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Creating a Life of Material and Spiritual Abundance |
| What would it take for you to change course in your
life? For you to feel rich in every way possible, both in the way
your bottom-line numbers read and in your heart, your soul, and
the way you live each day? What would it take for you to say aloud
to yourself in the mirror, "Things are going to be different, starting
now"? The single most important quality you need in order to change
the course of your life is courage. Can you remember the courage
it took to endure a setback or overcome an obstacle in your own
life--the unexpected loss of a job, the illness of a loved one,
a devastating rejection from someone you cared about? That feeling
of waking up in the morning with pain in the pit of your stomach,
pain that stayed with you as you went through the day in a fog,
wondering how you could possibly cope, how you could go on, let
alone rebuild your life. But you did. What enabled you to go on
was your courage. It takes courage to live with financial hardship,
and, unbelievable as it may seem, it takes courage to be rich. Why?
Because choosing wealth as a goal requires facing everything about
your money bravely, honestly, with courage--which is a very, very
hard thing for most of us to do. But it can be done. Read more in Share Guide |
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The Energy of Agreements |
| "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes, but in having new eyes." --Marcel Proust Imagine
you have new eyes. From this new point of perception you see human
beings not as skin and hair and form, but as energy. Physically,
we have two hands. But in an energetic sense we each have thousands
of hands, each grasping at different agreements and beliefs. Each
agreement is an energetic handshake. The hand at the other end may
be attached to another human's energetic hand, or even to an imaginary
force. People make agreements together, both consciously and unconsciously.
Two people agree they will be monogamous. A woman getting a new
job agrees she will follow certain rules. A man stops at a red light.
These are all agreements, individual and societal. They give our
lives structure and form. Yet many more agreements are unconscious and cause us great suffering. We compare ourselves to our siblings, to magazine and television images, to our parents. We agree with ourselves: When I become a lawyer, I will be happy. If I never get divorced I will be okay. If I could just look like that person, or have her personality, or afford that car, I will be fulfilled, loved, an adult. These agreements go beyond beneficial structure and form, to create invisible prisons that trap our creative spirits. Some of these agreements are passed on to us from our parents. Young ladies do not run. Never talk back to your elders. Boys do not cry. Some are passed on from society. If you have money you will be happy. Being single means being unhappy. Only doctors can heal major illnesses. Sometimes we consciously agree with our parents or our teachers or our priest. Many agreements are soaked up by the sponge of our unconscious minds. Read more on SpiritWeavers |
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Chasing Aphrodite |
| Does the gender of a spiritual seeker -- or race or class, for
that matter -- affect the nature of what is sought and ultimately
found in the Divine? Or is the search for God immune to individual
and particular experiences? Does the gender of God matter at all?
The answer is increasingly "yes." Not Grandma's Religion Following the lead of Carol Lee Flinders, author of At the Root of This Longing, we are combining our feminism with our spirituality. We are not returning to our grandmothers' religion unquestioning, but are attempting to excavate those attributes of the divine nature previously disregarded. "Malestream" spirituality has had a tendency to silence attributes of the Divine culturally associated with women. Weren't those attributes ignored because, since they were considered feminine and therefore superfluous? Characteristics like compassion, nurturance, creativity and life-giving power have been marginalized in our culture. The result is an ever-present unmoved mover of a God too busy running the world to take time to listen to frail creatures. But what have we wanted more as women than to come out of invisibility and to be seen and heard? Read more on Damaris Project |
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What the World Needs Now... |
| Love. That's what Stephen Post, Ph.D., thinks about day and night.
He is one of the preeminent figures in bioethics and the science
of altruism. This influential scholar believes that love really
does make the world go 'round. Love is so powerful that it ultimately
transcends words or explanation, but even so, we can study its impact,
and recognize anew the timeless truths: that to give is to receive,
that love heals, enlivens, and makes life worth living, and that
above all, love has an infinite variety of expressions. Here, Dr.
Post-a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University and founder
and director of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love-talks
to Science & Spirit about the science and the practice of love. Read more in Science & Spirit |
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Monumentally, Gloriously, Divinely Big Egos |
| The great yogis, saints and sages accomplished so
much precisely because they were not timid little toadies but great
big egos, plugged into the dynamic Ground and Goal of the Kosmos
itself." Precisely because the ego, the soul and the Self can all
be present simultaneously, we can better understand the real meaning
of "egolessness," a notion that has caused an inordinate amount
of confusion. But egolessness does not mean the absence of a functional
self (that's a psychotic, not a sage); it means that one is no longer
exclusively identified with that self. One of the many reasons we have trouble with the notion of "egoless" is that people want their "egoless sages" to fulfill all their fantasies of "saintly" or "spiritual," which usually means dead from the neck down, without fleshy wants or desires, gently smiling all the time. All of the things that people typically have trouble with-money, food, sex, relationships, desire-they want their saints to be without. "Egoless sages" who are "above all that" is what people want. Talking heads is what they want. Religion, they believe, will simply get rid of all baser instincts, drives and relationships, and hence they look to religion, not for advice on how to live life with enthusiasm, but on how to avoid it, repress it, deny it, escape it. Read more on Shambhala.com |
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Book Review |
| Rob Brezsny offers to help you "brainwash yourself before somebody nasty beats you to it" in his book The Televisionary Oracle. Like an acid trip experienced by the love child of a self help book, goddess mythology textbook, and feminist pulp fiction, The Televionary Oracle is "programmed to prevent the global genocide of the imagination". Paradox, affirmations and self-help exercises are included in this erotic, gender bending tale of Rockstar, a self proclaimed macho feminist, and Rapunzel Blavatsky, the reincarnation of Mary Magdalen and the high priestess of the Menstral Temple of the Funky Grail (think mystery school, think tank, and dream hospital). Rapunzel promises to share with Rockstar "the power of those who bleed but do not die" by making him the first man to experience menarche. We follow Rapunzel as she grows up, revolts against her role as avatar, makes mistakes (yes, even the goddess can make mistakes) and finally returns to the coven to take her rightful place in balancing the male and female thereby preventing the extinction of the human race by the patriarchy. At the same time we follow the story of Rockstar with both story lines offered in the first person and complimented by the Oracle written in the third person. Told for the benefit of beauty and truth fans, full of sacred janitors, hyper real performance art, and blasphemous tantra to help you remember that this is the perfect moment, The Televisionary Oracle is a book that forces you to look at the container of your thoughts in whole new ways. Brezsny is also the author of the weekly astrology column Free Will Astrology. |
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| Table of Contents |
 Life
of Abundance |
| Energy
of Agreements |
| Chasing
Aphrodite |
| What
the World Needs |
| Monumentally
Big Egos |
| Book
Review |
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| Featured Retreats |
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| Facility for Rent The Country Place Retreat and Conference Center White Haven, PA |
| Known as one of the best retreat centers within 2 hours of New
York City and Philadelphia, The Country Place offers facilities
and amenities for groups on retreat, gatherings, seminars, and corporate
programs or off-site meetings. Our facilities offer space, technology
and spa services to make your retreat a success. View this listing on RetreatFinder |
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| Property for Sale Deer Hill Center Cold Spring, NY |
| Majestic Victorian Mansion on 38 acres, minutes from Metro-North
station. Main house has spacious living rooms, commercial kitchen,
dining hall, 12 bedrooms, 8 full & 4 half baths. Property includes
6 buildings, pool and other sports facilities. Property, currently
used for non-profit retreat and conference center, offers peaceful,
relaxing environment just 1 1/2 hours from NYC. View these listings on RetreatFinder.com |
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| Positions Available Karme Choling Shambhala Buddhist Meditation Center Barnet , VT |
| Many positions are available including: Garden Assistant, Practice
and Study Department Head, Retreats Assistant, Cook, Finance Assistant,
Marketing Assistant Please see RetreatFinder for more details. View this retreat on RetreatFinder.com |
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| May 8-15 or 15-22 Bella Yoga in Bella Italia Italy: Torri in Sabina |
| Surrounded by stunning views of olive trees, fruit
trees, and a valley below, we will practice yoga and meditation
in the morning and evening. Additionally, "Diving Deeper/Power of
Circle" will be offered for 3 hours each morning (optional) with
Elizabeth guiding us deeper through yoga, chanting, journal writing,
group and partnered exercises. View this listing on RetreatFinder |
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| Retreat Accommodations Pali Maluhia Mens Retreat Pa'ia, Maui, HI |
| Pali Maluhia is a heart sharing space. Men share
their spiritual journeys in this safe, non-judgemental atmosphere.
It's also a place that honors silence when no words are needed....
Here, there are no rules...there are no agendas.... View this listing on RetreatFinder |
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