Sylvan Path: Class of 2025
Welcome to the Sylvan Path: Class of 2025 Ministry Training course!
“We all have the same root and are connected. To tap into this connectedness we must go within”
Summerlyn Guthrie
The Seven Pillars of the Sylvan Curriculum
Biography
A dynamic and authentic path to creating ceremony is through the work of inquiring into one’s own biography and using our own personal material for transformation. We will delve into the biography and mythology of our own life journey, exploring the archetypal aspects of the many stages of life.
Ceremony and Ritual
We open to the powerful world of ceremony, both to illuminate the world of everyday form, and its inherent capacity to express Spirit/Life. A dynamic and authentic path to creating ceremony is through the work of inquiring into one’s own biography, and so this strand weaves in much of the first strand.
Wisdom Traditions
Drawing on the world’s wisdom traditions, we will explore how these traditions approach the different aspects and thresholds of life. From birth through to death and beyond, we will encounter the different teachings and practices that are woven into the stages of life, and what we may learn from these in our inner exploration.
Spiritual Accompaniment
Grounded in deep listening, we explore what it means to be in spiritual companionship with another. We will delve into the skills needed to hold space for another and through this journey, we learn what it means to be truly present with each other.
Spiritual Practice
Spiritual development weaves in spiritual practice in its many forms, and we encourage you to explore and deepen your connection with the spiritual world throughout the two years. In engaging with personal spiritual practice consistently, you will learn to move away from identification with the individual form and become more connected to yourself, others, and the oneness of the world’s consciousness. This can take many forms, from meditation and coherence practices, creative expressions, to more traditional religious practices.
Community and Conflict Resolution
We learn how to be in community, to love and respect the diversity of each individual as an aspect of wholeness, to heal and grow together. We examine how we respond to each other and life’s challenges, welcoming each experience of conflict and love as on opportunity for reconciliation and compassion. We expand our consciousness beyond the self, to the collective, to all forms of life and into the universal consciousness of Oneness.
Creativity – Expressing the Sacred
We will explore creativity as the unique expression of the sacred through each of us, as a way to witness and experience the language of the sacred. Throughout the two years, we will be exploring creative expression through its many different and varied forms; finding what feels to be your own unique creative way in the world. We will guide you in releasing your beautiful expression of the sacred.