THE MOTHER TONGUE IMMERSION: A Long-Form, Life-Supporting Immersion into the Archetypal Wisdom of Story, Movement and Dreams

Includes all 3 MOTHER TONGUE SERIES (24 sessions) + 11 additional small-group sessions designed to support you over time and root you deeply in this task of securing our footing in the territory of bone-knowing.

April 2-December 19, 2024

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9-11 am MT

Dates listed specifically at the end of this page

70 hours of personalized guidance and facilitation

$1800 or $200/month for 9 months.

6 spots available at full price. 2 spots left at a 10% discount. The 40% and 20% discount slots have been filled. Please read my SLIDING EQUITY SCALE page for details and discount codes.   9 month payment plan available at registration.

The Mother Tongue 9-month Immersion is the deepest container of continuous support and exploration that I am offering in 2024. To spend an entire human gestation cycle in the underground forest of STORY, brought alive though archetypal movement and your personal dreams, will yield insight, reservoirs of power, strength and healing that will shift your life in profound ways.

With a small group of fellow travellers (max 10), we will weave a sturdy foundation and personalized map of the soul territory through which we will traverse. With 11 special and additional Immersion sessions scattered throughout the year, framing 3 intensive 8-session series into specific stories (joined by a larger group)- The story of La Llorona, The Red Shoes and Sealskin, Soulskin from Women Who Run with The Wolves, we will gather the bones of ourselves that are scattered across the desert of our lives and psyches, and make ourselves whole. Our themes are protecting and keeping our creative rivers clean and flowing, understanding where we have sold our souls for the promise of something that will never deliver, where we are being danced and whirled into madness on the rhythm of something outside of ourselves and freeing ourselves into our own handmade life and rhythm, recovering injured instincts, understanding our medial nature (our ability to traverse both deep liminal spaces as well as the tangible reality of the topside world), the necessity of solitude, the innate ecology of inner life, hearing and heeding the calls that sound for us, protecting the life of soul and the creative fire. There is plenty of time for diving into the depths with support, and plenty of time for rest and integration (check out the schedule below).

** In order to create a cohesive and powerful container for this vulnerable and brave work, your commitment and dedication are required.  If you wonder if you’ll be able to make this work because of scheduling issues, reach out to Sarah

“Mother Tongue” is a place for remembering our deep song, for embodying our sacred conversation with Life itself, the wisdom of the unseen world and the bone-deep, original language with which they speak both to and through us.

Every individual series (April/May, August and November)– each with its own specific theme and story frame-is a weave through these profound portals of archetype and symbol- A Story or grouping of stories (among other places, from the oracular book Women Who Run with the Wolves), the unique ritual of physical movement and gesture through archetypal qigong, and the symbolic world of personal dream images – for the purpose of recovering embodiment, lost energy, right- sight, direction, meaning, and spark to create and live with the sustenance of “the river beneath the river” while we create life in the topside world.

We come together to create just right light, to sharpen and soften our vision accordingly, so that we can peer into places that are just beyond the sight of our daily lives, to douse our way to cool, clear lagoons of renewal, insight, wise instruction and the true norths that can restore balance, harmony and right-action in our lives and therefore in the Great Wheel of our world.

Story, movement and dreams are of our most indigenous human expressions and capacities. The timeless and universal mother tongue of archetype and symbol is a language that cuts through and speaks to us at the deepest level- in flashes of insight and bone-knowing, these symbols and imprints point us toward true north, wisdom and next steps.. They are maps, mirrors and medicine that we need for our birthright of thriving, evolving and creating.

There is a topside world of our daily living. And there is an underside world of our deep song… A world behind the world, a *river beneath the river. An unseen numen and powerful glow that stands just behind, and at the center of all that we can see…that is, if we can see.

It is this heartbeat, this ineffable soul-force that gives our lives sustenance, guidance, meaning and energy….or, as it were, it is our distance from this vital pulse and taproot that can steal these very same treasures from our days, leaving us running on fumes, wandering in a kind of aimless bardo, longing but never leaping, estranged from ourselves and our lives. We lose the shine in our eyes, the glow in our hearts and our sense of enduring meaning, direction, connection, hope and purpose.

One of our most meaningful tasks as human beings is to become adept in in learning to hear and recognize the deeply personal and specific language in which Life uses to speak to us… and then to come to understand, abide by and heartfully take up this conversation with the whispers and symbols of seen and unseen realms, thereby acknowledging that we are, quite literally, how Life itself emerges, transforms, creates and evolves. We learn to hear how Life is speaking to us, so that Life can speak more clearly through us, in our unique signature.

All classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:00-11:00 am Mountain Time

35 sessions spread over 9 months with plenty of time for integration

Opening Sessions (Immersion group only):
April 2, 9

Series #1:
April 25-May 21 (Thursdays and Tuesdays from 9-11 am MT) 
3 Week Integration break
Immersion sessions: June 18, 25, July 2
3 week Integration break
Immersion session: July 30

Series #2:
August 6-August 29 (Tuesdays and Thursdays 9-11 am MT)
3 Week Integration break
Immersion sessions: September 17, 24 and October 1
4 week Integration break

Series #3
November 5-December 3 (Tuesdays and Thursdays 9-11 am)
1 Week Integration break
Closing Immersion Sessions: December 17, 19

Please note : Sarah Byrden no longer endorses the MogaDao Institute or study with Zhenzan/Zhenevere Dao in any capacity, no longer teaches or studies in association with the MogaDao Institute, operates under the designation of “MogaDao Teacher”, nor represents or endorses MogaDao as a tradition or entity in any way.