Mirabai Starr – In the Footsteps of Teresa of Avila

Open to the blessing of spiritual illumination, divine embodiment and inspired service by walking with the West’s most celebrated female mystic through the doorways of many spiritual traditions and into the heart of a direct relationship with the Beloved.

St. Teresa of Avila was not only one of the most revered mystics and saints in all of Christian history, she was also a remarkably human woman who liked to be liked, charmed her audiences with coquettish glee and approached life in a very practical, no-nonsense way.

She was born of Jewish parents and got involved in a real scandal as a teen (which sent her to the convent). She told jokes. She baked pastries. She walked the path of holy service with great joie de vivre and gusto for life.

St. Teresa shows us that we can go deep into rapturous communion with the Beloved and then manage our business affairs in the next breath. She shows us that we can drop into deep silence, tapping oceans of quietude, and then laugh and dance playfully with our friends, how to enter into the most advanced stages of spiritual realization…and come out still recognizably “normal,” and even splendidly ordinary!

And that is why the path she walked offers us so much invaluable insight and power as modern spiritual seekers.

By carefully tracing her path through each stage of opening, so beautifully charted in her mystical masterpiece, The Interior Castle, and following the stations of her journey home into the arms of the Beloved, we can illumine, inspire and ultimately realize our own spiritual destiny: to live as divine humans.

As she sat down to write a book summarizing her legacy teachings, Teresa was given a vision of the soul as a crystal palace with seven luminous facets. This became the foundation for one of the most powerful and enduring spiritual teachings of any religion in any age, as relevant today as it was when she received the transmission five centuries ago.

She saw the soul as “the most beautiful place in all creation” – so beautiful that the Beloved chooses the center of our being as his dwelling place, beckoning each of us into the innermost chamber of our own souls to have union with him. All that is required is that we turn inward, and then offer the fruits of our love-encounter to the world.

Teresa’s vision is thus more than an inspiring story. It is a roadmap for our awakening and our sacred service. Through her, we begin to see, know and realize our own full potential.

Lucky for us, St. Teresa is not shrouded in nearly so much mystery as more ancient spiritual teachers. Because of the detailed accounts she left behind in her autobiography, The Book of My Life, as well as an abundance of other writings we can actually apply the spiritual practices she used, read about her most intimate secrets and learn about the challenges and blessings of each stage of her spiritual path – giving us a more accurate map for our own journey home.

Finally, her humor and playfulness offer us an easily accessible and joy-filled example of where the spiritual path can lead, not to some far-off mystical land, but into the wonderful divine ordinariness of human life.

So if you want to live a divinely human life, there is perhaps no better spiritual being for you to study with than St. Teresa, and her passionate disciple, Mirabai Starr.

Through Teresa’s example, and Mirabai’s lucid guidance, you can deepen your own ecstatic relationship with the Beloved and begin to see, taste and feel the sacred in all you do.

You can expand your ability to serve the deepest needs of our day with passion.

You can learn how to walk a distinctly feminine path of realization that ultimately connects you even more deeply to the world.

You can learn to fuse body, heart, mind and soul into one sacred vessel for more love to pour into life.

If you want to take a richly rewarding journey through your inner interior landscape – your own “Interior Castle” – then the 7-month program In the Footsteps of St. Teresa of Avila has been designed precisely for you.

You will, quite literally, walk the path of awakening, healing and service that St. Teresa herself did. You will go through the devastation and the loss, the ecstasy and the opening, the shedding of old skins and the cracking wide of your heart, as you enter into communion with the Beloved under the wise, loving and intimate mentorship of Mirabai Starr.

Mirabai is not only one of the most respected scholars and translators of St. Teresa’s words and life, she is also a profound mystic herself – who is culturally Jewish, practices Buddhism, and even has a Hindu guru, all while being an expert on Christian mystics. Like Teresa, Mirabai has gone through the depths of initiatory fires, passing through the “Dark Night” and into the quiet ecstasy of communion with the Divine.

During the In the Footsteps of Teresa of Avila course, Mirabai will journey right alongside you, sharing the stories, engaging the deep questions, offering the practices and lighting the way to your own illumination through the seven stages of spiritual realization that St. Teresa traversed.

In this journey, you will learn far more about yourself and your own relationship with the Beloved. You will see yourself with new eyes, at once more exalted and more humble – recognizing more of the divine presence that lives and breathes through you, while also seeing just how small you are within the vast ocean of love.

You will learn how to establish a contemplative practice that is uniquely yours.

You will see how to use grief and heartbreak as portals into Divine truth.

You will find ways to engage your inner chamber of Divine source to be of service.

You will discover how to dissolve into your true self.

You will, in short, make real and lasting progress on your spiritual journey, in a community of profound dialogue, exploration, and support.

And you will discover that becoming a divinely ordinary human can be joyous, fun and filled with delight, as you learn not to check your humanness at the door but rather embrace the full-spectrum of your whole being.

This training is a rare opportunity to work with a renowned mystic and scholar at a much deeper level, as she lovingly guides you through practices for revealing the profound mysteries of your soul while also living each day as an authentic human in the world.