‘The nature-based journey of soul initiation is the way to personal revelation, visionary leadership, and cultural regeneration’
- Animas Valley Institute
At various moments of our lives, there comes a point of blessed bliss and horror when it feels like the veil between the worlds is stirring. A moment when everything seems to whisper to your ear far away secrets about there being more to life than it seems, bewildering questions about the point and meaning of it all, and searing longings to merge with mountain lakes and Cedar roots. A moment of devastating grief for a beloved person, being or place that has been taken away from us. A time of fiery rage at the state of our world and a consuming pull to ‘do something about it’ and ‘be useful’. Whether it is a separation, an illness or a travel return that will have brought these about, or whether it is your night-time dreams or day-light imaginings causing trouble in paradise, we are inevitably brought to these crossroads moments. And so a choice presents itself: to continue as usual, forcing a reassuring ‘back to normal’ in order to keep fitting in, no matter the widening chasm deep within, or we can choose to listen to ourselves and inquire – follow the breadcrumbs.
What if there was a unique place for each and everyone of us on this planet? What if each one of us – just like Salmon, Oak or Moon – had a unique role to play, a unique place of service, a unique place of belonging to a wider web of life? What if all living beings, visible and invisible, were indeed connected, constantly affecting each other, depending on each other, at any given moment? An inter-dependent web of life, in which belonging is found not by striving to fit in, but by embodying our unique truth. And what if each of us knew, deep, deep, down, what our mission for this life is? What if our bodies hearts and souls knew, but our egos had forgotten, ridden by generations of trauma, wounding, and soul-destroying culture? What if, by gradually exploring those whispers deep inside, we could re-member, bit by bit? What if there was a Sacred ongoing Conversation, as large as the Cosmos itself, longing for us to participate? What if the most vital thing we could do for Earth in those treacherous times, was to remember what it is we came here to do – and then do it?
Using a constellation of ancestral and contemporary practices and perspectives including Soul-centrism, Eco-psychology, Nature Connection, Rituals and ceremonies, Energy medicine, Deep Imagination, Dreamwork and more, Via Magus will make it their sole purpose to help you re-member your unique life purpose, and support you on your journey to root your life in that deeper, more authentic place of belonging. This journey of re-membering has been known since the beginnings of Man as the journey of Soul Initiation. It is a treacherous journey of dying and birthing of your identity, an expansive dance with the natural cycles of Creation, a tango of grief and falling in love over and over, a whirlwind of shedding, transforming and re-imagining, a confronting and liberating tête-à-tête with decades and centuries of individual and collective trauma, a crossing of the desert for the pilgrim thirsty for life-enhancing service, a no-return quest to your unique soul-truth. That place, and that journey, is the one Via Magus are dedicated to guiding you on.
(…) There is only one life
you can call your own
and a thousand others
you can call by any name you want.
Hold to the truth you make
every day with your own body,
don’t turn your face away.
Hold to your own truth
at the center of the image
you were born with.
Those who do not understand
their destiny will never understand
the friends they have made
nor the work they have chosen
nor the one life that waits
beyond all the others. (…)
- All the True Vows, David Whyte