Welcome, you seekers of awakened life, you wanderers in Mystery, you change-makers. Welcome, you who seek a home for your indigenous soul, you who want to burst with new fruit. Welcome you who are new sap in the old tree, who want to re-member and re-make the Holy stories, who want to open their mouth and let out the fierce new songs that feed this world and the otherworld. Come, you dreamers, hopers, and workers for the Sacred Earth, come join this spacious and practical path of learning.  To reserve a spot or ask questions email Jaime Meyer: drummingthesoulawake@gmail.com

The School of the Flowering Mystery is a place for learning core skills emerging from indigenous sacred traditions.

This is challenging training in ritual, ceremony and shamanic practice.  It’s both communal and individualized. You’ll learn with others in a community of trust, confidentiality, openness and fun. You’ll also receive specific instruction for your specific needs. You will learn ancient, cross cultural ways of working directly with Spirit(s), and relevant, specific practices drawn from a variety of cultures. You will build sacred tools, you will learn how to create and work in sacred space. You will learn how to work with plant medicine and with ancestral energies. You will build a profound relationship with Spirit and you will understand how these skills are to be used to help, heal and nurture the world.

This is a path of commitment, discipline and leadership.

It’s structured as a series of monthly Friday evening/Saturday all-day workshops with homework assigned before and after each communal gathering.  Each weekend will be packed nearly to overwhelming with “downloads” of spiritual, historical and artistic information. Each weekend will be full of prayer, ceremony and hands-on art making. But a great deal of your growth and success will be determined by your commitment to completing the homework.

You may commit to the entire year of study in February 2012 (at a steep discount overall) or you may attend selected weekends. Students who commit to the year-long program will be able to work closely with the two teachers to address your specific situation, questions, dilemmas, doubts and powers, and receive individualized ceremonial assignments. While you need no previous skill or experience to participate, this is not intended to be an easy course of study. It will take dedication, courage and the willingness to confront your own fears and blockages. It’s designed for the student who has been looking for a deeper path of study. In the weekend workshops, core shamanic skills will be taught (for example, shamanic journeying, prayer-making, singing, drumming). Each weekend is connected deeply into cross-cultural traditions of where we are on the wheel of the year, and our work is connected to the spirits of this landscape. You will leave each weekend energized, astonished, daunted, refreshed, deepened and humbled. You will also emerge from each weekend with a new skill, and often, new ceremonial object(s) to add to your tool kit. You who work through the year-long study will emerge with a wide range of practical, beautiful core skills (inner and outer) in ceremony, ritual and shamanic practice. You will emerge with a sense of confidence and clarity about your spiritual path, relationship to the Sacred, your service to the world, and your purpose in this life.

The Teachers

Teresa Riley-Baecker has been trained in traditional Lakota, Dine and Celtic Medicines from her Grandparents and has studied with teachers and elders from Native American, European, South American, African, Tibetan, Chinese and Indian Traditions, including Malidoma Some, Martin Prechtel, and Jalaja Bonheim. She has been facilitating sacred circles, ceremony, rituals, community gatherings and rites of passage for over 25 years. She is Director of Tara's Hearth Center in Excelsior, Minnesota.

Jaime Meyer’s eclectic background includes earning a Masters' degree in theology and the arts from United Seminary of the Twin Cities and 25 years of study with a variety of shamanic teachers, human and otherworldly. His book Drumming The Soul Awake is an often funny and touching account of his journey to become what some call an urban shaman. For 12 years he has led popular ceremonial drumming events around the Twin Cities including eight years of sold-out Winter Solstice ceremonies. Twenty of his plays have been produced in various cities across the USA. Among others, he has studied with Ailo Gaup, Martin Prechtel and Sandra Ingerman. He has also completed a two-year Celtic shamanism training with Tom Cowan.

Communal Gathering Times

Friday evenings from 7 to 10 pm and Saturdays from 10 am to 4 pm, basically once per month. See the full schedule below.

Tuition Fees  

• $1500 for full year (12 workshops). Includes 3 individual sessions with teachers and a weekend retreat at a resort in the north woods. Additional $200 for supplies for the year.  
• Each selected workshop has its own price. Please see the detailed schedule below. As a comparison, the 12 workshops taken alone, plus supplies, plus individualized teaching would total approximately $2,400.

Payment

• For full year membership, payment of half at the beginning and half midway.
• Otherwise, payment before your selected weekend.
• Some flexibility on payment is possible – talk to us. While we want to make the study as economically accessible as possible, this is a path that requires your commitment, and scholarships are very limited in scope.
• To reserve a spot or ask questions email Jaime Meyer: drummingthesoulawake@gmail.com

Refund Policy

You may drop out after your first class with a full refund.

Workshop Schedule

Each workshop contains a great deal of information, prayer work, sacred activity, and dialogue linking the specific activity to cross-cultural practices, the wheel of the year and power of the seasons. Each weekend assumes students do certain tasks before and after the communal gathering. Part of the skill building in this school is the act of discerning and gathering the needed materials. The descriptions below are intended to distill what is a powerful and comprehensive weekend’s work into its most graspable activities.     

Tending the Seer’s Bundle: Divination

Friday, February 10, 7 pm – 10 pm

Saturday, February 11, 10 am – 4 pm.

Saint Paul Council of Churches Building,

1671 Summit Avenue (two blocks west of Snelling)

Core Skills learned: Divination, Truth-Telling and Purification.

In this time of winter’s dark, the time of prophecy, visioning, and seeing into other realms of life, we identify and gather our personal objects to learn the ancient skill of divination. This is the practice of using specific tools and sacred objects to ask for guidance and healing from the Spirit world, and help us (and those we serve) materialize our dreams and hopes in this world. The weekend begins with a purification ceremony and moves into building a cloth “map” of the cosmos upon which the objects for divination are dispersed. You will leave the weekend having made your own sacred divination bundle, and with an understanding of how to use the tools and objects to perform divinations. We will undo the limits of pop psychology and marketplace shamanism which analyze and interprets the dream for us, and we will remember the far more profound (and truthfully, frightening) knowledge of what it means to trust and follow the dream, and to embody it. Cost for this weekend only: $150 includes materials.

Sacred Clothing for Protection and Blessing

March 16 (7-10pm)

March 17, (10am-4pm)

Core Skills learned:  Transformation of raw materials into forms of ceremonial clothing or art.

In this time of the spring equinox we create ceremonial clothing and/or decorations as objects of spiritual protection for us and gifts of beauty to the Deep Mothers of Earth and Greening Fathers of Spring. You will leave the weekend having made your own cloth or leather shirt, skirt, moccasins, pouch or Celtic clootie (strip of cloth with prayers embedded to attach to your drum or somewhere else). We will explore the cross-cultural ways of the healer as we pay attention to that which has deep heart and meaning in our lives. Cost for this weekend only: $150 includes some materials.

The Portable House of the Holy: Rattle Making

Friday, April 6 (7pm-10-pm)

Saturday April 7 (10am-4pm)

Core Skills learned: rattle making, “shrine” making.

The rattle is a primary shamanic ally and ceremonial tool throughout time and across cultures. It is a tool for journeying to the other world, and for gathering power. The rattle has immense and nuanced powers for your practice. We will build rattles of animal skin or gourds, and you will fill them with objects powerful and meaningful to you. We will explore the traditions and stories of the initiations into your ancestral lineages, shrine making and tending, and cross-cultural ways of the Warrior - the many ways you are called to show up in the world and bring to leadership that which needs to be tended to like a sweet fawn or a new plant greening in the world. Cost for this weekend only: $150 includes materials.

Making a Home for the Wild Indigenous Soul to Flower

A north woods weekend retreat

May 18, 19, and 20 (Friday evening through Sunday afternoon)

Location: Crow Wing Crest Resort, 3 ½ hours north of the Twin Cities

In the lovely, comfortable north woods setting of Crow Wing Crest Resort, with the help of the lake, land, trees, lodge, fire and sauna, we will act as a community to construct a house from the branches of the sister willow. Those who are called to it may live in the house for the weekend (or you may sleep in the super-comfy cabins we have rented). The willow is a powerful healing spirit and building a house for her is an incredible act of communal beauty that unleashes surprising powers in the participants. In the building of the House of the World we will remember how to make physical and spiritual homes for our wild indigenous soul to live in and flower for the world. How do we trust and stay open to life?  How do we serve our dreams, our wisdom, our families, our loved ones, our communities?  How do we let go of that which challenges us?  That which scares us?  That which blocks us from living our true nature? Cost for this weekend only: $250

Feeding the Mouths of the Sun: Drum Making

Friday, June 15 (7-10pm)

Saturday 16, (10-4pm)

Core Sills Learned: Sacred drum, sacred tool.

In this time of fire festivals around the world we make drums either for ourselves or to gift to someone (a very powerful act). We learn what it means to make a drum in a sacred manner, which is more than merely making an object that we play. We fill it with prayers and powers, with humility and honor. It becomes a living member of the family, and not an object. If you already have a spirit drum, this weekend can also be used to “remake” it spiritually. This weekend we connect to our powers as healers, and we focus on what it means to develop a strong, clear heart, “wholeheartedness,” a “heart ready for anything.”   We learn what it means to feed the Sacred Grandfathers and Grandmothers of the Sun who shine endlessly feeding the life of Mother Earth and all her creatures.  Cost for this workshop only: $200

Plant Medicine: Tending to the Standing Peoples and the Watery Soul

Friday July 6 (7-10pm)

Saturday July 7 (10am-4Pm)

Core Skill Learned: practices for connecting to a plant ally, connecting with trees.

In this weekend you will learn the shamanic practice of building a relationship with a plant ally. We will focus on Sage, Tobacco, Sweetgrass, Willow and Pine, but ultimately the plant you use will be between you and the plant spirit that calls to you. We will explore stories, practices and ways of connecting to the soul life of trees, plants, wind and water. We will remember some of the roads home to the deep natured soul life of humans and others in the Earth Mother’s many creations and creatures.  We will reconnect with our interwoven, interrelated connections in the world of Nature.  You will also learn to make prayers with medicine plants, you will make a water rattle or rain stick, and learn traditional ways to work deeply with trees. Cost for this workshop only: $125 plus materials.

Nature as Teacher: The Song of Power

Friday, August 3 (7-10 pm)

Saturday August 4 (10am-4pm)

Core Skill learned: opening the voice, acquiring a power song

In this time of the harvest of the first fruits, we will move out into nature and practice silence, openness and asking for the powers of nature to rise up through us in the form of a power song. This is a simple sounding action carries enormous power and impact, and the power song becomes a constant companion for you to soothe, protect, and beautify you in your daily life and for those you work with. Like the drum, rattle, clothing and objects, the power song is a foundational shamanic tool in your skill-kit. Cost for this workshop only: $175

Sacred Threshold: Tending the Doorways that Open to us in Life and Death and Life

Friday September 21 (78-10pm)

Saturday September 22 (10am-4pm)

Core Skill learned: creating sacred space for ritual or ceremony, leadership.

In this time of the autumnal equinox and harvest, we are made aware of the threshold between worlds where each feeds the other.  We gather to learn practices, prayers and protections involved in safely opening, working within and closing sacred space – the space between the worlds, where Spirit meets human. We will explore how to honor the harvest, both inner and outer. We will explore many stories and practices of how we move from this world to the other world and back again. Those enrolled in the year-long program will use many of the acquired tools, powers and skills they have made in the previous months of work in this weekend. Cost for this workshop only: $125

Gathering into the Ancestral Worlds: Mask Making as Food for the Ancestors

Friday, October 12 (7-10 pm)

Saturday October 13 (10am-4pm)

Core Skill: Making and embodying a spirit mask

As we approach Halloween, the Celtic Samhain (pronounced SOW-when), we move into powerful work with the ancestors. The ancient process of making a sacred mask is an unbelievably potent way to connect with, learn from and heal your ancestors. The masks made in this workshop are designed to become a fundamental ceremonial element of the public ceremony (October 27) of feeding the ancestors. You will make a mask as an offering to your ancestors and learn the concepts and practices of safely embodying the mask through dance or other movement. Cost for this workshop only: $150, with minor extra cost for materials

The Medicine Bundle: Working with Power Animals

Friday, November 16 (7-10pm)

Saturday November 17, (10am-4pm)

With possible preparation gathering November 9-10

Core Skill learned: making a medicine bundle as an expression of our connection to a power animal(s), the shamanic journey.

Whether or not you have worked with otherworldly guides this workshop will offer you practical techniques for safely opening yourself to the helping powers of the spirits or take you to a new level in that work. This kind of work is basic to the ancient shaman’s path and also a source of joy and healing in today’s out-of-balance world. You will use shamanic journeying, drumming, rattling, prayers, and other traditional practices in this work. Cost for this workshop only: $150 plus materials

The Dance of the Bone Mother, Skeleton Man and the Reindeer Goddess

Friday, December 14 (7-10 pm)

Saturday December 15 (10am-4pm)

Core skills learned: making a sacred bundle of bones, ceremonial staff making.

As we move inward toward Winter Solstice and the deep dreaming time, we work with the stories and the figures of the Old Bone Mother (Celtic) and the Skeleton Man (Hopi). We will learn their powers, and we will learn their purifying dance. The third spirit in the mix in the Reindeer Goddess (Nordic), the bringer of renewal and connection to the beating heart of creation. Each participant will make a sacred bundle containing bones, and also a sacred staff, learning to use its powers. Cost for this weekend only: $150 plus materials

New Sap in the Old Tree: Serving the Community

Friday, January 11 (7-10pm)

Saturday, January 12 (10am-4pm)

Core skills learned: Fire breathing, grounding practices, closing rituals, gift making.

Through prayer, the shamanic journey, and other practices we will discern our path of service and the gifts that we are meant to offer the community in this world. Those new to the program will use this weekend as a building block for the work to come. Those completing the year-long program will use this weekend as a culmination and closing ceremony of initiation into leadership and service to the community. Cost for this weekend only $125