NOSTOS

Nostos is an old Greek word which indicates a homecoming, the return to a home that was lost – usually after a long journey. It’s most often used in association with Odysseus’ quest to find his way back to Ithaka, after many years lost at sea following the Trojan War. Here at the Nostos Institute, we wanderers are retracing our own steps, coming home to a beautiful old spiritual tradition steeped in myth, creativity and the embodied imagination – and which has been a defining thread in the complex weave of our Western lineage for more than two and a half millennia.

We’re gathering a community of the curious: learners and seekers who would like to integrate ancient Western wisdom traditions (in particular, the Platonic and the Neoplatonic) with tools and practices from contemporary (primarily Jungian and post-Jungian) depth psychology and related mythopoetic disciplines. We have our roots in Classical philosophy, then, and we’re committed to the practice of philosophia – literally, the love of wisdom – but we’re reaching out to embrace newer forms of knowing and imagining. Our aim is to trace a living, spiritual desire path that is rooted in both imaginal and embodied practice. It's a gritty and grounded path that responds to the challenges and opportunities of today’s world: an exploratory path that passes through and beyond personal transformation, opening into a dancing, animate cosmos saturated in the divine.

We’re planning a program of online events that’ll be open to all, as well as live retreats at Broughton Sanctuary in North Yorkshire.