Know your conditioning so your heart can be a more faithful instrument.
~Cynthia Bourgeault
Come into Being as you pass away
~Gospel of Thomas Logion 42
In mid-August, a group of us will gather in the mountains of North Carolina, at beautiful Valle Crucis Conference Center, to explore together the wisdom of the Enneagram within a Wisdom School rhythm. Coiled in the Enneagram symbol, or Arcanum (a “deeply encoded” symbol packed with objective knowledge that can be accessed by those with ears to hear and eyes to see) are treasures that guide us into ways of seeing from wholeness as we seek to faithfully discern what is needed now to be of service in our lives and our world.
We will anchor our exploration in embodiment and create a walking Enneagram together which will ground and inform what we learn. As we walk and sense the dynamism and movement in the symbol, we anticipate that connections of understanding and practical application will be illuminated by the group experience. The Laws of Three (inner triangle) and Seven (hexad shape) represented in the Enneagram symbol show us ways of expanding our attention in the present moment beyond our limited ways of seeing (represented by our point or type on the outer circle). As we sense into the energies of these sacred Laws, we also begin to see the bridge that is being offered us to move into the dimensional spiral that is the Enneagram. So, while we might have started on the outer circle with our points/types, and been assisted in self-remembering by that knowledge, that is not all that the Enneagram has for us as Wisdom seekers.
The Wisdom School framework will ground us in our three centers (moving, emotional and intellectual) as we engage the Great Silence, Centering Prayer, chanting, movement and a spacious pace of teaching. We are practicing knowing with more of ourselves present. We are growing the capacity of our nervous systems as we collect ourselves, stay within our atmospheres and engage our work with Presence. As we do that together we know that we are met and given what we need to ‘grow Being’ and bring our conscious attention to what is here now. We are growing our capacity to be conscious players in the Divine Exchange.
If all of our life is fertile material for self-observation, self-remembering and non-identification, what does the Enneagram offer us to facilitate and deepen our seeing? We invite us all to come with beginner’s mind and enter a mystery that is endlessly knowable. We would love to have you join us as we delve into this exploration together. We have room for a few more participants. For registration information, click here.
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Jonathan Steele, M.A., is a retreat leader and spiritual director working within the lineage of Christian Wisdom. He has studied directly with world class Enneagram teachers on two continents over the past 7 years, all with ties to the work of G.I. Gurdjieff and the 4th Way. He serves as an Anam Cara to many and currently accompanies the sick, dying and their families as a hospice chaplain. Jonathan is the co-founder of Origin and Omega, a company utilizing Wisdom frameworks to transmit the force of presence and unveil the latent potentiality of personhood. He is a former pastor and church planter and is a licensed lay preacher in the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas where he is currently in discernment as an aspirant to the priesthood. Find Jonathan’s writings and more on his website.
Jeanine Siler Jones, LCSW, is a therapist at Siler Jones Counseling in Asheville, North Carolina and has been an Enneagram teacher for 15 years. In the early 2000’s she studied and certified with Helen Palmer and David Daniels in the Narrative Tradition. In 2009 she dove deeply into Wisdom work, playing with the Wisdom roots of the Enneagram as Gurdjieff brought it to the West. Jeanine works with people interested in spiritually integrated therapy, and is a primary igniter of Wisdom School Southeast. She leads contemplative retreats and groups on her own as well as collaboratively. Jeanine holds a Master’s degree in Social Work, a Certificate in Theology from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is trained as a Wisdom infused Spiritual Director from Moravian Theological Seminary.