The Mandorla Project

We began The Mandorla Project as a vehicle for exploring the liminal spaces.  To bring together the world’s wisdom, teachings, stories, and practices around key questions and disseminate them in accessible media forms.  And to offer classes and workshops to bring these teachings into our personal lives and our service to others.

We begin with our first project, Standing on the Edge of Magic.

Standing On The Edge of Magic

In this project we explore the threshold of dying.

Our Purpose is to reduce the fear of dying by sharing the stories of the dying, their loved ones, and the professionals, who serve them.  To disseminate the teachings and practices of the world’s wisdom traditions as they speak to the transition of dying and unveil the mysteries of who we are if we can die.  To honor the power and efficacy of spiritual care by remembering and teaching the ancient wisdom of spiritual midwifery to the dying as practiced in a modern age.  And, to encourage compassionate care for the dying and their loved ones.

We have created four areas of focus, each with projects to enable us to achieve our purpose.

Storytelling Project

Our goal with the storytelling project is to reduce the fear of dying, by sharing the beauty, wisdom, healing, intimacy and transformation of the dying process.  We tell the stories, teachings and practices of the dying, their loved ones, and the professionals, who serve them, bringing personal and professional experience, questions, and wisdom into an open forum, that we may listen to and learn from one another.  We share stories about spiritual care to the dying, how death changes us, and what death teaches us about life.  We tell what dying looks and feels like, offering a spiritual view of the dying process.  We bridge personal spiritual experiences with the dying process, generating inclusivity and spaciousness for exploration regardless of religious affiliation.  We encourage conversations and the healing such conversations often initiate.

In five years, the storytelling project will have:

1. Created storytelling project for lay persons, professionals, and world’s wisdom sages, teachers and practitioners.
2. Offered online interviews, and possibly film, and a radio program to share stories and teachings in multi-media formats.
3. Collected the stories for, edited, and published five volumes of the Standing on the Edge of Magic.
   1. Volume 1,  Stories of the dying, as seen bedside by Connee.
   2. Volume 2,  Stories from loved ones and family members from the bedside.
   3. Volume 3,  Stories and interviews with professionals, who serve the dying.
   4. Volume 4,  Stories and interviews with world wisdom sages and practitioners.
   5. Volume 5,  Stories of the afterlife, as told by loved ones and professionals.

Wisdom of the World.

Our goal with the Wisdom of the World project is to disseminate the stories, teachings, and practices of the world’s wisdom traditions, their sages and practitioners.  We cultivate the essences we all can learn from, while honoring the individual nature of each tradition.  We encourage peacemaking by learning a spiritual language we all can share, finding ways to communicate with one another about death, and discovering what we share in common.  We face the truth that each of us will one day die, regardless of our cultural or religious preference, and explore how this ties us together.  We ask questions relevant to each of us, regardless of background and share the world’s wisdom to encourage contemplation, healing, understanding, and kindness.
In five years, the World Wisdom project will have:

1. Published, What the World Wisdom Traditions and Their Sages Say About Death and Dying, commensurate with Standing on the Edge of Magic, Volume 4.
2. Published, No Death, commensurate with Standing on the Edge of Magic, Volume 5.
3. Taught on-line courses about the teachings, texts, stories, and practices of all the world’s wisdom traditions.
4. Offered tours to different sacred sites associated with each of the world’s wisdom traditions.
5. Interviewed, recorded, and offered in appropriate media such as radio, film and writing the stories and teachings of wisdom sages, teachers and practitioners.

Spiritual Midwifery to the Dying.

Our goal is to train spiritual midwives that can work both independently or within established professional mileaus. We teach midwives to work within their individual communities, recognizing the sacred bond between a midwife and those she serves, and thus we offer community based training, with a goal to support spiritual midwives in multiple communities.  We offer in-depth understanding of a spiritual, or consciousness view of the dying process and train how to recognize the subtle developments of the dissolution process and the spiritual skills for greeting each stage.  We also teach appropriate spiritual language skills, that enables midwives to offer care to anyone, regardless of religious or cultural background.  And we encourage the spiritual and professional development of individual midwives, with a special eye to supporting independent midwives, who provide care from the time of terminal diagnosis, regardless of whether or not, clients seek curative or palliative care.  We provide speakers, courses, and links to teaching programs for the necessary skills of spiritual midwifery to the dying, recognizing the wide array of healing and spiritual practices available for midwives to learn and master.

To further support spiritual midwives to the dying, we will also offer a foundational understanding of the field of spiritual midwifery, providing a unified theory and practice for offering spiritual care to the dying.  We will teach how spiritual care serves all individuals, regardless of religious affiliation.  We will bring professionals from all aspects of this field together to learn from one another and ask how we can serve the dying.

At the end of five years, we will have:

1. Created and implemented a fully developed training program for spiritual midwives to the dying.
2. Published Making of a Spiritual Midwife.
3. Published Art of Spiritual Midwifery to the Dying textbook.

Neighbor to Neighbor.

Our goal is to bring spiritual care into every home and environment, that individuals can offer spiritual care to their loved ones, neighbors, and communities with kindness, confidence, and respect.  We support neighborhoods, organizations, churches and other spiritual gatherings, as they learn to bridge personal spiritual practices with care for the dying.  We also recognize the large numbers of people, who do not practice within a formal tradition, and offer accessible teachings about the dying process and spiritual skills that can be used by anyone regardless of background.  We also offer online resources, free videos and downloads, a referral system, and prayer services to support the dying and their loved ones, so that all can receive spiritual encouragement and support.  We encourage compassionate spiritual care to all individuals, regardless of religious or cultural affiliation or circumstance.

End of five years, we will have:

1. Created a prayer program and world community of prayer for the dying and the deceased.
2. Created a grassroots outreach and training program to teach essential spiritual skills and spiritual perspectives of the dying process and reached out across the U.S.
3. Offered an extensive, accessible, and often free videos and downloads for immediate support and teaching.
4. Offered an extensive online resource guide.
5. Offered a referral system to qualified spiritual midwives.

Collectively, it is our prayer that these endeavors, reduce our fear about dying, encourage kindness and compassion in our treatment of the dying and their loved ones, encourage peacemaking and bridges between religions, professionals, and lay persons; empower, encourage, and inspire individuals and professionals to offer spiritual midwifery to the dying, and invite reevaluation of our medical practices and perceptions.

May we all discover what death teaches us about life, live this wisdom, and serve all sentient beings with the kindness and compassion such truths implore.

Our MISSION is to explore these liminal spaces.  We share the discoveries, practices, teachings, and stories of those, who journey into these thresholds, through writing, radio, film and other appropriate media. We travel to and integrate the wisdom of scholars, sages, and practitioners of the world’s wisdom traditions.  And offer classes, workshops, and resources to bring these teachings into our personal lives and our service to others.   

About Us

We develop projects through our exploration of sacred thresholds and crossroads, developing sacred questions, collecting the teachings and stories of the world’s wisdom traditions, and sharing the wisdom and practices.  These are our current projects.

Standing On The Edge of Magic

In this project we explore the threshold of dying, discovering what death teaches about life.

Our Purpose is to reduce the fear of dying by sharing the stories of the dying, their loved ones, and the professionals and sages, who serve them.  To honor the power and efficacy of spiritual care by remembering and teaching the ancient wisdom of spiritual midwifery to the dying as practiced in a modern age.  And to unveil the mysteries of who we are if we can die.  We share the beauty, wisdom, healing, intimacy and transformation of the dying process, and encourage compassionate care for the dying and their loved ones.

We begin with our storytelling project, encouraging, listening to and recording stories, to publish several volumes of Standing on the Edge of Magic.  We will create a fully developed training program for spiritual midwives to the dying, developing and editing a textbook to articulate an integrated and unified perspective of spiritual midwifery to the dying.  We will also develop a training program for lay persons and initiate a grassroots neighbor-to-neighbor program, for individuals to return to their communities to teach basic spiritual care to the dying, that we may all remember how to care for one another, regardless of religious affiliation.  We will also offer a referral program and extensive collection of resources accessible online.  And, we will offer pilgrimage tours to sacred sites around the world, sharing the wisdom of sages, sacred texts, and practitioners in our Wisdom of the World series.

All Medicine Men Are Family

In this project, we explore the practices of the sacred heart.  This practice has many names, pointing to the spiritual even mystical exploration, knowing, and expression of the vast space where mystery and human greet one another.  From this place of being, we learn to see and hear with new eyes and ears.

Our purpose is to tell the story of an open heart, by listening to sages and practitioners as they tell us their history, lineage, oral and written traditions, stories, teachings and discoveries.  We ask how these ancient practices are relevant in our modern age regardless of religious preference, seeking the commonalities between us while respecting individual and cultural expression.  And we teach the many variations of this practice as a tool for awakening and service to others.

Hieros-Gamos

In this project, we explore divine union as it is expressed in sacred relationship.

Our purpose is to tell the story of the Divine Masculine and Feminine in relationship to one another, and discover ways to live this wisdom in our personal lives.  We ask how to embody consciousness within our bodies, healing wounds and other misunderstandings of the relationship between spirit and matter.  We explore how to greet one another in body, mind, and spirit.  And how relationship can become a spiritual practice, teaching us how to see god in ourselves and one another.

These classes are designed to teach the spiritual understanding and skills for helping loved ones, friends, community members, and clients through the processes of dying.  The first two classes, Spiritual Care to the Dying, and The Vigil course, are designed for anyone, who would like to learn more about serving the dying.  They are accessible to anyone of any background.  It is my hope that as many people as possible can learn these skills that we may serve one another with kindness and compassion.  The Complications class is an advanced course for spiritual midwives to the dying and other professionals studying and working within the field.  The guild and apprenticeship classes are designed to support the development and training of midwives to the dying.

Spiritual Care to the Dying

This two-day course teaches a spiritual view of the dying process and explores practical and accessible ways to provide spiritual care to the dying.  Students will learn about the spiritual needs we experience at the end of life, and ways to greet these needs.   This course is for anyone of any background, who wish to serve their loved ones, neighbors, clients, churches, or learn more about themselves.  It is a prerequisite to all other courses.

The Vigil: Offering Spiritual Care in the Last Days and Hours.

This five-day retreat is offered to those, who would like to deepen their knowledge of spiritual care to the dying.  We learn how to offer vigil and provide spiritual care through compassionate, nonverbal means of communication and presence.  We learn specific skills for the dying process such as sound healing, visualization, use of scriptural text and poetry, prayer, energy medicine, and mantra/sacred chanting.  Students also learn detailed understanding of the dying/dissolution process as taught by the wisdom traditions with a special emphasis upon the five elements.

Complications:  PTSD, Spiritual Pain, Coma Therapy, and Other Labor Complications.

This five-day retreat is an advanced class offered to students, who are training to become spiritual midwives to the dying or are professionals currently working in the field.  In this class we will explore the kinds of difficulties that arise in the psycho-spiritual processes of dying as the ego dissolves.  We will discuss difficulties that arise throughout the dying process, but special attention will be paid to traumatic histories and traumatic responses to the dying process, terminal agitation, pain expressed by patients, who are nonverbal, and ways to diagnose and treat spiritual pain including coma therapy skills.  A base level of knowledge in the field is necessary, as this is a fast paced advanced course for those offering treatment to complications.  An understanding of the dissolution process, foundational counseling skills and ego development, and consciousness or spiritual care is assumed.  An overview will be presented upon the first day so that we can share a professional language of communication.

The Art of Spiritual Midwifery Guild

This six-month class, is for those, exploring the path of spiritual midwifery to the dying. In this class we learn death and dying through the eyes of the major wisdom traditions of the world, cultivating reverence for each tradition, and learning what they can teach us about our own spiritual path, as well as the journey of dying.  We also deepen our understanding of the dissolution process through didactic and experiential exercises.  And we explore our personal development as spiritual midwives, and the ways we might work in the field.  This is an intimate class, based upon the ancient ways, that a midwife is called by her community as well as her own heart, and that the mystical path and the path of dying are one story.

Art of Spiritual Midwifery Apprenticeship Class

This one year course is for those training as spiritual midwives to the dying, who have completed the guild course.  This class is focused upon the path of accompanying the dying throughout the dying process.  We will learn to create treatment plans and master the skills for providing treatment through psycho-spiritual and consciousness medicines and means.  We will also develop community based resources and skills and ways to work within our community and with fellow professionals.  Apprenticeship class is for individuals living in or very near the same community that they may potentially work together to provide services, as well as refer to one another.

Apprenticeship

Apprentices are chosen mutually between Connee and each student.  The apprenticeship offers the student an opportunity to integrate all her personal and professional skills together with the skills of a spiritual midwife.  Connee offers ongoing individual training as well as supervision and case review for clients until the student is ready to manage cases on her own.  For those choosing to work independently in private practice, training and access to resources for doing so will also be offered.