“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.”

Lao Tzu

The “Who am I?” question is both the beginning and the end of the spiritual quest. This intensive workshop is designed to enable participants to enter into and dwell within the experience of who they truly are, rather than remaining beholden to the often false and inauthentic template of who they were told they should be, as a result of their education, culture and upbringing. In so doing, the opportunity is given to inhabit and comprehend a state of Absolute Truth – known as enlightenment or gnosis – a rarefied state that represents the Holy Grail in the quest for a life lived in the fullest expansion and connection.

This challenging journey equips us to engage in empowered progress upon our spiritual path, within our relationships and with life itself; rising forth from a stabilised centre of truth and an axis of self-knowing, rather than the ever moving, unstable ship of fears, old patterns, destructive desires and pervasive ego characters.

Shamans throughout time have sought to resolve what are sometimes referred to as the Flowering Tree Questions, the first of which is ‘Who Am I?’ and this has typically been undertaken through the solitary vision quest in relationship with nature as the Visible Face of Spirit. The quest for self-knowing was carried on into the Mystery Traditions and is encapsulated most precisely by the injunction carved into the lintel at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi: Know Thyself, which carries the implication that man is the microcosm of the macrocosm and thus he who knows himself, knows all. And from the Mystery Traditions onwards towards the modern age, the question persisted in all systems of perennial philosophy with a great number of methods, techniques and procedures created to find the solution to this problem of just exactly who are you?

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle”

Alice In Wonderland

Within this intensive workshop we work with a similar approach but in a very different context. The Visible Face of Spirit is witnessed and experienced in each other as we work together in series of pairs and partnership work, one stepping into the ancient practice of the impeccable witness, an art form in and of itself, whilst the other seeks to address the Flowering Tree Questions. The architecture for this interchange is potent, and lays a clear and comprehensible structure towards shamanic gnosis which has the power to radically alter the trajectory of a person’s life.

The goal is gnosis, enlightenment and the direct experience of ultimate truth, and this rigorously demanding course is designed for people who want to bring their unbending intent to meeting that goal and run without hesitation into the hidden depths of the self.