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The Search for the Soul

Enrollment

Apprenticing is arranged on a personal basis. It usually begins by contacting Circles of Air and Stone, followed by a letter stating your intent.

This should include:

Relevant elements of your personal history and experience, and how this bears on your decision to pursue an apprenticeship;
Your current status, experience, interests, and skills;
How you perceive the training in terms of your future goals, personal or professional.

One should also include preferred and possible dates for participation. Enrollment is open to all, but limited in number. Desire and experience does not immediately guarantee an opening, and a wait may sometimes be required.

Circles of Air, Circles of Stone provides the opportunity to apprentice in the art of leading groups and workshops that focus on deep core issues of the human experience. The heart of this work is the experience and encounter with self, others, soul and spirit at the fluid boundary where nature and human nature meet. Modern psychology is child psychology, focusing on the bonds with our biological parents and the events and effects of that primary relationship. Ancient and natural therapy includes our kinship with a greater parent, the source which has given us life (Mother-earth, Spirit-in-all-things) , and it provides methods to honor, sustain, and heal, that relationship. It is also an adult psychology, for we are defined and determined by where we are going as much as by where we have come from, and it provides ritual forms and a context where our vision or calling, our gift can be discovered, claimed, and shared, where it can fruit and flower.

Apprenticeship in The Search for Soul involves several areas: learning the forms and applications of ritual processes, the myths and traditions that support them, and the human factors that effect them; developing skills for working with people in a manner including, but beyond the limits of traditional therapy; and developing one's ability to lead groups where soul and spirit, vision and values, meet the concrete concerns of real people living in the world.

The structure of apprenticeship revolves around already-scheduled workshops.

2010 Programs

Journey of the Soul (August 9–September 3)
Rituals for the Earth (dates TBD)
The Dreamtime (Sept. 26–Oct 1)

Mayan Adventures (January 23-28, 2011)
Mythic Warrior Men's Program (beginning Oct. 29)

These trainings may be taken individually or in combination. They have been designed to stand alone, but they also build on previous experience. The cost for each training is equivalent to the cost of taking the program as a participant, and most likely, one or two trainees will be working with you.

Rituals of the Earth

As an apprentice you will be expected to listen with the intent to absorb and master the material. You will assume specific tasks and responsibilities depending on your experience, including presenting exercises and teachings, performing of ceremony, establishing camp, and contributing to the emotional and physical welfare of the members. You will also have the opportunity to participate in many of the exercises.

The training is meant to speak to your specific needs. This includes developing, affirming, and empowering your special gifts and "medicine"; the clarification and articulation of your values; the adaptation or application of nature-based or soul-focused processes to your particular position or profession; honing counseling skills, etc. We will also address the further development of skill and professionalism, including confidence building and empowerment of the apprentice; evaluation and maturation of your leadership style; and a deeper immersion into the various forms, issues, and processes of ritual and workshop. Training also involves being open to discovery, to entering and engaging the nature within ourselves.

Vision and Purpose

Circles of Air and Stone was founded by a vision to bring the ancient teachings into the contemporary world; to integrate the lessons of earth and sky, soul and spirit, stone and air. This is a sacred trust, but it is also a challenge and a creative act.

The landscape of the modern world is far different from ancient times, and we suffer from its loss of roots and the absence of the sacred. Apprenticing is designed to contribute not only to your personal and professional growth, but to the greater healing of the earth and her children, and to allow you to leave better able to help individuals and a culture suffering from aimlessness, abuse, poverty of vision, and lack of a sustaining mythology. To effectively help those of this diverse population requires skills, exercises, and elements from many branches on the tree of knowledge.

We are called to serve our people. Knowledge of your people -- who they are and the issues they face -- will somewhat determine skills and areas of study important to you. If you are working primarily with adolescents, with people in recovery, with women, trauma survivors, or people confronting death, some areas listed below may be crucial while others seem almost irrelevant. But the core elements of the quest for soul and spirit are the same today as always:

Humility before our Creator, Mother Earth and the Spirit-in-all-Things.
Willingness to shrink our arrogance and self-importance and open our eyes, ears, and heart to be taught.
Gratitude for the gift of life on this earth.
Recognition and respect for all our relations here with us.