“The least of things with a MEANING is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it”
– C.G.Jung
Many people arrive at Dirt Temple having already explored therapy, books, courses, and retreats – and still sensing that something essential is missing.
Not more information, but something steadier.
More grounded.
Dirt Temple is not a place to escape from complexity but a place to learn how to stay skilfully with it.
You will encounter the best of our wisdom-traditions woven together with the best of our meaning-making systems. Elegantly packaged in practices that feel deep as well as easy, profound as well as playful.
Here in the Dirt we take you to new heights with a return to deep roots.
Grown from the roots of psychology, philosophy, science and spirituality Dirt Temple is radical and rare, and it is on your doorstep.
“There is a hunger that cannot be satisfied by bread alone”
– Simone Weil
Dirt Temple addresses the central wound of our age: the collapse of meaning.
Once upon a time healing lived in ceremony and community. These traditions were imperfect, but they offered coherence, belonging, and meaning.
Many of these roots have thinned.
Wellness, politics, entertainment and personal optimisation have taken on quasi-religious roles, but these can offer stimulation without depth and improvement without wisdom.
The sacred hasn’t vanished – but it asks to be met differently.
We are not short on activity or achievement but hungry for reverence and harmony. We need a way back to connection – with self, with others and with the land.
As our worlds become more disconnected and fragmented, many people feel increasingly “tired, wired and uninspired”.
Despite endless opportunities for micro-communities, personal rituals and shifting identities people still sense that something essential is missing.
We feel it every day in our systems: attention-deficits as well as empathy-deficits. We see it daily in our news feeds: tragedy after tragedy.
We are hungry for meaning in a world increasingly overrun by psychological fast-food and spiritual sound bites.
Dirt Temple offers depth without dogma and spirituality with intelligence.
Wisdom traditions all teach us that wisdom cultivation is a deep and steady process, and it often happens in the dark
Dig Deeper
Within the Dirt program you will encounter influences from a cadre of experts including John Vervaeke (cognitive scientist and professor), Peter Rollins (philosopher and “radical” theologian), Natasja Pelgrom (ceremonialist and medicine woman), Ken Wilber (philosopher and systems theorist), Jamie Wheal, Sam Harris, Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, Kasia Urbaniak and more.
Dirt masterfully draws upon an array of therapeutic modalities from Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, Metacognitive Therapy, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Eco-Psychology and Experiential Therapies.
Last but not least, Dirt Temple has roots that stretch down into many wisdom traditions including Christianity, Buddhism, Neo-Paganism and Neo-Shamanism, Taoism, Hinduism and Judaism.
Needless to say – it is fertile soil.
The term “meaning crisis” refers to growing rates of depression, anxiety, despair and suicide in first-world countries. The mental health crisis itself is intertwined with environmental crises, political unrest, educational upheaval, family fractures and medical mistrust. Additionally, we find ourselves in the so called ‘secular’ age. Where religion was once a balm, increasingly we are uprooted and groundless.
Historically, the great meditative traditions taught us how to refine consciousness to achieve equanimity. All of the great contemplative traditions taught us how to shape community to achieve harmony.
Now, those who are excessively scientific are losing sight of mystery. Those who are excessively spiritual are losing touch with clarity.
We have been robbed of something that our ancestors once had direct access to. We are burning out, getting depressed and dissociating because we have lost touch with sacredness. What once built resilience, shared values and a sense of purpose is wilting. Make no mistake, the sacred itself must be updated, but not in ways that run counter to indigenous traditions and ancient wisdom.
For literally all of human history the secular and the spiritual have not been elegantly interwoven because they largely grew in parallel, rarely integrated. Yet true mastery in life requires both. The integrated view at Dirt Temple gives you access to the storehouse of knowledge from all our greatest wisdom traditions in one masterfully crafted experience.
If you want to be met with a kind of depth and a depth of kindness that is rare in our modern world…
then you’re not alone, because we did too – so we built it.
