“There is never any end. There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we’ve discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are. In that way, we can give to those who listen, the essence, the best of what we are. But to do that at each stage, we have to keep on cleaning the mirror.”
― John Coltrane

It’s not easy, but it’s beautiful.

We’re hardly big lovers of mottos and maxims at Cardea, so this is about as close as you’ll get to one from us. We mean something specific regarding the subject of this line.

You see, the “it” to which we refer is a specific kind of sacredness we call “sacred originality,” and our goal here at Cardea is not only to help our guests access this source of sacredness but to learn how to keep accessing it long after they leave our care. We believe that modern life poses all kinds of dangers, many of which are based on the loss of a sense of “The Sacred.”

We also believe that the modern world offers an avenue to sacredness that is newly accessible to us but, at the same time, is often suppressed: The ability to treat one’s life as art, and, in this, to cherish our original soul as the threshold to something holy. Sacred originality is about the divinity within each of us. It’s the thing that happens when we go “inward” in order to experience something divine, and it’s the thing that’s crushed when we don’t.

Whether our guests come to us to alleviate the suffering of deep psychological wounds, to awaken more to life or to, in fact, move closer to spiritual experiences, we think sacred originality is an interesting and potent key to getting there. We also believe it’s a key that’s specifically cut to counter modern threats to The Sacred, while unlocking the door to very modern gifts.

We see something wonderfully paradoxical in sacred originality: the actions you take to authentically bring your unique inner life out into the open and set you apart as an original soul also open doors to experiences that make you feel very much a part of something that is beyond you. In other words, to fathom, play with and curate who you are is to also feel that you belong.

We see something wonderfully paradoxical in sacred originality: the actions you take to authentically bring your unique inner life out into the open and set you apart as an original soul also open doors to experiences that make you feel very much a part of something that is beyond you. In other words, to fathom, play with and curate who you are is to also feel that you belong.

We love the name we picked for ourselves. Cardea is the Roman threshold goddess of hinges and handles—i.e., the protector of the devices that open doors—and we work with our guests to innovatively discover their own means to open up when they feel shut down, to enter in where they are locked out and to pivot when they are jammed. In this, psychedelics can be a key to change, and open the door to one’s own innate ability to play. At the root of the word Cardea is the Latin cardo, which is the same as the root of the word “cardiology,” which means connected to the heart or center—that core in the middle of us that brings us to life.

We think it’s really important for people to feel alive in the world, and we also think it’s vitally important that they are able to experience the lives of the living beings and creatures around them. We believe that a deep dive into sacred originality is one means of getting there, but to understand how, does take a little digging.

Let’s dig into that in the next post.

Coming Up: Sacredness in the Modern World