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Holy Breath / Centering Prayer & Ecstasy
March 28-30 | 2025
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?​
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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.
"Holy Breath: Centering Prayer & Ecstasy" Online Intensive | March 28th - March 30th
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Two online days (Mountain Timezone):
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Friday (28th) 9:00 am - 2 pm MT
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Sunday (30th) 12 pm - 4 pm MT
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[Saturday will be asynchronous solo wanders, meditations and practices on your own.]
“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.”​
― Meister Eckhart
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"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)
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Access to pre-recorded & downloadable teaching & practices.
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Recommended readings for further study
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An optional one-on-one follow-up mentoring session with your guide after the intensive.
Practices we will explore:
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Dreamwork in the morning sessions
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Meditation, Centering Prayer
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Imaginal Journeys
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Sacred Art, Poetry & Journaling
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Authentic Movement & Embodiment Practices
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Wanders On the Land
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The art of Singing & re-enchantment
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Guided group processes including Council and Mirroring (adapted from Animas Valley Institute).
An Eco-Depth Oriented Mentoring Model:
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Mythic Christ offers spiritual direction and coaching, archetypal and transpersonal psychology, with Soulcraft and Wild Mind approaches (The Animas Valley Institute) to human wholeness and nature-based soul work, to companion on the journey of self discovery, ecological place and deep purpose.​
Cultivating a Relationship with the Self
The Self is the authentic core of the heart: innately wise, compassionate, imaginative, powerful, generative and wild. We can cultivate the transpersonal capacities of our latent wholeness for a more meaningful and authentic life. Mentoring includes wholeness practices, readings, and artwork that helps connect us to the wellspring of our wholeness.
Deepening a Relationship with the World
The deep world is the primordial referent of all existence, an intermediary imaginal realm between the physical and sensory realm of animate nature, the psychic, and spiritual realms. The dreamtime gives us access to the heart of the world and clues to our ultimate place in it. Guided practices such as dreamwork and deep imagery are ways a trained mentor can help you cultivate wholeness and discover the depths of your soul and unique purpose.
Storytelling & Mythwork
Words make worlds, and the human world is made of stories. We are 'homo poeta', storytellers who weave and are woven into particular ecologies of belonging. Through story we can decolonize toxic beliefs about ourselves and our world. Through myth and story we can rewild religious paradigms and reimagine possible futures for our lives and our people.
The Art of Ritual Imagination & Embodiment
Sacrament and symbol draw us near the unspeakable mysteries of nature and the human soul. Ritual imagination awakens a lifestyle of reciprocity in individuals and communities as we learn together ways of embodying these sacred symbols of a deep reverence of life for life and our commitment to renewal as we begin to live in deeper service to the world. Mentoring offers practices for cultivating the ritual imagination and learning the unique art of embodiment, drawing us into regenerative ways of living and serving.
Generative Leadership & Systems
The ultimate goal of mentoring is not to make clients more 'adjusted' to a pathologically adolescent culture, but to create the right kinds of conditions that allow a deep disruption of the internal habits and patterns and the dominant cultural systems including ultimately the worldview it holds in place in our society. Hermetic philosophy summarizes the task of inner-work - as a parallel process to any outer work in the collective sphere - with the simple phrase, "as above, so below." The generative leader of today will be a system disrupter, as the ancient prophets and mystics of the past - an agent of cultural awakening to a new story.
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Matt Syrdal MDiv
Founder & Lead Guide
Matt lives on the front range of the ancestral Rocky Mountains near Denver with his family. Matt's spiritual lineage springs from Christian mysticism with decades of pastoral experience, including spiritual direction and coaching. A wilderness guide, trained Wild Mind guide and Soul Initiation Guide in training, Matt has been influenced by the Animas Valley Institute model of Soul-centric human development and the nature-based journey of wholeness and Soul initiation. Matt has been guiding women and men in mentoring and nature-based immersive retreats for fifteen years. Matt was a co-founder of Seminary of the Wild, and launched Mythic Christ Mystery School in 2021. Matt has a deep background in mythology, the ancient mystery traditions, sacred art, dreamwork, and imaginal. Matt was a contributing writer for a number of publications and is currently working on a new book.
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Lauri Hallikainen
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, contemplative practices and shamanic arts. 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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Awakening Mythic Imagination
AN ECO-DEPTH YEARLONG
Spots still available for 2025 Cohort
This yearlong certificate program is our experiential, nature-based, induction into the realm of the deep imagination. Encounter the depths of an animate world through a mythic lens. This online program is for spiritual seekers who long to rewild religion and reimagine the possibilities for life enhancing cultures. The yearlong program for participants of diverse spiritual backgrounds who have some experience with inner-work, depth or transpersonal psychology, contemplative and spiritual practices, and a love of the natural world. Enrollment requires an application with a $350 deposit.