7Directions® Facilitator Training
(2021 class has graduated)
“I have yearned for this type of community. They are all deep, kind, passionate souls who are committed to bringing dance ceremony into the world and healing our planet….
This world needs healing. More specifically, the human species needs healing. And at this time, facilitating 7Directions dance ceremonies feels like one of the most joyful and powerful ways that I can serve others.”
— 7Directions Facilitator Graduate 2018
When we dance, we remember joy.
When we dance our intentions alive in ceremony together, we co-create cauldrons of healing potential.
Release. Trust. Play. Surrender. Freedom. Love. Pleasure.
Dancing our intentions alive is a way to practice loving ourselves, each other and Earth better.
But dance ceremony can’t happen without facilitators.
A 7Directions Facilitator Training doorway is opening
“We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.”
— Jewel Mathieson, "We Have Come to be Danced"
7Directions connects freestyle conscious dance with Earth-based ceremony to create a spiritual practice for navigating life.
As a 20-year-old dance ceremony, 7Directions has a spirit of aliveness.
7Directions is our teacher.
With trust and appreciation, we ask the helping forces of 7Directions to guide us in developing our facilitator selves so we can hold this dance ceremony healing line together with love.
In alignment with earth-based healing ways, learning to facilitate 7Directions stems from growing relationship in community through personal exploration, spiritual connection and embodied practice.
Held by Staci Boden and Jane Sanguinetti with essential assistance by Velma Gentzsch and Miki Johnson, you'll learn to follow, hold, assist and facilitate 7Directions through exploring:
intentional container
the elements of ceremony
Earth-based dance ceremony
energy healing with individuals & groups
the art of sacred music playlists
how to hold space
group facilitation & collaborative leadership
and so much more...
“Becoming a 7Directions Facilitator was a dream come true for me. Hidden within was a strong wish to express parts of myself that were dying to break free and to be felt, witnessed, and explored. I met this need through dance, ceremony, rattling, drumming, singing, praying, healing, channeling and playing inside our 7Directions facilitator circle.
I felt I was home and no longer needed to split my inner imaginary life from my outer awake life. I was held by our circle, the ancients, the lineage, the elements and the beautiful Spirits that walk with this line. For the first time I could feel real support and attachment-the kind of unconditional love and witnessing that I craved all of my life. It has not left my side truly since that day.”
— 7Directions Facilitator Graduate 2018
Learning to facilitate 7Directions is a form of ceremony training
If movement is your medicine.
If you’re fascinated by sacred containers, energy healing and group dynamics.
If you’re excited to weave curated music into a glorious sacred dance journey.
If you’re looking for a loving, audacious and wise dance ceremony community.
The 18-month 7Directions Facilitator Training will teach you how to connect, follow, hold, lead, navigate and tend tangibly and energetically. To yourself. Others. Groups. Earth. Life.
Growing a relationship with 7Directions will help you develop your unique healing ways—your profound and delicious tangible and energetic abilities.
When you hold and carry something bigger than yourself with love and humility, you will be held. Imagine connecting with a source of power which fortifies and nourishes you. Lights you up.
Learning to facilitate a ceremony activates another level of power and leadership inside which then emanates across your life.
Whether it’s a pandemic or a narcissistic former President or fire season, our world is experiencing an all-hands-on deck moment of surrender and rebirth.
7Directions offers a way to serve personal, energetic and collective transformation through dance ceremony.
The question is, are you called?
“The facilitator training has given me the felt experience of true leadership as something that comes from serving and modeling love, as opposed to patriarchal ideas of leadership as authoritarian, top-down force.
Similarly, while the old model paints leadership as a lonely position that holds the weight of the world on its shoulders, I now see how when serving a larger energy, the energy serves and holds YOU.
Leadership is not a solitary or crushing role; it’s instead one that takes deep trust and unwavering humility in the larger force that it serves, and allows this energy to flow through.”
— 7Directions Facilitator Graduate 2018
Experience an 18 month journey to cultivate leadership across your life
Your 7Directions facilitator journey begins virtually with three extended experiential weekends over a period of six months.
Balancing screen time with real time, you’ll explore facilitating virtual and in person ceremonial groups through circling together. You’ll learn about the different forms of 7Directions through dancing them. You’ll receive “behind the scenes” teaching and fireside chats with founder Staci Boden and Facilitator Jane Sanguinetti.
The next part of your 7D facilitator journey teaches you the joyful art of making sacred playlists.
The musical lineage and template of 7Directions spans 20 years. After receiving the confidential elements of 7Directions’ musical magic, you’ll practice creating monthly sacred playlists in deep mentorship with Staci.
The last part of your journey includes collaborating with other students to co-create training 7Directions for the public. Here, 7Directions’ mentors travel alongside offering attuned support and guidance.
Our hope is that for those who live within California or near a mentor, in-person student dances can happen at this time (summer/fall 2021 into winter/early spring 2022). If not, we trust and remain grateful for Virtual 7Directions’ existence.
Your 7Directions facilitator journey completes with a celebratory graduation weekend tba early summer 2022 in Northern California. Again, we intend and hope in person.
As outer systems crumble, it’s time to locate power inside
Until COVID-19, 7Directions had only ever happened in the flesh.
But with great trust in the alchemical intelligence of 7Directions and based on a serious need to dance our way through this (r)evolution, founder Staci—with support from current facilitators—brought 7Directions online in April of 2020.
Over 30 Virtual 7Directions' later and we’re noticing some powerful benefits of online dance ceremony.
Practicing dance ceremony at home heightens individual awareness and responsibility in practical, energetic and collective ways.
Practicing dance ceremony on a Zoom screen invites us to dance together—to see and connect--differently.
Practicing dance ceremony at home and online activates individual and collective healing potential simultaneously. We become points of light dancing a web of intentions alive across the planet.
Virtual dance ceremony is an opportunity to practice multidimensional living here, there and now.
To our surprise, Virtual 7Directions is growing something. With seasoned and new dancers gathering virtually from California across the Midwest and East Coast into Mexico, Europe and even Australia. 7Directions is becoming a global dance ceremony community.
At a time when people feel isolated and anxious, when communities can’t gather in person, we’re grateful Virtual 7Directions can be a safe harbor for dancing love.
And 7Directions needs more facilitators to help hold and facilitate our dancing points of light.
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
— Alan Watts
Dance ceremony training with a virtual twist expands potential and versatility
The challenge of learning to hold a virtual form of 7Directions in an online setting while also preparing for in-person dances will be an initiation for us all. The challenge of becoming facilitators during a pandemic as our world transforms is also initiatory.
Our 2016-18 7Directions facilitator training happened to be all women. We thought we would be embodying ceremonial leadership alongside the first woman president. Instead, we practiced staying true in the face of a misogynistic bully.
In light of the current obstacles for meeting in person….
Given 7Directions’ new powerful Virtual form and what it’s already teaching us….
Because of our pivotal all-hands-on deck collective moment….
And with a trust and belief that being born for these times includes serving through dance ceremony….
We’re answering a call with a 7Directions virtual facilitator training in early 2021.
This is where embodying a ceremonial relationship-based way of life teaches us to listen, let go and follow the energy of 7Directions one step at a time. Online.
What we’re noticing so far is that a virtual facilitator training will expand learning as students:
Create ceremonial containers at home independently for each training weekend
Practice holding 7Directions online with Zoom globally and in-person locally
Explore how to navigate the subtle energy of a group virtually across time and space
Develop hands-on energy healing skills with dancers virtually and in-person
We believe that birthing a sustainable world hinges on our ability to shift from either/or power-over dominator systems to both/and power-with relationship-based ways of life.
At this pivotal collective juncture, we’re honored and excited to experience how a Virtual 7Directions Facilitator Training can school us in embodying and facilitating a different way to love ourselves, each other and Earth right now.
“The training taught me what it means to be a leader. By learning how to “follow the energy” of the larger 7Directions energy, which requires deep listening and tending, I now see leadership as a conduit for expressing and channeling energies larger than the self into this physical world.”
— 7Directions Facilitator Graduate 2018
“I just finished a 7Directions dance ceremony, just for me. This is the most important thing that the 7Directions facilitators training has given me – the ability to create sacred space for myself, the belief that I am worth it, and trust in it. I can be a leader in my own life. This is invaluable and will nourish me my entire life.
I have felt and seen that my showing up in all my beauty and power makes space for others to also do the same, which is a gift. I am more authentically myself, more of the time, than I have ever been. Because I am not as afraid of owning who I am and what I want, it is easier now to create and facilitate the life I desire.”
— 7Directions Facilitator Graduate 2018
Weekend #1: Awakening Your Inner Facilitator
In our first weekend together we’ll dance open the 7Directions training doorway and begin to awaken your inner facilitator.
To maintain a strong container of sacred potency and respect the mystery, some details will remain private.
Generally, this weekend includes:
Meeting, welcoming, initiating your individual inner 7Directions facilitator
Discovering the template of 7Directions dance ceremony
Exploring the elements of an earth-based ceremony container
Studying the difference between dance groups, dance ceremony and earth-based ceremony
Discussing dance ceremony as a spiritual practice, form of medicine and healing path.
Connecting with the archetypal energy of 7Directions assistant and facilitator
Identifying the different forms of 7Directions: public, ongoing women's, morning and virtual dance ceremonies
Beginning to follow subtle energy healing within yourself, others and a group during an 7D ceremony
Practicing subtle body energy healing work to support participants during an 7D
“Music magic flows from a source of deep listening and trust.”
— 7Directions Facilitator Graduate 2018
Weekend #2: Following Energy through 7D Playlists
Our second weekend is devoted to learning the process, lineage, template, beauty and magic of creating 7Directions sacred music playlists.
Since 2002, the nature of 7Directions as a ceremony where everyone dances, including facilitators, meant creating playlists.
Out of respect for our lineage, over time with deep study Staci developed a process for creating playlists in advance that still follows energy in a sacred organic way.
This weekend emphasizes:
Building on awakening your inner facilitator through dance ceremony
Discovering the musical template and arc of 7Directions
Learning the process for creating 7Directions sacred playlists
Connecting with the Spirits of 7Directions through song
Receiving confidential lists of 7Directions music organized by template and arc
Studying music for the different forms of 7Directions ceremonies (ie. morning, evening, virtual)
Answering any question you ever wanted to ask about 7Directions music
Making the process of creating 7Directions playlists accessible, nourishing and FUN
“The ceremony needs me to be so much bigger than I know myself to be. Stretching is hard, and also good for me.”
— 7Directions Facilitator Graduate 2018
Weekend #3: Becoming a 7Directions Facilitator in Daily Life
Our third weekend delves into the art and practice of creating 7Directions dance ceremonies for groups.
We will go behind the scenes of developing, organizing, marketing and following the energy of one 7Directions, as well as explore what it means to hold ongoing circles.
We will also clearly delineate the different forms of 7Directions to help you prepare to meet your co-facilitator requirements for certification.
Our weekend involves:
Continuing to awaken your inner facilitator through practicing dance and sacred music
Discussing practical details about organizing 7Directions
Initiating and holding 7Directions groups from a first seat perspective
Building collaborative teams through clear assistant, second and first seat roles
Creating a marketing flyer or email for 7Directions
Following the energy of a group the 10 days before and after 7Directions as a facilitator
Identifying differences between public, women's/ongoing, morning, virtual and Earth 7Directions
Navigating group facilitation dynamics
Answering questions so you feel prepared and excited to co-facilitate training 7Directions towards certification
“Showing up over and over again is an act of devotion.”
— 7Directions Facilitator Graduate 2018
Weekend #4: Graduating as a 7Directions Facilitator
Our fourth weekend celebrates the relationship you've grown with yourself and daily life through becoming a 7Directions Facilitator.
The specific date depends on class size and a consensus around timing in balance with life commitments, about a year after Weekend 3 near early summer 2022.
Some general details include:
Following the mystery of graduation as 7Directions reveals over time
Holding an intention for a loving, joyful, FUN, nourishing, celebration weekend together
Reserving the right to extend graduation weekend from Thursday-Sunday if we need more time.
“The ceremony is a part of my body; it flows from the bone and sings through the flesh. It lives inside me. It will never leave me.”
— 7Directions Facilitator Graduate 2018
Details
Dates (Friday 10am PT-Sunday 4pm PT):
April 16 - 18, 2021
June 25 - 27, 2021
September 10- 12, 2021
Graduation weekend in 2022, tba
Time: For integrated learning, the training is an 18 month process which includes
3 virtual weekends
An approximate year long pause for six months of music mentorship with Staci and mentored dance ceremony practicums
A final 4th graduation weekend, we hope in person
Location: Virtual with experiential practice (dance!) including breaks to avoid approximately no more than 3 hours consecutive screen time
Sample Weekend PT time (subject to change):
Friday
10-Noon: Opening circle
1:30pm-4pm: Class teaching, learning, practice (play!)
4:30- 7pm: Virtual 7Directions
Saturday
10am – 1pm: Fireside chat, learning, practice (play!)
2 – 4pm: Class teaching, learning, practice (play!)
5 – 7:30pm: Virtual 7Directions
Sunday:
10:00- 12:30pm: Morning Virtual 7Directions
1:30-4pm: Fireside and closing circle
Tuition includes:
Four extended weekends of teaching and materials for 18 months (length of training)
6 months of individual and group Music Mentoring with Staci
Editing and mentoring for creating 7Directions marketing materials
Email support
This facilitator training is open to women, men and all people connected with 7Directions and/or complimentary conscious dance or earth-based ceremony or those called to hold 7Directions dance ceremony.
Whether you embark on this facilitator journey is a decision we will make together through introspection and conversation.
We encourage you to sit with some questions:
Do you feel called to engage in a 18-month (or so) process of growing your facilitator dance ceremony self through 7Directions?
Are you willing to let go of what you think you know to become teachable?
Can you learn to be forgiving and patient about your learning with yourself and us all?
Can you make the time and commit financially?
Are you called to be part of an amazing 7Directions group cauldron of transformation and experience?
Are you ready to have some soul nourishing FUN, maybe even an experience of a lifetime, as we expand this dance ceremony line together?
Notice, we're not asking if you think you can do it. Fear may be saying that you can't, and this is a normal response when contemplating developing new parts of ourselves.
As the facilitators, it's our role is to help assess your capacity for becoming a 7Direction Facilitator.
Tuition does not include:
Travel
The cost of building a music library
Assistant fees and training co-facilitator mentor fees for certification requirements
Mentor travel for certification requirements beyond the Bay Area/Santa Cruz
Room & Board if we’re able to shift to in-person weekends
Payable in three installments or monthly options (example based on Early Bird and a deposit)
One full scholarship is available and one partial scholarship for those most impacted by power-over systems of oppression and/or COVID-19 work related challenges.
To apply, contact Staci or Jane for an application and to schedule an interview.
A non-refundable deposit holds your space and is deducted from overall tuition.
7Directions Facilitator Application Process
Your Facilitators
Staci Boden, MA, is a spiritual counselor, group ceremonialist, energy healing practitioner and author who has been guiding people through dead ends into doorways for over 20 years.
A founder of 7Directions in 2002, Staci facilitates dance ceremony for the public, ongoing women's groups, private groups and weekend retreats throughout the Bay Area in person and globally online. The monthly women’s dance circle is over 10 years-old.
As a teacher’s teacher, Staci has been mentoring and training facilitators since 2008, including designing, producing and leading the 7Directions Facilitator Training in 2016-18. Individual sessions with Staci combine practical wisdom and energy healing regarding anxiety, relationship issues and life transitions.
Jane Sanguinetti is a holistic coach, intuitive, Reiki master, Intentional Creativity teacher, shamanic teacher, earth-based ceremonialist and massage therapist with 18 years of experience. Jane began midwifing community by founding Joy of Being in 2008, a sacred temple space in Moss Beach.
Jane's group facilitation includes leading shamanic healing programs, Reiki trainings, Intentional Creativity workshops and women's circles. She's a 7Directions Facilitator who has been co-holding dance ceremony with Staci for five years. For more information, visit Joy of Being.
