Mirabai Starr & Mike Petrow - Ordinary Mysticism

MIRABAI STARR is an award-winning author, internationally acclaimed speaker, and a leading teacher of interspiritual dialogue. In 2020, she was honored on Watkins’ list of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People. Drawing from 20 years of teaching Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos, Mirabai now travels the world sharing her wisdom on contemplative living, writing as a spiritual practice, and the transformational power of grief and loss. She has authored over a dozen books including Wild Mercy, Caravan of No Despair, and God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Mirabai has received critical acclaim for her revolutionary contemporary translations of the mystics John of the Cross, Teresa of Ávila, and Julian of Norwich. Mirabai offers the fruit of decades of study, teaching, and contemplative practice in a fresh, grounded, and lyrical voice to a growing circle of folks inspired by the life-giving essence of feminine wisdom. Mirabai continues to teach seminars, workshops, and retreats, both in person and through her online community Wild Heart. She lives with her extended family in the mountains of northern New Mexico.

Rev. Dr. Mike Petrow is the Director of Faculty, Formation, and Foundational Spirituality at the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque New Mexico. Mike is a certified grief and trauma counselor, spiritual director, teacher and writer, and is passionate about the transformational power of story, especially stories that equip us to take our own “Healer’s Journey”, putting our own healing in the service of the world. Mike’s doctoral work focused on Jungian psychology and comparative mythology, and how we can each learn to read and write our own lives as the mythical and mystical stories they are.

In ORDINARY MYSTICISM: Your Life as Sacred Ground (HarperOne; 9/17/24) Mirabai Starr, beloved spiritual guide, helps readers discover their own inner mystic by encouraging them to let go of the limiting belief that spiritual life exists only in traditional places of worship. Mysticism, she explains, is a direct experience of the sacred—no church or clergy required. Life, Starr reminds us, is holy ground in itself. You are not required to visit an ashram in the Himalayas or kneel in a church pew to connect to the spirit or examine life’s big questions. Instead, Starr encourages us to find sanctity in our normal environment—from weeding in our humble gardens to going on a slow evening walk with a friend. When we decide to walk the path of the mystic, the mundane shows up as miraculous, the boring becomes fascinating, and our own shortcomings turn out to be your greatest gifts.

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