Longing & Spiritual Poverty

with Esther Freinkel Tishman

There is an ancient Zen koan (i.e. teaching story) that goes: Joshu earnestly asked Nansen, “What is the Way?” Nansen answered, “Ordinary mind is the Way.” Joshu asked, “Should I direct myself toward it or not?” Nansen said, “If you try to turn toward it, you go against it.” Joshu asked, “If I do not try to turn toward it, how can I know that it’s the Way?” Nansen answered, “The Way does not belong to knowing or not knowing."

More than anything else, Suzuki taught the west about ordinary mind. He taught us how to practice - how to sit on a round black cushion, to be sure, but more importantly: how to eat an orange, how to change a baby's diaper, how to meet the flotsam and jetsam of our lives. That may not sound very sexy, and in truth it isn't sexy. As mystics go, his life and his attainments are not particularly exciting.

Yet in truth, Suzuki taught us how to burn: how to live our lives completely. In a world that is literally on fire right now, we all need to understand what Suzuki taught so that we may meet the conditions of this moment with our full attention - our full heart - our full energies.

Shunryu Suzuki was only in the US for twelve and a half years before his early death in 1971. Yet more than any teacher before or since, Suzuki Roshi shaped the path of Western Zen. What transformed us all was the ordinary mind that he brought to the West.

Mother Maria Skobstova:
How a Rebel Nun Outsmarted the Nazis

with Rowan Williams

In a world where standing up to injustice feels more urgent than ever, few figures offer more inspiration and guidance than Mother Maria Skobtsova. Her life was anything but conventional—a twice-divorced anarchist who became a nun, chain-smoked, drank, and lived in stained habits. Yet, behind her unorthodox ways was a fierce spirit that gave everything, even her life, to resist oppression and embody radical love.

We are thrilled to invite you to an exclusive class on Mother Maria, taught by the world-renowned Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury and one of the foremost spiritual thinkers of our time. Together, we’ll explore how this scandalous, maverick nun lived out her deep faith in the face of Nazi tyranny, and what her life can teach us about resistance today.

What You’ll Learn:

• How Mother Maria’s unconventional life became a model of defiance in the face of oppression.
• The practical ways she resisted injustice, turning her convent into a refuge for the marginalized, including hiding Jews during the Nazi occupation.
• How her playbook for resistance—fueled by radical love and a refusal to conform to societal expectations—can inspire us to stand up for justice in our own messy, imperfect lives.
• Insights into how she understood sacrifice, love, and suffering as essential parts of true resistance.
• And what makes her Rowan Williams' favorite mystic!

Mother Maria’s story isn’t just history—it’s a blueprint for how we can live with courage, authenticity, and radical compassion today. Whether you’re an activist, a spiritual seeker, or simply someone who wants to make a difference in a world filled with injustice, this class will provide profound insights and actionable wisdom for living a life of purpose.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to dive into the life and lessons of a true spiritual revolutionary. 

Rainer Maria Rilke:
Divine Longings

with Patrick Woodhouse

The poet and mystic Rainer Maria Rilke is known for inviting us to “live the questions.” When in doubt, he says, the answer is vulnerability–staying connected to the suffering of those around us. 

But having a sensitive heart can feel like a liability in times like these. How do we navigate this tumultuous world and keep our fragile hearts intact?

Join us to discover Rilke’s lessons for navigating the world with a sensitive heart!

Rilke did not shield himself from the intensity of reality. He knew what it meant to watch a culture be torn apart before his very eyes, while Europe succumbed to violence. 

And yet equally, he knew what it meant to revel in beauty wherever it is found, from the bright scent of an orange to the ancient shadows of a bell tower.  

This Saturday, we invite you to steep in Rilke’s wisdom. In this one-time masterclass, you will:  

• Find refuge in the heart of a vulnerable God
• Reclaim your deep connection to the Earth and its wholeness.
• Meet a God who is always changing and becoming–and uncover the role we all have in bringing God into being!
• Discover how embracing uncertainty can deepen your intimacy with God

If you've been longing for a spiritual touchstone through the tumult of the modern world, this is a session you won’t want to miss.  

Hazrat Inayat Khan: Awakening to the Sacred Music in All Things

with Omid Safi

Have you ever felt a tug on your heart that words couldn’t explain—just a quiet, steady invitation to draw closer to the Divine?

The great Sufi mystics called this the call of the heart. And few embodied it more beautifully than Hazrat Inayat Khan—the gifted musician and spiritual teacher who first brought Sufism to the West over a century ago.

We invite you to join beloved Islamic teacher Omid Safi for a rare masterclass exploring the luminous life and teachings of Inayat Khan.

Above all, Inayat Khan taught harmony: not as an abstract ideal, but as the most vital task of our time.  

To him, the soul was an instrument—and life, a chance to align with the music of the Divine. He believed that inner harmony, relational harmony, and harmony with God are not only possible, but essential if we’re to meet the challenges of our world.

In this 90-minute masterclass, you’ll discover:

• The deep Sufi practice of listening with the heart

• How to attune your life to the Divine through music, breath, and beauty

• Why Inayat Khan’s inclusive vision of unity speaks directly to our world today

• And how to live your life as a sacred song

If you’ve felt the ache of longing… if you’re seeking deeper connection, spiritual refuge, or beauty that awakens the soul… this gathering is for you.  

Carl Jung: The Mystic Who Found God in the Unconscious

with Daniel Renaud

There’s a quiet movement happening among spiritual seekers—away from certitude, and toward something more expansive, more mysterious, more real.

Psychologist Carl Jung knew that terrain. He walked beyond flat answers and into the unknown—and what he found there wasn’t emptiness, but radiance.

In the upcoming masterclass, Jungian analyst and spiritual teacher Dr. Fanny Brewster will usher us beyond Jung the psychologist to encounter Jung the contemplative: the spiritual adventurer, the lover of mystery, the trailblazer for those walking the edges of institutional religion.

For those of us who are restless for something deeper, Jung’s work offers a surprising bridge—into the heart of our own souls, into the mystical tradition, and into a wider, more inclusive vision of the Divine.

In this class, you’ll discover:

🌑 Why Jung thought the unconscious was holy ground

🕊 How his visions echo the path of Christian mystics

🌀 How inner work becomes sacred work

--And more!

If you’ve ever wondered how to hold faith and doubt, ritual and freedom, psychology and spirituality in one soul—this is for you.

Come discover the mystic behind the myth.  

Charles de Focauld: Radical Solidarity in the Sahara

with Fr. Leonard Tighe

Most people have never heard of him.

But Dorothy Day said he was among the greats, like Saint Francis and Benedict.

Pope Francis said this mystic helped him understand the gospel and overcome his spiritual crises.

Who was he?

A French aristocrat who walked away from wealth.
A spiritual seeker who failed out of the military.
A restless soul who longed to disappear into the life of Jesuss — and, in the Sahara, did just that.

His name was Charles de Foucauld.

Charles would spend his final years living among an indigenous tribe in Algeria, the Tuareg — not to convert or colonize, but simply to love. He built deep friendships across religious divides. He fought against his home country’s colonialism in the area. And he quietly translated Tuareg poetry and compiled their first dictionary, honoring their culture as sacred.

He was radical. Intense. Hard on himself, yet endlessly tender toward others.

He longed to live what he called the “spirituality of Nazareth” — the quiet, hidden life of Jesus. No fame, no followers, no success. Just love, lived faithfully in small, concrete acts.

In 1916, he was killed during a raid on his hermitage, an anonymous death in the desert.

But today, more than twenty lay and religious communities on five continents continue his vision: a life of radical simplicity, quiet solidarity, and deep-rooted love.

Canonized in 2022, Charles de Foucauld is a saint for our times — and maybe for yours.

In this class, you’re invited to join Fr. Lenny Tighe, who has spent 50 years guiding people into the spirituality of Charles de Foucauld in everyday life.

In a time of headlines that devastate and dehumanize, Charles shows us another way: radical presence, humility, and resistance in the shape of familial love.

Come meet a saint who gave up everything — and found something most of us are still longing for.  

Barbara Holmes: The Mystical Tradition of the African Diaspora

with Felicia Murrell

There is a mysticism that didn’t come from deserts or abbeys.

It came from slave ships. From songs without instruments. From the hush between generations.

It lives in the moan, the shout, the circle of prayer, the wisdom of ancestors who survived and sang anyway.

This is the mysticism of the African diaspora. And it holds medicine for our fractured world.

In this class, you’re invited to join spiritual teacher Felicia Murrell as she opens the door to the spirituality of Dr. Barbara Holmes, a beloved scholar of mysticism who passed last year.

Her core message?

That mysticism is not the privilege of the few, but the birthright of the oppressed—where the sacred is communal, embodied, and deeply rooted in Black experience.

If you’ve been aching for a path that speaks to real bodies in real pain, this is a class that tells the truth: the margins are often where God shows up first. 

John Muir: Wilderness Mystic

with John Philip Newell

John Muir, the environmental prophet and mystic, saw the Earth not just as a physical world—but as a living, breathing expression of the divine. 

Throughout his life, Muir reminded us that the natural world is not just scenery.

It is sanctuary.

Even as our surroundings seem to darken, the Earth herself offers us an anchor: the mountains endure, the rivers keep singing, the stars continue their patient revolutions. In their persistence, they invite us to find courage—not by ignoring the darkness, but by rooting ourselves in beauty and truth too ancient and too vast to be undone.

“Earth has no sorrows,” Muir wrote, “that Earth cannot heal.”

It is in this spirit that we invite you to this mini-retreat with beloved Celtic teacher John Philip Newell. Together, we’ll explore how Muir’s spirit can guide us today—how love of the Earth becomes a pathway of healing, and how our faith in creation can steady us in turbulent times.

Teilhard de Chardin: Lured by Love

with Kathleen Duffy

In a world turned upside down by violence, injustice, and fear, it’s easy to feel powerless. 

But what if all of this is part of evolution?

What if, even now, we are in the process of carrying all of creation closer and closer to unity with the heart of God?

That’s the wildly hopeful vision of French mystic and Jesuit scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Living through the tumultuous 20th century, Teilhard was no stranger to the horrors of what human beings could do to one another and to the earth. He was haunted by the wounded men he carried through the trenches of World War I.

But instead of losing his faith, Teilhard began searching for the divine in unexpected places: in science, in seashells, in the soil – and yes – even in suffering. All of it was wrapped up in the cosmic journey of union with God.

If you, like us, are in need of some cosmic-level hope, we invite you to join us for a very special Teilhard de Chardin class this Saturday. Led by Kathleen Duffy, SSJ, one of the world’s foremost Teilhard scholars, we’ll explore: 

• How Teilhard’s vision helps us face today’s crises with courage
• Ways to glimpse God’s presence in all creation
• Why love is the most powerful force in the universe
• Why we need a faith expansive enough for science and justice 
• How to trust in the slow, good work of divine love

Even in upheaval, Teilhard reminds us that all of creation is evolving toward Loving Union. 

Come, let Teilhard renew your spirit and widen your hope.

Edith Stein: The Philosopher Who Found God in the Dark

with Matthew Blake

In an age that mocks empathy, this Carmelite made it her path to God.

Edith Stein believed that empathy is a doorway to the Divine.

Long before psychologists gave it a name, Edith wrote of “Einfühlung”—the ability to “feel into” another person—as a sacred participation in the mystery of God’s own compassion. To suffer with another was not weakness for her—it was love made real.

Born into a Jewish family, Edith became an atheist, then one of Europe’s first female philosophers, and finally a Carmelite nun who died at Auschwitz. Through every transformation, her guiding question remained: How do we keep our hearts open when the world is breaking?

For Edith, empathy was not sentimental. It was mystical solidarity—a way of entering the world’s pain without losing faith in its redemption.

In our own time of division and exhaustion, she offers a vision of strength rooted in tenderness, of courage grounded in contemplation.

Join us for a new class on Edith Stein’s life and wisdom—her journey from atheist to mystic, her theology of empathy, and the hope she offers to all who long to live with compassion in a wounded world.

Dorothee Solle: The Mystical Feminist Who Transformed Theology through Suffering

with Matthew Fox

There's a mystic you need to meet.

Her name is Dorothee Soelle, and she grew up watching her homeland descend into fascism. She witnessed the Holocaust. She saw what happens when religion becomes a tool of obedience rather than a practice of love.

And she refused to let it happen again.

Matthew Fox knew Dorothee personally. She came to his Institute in Creation Spirituality multiple times, and they shared a vision: that mysticism cannot remain the property of an elite few, locked away in monasteries while the world burns.

Mysticism must become democratic. Embodied. Fierce.

In this session of Mystics & Prophets, Matthew offers an intimate masterclass on Dorothee's life and work—and why she matters desperately right now.

Because Dorothee asked the question that haunts us today:

How do we speak of God when "God" has been used to justify unspeakable evil? 

Dorothee's answer was radical and beautiful. Drawing on the mystics—especially Meister Eckhart—and on feminist and liberation theology, she discovered a God who doesn’t rescue us from evil, but a God who suffers with us in the midst of it.

She understood deeply what we're learning now: that contemplation without justice is complicity. 

That prayer, real prayer, is an act of resistance.

This isn't a history lesson. This is a lifeline.

Because right now, as the most vulnerable suffer, we need voices like Dorothee's—reminding us that love leads us into the world's suffering, not away from it.

Thea Bowman: The Sister Who Reawakened the Spirit of Black Catholicism

with ValLimar Jansen

She was the granddaughter of enslaved people, born in the Deep South during Jim Crow. 

But she had a spiritual yearning and an unquenchable fire of joy, and she wasn’t going to let anyone stand in her way.

What burned at the center of that fire? An unshakable conviction that her own identity—fully Black, fully Catholic—was not a problem to be solved, but a gift to be proclaimed.

Sister Thea Bowman was a pioneer, the first Black member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. She was a scholar, earning her PhD in English and teaching for years. She was a musician, recording several albums of spirituals. She was a liturgist, compiling the first book of Black Catholic hymns. 

But above all, she was herself: unapologetic, effervescent, and fiercely dedicated to building a more just and welcoming church.

When she spoke to the United States Congress of Catholic Bishops just a few months before she died of cancer, every head inclined to hear her say, 

“What does it mean to be Black and Catholic? It means that I come to my Church fully functioning. That doesn’t frighten you, does it? I come to my Church fully functioning. I bring myself; my Black self, all that I am, all that I have, all that I hope to become. I bring my whole history, my traditions, my experience, my culture, my African-American song and dance and gesture and movement and teaching and preaching and healing and responsibility–as gifts to the Church.”

Sister Thea spent her life living those gifts and continually knocking on the door of the church, asking for them to be accepted.

Now she’s on the road to canonization, and she might be our first Black American Saint!

Please join us to soak up Sister Thea’s contagious joy and assurance that our own unique identity is the first and deepest place to encounter God. Talented musician Dr. ValLimar Jansen, who wrote and performs in a musical about Sister Thea’s life, will introduce us to the rich wisdom of the mystic of joy.

You won’t want to miss it!