“The least of things with a MEANING is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it” - C.G.Jung
Yes WE ASK… What’s Your Reason for BEING HERE… on this website? Why are you seeking to join us on a Dirt Temple Retreat?
Ask yourself:
Even though you’ve already done self-development courses, read books, worked with a therapist and attended retreats do you still feel ‘something is missing’?
Are you tired of a diet of psychological junk food, the TikTok-ification of spirituality and Podcast bro’s psuedo-wisdom? We are too! Do you crave something different and deeper?
Are you weary of shallow certainty, quick fixes, false promises and transient transformation – can you spot the superficial bullshit?
Have you lost a sense of the ‘sacred’ and does organised religion or naive beliefs feel unsatisfying?
Have you done all of the ‘right’ things – followed to strict diet, listened to the guru, diligently attended pilates and yoga yet still struggle with anxiety, depression, loneliness and micro-traumas?
Right now, do I want to be with myself more deeply than ever before without racing to change myself quickly?
Can I sit with uncertainty and complexity without racing to “fix” things straight away?
Am I wise enough to see the crumbling of societal systems and structures and want to be someone who is navigating through the upheaval with grit as well as grace?
Are my relationships shallow, am I isolated and alienated from family and community?
Am I called back to something that feels simple and old: land, love and lore?
Am I noticing, or even caught up, in the “meaning crisis” feeling tired and wired? Depressed and disconnected?
Put simply Dirt Temple is for those who want grounded practices, relational integrity, centered presence and a smart skill-set over dogma, spectacle or guarantees.
Attending the Dirt Temple retreat will challenge you to ‘wake-up, ‘grow-up’ and ‘show-up’.
‘Too many heads are in the clouds while many more struggle to just keep theirs above water’
“There is a hunger that cannot be satisfied by bread alone” - Simone Weil
Dirt Temple addresses the central wound of our age: the collapse of meaning.
Once upon a time we found health and healing in religion; neighbourhood gatherings, interconnected communities, aspirational sermons and the study of ancient scriptures. To greater and lesser degrees of success, religious structures at least had an express purpose: to cultivate wisdom and, by extension, meaning. Inspired by secularism and scientism, we find ourselves without the deep roots of eldership, fellowship and discipleship that once grew from these ancestral ways of relating.
We now find ourselves in the throes of a mental health crisis in addition to a crisis of faith. Along with a crisis of conscience, a financial crisis, a drug crisis together with a housing crisis. Character, community and culture are crumbling before our eyes.
The sacred needs to take on new forms with ever increasingly cultural complexification. Secular spirituality sees us increasingly susceptible to a narrowing of experience, knowledge, and association. As siloed, self-appointed rulers to our own fortified king and queendoms, we neglect to cultivate a well-rounded ecology of psychospiritual practices to guard against self-delusion, self-indulgence and self-destruction. From within our respective echo-chambers, tribalism, narcissism and cynicism are too easily sprouting.
In our algorithmically curated echo-chambers we are increasingly isolated, opinionated and full of hatred. Where religion once provided fellowship and mentorship it now feels outdated at best and downright dangerous at worst. In it’s place we are witnessing the rise of faux-spirituality and modern pseudo-religions which have taken root in the proverbial ruins of that toppled temple.
Cults spring up around celebrity rather than good character, sermons on selfishness masquerade as self-care, we take sacraments for the “good feels” and the spiritual bypassing, we are devoted to a liturgy that gives license to do little more than “shine bright cupcake”.
At Dirt Temple you will discover a map to help you navigate the “full catastrophe” of our modern predicament. You will sharpen your wisdom across all domains: noetic, somatic and erotic, emotional, relational and practical.
Expect to be disoriented – and then reoriented toward something deeper, richer and healthier. At Dirt Temple you will encounter practices that deconstruct, map and refine intelligence across all domains; noetic intelligence, emotional intelligence, somatic intelligence, relational and erotic intelligence.
