Thomas Moore offers weekend course in Santa Fe

The New England Educational Institute (NEEI) posts preliminary notice for its 21st Annual Santa Fe Symposia, 2013 at The Hilton Santa Fe Historic Plaza, during October weekends from 8:00 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. each day.  Thomas Moore is confirmed for Friday 18 October to Sunday 20 October, 2013 to present Psychotherapy, Spirituality and the Soul. The complete program will be available mid-April 2013.

Meridian University hosts Thomas Moore, Jan. 30

Meridian University hosts a public program featuring Thomas Moore during the evening of Wednesday 30 January 2013 on campus at the Sonoma Center in Petaluma, California. University President Aftab Omer talks with Moore about The Depth of Religious Experience: The Heart of Secular Life, Moore's new book about a religion of one's own. During this conversation Moore explores how "we shape our lives around certain spiritual experiences that define us and put us in relation to the greater life and world. We all have such intuitions and inspirations but may not see their importance to our spiritual lives. This deeper religion is in no way separate from secular life. In fact, it is the heart and soul of secular existence."

This free event is co-sponsored by St. John's Episcopal Church. Although offered at no cost, registration is required because space is limited. Please register online. Meridian University’s Sonoma Center is at 47 Sixth Street, Petaluma, California, 30 miles north of San Francisco.

Thomas Moore in conversation with Aftab Omer  
The Depth of Religious Experience: 
The Heart of Secular Life
Wednesday 30 January 2013
7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Sonoma Center
Meridian University
47 Sixth Street
Petaluma, California

Games, play, religion, fun contribute to soulful life

Thomas Moore writes "Sacred Play, the Game of Life and Golf" on his blog to introduce his upcoming Irish golf retreat in May. This author of The Guru of Golf  shares his interest in game and play as related to religion:

"For many years I’ve been interested in game and play as important aspects of human life and culture and cousins to religion, my field of study. I’ve read many good authors on these themes, including Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga, about the play element in culture; Peter Berger and D. W. Winnicott on play in ordinary life; and my graduate advisor David L. Miller’s book, Gods and Games. My friend Lynda Sexson wrote one of the best books I know about religion and culture, Ordinarily Sacred, in which she shows how play functions in religion.

Games have much in common with religion: seasons, defined time periods, rituals, physical boundaries, rubrics. For example, golf has strict rules or rubrics, clear in-bounds geography, prescribed tools and language, an etiquette of its own, a list of heroes, a colorful history, pageant, and a dark language of hazards, clubs, traps and bogeys."

Playing the game well or even at all is not a prerequisite for participation in this program. Moore insists, "Remember, I don’t play well, so that’s not a requirement. In fact, you don’t have to play at all. You can be a spectator and use the time for pure retreat. I’ve spent most of my life living in and visiting Ireland. There’s no better place for a retreat where fun is an essential part of the package."

Moore recommends a 10 June 2010 essay about fun that he wrote for Huffington Post: "Why Fun is a Serious Issue". In this piece, Moore writes, "Modern life — and I mean the modernist myth that shapes us — is, in contrast, deadly serious. The fun has gone out of work, and if the fun is gone, what is left? What is left is a soulless culture, because in some mysterious way a soulful life and fun go together." Experience soul and fun during this golf excursion in May.  

Barque coverage
11 Jan 2013 "Play soulful golf with Thomas Moore in Ireland "

Play soulful golf with Thomas Moore in Ireland

Thomas Moore invites you to share his philosophy "that games and play are close to religion and can be spiritual practices" by joining him for a five-night golf retreat in Killarney, Ireland, Sunday 12 May to Friday 17 May, 2013.

This Golf with a Soul Retreat is organized by Specialty Golf and Thomas Moore to "provide a unique opportunity for golfers to explore a deeper appreciation" of their game. It will help you "to get more out of the game and understand it’s symbolism, while learning from spiritual traditions how to focus, concentrate, relax and deal with emotional issues that interfere with the flow needed to enjoy the game." If you have questions about the program, use the box featured on this linked page.

Enjoy staying at the Dunloe Hotel overlooking the Gap of Dunloe in the south west of Ireland. A complete itinerary and additional information is available.

FEE (in Euros)
Price per person sharing (Golfers): € 2,650.0 0
Supplement for Single Occupancy: € 450.0 0
Non Golfers (Sharing): € 2,250.00

Payment Terms and Other Information:
— 35% deposit to secure reservations. Balance 2 months prior to commencement date.
— Price includes accommodation with full Irish breakfast, welcome dinner, 4 rounds of golf, one evening of traditional Irish entertainment & luxury chauffeur driven coach* transfers.
— Talks with Thomas Moore (pre & post golf) to explore aspects of golf and it’s connection with the soul.
— Program of non-golf activities for non-golfers included
— Flights not included.
— *Driver Gratuities at own discretion.
— Caddies/carts may be reserved on request - payable directly on date of play.

Enter the alchemical massa confusa to be creative

Thomas Moore's blog post today, "The Garbage of our Lives" considers placing "... our personal garbage under the mythic care of the night goddess Hekate," as James Hillman suggests in his book, The Dream and the Underworld. Moore writes:

"Another archetypal psychologist Rafael Lopez-Pedraza, who taught me with raised voice to honor the dark, says that we therapists have to enter the rhetoric of the archetype. If we are in a mess, or our client or friend or spouse is in one, it is best not to go somewhere else for comfort, to offer sweet promises of better times or moral persuasion to shape up or pseudo-religious pieties about it all having a purpose. No, the thing to do is to enter the mess and speak for it and use its language." 

Hekate at the Crossroads

To counter a current popular psychological approach, Moore emphasizes: "This is not positive, humanistic, happiness-based psychology. It’s an Underworld psychology pointing to an Underworld spirituality that is not weakened by being too optimistic and hopeful. It acknowledges what the Greeks were smart enough to enshrine: Necessity (Ananke). It’s an embrace of life rather than a ranking of the good and the bad."

QUOTE: "Hekate has to have stung you and given you a dose of her poison and made you a child of her night. You have to see through her eyes and not some other self-protective ones. You have to be willing to save the garbage and resist the understandable urge to clean it up."

Live your story with authority into the new year

Spirituality & Health magazine shares Thomas Moore’s January-February 2013 column "Are You the Author of Your Life’s Story?". Moore writes,

"The word author comes from the Latin for 'increasing' or 'growing.' An author creates something new. In the best of worlds we are each the author of our own lives. But it often feels as though someone in a position of authority is taking over the task and writing our story for us.

And yet each of us has the challenge and the opportunity to create a new way of being human. We grow ourselves. Along the way, we may listen closely to someone we respect and admire and give that person a key role in our creative process. We share our precious authority. We hope they will help us author our lives — but only as long as we ask them to."

After quoting William Blake who said "the Authors are in eternity," Moore continues:

"If we can do it, we can find deep joy in our capacity to create something, someone, new. But we may have to insist on our authority, because someone will always appear who wants that enjoyment for himself — a parent, a spouse, a business partner, a spiritual teacher. Remind this person of Blake’s insight: the authors are in eternity."

Five suggestions at the end of the column help readers to strengthen their own authority.