The 7 Dragons Apprenticeship

The Bird Physician

THE 7 DRAGONS / 13 GHOST POINTS APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM 10/27-11/1/2026

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

This is a formal apprenticeship program with Laura Stelmok in the medicine of the 7 Dragons and 13 Ghost Points. Each participant must formally apply and be accepted each year to enter this residency. There will be practitioners who come to the teachings of this current/discipline of medicine from many different healing traditions, for whom training in the Song of 7 is essential to their lives.

Each participant’s training will be highly individualized, held within the container of the small group of similarly focused students. The apprenticeship will pull upon the deepest yearnings of the physician’s vocation. It requires patience, stamina, courage and above all Love. To want and to allow such guidance is necessary to enter the current of this medicine ethically, especially in this culture and at this time. To live such a grace requires mature psychological inquiry and practice. The Alchemical Odes turn us toward the deep tears in the ecological and spiritual fabric of life within us. They lead us into the wild vulnerability of life’s urgency. The training in the Odes requires that we each enter the darkness of our own forgetting.

The duration of this training/apprenticeship will vary with each practitioner.  How a physician is shaped in the living hands of a tradition is a wild and precise art. Traditionally one would not imagine the focus of this work being less than 15 years, but with respect to this culture and time, Laura will speak with each participant annually regarding how the training is going, whether to enter the residency or not, how the training may/may not translate into practice.  

This apprenticeship is given into our hearts and hands from those that watch over the roots of life here on Earth. A living trust.

THE WORK OF THE YEAR

Residential Intensive: This year there will be one 6-day residential intensive in the autumn. Included in this intensive is the 7th day, of rest. Please do not plan any external work the first day you are home. Participation in this training is for the entire year; the residency will be supported in all other programs offered. The Intensive includes written work during and after, that will become part of the annual notebook. All participants must be present in person at the residential intensive.

  • Residential Intensive
    Autumn: 10/27-11/1 + 1 day of rest/reflection (7 days)
    Included in the annual program are the Teaching Clinics in Maine and Vermont throughout the year, where the medicine is rooted in the practices of all participants.

  •  Notebook of the Year: This notebook will include pertinent notes from lectures/tutorials, some treatment/retreat reflections from the year, questions and perhaps most importantly some narrative writing, how you are absorbing and digesting the work of the year, how you are changing as the result of the work and how it is living in you. This annual book will become your library over the years. It might also include other writings from the year and/or a summary letter/section in the notebook that is personal. This notebook is not to be scanned pages from your hand-written journal. It must be readable and organized in such a way as to be a useful document both for you and for Laura. It is intended to be collected throughout the year, not a 100-hour project at the end of the year. The reflective process is not optional in the on-going invitation of the apprenticeship. It can and will vary according to each person; how each of you naturally learn best and where the need for growth in the individual needs pressure.

    The reflective writing process can be done during intensives, after other retreat/clinics, a few hours here and there which deepens and commits to the practice. For some, long writing is essential, lest the training and the life given in every gathering vaporize. The collection of writing is intimate and necessary. This notebook is not intended to be a replica of your journal. It is also not intended to be an overwhelming project. It becomes a way of life, a way of dialogue with the transformative fire and Laura, to add a focus on the cultivation of ethic and transformation of the deep problems of power we have each one of us inherited. As well, the reflective process ALWAYS reveals insight/learning from a the residency that would otherwise not reach consciousness. Writing from treatments must be read again and again so as not to forget what was given.

    This notebook will be shared, in confidence, with Laura, by 1/15/2027, so that the curriculum and your understanding of it can gather momentum and focus over the years, according to each person’s consciousness inside of the apprenticeship.    

THE APPLICATION

The Application: The formal application is only for NEW applicants. It can be downloaded here. The application is due by 7/15/2026 if applying for this year. Please email your application to the office.  If you handwrite the application, scan the document before returning it via email so that the archive of this program can be digitally stored. Our office will arrange time for you to meet with Laura for approximately 1 hour in person or on zoom if you are a new applicant. For any applicant who will need to arrange air travel, Laura will meet with you soon after receiving the application so that you may plan accordingly.

Applications must reach us by July 15th, 2026. Please email our office if you are interested in applying for this program or if you have any questions.

Letter of Intent: This letter is for returning applicants. The letter for 2026 is to be 1-3 pages long. A personal letter to Laura: where you have been inside this training, where you are now, and where you are focused in the coming year. The letter is to be a statement of purpose and intent that will hold your focus for the coming year. This would include personal work as well as the work of training as an instrument.

TUITION

2026 Fall Residency (6 days) ~ 10/27-11/1 ~ $975 total, including room and board.

REGISTRATION/TUITION: Click Here