Weekly Bulletin #308
September 13, 2008
Europe here we come
NOTE: The Weekly Bulletin is sent free of charge to anyone who asks for it. It is a publication of the ReCreation Foundation, a non-profit organization undertaking the work of sharing the message of Conversations with God with the world. That message is that the purpose of life is to recreate ourselves anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are.
In This Issue...
Notes from Neale
OBSERVATIONS ON LIFE from m. Claire
Best of the Blogs
The Calendar
Notes from Neale...
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My dear friends...
Well, the CWG Deep Study program is complete. It filled three days last week, from 9 a.m. to 9 p. m., and we all had a wonderful time! We looked at the CWG material every which way from Sunday, and each of the participants brought five questions that they wanted answered after reading the material. I didn't get the chance to answer all of the questions (time ran out!), but we got to a pile of them, and talked about many things "off the cuff."
Even before the program ended, all the participants said that they wanted to do it again; they wanted to go forward, explore more. They wanted Deep Study II. So we have planned it for July 09, and many of those present already registered and ran down to the hotel front desk to reserve their rooms!
Now that's when you know that a program "worked."
Meanwhile, enrollment has already gotten underway for the next CWG Deep Study program, set for March 4-5-6 in Ashland, Oregon. If you would like to explore very deeply the material in all of the CWG books, with me right there in the room with you to answer questions, this is for you. We take only 30 participants, so you may wish to register early if this is of interest to you.
And now my two blessed weeks at home are over. Em and I leave tomorrow for our European Fall Tour – and we will not be back home until three days before Thanksgiving. This is my Semi-Retirement Tour...the last time I will be spending such an extended period overseas. We'll be on the road almost eight weeks...and, honestly, I am ready now to never do this again.
Oh, I will certainly do an occasional lecture or spiritual renewal retreat here and there – including once in a while in Europe – but this business of going out for six and eight weeks at a time is going to end. This is, as I said, my last time. I have so much writing to do, and I want to do my spiritual renewal retreats here at home now, so that I can enjoy my children and my first grandchild (!!!), coming in October, and maybe even have a dog again, and have a "real life" like "real people." The last time I enjoyed a long stretch of time at home and watched all four seasons come in was something like 12 years ago...
So, we'll see you all at Findhorn September 20-22...or in Zurich September 23 – 24...or in Munich September 26 – 28...or in Dorset, England October 7 – 12...or in Venice October 17-19...or in Cabourg, Normandy, France October 24 – 26...or in Copenhagen October 31 - November 2 ! ! ! ! !
(For the details on any or all of these events, please see the complete listing, with contact info, below.)
Yes, it's going to be a busy Autumn – and then a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas season. I can't wait!
In the meantime over at the ReCreation Foundation they are preparing for the annual Christmas Spiritual Renewal Retreat, our most popular program of the year. Every year it has the biggest attendance, and every year it has the biggest advance registration.
It runs from Dec. 28 (which makes it easy to get to after the Christmas festivities) until Jan. 1, with a wonderful New Year's Eve Resolutions Ritual. The whole town is our "cafeteria" (absolutely wonderful restaurants) and the city is ablaze with holiday lights from one end of the main street to the other. Come, spend After-Christmas with us this year...start the New Year in a wonderfully spiritual, glorious way, with a look back at 2008 and a look ahead at how you choose to create 2009!
Call Will Richardson to register: 1-352-442-2244.
Will write next week from Scotland! Love and hugs...
Neale.
OBSERVATIONS ON LIFE from m. Claire
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Pocketsful of Diamonds
"Even though you are only One Blossom – still – you have been bloomed. From somewhere came This Beauty, the Beloved has now named: You."
This is a poem, actually. But this morning it wanted to leave my fingers and enter the page as prose. As a reminder of the last few days -- few weeks actually... few months, to be honest. Because I am daily reminded of just how beautiful We Are -- truly. No matter what we may believe about our self, or another. If given one blessed pause; one moment where Grace looks into our eyes and we look into Grace -- we are Awake again, and for a moment or more, we know it.
There is such unwavering proof -- day after day, among the freshly bloomed and tear streaked faces of radiance -- of Humanity's easy goodness. I can't help but wake and write of what I can only hope to describe. Because it's all so blessedly simple. And sometimes the most obvious things are the most challenging to capture -- like a fish that leaps from the cold, mesmerizing us with a thousand hues in one sunlit flash, then disappears. Our Truth is constantly dancing and flashing before for each other. And if we blink -- or choose to close our eyes -- we miss it.
And there is so much light shining from the eyes of so many of us these days, due in part to such difficult times. We can't hang back and let the suffering continue, so we start to look at our own, and we make new choices and send out new prayers and look for new answers because we really do want the Truth. At any cost.
We decide that we will love our suffering as tenderly as we can, until the suffering has no Story. And we become more determined to call forth our own goodness in the face of it all, and give it away -- not because it looks like Enlightenment, but because we pray that it will make a difference. Our goodness is here, as immediate and available as any child who remembers they are the center of The Universe. Even in the holding of another's hand, we sense the perfect weight of a goodness, contained in the ripening fruit.
This is what I am witnessing all over the country -- all over the world: A Ripening.
In a time of deep movement and shift across the planet, there is a rift that has opened within us, and a rising of inner Knowing and Truth about Who We Really Are and Why We Came. And it is no longer only for a select few to know, as did the Buddha, or the Christ. And it is no longer only for the monastic, or the hermetic; the recluse, or the incluse, but for all of us to know -- through our interaction. Through our collective exploration of it together, here, on the ground and with mud on our shoes and dirt on our knees, scrapes on our elbows and tearstains on our cheeks -- what it is to be living as Lightbeings in a Densebody.
We are Awakening one another...
...and we are like stones in a rock polisher, grinding away our common struggles and our common fears and our common lies that we tell ourselves, so that we can begin to tell the truth about how they are still running our show and so that we can awaken from the illusion of them once and for all. And with grass in our hair and Life in our eyes, we are beginning to reveal the Diamond of us, reflecting to each other Divinity in its many facets. Love. Beauty on High. Diamonds in the pocket.
Perhaps, as in answer to a longstanding prayer or calling, I have been graced with the opportunity to be with people from all over the world in the environment of self awareness retreats, workshops, and lectures, working alongside my sweetheart, who is a most wonderful and integral messenger of universal truths in this era of Awakening in which we are living. With Poetry as my instrument, I get to realize my own personal dream, which is not only to stay vigilant in unwinding the Story of Suffering, but to support others who are committed to the same. And, wow, is everybody showing up!
Something's happening, and although it's bumpy, rocky and roady, we're all starting to get the hang of it. The ups and downs, straight stretches and sharp curves, whooping at the vistas and wailing in the swales... but we're suiting up, and we're showing up.
In this delicious unraveling of the Illusion, there are many, many moments when the human part of us glimpses for an instant how incredible it is to be a part of this Sweet Unveiling. There is a part of me that knows -- if only for a flash -- that the moment I pass on to the next Next, I will jump right back in line for another Human Lifetime. It's just way too groovy a movie to miss ... and the grooviest part about all of it is this: We Are Good. We Are God.
Some of us came here as Thinkers. Some of us as Feelers. Some as Observers, some as Doers – as Movers, or Shakers. This time around, I came mainly to be a Feeler. And for other Feelers out there (you know who you are) this isn't the easiest of lifetimes, perhaps. There's a whole lot of upheaval happening, or, as Jerry Lee Lewis sang, "A whole lotta shakin' goin' on". So there is a lot to feel and to filter, and to try to find a place for, a space for, a bigger container for.
My sweetheart is a Thinker. He is one of the teachers in the world who provides a pathway up the mountain to the mountain top, blazing trail through the thicket with the scythe of Conceptual Unwinding and Mental Dismantling, so that the Story of Suffering can be seen as the Story it is and the flimsy foundation of belief it's been built upon.
Thinkers, wander no further – you've met your match and you've probably found your teacher! Neale's books are unrivaled in content, concept, and written in a way that sneaks up on quantum physics through a back door, but through a kitchen with cookies and milk and smells that remind you of your True Home. Because that's where the messages he's brought through lead you to: Home. They are exceptional – and they unwind the mind in a way that invites it to open and become the tool that it was meant to be: a mechanism for Creation -- of one's Highest Version of the Greatest Vision ever they held about themselves!
And for Feelers, there are also teachers who point the way up the mountain, running parallel and just as steep – and, like the other paths, it takes you Home. These teachers are usually the people who were once called "thin skinned" or "too sensitive" and eventually found the gift within that particular kind of wiring. The Gift being: too soft to continue the charade. Too overwhelmed to buck up one more time, play tough one more day, run any faster, jump any higher, twirl one more cartwheel in order to keep it all together.
Seems like Thinkers can do a lot more of this, because their physical vessel doesn't get quite so rattled by the day-to-day. They can always find new ways to Think about things, and grab onto new formulas for life that "make sense". This is wonderful! We need sense-makers, and structure builders or we'd all be puddles of Heart, trying to figure out how to turn the key in the ignition and what the heck an ignition is. For a Feeler, making sense out of life doesn't seem to be much of an option. And so, like many who have gone before us, at some point, we drop.
Right into the Ground of Being. And we find the teachers who have done the same, because they have trail-blazed this particular path, and therefore know it. Know what kind of weather we'll encounter, how many or how few provisions to bring, and where we'll need to pause and to gather strength in order to go on, and where we'll need to push ourselves to make it to the next point of grace.
It's quite a lifetimes' climb. It takes courage, and compassion; strength and surrender. And, as I'm fond of saying about every aspect of the path to Awakenng: It Ain't For Sissies. You come to a point where you've got to really want it. Want peace more than one more fantasy of how you'll be saved, from who knows what. You've got to want suffering to end for all beings everywhere more than you want the latte, the band-aid, the quick-fix.
This has been my own experience, and it has probably come more through Divine Intervention (i.e. down on my knees and covered in muck) than through Pure Intention. But after enough muck-exploring, pure intention becomes a choice, and becomes yet more pure through the purification. And suddenly, our lives can be of true service because they are not so obscured by our not-knowing. The mirror becomes more polished.
I speak of Gangaji almost every day, because she is the teacher that resonates most deeply with my own wiring, my own journey, my own particular pathway for Awakening fully, as it is being revealed to me. I speak of Mary O'Malley almost every day, because she, too, is a teacher, and friend, who resonates most deeply with my own wiring, my own journey, and my inner commitment to Awakening fully.
Both of these precious souls know what it is to be human in the extreme. You can't lay a book on their lap found in the "Spirituality" section of any bookstore that they haven't read, followed, worshipped for a time, and tried to use as yet another salve or salvation. You can't conjure up a fright or a height that they haven't already become intimate with. They are the Bodhisattvic Heart: the Heart of Compassion that devotes every awakened moment to the cessation of the suffering of humanity. And they commit themselves to remaining deeply present, and not following one single thought -- or if they do -- not believing it.
Their teaching is that what is already here, beneath thought, behind thought, before thought -- is Peace. Is Stillness. Is Womb and Emergence of phenomena rising, and the very thing we search for in every fantasy the mind conjures up next. But what the mind conjures up is no match for the Aliveness that is Here, opening as Us, formlessly or in form, every moment. And to have thoughts is fine, because that's what the mind does. But to believe them, and to follow them like the Pied Piper to the far reaches of the Kingdom... well, that's where we can get into trouble!
If you are tired of pulling the cloak of Thoughts over your True Nature – of seeking and looking outside yourself for another short-lived Peace, then accept the invitation to Stop.
That is what Gangaji teaches, and what her teacher taught her. Call off the search. Rest in what is already here for you. And to know it, you have to stop and find out what never leaves and what has always been beneath your thoughts, and what is the simple, Still Heart of You.
The DVDs that Gangaji has produced show how she works with many people who, over and over again, are easily and softly lead directly into the direct experience of their own True Nature. What moments ago was someone shaking like a leaf with anxiety or barely able to utter a word through the stone of fear that had been living in their throat for years, Gangaji -- drama-less and smiling -- accompanies them into whatever it is that they have not yet explored.
Then, after only minutes with Gangaji facilitating their own inner noticing, we witness the face of an Innocent, exposed. A Realized Innocent, having touched their own stillness beneath the average chaos of the man-made mind. And sometimes Gangaji reaches just behind her and brings out a polaroid camera. And with both parties grinning from ear to ear through laughter or tears or both, it is captured: Who We Really Are. A human in their fresh Unfolding, seeing their own beauty, unshakeable in its Truth.
Gangaji's husband, Eli Jackson-Bear, is also a teacher of this Pathway to the Heart. In a DVD called "Living Awareness" that features both teachers together, Eli said this:
"The mind is the servant of the Heart. And the Heart speaks in Silence. And so if you're talking to yourself, then you can't hear your Heart. You're listening to thoughts instead of silence. You've missed the silence of your Heart."
Whoever the teacher or teaching arising in your reality – dive in. Unravel fully. And find the Teacher within your Self, that has known all of this all along. The Teacher or Teaching can only be a finger pointing toward the moon, until you yourself, swallow the moon and light emerges from your every pore. You are You.
- m. Claire
Recommended reading...
Diamond in Your Pocket by Gangaji... www.gangaji.org
The Gift of Your Compulsions by Mary O'Malley... www.maryomalley.com
One of America's newest poetic voices, m. Claire contributes occasionally to this space with observations on life. Her poetry will be found at www.mclairepoet.com. She may be reached at Em@mclairepoet.com.
Best of the Blogs...
Each week we present in this space the best from past entries on the worldwide CwG Blog. The blog may be accessed daily on the home page at www.beliefnet.com.
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When less is more
Do humans need more regulation, or less? More laws, or fewer? More restrictions, or none at all? Is it the role of government -- and religion, for that matter -- to keep us "in line"?
I rarely do this here, but today I want to open this Monday's Sunday School All Week session with the complete re-printing of the entire remarks of a class member...in this case, "Susan." For she wrote something here over the weekend that I want to make sure every visitor to this blog reads...and if you don't plow through all the contributions in the Comments Section that follows this blog (some days there are as many as 40), you could miss something like this...
Here is Susan's observation:
An anti-abortion Republican in the white house for 8 years has not slowed abortions. It seems to me that its merely a selling point. While I am "pro-life" I do believe that prohibition has never stopped people from doing anything they want. If someone wants to abort, drink alcohol, smoke pot, do drugs, prostitute themselves, they will always find a way... except that it will introduce a whole new set of problems in society.
Holland has it right. The following is excerpted from "Collective conscience breeds Dutch tolerance" by David Morris:
Amsterdam Judge Ruter says, "You cannot solve social problems by making them taboo." The Dutch don't drive their human weaknesses underground. The minister of justice of Holland's conservative govt says, "The aim is to prevent as much as possible a situation in which more harm is caused by criminal proceedings than by the activity itself."
Legalization allows the govt more flexibility than criminalization. A prostitute undergoes regular health exams and measures are taken to prevent disease. One result is an astonishing low rate of AIDS infection: less than 1% as compared to America's illegal but plentiful prostitute population at 30-40%. Allowing prisoners conjugal visits with loved ones reduces prison tension and curbs aggressive in-prison homosexuality.
Marijuana loses much of its attraction to young people because its no longer forbidden, making it into an unsensational item. In fact, the proportion of teenage users in Holland is a fraction of US use and crack is virtually non-existent. Also the violent druglords are taken out of the picture. Dutch schools teach sex education and birth control pills are cheap and available. Yet Dutch girls are no more sexually active than American girls. Holland's teen-age pregnancy rate is 1/7th that of America's. American teen-agers have 12 to 14 times more abortions than Dutch teens.
The Dutch treat prostitutes, drug addicts, teen-age pot smokers and the terminally ill with respect. Not surprisingly, respect breeds responsibility, not license. The heroin addict uses a clean needle. The prostitute does not transmit disease. The teen uses birth control.
The Dutch's sense of mutual respect and collective responsibilty is deeply rooted. In the 1600s they were the most prosperous nation on earth. Riches bred a "collective conscience" that demanded generosity for the needy and tolerance for those with different relgions and different habits. Obligations to community, to society came first. The 300-year tradition continues. They know the most fertil breeding ground for irresponsible behavior is the slum. They offer the wold's most comprehensive social support programs.
This prosperous country of 14 million has much to teach us, for tolerance has never been an American trait. We have a long history of demanding moral purity of our neighbors and eagerly locking them up if they transgress. We rely on force to solve our social problems, not wisdom.
Today America imprisons a larger portion of its citizens than any country except South Africa. The Dutch watch in amazement our descent into social anarchy. They cannot understand why a nation would willfully destroy itself to control its citizens' personal behavior.
Wow. If that isn't a striking statement on behalf of Libertarianism, I don't know what is. Ron Paul could have written that. (And speaking of Ron Paul, I am now reading his new book, Revolution, and finding it utterly fascinating. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in current affairs -- whether you agree with Paul or not. It is always good to know all sides of all the arguments about the events of the day, and this book lays out some discussion points with particular clarity and brilliance of brevity and crisp articulation.)
Soooo....do you agree with Susan? And if so, how about in the Kingdom of God? I mean, if less "government" and less regulation is what you feel works for human beings, to get them to take more responsibility for themselves, not less...would the same hold true for the larger matters of the soul? What is we had a God who regulates less (or not at all)? What is we had a "Dutch God"? Would we ever get in Dutch again.....?
(I'm sorry. I couldn't help it.)
As you must surely know, Conversations with God speaks of a God who wants and requires nothing from humanity; who needs nothing and demands nothing. Most of the world does not embrace such a God, however, preferring a Deity of judgment, condemnation, and punishment. Violent and eternal punishment, at that...
If humanity ever changed its belief about all this, I suggest that the world would change over night. Gone would be the moral authority that we use to implement the death penalty, or to start and wage wars, or to hurt others in the name of "justice."
The observations of Susan, above, blew through me like a blast of fresh autumn air. Yes, Americans are largely intolerant. I have been to The Netherlands several times. I have enjoyed every one of my visits there. And I see tolerance all over the place -- and yes, much less crime, much less violence, and a much easier society in which to live.
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The Calendar
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A look at events at which Neale Donald Walsch will share the message of Conversations with God in the weeks ahead. You can learn more about the work of the ReCreation Foundation at these events...and on its official website, www.cwg.org, as well.
NOTE: Not all events are sponsored by the ReCreation Foundation, but because all of the events move forward the message of Conversations with God, which is the mission of the Foundation, the Foundation is pleased to inform you of them.
September 20 - 22, 2008
Findhorn, Scotland
Workshop
+44 1309 691653
Email: conference@findhorn.org
www.findhorn.org/programmes/programme56.php
September 23 - 24, 2008
Zurich, Switzerland
Workshop
Parabola Forum/Cultus Animi +41 044 261 00 90
Email: parabola_forum@hotmail.com
September 26 - 28, 2008
Munich, Germany
Workshop
+49 (0) 84 32.94 90 61
Email: tickets@cultusanimi.de
www.cultusanimi.de
October 7 - 12, 2008
Dorset, England
Your Conversation with God - The 5 Day Retreat
www.lovelightpromotions.com
October 17 - 19, 2008
Venice, Italy
Workshop
Stefano - Tel: +39 338 7180315
Email: stefrusso@yahoo.it
October 24 - 26, 2008
Cabourg, Normandy, France
Workshop: Another Way of Loving
Tel: 00331 5375 3535
Email: info@recreer.net
www.grandfestival.fr
October 31 - November 2, 2008
Copenhagen, Denmark
Workshop
Email: svend.trier@get2net.dk
November 8 - 11, 2008
Phoenix, AZ
Celebrate Your Life
Contact +1-480-970-8447
www.celebrateyourlife.org
December 28, 2008 - January 1, 2009
Ashland, OR
Your Conversation with God
The Holiday Retreat - The 5-Day Experience
Will: +1-352-442-2244
Email: will@cwg.org
www.cwg.org/main.php?p=Retreats&sub=RSchedule
January 22 - 25, 2009
Los Angeles, CA
The Freedom Formula Experience
Contact: +1-800-930-3713
Email: Info@thefreedomfoformula.com
March 20 - 21, 2009
Denver, CO
Weekend Workshop
Mile Hi Church
Contact: +1 303-232-4079
June 19 - 22, 2009
Golden, B.C. Canada
Quantum Leap Retreat
Quantum Leaps Lodge
Email: info@quantumleaps.ca
quantumleaps.ca/neale_donald_walsch.php
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The CwG Weekly Bulletin is prepared by Neale Donald Walsch, m.Claire, Marion Martin, Ethan Knowles (geek2d.com), LEP Graduates and other friends.
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