Awaken the Mystic Within
Reclaim your life as sacred ground
with Mirabai Starr
A 7-week course designed to help you become the ordinary mystic you were born to be
Begins October 1, 2024
You are a Mystic and your god is calling.
Do you crave a community of like-minded souls who celebrate a more embodied spirituality than traditional religions offer?
You are not alone. The fastest growing faith community on the planet considers itself to be “spiritual but not religious.” We are unwilling to throw the mystical baby out with the institutionalized bathwater. We may not see God as a white man in the sky bullying us with his rules and rewards, but the smell of the rain on the desert and the opening chords of a favorite song bring us to tears. Holy tears.
Come with us on this seven-week adventure as we deconstruct fossilized religious constructs and reclaim everyday life as holy ground.
Spirit is everywhere, permeating everything.
What if all that the religious institutions conditioned you to perceive as shameful or distracting is instead an invitation to a direct connection with spirit?
The issue is one of mistaken belief. That if you try hard enough, banish your neurotic impulses once and for all, tamp down your sensual desires and beat your monkey mind into submission, you will be worthy of the divine encounter. It’s not your fault that you may think such things. This messaging is baked into the cake of organized religion, whose task is… well, to organize you.
The world is on fire. The level of human misery is unfathomable. Animal communities hover on the edge of extinction. Climate catastrophes are taking already marginalized populations to their knees. Political regimes are becoming increasingly authoritarian, and our own families are fracturing along ideological lines.
It is not easy to reclaim the blessing in any of this. Nor are we suggesting you gloss over the pain and babble some cliché about cosmic contracts or God never giving us more than we can handle. Rather, we are inviting you to turn toward the fire and take your life into your arms, like a weary mother embracing a hurting child. Both of you heal from this intimate encounter.
We are inviting you to turn toward the fire and take your life into your arms
Join us for this transformative deep-dive honoring Mirabai's new book
ORDINARY MYSTICISM: Your Life As Sacred Ground
“Here’s my prediction: As we propagate the world with wild mystics, the citadels of hate will naturally crumble and fall. Beauty will cascade from every crevice, and we will all find each other irresistible–even those we once would have canceled.”
- Mirabai Starr
What if the wild and scrappy landscape of your own life turns out to be holy ground?
Do you have one of those to-do lists that never gets done? What happened to your image of yourself as the serene yogi meditating on the mountaintop?
People of all genders and every religious background are thirsting for authentic spiritual experience, not despite but rather through the doorway of the ordinary and the everyday.
There is no mountaintop. There is no yogi. There is only beautiful you, taking out the compost and changing the tire, paying your internet bill and submitting your business plan. The to-do list is written in a secret code. If you look closely, you will see the divine name forming in the smoke rising from the very thing you didn’t get done.
Join a community of other over-extended, spiritually hungry people who suspect that what we thought was in the way may turn out to be the way.
This course is for you if...
-You have an aversion to organized religion
-You're longing for intimacy with the divine
-You have a belief that regular duties get in the way of spiritual life
-You fear for the state of the world
-You have a desire to be of service but are too overwhelmed to know what to do
What to expect during our 7-weeks together...
-Live gathering every Tuesday from 5:00pm-6:30pm
October 1-November 12
-Guided writing practices with Mirabai woven with “Lectio Divina” (sacred reading) and poetry
-Quintessential teachings on the nexus of spirituality and ordinary life
-Intimate small group sharing with writing companions
-Guided and silent meditation
-Live Q&R with Mirabai
-Community connection in a private group
(does not require social media)
-Lifetime access to Awaken the Mystic recordings
-Weekly focus on a chapter of Mirabai's new book, ORDINARY MYSTICISM: Your Life as Sacred Ground
-All as a catalyst for awakening to the presence of the sacred in all things
Bonuses
-An unpublished excerpt from ORDINARY MYSTICISM: Your Life as Sacred Ground, "Blessing for the Ordinary Mystic"
-An audio recording of "Blessing for the Ordinary Mystic" read by Mirabai
-A special video of Mirabai and Natalie Goldberg talking about the role of mentorship in Ordinary Mysticism
-A Food Blessing prayer written by Mirabai
The Flow
We gather
October 1-November 12
Tuesdays, 5-6:30pm Pacific
Join us as we travel together for seven weeks through each of the seven chapters of my new book, ORDINARY MYSTICISM: Your Life as Sacred Ground. Unravel the myths that have kept you small and separate, reweaving your days with radical amazement and enkindling your courage to step up as an instrument of peace, exactly as you are.
Week 1
Deciding to be the Mystic You Already Are
Tuesday, October 1, 5-6:30pm Pacific
We open with an exploration of what it means to be a mystic, and why YOU ARE ONE. Thread by thread, we unravel myths about spiritual perfection and reweave a net of sacred belonging. We invite you to set your intention to walk a path of wonder, reclaiming the magic swirling from the center of your everyday life.
Week 2
A Fearless Gaze
Tuesday, October 8, 5-6:30pm Pacific
Now that we have set our intention to be available for beauty and wonder at heart of everyday life, we tune our faculties to perceive it. Slow down and pay attention. Pour your awareness into the vessel of the present moment and watch it brim with beauty. This is a contemplative stance, a gaze of love, requiring fearlessness and fortitude.
Week 3
Radical Amazement
Tuesday, October 15, 5-6:30pm Pacific
We have cultivated a contemplative gaze. Now we can perceive sacred shining from the ordinary. We have renewed access to childlike wonderment and radical amazement. In this station of the journey, we become more willing to not know. We come back to beginner’s mind, dropping our preconceptions like pebbles, letting the house of cards come tumbling down. This is not a problem to be solved but the loving embrace of reality.
Week 4
At the Feet of the Masters
Tuesday, October 22, 5-6:30pm Pacific
We have set our intention to walk as mystics, surrendered to unknowing, cultivated a contemplative gaze and expanded our capacity for radical amazement. It’s time to turn our attention to the wise ones who have walked before us. Which books, poems, songs and artworks have been maps for your journey, beacons for safe passage, wellsprings of wisdom and hope? Turn toward the arts as a source of sacred transmission. And acknowledge that every time you create you are acting as a mystic!
Week 5
Beloved Community
Tuesday, October 29, 5-6:30pm Pacific
We have explored ways to be more awake and available to presence of sacred in all things, cultivated a contemplative gaze, enhanced awe and wonder, and turned to teachings of masters across the traditions. Now we remember that we belong to each other. We let go of the idea of individual awakening and private salvation in favor of collective liberation rooted in love.
Week 6
Broken Open
Tuesday, November 5, 5-6:30pm Pacific
We have explored ways to reclaim wonder and build community. Now we offer ourselves to the alchemical fire of grief. We become intimate with the landscape of loss, befriend death and relax into our own mortality, reclaim the holiness of desire and give ourselves whole-heartedly to passion. Rather than forsaking our feelings as “unspiritual” we harness them as vehicles to connect us to the divine.
Week 7
The Restless Butterfly
Tuesday, November 12, 5-6:30pm Pacific
If to walk as an ordinary mystic means reclaiming the landscape of your life as holy ground, then you can go ahead and release any illusions you might have been holding onto for ultimate enlightenment. Your soul is a work in progress. The spiritual path is an ever-unfolding adventure. Embrace the journey!
All sessions will take place on zoom and you will have lifetime access to recordings.
Each week will focus on a different station of the spiritual journey that opens the landscape of your life to reveal the presence of the numinous. First, we will set our intentions, then cultivate our attention, surrender to the mystery, draw from the wisdom of the ancestors, build beloved community, reclaim emotions as sacred messengers, and release false notions that the spiritual journey has an end-point.
"I did not write a book about the mystics. I wrote a book beckoning you to step into the fullness of your birthright as a mystic. This gathering will show you how."
-Mirabai Starr
By the end of our 7 weeks together you will...
-Recognize the face of the divine in the most mundane aspects of your everyday life
-Authentically experience the presence of the sacred in the midst of suffering
-Generate a collection of vibrant writing you can later revise for publication
-Have access to a range of contemplative practices to help infuse your life with deeper meaning, equanimity and energy
Meet Mirabai
Mirabai Starr is an award-winning author of creative non-fiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature. She taught Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years and now teaches and speaks internationally on contemplative practice and inter-spiritual dialog. A certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss. Her latest book, WILD MERCY: Living the Fierce & Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, was named one of the “Best Books of 2019”. She lives with her extended family in the mountains of northern New Mexico.
You already are a mystic of the sacred ordinary.
This course is simply a bell to remind you.
"When you decide to walk the path of the mystic, the mundane shows up as miraculous, the boring becomes fascinating, and your own shortcomings turn out to be your greatest gifts."
-Mirabai Starr
At Wild Heart, we value participation regardless of financial resources. Understanding the disparities of our world, we offer financial support to BIPOC LGBTQIA+ and others in significant financial need. You can submit an application here.
What others have to say about time with Mirabai...
"Loved hearing about reclaiming our desire and our longing even for chocolate or sensuality. It’s “not a distraction from God, but an invitation to find the Holy in the body.” YES! "
- Angelina K.
"To be brought to the table, sat down and ready to listen, to share and to write, is a very powerful medicine."
-Julie W.
"As a teacher Mirabai embodies the teacher as learner, the learner as teacher through her fierce and tender wisdom.”
-Susan F.
"This is a space filled with the healing feminine face of the holy. It is so needed and such a balm."
-Sarah P.
