Mar 26-28, 2010
Have you experienced the loss of a job, a revelation, a change in a relationship, a chronic illness, the death of a loved one, or a sense that you are about to enter upon a new way? This workshop, on the threshold of Passover and Easter, offers an opportunity to come to terms with the deepest moments of transition in your life.
Seeing our situation in historical and mythological perspectives takes the pressure off the individual and opens the soul to profound possibility. A series of guided meditations will take us, in slow-motion, through our lives. The creative processes of drawing, visualization, and ritual enable us to navigate through the complexities of feeling in an awakened way. “Not knowing the answer” need not lead to guilt or shame, but rather opens in us new powers of wisdom and compassion that enable us to make deeply informed and true decisions.
The Jewel in the Darkness offers an alchemical way of “holding with process.” Instead of jumping into action and reaction, if we can bear the heat consciously, the very forces that seem to tear us apart can open a path of initiation and renewal. Looking at our transitions through a lens of fullness, we are guided through the shadows of our lives. If we allow ourselves to embrace the life process we are given, we can receive the wisdom, the grace, and the peace that passeth all understanding.
The Jewel in the Darkness offers meditative practices for transforming anguish into compassion and freedom; charting the depths of underworld journey through Persephone (victim), Chiron (savior) The Fisher King (mortification), Orpheus ( lover), and Odysseus (trickster), and ways to work with the most difficult parts in our lives. We hope you will join us.
Former Mellon Fellow in the Humanities at Columbia University, Rick Jarow is Professor of Religious Studies at Vassar College . He wrote The Alchemy of Abundance, Tales for the Dying, and Creating the Work You Love. Dr. Jarow’s acclaimed seminars on career, life-alignment, and transition have been offered at holistic learning centers around the world for the last fifteen years. A survivor of both catastrophic and chronic illness, Jarow works from a personal as well as transpersonal perspective.