Re-enchant your life as a Nature Witch
(with training and community experiences)
Current Courses
Unlocking the Power of Magic
In this program, you’ll unlock the real power that makes magic work. The real power dwells within you and surrounds you - it is the power of your connection to the Sacred. The secret to real magic is your connection to divinity within and without.
Membership: Crossing into the Mysteries
As a member, you’ll engage in Nature-specific practices and structured monthly meetings with fieldwork as well as interact with our community. Membership will help you feel fulfilled, connected, as well as help you develop self-knowledge and wisdom. Deeper involvement will help you face life with creativity, calm and grace.
Level 1: The Deeper Wisdom of the Circle
Go on a transformational journey as you learn to experience the divine power that resides within each one of us and the world around us. You'll learn to understand the meaning and magic of the sacred circle, one of humanity’s most ancient spiritual symbols and practices. We will also explore how the circle connects us to the web of life, with the Great Mother and how to engage with Immanent and Immediate Divinity. We will guide you in the whys and hows of ancient, animistic techniques and practices that empower us to experience this communion and to create the miraculous in our everyday lives.
Level 3: Dancing with My Shadow
This intensive workshop introduces you to the Gatekeeper that stands between the life you are leading and a life of your dreams--your Shadow. You'll discover that your Shadow is not the reflection of your limitations, but rather your teacher and guide to a life of wholeness and happiness. This course is designed to help you uncover your shadow beliefs, your insecurities, wounds and fears, weaknesses, anger or doubts, and to help you see the "dark qualities" you bury, deny or project onto others as the source of self-knowledge, freedom and fulfillment.
Level 2: Communing with Immanent Divinity
In this intensive, 9-session online program, you will learn to master techniques to achieve altered states of consciousness so that you can more deeply commune with the Sacred found in Nature as well as within. These practices include advanced sensory training, fine-tuning your intuition, working with divinatory tools to engage in dialogue with and receive guidance from the Divine, obtaining and working with a power animal or spirit guide, and journeying in non-ordinary reality. This is a required course for Initiation. Prerequisites: Successful Completion of Level 1.
Level 4: Returning to the World
(An initiatory experience) This 4-day live intensive celebrates wholeness - the sense that everything is working together in harmony with dynamic balance. It also honors Involvement: To be happy, we must feel connected - engaged with what is around us. This experience is also an acknowledgement of active contribution and service. To hold the World in our hands, we must give of ourselves to it. That is the source of true happiness.
Additional Experiences
Full Moon Rituals
Many indigenous cultures followed the cycles of the moon, knowing that, being the closest astronomical body to Earth, She has a profound effect on us. The moon relates to the basic rhythms of life. Like our ancestors, we continue that tradition through our monthly guided full moon rituals. Our guided Full Moon rituals are a complimentary part of membership yet non-members are more than welcome to participate.
Solar Celebrations
In ancient cultures, people were closely connected to the seasonal cycles. They had specific ways of synchronizing themselves with the various natural rhythms. Understanding and preparing for the different energies as you transition from one season into the next, enables you to flow with Mother Earth and maintain a harmony—spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically.
Nature Journaling Experiences
Exclusive to our membership program, as part of our field work. Nature journaling will help you slow down and pay attention. You will develop creativity and critical thinking skills, nurture connection with Nature, and instill a sense of curiosity. All to help you experience awe and wonder.
Shamanic Journey Circles
Held quarterly, our shamanic journey circles are open to Ara members who have successfully completed our Level 1 and 2 programs. Exclusive to our membership program, to support our relationship with Nature and Spirit.
Special Note about Our Training Process
If you are interested in becoming more involved with the Temple, and are thinking about becoming "initiated", here's some important information for you to consider.
We are first and foremost a membership community that helps people:
- understand their place in the world, including the natural world,
- engage in a pathway that is a natural match between their values, ethics and inherent views about the world, Nature, and people
- connect deeply with Nature, with other-than-human beings, with the world around them -- in a deeper way – which will help them live in a more sacred manner – which will ultimately help them treat the Earth, themselves & everyone around them in a more thoughtful way
- engage in daily practices that support & deepen their connection to Mother Earth and Father Sky
- live in balance and serenity
- continually develop and learn
- radically accept themselves & improve self-care
- be connected to something bigger than the day-to-day & find a more meaningful life that is more than the rat race
- feel a sense of wholeness no matter what phase of life they are in.
For deeper involvement and learning, membership is really stage one, and a non-skippable one.
We call our membership program "Outer Grove". We've also created a bonus membership training program called Crossing into the Mysteries, which will give you some simple practices to engage with... that will help you make the most of your membership.
If you are interested in what Ara stands for and want to get involved via membership, once you apply, you will be given initial fieldwork to engage with. Once you are done with your fieldwork, you then will be invited to schedule a call with one of our Master Certified Mentors or Elder Priestesses to discuss your fieldwork experiences. We’ll also discuss your “why”.
Right now, our membership events will be held online until we are able to grow local communities. Every month, members will have free access to live full moon rituals, shamanic journey circles, monthly rituals …. and then monthly members-only meet ups where we discuss their experiences, and how their practices are supporting them in moving forward with their lives. In our eyes, our spiritual practices (our magic) are about our lives – not something merely to be studied.
For people who want to try us out without making a commitment, we'll be launching a private Facebook group soon. Those who join that group will get invited to participate in the open events mentioned above … plus one of our master mentors will hold weekly live meditations in it.
With that said, the notion of being “in training” is different. We offer 3 levels of intensive courses (which have evolved considerably in the past four years) that will culminate in a Level 4 -- an initiatory-like experience ... but it is more going to be like the World card. The word “initiation” is not a credential.
Only members will be considered in “training” provided they are ready for our Level 4 experience and have made a commitment to help nurture community and/or to pursue training as a mentor.
In reference to “clergy” training, we are moving more toward creating a mentorship training experience for those who want to help nourish the Ara garden. Once a member has been certified (for lack of a better term), we'll work toward having them lead local Ara communities -and all local communities will be part of the Ara ecosystem, not independent of the Ara ecosystem. Kinda like trees.
How to Participate
Preparation for our Level 4 experience can take several years of challenging, transformative work. Participants are required to be current members of the Temple, have successfully completed Crossing into the Mysteries program, actively participate in Outer Grove and complete our three initiatory training intensive workshops:
- Level One: Deeper Wisdom of the Circle
- Level Two: Spirituality of Immanent Divinity
- Level Three: Dancing with Your Shadow
Our Level 4 intensive is a very personal experience and will lead to an ongoing commitment to the Temple of Ara as their spiritual home and community. For others, it will serve as a rite of personal transformation as they continue on their own, unique quest.
We hope that becoming a member will deepen your experience of the Sacred and open you to new worlds of spirituality and connection with Life. We look forward to your contribution to building the Ara Community.
To learn more about our process, please email us HERE.