Dear All,

Back in the 1980s, at the request of some of the people who had become familiar with the Personal TotemPole Process, as this work was initially called, I began training some therapists and professionals in the nature and application of the process. The work had come to me in a vision, and I had been led by that vision into creating a training process that would grow practitioners to guide other people through their own deep processes.

The training quickly evolved into a three-year program with ten to twenty participants who met for six days at a time twice a year for three years. My focus was to bring participants through experiencing the entire process themselves before we entered into any intellectual description. It is thus a profoundly experiential process. It is based, first of all, on experiencing one’s aliveness and all of its components and then bringing these components into a wholeness whose direction is fully tangible. The experience of coming home to oneself provides a sense of solidness within the flow of the great mystery of the aliveness of one’s being.

The training follows a structured, sequential process that allows participants to meet many of their core alivenesses and, especially, to work through any injuries or blockages that might prevent them from living their fullest aliveness. The training thus has a particular focus and a sequence and order that needs to be followed. It is designed to allow participants to meet and heal some of their most essential alivenesses. Each segment, each journey builds on the previous ones. The invitation is to grow, to move from survival to the fullness of your aliveness. Through this process, participants learn to trust the wisdom of the deep imagination and the healing path it provides. Many go on to hold a safe space for others to do the same. They learn to trust the healing ways and integration of the deep imagination so that another person can also experience these inner depths in themselves.

In the past, this training naturally involved much travel both for me and the participants, as well as needing to find places of accommodation and then scheduling this all into one’s life. Fortunately, my wife, Dr. Mary Diggin, who is a remarkable trainer … there are places where she knows this work better than I do!… also happens to be a computer expert, and over six years ago, she began to develop our distance training program using Zoom.

This brought several positive changes and made it easier for people to participate in the training. It has brought the training into the familiar process of one’s everyday life while at the same time allowing for much more personal attention. The convenience of bringing it directly into one’s home and everyday life has advantages over the residential format, where at times, the specialized retreat nature of the residentials almost overshadowed the core of what I wanted to teach. Rather than only meeting twice yearly, we meet every month, so there is an enhanced continuity. Also, Mary and I find it much easier to keep ongoing contact with our students, which is deeply pertinent to their growing and learning.

Overall, I have found distance learning refreshing, stimulating, and effective. The monthly online meetings are supplemented by recordings of the meetings and a vast amount of material that Mary has written. When I first read her writings on deep imagery, I knew I was no longer alone. The Universe has given me a partner who loves me deeply and is an equal in my work. For an older man like me, it feels like a profound blessing.

Here, in my elder years, I can work from home, still teaching what I love. I have a partner who supports me and translates me to our students with grace and humor. We work so well together. And, in this online training, in these latter years of my life, I find what is the best variation of all the different ways I have trained people over the years. 

I don’t know why I feel the need to write this at this time. It is the middle of the night in late March 2023. I turned 89 a few days ago. Astoundingly, I am in the ninetieth year of my existence. I don’t know how much longer I will be here but I appreciate the long and beautiful path the Universe has given me.

The vision of those animals in my centers of aliveness over 50 years ago gave a direction to my path that was unexpected and profound. I shared it generously with the world. At times, there were disappointments. There were people who got stuck along the way. There are people have tried to claim my work as their own, while not actually doing what I taught, which seems strange to me. Yet I trust. The Universe knows what it does. Others have loved this work and given their time to guiding people to meet their inner guides and to embrace their deep aliveness. Sometimes I am amazed to remember that some people like Dianne Timberlake and Debra Vickroy have worked tirelessly and kindly for over 40 years here in the USA. Others, too many to name, have participated with me in workshops and trainings for almost as long, in Europe, Australia and the USA. I have experienced kindness and love from so many and I have loved in return. Thank you. We have had our festivals, our clans, our animalwork. We have explored the depths of dreams, of our unique paths, of our inner worlds and the magic of our aliveness. We have danced on the path of the deep imagination.

I hope to see many of you dancing this path for many more years with Mary and me.

I am grateful to the Universe for allowing me to participate so fully in this beautiful journey.

Love,
Steve