Do you know
the smell of life,
of healthy soil?
Does it pull on your heart,
lead you to desire,
lead you to love,
help you know who you are,
throwing your arms up in the air,
shouting with joy, in wonder at this:
You are, I am, we are, and this all is
existence, that greatest of all mysteries?
What chains you down,
caging that fleshy frame,
caging that ever present desire?
What stories must release the bow,
sending the arrow of life, you,
to that bright light you seek?
Yes, there is a way.
Because life always wins.
– Hank Obermayer
of healthy soil?
Does it pull on your heart,
lead you to desire,
lead you to love,
help you know who you are,
shouting with joy, in wonder at this:
You are, I am, we are, and this all is
caging that ever present desire?
to that bright light you seek?
Because life always wins.
Do you know
the smell of life,
of healthy soil?
Does it pull on your heart,
lead you to desire,
lead you to love,
help you know who you are,
throwing your arms up in the air,
shouting with joy, in wonder at this:
You are, I am, we are, and this all is
existence, that greatest of all mysteries?
What chains you down,
caging that fleshy frame,
caging that ever present desire?
What stories must release the bow,
sending the arrow of life, you,
to that bright light you seek?
Yes, there is a way.
Because life always wins.
– Hank Obermayer
of healthy soil?
Does it pull on your heart,
lead you to desire,
lead you to love,
help you know who you are,
shouting with joy, in wonder at this:
You are, I am, we are, and this all is
caging that ever present desire?
to that bright light you seek?
Because life always wins.
Do you know
the smell of life,
of healthy soil?
Does it pull on your heart,
lead you to desire,
lead you to love,
help you know who you are,
throwing your arms up in the air,
shouting with joy, in wonder at this:
You are, I am, we are, and this all is
existence, that greatest of all mysteries?
What chains you down,
caging that fleshy frame, caging that ever present desire?
What stories must release the bow,
sending the arrow of life, you,
to that bright light you seek?
Yes, there is a way.
Because life always wins.
– Hank Obermayer
of healthy soil?
Does it pull on your heart,
lead you to desire,
lead you to love,
help you know who you are,
shouting with joy, in wonder at this:
You are, I am, we are, and this all is
to that bright light you seek?
Because life always wins.
Welcome, I’m Hank Obermayer.
At its core, I help both individuals and groups find and deepen connection to their inner compass, and to their passion for life. We work with pain and gratitude, with joy and fear, and most of all with your desire. I will be there with you, helping you discover excitement at seeing the world anew as we re-enchant life.
This is a deep journey into the subconscious. Committed self-inquiry and self-exploration are core to this process. As with most things in life, the more you put into it the more you will get out. I am here to help you dive deep, and to help you return with joy.
Doing this work brings a smile on my face and brings me happiness. I find the miracle of people’s unfolding opens me up and teaches me about love, about what it is to be a human, and what it is to be a living being on this earth.
We begin by connecting to your heart’s longing and cultivating your prayer…
We can work together to:
-
Find & strengthen your inner compass.
-
Clear blocks and old patterns, including past traumas.
-
Explore who and what you are.
-
Find your place in our culture and in our world.
-
Develop peace & self-acceptance.
-
Open into the full expression of who you are as a human being and a living being of this earth.
Welcome, I’m Hank Obermayer.
At its core, I help both individuals and groups find and deepen connection to their inner compass, and to their passion for life. We work with pain and gratitude, with joy and fear, and most of all with your desire. I will be there with you, helping you discover excitement at seeing the world anew as we re-enchant life.
This is a deep journey into the subconscious. Committed self-inquiry and self-exploration are core to this process. As with most things in life, the more you put into it the more you will get out. I am here to help you dive deep, and to help you return with joy.
Doing this work brings a smile on my face and brings me happiness. I find the miracle of people’s unfolding opens me up and teaches me about love, about what it is to be a human, and what it is to be a living being on this earth.
We begin by connecting to your heart’s longing and cultivating your prayer…
We can work together to:
-
Find & strengthen your inner compass.
-
Clear blocks and old patterns.
-
Explore who and what you are.
-
Find your place in our culture and in our world.
-
Develop peace & self-acceptance.
-
Open into the full expression of who you are as a human being and a living being of this earth.
One-on-One Spiritual Counseling
One-on-One Spiritual & Somatic Counseling
Supporting Movement from Heart’s Longing to Lasting Change
Using one-on-one hour long counseling sessions focused on mindfulness and the body we will approach the experiences of your life. As we ground into simple presence and the deeper forces moving through us we find hidden truths. I work with you to allow the gifts of this to be harvested into lasting change in your life.
In the beginning I’ll help you discover your heart’s longing and prayer. As we work, we will harvest meaning and apply it to your life. This digestion of experience helps new learning filter through all aspects of your being and your life.
I use somatic therapies, mindfulness techniques, and a broad understanding of both science and spiritual frameworks. By recognizing people from a gentle, heartful masculine perspective, and telling the simple truths of what I see I help people feel their own groundedness and find their truth.
Personal Ritual Support
Personal Ritual Support
Do you want to look deeply into a specific aspect of your life or self? Are you trying to birth something into being or into your life? Do you want to digest a challenging experience or part of your life? Or maybe you want to move into a new life phase? Personal ritual uses sharpened attention and intention to shift how you see the world, providing a rite of passage, a mark on the specific moment in life when things change.
Working together, we will create a ritual framework that will safely support your transformation, whether it lasts several hours, or several weeks. This temporary sacred separation from regular life will be an opportunity to see your life and the world with new eyes. Using the power of ritual and intention we bring forward the truth of your essence. The earth and life itself are our guides. Use the power of ritual to help you surrender ego perspective, drop into your emotional body and connect to source.
Upon your return I will help you reorient, and feel out your new relationships with self and with the world. As your newfound gifts and insights become clear, I will help you live into them more fully, establishing new patterns in your life. Then, as this new seedling begins to take root, the real journey begins.
Take the deep dive, yes, that one.
We pull back the bow, and release.
Prayers flying from remembered roots, story, history,
prayers flying from source,
always heading toward that yearning:
Desire, that first guide, that seed. Life force. You.
-Hank Obermayer
Prayers flying from remembered roots, story, history,
Take the deep dive, yes, that one.
We pull back the bow, and release.
Prayers flying from remembered roots, story, history,
prayers flying from source,
always heading toward that yearning:
Desire, that first guide, that seed. Life force. You.
-Hank Obermayer
Prayers flying from remembered roots, story, history,
Supporting Collective Wisdom
Supporting Collective Wisdom
The planetary and intergroup challenges we face in our current time call for collective wisdom and creative change. It also requires confronting our differences while neither glossing them over nor becoming immobilized by them.
I support group explorations revolving around engagement in our world as we use our prayers to plant seeds of life. Community grounds us in the truth of others and in collective visioning. Using the strength of shared purpose and community mirroring as well as longer time commitments to one another, we ground in the wonder of being alive on earth, share in our the grief and rage and seek to find bridges to a shared future. Sometimes this includes group conflict mediation and at other times it includes extended times in silence in nature together. Through all this we deepen our personal passions, our commitment to all life and steep in the necessity of finding ways to work together, even when that means unresolved historical trauma.
These extended practices help us go out into the world with a stronger sense of why we do whatever we do and with a community of support for making this happen. Harnessing ourselves to something greater gives us gifts we didn’t know were possible for facing our personal challenges. Harnessing ourselves together brings collective knowing and strengths that none of us could have known were even possible. Group workshops can range from one weekend long to several months of weekly meetings.
The bird of my prayers
sails
on the winds
of our collective longings.
-Hank Obermayer
The bird of my prayers
sails
on the winds
of our collective longings.
-Hank Obermayer
About Hank
About Hank
Bio
Based in West Sonoma County and also seeing clients via video, Hank Obermayer is a spiritual counselor and group process facilitator working on the relationship with self, with community, and with the planet. He helps individuals with the integration process for visionquests, shamanic ritual, meditation retreats, and similar work using an emphasis on mindfulness and the body. With groups Hank focuses on ecological despair and empowerment, mixing in his theater, group process and counseling background. Hank is trained in Hakomi, and has an M.A. along with Ph.D. training in East-West Psychology from CIIS. He also has over 25 years of leadership experience related to ecovillages, intentional communities and housing cooperatives, including founding Mariposa Grove, his former home. Hank is also honored to be deeply involved in the German-Jewish History Award, given yearly in the Berlin Parliament. This award honors people who are regenerating historical intercultural connections while also building roads for other immigrant communities.
I’d like to thank…
It feels like a privilege to be able to serve others through my work. I feel grateful to all my teachers, guides, and core supports who have helped me through my own transformative process and through my learning. I’ve learned from what they’ve taught me intentionally, what I’ve learned through my experience of them, and I’ve learned through their mistakes. This includes Ruth Zaporah and the Action Theater community, Joanna Macy and the community around The Work That Reconnects and Francoise Bourzat and those around her work. It also includes the Hakomi community and the community of the East-West Psychology Department at CIIS. Finally, I want to thank my father, an atheist, who taught me how to pray.
Bio
Based in West Sonoma County and also seeing clients in North Oakland, Hank Obermayer is a spiritual counselor and group process facilitator working on the relationship with self, with community, and with the planet. He helps individuals with the integration process for visionquests, shamanic ritual, meditation retreats, and similar work using an emphasis on mindfulness and the body. With groups Hank focuses on ecological despair and empowerment, mixing in his theater, group process and counseling background. Hank is trained in Hakomi, and has an M.A. along with Ph.D. training in East-West Psychology from CIIS. He also has over 25 years of leadership experience related to ecovillages, intentional communities and housing cooperatives, including founding Mariposa Grove, his former home. Hank is also honored to be deeply involved in the German-Jewish History Award, given yearly in the Berlin Parliament. This award honors people who are regenerating historical intercultural connections while also building roads for other immigrant communities.
I’d like to thank…
It feels like a privilege to be able to serve others through my work. I feel grateful to all my teachers, guides, and core supports who have helped me through my own transformative process and through my learning. This includes Ruth Zaporah and the Action Theater community, Joanna Macy and the community around The Work That Reconnects and Francoise Bourzat and those around her work. It also includes the Hakomi community and the community of the East-West Psychology Department at CIIS. Finally, I want to thank my father, an atheist, who taught me how to pray.
PLAY! PLAY!
That’s the answer!
Make way for the earthworms!
Make way for creepy-crawlies!
Make way for grass stems!
Make way for feet,
walking on the grass,
grass tickling between toes,
grass reminding the bottoms of your feet:
You know what’s important!
* * *
So sit down and cry if you need to.
We’ll keep tickling you.
-Hank Obermayer
Make way for creepy-crawlies!
Make way for grass stems!
Make way for feet,
grass tickling between toes,
grass reminding the bottoms of your feet:
You know what’s important!
We’ll keep tickling you.
PLAY! PLAY!
That’s the answer!
Make way for the earthworms!
Make way for creepy-crawlies!
Make way for grass stems!
Make way for feet,
walking on the grass,
grass tickling between toes,
grass reminding the bottoms of your feet:
You know what’s important!
* * *
So sit down and cry if you need to.
We’ll keep tickling you.
-Hank Obermayer
Make way for creepy-crawlies!
Make way for grass stems!
Make way for feet,
grass tickling between toes,
grass reminding the bottoms of your feet:
You know what’s important!
We’ll keep tickling you.
Resources
Resources
Please check out the Resources section for more videos and papers regarding the work I do. Below is a sample.
