Caravan of No Despair from Mirabai Starr

Learn key principles and practices for turning heartbreaking stages of grief into portals for spiritual awakening and transformation.
Move along the path of integration with loving guidance and the support of a conscious community.

If you have experienced a heartbreaking loss, you know how difficult it can be to go through the stages of grief. Waves of sadness, anger, and depression can wash over us for months or even years.

Meanwhile, there is often pressure from family, friends and colleagues who try to force ” normality” before you can be ready. They may want to “cheer you up” and help you “get back on your feet” rather than meet you as companions in the dark and scary places that arise when you have experienced a deep loss.

This can lead to a deeper sense of disconnection and isolation. It may seem that few people have the time, wisdom, and patience to help you deal with your loss in a way that truly respects what your soul needs and provides you with a safe haven where you can turn your grief into healing.

If we try to avoid or interrupt our natural grieving process, we will disrupt what may be a journey of deep healing, spiritual unfolding, and transformation.

Taking our path, step by step, through tragic losses can play a Central role in our spiritual life, because grief tends to open us up to the depths of life in a way that nothing else can.

When we deal with grief in a transformational way, we become much more real about what really matters. We make it clear what we believe. We are committed to loving deeper. And we are more concerned with making changes.

Our heartache can turn into what Saint Teresa of Avila called a “beautiful wound,” a kind of pain that actually connects us to the Divine. A wound, even if it is painful, can eventually give rise to the peace, love, and even joy that comes from feeling deeply connected to the source of all life.

Thus, grief viewed through a spiritual lens represents a profound opportunity for our evolution — both a deeper embodiment of life and a closer connection with the spirit.

It is no accident that many of history’s most famous mystics have been catapulted into their path of enlightenment and service through deep loss, tragedy, and Heartbreak. Such events tend to humbly bring us to our knees, wanting to face whatever truths and emotions are awakened in us. This, in turn, may open us to a real surrender.

The “move on” mentality that permeates our culture can thus deprive us of a deep opportunity to experience more compassion, a sacred connection, and a better understanding of the meaning of life.

This is not to minimize the loss of a loved one, for example. But our grief can be a portal to a deeper, wiser, and richer life experience when we consciously engage in spiritual practice. Thus, the path of loss becomes a journey of redemption and healing.

In fact, each of the five traditional phases of grief popularized by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross can be experienced as a spiritual initiation. For example, the full sensation of being burned by anger can eventually open us to our inner fire to create change and feel the passion for life again. By allowing ourselves to become self-contained for a while, we can get rid of false images and goals.

Ultimately, grief and loss open up the potential for an alchemical journey in which the darkness and suffering we face can turn into the gold of a deeper life and connection with God.

But we need guidance and support to create a container in which our painful emotions can be assimilated and we can safely enter the heart of fire to be reborn.

And this is where this 12-module virtual program comes in, a deep feature that will guide you in navigating your own losses as an alchemical path of transformation.

The name of the course “Caravan without despair” is taken from a poem by Rumi, in which he writes: “our caravan is not despair. Come, come again.”This refers to the attitude of greeting, which is ultimately a way of renouncing what is.

Despair comes when we lose all hope, which is too common in the journey of sorrow. Instead, we offer a sanctuary where you will be compassionately guided through the natural stages of grief and loss so that you can open up to redemption, healing, and the promise of a richer life without feeling rushed through each stage.

Indeed, it is vital that we absorb the empowerment that each stage of grief offers. Each wave clears us for new opportunities to arise.

The importance of an experienced guide

Your teacher and guide on this spiritual journey through grief is Mirabai Starr, a beloved spiritual teacher and a man who has faced grief on a deep, heartbreaking level, including the sudden loss of his daughter in a car accident.

For Mirabai, this loss was both a crucifixion and a journey to a deeper spiritual awareness. Thus, Mirabai has gone through a complete journey of grief and is intimately aware of its true, alchemical potential.

Mirabay has also written many famous books about female mystics, including Saint Teresa of Avila, and she has followed a path that includes Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist practices — all woven together in a deeply revered path.

This course is her offering to your heart. Mirabai will guide you to a powerful return to the path of grief as a way to harvest the “soul lessons” that loss opens up, allowing you to live your life more deeply.

In the course of the 12-module travel with it, you will:

Learn how to create a sacred space and enter naked into the glowing fire available to you when your world was destroyed.
Distinguish between comfort and transformation.
Approach each of the five stages of grief as a spiritual initiation, giving yourself the necessary time at each stage and going back as needed.
Rewrite the scenario of what happened and create the ending you prefer.
Rethink “denial” as a state of grace and engage your anger as a spiritual warrior.
Develop self-compassion even as you replay the story of what happened over and over again.
Stop trying to fix your broken heart and instead allow yourself to live and rest in secret.
Accept “what is ” without minimizing your losses.
Expand your ability to be friends with your heartache, pain, and longing as allies on the path of ecstatic surrender.
Explore teachings from various spiritual traditions that embrace the destructive power of love.
Identify the positive traits that loss draws from you (such as dignity, fearlessness, even humor).

Mirabai will guide you through a deep, gentle and Sacred journey designed to help you move through the phases of grief with greater grace.

What will you find in these 12 modules

Each session of contemplation and learning will build harmoniously on the next, so that you will develop a complete, holistic understanding of the practices, tools, and principles that you will need to navigate through the stages of grief in a way that will open you to a true spiritual transformation.

Module 1: sitting on fire (recorded on October 21)

Grief is a natural reaction to the destruction of the Foundation of your life. One of the most powerful forces for radical internal transformation is the death of a loved one.

However, loss takes many forms, and each of them can be a catalyst for awakening: the termination of relationships and the circle of friends and family that you shared, the loss of a job or career and the community that is associated with it, financial security, a serious health diagnosis that changes your self-image, infertility, innocence. Our culture has taught us to avoid painful things, but the traditions of world wisdom offer us a deeper path, one that invites us to sit in the fire and let it transform us.

In this session, you will:

Learn somatic practices in order to be with the strong feelings that arise when we explore our losses.
Distinguish between comfort and transformation.
Explore teachings from various spiritual traditions that embrace the destructive power of love.
Learn about “disenfranchised grief” and how to give yourself (and others) permission to mourn your hidden losses.
Start building an altar for your loved one(s) who are gone.
Module 2: longing for a loved one
(Recorded On October 28)

The mystical genius of the sixteenth century, Saint John of the cross, coined the term “dark night of the soul” and developed a teaching that shows us how to surrender to radical ignorance and allow ourselves to be deprived of everything that stands between our souls and the Divine. These and other mystics view deep sorrow as a great spiritual blessing, not as a problem to be solved.

In this session, you will:

Explore the numinous quality that fills your losses and access it as a portal for your connection to the Divine.
Practice contemplative reading of mystic poetry as a spiritual practice.
Learn the language of love from the Song of Songs (Judaism) and Gita Govinda (Hinduism).
Give up the impulse to correct your broken state.
Module 3: loss landscape
(Recorded On November 4)

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a pioneer of the movement for conscious dying, came to the conclusion that everyone grieves differently and that science collapses in the face of the secrets of the heart. There is no map of the loss landscape, no set route, no space checklist where every item ticked brings you closer to success. You can’t succeed in mourning your loved ones. You can’t fail. Still, there are some similarities, and knowing the signs can help you navigate this wilderness.

In this session, you will:

Learn the classic stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
Rethink these stages as spiritual stations.
Create a graph of your losses and look for new patterns.
Learn about how Saint Francis of Assisi went through the path of loss and transformation.
Module 4: denial as grace
(Recorded On November 11)

Negation is not inherently negative. This is, in fact, what saves us from being blown up when tragedy strikes. This is a biochemical process that passes through our brain and wraps us in a protective cocoon. It can also be seen as the grace that descends when something terrible happens, the angels who rush to support us as we rush into the abyss. The power of loss can lift the veil that separates us from the sacred and give us fleeting but transformative access to reality.

In this session, you will learn::

Give in to the altered state of consciousness that accompanies deep loss, accepting it as an opportunity to separate from the everyday world and stay in a broader field of awareness.
Affirm the community’s ability to respond to loss and build a network of support for those who have lost loved ones.
Identify the positive traits that loss draws from you (such as dignity, fearlessness, even humor).
Find out what current research can tell us about the impact of trauma on the brain.
Module 5: isolation as wisdom
(Recorded On November 18)

When we lose someone or something we love, we tend to move away from the world to protect our broken hearts. We need time and space to turn inward and evaluate what happened. We can also recognize that something sacred is happening beneath the surface of shock and pain, and we don’t want to be distracted by other people and their opinions about our loss. While the desire for solitude can lead to harmful isolation, it can also be an expression of self-care and a way of honoring the sanctity of the experience.

In this session, you will:

Make a plan to spend the day alone and quiet.
If you have a tendency to become too isolated, make a plan to sit with a trusted companion and tell them the whole story of your loss.
List both the obvious and more subtle ways you test your experience when feelings are intense.
Find out about Kuan Yin and Tara and ask them for shelter.
Module 6: anger as a protest
(Recorded December 2)

Anger is a natural reaction when something valuable is taken away from us. Our whole being revolts in protest. Desperate to find a place to put out the fire, we can pounce and cause harm. Yet when we approach this powerful emotion with loving awareness, we can claim the power of a spiritual warrior to break through the illusion and expose the truth. Grief may be the first time we experience the ability to set healthy boundaries!

In this session, you will:

Make a list of everyone you are angry at for your loss (s).
Write a letter of protest to God (or the divine, the Universe, any Higher Power you belong to).
Explore the archetype of the spiritual warrior across the entire spectrum of faith.
Module 7: bargaining as a solution to problems (recorded on December 9)

Bargaining can be one of the most unpleasant aspects of experiencing grief. This is the phase when the monkey mind takes over and you endlessly play back the record of what happened, in the vain hope that you can make things come out differently. But we can’t think our way through the problem of loss. No amount of righteous indignation, self-flagellation, or dreary ” if” will undo reality. A relentless internal monologue can make us feel like we are going mad, but if we are patient with ourselves and remember not to believe everything we think, this process will go its natural way.

In this session, you will:

Rewrite the scenario of what happened and create the ending you prefer.
Practice self-soothing phrases that you can say to yourself when you find yourself kicking your ass.
Find out about your favorite saints and mystics who have lost their center, just like you.
Understand that even knowing that this is a natural stage of grief does not allow it to magically disappear.
Learn to be compassionate to yourself.
Module 8: depression as surrender
(Recorded On December 16)

When all our attempts to make a deal with the Universe fail, we eventually fail, become exhausted, and surrender to what we have. And “what is ” can be really hard to bear. But at this point, we have nowhere else to turn, and we finally sink into our feelings. We become just sad, with no storyline overshadowing the experience. We go from the head to the heart and rest there.

In this session, you will:

Find out what the sixteenth-century mystic Saint John of the cross meant when he coined the term “dark night of the soul”.”
Determine when you feel that you have experienced a “night of feelings”.”
Free yourself from the need to know and understand. Accept this secret.
Practice meditation on the hollowness from PEMA Chodren.
Module 9: Stripped, Broken And Blessed (Entry January 6 )

Rumi says: “The grief that makes you cry out draws you to unity.” And that’s not all! “Your pure sorrow that needs help,” he continues, ” is a secret Cup.”Do we dare to believe that?” Many mystical traditions claim that the moment we turn to a Saint, there is an instantaneous — almost quantum-response. The beloved longs for us as passionately as we long for the beloved. The relationship between man and God is mutual. The fire of separation burns the boundaries between our souls and our source so that we can regain the power of desire.