The Formation Project was a year-long pilot designed to support a personal deep dive into a different way of life. Its core components included rigorous spiritual practice and reflection, accompanied by elders, a nurturing small group, and the riches of ancient and living wisdom. Our vision was to create a container in which we could actually experience what it’s like to live connected to the sacred within ourselves, in others, and beyond. And then to take steps toward a lifetime of growing into that way of being.

This high-commitment, all-in experience was best compared to a part-time degree in terms of time and relational engagement. Its design drew on learning from formation experiences across and beyond religious traditions - from monastic communities, to Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Café, to True North Groups, and many more. Broadly imagined, the Formation Project provided a support structure for us to deepen our personal connection to the sacred across three dimensions:

1. Inner - tending the sacredness in ourselves

2. Outer - tending the sacredness in others

3. Beyond - tending the sacredness of which we are part

Though we co-created an experience of deep connection and loving accompaniment, some elements of healing, formation, and community were more emotionally and spiritually labor-intensive than almost anything we’d done before. That said, many of us found that over these months, we discovered a way of being that actually felt like sails to a ship: the addition of power and capacity for everything that may come.

At the end of the year, we had a ceremony on Zoom where we each made commitments as to how we would continue to live into this way of being for another year.