THRESHOLD
An 8-month Rites-Of-Passage Journey Into the Feminine Psyche & Crossing into Your Next Chapter
Take a life-changing journey through the embodied feminine psyche. Create long-wanted, full-body change. Welcome a new phase of life rooted in your truth, sensual power, expression, and genius. Give your gifts with power and sensitivity. Develop your legacy.
THRESHOLD is a call to a life-affirming and life-changing journey, a Deep Body Movement pilgrimage of resurrecting the ancestral feminine psyche stored in your body, and creating long-wanted, full-body change in the process. Rooted in the Deep Body Model of the human psyche, the journey will guide you through rediscovering the profound living intelligence of the layers of your deeper body– physical, emotional, sensual, expressive, perceptive, and collective– each one inducing a corresponding phase of your own heroine’s journey, and calling you into the farthest layers of your truth, sensual power, expression, and genius.
THRESHOLD OPENS OCTOBER 2024
thresh·old
/ˈTHreSHˌ(h)ōld/
noun
heroine's journey
concept
rites of passage
concept
1. The magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain phenomenon, result, or condition to occur or be manifested
2. a limit below which a stimulus causes no reaction
In our work, threshold is the point of reaching the breakthrough point on one's path, moving through the gate of personal change and welcoming a new phase of life, as a result of striking a balance with her past, getting honest to the bone about her longings and holdbacks, and moving through the deep inner work of truth-telling, shadow-facing, feminine reclamation, and body and soul recalibration.
'The heroine's journey is the healing of the wounding of the feminine that exists deep within the individual woman and within her culture. The heroine’s journey is about going down deep into soul, healing and reclaiming, while the hero’s journey is up and out, to spirit.'
~Maureen Murdock, The Heroine's Journey
Deeply tuned-in to the cycles of nature and the never-ending spirals of death and rebirth, ancient societies around the world created rituals of initiation to mark, celebrate, and make sense of the many significant transitions, identity shifts, and developmental stages we go through in our lives. Marking these transitions through ceremonial rites of passage offers us the opportunity to initiate ourselves into our lives and to be honored and celebrated for our true nature and inherent gifts, so that we may show up more fully in better care for ourselves, our families, and our communities.
~School of the Lost Borders
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Explore deeply through one of the eight deep body “skins” and resurrect their intelligence
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Move through the eight corresponding gates of your personal heroine’s journey
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Be supported and induced into transformation by formative mythic women, supporting your connection to the timeless feminine psyche and your embodied learning & growth.
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Develop an intimate relationship with nature and wilderness as your ally and guide, as each phase of the journey also connects you to the eight corresponding life cycles of plants and the Earth's seasons
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Be intimately supported both by our guides and by your small Pod of people taking the journey in a a timezone similar to yours
Each month, the spiral pathway of the journey will guide you to
The Eight Gates of the Journey
Ocotber
BODY LAYERS: Cognitive, Cultural Body/Social Body
MYTH HEROINES IN SUPPORT: The Well Maidens, Sleeping Beauty
GROWTH CYCLE: Seed
JOUNEY KEYWORDS: Personal truth, collective truth. Stripping the social body. Recognizing separation from the feminine. Waking the Sleeping beauty for good. Preparing for descent.
Truth-Telling
Gate One
Where do you stand at this moment as the heroine of your mythic path? What holy hunger do you carry into this journey?
In this initiatory part of the journey and with your body’s wisdom in the lead, you will explore the deeper questions which you have brought to the journey: What do you long for? What is the holy hunger you carry in your chest? In the landscape of your life, where do you stand in this moment, practically and metaphorically– as a person, as a soul, as a heroine on your mythic journey? What are the walls and windows in your life that you keep crushing into, like a lost bird, and how strong are your wings for the change you have been calling in?
Are you ready to finally cross the threshold into the next chapter of your life as an initiated woman?
We will also recognize where we stand as a Collective, with Patriarchy as our Mother Culture, raising us with strategies against our deeper feminine nature and our own bodies, and with stories of the Sleeping Beauty but without the goddess. We will acknowledge our personal and collective truth about how we embody a separation from the feminine and are identified with the masculine. We will let our bodies express our the deficits of pleasure, rest, and expression we have endured, and will begin surfacing the powerful medicine of our truth, longing, unquenched desires, and unnamed hungers, as prepare for the rite of passage that this journey will take us on, and for the descent into the deep feminine psyche that follows.
November
BODY LAYERS: Physical
MYTHIC HEROINES IN SUPPORT: Persephone. Inanna. Weeping Woman
GROWTH CYCLE: Planted seed
JOURNEY KEYWORDS:
Seeing with the body. Deeper senses. Longing as a portal. Desire as life force. Sacred wound. Grief medicine. Dark Mother. The abandoned feminine within. Queen of Death: What needs to die? Transformation.
Descent
Gate Two
Into the Feminine Psyche Through the Portals of Holy Longing & Holy Wound
During the darkest time of year, in the auspicious month of December, like Inanna, you will begin stripping the seven garments/layers of the self to bare your soul for the journey, and begin the mytho-ordinary Descent into the Underworld of your deeper body & psyche– the place underneath the visible and the ordinary, ruled by the mysterious, fecund, and transformative aspects of the feminine. You will descend by using the powerful emotional force portals of your deepest longings (your holy hunger) and the sacred wound that has marked your life- we each have our own!– and allow them to become a catalyst of healing and change.
December
BODY LAYERS: Sensual
MYTHIC HEROINES IN SUPPORT :
Dark Mother. Oldest Woman, Weaver of the World
PLANT CYCLE: Germination
JOURNEY KEYWORDS:
Pelvic root. Deep womb. Dark Mother. Mother Soil, Mother Root. Rest. Unwinding. Stillness. Restoration. Germination. Praying for a vision. Fecundation of the new seed.
Incubation
Gate Three
Restoring Your Sensual Root. Reunion with the Deep Feminine Nature
Like Persephone who descended into the world below the visible seemingly against her will, yet after arriving discovered the other side more of herself, her truth, and the world, in this stage of the journey, we arrive in the deepest cave of our wombs, and surrender to the the mysterious and unspeakable power of the timeless feminine psyche within us, in a reunion with the Dark Mother, the Oldest Woman in the world, the weaver of all things to whom we belong. We lay on her ground, resting, unwinding, healing the ancestral nervous systems generations back. This is a time to be still, to calibrate our body-minds to the Yin nature. To succumb to our aching longing to reunite with the deep feminine. To plug our pelvic root into the Mother Root and be restored, replenished, nurtured, and whispered to by an intelligence greater than we have imagined- directly into our bodies.
A germination of the seed of self-change.
January
BODY LAYERS: Emotional
MYTHIC HEROINES IN SUPPORT:
The Witch
PLANT CYCLE: Sprouting
JOURNEY KEYWORDS:
Evolutionary legacy of the female body. Pelvic bowl, womb, ovaries, and vulva as an internal map of the greater feminine body within. Mitochondria: Motherline DNA. Healing the ancestral mothers. Turning the Mother wound into the Mother promise. Calling the grandmothers. Forgiving the grandfathers. Evolution of the Mother Line: Changing the course.
Gate Four
Healing the Motherline
Evolving of the Motherline, Changing the Course
We will work deliberately with the embodied patterns and internal structures that you have inherited from the foremothers in your direct lineage, and debunk the myths held in your body about what it is to be a woman and what is possible for you. You will be supported in realizing your role in healing the mitochondria, the DNA inherited from the foremothers. As we explore the mother wound, the Patriarchal Mother, and the Shadow Mother, you will be asked to reshape the mother wound into the mother potential, and and evolve your generational mother line by embodying qualities of change and leadership that have the potential to transform your ancestral legacy. This process will be done in conjunction with calling in the grandfathers and the ancestral masculine, as part of the healing process.
February
BODY LAYERS: Expressive
MYTHIC HEROINES IN SUPPORT:
Wakame and the Forest Dancing Women, Green Man
PLANT CYCLE: Seedling
JOURNEY KEYWORDS:
Restoring and reclaiming your subtle sensual anatomy. Revitalizing and expressing your sensual anatomy and erotic force. Reconciling the deep feminine psyche in every part of the body. Retrieving the feminine soul. Communing with, honoring, and healing the sacred masculine within. Wild Woman. Green Man. Sacred union, inner marriage.
Gate Five
Revitalization
Restoring Your Erotic Force, Retrieving Feminine Soul in Your Body, Communing with the Masculine
Having rested, recalibrated to the feminine heart, and cleared the ancestral lines, here we begin fertilizing the deep ground of your feminine nature and psyche as the only fertile soil in which your feminine genius thrives. Through the stories and body-practices of the Wakame, the Sea Witch and the mythic forest-dancing women of Old Europe) you will begin reclaiming your deeper body and deeper life, your erotic life force, your voice and nonconforming self-expression. You will be guided to revitalize the deep feminine psyche in your own body by taking back those parts that have been shunned, downsized, punished and abandoned- in your own life. In reclaiming the feminine psyche through your body, you will also be communing with the masculine psyche in conjunction, supported by the mythic Green Man archetype, the "whole and well" in the masculine principle. You will work deeply to reconcile the fem/masc nature within you, and seek their realignment in the material expressions of your life.
March
BODY LAYERS: Perceptive
MYTHIC CHARACTERS IN SUPPORT:
Bone Woman. Green Man
PLANT CYCLE: Young Tree
JOURNEY KEYWORDS:
Conjuring with the Earth. Collaborating with the web of life. Continuing the work of healing the Masculine within. Nature, community, and witness as your allies. Revisiting our deepest questions and longings. Preparing to Cross.
Gate Six
Gathering of Forces
Conjuring with the Earth. Completing What Was In Preparation for the Crossing
Here, we tune our bodies into the animate, pulsing, intelligent web of life: forest, ocean, desert, whale song, desert snake in our spines– letting this shared intelligence move in our bodies again. Learning again the way of our ancestors: To collaborate with the powers of the living Earth, to summon, manifest, and conjure in cooperation with winds, tides, roots, and forests. Revisiting again the deepest questions, prayers, and longings we have brought to the journey, and letting them be witnessed and held by the land and the sea, by our human and earthly community. What feels complete in your life? What do you want to carry forward? What is being stripped away, and who are you claiming yourself to be now in the new life you are reaching for and calling in?
Having gathered your forces and allies, you will prepare for the crossing the Threshold- the breakthrough point in your life story from where the change you have longed can follow organically and irreversibly.
April
BODY LAYERS: Collective/Archetypal
MYTHIC HEROINES IN SUPPORT :
Hecate, the Crone
PLANT CYCLE: Flowering
JOURNEY KEYWORDS:
Way of ceremony. Crafting the threshold gate. Deep nature immersion. Crossing ritual. Breakthrough. Kindred community. Celebration.
Crossing
Gate Seven
Restoring Your Sensual Root. Reunion with the Deep Feminine Nature
Here, we make ritual space for breakthrough, for moving through the gate of change that we have been preparing for. For marking the completion of who we have been but can no longer be, and welcoming a new phase of life as the heroine of our journey who has struck a balance with her past, gotten honest to the bone about her longings and holdbacks, and completed the deep inner work of truth-telling, shadow-facing, body and soul recalibration, and feminine genius reclamation. This phase will invite you to immerse in nature on the land you inhabit, to build a symbolic gate in the wild for the ritual of crossing the Threshold. As you cross, you will mark your rites of passage, witnessed by your human and larger-than-human community, celebrate, and begin emerging from the underworld as an initiated person.
May
BODY LAYERS: Deep Body
MYTHIC HEROINES IN SUPPORT :
Anima Mundi: Oldest Woman, Weaver of the World
PLANT CYCLE: Tree with fruit and seed
JOURNEY KEYWORDS:
Walking the sacred road. Returning from the underworld with the harvest of your labor. Bringing the gifts of the journey to the world. Harvest. Wholeness.
Return & Emergence
Gate Eight
Returning with the Gift, In Service of Self and World
As we culminate and complete the rites-of-passage journey, you will begin your return from the journey, walking back up the spiral path that brought you down into the deepest layers of body, soul, and personhood, and now offers you a path to surface back into your life with the gifts you have harvested for you, your family, and your community. In this phase, you mark the beginning of another chapter of your life, having completed the trying work of descending and transmuting, and now emerging as an initiated woman. Here, the gifts of the journey bless your own life, and you begin singing your true song in the world. You return as a Dancing Priestess who has put in the hard work and harnessed the beauty, and can now serve her community and ecosystems with generosity, sensitivity, and power. Deeply rooted in the timeless feminine genius, you develop your work, gifts, and powers further, as you write your personal legacy for the generations to come.
Journey Pathways
HOW WE JOURNEY
~Deep Body Movement®: Embodied journeying through the spiral of the deep body and psyche
~Somatic practice & contemplative inquiry
~“Mythic Acupuncture”: How mythic feminine characters induce us into the needed shifts and chapters of our personal heroine’s journey
~Personal reflection
~Nature immersion
~Sacred dance
~Way of ceremony and ritual
~Journey creative projects
~Peer witness, circle, and council
The Method
OUR UNIQUE APPROACH
THE DEEP BODY METHOD® offers richly curated spaces where through music & silence, guided movement journeys, sensual investigations, witness practices, embodied storytelling, deep psyche explorations, and community council, you can revitalize the soulful intelligence of your deep body, attune to its rhythm, and realize its need to deeply express the soul of who you are in the world.
Creative Projects
TRANSFORMATIVE ART
~Gradually creating a body sized transformative self portrait (no, you don’t need to have any art experience, or to like making art!)
~Incorporate nature immersion & medicine walking as a healing relationship and transformative practice– and cultivating these as rituals in your daily life going forward
~Building a threshold altar and creating a ‘threshold gate’ in nature near you
~Crafting your sacred wand, as a tool of power and transformation
Delivery + Structure
HOW IT WORKS
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Two primary live 2 hr calls with Stefana each month, steering you deeper on the journey through transformational Deep Body Movement & embodiment practice. people in a time zone similar to you for connection and peer support
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One optional monthly call (90 mins) with an assisting Deep Body guide, providing space for integration, group sharing and connection.
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Full recordings will be made available
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Join a Small Pod with journeyers in a time zone similar to yours for peer support and connection
ADDITIONALLY AVAILABLE AS A SEPARATE PACKAGE
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Personal check-ins with our TA’s available
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Voice-note exchanges w/ Stefana for personal guidance
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One-on-one journey support with Stefana
Who is Threshold for?
This journey is for you if you are a woman or a non-binary person who is
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in the gate of change, in transition from a chapter that feels complete into a new one that the heart is calling strong
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have long desired and envisioned a breakthrough in some area of life- but it is yet to come
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feel a deep longing for being initiated in the ancient and meaningful of community, ceremony, myth, and transformative journeying
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desire to serve your community and ecosystem in a stronger, ore powerful way, as an initiated person
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are interested in receiving a credential as an Agent of Deep Body Change
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get honest to the bone about your longings and your holdbacks.
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be called into the farthest stretches your truth, expression, and feminine genius, and catalyze a breakthrough toward the change you’ve longed for.
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rediscover and live rooted in the instinctual, emotional, sensual, and ancestral intelligence of your body
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recalibrate your life, soul, and body to the ancestral feminine psyche.
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stretch into a greater shape of you, toward a greater horizon, into more freedom, aliveness, and soul
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develop your work, gifts, and powers further, and write your personal legacy for the generations to come.
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serve your communities and ecosystems with generosity, sensitivity, and power.
Calendar for Threshold 2024
October Tuesdays 1, 8, 15, 29
November Tuesdays 12, 19
December Tuesdays 3, 10, 17
January Tuesdays 7, 14, 21
February Tuesdays 4, 11, 18
March Tuesdays 4, 11, 18
April Tuesdays 1, 8, 15
May Tuesdays 6, 13, 20
Dates in white are primary calls with Stefana. Dates in orange are journey-deepening calls with assisting guides.
See full calendar and add it to your Google calendar here
GROUP ONE: 9:30-11:30 am Pacific, 12:30-2:30p Eastern, 18:30-20:30h Central European
Well suited for Europe + U.S/the Americas
See this group's time in your time zone
GROUP TWO: 5:30-7:30 p Pacific, 8:30-10:30p Eastern
Well suited for U.S/the Americas, Australia (12:3o-2:30 Wednesdays, Sydney AU), and Asia
See this group's time in your time zone
Stefana Serafina, M.A.
is an embodiment educator, transformative movement facilitator, mentor, and writer recognized for her unique body– and movement–based approach to personal and collective growth. Weaving together movement journeys and expressive arts approaches, nature- and soul-centric body practices, women’s sensuality & mystery traditions, embodied archetypal psyche, and ritual dance, Stefana’s facilitation and teachings have been called "life-changing and life-giving", "deeply penetrating and rekindling", a "masterful invitation to the timeless remembrance of who we are''. Over the last fourteen years, while working with communities in California, Europe, Central America, and online, Stefana developed the Deep–Body model & method, and founded the Deep Body Institute to provides spaces, resources, education, social activism, and community for returning to our deep bodies’ soulful, creative, and earth-honoring intelligence. See more about Stefana's credentials and her personal story of developing the work.
Our assisting guides will be introduced here soon.
Investment
THRESHOLD is a powerful rites-of-passage journey that includes experts guidance, a rich library of live calls, pre-recorded resources, playbooks and worksheets to support you in the many phases and aspects of the journey, and we guarantee the exceptional quality of the offering in exchange for your commitment and presence. The rates of the program reflect our desire to make THRESHOLD affordable for all while honoring the depth and the power of the work.
EARLY RATE BY AUGUST 31
$2222 USD or $285 in eight monthly payments
REGULAR RATE AFTER SEPTEMBER 1
$2700 or $345 in eight monthly payments
FOR THE FULL JOURNEY + A FULL PACKAGE OF PERSONAL MENTORSHIP & SUPPORT:
Includes 3 private mentorship sessions with Stefana + access to Stefana via audio notes, and 1-on-1 check-ins with our assisting guides for ongoing mentorship & support
$3722 or $470 in eight monthly payments
Four partial scholarships are available to people in significant financial hardship with strong commitment and resonance with the journey. If you believe you need a scholarship opportunity, send us an email sharing a few details about your interest and reasons for needing assistance.
TO APPLY, PLEASE FILL OUT THE APPLICATION AND WE WILL CONTACT YOU AS SOON AS WE REVIEW IT. IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, PLEASE INCLUDE THEM IN YOUR APPLICATION, OR EMAIL US AT CONNECT@DEEPBODY.ORG