What if the images rising within you held a wisdom deeper than words?

In this session, Alexander John Shaia introduces the hidden power of image-based meditation, or cataphatic prayer—a contemplative practice that engages imagination, symbols, and sensory experience as a way of prayer. 

Drawing from his Lebanese Catholic roots, where chanting, incense, and icons shaped his spirituality, Shaia will share how this path invites us to move into images rather than empty them away. Through practices like sand play, he shows how creating and sitting with images—without rushing to interpret them—can open us to transformation, healing, and a deeper knowing of God’s presence. 

Rooted in both ancient Christian mysticism and Jungian depth psychology, Shaia will reveal how images guide us through life’s seasons of change, trial, and renewal.

Speaker bio: 

Alexander John Shaia (www.quadratos.org; learning4quadratos.org) is the animator of Quadratos, a new paradigm for Christian practice that is built from the ancient four-gospel journey of transformation along with quantum science and depth psychology. He is a first generation Lebanese immigrant, formed in Eastern Christian mysticism, gay man, author, speaker and Jungian therapist and Sandplay practitioner. Image-based (kataphatic) meditation is his lifelong contemplative practice.