Classes/Retreats

Classes

 

Awakening Heart Intelligence

A Four-Session Series

Much of our suffering arises from relying too heavily on the conceptual mind—on knowing rather than feeling-knowing. Our habitual ways of thinking are shaped by the past. We often meet what is new using old approaches, only to discover that these patterns exhaust us rather than enliven us.

What if we could shift our attention toward the uniqueness of what is coming-to-be—an experience accessible through the heart as feeling (not emotion)? As lived experience, the heart is the center of warmth, joy, welcome, and uniqueness—the ground of everything. When heart awareness is awakened, heart intelligence naturally joins mind intelligence. We begin to sense the distinctive quality of each experience while remaining both knowledgeable and heartfully present.

Daily Practice

This four-session series introduces simple, grounding daily practices:

• A brief awakening practice done each morning before getting out of bed
• A Heart Awareness and Heart Intelligence practice completed once daily (or more, if desired)

Together, these practices orient the day in a deeply practical and spiritual way.

Series Details

Format: 4 sessions (2 sessions per month for 2 months)
Time: Tuesdays, 6:00–7:30 p.m.
Location:
The Center for Soulful Living
3 Caliente Rd., Suite 10
El Dorado, Santa Fe

This group is designed to support living from heartfulness alongside—rather than beneath—our often overused thinking mind.

Month 1 – March 31 & April 7
Heart Initiation

Heart-centered consciousness is a primary mode of intimate sensing—allowing us to perceive the soul and spirit of the world alongside our usual awareness. These sessions introduce the practices of heart awareness and heart intelligence, with guidance on integrating them into daily life.

Month 2 – May 7 & May 14
Developing Pure Body Awareness

We have become spectators of the world—and spectators of our own bodies. In these sessions, we practice key elements of embodied and sensory awareness, shifting from having a body to bodying. Seeing the body as a “thing” subtly distances us from lived experience; bodying restores presence, immediacy, and aliveness.

The art of bodying heartfulness—and living in ongoing, heartful relationship with others, nature, and the larger world—will be cultivated throughout these sessions.

We would love to talk with you if you have any questions. Call Mary Jane Hooper-Sardello at 505-331-8710. If we cannot take your call, leave a message and we will call back.

Retreats

 

Once each year, we gather in community to cultivate a more enlivened, heart-centered way of living. The old ways of thinking and surviving no longer sustain us; instead, we begin to sense ourselves living within an ever-unfolding, changing world.

As we step into this new era of the heart, we meet one another with presence, reverence, and authenticity. In community, we practice a new way of relating—feeling into the words that are spoken, rather than only thinking about them.

Through contemplative practices and heart-awareness teachings, you are invited to move beyond conceptual thinking alone and into heartfelt experiencing. This work opens us to what we are becoming. While we are always in the process of becoming, we are often identified with the past. Heart intelligence offers a new form of consciousness—one rooted in intimate sensing and perceiving the soul and spirit of the world, alongside our familiar ways of knowing.

The 2026 retreat will be held this fall. Dates and location will be announced soon.