Thank You for Coming to the Workshop!
No matter how you feel in your existing storylines, your emotional experiences can serve as pathways to life-giving spiritual connection. I created this forum as an Ongoing Spiritual Practice to offer encouragement in your life, without requiring you add more to your plate. I believe this content will build off of the workshop in a way that, with practice, will fruit more good in the world as we learn & share from each other. Books, Meditations and Reflections Await You!
“And the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
Galatians 5:22-34
What the practice is based on:
We are part of something bigger
Spirituality is a spectrum. Your life has given you unique experiences of everyday miracles, inspirational mountain top moments and gritty, painful suffering. In these experiences, something outside of you occurred and effected you internally. Your words for what that bigger thing is may vary but the belief this practice stands by is that all truth is God’s truth. God holds both darkness and light. Nobody is excluded.
There is a Spirit that dwells in us
There is form and there is formation. Spirit is the moving quality in and around you, that stirs you. Recognizing qualities of the fruit of the Spirit in your life presents an opportunity for a technicolor life of intention, perspective and connection.
Ancient Text is Important
Reading work that has “lived for a very long time” offers realizations, insights and even peace of mind as you reflect on themes from your modern life lived out in completely different settings. Myth, poetry, inspired work all have a potent ability to offer comfort and inspiration.
I have found in my Yoga studies a new appreciation of my Christian upbringing. “Accept pain (heat) as purifying, study spiritual books (ancient text), and surrender to the Supreme Being (that which is bigger than you) constitute Yoga (union) in practice.”
Yoga Sutra 2.1
When I first started studying the Spirit, it was because of my anxiety.
I was raised to understand there was a “God that dwells in you” that offered peace, so I prayed every day for that peace to show up. It had been 3 or 4 weeks of praying and waiting when I called my dad for some insight.
I asked him how this whole thing was supposed to work. He said “the Spirit is active the moment you believe the Spirit is active.”
The idea I could have the exact amount of patience I needed in a moment as soon as I believed I had it, the exact amount of self control I needed as soon as I believed I had it, was revolutionary to me.
I have spent over twenty years studying ancient text for truths to stir my sense of self, to navigate tough times and to feel alive in my spirituality at all times. (Like “when I am cleaning up dog throw up” kind of all times.)
So that’s what we do here. We take what we feel, use ancient text as a lens to see it and feel confident in our lives.
Emotional resourcefulness and how to use your heart to connect with God is a major, foundational, keystone apple here on Apple Tree Magic. Oh, also - my experience is when the Spirit is moving, life is hilarious and fun.
— Erin
I believe learning about each other’s spirituality is a rich way to get to know our own.
Using Emotions as a Spiritual Practice
Let’s get to it.