Resources

CONSCIOUS SEXUALITY/TANTRA

Authentic Eros - Classes and workshops for men.

Body Electric School - Tantra, erotic healing, and personal growth workshops for men and women.

Human Awareness Institute - Love, intimacy and sexuality workshops for men and women.

Institute for Ecstatic Living - Steve and Lokita Carter - Workshops for individuals and couples. 

Source Tantra - Charles and Caroline Muir - Workshops for couples.

TEACHERS

Angeles Arrien was a cultural anthropologist, author, and educator. She lectured and conducted workshops worldwide, bridging cultural anthropology, psychology, and comparative religions.

Daniel Deardorff is a singer, storyteller, writer and teacher based in Port Townsend, Washington.

Bill Plotkin is the founder of Animas Valley Institute, a writer, psychotherapist, researcher and wilderness guide.

Martin Prechtel is a Guatemalan-trained shaman, author and teacher who elucidates and clarifies the spiritual intelligence of indigenous cultures.  

Michael Meade is a writer, storyteller, and workshop leader who focuses on mentoring, initiation, youth-at-risk and men's work.

Sobonfu Some is a teacher, writer and ritualist who focuses on the connection found between spirit, community and ritual.

 

 

EDUCATION/RETREAT CENTERS

Breitenbush Hot Springs - An intentional community that sponsors a wlde variety of health and wellness workshops.

Easton Mountain Retreat Center -  Offers personal growth and community-oriented workshops and retreats for gay men in upstate New York. 

Harbin Hotsprings - A wide variety of offerings at this Northern California center for healing, personal growth and alternative lifestyles. 

The Haven Resort - A personal growth retreat center for young people and adults on Gabriola Island, BC Canada. Many of their programs offer trainings for therapists and healers. 

Hollyhock Retreat Center - Wonderful offerings for personal growth and development on Cortez Island, British Columbia. 

Sacred Groves Retreat Center - Women's retreat center that is earth-based and community-centered. Bainbridge Island, Washington. 

Shalom Mountain Retreat Center - A spiritual community in upstate New York that offers personal growth workshops and retreats based on the Shalom process. 

Wildwood Retreat Center - Gay men's retreats and workshops. Sonoma County, California. 

 

VISION QUEST/MENTORING

Animas Valley Institute - Bill Plotkin's center that focuses on vision quests and initiation as support for personal development and soul-centered learning, based in Colorado. 

Mankind Project - New Warrior trainings - Initiation workshops for men offered throughout the US.  

Rite of Passage Journeys - Nature-based education and vision quests for young people and adults based in Washington.

School of Lost Borders - Vision quest school in California founded by Steven Foster and Meredith Little. Among other vision quest practices, they offer courses on The Practice of Living and Dying.

 

SUGGESTED READING

Nature and the Human Soul - Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World by Bill Plotkin. "Plotkin offers a way of progressing from our current egocentric, aggressively competitive, consurmer society to an ecocentric, soul-based one that is sustainable, cooperative, and compassionate. At once a primer on human development and a manifesto for change, Nature and the Human Soul fashions a template for a more mature, fulfilling and purposeful life - and a better world.

The Four-Fold Way by Angeles Arrien, “Angeles Arrien draws us back into our roots in nature … to find the sources of our strength. She calls up the wisdom of the ancient warriors, healers, visionaries and teachers to show us how to restore the balance in ourselves and in our environment. An immensely practical book that makes the heart sing.”

The Maiden King by Robert Bly and Marion Woodman. “Two wise teachers guide us through the rich, metaphorical world of an ancient folktale to explore the possibility of a new relationship between masculine and feminine. This is not a tale of bravado and success, but rather one of failure and repair. The first step on his journey is a visit to Baba Yaga, the fierce old woman of Russian Folk tradition who forces him to go beyond adversarial thinking and to dig down into the deeper, messier mysteries of life.”

The Man Who Fell In Love with the Moon by Tom Spanbauer. “This brave, original, ribald, funny, heartrending fable about the Old West is as bright as it is dark, full of fictional and philosophical pleasure, a quirky, unsettling looks at American history and a vision quest in the grand old tradition.”

The Other Within – The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture and Psyche by Daniel Deardorff.”A brilliant account of the ways in which the redeeming energies of the Sacred often find their access to us through our weaknesses, our limitations, even those parts of ourselves which we find most ugly and shameful. This is an authoritative voice and one which should be heard by everyone in the field of soulwork and healing.”

The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of Soul by Michael Meade. “A mythic tapestry of multicultural stories that encourages men to examine their own lives and find seeds of initiatory and healing experiences that can become the threads of meaningful community.

The Soul’s Religion: Cultivating a Profoundly Spiritual Way of Life by Thomas Moore. “Moore goes beyond the precepts of tradition and external religious practice to show how readers can find the spirit moving in everyday life.  In this challenging and comprehensive revisioning of religion and spirituality, Moore provokes the reader to reimagine how a rich and personal spiritual life can be within the grasp of every seeker.”

Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche by Bill Plotkin. “A moving exploration of what it means and how it feels to follow one’s soul path. He skillfully weaves the tools and insights of depth psychology with the mysteries and ecstasies of wilderness rites. Soulcraft grounds soul psychology in the natural world and creates a contemporary path of initiation into soulful adulthood.”

Secrets of the Talking Jaguar: Memoirs from the Living Heart of a Mayan Village by Martin Prechtel. “A great encyclopedia of beauty. A story of initiation that predates Christian morals, that celebrates the enthusiasm and inner beauty of young people. A hymn to the sacred that plants seeds of gratitude for a community that celebrates the creative and the spiritual.