Song of Genesis Apprenticeship

The Bird Physician

The Bird Physician

THE SONG OF GENESIS: 7 STARS, 7 MASTERS, 7 DRAGONS
APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

This is a formal apprenticeship program with Laura Stelmok in the medicine of the Song of Gensis: 7 Stars, 7 Masters, 7 Dragons.  Each participant must formally apply and be accepted each year to enter this residency. Many of the participants will be licensed acupuncturists, but not all. There will also be those practitioners who come to this current/discipline of medicine from other healing traditions, and may or may not “practice” this medicine, but for whom training in the Song of 7 is essential to their lives. These practitioners will be trained hands-on in the even more ancient practice of spiritual healing. This will be worked out on an individual basis, as requested.

Each practitioner’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 Song of Genesis turns us toward the deep tears in the ecological and spiritual fabric of life. The Song of Genesis leads us into the wild vulnerability of life’s urgency. The Song of Genesis 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 Intensives and Individual Dragon Days: This year there will be two residential intensives, spring and autumn, totaling 14 days. In addition, anyone admitted into the residency will also be required to participate in a minimum of 10 Dragon Days throughout 2023. Participation in this training is for the entire year. The 2 Intensives and 10 Dragon Days will include written work during and after, that will become part of the annual notebook. All practitioners must be present in person at the residential intensives.  If travel is impossible for additional days, we may be able to do some of the extra work on Zoom. We are gathering in warmer months in the coming years so that all will be able to attend residentially and we will be able to work safely under the tent. It will also allow for more practitioners to enter this training if so desired. We will find a way for each practitioner to be housed safely and we will work carefully with masks, air filters and social distancing.

  • 2 Residential Intensives
    Spring: Wednesday 3/27-3/31 (5 days)
    Autumn: Tuesday 11/15-23 (9 days)

  • Additional Dragon Days throughout 2023 (minimum of 10 from March-December 2023)
    (In Person Only)

    • All 6 ME Practice Visit Days have one DD each day = 3 Dragon Days for the required 10 days in 2024: 4/12, 5/9-10, 7/11-12, 8/2

      3/27-31 Maine / SOG Residency Weekend —Counts for 2 of required 10 days in 2024
      4/19-21 Vermont / Montpelier
      5/11-12 Maine / Whitefield
      6/17-21 NYC All 5 days = 3 Dragon Days
      10/12-13 Maine / Whitefield
      10/26-27 Vermont / Putney
      15 days + 3 ( if participate in all 6 Me practice visit days)

  •  Notebook of the Year: This notebook will include pertinent notes from lectures/tutorials, some treatment 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. The narrative work shared in the book might also include other writings from the year and/or a summary letter/section in the notebook that is personal. For some this is a letter at the beginning, for others there is passionate/necessary writing that has been collected through the experiences of the year. 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. Some people scanned drawings from their journals, which can be useful, but undigested raw journal entries are not useful for this annual notebook. 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.

    There are those in the apprenticeship program who write a 1-2 page letter following each gathering and simply collect them in an organized way at the end of the year. Nothing more than this is necessary. The reflective writing process can be done during intensives, after Dragon Days, 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 treatment vaporize. For others the reflective writing is more surgical. Either way, 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 Song of Genesis 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 tx/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 1/15/2025, 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 for NEW applicants. It can be downloaded here. The application is due by 3/1/2024 if applying for the spring and by 9/15/24 if applying for the fall intensive. 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 before 3/15/24. 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 March 1st, 2024 (if applying for the spring) and September 15th, 2024 (if applying by the fall.) 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. Letters of Intent are not required for the spring intensive. This intensive is an extension of the work of 2023, rescheduled. The letter 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.

Letters of Intent are required for entering the long Fall Intensive and must reach me no later than 9/15/24.

  • Please read and download the annual invitation (For more detailed information): 2024 SOG Annual Invitation (soon to be released.)

  • To download the 2024 application: SOG Apprenticeship Application

TUITION

2024 Spring Residency (5 days) ~ most participants paid for the entire residency in 2023 and this weekend is a reschedule of the fall gathering. If you only paid for part of the year and still need to pay tuition for the second half of 2023:
Spring Residency (5 days) ~ $450
2024 Annual Residency (9 days) ~ $900/year
Mandatory Additional 10 Dragon Days ~ $75/day

  • To keep costs at a minimum, each participant will be responsible for her/his own food.

  • We ask for a daily donation of $25-50/night for facilities/housing, and for those few who may need to commute, a daily facilities donation of $10-20.

  • Details will be in the logistics letter.

REGISTRATION/TUITION: Click Here