Like the goddesses and gods of ancient times, women and men of today, if they are to find their greatest growth at mid-life, must find a way to contact their deepest truths.
This workshop is based on the story of the descent into the Underworld
by Inanna—goddess of Sumer. Her descent
was achieved by passing through seven gateways, at each of which she was
required to give up her royal treasures, she then faced her own death in the
Underworld, and emerged as Queen of the Above and the Below. As modern seekers, our underworld is the
unconscious, the Queen of the Underworld is our shadow, what we must give up
are our misconceptions about life that we have treasured.
So, our psychological purpose is to confront the shadow, face our deepest fears, integrate some of our paradoxical, hidden qualities, and give birth to the Self of individuation. But we are not merely psychological
beings. Psychology, taken to its further
limits, becomes spirituality. And so we
also have the spiritual purpose of bringing more Light—more consciousness—into
our being. If we are able to bring it
all the way in to the darkest part of the underworld, we may be able to awaken
the Divine spark deep within each of us.
This is the true redemption that we all seek regardless of the terms we
may use. It is Enlightenment, Buddha
Mind, Christ Consciousness, being born again.
During this workshop, the participants will take a journey into their unconscious to find their deepest negative belief, process and release this belief, and develop a new, more effective belief to replace
it. This integration and release of the
stagnant belief frees psychic energy for new development. We will utilize exercises from a variety of
spiritual and psychological traditions to prepare the participants for this
deep work and to process the issues that arise, as well as using guided
visualization, active imagination, and journaling.
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