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April 26 – May 1, 2015
Earthrise Campus at IONS
in beautiful Petaluma, California, USA
Experience the ecstatic reunion of your body, mind, heart and soul in a sacred
community of grace.
Be prepared for a week of celebratory joy, heart-opening wisdom and alchemical practices that help you fully embody the Divine Human – fusing the sacred masculine and feminine within you to birth the holy union of opposites that is the sacred marriage.
You are undoubtedly someone who is committed to not only awakening spiritually but also to serving the world from the greatest depth of your being.
You are willing to face the heartbreaking realities of our time and stand in the naked love at your core.
You are committed to show up in your tenderness and your fierceness to go “all the way” and become the most powerful, beautiful and illumined version of yourself you can be in this lifetime.
You are, in short, committed to birthing the Divine Human within you.
And yet, while you are committed to this as the heart and soul of your life’s work, you likely have many periods where it feels your passion wanes and your inner well runs dry. It can be very lonely trying to evolve into a new kind of human. And you can face many inner and outer obstacles, many of which are difficult to surmount.
Often, the pathway forward is not clear because so few have blazed the evolutionary trail ahead of you... especially people in your local community.
And that is why we are inviting you with warmth, tenderness and a dose of fierce urgency to come and replenish your soul and experience joyful heights of mystical opening along with delicious depths of divine embodiment, within a sacred community of sincere aspirants and dedicated servants of God.
Celebrating the Sacred Marriage will be a five-day retreat that gives a whole new meaning to the Divine union of masculine and feminine within. It will be an astonishing adventure to the frontiers of consciousness, a wild romp to the depths of your soul and a beautiful chance to plug yourself into the heart of God/Goddess and begin to let your life be perfumed with ever-present grace.
While the retreat will be based in love and joy, its leader, Andrew Harvey, is no spiritual lightweight. He is intensely committed to go through whatever humblings and fierce truth-telling is required to open to the full divinity that can move through you.
He offers medicine that can be a very sobering wake-up call, shaking you out of cherished illusions or ways that you escape.
And yet, even while he can be quite passionate (as you may know from his wildly popular online Shift courses), he also knows the true liberating power of joy and reverential worship that can quench your inner thirst and give you the nectar that fuels your greatest work.
He knows that we need to feel the staggering love of the universe in every cell in order for us to truly birth what we are capable of birthing.
That staggering love is not found in intellect alone (although he offers great brilliance there). No, it is found in entering into ecstatic, poetic and celebratory realms together.
That is why he is convening a group of sincere, serious aspirants for five days of sacred journeying with song, poetry, ancient spiritual practices and even dance to ignite a more liberated, powerful and ecstatic way of being in your life.
When you have tasted the joy and power of this kind of sacred community, you are galvanized to go out and create more of it in the world. When you receive this kind of “peak” experience it forever changes the face of your future, giving you a template to move towards.
Make no mistake: the Celebrating the Sacred Marriage retreat will be a truly transformational journey, one that will take you into parts of your being you may have never met, from the glorious heights to the murky shadows.
However, it is journey based in totally unconditional, divine love and it will be undertaken with deep reverence and holy respect for every single aspect of your being.
Andrew’s goal in this journey is nothing less than to liberate your true divine potential. That’s because the world needs you to give your greatest gifts and he aims to help you do so with all the mystical tools he has accumulated in more than 30 years of committed spiritual work.
He believes, or perhaps more rightly KNOWS, that the time has come for us all to take part in the birth of the Divine Human. The Divine Human emerges out of the mysteries of the sacred marriage – an alchemical process in which the opposites in us (particularly masculine and feminine) are fused to create a divine third – the androgynous “love child” that is the Divine Human.
During the journey into the sacred marriage, we reclaim and bow down before the holiness of the Divine Feminine in her full splendor, while at the same time resurrecting the full nobility of the Sacred Masculine, allowing them to dance within our being (and within others).
Only in the sacred marriage can these opposites be reconciled in and as a new human being. It’s this marriage that produces the Divine Androgyne, the new human, the next evolutionary stage.
You may have touched, remembered and even hungered for this vision in your heart, but if you want to fully experience it in a living and breathing way, you’ll need an immersive environment with the right community, right teacher and right practices.
It’s one thing to receive these teachings through the internet – and much depth and beauty can open in that way – but it’s truly an evolutionary next step to do so in communion with other people.
For the five full days of the retreat, you will be invited to step out of your private, individual practices and enter into sacred mutuality.
There is a wholly new level of power when people dedicated to realizing the vision of the Divine Human come together to experience the practices and share together intimately their doubts and needs and passions to inspire and accompany each other.
During the week, you’ll gain a deeper vision of what the Divine Feminine is and how to embody it in the core of your being, heart, mind and soul. You’ll be connected with all the sources of sacred inspiration that lead to richer, more full-spectrum embodiment of the Divine Feminine.
And you’ll do the same with the masculine within you, calling forth clarity and purposeful intensity that can move through your life and the world like a laser.
Through practices, sharing and by embodying what is learned, you will become a more dynamic and adept “dancer” of the Divine, because the embodied Divine Androgyne dares to dance the dance of opposites.
Celebration in community will give you the strength and the energy to move forward as the world continues to experience the painful death of the old and, by grace, the birth of the new.
At this crucial crossroads of history, it is time for the tribe that has been drawn to the remarkable teachings of Andrew Harvey and to the larger project of birthing the sacred marriage on earth to meet one another and celebrate at deeper depths and with more abandon. This is truly a pioneering group at the frontiers of conscious evolution.
These most sincere, committed and advanced pioneers will activate a shared experience of heaven on earth, that will become the ground from which you can engage your sacred service and your passionate activism.This experience will provide you with inspiring fuel for years to come.
Finally, this advanced in-person retreat has been artfully designed to connect you with your deepest mission and turn it into sacred activism. The Celebrating the Sacred Marriage Retreat will help you turn mystical recognition into effective action.
Note that this special retreat is the only one that we will offer in 2015 with Andrew and is limited to only 50 registrants. We expect all the slots will be taken by the more than 2000 graduates of Andrew’s programs, so if you are feeling called to participate, do register right away.
Master Guidance in Sacred Community
When you join the Celebrating the Sacred Marriage Retreat, you will be guided through an epic journey of sacred embodiment in community.
The highly experiential retreat format is designed for serious explorers like you to activate every level of your body, mind and soul. You will receive a profound initiation that will help you awaken to a full-spectrum life – one that is filled with joy, love and service to the important changes of our times.
Andrew Harvey and your fellow classmates are brimming with excitement at the chance to get to know you, further build the community and share experiential practices and transmissions that can only happen face-to-face.
All of this will take place in a beautiful and healing setting. The Earthrise Retreat Center in Northern California sits on 200 acres of rolling oak-studded hills, offering stunning views and sublime peacefulness. Wholesome, healthy food, made of ingredients from the campus gardens, is also included! It is the home campus for The Shift Network, and you'll have a chance to personally connect with staff members you have "met" from afar.
We warmly welcome you to join this journey of inspiration and ecstasy!
Through your embrace of the sacred marriage, you’ll...
- Find true friends on the same path as you all experience this sacred embodiment and spark deep relationships.
- Open to a larger field of divine grace, love and surrender that is only possible in community, and experience what happens in that space.
- Be empowered to create sacred communities in your own world, where you can bring people together to “dance” together in a sacred way.
- Learn how to create sacred relationship to catalyze inspiration and courage.
- Learn to experience and replicate new forms of ritual celebration for refueling and re-inspiring a Divine passion to go forward as a sacred activist.
- Nurture the ecstatic flame at the core of your community.
- Ignite deeper spiritual energies in your body via transformational body practices.
- Enjoy precious time for meditation and practice and be able to share the fruits of your awakenings with others.
- And much more!
This in-person retreat is a rare opportunity to work with an evolutionary teacher and global leader who can guide you to infuse virtually every area of your life with the gifts of greater insight, reverence and love.
You’re also in for some special surprises, including a live Rumi recitation by Andrew!
What you will experience during The Celebratingthe Sacred Marriage Retreat:
The retreat is an initiation into a divine humanity, and into the great love that is both transcendent and embodied that springs to us from the sacred marriage, the marriage of imminence and transcendent in the one
This retreat is an initiation into the joy power energy and passion for life that comes from being awoken to the great life of the divine cosmos
The journey really begins when you wake up to the mysterious sacredness of all life just as it is.
Outline different stages of the initiation and give the map so people can feel secure and held as they undergo a process that will introduce them to the divine in the body heart mind and soul
Intro (Evening): Welcome to the Birthing Chamber
On this first evening, you’ll begin to awaken to the vast love and power of the divine cosmos.
Andrew will outline the different stages of a profound initiation into your divine humanity. Transcendent and embodied, the Divine Human will take form in you, the birthing chamber for the “offspring” of the Sacred Marriage.
This powerful evening will present the mystical map for your incredible journey to come!
Day 1: Dancing in the Marriage of Opposites
The journey will begin with your initiation into a powerful tantric practice that works directly with the golden light of the Mother. This practice will open the centers of the subtle body and infuse it and your physical body with this divine maternal power.
You’ll experience the divine consciousness and energy that is alive within you and deepened through meditation and devotion.
In the afternoon, you’ll engage in this practice in solitude and experience its fruits, fruits, preparing you an evening of Rumi whose work heralds a new kind of human love that transcends dogma and separation and fully embodies the divine.
Andrew will unveil the Rumi Symphony he co-wrote with Hans Christian, a great contemporary composer. The four-part symphony follows the path of divine embodiment as expressed by the world’s greatest mystical poet, set to music to establish a mystical ground of awakening.
During this first day, you will...
- Discover how the divine human cannot be born without the marriage of opposites taking place on every level.
- Experience the mother energy initiating and illuminating your chakras with Sacred Feminine light, bringing the Divine Feminine into your body.
- Receive mystical tools and practices to empower sacred action.
- Immerse yourself in the words of Rumi and the symphony he inspired in Andrew and collaborator Hans Anderson. Rumi was a divine human and is an example of the kind of genius born of the sacred marriage – extraordinary expressiveness, creativity and dynamism.
Day 2: A Radical Redefinition of the
Divine Masculine
Day 2 will be an exploration of the Sacred Masculine that honors, protects, and nourishes the Feminine. But first, we must make a radical shift from the patriarchal, psychotic masculine.
Jesus is an inspiring example representing an amazing depth of union between a very powerful masculine in dedication to life, and feminine in the embodiment of compassion and justice grounded in transcendent intelligence and power. This marriage, at the heart of Jesus’s life and message, invites us to claim the true Sacred Masculine for our own and the world’s redemption.
By candlelight, you’ll discover the magic of one of the greatest religious compositions in the world: The noble, ferocious mass that Beethoven wrote out of the depths of his agony and ecstasy at the end of his life – a tremendous explosion of Christ in Beethoven’s heart and mind.
During this second day, you’ll:
- Reclaim the Sacred Masculine, protector of the Sacred Feminine, also within you.
- Marry the Sacred Masculine with his Beloved, the authentic Sacred Feminine so that you can birth the Divine Human – clear and strong, humble and grounded, and passionate enough to do the great work of helping the world through a major evolutionary crisis.
- Penetrate the veils of ego and watch your identity dissolve as you deepen your relationship with the Sacred Masculine and the Sacred Feminine.
- Integrate these opposites more fully so you can become an effective, empowered sacred activist.
- Learn a transcendent practice to get in touch directly with the absolute Godhead, and that allows you to embody the Sacred Masculine.
- Discover the transcendent power of Beethoven, a mystic as well as a great composer whose deafness caused him terrible suffering – and redemption.
- Have an opportunity to share your experience of the Sacred Masculine through this music.
Day 3: The Revolution of the Mother
The work of Day 3 will be challenging, thrilling and holy. Opening to the Divine Feminine in all of her aspects – light and dark – is not simply an amazing initiation, it is a revolution that grounds you in the current reality and makes you a servant of her passionate and fiery love of justice and compassion.
We are living in the Age of Kali, a time of tremendous destruction that precedes the beginning of a new creation. Dark, yet holy, Goddess Kali gives us the strength to face the destruction and pain of the contemporary world and “dance in the crisis” of our evolution.
As long as the Mother is sentimentalized and softened, narcissism will persist. When we embody both the dark and light aspects of the Mother, we become initiates of sacred activism and channels for her vast healing power.
During this third day, you’ll...
- Restore the fullness of the Sacred Mother, tender and loving but also unbelievably ferocious
- Learn proven practices that connect you with both the light and the dark Mother – the Goddess Kali – so that you can open your heart and mind and become one with Her
- Experience the great power of the dark feminine, surrendering her wrath and desire to destroy so that a new natural order may emerge
- Recognize the beauty hidden in the destructiveness of Kali, who burns with a holy incandescent love that purifies and births creation
- Discover the strength and capacity for your own and others’ liberation through love and action – the ultimate key in the divinization process.
- Be shown the vision of the 5 great passions of the Divine Feminine and the 10 sacred suggestions: The mother’s 10 commandments.
- Open to and experience both the loving and fierce aspects of the feminine through a heart-based practice.
- Awaken your senses and your heart through sacred music by special guests.
Day 4: Sacred Activism – The Ultimate Union of Opposites
On Day 4, the deepest mystical wisdom of the sacred marriage will find full expression. The current consciousness movement, Andrew says, is still hopelessly narcissistic and lost in the transcendent.
Together, we’ll plunge into the 5 shadows of our great crisis and the 5 personal shadows that keep them going. This shadow work is crucial to the birth of the divine human in you.
Only then can we tap the great grace of the Divine Feminine, and through the marriage of opposites within, birth a human being strong enough to face the biggest challenges of our day, luminous enough bear and transcend the pain and powerful enough to engage.
During the fourth day of our journey, you’ll...
- Learn a transformative, alchemical practice of internal sacred activism so that you can take in and transform the suffering of our world.
- Nurture a commitment to sacred practice that is intense enough for working on the invisible levels on the pain of the world.
- Rise to the challenge of the sacred marriage and take your practice beyond the narcissistic concern for your own private liberation – and into the alchemical cauldron of the birth.
- Share ecstatic offerings from the community and join in a dance to the great divas such as Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin in celebration of the wild, Sacred Feminine.
- Bathe in the agony, ecstasy and wildness of these modern shamans of the Divine Feminine, crying out and howling for the victory of love.
- Work with the evolutionary will of the Godhead, practicing to liberate yourself with intensity, commitment and passion.
Day 5 – Let’s Get Real Around Here
The emerging Divine Humanity consists of extraordinary ordinary people acting from the passionate, courageous heart of the Sacred Marriage to solve the planetary crisis and co-create new systems rooted in truth, justice and equality.
Our last day together will be dedicated to sacred practices to embody the divine “out in the world.” You’ll answer the question of how to honor the Sacred Marriage and make personal vows that will lay your own unique path of putting divine love in action.
Andrew will share his deep tips on how to stay inspired in the maelstrom of ordinary life – through sacred practice, music, deep prayer, nature, laughter, and mystical poetry.
On Day 5 you will:
- Vow to channel your deep mystical initiation into real, sacred actions that spring for your soul’s purpose
- Receive tools to identify your mission and guide you in a chaotic world to keep your aligned with the power and passion of the Sacred Marriage
- Learn how to prevent burnout, and maintain your joy and connection with the Divine Human you’ve started to birth
- Discover a deep sacred practice that sustains your alignment with the will of God
- Learn how to create “networks of grace” and sacred circles of people dedicated to one another’s evolution and to pooling resources for stepping forward in sacred action in your own community.
What People Are Saying About Andrew
"Every age has its teachers, who keep the eternal truths alive for all of us. And when a generation is very, very lucky, it encounters a teacher so illumined that the words he delivers must be illumined as well. In the case of Andrew Harvey, the light he sheds is like a meteor burst across the inner sky.”
~Marianne Williamson, author of Everyday Grace
“Andrew is a genius and an inspired visionary who has the ability to interpret the meaning and significance of the chaos and patterns of change that are redirecting the compass of our contemporary culture. Andrew is a spiritual, intellectual, and cultural mystic whose passion is to awaken people to a new and essential empowerment in this world: sacred activism. He has defined and grounded the route, the means, and the way individuals can and should respond to the chaos and rapid changes that now characterize our contemporary spiritual and cultural life. Andrew’s research reflects his superb academic background as a professor at Oxford and his passion clearly reveals that his soul is on fire with a grace that comes from the Divine."
~Caroline Myss, Author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Sacred Contracts
"Amid the myriad challenges we face on earth – the population explosion, environmental degradation, nuclear proliferation, religious fundamentalism, terrorism, war, apocalypse-think, and more – it is easy to be overwhelmed by a sense of futility and hopelessness. Now comes a singularly courageous, charismatic individual, Andrew Harvey, with an answer to all of these challenges: personal transformation and empowerment through an encounter with the divine feminine. This process is not esoteric, but is entirely natural and as near as our own shadow. Harvey’s sacred activism is a corrective to the doomsayers and do-nothings who are part of our problems. He is a modern version of a fiery, Old-Testament prophet, whose words were ignored at great peril. We must attend to Andrew Harvey’s message. Not only will it help us humans regain our sanity, it just might save our skins."
~Larry Dossey, M.D., Author of The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things
About Andrew Harvey
Andrew Harvey is an author, speaker and founder/director of the Institute of Sacred Activism, an international organization focused on inviting concerned people to take up the challenge of our contemporary global crises by becoming inspired, effective and practical agents of institutional and systemic change, in order to create peace and sustainability.
Andrew Harvey has taught at Oxford University, Cornell University, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, The California Institute of Integral Studies, and the University of Creation Spirituality as well as at various spiritual centers throughout the U.S. He was the subject of the 1993 BBC film documentary, The Making of a Modern Mystic, and appears also in Rumi Turning Ecstatic and The Consciousness of the Christ: Reclaiming Jesus for A New Humanity. He is also coauthor of the bestselling The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and has worked with the great Iranian Sufi dancer, Banafsheh Sayyad, in producing a film, In the Fire of Grace, which marries Sufi inspired dances to the stages of Rumi’s understanding of the path of Divine love.
He has written and edited over 30 books and received many awards, including the Benjamin Franklin Award and the Mind Body Spirit Award.
The Retreat Center
Our retreat will be hosted at EarthRise, a beautiful, semi-rural conscious living center located within the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) campus. This is also the office headquarters for The Shift Network, and you’ll have an opportunity to engage with senior Shift Network leaders during your retreat with Andrew.
The Setting
Enjoy being amid 194 acres of rolling hills, where hiking trails meander through pristine native live oak woodlands and the surrounding open space offers panoramic vistas of the California landscape. A beautiful meditative labyrinth made of river stones lies high on the hill overlooking the valley below.
Other special features include a beautiful permaculture garden that provides fruits and vegetables for the kitchen, a meditation hut nestled in a peaceful oak grove, a sweat lodge, a fire circle and multiple sitting areas for quiet contemplation.
Dining
Local ingredients are the inspiration for the menus and include luscious organic fruits and vegetables, free range poultry, hormone-free meat and dairy products and extraordinary cheeses. The kitchen uses organic produce from local farmers and the bounty of their own permaculture garden whenever possible. The chef draws upon flavors and techniques from around the world to create a diverse and alluring cuisine.
Accomodations
EarthRise provides sleeping accommodations that include single, double and couple rooming options. All of the rooms have been recently renovated and are simply and attractively appointed with a desk, clothing bureau, linens, blankets and towels, and include access to a shared kitchen for tea and coffee. All accommodations are situated near one another and next to the retreat space.
Location
EarthRise at IONS is located just 35 minutes north of San Francisco. It is easily accessible from the East Bay and North Bay, as well as from San Francisco.
An Unprecedented Opportunity to Evolve Spiritually
As you may know, this is a rare opportunity to learn directly from a master teacher and connect with a global community of like minds and hearts who are doing this important and transformative inner work.
If you’re serious about embodying the divine human through deep spiritual work, then you owe it to yourself, your loved ones – and our world – to attend this one-of-a-kind retreat.
If you’re ready to be initiated, click the register button below to reserve your space now.
Join the Retreat
The 5-day retreat will take place from April 26-May 1, 2015. Plan to arrive at the retreat center by 5:00pm Pacific on April 26 and depart from the retreat center after 3:00pm Pacific on May 1.
Register now:
$1275 tuition
Room and meals for the week (starting with dinner on Sunday and ending with lunch on Friday):
Commuter – $530
Shared room – $955
Single Room – $1180
More Praise for Andrew Harvey...
“Using humor, passion, and analysis, Andrew Harvey challenges us to wake up and get up off of our couches to become the spiritual activists we all can be. A powerful, provocative, prophetic appeal to sanity and activism for our apocalyptic times, this film is recommended for anyone who cares about the survival of their grandchildren or planet or both. Is anyone listening?”
~Reverend Matthew Fox, author, Creation Spirituality and founder of Wisdom University
“Andrew Harvey is one of the world’s irreplaceable resources.”
~Lance Morrow, writer, Time magazine
“Harvey is probably the greatest living scholar and practitioner of mysticism. There are others more deeply steeped in individual traditions, but few, if any, have so extensively explored such a variety of mystic paths, not just an academic observer but also as a participant.”
~Worcester Magazine
“Andrew Harvey is an enlightened spirit – a messenger from the Divine.”
~Gloria Vanderbilt
"Our world is awash with activism, is drowning in activism, but it is the wrong kind. Andrew Harvey’s sacred activism is the only form that is likely to save us from the narrow, destructive preoccupations that seem to mesmerize us humans. Only an attention to the heart – for "sacred" and "heart" reflect a common meaning – can generate the hope, courage, and vision required for our troubled times. It is important to realize that Andrew Harvey’s message is not a matter of philosophy, but of survival."
~ Barbara Dossey, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN
Frequently Asked Questions
