Rick NurrieStearns

I am a quiet person at heart. The language of stillness and silence is healing and joyful and indeed a most profound teacher. In truth, deep in all our hearts is a profound quiet that reveals the essence of who we actually are. Therefore, words are inadequate to describe any human being, you as well as me.

I have been immersed in consciousness studies for more than thirty-six years. For over 20 years I was involved in publishing spiritual and transformational books and magazines. I was the publisher of the magazines Lotus: Journal for Personal Transformation and Personal Transformation Magazine, and was the co-editor of the book Soulful Living: The Process of Personal Transformation and the co-author of the book Yoga for Anxiety.

My wife, Mary, and I spent a decade, from 1990 to 2000, engaged in the study of psycho-spiritual healing. We worked with some of the world's leading teachers, healers and authors. In the late 1990's, near the end of this decade of immersion in psycho-spiritual work, I experienced a series of life transforming spiritual awakenings. Since then I continue to open into and learn to live from the deepest truth of my realizations.

I'm eclectic in my approach to personal and spiritual growth using both eastern spiritual and western psychological methods. I prefer a gentle, kind and loving approach that lets me discover my truth and way, rather than learning a theory, or adhering to a specific teaching or philosophy.

In my experience, truth is something that can directly be known. Truth comes from lived experience rather than from following belief or doctrine. It's something that is felt and recognized. Truth reveals itself by allowing us to see it, feel it, hear it, and know it.

For transformational practices I recommend journaling, inquiry, meditation, and taking time away from ones usual routine. More fundamentally, there is the moment to moment opening to life by consciously engaging in what arises. If you have some preconceived idea of what healing is needed, then you are making an egoic maneuver. If you rely upon your egoic level of consciousness to guide your maturational process, you will get stuck.

Open and welcome whatever is arising in your life to come into awareness, deep healing tends to come from the inner to the outer. That which is not true is revealed and in the same manner, that which is true is revealed. How it all happens is an incredible mystery. Awareness, so quiet and wise, is the true healer.

The methods we use in retreat setting are used to help participants gently peel back the layers, uncovering underlying ideas about self identity and motivations for unconscious ways of being. All is offered gently and respectfully with no pushing or manipulation. We have no agenda for someone's transformation, nor do we have an idea of how someone should be. We trust the power of loving awareness to move participants towards their potential.

I enjoy hiking in the mountains, quiet walks in the woods and being outdoors in the moonlight. I'm a home body at heart and love good healthy cookies.

We live in a rural part of Eastern Oklahoma, on 22 acres in the middle of a forest of native trees. We have two cats and are often visited by fox, possum, raccoon, and deer.