This is such a sacred time.

You have entered a portal that is both tomb and womb.

Your training program is a protected space, an enclosure in which you can be safely composted in order to become future nourishment.

Learning how to serve others will inevitablty chip away at your ego. It will expose your secret insecurities, degrade your grandiosities and humble you to the bone.

This is the tomb. Not every part of you will survive the process, and that is appropriate.

You are simultaneously nurturing a precious seed of potential.

You are awakening latent talents, enlivening dormant abilities and discovering previously unknown capacities for care and composure.

This is the womb. You are temporarily floating in a confined space that contains all the nourishment you need to grow into the skilled, responsible and trustworthy practitioner you are to become.

Your task is spherical.

It is not solely linear, horizontal or vertical.

You are to expand and contract.

Expand to make space for fresh knowledge and new experience.

Contract to integrate, concentrate and solidify what you're learning.

This expansion and contraction act as a bellows, fanning the alchemical flame that metabolizes the raw material of you into something precious and refined.

What does that mean?

It means it is not yet time to choose a direction or exert effort to progress upon any particular path.

You are already approaching the rim of Soul Canyon. That descent will offer paths enough from which to choose.

For now, cultivate wholeness.

• Apply your capacity for present-moment sensing to fully ingest your environment.
• Use your physical body as a compass oriented to the magnetic North of your emotions.
• Let your intellect speak freely with your heart so the information you receive may become embodied knowledge.
• And trust your dreams, be alert to synchronicity and notice repeating themes.

Round out your character. Become the alchemical vessel within which harmonic opposites are sythesized. 

This is about you.

Concern for others will come soon enough.

For now, focus on your own healing and wholing.

The primary task of this phase is to prepare yourself. You are to gather your resources, identify your innate strengths and shore up your shortcomings.

Study your chosen modality, yes, but first and foremost study yourself.

Befriend your vicious inner critic. Learn to nourish your exiled inner child. Cultivate an intimate relationship with the wise elder within.

The next phase — the Shake-Up — will test your mettle. It will break you down and stress-test your ability to remain stable in the eye of a great storm.

Now is the time to build a resilient vessel. Now is the time to ensure you have immediate access to all the tools you'll need for the journey ahead. Now is the time to study the map, before you start exploring the actual territory.

You are walking across a vast plateau. The vista expands infinitely in every direction as you approach the rim of a vast canyon.

Soon you will descend into the depths of Soul Canyon, so get ready now.

Make good use of your current container. Lean on your teachers and peers for support. Use them like the other diamonds in a tumbler to refine and shine every facet of your being.

Only a diamond is strong enough to shape diamond.

There are three primary dangers that will delay your progress and interfere with your successful completion of the Preparation phase.

• Under-preparing: If you embark on the Descent without adequate psychospiritual groundwork, you run the risk of not surviving the journey (physically or mentally) and are highly unlikely to actually encounter your Soul  . Without a well-honed capacity for self-care and self-healing, your inner protectors will panic and sabotage or "hijack" the journey  .
• Over-preparing: Conversely, there is a hazard in placing so much emphasis on your groundwork that it becomes a "perpetual excuse for never actually walking through the door"  . At a certain point, you must stop preparing and step into the fire.
• Misinterpreting the Work: A common pitfall is assuming that everyday self-improvement, conventional therapy, or transcendant spiritual practices are enough to prepare you  . While valuable, these do not prepare the Ego for the radical psychospiritual dismemberment that the Descent demands.

Preparation is a multi-faceted adventure.

Here is an invitation / some invitations for how to deepen into, expand and accelerate this evolutionary phase.

• Take stock — what resources do you have at your disposal? Here's a thorough inventory activity... This will help you recognize where you're well-stocked, and where you need to acquire additional provisions in preparation for your journey.
• Mine your memory: Here's a journal prompt: write: "I remember..." and write the first thing that comes to mind. Then do it again. Start every line with "I remember..." and keep going until you you're done for the day. Do this exercise consistently. Track the patterns. Notice the tendencies. Does an overarching theme emerge? What do these memories tell you about who you are in this moment?
• Ask for feedback: "pray for a harsh teacher"; ask for courageous, critical feedback; inquire about your blind-spots; what do others know about you that you may be missing?
• Value Exploration: Ask yourself big questions: What is worth striving for? What genuinely brings me alive? To whom and what will I be faithful?
• Be non-linear — engage in activities that are specifically not directly related to your training program. Practice drumming. Go dance. Wander in wild places. Garden. Volunteer. Make art. Read or write poetry, fiction and myth.