Blue Door Retreat - Speaking Engagements / Seminars

The great need of our time is for people to be connected to spirit; for people to be connected to a core of feeling in themselves that makes their lives vital and full of meaning, that makes life a mystery evermore to be uncovered.
• Harold Stone, from Sandplay

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Labyrinthe, from Chartres Cathedral. Imagery from www.gracecathedral.org

Nothing interesting or important ever happens in a straight line. In fact, it is the quickest way to the wrong place. And do not pretend to know where you are going, because if you know where you are going, it means you have already been there, and you will only end up right where you started.

— from the play, Snake Talk

Walk to the well. turn as the earth and the moon turn, circling what they love. Whatever circles comes from the center.

—Rumi

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Alexander's Speaking Engagements

Alexander Shaia, PhD

Alexander's book has been released
Beyond the Biography of Jesus: The Journey of Quadratos, Book I
Cold Tree Press, 2006
This book gives the real reason the early Christians selected the four traditional gospels. In their original reading sequence, Matthew, Mark, John and Luke, are the path of spiritual and psychological transformation and the keys to a fulfilled life.

To read more or to order, go to www.quadratos.com.

2008

Contact Alexander: alexander@bluedoorretreat.com

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Seminars offered by Alexander

Ritual Leader
• Marriages and Memorials
• Rites of Initiation
• Rites of Passage: Adolescent and Mid–Life
• How to Create and Sustain Depth Ritual

Depth Psychology
• Sandplay: Initial and Advanced Trainings
• Sandplay Training Cases:

"Shandro:" early–30’s, gay black man with AIDS.

"Bob:" mid–life heterosexual Caucasian man who has lost his wife and wrestles with homicidal fantasies.

"Eva:" mid–life heterosexual Caucasian woman whose marriage is dying and she has fallen asleep.

"Eric:" pre–adolescent boy suffering the end of his mother’s marriage.

• Sandplay as Meditation and Psychotherapy
• The Navajo Myth of the Twins (Monster Slayer and Child of Water)

– a myth of two men growing in co–operation

• The Dark Earth in a Man’s Psyche

– the Trickster–Stag and myths of healing darkness for men

• The Dark Earth in a Woman’s Psyche

– Innana and the myths of healing darkness for women

• New Perspectives in Masculine Psychology; The Double Phallus Theory
• Men’s Spirituality and Eros
• Breaking Apart / Coming Together? The Three Genders: (Female, Male and Gay–Lesbian–Bisexual–Transgendered)
• Bridge between Depth Psychology and Spirituality
• Depth Psychology and Religion, of Religion, as Religion?

Spirituality
• Art as Meditation and Spiritual Practice
• The Labyrinth: Metaphor for the Seven Movements of the Spiritual Path
• The Four Christian Gospels as Labyrinth Walk and Mandala
• The Baptismal Triduum (Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday) as a way to heal divisions within a spiritual community.
• Restoring the Spirituality of the Great 100 Days (Ashes to Pentecost)
• The Three–Year Sunday Cycle of Gospel Readings:
One Story ~ Four Seasons

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Philosophy of Teaching

As teacher and consultant, I aspire to be a fair witness, enabling another to appreciate traditional knowledge while accessing her or his own. Initiation is an apt metaphor for my teaching as the goal is to have another ‘dis–cover’ her or himself. And like true initiations, the teacher’s own growth is required. Through the practice of beginner’s mind, I seek to let–go of what I ‘know’ and to hold the other through the uncertain journey to new wisdom.

Along this path, we walk with two staffs: body–knowing and depth imagery. I understand each person (at minimum) is trilingual. In infancy, we acquire our two primary languages: body and imagery. Consensual words are our third language, developing after the language of body–image. Psychology reveals that the deepest human experience is held in one’s earliest language. Body–imagery, I believe, is that primary language. Body and depth imagery hold our core experiences and questions, and are the soil from which verbal language emerges.

Growth in wisdom is best facilitated through these first languages. Whether exploring the scriptures of psyche, sacred texts, ritual, dream, sandplay or art, the knowing in body and depth imagery is primary. Where these two are enlivened, creativity and integrity arise.

To live from one’s depths is to access the images that flow at our core. This is the well that nourishes the dark and light times of life, animates soul, and calls us to live from wisdom. Enabling such depth is the highest aim of my work. While not always reached, it remains my striving and mark.
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