The Curriculum | a deliberate design

I have spent the last twelve years reading and tracing patterns of growth in the process of how humans come home to themselves, in the hopes of synthesizing my research into a streamlined blueprint.

The blueprint is meant to be a lantern illuminating the path forward—-a reminder there is precedent for this journey, and many pilgrims who have already walked the path. The framework of the blueprint is meant to sustain you and offer clarity as you move along the path.

Although by no means exhaustive, I draw from many wisdom and belief traditions, in the hopes of creating multiple points of access for people in all stages of self-discovery.

The curriculum mirrors the healing cycle found in Joseph Campbell’s model of the Hero’s Journey, as well as Bobbie Harro’s Cycles of Socialization and Liberation, as well as the natural world

The curriculum takes you through 3 semesters:

  • Semester 1: Deconstruction

  • Semester 2: Reconstruction

  • Semester 3: Integration

Each semester is broken down into monthly Curriculum + Coursework.

A bit more background on the writing of the Curriculum:

When I began writing the Curriculum in 2014, I wrote from a predominately Christian perspective because that was how I was raised and the lens through which I viewed the world.

My work from 2014-2018 allowed the discomfort of radical proximity to all kinds of people to expand my worldview and perspective of the Divine, decentering the Judeo-Christian worldview. I wrote and rewrote the Curriculum, looking for commonalities in wisdom traditions, the ways we all tap into Source and drink from the river below the river: “Rio Abajo Rio” (Clarissa Pinkola Estes).

In 2018, I began working with a mentor/elder and the Director of the Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research at CSU to decenter whiteness in the Curriculum. I started auditing classes at CSU and again studying and reading and having my mind blown by all the BIPOC activists charting the path home to True Self. It was my time to reckon with my privilege and the accompanying blind spots.

From 2018 to present, my work with the Curriculum has taken me on a journey into the connection between mind and body through Mindfulness, Nervous System Regulation, Trauma-Informed Practices, and Neuroscience. I have received a certification in Mind/Body Coaching through The Embody Lab, and training in energy work through SourcePoint. The current Curriculum reflects a decentering of intellect and analysis, a return to the wisdom held in our bodies, a greater understanding of the nervous system and trauma-informed practices, and the profound work of pleasure as a form of activism (thank you adrienne maree brown).

Everything in the Curriculum comes out of the quiet and unsung work of sitting with discomfort, humbling myself to learn, mining my personal history and the collective history of my culture and upbringing, and making meaning in community by listening to so many other humans on the journey.