Are you seeking your Life's Journey? The Midway Center enables young and old alike to align themselves with the deepest stirrings of their hearts. Since 1980, we have been here to help you reimagine your life as an adventure, to consider who you are, why you are here, and where you are going, against the backdrop of forgotten principles like personal calling, and destiny. We teach the artform of transformation to individuals serious about moving through the stages of their lives, and to organizations serious about moving through the stages of their development. As the second millennium approaches, we are all called to awaken to a renewed vision of our humanity, and to realign our lives accordingly. It is a time for bold imagining. The Midway Center can help you accept your call, and find your path. The work of The Midway Center is to reawaken the creative imagination that lies dormant in each of us, and return its fruits to enhance our personal, professional and organizational lives. We make innovative tools and processes that stimulate the creative imagination in individuals (of all ages) and organizations (of every ilk). Since 1980, we have certified helping professionals (educators, mental health professionals, human resource personnel, research and development teams, trainers, etc.) in our methods so they might utilize the unique qualities of creative imagination as they pursue the aims of their professions. we have created special programs for the thresholds of life - like adolescence, mid-life, and retirement - when the need to reimagine ourselves is acute. And we guide companies and agencies along the path of organizational renewal, helping them remember and realize their highest purpose and deepest principles as they go about their business. In all of these settings and occasions, the imagination is perhaps our most valuable, but misunderstood and neglected, natural resource. Whenever fresh ideas are called for - whenever things fall apart, or lose their luster, or fade in meaning - it is to the creative imagination we must turn: for renewed vision, for direction, for hope. The Midway Center has eighteen years of experience tapping its riches. We began at the natural "thresholds" of life, first producing workshops, books and creative programs for adolescents serious about their passage into adulthood, and intent on making this journey as consciously and meaningfully as possible. You will find a description of these services by clicking on The Journey: A Creative Approach to the Necessary Crises of Adolescence. Becoming A Mentor: The Modern Call for an Ancient Role, was recently added to sustain and expand the creative relationships between young and old begun in The Journey. Becoming a Mentor features "Seven Islands of Experience," a game that stimulates deep and directed sharing between generations, and structures thoughtful dialog among those who work with young people such as teachers, counselors, and guides. Listening to the response we got to The Journey in our travels around the country, we uncovered a deep yearning in adults for a rite of passage, an initiatory experience they never received when they were young. This led to the creation of Private Paths, Common Ground, an Adult Rite of Passage, an intensive package of self-exploration designed especially for those in the throes of a mid-life awakening. From mid-life we moved to the next natural threshold in the life cycle, which we have slanderously named "retirement" in our culture. Our intention was to call older people to The Second Journey, which occurs when fulfillment replaces survival as the driving force behind our daily lives. The Second Journey replaces "retirement" and all that word connotes with "elderhood" and all its ancient ramifications, as the essential role to be played at the far end of life. Our tools here are designed to help old people remember who they have been, what they have learned, and how they might pass along the wisdom of their experience to their families and communities. Along the way, it became abundantly clear that the need for creative transformation is not confined to individuals or specific moments in the life cycle; we are asked (and sometimes forced) onto the path of transformation in our worklives all the time. the archetypal pattern of such transformations is the path of renewal, a "dying" to the old form (or mission) to make way for the new. Contrary to popular belief, which markets "vision" and "mission" as commodities to be acquired to feed the voracious appetite of the beast of the bottom line, our experience in organizations has taught us that renewal is a spiritual process that involves the recovery of an organization's soul, its enthusiasm, and its courage. You can find out more of what this means for your organization by clicking on Organizational Renewal. The thread weaving through these seemingly disparate populations and concerns is the creative imagination, and our abiding respect for its ability to show us the truth of our situation when all else smacks of propaganda or oversimplification. In antiquity, the imagination was referred to as "the thought of the heart." It shows us what the heart sees and the heart knows. The imagination has a way of coaxing us out from our narrow lives, and exposing the majesty alive in the core of each of us. Our work is based on twenty five years of research and experience, and our programs, books and services are currently used by people and organizations in 45 states and a dozen countries around the world. If you seek a revitalized sense of who you are, or a calling to a destiny that has long eluded you, or an awakened heart, come and join us. The Midway Center 2112 F Street N.W., Suite 404 Washington, DC 20037 (202) 296-7100 david@midwaycenter.com