other cycles such as the menstrual, moon, sabbaths, circadian rhythm and the Native American medicine wheel. This mapping system offers you an experiential understanding of how these rhythms live within us and by coming into right relationship with them, we can bring more harmony and flow to our lives.
What happens at a Seeding Wisdom workshop?
Each workshop has the quality of experiential learning and honours the varying learning styles of all participants. We practice the following:
The Circle Way - this primal way encourages us to sit in circle with our community and share stories and teachings. The Circle Way teaches valuable life skills and tools of how to listen with compassion and curiosity, how to hold personal stories in confidence, how to take radical self-responsibility and practice asking for what we need and offering what we can.
Movement/Stillness - sharing simple and fun ways to move the body. Taking quiet time and rest, honouring the natural rhythms and flow of the 'inbreath' and 'outbreath'.
Sacred Crafting - every session will have an art therapy component including weaving, collage, clay work, doll making, and drawing, all of which are based in ancient practises that women have been doing for millennia.
Story Telling - sharing the age-old tradition of storytelling as a way of teaching and gaining insight.
Guided Meditations - activating imaginal states of being through meditation and journey work.
Seeding Wisdom
A Mother/Daughter Circle
Seeding Wisdom Program Outline
With Jo Rockendorfer & Arahni Lion
SEEDING WISDOM PROGRAM FOR 2021-2022:
OPEN DAY: SATURDAY 24 JULY 2021 1-4PM
CYCLICAL WISDOM (FOR MOTHERS ONLY) - THIS FREE TEACHING CIRCLE SHARES THE FOUNDATIONAL MAP WE JOURNEY WITH IN OUR SEEDING WISDOM COURSE. For free registration click here:
https://events.humanitix.com/c...
How can we know ourselves more deeply by tuning in to nature's cycles? This teaching circle explores the wisdom of the cycles.
We can observe the cyclic pattern of birth, growth, full bloom, harvest, decay, death, rebirth, growth, full bloom and so on as it happens all around us, as within so without.
Together we will create an invaluable map. This map helps remind us how the Earth's seasons, our life seasons, the lunar cycle and menstrual cycle and Medicine Wheel are all inter-connected.
This map can teach us to:
* Notice the connection between where we are in our menstrual cycle, our energy levels, emotions arising and our state of mind.
* Simply be with what is happening, and go with the flow, not against it.
* Get creative in how we use our time and energy.
* Celebrate all aspects of ourselves coming into wholeness.
Session 1: New Beginnings (IMBOLC)
SUNDAY 22 AUGUST 2021
This workshop offers an opportunity to create a value-based practice of setting ‘Intention’ where we discern what seeds we would like to nourish for the wellbeing of our mind, body and spirit.
Through the power of narrative, we will share our birth and creativity stories, honouring the blood mystery of birth and new life in a wholehearted and safe way.
Session 2: Menstruation & Puberty (OSTARA – SPRING EQUINOX)
SUNDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2021
Do you remember having the 'coming of age' talk with your mum/carer?
This workshop offers a safe place to come together and explore the ‘rites of menstruation’. We will learn about the rhythm of the menstrual cycle and how we are deeply connected to the cycles in Nature.
Mums will learn ways to support and affirm this transitional time for their daughters. Girls will be supported to create an empowering connection with their changing bodies. This can initiate a positive, loving relationship with the changes they experience through puberty.
Session 3: Healthy Communication (BELTANE)
SUNDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2021
Contemporary girl psychology can view other girls and woman as competition. We explore how to build healthy, resilient relationships and grow strong friendships. Where other females are seen as supportive. This requires developing sound communication skills. This workshop introduces the practise of non-violent communication, conflict resolution and boundaries in a non-threatening, fun way.
Session 4: Body Wisdom & Care (LITHA – SUMMER SOLSTICE)
SUNDAY 5 DECEMBER 2021
The changes in our body from puberty, motherhood and menopause require different care at different times, through positive body literacy we invite the wisdom of the circle to share insights and methods for their personal care. We explore practises involving breath and body movement. Each mother and daughter spend special one on one time together in a luscious body care ritual.
Session 5: Creating Circles of Support (LAMMAS)
SUNDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2022
Research has shown that having a strong support system has many positive benefits, such as higher levels of well-being, better coping skills, and can often help reduce stress.
This workshop explores how we support ourselves and each other, how we experience nature as a healing modality and how to find your personal healing symbol that can be a touchstone for your own support.
Session 6: Intuitive Body (MABON – AUTUMN EQUINOX)
SUNDAY 27 MARCH 2022
Exploring our intuitive body, we discuss how to sense it somatically, how to initiate its growth and understand what happens when we are not guided versus when we listen to our intuitive self.
Session 7: Ancestral Wisdom Healing (SAMHAIN)
SUNDAY 22 MAY 2022
Samhain is a time when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest and it is here that we look to the wisdom of our ancestors. We have an opportunity to understand more deeply the ancestral world, connect with our personal lineages and honour them in a beautiful ancient practise.
Session 8: Celebration (YULE – WINTER SOLSTICE)
SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2022
Our year long journey closes with a “Day of Celebration” acknowledging our daughters and their journey of becoming young women. We create a ceremony to honour each Maiden in the Seeding Wisdom program. We walk the labyrinth on the land, inviting insight, balance, and harmony.
TESTIMONIALS
"Jo Rockendorfer has been delivering puberty workshops at St Catherine's School for the past 5 years. Jo has been an inspirational, caring and supportive presenter who has engaged students covering sensitive and complex issues regarding puberty. Jo and her team have managed the many misconceptions of students in thoughtful ways and have been very open in their approach. The sessions have always been a big hit with the girls (even though there was a lot of apprehension prior to the workshop day!) I would strongly recommend this workshop for girls approaching puberty."
Nicola Logan (Year 5 Co-ordinator)
"I have had the pleasure of being Jo’s supervisor over the 15 years at the Royal Women's Hospital and have known her to present the program in a way that offers girls accurate and up-to-date information as well as bringing a sense of fun and support. Jo is ethical and is always sensitive to the girl’s needs. The programs appeal under Jo’s guidance has seen families returning with subsequent daughters."
Dr Jane Svensson
Clinical Midwifery Consultant – Health Education and Diversity Health
"Before I went to the puberty lesson I felt nervous. During the lesson I felt a little embarrassed, but better. At the end of the day I felt that I had learnt important things about puberty. I think it was beneficial and important for every girl to know about, even if she doesn’t want to."
-Zoe, Year 6
"The Spirit Doll workshop was absolutely wonderful in every single way. I would recommend it highly to any woman.
You led the group so gently and wisely and supported and guided us. Your home was the perfect space to hold the group. The fireplace and the garden were an added bonus. So, a big huge thanks to you Jo for giving me a beautiful growthful learning experience and a doll to help guide me along my path."
Michelle
I attended Jo’s Spirit Doll making workshop this February. As soon as I booked in my process started with intense dreams and creating a box with all the things that wanted to come and be part of my doll. Little did I know that she would have her own way with me. Jo’s warm, creative and enthusiastic embrace of the diversity of the group and ages supported everyone to dive in deeply into the process. The journey with story and drum became the meeting ground for me and the spirit of my doll, such a clear picture of who she was...yet it took surrendering my ego and not making a ‘pretty doll’ , that she would emerge and allow her head to stay on. ‘Birthing’ my doll was a profound experience into the depth of my psyche and the path I will be walking with her.
Thank you Jo for offering this safe and transformative space for soul creations to be born.
Martina
Wholistic Therapist
About Jo
Jo has training as an art therapist and transpersonal counsellor. She has facilitated group workshops for adults and children for over 20 years and utilises creative techniques to enhance the therapeutic relationship.
Jo lives on the South Coast of New South Wales and has found the natural world to be her greatest friend and teacher. As a young girl she had a special connection to nature and to the land and spent hours "just being"in the natural environment.
This love of the natural world deepened as an adult and she discovered as a therapist the value of working restoratively with the land and with earth-based practises.
Through Jo's involvement with ‘Rites of Passage’ work she has found a special joy guiding individuals and groups as they move through life’s transitions and assisting them to find their full potential and true essence. Jo has come to believe that when someone has a need to understand themselves at a deeper level, they can achieve this through a weaving of the arts such as body movement, stories, archetypes, writing, collage and with earth-base medicine. In this way a person's psyche strengthens and resolves and reflects back inner wisdom, guidance and healing.
Dip SocSc, Advanced Dip Transpersonal Counselling and Advanced Diploma Art Therapy, Cert Movement Based Therapy, Cert IV Train the Trainer, Cert Group Leadership Skills (educator, facilitator and author of Eco OOSH in action: a whole-of-centre approach to sustainable living.
Contacts
Email: jorockendorfer@gmail.com
Mobile: +61 404 969 122
Click here to make a booking online and check availability
or email Jo directly.
Click here to see current workshop dates