I. The Desert

The Desert of Post-Modernity

Active imagination as the heart’s response to a disenchanted world

Theoretical focus

• The “desert” as a symbol of post-modernity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Jung
  
  
• The loss of the mytho-poetic ground of Being in modern society
  
  
• Active imagination as a response to fragmentation, nihilism, and soul-loss
  
  
• Gelassenheit — releasement, non-willfulness, and resting in emptiness
  
  

Practical focus

• Introduction to the principles and stages of active imagination
  
  
• Cultivating the inner attitude of receptivity and imaginal listening
  
  
• Beginning a dream journal and tracking imaginal material
  
  
• Cacao ceremony as imaginal practice and collective initiation of the course