Reviews Training Toward Spirituality
♦ “I experience Maria as a wise and inspiring woman. Maria feels and lives life as an ‘Elder, a Shaman’ who is in close contact with Spirit. Because of this she is able to guide people on a deep level. It seems as if she has developed extra senses. She uses these senses for healing her clients. What further typifies Maria is her unbelievably big heart and love for the world & humanity. I don’t recommend people easily, but I can send everyone to Maria in the knowing it will be valuable and with deep meaning’.
Nienke Schaeffer, Leadership Coach
Magical Mary and the Molino
♦ I first met Maria in Italy. She led the program ‘The Next Step’ of the Institute for Transformational Psychology (ITP).
As the ‘Madre’ of the group (25 participants, 5 teachers) she did something magical. Something I’ve felt her do on every subsequent encounter since. Or maybe “doing” isn’t the right word. Something “happens” in groups that Mary leads. I would like to try to capture that ‘something’ in words.
HIt’s like something is turned on
Something I didn’t even know existed in my head
It feels familiar
It’s hot, tingles
It’s like I’m suddenly more connected and the contact becomes easier
With everyone here
With the space around me
With the earth under my feet
With the sky above my head
With the trees and the plants
With the sand, the stones, the mud and the clay
With the animals, from large to tiny
With the water; sea, rivers, dew and puddles
With everyone (or at least many) not here
With an old knowledge
With myself, unlike what I know
It’s like something’s going to flow
It’s like the whole universe that I feel so part of fits into one big bowl
She’s holding that bowl
I thought at first
Now I know he was already there
She turns something on, opens something, making it tangible
She introduced me to Spirit
I know now
When I got to know her better, I discovered that this magically wise woman is fortunately also just a human being. A cheerful, down-to-earth, caring, crazy and vulnerable person, with a pair of sturdy legs in the clay. And that you can laugh with her, while she may have looked you deep in the eye seconds before and asked exactly the right question.
Getting to know her also included getting to know her better. I can’t help it, the word ‘magic’ also fits here. The estate, with the old water mill (Molino), the dry old earth, the greenery, the beautifully renovated warehouse, the caves and the wildly splashing river that runs right through and under it can hardly be described differently. When the sun rises and the rock walls on the other side of the valley turn warm yellow and orange. If you look out from the highest point and see the mountains in the distance and the forest behind you. When you walk in the expanse among the twinkling selenite. If you feel the natural warmth of the caves in the middle of winter (or the coolness in summer). Then you feel invited to be. Maria and the place reinforce each other and alternate. The place also seems to teach itself….
What Maria has meant to me in recent years as a mentor, trainer and coach is above all being able to give myself access to that magical feeling that I experienced that first training in Italy. And extending and embedding that feeling into my everyday being. Call it connection with
Spirit, call it contact with ancient sources, call it being open to the magic of what is. The effect is that I stand more firmly, notice more and feel safer, even more carried. I am more aware, more grateful. That also means a greater sense of responsibility for this planet and how we interact with it and with each other and with it meaning and a new quest for how I can contribute.
Hester
♦ In September 2018 I participated in the Training Towards Spirituality with Maria. A week that has brought me a lot in various respects and has left a great impression. Even now, a year later.
Maria is a wonderful woman who previously trained me as a Voice Dialogue facilitator and made me more familiar with the spiritual during this week. Her wisdom and her ability to give people confidence and strength amaze me every time. During this week, but also in the past year, I have discovered new layers in myself and have come to trust more in the Spirits and the forces around us, which are actually elusive to me, but on which I dare to trust more and more.
During the week, Maria took the group on a journey of discovery in this area. I found the Vision Quest to be a very special experience with an enormous floor. Working with the medicine wheel, the seasons and the cardinal directions are still working for the past year. With a number of participants from this week, we still meet every three months to keep the started process vital and to deepen it. And we certainly have the plan to follow a program with Maria again. For me, the week has really worked as a retreat.
René Grimbergen
♦ It has been almost a year now that I went to the wonderful week ‘Towards Spirituality’. Wonderful week, because I was looking forward to it! And I was curious… Because what exactly did it mean?
The wonderful week turned out to be a true week of strength. How I enjoyed it! Of the landscape, the group, the loving and inspiring guidance of Maria Daniëls and myself. Because yes, that week offered a deeper encounter with myself. That’s what opened the week: curiosity about myself. Where I have always been very curious about the world around me and about others in that world, I have now really come into contact with the deeper layers within myself. And that tastes like more!
Through beautiful exercises in a moving landscape with great company, encounter yourself and understand: you can’t give yourself a nicer gift.
Mary, I bow deeply to your great wisdom, your spiritual strength and your earthiness. I wish the world that you can organize and guide more often these weeks. You make the world (even) more beautiful! Because not only do I know myself better, I have also come to understand and appreciate nature better with all its wisdom and strength. Thanks, thanks, thanks.
Suzanne
♦ In 2018 I participated in ‘Towards Spirituality’. Now, a year later, I can say that this retreat/training has been an incredible catalyst in my personal development process. For me, Maria, whom I already knew from the 1-on-1 guidance, offered in this training a very safe, inviting and in-depth setting for the search for my own wisdom and manifestation thereof.
Maria has taken us on a magical journey in which we were offered many entrances and forms to get in touch with Spirit and our Inner Knowing. She carefully immersed us in new experiences and showed us new perspectives on ourselves and on life. She also generously shared her rich experience with ancient rituals and with the forces of nature.
Maria understands the art of making what may still sound abstract very tangible and accessible. In addition to the program, it is above all Maria’s wisdom and presence that makes transformation possible. She leads you to your Inner Knowing and meets you exactly where your growing edge is. I was able to experience that myself and I am very grateful to Maria for that.
How the ‘Towards Spirituality’ week is actually working through a year on, is that since then I have experienced a very nourishing and reciprocal relationship with Spirit (or the Field, or God, or my Higher Self, or whatever you want to call it) and dare to trust my Inner Knowing. I was aware of that before, but this week really feels like an initiation into a life in which I am consciously attuned to the greater Mystery of which we are a part. I experience this as an enormous enrichment and deepening.
Nanke