"Sacred Words taught me to stop viewing midlife with dread and denial and to approach it as a richly spiritual time. The class offered well-researched, quality lectures, materials that I keep re-reading, and carefully selected movies on midlife. A highly original course that integrated the healing power of oral storytelling, film, and the written word."
Beth Milwid, Ph.D.
Psychologist/management consultant
"Sacred Words was like a graduate course in life transitions. Valerie gave us the space to be truthful with ourselves and made room for our unspoken words. You will be graciously received and enriched in these classes. A priceless investment in your future and your emerging self."
Rose Sachs, entrepreneur
"The films allowed me to relieve my own experiences and dive deep in a short amount of time. Plus I gained new confidence in my ability to use the writen word. An opportunity not to be missed."
Margaret Wilkinson, Ph.D.
Psychologist
"I was amazed by the way Sacred Words blended so many disciplines, combining a philosophical perspective with psychology. The course is so full it will exceed your expectations."
Michelle Wolpe, Corporate Commmunications Director
"At Sacred Words we focused on the universal human struggles. It was like seeing the Greek dramas: We arrived expecting to deal with major life issues and initiations, watched these potent themes on film, then considered how they show up in our daily lives."
Molly Schardt, Museum Educator
SEMINARS
Sacred Words: A Center for Healing Stories was founded in 1993 with a grant from Laurance S. Rockefeller, as an educational non-profit. The organization helps women move through major life transitions using the film, literature and mythology and the insights of Jungian psychology.
Previous seminars have included
- Meetings with Remarkable Women
- Sexuality and Soul
- Gifts & Shadows: The Challenge of the Unlived Life
- Risks and Transitions
- The Eyes of Love: Anatomy of Relationship
- The Women's Writing Circle
- A Dialogue with Soul and Fate
Future seminars:
CONJURING THE MUSE
"What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for Spirit." John Updike
This workshop is designed for women who wish to deepen their connection with the Creative Unconscious. The group will explore techniques to jumpstart the creative process, ways to identify your major themes and tell a story in the proper style or voice, how to draw on the different typologies (thinking, feeling, intuition and sensation) to create a balanced product, when to incubate your ideas and when to ask for feedback, and finally, how to protect yourself when you bring a project out into the world.
ROUNDING THE CURVE
"The new image of aging: growth in self and service to all mankind." Ethel Percy Andrus
This seminar will help women over the age of 55 to find new vision, energy and healing as they round the curve in the second half of life. Participants will learn about the relationship of creativity to longevity and psychological wellbeing and identify their major life themes. Tools include dreamwork, journalling, film, Jungian archetypes and guided imagery.
Equal time given to consolidating and understanding the wisdom participants have accumlulated so far, and to discovering how they are being called to share this with family, friends, and colleagues and the community at large.
