Start With the Four Ancient Ways of Being

Piercing presence, grounded stance, and speaking with sharp distinctions are marks of a Warrior.  The courage to be, beyond just fearlessness, is what powers the grit, discipline and leadership that each adult must bring to our everyday life: at home, at work and in our communities.

Lover starts by knowing what love is.  What different kinds of love are.  A lover knows about empathy and compassion.  A lover knows about reciprocity – about giving and receiving.  A lover appreciates heart power.  So many religions, so many cultures, so many traditions agree on one thing – love rules.  Love creates.  Love is the source of all.  Sounds so cheesy when you just say it – in fact  saying it like this almost dishonors the entire concept.  Lovers have emotional expertise, they understand and appreciate not just their own emotions, but other’s.  They know peace in their heart.  They know mindfulness.  They enjoy and create beauty and pleasure. 

Mystics, like healers, seek guidance across inner and outer worlds, and find balance between virtues. Finding where you belong in a vast network of relations can lead to surprising revelations and heighten your intuition. Explore life’s realms with childlike curiosity to unveil guideposts in daily life and your higher meaning, gift and task.

A rabbi, shaman and agnostic walk into a bar...  Without the jokester’s twinkle  in your eye, the riding of the inevitable waves of life takes all the fun out of the game. Joy, pleasure and play are part of our birthright, embedded in our DNA and our deepest cosmology - but you must exercise them daily to keep alive.

Not really.  The classes are the praxis  - where theory meets reality.  They are carefully designed in a sequence, and require your input and collaboration with your fellow travelers in real time, not something that can be recorded.  The experiential classes are the beginnings of "practices" - you will learn how to form them and practice them, with feedback and useful hints.

Nothing.
You'll already own a big menu of options and a magic toolbox of skills to manifest your wise life. You'll feel ready to take real action in the world, guided by your own gift and task. We designed { An Opening } for nearly two years by carefully braiding lecturettes, live experiential trainings, coaching and community, to offer an immersive experience and skills sufficient for you to go forward with all you need.  Nothing else is required from us, nor will be promoted or "sold", that's just not our way.

If you want to deepen your learning and practices beyond { An Opening }, we'll share fully our resources and roots.  We enjoy talking about the work of our teachers in their own communities of growth, transformation and contemplation.  We are also curating a shortlist of more narrowly focused organizations and programs - but only the ones we ourselves experienced and love, who we know are doing good work in a good way.  We are finalizing those details now, and will, as always, be fully transparent about our connections, arrangements, finances, and goodies we may share as a result of our collaboration.

If you want to remain a part of the UpEnd community more longer term, contribute, share and learn together, as well as access the benefits of our collaborations, we are preparing a simple "Perennial Traveler" annual program priced at $99/yr, after your first anniversary.

We will make specific agreements with participants regarding confidentiality at the start.  You are welcome to share your experience of any of UpEnd, but we will ask that you keep whatever others' share confidential, and while we can't guarantee it, people do a pretty good job at that.  As for our content, processes and sequence and all that, the roots of what we do are of course open to all and freely shared, yet the specific flow and design we put together is the labor of our team - we'd prefer that you let people experience it in its original form.  Also, if you know the punchline of the joke ahead of time, not as much fun - and a big part of what we do is create space for discovery, which is individualized and unique for everyone.  Net/net, share your experience and what you learned, share the core roots of where the wisdoms came from, and you'll be asked to keep confidential what others say about themselves and the particulars of the sausage-making.  We'll talk about it together in the first Zoom class and please email us at opening@upend.com for further class questions.

None.  Be willing to participate, learn, hear, share, and stay focused on what you are doing, so insights can show up.

Yes.  You are invited to participate like everyone else.  There will be no attempt to change your core beliefs or opinions, that's not what we are about.  We are about sharing insights across cultures and ages, with the commitment that you "get" what they are about - and then you chose what, if anything, to do with that learning.  We ask of everyone to be respectful, inclusive, open, share space and time with others, be willing to listen to others, and general good playground skills, like you would expect. 

Email us at opening@upend.com.