It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.
– Wendell Berry
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Take a moment to imagine the most meaningful educational experience possible. Then, like me, imagine embarking on the life changing journey of going to the Institute. Engaging in the educational process at the Institute provided me the invaluable opportunity to enhance my willingness to participate in daily life as both a learner and a teacher. In a unique and compelling fashion, the Institute’s staff and faculty mentor students towards developing those capacities necessary to become a powerful and effective psychological practitioner who can serve the larger community with compassion and respect. Embracing the Institute’s encouragement of its students to strive towards cultural leadership in both professional practice and personal life, continues to be a challenging experience fully worth its immeasurable reward.
The Institute’s programs provide a careful weaving of theory, practice, and leadership development out of which each student tailors her or his own unique garment of meaning. As a diversity consultant for many years, I longed for a way to bring depth, complexity, and respect to the mystery of my work. The Institute’s curriculum provided a crucible wherein my imagination was ignited, enabling me to bring fresh ideas and my own unique contributions to the communities in which I work.
Thirty years ago I became a Marriage and Family Therapist. Decades later, seasoned by life experiences, I returned to graduate school to deepen my own journey. I found a program at the Institute that integrated, within its academic requirements, challenges that engendered a richer and more expansive level of beingness to my life and work. The Institute of Imaginal Studies is truly a transformative program.
I never imagined that a graduate program in psychology could offer the power of a transformative learning community, deeply inspiring faculty, and a creative and engaging curriculum. The Institute cultivated my leadership skills and capacities, fostering a deeper engagement with my own passion for personal and cultural transformation. It has transformed my life personally and professionally, and empowered me to reimagine my soul's unique contribution to transforming the larger culture.
After being an established Marriage and Family Therapist I had a deeper knowing that something was missing. I wanted to do soul work within the context of community. My cohort life at the Institute of Imaginal Studies provided the opportunity for my desires to manifest. The Institute’s curriculum, which emphasizes expression through ritual, imagination, and creativity within the complexities and challenges of community-making, invited the awakening of my soul. I engaged in relationships in ways I had not known in my family. This experience has opened my heart, freed my spirit, supported my growth, and allowed me to be more effective in my work as a healer.
Years after completing my doctorate, the education I received at the Institute of Imaginal Studies continues to offer me guiding principles, as well as deepened capacities for self-awareness and tolerance, which I draw upon each and every day; my education feels like a living organism that continues to ripple forth. Furthermore, the power of the Institute's learning community structure catalyzed me to bring my psychological training into the political realm, towards work I never imagined myself doing: the healing of my own, local community.
The IIS experience was about more than just getting a degree. It was an invitation to explore and connect deeply with what matters most in this world, and to get grounded in the fundamentals of what it means to be alive as a human being. By answering this call to adventure, I found much more than an education. I found myself.
For the last 15 years I have yearned to return to school in pursuit of my Ph.D. However, I hesitated for all this time as I could not find the program I was thirsting for, until I discovered the Institute. The integrated nature of the curriculum, the mastery of the faculty, and the courage that the practices of transformative learning require, have served to deepen my work as an organizational development consultant. More importantly, the educational journey at the Institute offers methodologies and practices to assist students in the rigors of deep learning. This has awakened in me a hunger for community as well as a liberating imagination–these have become a doorway into critical inquiry with the soul.Copyright © 2008 Institute of Imaginal Studies. All rights reserved.
