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Holy Breath 
Centering Prayer & Ecstasy

“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”

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― Meister Eckhart

"Centering Prayer & Ecstasy" Online Intensive | Dec 15th,17th

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Two online days (Mountain Timezone):

  • Friday (15th) 9:00 am - 2 pm MT

  • Sunday (17th) 12 pm - 4 pm MT

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[Saturday will be asynchronous solo wanders and practices on your own time.]

Centering prayer and meditation are age-old techniques to put us in touch with what Jesus called ruha in Aramaic, the holy breath, a living and animating field that gives birth to psyche, to seed, storm and stellar nebulae. But what if there were an entire terrain of spiritual perception, a fluid and liminal continuum mapped by mystics, saints and shamans, inviting us to experience a living world that perceives us, a realm that invites us into our deepest longing?

 

Cynthia Bourgeault writes, "The imaginal is that quality of aliveness moving through this realm, interpenetrating, cohering, filling things with the fragrance of implicit meaning whose lines do not converge in this world alone but at a point beyond.” During this three day online intensive we will explore practices and group work that will help us deepen into different centering prayer practices inviting us to explore what Islamic scholar Henri Corbin called the Imaginal World. From the perspective of the neurobiology of the human body to wild landscapes and the more than human world, from ancient myths to the archetypal images found in scripture, trance states are common doorways of perception shared across time and place.

 

This introductory program will meet you wherever you are at in your own practice and hopefully expand and deepen your own journey offering practical seedings and practices you can further develop. Through consciousness-shifting practices and guided invitations we will deeply reconnect with the land and wonder together how deep eco-mysticism can help heal our relationship with Earth and one another.

"Centering Prayer & Ecstasy" includes:

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  • A three-day intensive including two guided online days, 9 hours total, with the cohort (Friday and Sunday) and one asynchronous day for solo-wandering on the land and practices on your own)

  • Access to pre-recorded & downloadable teaching & practices.

  • Recommended readings for further study

  • An optional one-on-one follow-up mentoring session with your guide after the intensive.

Practices we will explore:

 

  • Dreamwork in the morning sessions

  • Meditation, Centering Prayer

  • Imaginal Journeys

  • Sacred Art, Poetry & Journaling

  • Authentic Movement & Embodiment Practices

  • Wanders On the Land

  • The art of Singing & re-enchantment

  • Guided group processes including Council and Mirroring (adapted from Animas Valley Institute).

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Matt is the founder and visionary guide of Mythic Christ Mystery School living near the front range of the ancestral Rocky Mountains in Denver. As an ordained pastor, Matt has a background in the Christian mystical tradition, world religions, mythology, and the visionary lineage of Animas Valley Institute as a Wild Mind Guide in nature-based human development. In 2014 Matt founded Church of Lost Walls, a Denver Wild Church based on sacred-reciprocity, relationship with the watershed, wild sacramental worship, and a commitment to ecological education and justice. In 2018 Matt co-founded Seminary of the Wild, an eco-ministry leadership and movement hub for a wilder spirituality. As an artist and poet, Matt is a devotee of the astonishing imagination of the world.

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Lauri Hallikainen is an artist and pedagogue who loves to enchant and converse with the land through singing, prayer and ritual. He has studied music and pedagogy in Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences (Finland) and Iceland University of the Arts in Reykjavik. Through his methods of improvisation Lauri is building bridges in between expressive arts and contemplative practices. He is a devoted student of Animas Valley Institute and Mythic Christ Mystery School. Lauri guides nature based spirituality programs in the forests of Southern Finland.

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