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Sacred Ground

The Divine that we are is inviting us to experience it through each other.

You probably already know this space.

The conversation that took your breath away before a word had even been spoken.

The thick rich fullness after something true was said, when no one wanted to speak first.

The crew that stopped rowing separately, and the boat went quiet and fast.

Those moments arrived by grace. Here, we meet on purpose and invite them.

Sacred Ground is a free online gathering space where people meet in shared presence — not to talk about who we are, but to experience it together.

Several times a week, over Zoom, we drop beneath our separate lives. We don't come to make something happen between us so much as to let what is already quietly here be revealed — origin meeting origin, our deepest nature shown more fully than any of us can see alone. Sometimes there are words. Sometimes a rich, unhurried silence. Always, the surprise of being met, and of meeting, more truly than we expected.

Not to present our personalities, or to process our feelings, but to open to what lies beyond both: the soft, innocent, playful, joyful energy of life itself as it flows through us — and to find that this is what we are.

No experience needed. Everyone is welcome.

The shape of a session
ArriveSettleOpenSpeak
"When we speak, we speak not from knowing, but from the aliveness of being."
“That's who we are, that's what we are. That's the best news I've had my whole life.”

Elena Michaelson, on what she found here

The Sacred Ground Experience
Next Session
Tuesdays, Thursdays
and Saturdays

2:00 PM Tuesdays  ·  11:00 AM Thursdays & Saturdays  (New York time)

Your own local time appears here.

On Zoom · All are welcome

Join us

Please arrive a few minutes early as we start on time, and ensure that you are able to be present and undisturbed in a quiet space with your camera on for the entire hour.

Return to this page for following events — or join Sacred Ground to get:

  • The full calendar of upcoming sessions
  • Other sessions offered on Sacred Ground
  • An email reminder before each session
Join Sacred Ground — it's free
How it works

Simple to join, easy to be in

1

Gather

We open together as a whole group, eyes open, with a single living question.

2

Breakouts

We move into twos and threes to meet more closely in the space between us.

3

Return

We come back to the whole to share what was revealed, and close together.

Eleven people meeting together on Zoom, each in their own home, most of them smiling.
A group at a recent session.

The inquiry is always essentially the same: "What is being revealed because we are together? What is emerging in the space between us?"
Joining is free and gives you the full calendar of events and an optional email reminder before each one. Simply check the calendar or click on the Zoom link you will be emailed. Please arrive a few minutes early.
Then relax and let yourself be met.

If you already practice

Many who come already know how to track their own experience — sensations in the body, the movement of emotion and thought, the subtler senses.

Those skills are deeply welcome here. We simply turn them in a new direction: not only “what is happening in me?” but “what is being revealed in the space between us?”

Your own awakening is well mapped. The space between us isn't yet. We do that together.

The path we map is from “me → We → I”.

A few have gone straight from me to I. Ramana Maharshi did. For most of us the way through We is gentler, and far more available.

Somehow it is easier to perceive with another person. More palpable. Our fields overlap, and it is magnified.

Beyond the screen

A few words for the field

New to this language? You're in exactly the right place. These are the few words that come up most — held lightly, pointing at something felt rather than defined.

OriginThe ever-present source we each come from — not a beginning behind us, but a depth always here. In meeting, origin meets origin.
We-SpaceThe shared awareness that becomes tangible when people settle into presence together. We don't exist in a vacuum — here that connectedness becomes something felt: not made, but revealed.
MutualityAn equal, heart-to-heart way of relating where everyone's essence is honored.
PresenceThe aware, living stillness we are beneath our stories, released from past and future and wholly here — the same in each of us, and in our midst when we meet.
"Out beyond belief and unbelief, there is a field. We meet there."
Rumi
"When you meet with people, wherever it may be, give them your fullest attention. You are no longer there primarily as a person, but as a field of alert Presence. The field of awareness that arises between you becomes the primary purpose for the interaction."
Eckhart Tolle · A New Earth
"The Ever-Present Origin.
In the end, everything is simple."
Jean Gebser (1905–1973)

Questions & answers

More than okay — newcomers are especially welcome, and often bring the freshest presence. There's nothing to prepare and nothing to get right. Come as you are, arrive a few minutes early, and the host will help you settle in.
Yes — everyone speaks. This isn't a talk with an audience; the practice only happens when each of us offers something. But nothing profound is required and nothing needs preparing. A few plain words about what you're actually noticing — a sensation, a hesitation, even "I've gone blank" — carry far more here than anything polished. Not knowing what to say is one of the best places to speak from.
Sessions are held several times per week over Zoom. You're welcome to attend as often or as rarely as you wish. Each one stands on its own, and the experience deepens as you return. Please join on time, with your camera on, from a quiet, undisturbed space — sessions run about an hour.
Yes. Sacred Ground is an experiment in sharing a profound experience of interconnection as widely as possible. There's no charge to join or to attend, and you're warmly encouraged to invite others who might like to come.
A quiet space, a little time, and a device with a camera. Sessions are fully interactive, using video in both the whole group and small breakouts, so your experience will be richer from a laptop or desktop than a phone. That's it.
Who is behind this

About Dr Stephen M. Marcus
and Sacred Ground

Stephen M. Marcus

I began Sacred Ground in 2009, when meeting like this online was barely possible. There were no breakout rooms, so I glued phone bridges onto early video software and wrote the backend myself, because I wanted to find out whether a group could actually meet — not talk, but meet — at a distance.

It ran for a few years, went quiet for a while, and came back in 2018. For a time it was a home for several practices. About two years ago I narrowed it to this one, because for me this one kept turning out to be what was underneath the others.

By background I am an experimental psychologist — a doctorate from Cambridge on speech recognition, and years at Bell Labs researching how people and machines meet. That is not why this works. But it is why I keep exploring what is actually happening between us, and seeking ways to go deeper.

We have met at least weekly since 2018 — many hundreds of sessions, with people joining from many time zones. It is an experiment in making this experience as widely available as possible. That is why participating has never cost anything and never will.

drstephenmmarcus.com Writing on Substack

The portal is each other.

Joining is free — you get the full calendar of events and an email reminder before every session.

Join Sacred Ground Already a member? Sign in
NOTE: www.sacredground.us is not associated with the Episcopal Church's course “Sacred Ground — A Film-Based Dialogue Series on Race & Faith”. To find that, click here instead.