Journey deeper
– with the natural world
– into mathematical and scientific mysteries
– framing non-ordinary experiences
Join Us!
Courses now enrolling for Summer 2025:
Sacred Geometry
Modern Physics for Everyone
Stars and Stones: Archeoastronomy and Embedded Cosmologies
2025 Course Catalog
Kerri Welch has taught 40+ iterations of these courses at California Institute of Integral Studies over the past 15 years, with student ratings consistently averaging 4.5+ out of 5. Now she offers them to you at a fraction of the cost. There are no prerequisites other than a sense of curiosity. 🙂
Course Format:
– 12 weeks long
– 2 week modules include: readings, lecture, activities, and discussion threads
– Four Tuesday morning live classes
– Weekly live check-ins with a “check-in buddy” from class
2025 Course Schedule
| Session | Dates | Live class times Pacific Time | |
| Summer 2025 | Apr 29 – July 22 (Live classes 4/29, 5/24, 6/26, 7/22) | Sacred Geometry: Nature Art | 10 -11am |
| Modern Physics for Everyone | 11:30am-12:30pm | ||
| Stars and Stones: Archeoastronomy and Embedded Cosmologies | 1 -2pm | ||
| Fall 2025 | Aug 26 – Nov 18 (Live classes: 8/26, 9/23, 10/21, 11/18) | Mathematical Archetypes in Art, Nature, and Myth | 10am-11am |
| Cosmology | 11:30am – 12:30pm |
Purchase Options:
Pricing:
If you are a CIIS student and would like to receive credit by enrolling as an Independent Study through CIIS, I can offer you a $300 discount on the Full Course price.
Course Descriptions:
The Texture of Time: The Science and Magic of Temporal Perception
Does consciousness emerge in time, is time a byproduct of consciousness, or is it somehow both? In the last century of physics, some mysterious properties of time emerged in the fields of special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, chaos theory, complexity theory, and thermodynamics. We will traverse these realms in attempts to bridge the gap between the scientific description of time and some of the more unusual human experiences of time, including different rates of flow, experiences of timelessness, precognition, and synchronicity. By employing physics, neurophysiology, and fractal mathematics in dialogue with the natural world we will begin to get some hints of the orchestration underlying time’s many costume changes.
Stars and Stones: Archeoastronomy and Embedded Cosmologies
We are embedded in celestial cycles. For millennia, humans have rooted these cycles into the landscape through stones, art, and stories, tracking cycles of time, seasons, plants, and animals. Light pollution and living at break-neck speeds easily blind us from these embedded timekeepers. This class invites students to slow down to the speed of stars and stones, to recalibrate their own pacing through honoring cosmological cycles and the early humans who collected and recorded them. Ancient rock art and architecture the world over reveal some of the earliest evidence of humanity’s observations of celestial movements as markers of time. We will cover the equinoxes, solstices, lunar standstills, the cycle of Venus, as well as movements of constellations and stars from the perspectives of a variety of ancient sites and cultural stories. Surviving stories hint at how these cycles integrated into the spiritual and ecological lives of the people who marked them. Be prepared to spend regular time observing the sky and to carry out one field trip to a local archeoastronomy site.
Scientific Cosmology: Universe Awakening to Self
Looking out into space and back in time, this course traces the scientific story of our cosmic origins, the history of human astronomical discovery, and ponders the role of consciousness in the universe’s unfolding story: from indigenous star knowledge to the Hubble space telescope; and from the big bang to the universe’s accelerating expansion. We’ll explore ourselves as a process of the Universe becoming conscious, drawing on Brian Swimme’s The Universe Story. We’ll traverse the history of astronomical discovery with Timothy Ferris’ Coming of Age in the Milky Way.
Modern Physics for Everyone
Modern physics has re-framed the way we understand reality, not only scientifically, but philosophically as well. Many of its concepts have worked their way into popular culture but are easy to misunderstand without understanding their scientific underpinnings. Our studies will foster a deeper appreciation for how science progresses. We’ll explore the theoretical foundations and philosophical implications of quantum mechanics, relativity, chaos theory, and fractals, including explorations of wave/particle duality, quantum superposition, time dilation, length contraction, space-time curvature, the butterfly effect, strange attractors, and complex numbers. This course is predominately conceptual, so while mathematical ideas illustrate the concepts more thoroughly, they are not essential to a basic understanding.
Sacred Geometry
Similar mathematical patterns emerge in the natural world and human creations across time and discipline. The Fibonacci sequence, the Golden Mean, and fractals appear over and over again plants, crystals, coastlines, animals, religion, art, architecture, music, literature, and economics, etc. Through readings, independent research, and fieldwork, creative and geometrical exploration learn to identify these types of patterns in the surrounding world and to create them. The recurrence of these themes imbues a timeless, sacred quality that begs the question, “What do they mean?” This class also explores the underlying principles, such as chaos theory and cymatics that seem to generate these patterns and ponders their significance in historical and scientific dialog.
Mathematical Archetypes in Nature, Art, and Myth
Numbers are abstract symbols embedded with meaning derived from their relationships to one another. As archetypal entities they evoke the most fundamental, and universal, patterns that permeate all of reality. By exploring the role of numbers 0 – 10, imaginary numbers, and mathematical constants (ϕ, e, π) in nature, mythology, religious symbolism, astrology, art, physics, and architecture, students will develop a deeper appreciation for their multilayered meaning and application. Using a compass and a straight edge, we will work to construct various forms found in different cultures and in the natural world. We will also look at the calculations that go into the creation of these forms.
Note on all courses: Some content overlaps between courses. Re-encountering fundamental mysteries often deepens understanding.
Reviews
“I was pleasantly surprised by how profoundly this course affected me and my relationship with the night sky and my place on the planet.”
Archeoastronomy Student
2023
“Kerri is an incredible instructor. I love the way she conducts class. It’s at our own pace, is a challenging but manageable amount of material, and is extremely organized. Kerri has a talent for explaining difficult material and revealing the poetry and philosophy inside dense scientific theories. She is by far, one of the best professors I have ever had the pleasure of taking.”
The Texture of Time 