| Mentorship Program
A SIX-MONTH LOW-RESIDENCY MENTORSHIP
in Energy Healing
and a Season of Study
with Jim Gilkeson
January - June, 2010
It has long been my wish to work in a mentoring relationship with a group of dedicated individuals over a meaningful period of time outside the confines of schools of massage and bodywork.
It takes time . . .
to become acclimated to a teaching.
It takes time . . .
and discipline to develop a regular practice that allows universal principles of energy and consciousness to become operational in you.
It takes time . . .
for your process to come to a level of change that you can truly appreciate.
For these reasons, this mentorship program is an ideal framework for your growth and development and for your understanding of energy, consciousness, healing and development.
This six-month program is based on themes from A Pilgrim in Your Body: Energy Healing and Spiritual Process and will consist of:
- A 3-day retreat to begin the mentorship period
- Bi-monthly tele-meetings
- Monthly individual telephone sessions
- Regular assignments and contact
- A second 3-day retreat towards the end of the six-month period
This is your opportunity to
- Take your practice and understanding of energy healing to a new level
- Work in a purposeful, focused way with the processes of energy healing and the expression of your gifts
- Work closely with an experienced teacher
- Experience the value of working in the group energy established among all of us; the periods between our meetings become as rich and valuable as our direct encounters
STARTING IN JANUARY, 2010
Cost: $2990 (includes retreat accommodations and meals)
12 participants maximum
(You'll find application procedures after the course description)
Program Details:
3-Day Retreat #1
A BROADER PICTURE OF ENERGY HEALING
THE LANDSCAPE OF THE INNER PILGRIM
This mentorship period will start with a gathering of all participants in a beautiful setting with ample access to nature and a retreat atmosphere. This could be a monastery or retreat center with opportunity for stillness.
The purpose of the retreat is to set the tone for the half-year of work ahead. This is a time for participants to gather to themselves a sense of their calling and their sense of beginning a new phase in their growth. We will use meditative exercise, group sharing and hands-on treatments as a vehicle for anchoring the intent of this season of study, which is to truly come onto our paths as healers, teachers, artists, leaders—whatever the direction of our calling.
Retreat Themes:
Spiritual Process in Energywork
Energywork is anything you do on purpose to influence the human energy field, including energy-oriented practices used in therapeutic bodywork. It invites spiritual process, which is ultimately about the renewal of the age-old human experience of awakening to our most essential nature.
What I call spiritual process is informed, in part, by my understanding of spiritual initiatory tradition. Here, we explore the connection between energywork, spiritual process and an older understanding of spiritual initiation.
The Three-Fold Spiritual Path
There is a universal pattern to spiritual process: it carries us out of the world in some sense, into sacred space, and then back into the world again. This pattern could rightly be referred to as the three-fold spiritual path. Your work, no matter what the discipline, is enhanced by your ability to recognize phases of this perennial three-fold pattern, which provides an elegant and simple lens with which to view spiritual process.
The Case for Doing Inner Work
Stepping into the arena of energy healing necessitates the personal work of self-healing and self-exploration on the part of the healer. Any energetic work techniques you might use are at their best and most responsible when they are informed by your own direct, personal experience.
Ancient Spiritual Technology
As you become familiar with energy-oriented exercises by doing them, you will master the skills of conscious movement (inner pilgrimages) within the sacred space of your body and energy system. We will explore practices that derive from the age-old point of view that nature provides abundant means for gaining knowledge about the inner workings of the universe. This sets the stage for the kinds of energetic practices we will use in our further work together.
Self-knowledge: Sneaking up on Your Beliefs
Beliefs play a critical role in the life of an emerging energy healer. Not only do your beliefs tend to expand or limit the range of your perceptions, they also become focal points around which the skills and techniques you acquire will tend to organize themselves.
As part of this portion of our work together, you will begin the work of creating a spiritual autobiography. We will explore the nature of callings and examine some of the recognizable the phases of learning energy healing. Think of this as a self-administered mini-workshop designed to help you find deeply held, often unconscious beliefs operating in the background of your healing work.
Bi-Monthly Tele-meetings:
MORE PERENNIAL THEMES IN ENERGYWORK
Holism
Holism is the perspective that a whole system is accessible in each of its parts. As part of our exploration of this universal principle, a series of holistic appreciation exercises is provided to help you extend your senses and expand your conceptual world. This is a necessary skill in energy healing, since energetic work entails a shift to the holistic or holographic level of organization of yourself and the person you treat.
Cultivating Mindfulness in Energetic Practice and Subtle Bodywork
Mindfulness, an essential ingredient of meditation practice, goes hand in hand with the art of energetic healing. Exercises are provided for honing your ability to connect energetically with yourself or another in a mindful, present, non-agendized way. One of the fruits of practicing these skills is the trust and subconscious cooperation that make healing processes easier when there is mindful connection between you and your healing partner.
Centering
Centering is any intentional practice that brings you into a mindful state. Here, we explore this perennial theme in energetic work its applications in energetic healing work.
Foundation and the Doorway Downward
Grounding begins with the need to be at home in your body and in a good energetic exchange with the planet, extends to your physical and psycho-spiritual foundation, and reflects into your environmental and social sphere. This segment of our work together explores what your progressive state of grounding means for you and, if you work with others, for your treatment partners.
Expression, Control Balance: When Heaven and Earth Meet in Us (and when they don't)
Here, we deal with three persistent processes in energywork: expression, control and balance. Each of these has special meaning in the context of self-development and energetic healing. Exercises are provided for exploring each of these elements of consciousness. In addition, you will learn practices for working with the communication between your upper and lower energy centers.
Twin Structures of Consciousness
In this aspect of our work together, we will focus on the phenomenon of twin structures of consciousness. When we set energetic change in motion, all kinds of things happen along with that change, from the internal obstacles we encounter in our personal practice to unexpected events in the outer world. Exercises are provided for cleansing your aura, "combing out your etheric" and doing healing work with the planet.
Fear: A Hidden Ally
Fear is one of the super-perennial themes of energywork. By paying mindful attention to the sensation of fear—neither indulging it, repressing it, nor running away from it—you come to find out that fear has its way of shapeshifting into an ally. As part of this exploration, you will be introduced to the Liver Stream, an energetic structure that provides access to the etheric storage of the Solar Plexus Center.
Resistance, Release and Renewal
Resistance, release and renewal, taken as a package, express a perennial theme in healing, growth and development. Here, resistance is presented as a precursor to the release of excess energy from your body or psyche, followed by the potential for a move of consciousness into a new place.
Integration: Living One Life
Your practice of energywork delivers a changed person to the world you live in. Here, we focus on perspectives on integrating what happens in treatments and personal energywork with everyday life.
3-Day Retreat #2
Back in the World
This mentorship period will finish with a second three-day retreat. Our purpose here is to allow our time together to come full circle and become a resource for all of us as we reap the fruits of this season of study and growth.
Applications by December 1, 2009
To apply:
Write
or email me a letter of your intentions and interest. Include about a
thousand words on your background and the path you have been on; I
would be very interested to hear what's happening with you that
motivates the desire to set out on such a course of study and personal
work.
Once you are accepted into the program, a deposit of $1000 will reserve your place in the mentorship program. A cancellation fee of $100 will be charged. In the event that the program is canceled from my end, your entire deposit will be refunded.
Here is my contact info:
Snail mail:
Jim Gilkeson
P.O. Box 782
Middletown, CA 95461
Email:
jgilkesn@earthlink.net
I look forward to hearing from you.
Jim |
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