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Being and living is beginning to take on new meaning. I got a lot from you all... It's time in my life to move forward. It's going to take time and practice. But you all are brave enough to live full out, and I feel honored to have the opportunity to be and live more myself. Your examples and support are providing me with the necessary power and self-acceptance I need to go forward. Thanks so much and forever. You all are teachers.
-Lee Hurwit (Boulder, CO)

Animá is a contemporary study and practice intended for all deeply feeling, intensely seeking people no matter whether Christian, Native American, Buddhist, Pagan or Agnostic... a consciously decisive way of life rooted in ancient ways of knowing and being, in connective New Science as well as the lessons and revelations of the natural world.

Drawing from the source and ground of all knowing and being, it’s possible for Animá to inform – rather than compete with – existing religious, indigenous, magical and philosophical traditions. As a study, it can deepen understanding of our genuine, able selves in interrelationship with each other, our human communities, and the community of all life. As a practice, its insights and the wisdom it inspires in us are manifest, utilized, applied for the betterment and wholeness of ourselves and the world we are each a part of. Any one of its lessons can be independently employed... but for people of strong intent and focus, Animá becomes a way of living every moment of our lives alertly, deliberately, purposefully and fully.

The word Animá (pronounced ani-mah) is derived from the ancient Latin animus, meaning not only “breath” and “spirit” but also “courage.” The word has since been redefined by everyone from Plato to Jung, but at its root it is simply the vital force connecting and Animáting all things, and the collective knowings (sometimes called “collective unconscious” or “collective conscious”) of life throughout time. The practice of Animá, then, is being – ever more consciously and courageously – an intentional participant in that unending process of healing, awakening, enlivening and creating.

“Animá isn't just about inspiration and reward. It is part of the "great work," tools and insight for living our dreams and fulfilling our most meaningful purpose – a coming home to true self and welcoming place. It’s the literal fertile ground for a new journey.... the fullest expression of our whole beings and feeling hearts.”
-Jesse Wolf Hardin

You can can study Animá via our Correspondence Courses (link), Mentorships (link), Animá Events (link), Apprenticeships for Women (link), In-Person or in-depth Online Counsel (link), Animá Writings (link) archived on this site, and Animá Books & Recordings (link).

Everything and everybody is an influence and teacher for us, for better or for worse. It can, however, be both ineffective and counterproductive to take the eclectic approach, picking and choosing between the elements of various dogmas, traditions, philosophies, religions or magical practices in order to get just what you like or are comfortable with. Animá is a return to the root and source of all valid insight, and as such benefits from a paring down, and from a focusing on the hard as well as easy lessons that can give us back ourselves.

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To my new friends and teachers - My time here has been so necessary and fulfilling, and I'm thankful for each of you and this place of sacred power: Loba- for your kind and loving spirit, generous nurturing, magical food and warm hugs. Kiva - for your gift of understanding nad healing, conviction, commitment and laughter. Wolf - for your undying dedication to this land and years of healing its wounds, your wisdom, teaching and your gentle listening heart. Rhiannon - for being my tour guide, caretaker and fantastic teaching in the making. And this canyon, which touched my soul so deeply. You are all inspiring , whole-hearted, giving people and I feel blessed to have crossed your paths. With gratitude.
-Melissa (Santa Fe, NM)

As Correspondence Students, Apprentices or Practitioners of Animá you could expect to:

• Deepen your sense of presence, enjoy increased mindfulness

• Better orient yourself in the physical world, and explore your personal direction or spiritual path

• Deepen your awareness and understanding of natural authentic self

• Awaken your bodily senses, learning to better sense the world you are a part of, see more pattern and beauty, hear more exquisitely, taste every nuance of your food, savor even the mundane details of your mortal life

• Explore your so called 6th Sense, including resonant empathy and innate intuition

• Tap into bodily knowing and primal instinct

• Deepen your sense of place... of family, home, land, ecosystem and bioregion

• Further your awareness of and active relationship to the natural, revelatory world

• Recognize the intrinsic nature of and animating force in everything, and every thing’s intrinsic value apart from human use

• Increase your sense of self worth and confidence, based on your true rather than imposed or imagined characteristics and gifts

• Come to better understand your fears, and how to use them as markers for what needs your attention, as fuel to act, to change what needs changing

• Realize that you are a co-creator of not only your reality but also your world, and commit to acting accordingly

• Develop the mindset and skills to survive and thrive through difficult social and economic times

• Discover how to give back to the earth that provides and inspires

• Learn how to grow from every mistake or misdirection

• Get beyond victimhood and attachment to escape or distress

• Detach from unhealthy habits, expectations, judgments, and ways of thinking

• Develop healthy attachments to life, spirit, values and missions

• Make every moment a decisive moment, and take responsibility for what you do and don’t do

• Reawaken a childlike sense of wonder and connection

• Learn how to best utilize your gifts and skills for the good of your self and the world

• Discover how to actively fulfill your most meaningful purpose and live your dreams

• Learn to better celebrate and fuller savor

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Animá teaches no particular cultural tradition or bias, although it shares many “knowings” in common with the various ancient earth-based cultures who tapped the same source and wellspring. It does not promote any particular economic system, other than our active participation in the natural cycles of reciprocity. It recommends no political party and takes no political stance... only an ethos of courageous wholeness and direct action, in which each person must find their own best ways of employing and making real their personal beliefs, gifts and visions. And with its emphasis on engagement, personal choice and personal response-ability, it is clearly not “New Age.”

By practicing intense presence, we not only take more in, but can also give more. By making every moment conscious and decisive, we take responsibility for our actions and effects. Learning to better understand, accept and even love the natural self, can help heal the feelings of inadequacy and insecurity that are a cause of most self destructiveness, escapism, depression, sexism, neighborhood violence, war, and global destruction. Learning to intimately reconnect with the natural world can lead not just to a more satisfying life, but to acting in our own individual ways to protect, restore, resacrament and celebrate that diversity and wildness. When we sense at the deepest levels that we are connected to all that is, we experience helping the world as aiding our own extended selves. While each person is unique, Animá takes us to our core, beneath the edifice and habit, and to a place of core agreements and values. In the state where we are most alive, we are also most connected, empathic, grateful and caring. Learning to open to the pain of separation and imbalance, simultaneously expands our capacities to feel excitement, awe, love, inspiration, satisfaction and bliss.

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While informed by the natural world, the practice of Animá does not depend on our living in a wild or rural place, and is even more important for maintaining awareness, integrity and balance in an urban or suburban environment. Civilization and culture exist not apart from nature, but as overlays. Animá teaches us about maintaining contact with the vitality, the inspiration, the wisdom and sense of belonging that resides underneath the concrete and pavement, and outside of our walls and constructs. It likewise teaches the means for recognizing and staying in touch with our authentic, instinctual, inner selves that lie beneath the surface layer of busyness and intellection, projection, distraction, mask and fears... embodying our own true, unique, evolving natures, in what will forever be a changing, natural world.

Animá is an opportunity to be vitalized, and to make more vital the towns and cities we call home. To bring the arts of reconnection into our daily lives, our relationships, careers and communities. To positively affect, even in small ways, everyone we meet. To make our environs more healthy, beautiful and natural, as we heal, express and manifest our natural selves.

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The increasingly difficult global economic times are neither a fluke nor a surprise, being the predictable result of an unsustainable mindset and unsustainable social paradigm. The benefits of this long term downturn are a permanent readjustment of the status quo, the exposure of untenable credit systems, vanishing oil reserves, untenable ecological practices and debilitating governmental intrusion in our personal lives. Animá encourages the kinds of self knowledge, ultra-awareness, connection to nature, self-authority, local governance, regional self sufficiency and tribal community that can not only sustain us through hard times... but that even in the best of times, can help us wholly thrive.

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Animá is a study and practice that can be utilized by those of virtually any religion. Because of the awareness it raises, its empowering of the individual and the personal insights it inspires, it can of course either affirm, disprove, or cast new light on existing and institutional beliefs.

For the agnostic or practical seeker, Animá can be readily explained in the language of new science, from the latest understandings of ecology and psychology to Larry Dossey’s research into the extended mind and Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of “morphic fields.” For the less secularly minded, the Animá can be described in terms of sacred creation, accessible spirit, blessings and revealings, special experiences and difficult lessons that seem meant to be, the feeling of oneness, Satori and ecstasy.

For a full exploration of this topic, please read Jesse Wolf Hardin's excellent and thought provoking Awakening to the Spirit: Animá, Spirituality & Religion.

"We see in the present best efforts of groups of non-Indians an honest desire to become indigenous in the sense of living properly with the land...Sacred places in North America may yet see a series of transformations in which new peoples using new languages rely on them for spiritual sustenance."

-Vine Deloria. Jr. (Sioux historian)

In the past few years there has been an increase in pop shamanism as well as so-called “white” people hosting advertised “Indian” ceremonies. This has provoked a militant reaction among certain Native American traditionalists and their sometimes strident Anglo followers, discrediting and disrupting the activities of those they consider to be “New Age Wannabes” appropriating their sacred ways. In the ensuing conflict many truths have been ignored, complex relationships and inevitable twists overlooked, and people on both sides have been distracted from the real and urgent work: Of personal growth and realization. Cultural rewilding. The awakening of compassion and response. Opposition to global institutional injustice and the degradation of the natural world. The work of reducing population while raising empowered children. Creating alternative schools and community organizations. Planting trees, gardens, and the seeds of noble resistance. Coming together to heal and repair. Remembering to celebrate, and to savor…

In Animá we’ve not only avoided muddled eclecticism but also honored the concerns of our American Indian friends and allies, by employing only practices that both our feeling hearts and our deep experience of our home place provide – regardless of how useful certain practices from other cultures might be. And in addition, we discourage any ceremony or practice that doesn't naturally arise from present needs and context, the land we are a part of and our individual experience. Our Shaman Path correspondence course doesn’t offer easy feel-good shortcuts to weekend enlightenment, but nature-provided insights and tools for the few to answer an insistent calling, painfully readjusting perceptions and remaking their daily lives, preparing them to serve the larger whole. The quests we facilitate are in no way meant to be traditional Native American ceremonies, they’re processes and tests that the land and spirit call to us of every race and culture to undertake. We do not teach an “Indian Medicine Wheel”... we strive to understand the life wheel as it is revealed now and here. And we don’t do “Indian Sweat Lodges,” we just sweat, as part of the effort of doing our best.

It is the intention of Animá Center to help re-create a contemporary culture, community, vocabulary, spiritual sensibility and finally a history true to our usually mixed-blood ancestry and the urgent and trying times at hand. You may look to the the first peoples to inhabit this continent for examples and inspiration, but we must each establish our credibility directly with the land, own our deepening connection and pledge. We respect the ways of those peoples who showed respect to these places so long before us. And we, too, will earn the right to belong.

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Of the many human systems of belief, Animism certainly has the most in common with what we have been shown ourselves, in this special place. There are Animist Christians, Animist Pagans, and even Animist Buddhists. Their beliefs include a recognition of a spirit intrinsic in everything, similar to our definition of the Anima force that empowers and connects all life. There are two reasons, however, why we do not identify as Animists or use that term in our writings. First off, the popular conception of Animism involves superstitious natives worshipping or interacting with independent-minded spirit personalities in rocks and so forth, even though only certain tribal Animist cultures anthropomorphized in this way. Secondly and most importantly, Animism is considered a religion – and therefore in contention and to some extent competition with every other – while Animá is not.

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Animá Center is in part a women’s sanctuary, but there are still a number of ways for men to become involved, avail yourselves of the Animá teachings, attend an event at the Center, or support our work. Animá was founded by a male, and we know and teach that earth and spirit/anima include a dynamic balance of male and female energies and expressions, taking every imaginable form. Besides, given men’s disproportionate position of influence in modern society – and the ways that destruction and war are so often labeled as being “male” tendencies – imparting the knowings and practices of Animá to men is all the more important. Animá teaches that the problem is not true natural masculine energy, but rather, men’s disenfranchisement from their true male attributes and callings. For further reading on this subject, see the essay Animá & Men by J. Wolf Hardin. Animá opportunities available to men include:

• Enrollment in the Animá and Animá Herbal Correspondence Courses

• Applying for a Shaman Path Mentorship

• A Vision Quest facilitated in part by J. Wolf Hardin

• Participation in the Shaman Path or Herbal Intensive workshops .

• A Couples Retreat at the Center

• In-Person Counsel with Wolf or in-depth Online Counsel

• Online Healing Consultations with Kiva Rose Hardin

• Becoming an Animá Supporter

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Long before there was a women’s center in this enchanted place – long before anyone had yet joined founder Jesse Wolf Hardin as residents, teachers and hosts – a majority of those who came seeking clarity and transformation were for whatever reasons female. This may have been due to an inherent or learned willingness to be vulnerable, or an ability to admit what they didn’t understand and ask for help... or simply that more women were able hear and respond to the call of the canyon. In keeping with Animá Center’s dual role as a Women’s Center, there are now a number of opportunities available to women only. These include:

• Enrollment in the Animá and Animá Herbal Correspondence Courses

• Putting your name on the list for a Medicine Woman Mentorship

• Applying for a Shaman Path Mentorship

• Participation in the Herbal Intensives at the Sanctuary

• Applying for an Animá Apprenticeship For Women

• Participating in The Shaman Path Intensive event

• Undertaking a Vision Quest

• Savoring a Wilderness Retreat in a riverside cabin

• In-Person Counsel, or in-depth Online Counsel

• Healing Consultations with Kiva Rose

• Becoming a Supporter

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For the most comprehensive and experiential teachings we recommend applying for a year-long Medicine Woman Tradition or Shaman Path online Correspondence Course. For details and curriculum, click on the Animá Studentship Page.

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The Animá Blog

The Animá Blog features inspiring teaching tales and stories of life at the Animá wilderness sanctuary, profiles of students and supporters, event announcements, beautiful new photos of the Center and its plant and wildlife, progress reports on the restoration work at the Center, artwork, poetry, and recently published articles by Jesse Wolf Hardin, Kiva Rose, Loba and associated students, friends and authors.

To get new posts sent to you automatically, go to the Animá Blog and click on “Subscribe.”

The Medicine Woman’s Roots Blog

The Medicine Woman’s Roots is an award winning blog featuring profiles and never before reported information on the medicinal plants of the Southwest, how-to tips on medicine making, teaching tales from the Medicine Woman Tradition, and other captivating new stories, poetry and photography by lauded herbalist and inspired teacher Kiva Rose.

To get new posts sent to you automatically, go to the Medicine Woman’s Roots blog and click on “Subscribe.”

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Today, as every day, we are called. We who refuse to numb down – who insist on feeling the full measure of this miraculous world – are beckoned to step forward and embrace not just a new adventure but an ancient, essential, ultimately unique personal purpose.

We are called upon to embody a sensibility or spirituality that in-cludes rather than pre-cludes the natural world, called to commit to a mission that contributes to the health of the planet as well as the wholeness of the sentient self.... and that fully honors the connective, Animáting force by whatever name we know it. Ours is a practice that promotes celebratory existence that deepens reverence for life, diversity, and that vital quality we call "wildness." We're called away from our loneliness, separation and distraction.... and on to the communion of home baked bread, the precious touch of family or lover, the ritual of planting a garden, the act of replanting a forest, and the inspiration of a single flower.

This resource is immediate, always present, and available to us all no matter where we might live, work and play. We can find it in unfolding creation and our individual life's quest. In the kept promises of the rising sun, after the darkness of another introspective night. In a youngster, saddened by the sight of a butterfly bounced off a windshield onto the shoulder of some numbered road.... and in an old woman finding reason to go on living in the playful antics of that same sensitive child. It finds expression in the sermon-scream of falcons tilting above our crowded streets, in the spontaneous prayers of outlaw dandelions erupting in the cracks of every aging sidewalk, in the spiraling reggae of the DNA helix and the twisting samba-line of ants ascending a gnarled cottonwood tree. Its testimony is written in stone, in granite and quartz, in demonstrations of authenticity and belonging, in the weight and substance of commitment to place. Its message soars on the lift of robins' wings, echoes off the moon when the coyote sings. It is carried forth from the ancient past to the uncertain future, in the hearts of everyone devoted to restoration, sacrament, and celebration of what is most crucial, beautiful and real.

We are called – to be authentic and true, to be intensely in present time, to inhabit our sensory bodies as in our bioregions and homes, to compromise less of what matters, to insist on lovers or mates that both recognize and encourage us, to seek work that serves our spirits as it helps us to best serve. We are called to nourish ourselves at least as much as we nourish and tend others, to follow our hearts, honor our needs, and live our dreams.

Animá welcomes us back to the fullest experience and expression of purposeful self, to a state of heightened awareness and the roots and lessons of place... welcomes us home.

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