Identifying your unique wound of desire - Transforming wound into wonder, from unique wound to unique self
Course begins Sunday, November 16th, 2025
The Wounded Angel - Hugo Simberg
Unique Self 2.0 Year 2
Portal 2
Course Description: the essence of the wound
In this three-week journey, participants confront the wounds that shape their lives—the unique ruptures that call us from despair into wonder, from alienation into intimacy, from devastation into divinity. Each person’s wound is singular, tied to their shadow, their desire, and their unique self. This course guides students to trace the root of their wound, recognize the false core it may have created, and begin the heroic work of transforming pain into power, shame into insight, and contraction into love. We explore personal, familial, and cultural wounding, and the path of the wounded hero, learning to step into authentic presence and the intimate communion between hero and the wounded God.
Weekly Focus:
Identifying your unique wound
Transforming pain into the wounds of love
The 10 great responses to the shattering of the wound—portals to depth, transformation, and glimpses of enlightenment
Our Schedule
3 Two-hour Zoom Classes / 3 Digital Campfires
Begins Sunday, November 16th, 2025
Times: Sunday 11am PST (Los Angeles), 2pm EST (New York), 8pm CET (Paris)
Class 1: November 16 • Identifying Your Unique Wound
Class 2: November 23 • Transforming Pain into the Wounds of Love
Class 3: November 30 • The Ten Portals of Transformation
Campfires: Saturdays following the course (November 22, 29, December 6)
Price: €300 / €150 Tiers
The rapture of the wounded Hero
“There is no human being who is not wounded. The wound is not an accident. The wound is the intention of Cosmos to be wounded and to transform the wound into wonder—the rupture into rapture, the alienation into allurement, the collapse into covenant, the pathology into power, the devastation into divinity. Evil comes always from the untransformed wound. What is a wound? How do we understand that? What is my unique wound? A wound is not generic. A human being has a unique self—my unique gift, my unique quality of intimacy, my unique perspective, my unique beauty, my unique presence. And a person also has a unique shadow, and a related but not the same unique wound. The path to unique self is through unique shadow and unique wound.
Our focus in this course is your unique wound. You cannot be alive without identifying your unique wound and beginning to walk the path of its transformation. There is nothing more tragic than to die with your wound unrecognized and untransformed. To look away from your wound is to ignore the call of the infinite, the divine calling. If I do not engage the wound in this lifetime, the wound festers and emerges, replaying itself in the next lifetime again and again. To identify my unique wound, I need to trace it back to its root and heal it there. There are ten major approaches to wounding; some address my unique wound, others address different forms of wounding that are not my own. I cannot heal my unique wound without taking my unique risk. My unique risk is essential; really, the only risk is not to take it.
The unique wound can be personal, tribal, collective—the unique wound of the tribe, the family, the couple. Identifying, articulating, and telling the story of the unique wound is the beginning of its transformation. One cannot be a hero without transforming one’s unique wound. There are no heroes who are not wounded heroes. When the hero bypasses the wound, the hero explodes and often becomes the villain. To be a hero is to be a wounded hero; to be a king is to be a wounded king; to be a queen is to be a wounded queen. And the context of all of this is a wounded God. Who is the wounded God? What’s the story of the wounded God? What does it mean to trust the wounded God? What is the encounter between the wounded hero and the wounded God? Who is the hero and who is God? What is the nature of their intimate communion?
The essence of the false core, both individual and collective, is the unrecognized wound. The unrecognized wound becomes the false core. It is only by recognizing the false core that it is brought into the light. The false self built upon the false core can begin to be deconstructed, and the authentic, unique self can emerge, allowing me to play my instrument in the unique self symphony, to take my place, to take the armor off, and for homo armor to become homo amor. This is the path from contraction to love, from pettiness to power, from hate to healing. Every insult is actually a wound of love.
The wound of culture today is the failure of value, and the recognition of that failure was shame—shame itself as a unique wound. Your unique shame is your unique wound, your unique distortion of your unique configuration of desire.”
- Dr. Marc Gafni
COURSE CONTENT
Class I: Identifying Your Unique Wound
Lecture and Q&A: Sunday, November 16, 11 am PST (Los Angeles), 2 pm EST (New York), 8 pm CET (Paris)
Digital Campfire: Saturday, November 22, 11 am PST (Los Angeles), 2 pm EST (New York), 8 pm CET (Paris)
Description:
Every human being carries a wound. It is not a mistake or a punishment—it is the intention of Cosmos to be wounded, that through the wound we may awaken. In this opening session, Marc guides us into the sacred inquiry of discovering our unique wound: the singular configuration of pain, shame, and longing that belongs only to us. The wound is the entry point to our story, the place where we are both most broken and most called. To identify it is to begin the journey from contraction to love, from the false self to the authentic self, from pathology to power.
This class explores how the wound shapes our perception of reality, how it becomes the foundation of the false core, and how its transformation is the beginning of our unique purpose. To recognize your wound is to say yes to your destiny—to the precise way the divine lives as you.
Key Themes:
The wound as the intention of Cosmos
Your unique wound and your unique self
The false core: how the unrecognized wound creates the false self
The relationship between pain, shame, and desire
The beginning of transformation through recognition
Practices:
Reflective journaling: tracing your earliest experience of rupture or separation
Guided inquiry: where do I feel the wound in my body and story?
Campfire sharing: speaking your wound in sacred community
Class II: Transforming Pain into the Wounds of Love
Lecture and Q&A: Sunday, November 23, 11 am PST (Los Angeles), 2 pm EST (New York), 8 pm CET (Paris)
Digital Campfire: Saturday, November 29, 11 am PST (Los Angeles), 2 pm EST (New York), 8 pm CET (Paris)
Description:
The wound, says Marc, is not meant to be erased but transfigured. Every wound carries within it the encoded possibility of love. When we meet the wound—not as a problem to fix but as a portal—we begin to move from pain into power, from self-pity into service, from despair into devotion.
This session explores the alchemy of transformation: how the same energy that creates breakdown can be turned toward breakthrough. The wound becomes the womb of new creation—the place where the human and divine meet in intimacy. To transform the wound is to enter into the mystery of the wounded God, to participate in the healing of the Cosmos itself.
Key Themes:
The wound as portal: from pathology to purpose
The transformation of pain into the energy of eros
The wounded God and the wounded hero
Shame as a unique expression of distorted desire
How love metabolizes suffering into wisdom and creativity
Practices:
Meditation: entering the wound as a sacred space
Writing practice: narrating your wound as a story of love
Campfire dialogue: how does my pain serve the evolution of love?
Class III: The Ten Portals of Transformation
Lecture and Q&A: Sunday, November 30, 11 am PST (Los Angeles), 2 pm EST (New York), 8 pm CET (Paris)
Digital Campfire: Saturday, December 6, 11 am PST (Los Angeles), 2 pm EST (New York), 8 pm CET (Paris)
Description:
In this culminating session, we map the terrain of transformation through what Marc calls the Ten Portals of Wounding. Each portal is a doorway into a specific dimension of the human experience—loss, betrayal, shame, isolation, failure, desire, and more. These are not obstacles to overcome but sacred invitations to awaken. Each portal asks a question: will you turn away, or will you enter? Will you contract in fear, or expand in love?
To walk through the portals is to become a wounded hero: one who no longer denies their pain but claims it as the site of their awakening. Every insult becomes a wound of love, every shadow a hidden teacher. This class invites participants to locate their own primary portals and to recognize how transformation unfolds uniquely through each one. The journey culminates in the realization that the wound is not the end of the story—it is the beginning of your participation in the evolution of love itself.
Key Themes:
The Ten Portals of Wounding as gateways to awakening
The unique risk required for healing
From false core to true essence
The wounded hero and the wounded God
Becoming a lover through the transformation of pain
Practices:
Contemplative mapping: identifying your primary portal of transformation
Reflective writing: where is eros asking you to enter?
Campfire dialogue: witnessing the wisdom born of your wound
About your Teacher
Dr. Marc Gafni
Dr. Marc Gafni is a visionary thinker, social activist, and passionate philosopher. He is known for his ‘source code teachings,’ including Unique Self theory, the Five Selves, the Amorous Cosmos, A Politics of Evolutionary Love, A Return to Eros and Digital Intimacy. He is author of over twenty-five books, including the award-winning Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University, as well as Orthodox rabbinic ordination.
He teaches on the cutting edge of philosophy and spirit in the West, with the aim of participating in the articulation of what Dr. Gafni, together with Dr. Zak Stein and colleagues, are calling CosmoErotic Humanism. At the core of CosmoErotic Humanism is what Dr. Gafni and Dr. Stein are calling ‘First Principles and First Values,’ ‘Anthro-Ontology,’ and a ‘Universal Grammar of Value.’ This shared story rooted in First Principles and First Values can then serve as the matrix for a global ethos for a global civilization.
Dr. Gafni is the Co-Founder and Co-President of the Office for the Future, the Center for World Religion and Philosophy and the Foundation for Conscious Evolution. At the core of their shared missions is the articulation and delivery into culture of a Great Library - in multiple forms - which participates in evolving the source code of consciousness and culture in response to the Meta Crisis.