In my early Enneagram training with Don Riso and Russ Hudson, I learned about Levels of Development within each of the nine Enneagram types. The discovery of the Levels was one of Don’s major contributions to Enneagram theory. Although he named this teaching the Levels of Development, later he agreed that it more accurately describes Levels of Functioning. Descending from Healthy to Average to Unhealthy [...]
2020 was quite a year! With the world in great need of healing, we too may have lost our balance. We may be feeling battered from the losses we have endured in the past twelve months. And while some positive changes are happening, the world can still seem to be coming apart. Public health is in tatters from the COVID pandemic. Climate change continues to [...]
In a complicated world we are all faced with questions about what to do about all sorts of things. How do I mend a relationship? Where can I best invest my time or money? What will support a project that inspires me? Everyday Divination Tools for Guidance When I’m wrangling with problems that confuse me, it helps me to write about them in a journal, [...]
In the past a system with the complexity and depth of the Enneagram would have been reserved for psychologists. Today, however, average people have access to personality typologies through training in the workplace and online resources for personal development. In both education and in business, millions of people have taken personality inventories. The idea of discovering one’s personal style through relating to common patterns and [...]
These are stressful times. The world is changing all around us. There has been divisiveness in our nation and within our communities. The world is still in the grip of a pandemic. How can we cope with all this stress in ways that keep us healthy and sane, especially during the holiday season? Resilience is the ability to adapt to change and to also persevere. [...]
Why would we want to roll back the centuries to what may seem to be primitive times in order to find a spiritual practice? Why not use all the discoveries from neurobiology and contemporary research on the evolutionary stages of adult development to support our search for enlightenment? With Ancient Ritual Postures, the more profound question is: why not integrate both? When I shared my [...]
Body-based Spirituality teaches that our physical bodies empower us in making a direct connection with the spiritual world. We are familiar with practices such as ecstatic dancing, chanting or dervish-style spinning. The Cuyamungue Method, based on the teachings I learned from anthropologist Felicitas Goodman, outlines the steps necessary for our bodies to use Ancient Ritual Postures and experience what Dr. Goodman called the ecstatic trance [...]
The Three Centers of Intelligence, based on our innate structure as human beings, illuminates the Enneagram system. These Centers correspond to what neurobiologists describe as three primary focal areas of the nervous system that extends thoughout the body. Every nerve cell communicates some form of energy and information to other nerve cells through the action of neuropeptides. There are three places in the body where [...]
When I first learned about the Enneagram over 25 years ago, I began my study with forays into magazine articles and then a few workshops. At the time my psychotherapy practice was well established, and it was natural to wonder about my clients’ Enneagram types. When they would tell their stories using phrases right out of my Enneagram books, I was thrilled. Clearly the Enneagram [...]
Meeting Felicitas Goodman, the founder of Ancient Ritual Postures, in the winter of 1984 changed my life. My friend Anita had called one afternoon in January 1984 to tell me she had just had lunch with one of her former yoga students. “She’s Hungarian, an anthropologist, and she plays the violin,” was how Anita described her. Felicitas had just returned from Europe where she had [...]