About Maja
Dr. Maja Apolonia Rodé is a multi-faceted creator, community weaver, and wholehearted advocate for the flowering of our individual and collective potentials.
Check out her Creations blog or read below for a bit of her story.
In 1995, after a decade of seeking and six months of focused self-inquiry, I came to a deep, irrevocable knowing that I (and you and everyone) am pure awareness — the essence and substance of all that is, before and beyond all experience. Then. . . not a lot changed. But, I had a deep need to be around people who could relate and a one-pointed call to cultivate the flowering of consciousness in the world.
For the next few years, while earning my PhD in Transpersonal Psychology, I spent time with various nondual teachers and their communities. Then in 2000, I got down to work growing a community around Adyashanti. For 17 years I played a foundational role in supporting his emergence as a highly respected teacher in the field of nondual inquiry. At some point, I knew my work with him was done, but my next step wasn't clear. This, along with the passing of my father in 2017, led to a 5-year hiatus of renewal, healing, and rediscovery.
In 2019-2020 my creative energies started coming back online with a number of emergent creative projects, co-created programs, and this website — my long-overdue outflow portal!
The pandemic of 2020, with its forced retreat, led me to invent a new oracular technology I call Divine Dice. Of all my creations, this is the most magical, alive, and meaningful. The language-randomizing dice sit at the center of Divine Dialogues, a conversation game that deepens our connection to our wisdom and to each other.
I've enjoyed sharing my insights on the creative process, contemplative inquiry, and community development at the Science and Nonduality Conference, the Nondual Wisdom and Psychology Conference, and through Open Circle Center. I have served on the board of directors of Open Circle Center and the Center for Nondual Awareness. More recently I have co-led the Extraordinary Life: Mind, Meditation, and Medicine symposium and am helping lay the groundwork for a new movement of Zen Buddhism, through DeepBow.org.
For me, consciousness, creativity, and connection go hand-in-hand. I have found deep fulfillment in sharing my original contemplative music, poetry, and rap (yes, contemplative rap!) at numerous meditation retreats, conferences, concerts, workshops, and private gatherings. My mandalas have been on exhibit at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, Sofia University, and the Association for Transpersonal Psychology Conference.
I’m the daughter of a technology pioneer whose major contribution to humanity was to democratize math by designing the brains of the first scientific handheld calculator. Following in his path, I am beginning to see that one of my callings in life is to democratize Dharma. Gurus have their vital place in the world, as do mathematicians, but all of us have wisdom to share that naturally emerges and flowers, given the right conditions.
As a child, I was blessed with a glorious view of Black Mountain, which I came to see as my original teacher of consciousness — to whom I have now returned. I feel privileged to live in the San Francisco Bay Area, a fertile ground for natural life, agriculture, high tech, and now the human consciousness movement.
Credentials
PhD in Transpersonal Psychology, 2000
Master's Degree with a certificate in Creative Expression, 1994
Certified iConscious Coach, 2022
Certified Hypnotherapist, 1991
Universal Life Minister, 1993
