You begin by taking refuge in stillness. Just as the desert looks barren at first glance and then reveals the life teeming just beyond the edges of your gaze, so too does a silent sitting practice become a space of extravagant wonder.

When you show up for what is, with curiosity and courage, you carry that presence into your daily life, rendering everything sacred. The Shekinah, the indwelling feminine presence of the Divine in the Jewish tradition, and Teresa of Avila in the Christian tradition, illuminate a radiant path to the center of your own being and show you the way to carry that light into the shadowed world.

In this module, you’ll:

• Discover the unconventional and intriguing life of St.Teresa of Avila and find out how she can serve as a vital and relevant companion on your own inner journey
• Connect with the imminence of the Shekinah as a guide to full embodiment
• Develop the courage necessary to speak for the voiceless, even when it’s neither convenient nor socially acceptable
• Become familiar with different modes of contemplative practice and make a commitment to some form of regular meditation
• Expand your conception of what it means to be of service
• Commit to a regular Sabbath practice

Miriam followed her baby brother’s basket as it flowed down the Nile to safety, and then finagled to get the Pharaoh’s daughter to adopt him and hire his own mother as wet nurse. Mother Mary agreed to be the vessel for the incarnation of the Divine and then to bear loving witness to his execution.

Mary Magdalene risked everything to stand beside her beloved and speak the voice of feminine power and wisdom. In this session, you’ll look at each of these three great prophets through the lens of peaceful resistance and compassion in action.

In this module, you’ll:

• Learn about Mary in the Bible and the Qur’an
• Reclaim Mary Magdalene to her rightful place in the mythos of the Christ
• Uncover your own story in stories of Miriam
• Engage in a guided meditation to deepen your connection to the Divine Feminine
• Find your unique prophetic voice

Kwan Yin, the Chinese bodhisattva of compassion, is known as “She Who Hears the Cries of the World.” She pours mercy from the palms of her hands onto your broken heart and offers sanctuary.

The medieval English mystic, Julian of Norwich, promised that, “All will be well and all will be well and every kind of thing shall be well.” For Julian, God is an unconditionally loving mother who adores you exactly as you are. During these times of intensifying polarization and rampant “otherizing,” these wisdom beings generate a space of safety, forgiveness, and deep rest.

In this module, you’ll:

• Discover Julian’s vision of Christ the Mother
• Listen to passages from the Showings where Julian reveals why God could not possibly blame us for our transgressions
• Contemplate the story of how Kwan Yin became a divine being
• Discern between charity dispensed to those perceived as having (or being) less, and compassion based on the realization of our essential unity with those who suffer
• Find refuge, comfort, and support in the embrace of the feminine

In light of the popularity of nondual teachings, you may have felt pressured to reject the yearning that burns in your heart for union with the Divine. The great secret of the mystical journey is that devotion is the catalyst for connection, and the duality of lover and Beloved melts into an undifferentiated experience of pure love.

The poetry of the mystics not only describes this ecstatic love dance with the Divine; it evokes it. Union with the Beloved is your birthright. Reclaim love-longing.

In this module, you’ll:

• Learn how the young Mirabai fell in love with Krishna and overcame unimaginable odds, including numerous attempts on her life, to devote herself wholeheartedly to Krishna
• Explore the poetry of mystics from multiple traditions who express the transformational power of love-longing
• Learn to integrate your spiritual passion with your life, allowing that sublime love to permeate every aspect of what you do and who you are
• Explore the mythologies of lover and Beloved and why they most closely mirror the connection between the individual soul and her divine source

The Earth is both our nurturing Mother and our traumatized sister. You can let yourself down into her arms, feel the roots that extend from the soles of your own feet and entwine with hers, and rest in the safety and connection she offers. You must also lean close to listen to her moans of pain, and activate to protect and care for her.

As Indigenous wisdom has long proclaimed, the Gaia Theory postulates that everything is interconnected and mutually dependent. The Earth is a living being, and what touches one part affects the entire system. Ix Chel, the fertility goddess of the ancient Maya, is an artist who weaves the world into being. She heals and protects all of life with creativity and beauty. This is our task, too. Art is medicine.

In this module, you’ll:

• Reclaim the wild holiness and unshakable wisdom of your own body
• Identify a particular issue of personal concern regarding the plight of the planet and make a commitment to action on behalf of the Earth
• Develop a personal relationship with Earth as Mother, and address her as a cherished relative
• Recommit to spending regular time connecting with nature as part of your spiritual practice
• Commit to some form of creative practice as a form of healing prayer

In different ways, both women and men are conditioned to fear our anger. Religions reinforce our mistrust by judging anger as a spiritually inferior state to equanimity, and evidence of moral corruption. The earth is in peril. The water and the air are poisoned. Governments collude for profits at the expense of those on the margins, who grow increasingly more vulnerable. Anger is the appropriate response to these widespread abuses.

Like the Hindu goddess, Kali, and the courageous Beguine, Marguerite Porete, you’re called now to transmute the lead of your outrage to the gold of sacred rage, to raise your voice together with a roar of resistance and sing the song of love loud enough to be heard above the deafening silence of complacency.

In this module, you’ll:

• Expand your conception of what it means to be of service
• Find a healthy balance between personal spiritual practice and caring for others
• Develop the courage necessary to speak for the voiceless, even when it’s neither convenient nor socially acceptable
• Find yourself in the web of interbeing so you may respond to crisis from a space of connection, clarity, and love

True transformation requires some degree of annihilation. You do not choose the difficult things that happen to you, but if you show up for them and yield to the shamanic descent into the dark mystery, your soul is remade and you carry both the fruits and the scars back into your life where they empower you to be of service to other suffering beings.

When Demeter’s beloved daughter Persephone was abducted by Hades, she made the journey to the Underworld to negotiate her release, changing not only her own life and the life of her child, but of the Earth herself.

Machig Labdrön, the 11th century Tibetan Buddhist master and wise dakini, initiated the powerful practice of Chöd in which the seeker of truth visualizes demons consuming her body and liberating her from the illusion of separation. By surrendering to the transforming fires of the human experience, you become more fully human and available to step up as an instrument of peace.

In this module, you’ll:

• Understand the difference between “becoming nothing” and “being unworthy”
• Embrace the fire and allow it to transfigure you
• Explore the connection between missing loved ones and spiritual longing
• Develop deeper compassion and more vibrant resilience in the face of difficulties

In this dialogue between dharma friends, Cynthia describes her unique expression of spiritual activism. Inspired by an ancient Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the Earth Treasure Vase Global Healing Project brings healing and protection to the Earth by filling consecrated clay vessels with prayers and offerings, and ceremonially burying them in the Earth in collaboration with Indigenous elders, young activists and grassroots leaders in places where healing and protection are most needed around the planet.

Cynthia Jurs is a Buddhist teacher in the Order of Interbeing who received Dharmacharya transmission to teach from Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh in 1994. Also a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, she has studied with many great masters and spent much time in retreat practicing in both the Vajrayana and Zen Buddhist traditions for 30 years. She is the guiding teacher at the Open Way Sangha in Santa Fe, New Mexico, leading meditation groups and teaching retreats in a unique blend of engaged buddhism and sacred activism.

Mirabai met Asha, the co-founder of Lama Foundation, the world’s original interspiritual community, when she was a teenager and she counts Asha as one of her most important mentors. In this dialogue, the two women explore the significance of an interspiritual approach to the world’s great wisdom traditions, especially in these times of social strife and environmental devastation.

Asha Greer is often intoxicated with awe, fascination, or bafflement about the nature of reality. Her “herstory” includes a lifelong interest in comparative religion and its influence on the brain, thought and behavior. She was a co-founder of the Lama Foundation, an ecumenical spiritual community which has been thriving more than 40 years in the mountains of New Mexico. Her teaching focuses on awakening to the awesome nature of reality both inside and out and through the process integrating the inner and outer life.

In her iconic book about St. Teresa of Avila, Entering the Castle, Caroline used Mirabai’s translation of The Interior Castle. This launched a profound spiritual companionship that unfolds to this day. Join these two lovers of La Madre for a teaching about navigating the path of contemplative prayer, that leads us home to the center of our soul.

Caroline Myss is a 5-time New York Times bestselling author and internationally renowned speaker in the fields of human consciousness, spirituality and mysticism, health, energy medicine, and the science of medical intuition.

In this warm and evocative piece, Mirabai shares her spirited and unorthodox view of the feminine face of the Divine, inviting us into an intimate relationship with love itself.