It’s November. The year is about to be over...done...finished...gone. How do you say goodbye to 2011? How do you discover the inner meaning of 2011? How do you prepare for 2012?
Each year you evolve. You become something you weren’t last year.
Some of your evolution is intentional and some is unintentional. But if you don’t take time to review your year as the unfolding of a new you, how do you know yourself? How do you know what you mean when you say I am?
How do you SEE yourself?
How do you CELEBRATE yourself?
How do you MAKE WISE CHOICES about the coming year?
Are you PREPARED TO BECOME new, different, more mature, more self-compassionate, more creative in the coming year?
INNER ADVENT is a program that guides you in saying goodbye to the old year. It provides an organized approach to looking at your inner evolvution and understanding the meaning of your year with creative compassion. It cleans up your soul and prepares your inner life for becoming new, for a another year of evolving. It creates a sweet emptiness, a manger in your soul.
It will take time to realize the meaning of your year. The webinar is 60-90 minutes each week. Your selfwork of journalling, creating your Inner Advent mandala (not a work of art but a self-illuminating artistic representation of your year - no critiquing, just wondrous and courageous self-expression) will take your attention and your effort - 2-10 hours over the four weeks. Optional partnering calls could be another 30-60 minutes each week.
Is your Inner Advent worth this much of your precious time? Will you be happier? More peaceful? More grounded? More alive? More awake to your self? Yes, yes, yes!
Will you find more true freedom to be and become yourself? Yes.
Will you find more love? For yourself? for others (even the difficult others)? for the world? for the future? for the past? for the moment? Yes.
Inner Advent, like all the Imagine Self, Inner Year and Inner Life programs, is a serious, profound and mysterious spiritual practice. It also offers moments of true joy when the experience of your evolving I AM sings in harmony with the evolving Cosmos.
Inner Advent is part of a spiritual curriculum for finding, knowing and becoming yourself.
How do you find yourself in all the events and circumstances of the year?
How do you recognize yourself with confidence and authority? What was authentically YOU in your thoughts, feelings and deeds?
How did you evolve, become new, more mature? What new truth lived in your thoughts? What new beauty formed in your feelings? How did goodness pour out from your actions? What happened to your soul over the year?
The cosmic rhythm of your inner year wakes up to these questions and finds their answers during the last few weeks before the Solstice and the Nativity - your soul's Inner Advent.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Lessons from an Old Stove
My landlord finally agreed to replace the old stove. We had been living for six weeks without a working oven. The delivery men had arrived with the new stove and were removing the old one. And I was about to have a spiritual lesson from a piece of junk.
This stove was over 20 years old and I had been living with it for less than two months. Now useless junk, I watched it being wheeled out through the backdoor.
Suddenly, I began to think/feel about all the people, all the human souls, that had been connected to the stove:
I did not know any of these individuals personally, but we had a connection through this metal object.
Rudolf Steiner said we must materialize spirit and spiritualize matter. I share this wisdom often in my writing and teaching. How often do I apply it in my life?
But these thoughts about the old stove, put this wisdom into practice and it felt very good to my soul. I wasn’t being sentimental: I was being morally awake. I was recollecting the human meaning, purpose and significance, and honoring the numerous human connections living in an old appliance. I was spiritualizing matter.
It took me less 20 seconds to think the thoughts and feel the feelings. but I have spent a number of minutes sharing the experience with others and now I am taking about 30 minutes to write this post. About 3000 people will read this post and some will be inspired to think spiritually and morally about the mundane things in their lives.
Yes, the stove is now on a waste pile somewhere along with thousands of other discarded, useless objects. It is part of the ecological challenge of waste. But energetically something spiritually dynamic is living in my consciousness and now in yours. The stove that was used to feed bodies, fed my soul with insight and my heart with awe for all the human initiative and connection that came together around this appliance over its “usetime.”
You might want to make it a spiritual practice whenever you throw something out to momentarily bring your attention to its relationship to the engagement of so many human souls, the thoughts, feelings, and initiatives, surrounding its existence.
What also happened in those few seconds of honoring the old stove and its role in the human community, was the preparation for the new stove.
We took a few minutes and some focused energy to clean the stove space (twenty years of other people’s spills and ant traps, etc.) The new stove was installed into a place that was clean and prepared.
Always have a thoughtful moment when you say goodbye. Always put some thought into preparing for the new.
Reminder: We are approaching Inner Advent when you bring your inner attention to saying goodbye to your old year and preparing for the new. To learn about Inner Advent click here.
This stove was over 20 years old and I had been living with it for less than two months. Now useless junk, I watched it being wheeled out through the backdoor.
Suddenly, I began to think/feel about all the people, all the human souls, that had been connected to the stove:
- All the people who worked for the manufacturer who made it, the appliance dealer who sold it to the building contractor and the guy that installed it. How many individuals had been involved in bringing the stove into the house it was now leaving?
- All the people whose bodies had been nourished by the food cooked on the stove. I have no idea how many people have lived in this house but over 20 years as many as 20,000 meals could have been prepared using the stove.
I did not know any of these individuals personally, but we had a connection through this metal object.
Rudolf Steiner said we must materialize spirit and spiritualize matter. I share this wisdom often in my writing and teaching. How often do I apply it in my life?
But these thoughts about the old stove, put this wisdom into practice and it felt very good to my soul. I wasn’t being sentimental: I was being morally awake. I was recollecting the human meaning, purpose and significance, and honoring the numerous human connections living in an old appliance. I was spiritualizing matter.
It took me less 20 seconds to think the thoughts and feel the feelings. but I have spent a number of minutes sharing the experience with others and now I am taking about 30 minutes to write this post. About 3000 people will read this post and some will be inspired to think spiritually and morally about the mundane things in their lives.
Yes, the stove is now on a waste pile somewhere along with thousands of other discarded, useless objects. It is part of the ecological challenge of waste. But energetically something spiritually dynamic is living in my consciousness and now in yours. The stove that was used to feed bodies, fed my soul with insight and my heart with awe for all the human initiative and connection that came together around this appliance over its “usetime.”
The Spiritual Practice of Saying Goodbye to Things
You might want to make it a spiritual practice whenever you throw something out to momentarily bring your attention to its relationship to the engagement of so many human souls, the thoughts, feelings, and initiatives, surrounding its existence.
What also happened in those few seconds of honoring the old stove and its role in the human community, was the preparation for the new stove.
We took a few minutes and some focused energy to clean the stove space (twenty years of other people’s spills and ant traps, etc.) The new stove was installed into a place that was clean and prepared.
Always have a thoughtful moment when you say goodbye. Always put some thought into preparing for the new.
Reminder: We are approaching Inner Advent when you bring your inner attention to saying goodbye to your old year and preparing for the new. To learn about Inner Advent click here.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Spritual Beings - Are They For Real? Do They Matter?
Halloween, All Saints. All Souls. It’s the time of year to focus on evolving our relationship to Spiritual Beings.
Are they for real? Do they matter?
Until I was in my early forties, spiritual beings didn’t really matter to me. I certainly had beliefs about their existence - Sunday-school-meets-New-Age beliefs, but I had no understanding and no active relationship to spiritual beings. I thought they were probably real, but I didn’t think they really mattered to me.
Actually, I hadn’t given it much thought because I had never been introduced to the reality and the significance of spiritual beings. I didn’t know what they did and how they related to my life. I had no concept for spiritual beings. No context for understanding why and how they mattered. My immature and vague beliefs were reassuring when I felt existential dread, but they were more a cloak I wrapped around myself to keep off the chill, then a ground for being.
And I did not feel any companionship with them, although I am a spiritual being. Human beings are spiritual beings. And there is what I called God, the all-encompassing name for the undefinable divine. In between, above, below, behind, what was there to connect with, to engage with? Were there other, more distinct forms of spiritual being, with purpose, task, even personality, that I could interact with?
And what does that interaction look like, feel like, develop into? How do I converse with spiritual beings? How do they converse with me?
Finally another question for serious consideration: If there are spiritual beings, am I real for them? Do I matter to spiritual beings?
Over twenty years of studying Rudolf Steiner’s cosmology gave me a conceptual framework for understanding spiritual beings, made them real and showed me how they mattered. But it wasn’t until I was called to teach and guide the Inner Year programs that I found a way to experience and encourage a warm intimacy, an engaged companionship between the human being, you and me, and the myriad beings of spirit.
I do love the benefits of the cyclical focus of the Inner Year. Each year at this time, when the cosmos resonates with the love of spiritual beings, I find more engagement, full of creativity, surprises, comfort, challenge, and real delight. There is a relaxed wakefulness in the engagement. Real companionship has grown.
Spiritual beings do not all look alike, sound alike or feel alike. I can make distinctions and discern subtleties now. My life is blessed with a conscious attention to the unique qualities of both the spiritual beings and my relationships with them.
I am not special in this capacity. Each of us is part of this spiritual company, this amazing fellowship. We just need to give it attention and slowly we can cultivate, nurture, and mature our awareness of our constant companionship with all our fellow spiritual beings from the grand Seraphim, to the nature spirits dwelling in the tree outside our windows, to our guardian angels, and to the beings that we knew as our grandfathers and grandmothers during their earthly lives.
In four webinars, beginning this Sunday, I will share with you what I have learned about Spiritual Beings and how to engage their companionship. You can participate during the live calls, or wait and download the audios to listen to as you take a long walk on a refreshing fall day. To learn more about the course, click here.
Are they for real? Do they matter?
Until I was in my early forties, spiritual beings didn’t really matter to me. I certainly had beliefs about their existence - Sunday-school-meets-New-Age beliefs, but I had no understanding and no active relationship to spiritual beings. I thought they were probably real, but I didn’t think they really mattered to me.
Actually, I hadn’t given it much thought because I had never been introduced to the reality and the significance of spiritual beings. I didn’t know what they did and how they related to my life. I had no concept for spiritual beings. No context for understanding why and how they mattered. My immature and vague beliefs were reassuring when I felt existential dread, but they were more a cloak I wrapped around myself to keep off the chill, then a ground for being.
And I did not feel any companionship with them, although I am a spiritual being. Human beings are spiritual beings. And there is what I called God, the all-encompassing name for the undefinable divine. In between, above, below, behind, what was there to connect with, to engage with? Were there other, more distinct forms of spiritual being, with purpose, task, even personality, that I could interact with?
And what does that interaction look like, feel like, develop into? How do I converse with spiritual beings? How do they converse with me?
Finally another question for serious consideration: If there are spiritual beings, am I real for them? Do I matter to spiritual beings?
Over twenty years of studying Rudolf Steiner’s cosmology gave me a conceptual framework for understanding spiritual beings, made them real and showed me how they mattered. But it wasn’t until I was called to teach and guide the Inner Year programs that I found a way to experience and encourage a warm intimacy, an engaged companionship between the human being, you and me, and the myriad beings of spirit.
I do love the benefits of the cyclical focus of the Inner Year. Each year at this time, when the cosmos resonates with the love of spiritual beings, I find more engagement, full of creativity, surprises, comfort, challenge, and real delight. There is a relaxed wakefulness in the engagement. Real companionship has grown.
Spiritual beings do not all look alike, sound alike or feel alike. I can make distinctions and discern subtleties now. My life is blessed with a conscious attention to the unique qualities of both the spiritual beings and my relationships with them.
I am not special in this capacity. Each of us is part of this spiritual company, this amazing fellowship. We just need to give it attention and slowly we can cultivate, nurture, and mature our awareness of our constant companionship with all our fellow spiritual beings from the grand Seraphim, to the nature spirits dwelling in the tree outside our windows, to our guardian angels, and to the beings that we knew as our grandfathers and grandmothers during their earthly lives.
In four webinars, beginning this Sunday, I will share with you what I have learned about Spiritual Beings and how to engage their companionship. You can participate during the live calls, or wait and download the audios to listen to as you take a long walk on a refreshing fall day. To learn more about the course, click here.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Let Them Live in Your Heart
It is good to recognize a blessing when it appears.
This morning I received two blessings both connected to the Lifting the Veils course. The first shows the importance of sharing your story to find yourself and help others and the second pointed out the painful vulnerability of doing this deeply intimate group work using technology.
The First Blessing - Inspiring
I receive the emails from Karma Tube. Today offered this very tender, achingly moving video of a gifted teacher guiding his 10 year old students into the fullness of life through the experience of empathy. More than anything I have written about the importance of biography work, this short video reveals how one person's story frees the secrets held in the silently suffering heart of another. I could write much more but nothing would match the beauty of this little video.
If this video, ignites a desire to do the work of Lifting the Veils, first read the second blessing and then register for the course.
Video from KarmaTube
The Second Blessing - Sobering
This morning a participant in the last Lifting the Veils course wrote me an email filled with disappointment and anger. In one session she had been sharing a story with deep feelings and her skype connection failed. The following session I did not begin with returning to her story as the focus was on another critical experience of early childhood. This person wrote that she felt painfully discounted.
Let me address her experience, because it points out two the the "dangers" of this work.
The Context Danger: The context of the Lifting the Veils program, as in all the programs I offer, is educational, not therapeutic. The outcome is self-knowledge and self-empowerment arising out of self-compassion and inner freedom. The basis of the education is the archetypes of being human and becoming I, the universal components and development of the human being, and the unique configurations and complexity of individual experience.
Through understanding the archetypal, the individual can be illuminated. Suddenly, personal experience and the challenging patterns, limiting defenses, and dysfunctional perspectives you formed in order to survive find their right relationship to your destiny and the redemptive and restorative purposes and lessons of your life fall into place. Self-knowledge, self-compassion and inner freedom increase.
This is group work greatly enriched by the sharing of personal story and personal questions. This sharing is intimate and sacred. Empathy and shared feelings leading to the wisdom of objective compassion is encourgaed. The distraction of sentimentalizing and dramatizing the often painful experiences of another is discouraged.
My job as facilitator and educator is a tough one. I must stay true to the course and the group, and that means in rare cases an individual can feel discounted, disregarded, neglected and not valued. In these cases, I am always willing to offer a private conversation at no cost to address these sensitive feelings with the attention and compassion they deserve.
No one should take a program I offer with the goal of getting fixed or fulfilling a fantasy of finding the ideal embrace of attention and love. I developed these programs as a curriculum for "finding yourself, knowing yourself, becoming yourself." Each program comforts and challenges, soothes and stimulates, answers questions and asks questions, and strives to guide you to the inner means of resolving karma and fulfilling destiny. All of the programs require courage and vulnerability and an ability to stand in your own fire. I am here to serve your I-consciousness, not your story, and I intend to serve with objective compassion and growing wisdom.
The Technology Danger: Skype can be iffy as signals can be weak, there can be a reverb/echo, your connection can be dropped and some participants have difficulty in following the steps to create a connection that allows for interactivity. It is possible to be on the "call" via your phone which may incur long distance charges.
All my Inner Year and Inner Life sessions are recorded and can be downloaded, a true benefit of technology. And I provide valuable handouts. Every participant receives a link to the recording. This means that even if you need to miss a session or you experience tech difficulties, you can still experience the content and the sharing of others. For all the intensive programs, I set up everyone with a partner for weekly calls where the course work is supported and enriched by thoughtful and warm conversations.
The technology is a risk, but it also makes the work possible on a global scale - forming intimate community in spite of physical distances. One participant in the upcoming Lifting the Veils is from Norway.
Here is the description of the course where you will find the link to register.
http://theinneryear.blogspot.com/2011/10/lifting-veils-veils-from-birth-to-seven.html
This morning I received two blessings both connected to the Lifting the Veils course. The first shows the importance of sharing your story to find yourself and help others and the second pointed out the painful vulnerability of doing this deeply intimate group work using technology.
The First Blessing - Inspiring
I receive the emails from Karma Tube. Today offered this very tender, achingly moving video of a gifted teacher guiding his 10 year old students into the fullness of life through the experience of empathy. More than anything I have written about the importance of biography work, this short video reveals how one person's story frees the secrets held in the silently suffering heart of another. I could write much more but nothing would match the beauty of this little video.
If this video, ignites a desire to do the work of Lifting the Veils, first read the second blessing and then register for the course.
Video from KarmaTube
The Second Blessing - Sobering
This morning a participant in the last Lifting the Veils course wrote me an email filled with disappointment and anger. In one session she had been sharing a story with deep feelings and her skype connection failed. The following session I did not begin with returning to her story as the focus was on another critical experience of early childhood. This person wrote that she felt painfully discounted.
Let me address her experience, because it points out two the the "dangers" of this work.
The Context Danger: The context of the Lifting the Veils program, as in all the programs I offer, is educational, not therapeutic. The outcome is self-knowledge and self-empowerment arising out of self-compassion and inner freedom. The basis of the education is the archetypes of being human and becoming I, the universal components and development of the human being, and the unique configurations and complexity of individual experience.
Through understanding the archetypal, the individual can be illuminated. Suddenly, personal experience and the challenging patterns, limiting defenses, and dysfunctional perspectives you formed in order to survive find their right relationship to your destiny and the redemptive and restorative purposes and lessons of your life fall into place. Self-knowledge, self-compassion and inner freedom increase.
This is group work greatly enriched by the sharing of personal story and personal questions. This sharing is intimate and sacred. Empathy and shared feelings leading to the wisdom of objective compassion is encourgaed. The distraction of sentimentalizing and dramatizing the often painful experiences of another is discouraged.
My job as facilitator and educator is a tough one. I must stay true to the course and the group, and that means in rare cases an individual can feel discounted, disregarded, neglected and not valued. In these cases, I am always willing to offer a private conversation at no cost to address these sensitive feelings with the attention and compassion they deserve.
No one should take a program I offer with the goal of getting fixed or fulfilling a fantasy of finding the ideal embrace of attention and love. I developed these programs as a curriculum for "finding yourself, knowing yourself, becoming yourself." Each program comforts and challenges, soothes and stimulates, answers questions and asks questions, and strives to guide you to the inner means of resolving karma and fulfilling destiny. All of the programs require courage and vulnerability and an ability to stand in your own fire. I am here to serve your I-consciousness, not your story, and I intend to serve with objective compassion and growing wisdom.
The Technology Danger: Skype can be iffy as signals can be weak, there can be a reverb/echo, your connection can be dropped and some participants have difficulty in following the steps to create a connection that allows for interactivity. It is possible to be on the "call" via your phone which may incur long distance charges.
All my Inner Year and Inner Life sessions are recorded and can be downloaded, a true benefit of technology. And I provide valuable handouts. Every participant receives a link to the recording. This means that even if you need to miss a session or you experience tech difficulties, you can still experience the content and the sharing of others. For all the intensive programs, I set up everyone with a partner for weekly calls where the course work is supported and enriched by thoughtful and warm conversations.
The technology is a risk, but it also makes the work possible on a global scale - forming intimate community in spite of physical distances. One participant in the upcoming Lifting the Veils is from Norway.
Here is the description of the course where you will find the link to register.
http://theinneryear.blogspot.com/2011/10/lifting-veils-veils-from-birth-to-seven.html
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Soul Shapers - The Story of Gladys & Me
Self development and its accompanying self-healing, self-liberation, and self-empowerment just never ends.
Three years ago I wrote a blog on the challenge of making requests. You can read it here.
http://liveinfullbloom.blogspot.com/2008/05/requesting-three-helpful-steps-and-true.html
It’s good. I nail some of the basics for making effective requests. I have always had a lot of difficulty in making requests and I explore the difficulties and resolve them for my benefit and my reader’s. Or so I thought.
Making requests is a significant and very complex gesture of selfhood. Each of us in our experience of self has a relationship to saying “I need and deserve help. All I need to do is ask.” I know this, but my reality around requests has always been painful, even traumatic.
I remained in trouble and troubled when I needed to ask for anything, particularly help.
THEN…
All my programs and products support self-development. I teach and guide with the confidence of being well-prepared and authentic and with the vulnerability of a participant. I am always seeking self-development - I don’t teach from the mountain top, I’m on the path. too. And sometimes I am wowed by what I learn about myself as I guide and encourage others.
This summer I had a powerful breakthrough at the end of an Inner Life course, LIFTING THE VEILS: BIRTH TO AGE 7.
Now very few of us have clear memories of our first seven years. I don’t. The program is not about sharing memories and creating a storybook, it is about lifting the veils to see clearly the root shaping of the challenges and obstacles appearing in our lives today.
Let me take a moment to define a clear memory. A clear memory is not a video in the mind of what happened, nor is it a story about an event. It is an understanding of what happened to your soul through an event - seeing the inner soul-shaping consequence of the experience.
My “requesting” dilemma was a major inner consequence of something.
I also had memories of two events involving the same person.
The memories and the consequence came together as I was preparing for the course, the veils lifted and I found healing, liberation and empowerment and it all made sense, beautiful sense.
The last two sessions of Lifting the Veils the focus is on the key encounters of our first seven years. I direct the particpants away from their immediate families to the soul-shapers that are more distant: perhaps the pediatrician, the postman, the neighbor, a dog, the little boy in your nursery class or his mother. These are the minor players and brief encounters providing major and lasting consequences.
Here’s the story of Gladys who took away my voice.
Gladys was a neighbor. I don’t remember her face or her voice. I just remember two key events and how she responded to me.
Memory #1
I am about 4 years old.
My mother had invited Gladys for lunch. She rings the bell and I run to open the door. I look up at her and with delight I say “Oh Gladys, you look gorgeous!” She responds, “Little girls don’t use words like that!” My heart feels crushed.
Lasting Consequence: Throughout my life, I block myself from expressing enthusiastic and genuine compliments. I feel terror and lose my voice.
Memory # 2
I am about 5 years old
I am going to kindergarten at the local elementary school and I take the bus. One afternoon I am walking home from the bus and my little bladder is about to burst. I am passing Gladys’ home and bravely decide to ask her if I can use her bathroom. I ring the doorbell. Gladys opens the door and I make my request with my knees held tightly together.
Gladys stands there and gives me what felt like a long lecture on how I should go to the bathroom before I get on the bus. I was so upset by this harsh response that I peed right there down my legs and on her porch. I was scared and incredibly embarrassed.
Lasting Consequence: When I need to make a request, a request which exposes any kind of vulnerability, I don’t make it.
For sixty years I have felt stupid and silly in both circumstances. How ridiculous to go speechless when I want to compliment. How pathetic to not ask for help when I need it. It seems I have an inner Gladys.
But I realized as I applied the insights and worked the exercises for those last two session of the Lifting the Veils program that I had kept secret from myself my feelings of humiliation and confusion, particularly, around peeing in my pants. When the veils lifted from my feelings, I shook and cried, a 5 yr old in a woman’s body. I comforted myself and I understood.
Gladys was a key encounter. It was karmic. The karma has resolved and now when I have the echoes of feeling that I’d rather die in silence then speak and risk harsh correction and devastating shame, I know they are truly echoes and that I can put the feelings back to the past where they belong, and in the present speak in the freedom of self-knowledge.
I encourage you to participate in the upcoming Lifting the Veils Birth to Age Seven. Here is the link to the description of the course. Lifting the Veils
My Gladys Poems
Participants are encouraged to lift the veils creatively: to sketch, paint, write poems, use expressive movement. I share the poems I wrote about Gladys and the veils here.
Three years ago I wrote a blog on the challenge of making requests. You can read it here.
http://liveinfullbloom.blogspot.com/2008/05/requesting-three-helpful-steps-and-true.html
It’s good. I nail some of the basics for making effective requests. I have always had a lot of difficulty in making requests and I explore the difficulties and resolve them for my benefit and my reader’s. Or so I thought.
Making requests is a significant and very complex gesture of selfhood. Each of us in our experience of self has a relationship to saying “I need and deserve help. All I need to do is ask.” I know this, but my reality around requests has always been painful, even traumatic.
I remained in trouble and troubled when I needed to ask for anything, particularly help.
THEN…
All my programs and products support self-development. I teach and guide with the confidence of being well-prepared and authentic and with the vulnerability of a participant. I am always seeking self-development - I don’t teach from the mountain top, I’m on the path. too. And sometimes I am wowed by what I learn about myself as I guide and encourage others.
This summer I had a powerful breakthrough at the end of an Inner Life course, LIFTING THE VEILS: BIRTH TO AGE 7.
Now very few of us have clear memories of our first seven years. I don’t. The program is not about sharing memories and creating a storybook, it is about lifting the veils to see clearly the root shaping of the challenges and obstacles appearing in our lives today.
Let me take a moment to define a clear memory. A clear memory is not a video in the mind of what happened, nor is it a story about an event. It is an understanding of what happened to your soul through an event - seeing the inner soul-shaping consequence of the experience.
My “requesting” dilemma was a major inner consequence of something.
I also had memories of two events involving the same person.
The memories and the consequence came together as I was preparing for the course, the veils lifted and I found healing, liberation and empowerment and it all made sense, beautiful sense.
The last two sessions of Lifting the Veils the focus is on the key encounters of our first seven years. I direct the particpants away from their immediate families to the soul-shapers that are more distant: perhaps the pediatrician, the postman, the neighbor, a dog, the little boy in your nursery class or his mother. These are the minor players and brief encounters providing major and lasting consequences.
Here’s the story of Gladys who took away my voice.
Gladys was a neighbor. I don’t remember her face or her voice. I just remember two key events and how she responded to me.
Memory #1
I am about 4 years old.
My mother had invited Gladys for lunch. She rings the bell and I run to open the door. I look up at her and with delight I say “Oh Gladys, you look gorgeous!” She responds, “Little girls don’t use words like that!” My heart feels crushed.
Lasting Consequence: Throughout my life, I block myself from expressing enthusiastic and genuine compliments. I feel terror and lose my voice.
Memory # 2
I am about 5 years old
I am going to kindergarten at the local elementary school and I take the bus. One afternoon I am walking home from the bus and my little bladder is about to burst. I am passing Gladys’ home and bravely decide to ask her if I can use her bathroom. I ring the doorbell. Gladys opens the door and I make my request with my knees held tightly together.
Gladys stands there and gives me what felt like a long lecture on how I should go to the bathroom before I get on the bus. I was so upset by this harsh response that I peed right there down my legs and on her porch. I was scared and incredibly embarrassed.
Lasting Consequence: When I need to make a request, a request which exposes any kind of vulnerability, I don’t make it.
For sixty years I have felt stupid and silly in both circumstances. How ridiculous to go speechless when I want to compliment. How pathetic to not ask for help when I need it. It seems I have an inner Gladys.
But I realized as I applied the insights and worked the exercises for those last two session of the Lifting the Veils program that I had kept secret from myself my feelings of humiliation and confusion, particularly, around peeing in my pants. When the veils lifted from my feelings, I shook and cried, a 5 yr old in a woman’s body. I comforted myself and I understood.
Gladys was a key encounter. It was karmic. The karma has resolved and now when I have the echoes of feeling that I’d rather die in silence then speak and risk harsh correction and devastating shame, I know they are truly echoes and that I can put the feelings back to the past where they belong, and in the present speak in the freedom of self-knowledge.
I encourage you to participate in the upcoming Lifting the Veils Birth to Age Seven. Here is the link to the description of the course. Lifting the Veils
My Gladys Poems
Participants are encouraged to lift the veils creatively: to sketch, paint, write poems, use expressive movement. I share the poems I wrote about Gladys and the veils here.
The Gladys Poems
Gor
Geous
Gor-geous
I can say it.
I know what it means.
Gorgeous
When I say it I am beautiful.
the doorbell rings
a gorgeous sound
I run to open the door
Gladys, you look gorgeous!
She turns cold, dry, ugly.
Little girls don’t use words like that, she tells me
No, little girls will never again use words like that…
words that sparkle and shine and are filled with love.
**********
oh, I need to tinkle
reallly bad
I just have to get home.
it hurts so bad.
I am going to wet my pants.
Oh, I can ask Gladys if I can use her toilet.
I ring the doorbell.
hurry please, i am bursting.
Gladys, I need to use your toilet.
she is standing in my way, telling me I am bad.
You should go to the bathroom before you get on the bus, she says
Oh no, I am tinkling down my legs.
There is a puddle on the porch.
A puddle on the porch.
It’s tinkle, my tinkle.
my wet everlasting shame.
The Veils
The First Veil
a doorbell rings
Gladys stands in the doorway
I stand in front of her
I have something to give
She shames me for giving
My heart is crushed
and a veil falls
The Second Veil
a doorbell rings
Gladys stands in the doorway
I stand in front of her
I need help
She shames me for needing help
My heart bursts
and a veil falls.
Lifting the Gladys Veils
Doorbells announce
Doorways either open
or close
Gladys closed my doorways
to parts of my soul
I open them now
sixty years later
I teach others
mysterious words
and their meanings
I give others a sacred place to release
the pain they can’t hold back for
one more minute
I ring bells at the doorways of souls.
Thank you, Gladys...you’re gorgeous
and so am I.
Geous
Gor-geous
I can say it.
I know what it means.
Gorgeous
When I say it I am beautiful.
the doorbell rings
a gorgeous sound
I run to open the door
Gladys, you look gorgeous!
She turns cold, dry, ugly.
Little girls don’t use words like that, she tells me
No, little girls will never again use words like that…
words that sparkle and shine and are filled with love.
**********
oh, I need to tinkle
reallly bad
I just have to get home.
it hurts so bad.
I am going to wet my pants.
Oh, I can ask Gladys if I can use her toilet.
I ring the doorbell.
hurry please, i am bursting.
Gladys, I need to use your toilet.
she is standing in my way, telling me I am bad.
You should go to the bathroom before you get on the bus, she says
Oh no, I am tinkling down my legs.
There is a puddle on the porch.
A puddle on the porch.
It’s tinkle, my tinkle.
my wet everlasting shame.
The Veils
The First Veil
a doorbell rings
Gladys stands in the doorway
I stand in front of her
I have something to give
She shames me for giving
My heart is crushed
and a veil falls
The Second Veil
a doorbell rings
Gladys stands in the doorway
I stand in front of her
I need help
She shames me for needing help
My heart bursts
and a veil falls.
Lifting the Gladys Veils
Doorbells announce
Doorways either open
or close
Gladys closed my doorways
to parts of my soul
I open them now
sixty years later
I teach others
mysterious words
and their meanings
I give others a sacred place to release
the pain they can’t hold back for
one more minute
I ring bells at the doorways of souls.
Thank you, Gladys...you’re gorgeous
and so am I.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Lifting the Veils - The Veils From Birth to Seven
Answering Life’s Questions...
Life’s questions begin as feelings: Why do I have this feeling now? Why do I always feel this way? What happened then, that keeps me from feeling the way I want to feel now? How do I let go of old feelings? and so on.
The answers to most, if not all, of life’s questions live in self-knowledge. And self knowledge develops through an understanding of human biographical development in general and one’s own biography in particular. All Inner Life Biography Programs guide you to the questions and answers that heal, liberate and empower all aspects of your life.
Inner Life Biography Programs guide and inspire you to see the details of your life story in the warm light of compassionate objectivity. In the details of your life stories, you find what you seek in your life’s mysterious unfolding.
LIFTING THE VEILS
The First Veils from Birth to Age 7
“ Lynn Jericho's seminars are so very worthwhile. They are engaging, revealing, insightful, and deeply satisfying. Lynn brings great wisdom, humor and kindness as well as a gift for being present with the group and to the needs of individuals.
Working with Lynn has brought clarity of thinking, awareness of feeling and certainty in action to my life. I am grateful to Lynn for offering these seminars and look forward to her future offerings. ”
Lisa Boisvert MacKensie. Editor of The Wonder of Childhood
Do you want to make sense of your life? Lifting the Veils provides a safe, yet challenging, creative way to discover the life and soul shaping energy of your memories. You will meet the stories that have shaped your feeling patterns, your relationship choices, your sense of worth, and your success in living your life.
You may feel you don’t remember much from your first seven years of life, but what you learned in those years is the source of your sense of yourself, your sense of others, your sense of the world and your sense of the future. Not lifting the veils to your early experiences leaves you unconscious and unfree. You remain on automatic, operating on judgements you made before you were capable of discerning any choice.
In order to move beyond instinct and unconsciousness, you must take up the work of re-membering your first seven years. You need solve the mysteries of your patterns and habits of thought, feeling and behavior. You lift each of the veils and begin to see clearly.
Lifting the Veils - The First Veils from Birth to 7. presents a wisdom of the archetypal relationships formed in the first seven years of life and offers a process for each participant to consider how their first seven years unfolded. The course is much more than recollecting the memories and retelling the stories, it is about becoming aware of the learning, the adaptations, the perspectives and the ways of relating formed before you lost a single baby tooth that shaped the rest of your life.
Lifting the Veils is filled with “ahha!” and “oh, my goodness!” and “Now I understand!” Most wonderful is the way this process frees you to experience a new, more loving relationship to your experience of self.
Is Lifting the Veils for You?
Yes, it is for you!
Whether you had a perfect childhood or one filled with unspeakable abuse, this course will give you freedom to be self-aware, self-nurturing, to find your place in the world, to have the confidence to change how you relate to life, to ideas, to choices, to intimacy, to your body, to your work, to growing older, to God, to having fun and all the other myriad aspects of living.
Is Lifting the Veils emotionally safe?
Lifting the Veils, like all the Imagine Self programs, is designed to be practically, emotionally and spiritually supportive of taking the risks necessary to heal, liberate and empower your soul, your inner sense of self.
Each one of us has fears and doubts about this work of finding, knowing and becoming ourselves. Imagine Self programs carry the mood of the Threshold. It is at the Threshold that we become conscious of ourselves. At the Threshold all our protections and defenses start to fade, even disintegrate. Very scary to the part of our souls that clings to the threats and comforts of the past, familiar, even though unfulfilling, but very exhilirating to the part of our souls that wants to live in the mysterious, surprising and fulfilling world of freedom and love, the future free of old scripts and adaptations.
Lifting the Veils provides a dual approach to heart and head. It presents materials that are intellectually sound and emotionally resonant. Both ways of questioning, learning, and maturing are satisfied.
Disclaimer: Lifting the Veils is not a magic wand, silver bullet or a quick fix. It is not designed to rescue, fix or transform. It is a process that requires commitment, patience, perseverance, and work. It is inspiring in its wisdom, guidance and possibilities. It is simply a soul journey on which a single step opens up a new vista on who you are. With each inner step you have arrived at a new inner destination of self to visit, explore, discover.
How does Lifting the Veils Work?
Each session focuses on an archetypal learning experience of early childhood. The clear, creative and compassionate presentations trigger insight, revealation, and understanding. Selfwork exercises to do in between the webinars deepen and empower the process. Then there are the partner conversations which bring a nurturing warmth to your process as you share questions based on the archetypes of the first seven years.
Each session is recorded and materials and suggestions for selfwork are provided. You can relisten to each session as often as you wish. The selfwork exercises can be practiced over and over. Many participants build lasting relationships with their partners — relationships that are based on supporting each others inner development.
Each group has between 4 and 12 particpants. It is intimate.
The course uses phone or skype and your computer (to see the slides). You experience is auditory and visual.
Here is a list of some of the benefits of the program
You will...
The Course Design
Partial descriptions of what is focused on in each session.
Session One - Conception, Gestation & Birth
How these primary experiences shape your life is astounding. We have felt memories and powerfully embedded “instincts” beginning with our conception such as the feeling that we are wanted or not wanted. We learn in those few months how life provides for our needs. We have a lasting impression of how easily we cross thresholds.
Session Two - Space
How do we experience the many relationships to space? Movement, boundaries and limitations, comfort, texture, hidden spaces, natural spaces, forbidden spaces, doorways, chairs, cribs & beds, shelves are all filled with experiences, emotions, demands, and energies.
Session Three - Time
Are you always in a hurry or are you always waiting? How does it feel? How do you feel about the sun, the seasons, birthdays, weekends and darkness. What is your relationship to time?
Session Four - Things & Activities
We fill space with things and we fill time with activities. How do you manage your possessions and your energies? How did your parents? Are you challenged by emptiness or stillness? Do you seek more or less?
Session Five - Your Body
What were you taught about your body and its functions? What were you taught about other people’s bodies? What don’t you know about bodies? What were the body taboos?
Session Six - Emotions & Becoming Social
The role of emotions and our parents reactions to them play a major role in our developing sense of self. How did your parents ability to fulfill their roles shape your relationships with others. How do you feel about being alone? Do you trust others? Do you trust yourself?
Session Seven and Eight - Beyond Your Parents
Many of the most important players in shaping our sense of self were not our parents. They may have been the pediatrician, your mother’s best friend, a neighbor, a friend. Who were the karmic relationships in your first seven years? Looking at the beliefs and traumas that came through your interactions with people who were not a big presence in your life, but a big impact?
8 Weekly Sessions
Tuesday Evenings 7:30 - 9PM Eastern.
October 25 through December 13, 2011
(This program will work for people living in Australia & New Zealand)
Wednesday Afternoons 12 Noon - 1:30PM Eastern
October 26 through December 14, 2011
(This program will work for people living in Europe and the Middle East)
Course fee: $200 (This is the last time this course will be offered at this price. I have been told by too many that this price is not reflective of the quality and value of the content and process. So I am raising the fee in 2012)
Process
We meet via the internet or phone for 90 minutes.
There is a slide presentation on your desktop and you hear Lynn and each other on the computer via Skype or on your phone. Directions for connecting are sent in an email - it is simple. These sessions are recorded and can be downloaded for relistening.
We have personal conversations with partners from the course…
Everyone has a partner for a 30-60+ minute conversation on the weekly topics. These are remarkable and deeply sacred conversations. When each partner is working with the same set of archetypal questions, rich dialogue emerges to nurture and clarify the biographical insights of each. This is awesome, thrilling and by far the most engaging, supportive aspect of the program.
We create personal binders...
Participants are encouraged to create their own binder to fill with the handouts and the selfwork exercises for each session. The handouts include descriptions of the key elements found in our biographies and sets of questions for each topic. Your binder contains all your biography work and your personal biographical reflections - in this case, the story of your first seven years. The binder gives you a place to continue your reflections beyond the frame of the program.
There is a personal conversation with Lynn...
During the course, you will schedule a 20 minute private conversation with Lynn on any personal question you have. More personal time with Lynn is available.
Life’s questions begin as feelings: Why do I have this feeling now? Why do I always feel this way? What happened then, that keeps me from feeling the way I want to feel now? How do I let go of old feelings? and so on.
The answers to most, if not all, of life’s questions live in self-knowledge. And self knowledge develops through an understanding of human biographical development in general and one’s own biography in particular. All Inner Life Biography Programs guide you to the questions and answers that heal, liberate and empower all aspects of your life.
Inner Life Biography Programs guide and inspire you to see the details of your life story in the warm light of compassionate objectivity. In the details of your life stories, you find what you seek in your life’s mysterious unfolding.
LIFTING THE VEILS
The First Veils from Birth to Age 7
“ Lynn Jericho's seminars are so very worthwhile. They are engaging, revealing, insightful, and deeply satisfying. Lynn brings great wisdom, humor and kindness as well as a gift for being present with the group and to the needs of individuals.
Working with Lynn has brought clarity of thinking, awareness of feeling and certainty in action to my life. I am grateful to Lynn for offering these seminars and look forward to her future offerings. ”
Lisa Boisvert MacKensie. Editor of The Wonder of Childhood
Do you want to make sense of your life? Lifting the Veils provides a safe, yet challenging, creative way to discover the life and soul shaping energy of your memories. You will meet the stories that have shaped your feeling patterns, your relationship choices, your sense of worth, and your success in living your life.
You may feel you don’t remember much from your first seven years of life, but what you learned in those years is the source of your sense of yourself, your sense of others, your sense of the world and your sense of the future. Not lifting the veils to your early experiences leaves you unconscious and unfree. You remain on automatic, operating on judgements you made before you were capable of discerning any choice.
In order to move beyond instinct and unconsciousness, you must take up the work of re-membering your first seven years. You need solve the mysteries of your patterns and habits of thought, feeling and behavior. You lift each of the veils and begin to see clearly.
Lifting the Veils - The First Veils from Birth to 7. presents a wisdom of the archetypal relationships formed in the first seven years of life and offers a process for each participant to consider how their first seven years unfolded. The course is much more than recollecting the memories and retelling the stories, it is about becoming aware of the learning, the adaptations, the perspectives and the ways of relating formed before you lost a single baby tooth that shaped the rest of your life.
Lifting the Veils is filled with “ahha!” and “oh, my goodness!” and “Now I understand!” Most wonderful is the way this process frees you to experience a new, more loving relationship to your experience of self.
Is Lifting the Veils for You?
Yes, it is for you!
Whether you had a perfect childhood or one filled with unspeakable abuse, this course will give you freedom to be self-aware, self-nurturing, to find your place in the world, to have the confidence to change how you relate to life, to ideas, to choices, to intimacy, to your body, to your work, to growing older, to God, to having fun and all the other myriad aspects of living.
Is Lifting the Veils emotionally safe?
Lifting the Veils, like all the Imagine Self programs, is designed to be practically, emotionally and spiritually supportive of taking the risks necessary to heal, liberate and empower your soul, your inner sense of self.
Each one of us has fears and doubts about this work of finding, knowing and becoming ourselves. Imagine Self programs carry the mood of the Threshold. It is at the Threshold that we become conscious of ourselves. At the Threshold all our protections and defenses start to fade, even disintegrate. Very scary to the part of our souls that clings to the threats and comforts of the past, familiar, even though unfulfilling, but very exhilirating to the part of our souls that wants to live in the mysterious, surprising and fulfilling world of freedom and love, the future free of old scripts and adaptations.
Lifting the Veils provides a dual approach to heart and head. It presents materials that are intellectually sound and emotionally resonant. Both ways of questioning, learning, and maturing are satisfied.
Disclaimer: Lifting the Veils is not a magic wand, silver bullet or a quick fix. It is not designed to rescue, fix or transform. It is a process that requires commitment, patience, perseverance, and work. It is inspiring in its wisdom, guidance and possibilities. It is simply a soul journey on which a single step opens up a new vista on who you are. With each inner step you have arrived at a new inner destination of self to visit, explore, discover.
How does Lifting the Veils Work?
Each session focuses on an archetypal learning experience of early childhood. The clear, creative and compassionate presentations trigger insight, revealation, and understanding. Selfwork exercises to do in between the webinars deepen and empower the process. Then there are the partner conversations which bring a nurturing warmth to your process as you share questions based on the archetypes of the first seven years.
Each session is recorded and materials and suggestions for selfwork are provided. You can relisten to each session as often as you wish. The selfwork exercises can be practiced over and over. Many participants build lasting relationships with their partners — relationships that are based on supporting each others inner development.
Each group has between 4 and 12 particpants. It is intimate.
The course uses phone or skype and your computer (to see the slides). You experience is auditory and visual.
Here is a list of some of the benefits of the program
You will...
- Know yourself with greater self-compassion
- Discover the fundamental karma of your life
- Find the gift of making the decisions that are right for who you are now and who you are becoming.
- Release family patterns.
- Break your future free from your past.
- Finally understand the root of your feelings.
- Experience finally being the designer of your life.
The Course Design
Partial descriptions of what is focused on in each session.
Session One - Conception, Gestation & Birth
How these primary experiences shape your life is astounding. We have felt memories and powerfully embedded “instincts” beginning with our conception such as the feeling that we are wanted or not wanted. We learn in those few months how life provides for our needs. We have a lasting impression of how easily we cross thresholds.
Session Two - Space
How do we experience the many relationships to space? Movement, boundaries and limitations, comfort, texture, hidden spaces, natural spaces, forbidden spaces, doorways, chairs, cribs & beds, shelves are all filled with experiences, emotions, demands, and energies.
Session Three - Time
Are you always in a hurry or are you always waiting? How does it feel? How do you feel about the sun, the seasons, birthdays, weekends and darkness. What is your relationship to time?
Session Four - Things & Activities
We fill space with things and we fill time with activities. How do you manage your possessions and your energies? How did your parents? Are you challenged by emptiness or stillness? Do you seek more or less?
Session Five - Your Body
What were you taught about your body and its functions? What were you taught about other people’s bodies? What don’t you know about bodies? What were the body taboos?
Session Six - Emotions & Becoming Social
The role of emotions and our parents reactions to them play a major role in our developing sense of self. How did your parents ability to fulfill their roles shape your relationships with others. How do you feel about being alone? Do you trust others? Do you trust yourself?
Session Seven and Eight - Beyond Your Parents
Many of the most important players in shaping our sense of self were not our parents. They may have been the pediatrician, your mother’s best friend, a neighbor, a friend. Who were the karmic relationships in your first seven years? Looking at the beliefs and traumas that came through your interactions with people who were not a big presence in your life, but a big impact?
8 Weekly Sessions
Tuesday Evenings 7:30 - 9PM Eastern.
October 25 through December 13, 2011
(This program will work for people living in Australia & New Zealand)
Wednesday Afternoons 12 Noon - 1:30PM Eastern
October 26 through December 14, 2011
(This program will work for people living in Europe and the Middle East)
Course fee: $200 (This is the last time this course will be offered at this price. I have been told by too many that this price is not reflective of the quality and value of the content and process. So I am raising the fee in 2012)
Process
We meet via the internet or phone for 90 minutes.
There is a slide presentation on your desktop and you hear Lynn and each other on the computer via Skype or on your phone. Directions for connecting are sent in an email - it is simple. These sessions are recorded and can be downloaded for relistening.
We have personal conversations with partners from the course…
Everyone has a partner for a 30-60+ minute conversation on the weekly topics. These are remarkable and deeply sacred conversations. When each partner is working with the same set of archetypal questions, rich dialogue emerges to nurture and clarify the biographical insights of each. This is awesome, thrilling and by far the most engaging, supportive aspect of the program.
We create personal binders...
Participants are encouraged to create their own binder to fill with the handouts and the selfwork exercises for each session. The handouts include descriptions of the key elements found in our biographies and sets of questions for each topic. Your binder contains all your biography work and your personal biographical reflections - in this case, the story of your first seven years. The binder gives you a place to continue your reflections beyond the frame of the program.
There is a personal conversation with Lynn...
During the course, you will schedule a 20 minute private conversation with Lynn on any personal question you have. More personal time with Lynn is available.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Encounters - Engaging Your Spiritual Companions
Encounters: Engaging Your Spiritual Companions
A Webinar with Lynn Jericho
Thursdays at 8PM Eastern beginning October 27
Sundays at 4PM Eastern beginning October 30
This is the time of the Inner Year when we bring our attention to the rich reality and enriching relationships we have with Spiritual Beings.
With the ghosts and spooks of Halloween and the Holy Day of All Saints, our souls turn to beings who are beyond ordinary perception. Most of us have a feeling of connection to spiritual beings and often engage them through prayer, contemplation, sacred reading, and supplication. Rarely do we name them or understand their powers and their relationship to human beings.
I offer this course to share with others the comforting and challenging reality of spiritual beings from elementals, to the great Hierarchies, to those across the threshold of death. The imaginations I offer, inspired by Rudolf Steiner, will bring new confidence and depth to your inner life and to your daily life of work and relationships. Spiritual Beings surround human beings offering guidance, comfort and love. They are eager for our conscious engagement.
With the ghosts and spooks of Halloween and the Holy Day of All Saints, our souls turn to beings who are beyond ordinary perception. Most of us have a feeling of connection to spiritual beings and often engage them through prayer, contemplation, sacred reading, and supplication. Rarely do we name them or understand their powers and their relationship to human beings.
I offer this course to share with others the comforting and challenging reality of spiritual beings from elementals, to the great Hierarchies, to those across the threshold of death. The imaginations I offer, inspired by Rudolf Steiner, will bring new confidence and depth to your inner life and to your daily life of work and relationships. Spiritual Beings surround human beings offering guidance, comfort and love. They are eager for our conscious engagement.
I also bring insights to the processes of engagement. What is prayer? Are there specific times when communication with non-corporeal being will be more successful? Are there threats to our relationship with spiritual beings?
Sunday school shaped our pictures of our relationships with our spiritual companions for young minds and a sense to strengthen the power of the institutional dogma. You are an adult now ready for mature and liberating imaginations about connecting with angels, the dead, nature spirits and others. Explore the possibilities and engage!
In four 60 minute sessions, you will learn how to
- distinguish your spiritual companions and the roles they play in your life.
- create a more active engagement with these companions
- feel more deeply the support of the spiritual world
- overcome the challenges to your relationship to your companions
- connect with your loved ones that have crossed the threshold of death
Session One: Your Guardian Angel
The three stages of relationship with your guardian angel.
The meaning and sacred moods of conversation
Reverie - a sacred way of knowing
Prayer, Meditation, Conversation
Session Two: The Spiritual Hierarchies
The Three Challenges to Conversations with Spiritual Beings: Doubt, Fantasy, Distortion
Knowing and Conntecting with Angels, Archangels, Archai
Knowing and Connecting with Exusai, Dynamis, Kryiotetes (and how to pronounce these strange names)
Knowing and Connecting with Thrones, Cherubim, Seraphim.
Beings Beyond the Hierarchies
Session Three: Nature Spirits
The Four Directions of Conversations
The Four Times for Conversations with Spiritual Beings
What Spiritual Beings Don’t Hear
Distinguishing the Types of Nature Spirits and their Deeds
The Development of the Human Soul
Session Four: The Human Spirit
The Spirit of the Individual
Mysteries of Incarnation, Excarnation and Reincarnation
Needs of the Embodied Spirit
The Dead and the Unborn
Future Karma
Review of the Course
The three stages of relationship with your guardian angel.
The meaning and sacred moods of conversation
Reverie - a sacred way of knowing
Prayer, Meditation, Conversation
Session Two: The Spiritual Hierarchies
The Three Challenges to Conversations with Spiritual Beings: Doubt, Fantasy, Distortion
Knowing and Conntecting with Angels, Archangels, Archai
Knowing and Connecting with Exusai, Dynamis, Kryiotetes (and how to pronounce these strange names)
Knowing and Connecting with Thrones, Cherubim, Seraphim.
Beings Beyond the Hierarchies
Session Three: Nature Spirits
The Four Directions of Conversations
The Four Times for Conversations with Spiritual Beings
What Spiritual Beings Don’t Hear
Distinguishing the Types of Nature Spirits and their Deeds
The Development of the Human Soul
Session Four: The Human Spirit
The Spirit of the Individual
Mysteries of Incarnation, Excarnation and Reincarnation
Needs of the Embodied Spirit
The Dead and the Unborn
Future Karma
Review of the Course
Cost: $47
You do not have to be present live on the webinar to receive the benefits of this course.
Sessions are recorded and available for download. Materials including the slide presentations are sent via email.
Thursday Sessions:
October 27, November 3, 10. 17
Time: 8 - 9 PM Eastern
Time: 8 - 9 PM Eastern
Sunday Sessions:
Individually scheduled, will provide deep intimate attention to your personal questions and needs regarding your relationship to spiritual beings. These sessions cost $40 for 30 minutes. You can email Lynn. lynnjericho@gmail.com
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
The Inner Rembrandt
One of the surprising welcoming notes around my move to the North Carolina Triangle area is the "Rembrandt in America" show at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh.http://ncartmuseum.org/exhibitions/rembrandt/ opening in the most Rembrandt time of year - the end of October when light and dark embrace each other in nature and in the human soul celebrating the vital contrasts of life.
Rembrandt's art crystalizes in the compelling engagement, the romance, of light and dark in his portraits. He knew that his subject's humanity could only be revealed in the deep shadows of greys, browns, and almost blacks, and that their individuality shone through the luminous pearls and creams and the mysterious beams of light he found in their countenances. I can sense who these men and women were in the thresholds of personality found where these lights and darks meet in the brightening dawns and dimming dusks of these visual biographies. Rembrandt's portraits in light and dark powerfully awaken compassion in the viewer, the same compassion that made this artist so extraordinarily great.
As Rembrandt's romance with light and dark in the soul of his subjects matured into a true friendship, he moved beyond being a successful portraitist to being a portraitist of historical, moral and spiritual significance. His most important subject was himself. The more he worked on capturing the contrasts of his own soul, the more he could see what lived in others.
Whether or not you have ever held a paintbrush in your hand, Rembrandt can teach you a great lesson in compassionate self-portraiture - inwardly painting multiple pictures of your soul's biography. You must build a lasting friendship between the dark powerful defining shadows of your humanity with the bright light of your personal divinity.
In my conversations with my clients, I listen to their harsh judgments and anxious fears about their shadows. They feel threatened by a sense of inner evil and the experience of being either the victim or the perpetrator. They hope I will say words that will rescue and redeem them.
Instead I teach them the compassion of the Inner Rembrandt and the transcendent healing, liberation and empowerment of the self-portrait. Like Rembrandt, you must have a mirror and a canvas, the brush and the palette of colors. Look into the mirror and paint what you see on the canvas. When you finish one self-portrait, begin the next.
The Imagine Self programs are the studio of the Inner Rembrandt.
Painting Your Self-Portrait
The Inner Autumn Being Human Courses: Confronting Your Challengers and Engaging Your Companions teach the key elements for encountering the soul contrasts of dark and light. To paint your self-portrait you must find the darkest and the lightest points of your image.
The first course teaches the about the mysteries of the dark, the gestures of evil and the art of transformations. You even learn how without the contrast of the shadows, light becomes formless and meaningless, and find the challenger that hides in that blinding of light.
(The second guides you into more conscious and active engagement with the spiritual beings that support your inner development. I will share more about this program over the next few weeks. )
(The second guides you into more conscious and active engagement with the spiritual beings that support your inner development. I will share more about this program over the next few weeks. )
Confronting Your Challengers
In this rich course, you learn the significance of confronting or facing courageously the counter-forces and inclinations toward evil that live within your own soul. This confrontation requires that you make friends with your shadows. We cannot dismiss or ignore evil. We cannot make light of the dark until we know it well. We must confront and confront and confront as spiritual practice and as a path of moral development.
Imagine the personal freedom that comes with understanding the opponents to that freedom.
Imagine the strength of your personal choices that comes with the ability to resist the forces that want to undermine or dominate those choices by twisting your truth, distorting your beauty, and crippling your will.
Imagine the confidence and the feeling of personal integrity that comes with having a strengthened moral immune system - a system that protects who you are from attack, sabotage, and invasion.
None of these imaginations can develop without taking the time to understand the relationships between the human soul, your human soul, and evil.
Devote one hour a week over the next four weeks (Thursday evening, Sunday afternoon or the download anytime) to confronting the forces that stand between you and your path of development. Go here to learn more about the course and register for Confronting Your Challengers http://www.store.lynnjericho.com/CONFRONTING-YOUR-CHALLENGERS-IY-CC11.htm
The Inner Year Being Human Course are invaluable for knowing yourself and the rest of humanity.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Inner Changes at the Inner Equinox
How does your path of self-development change with the Equinox?
The Solstices and the Equinoxes are turning points for the work of self-knowledge. The Inner Year is a cosmic organizing and nurturing principle for your inner life just as Nature's Year organizes and nurtures life on Earth.
If you think of your Higher Self as your Inner Sun organizing the process and nurturing the progress of your inner development, you will want to follow its seasonal directions in your attention to finding yourself, knowing yourself, becoming yourself.
For your inner development, spiritual and moral, Autumn is the time of the cosmic inner year when your Inner Sun directs your focus to your relationship with what lives in the darkness of earthly existence.
In the shadows of your self-awareness, you find the challengers that distort your development. These challengers grow their strength in darkness. This is why, counter to the diminishing light of Autumn in Nature, your Inner Sun glows with more light following the Equinox, illuminating the darkness and your hidden challengers, allowing you to call their names, contain and limit their power, and develop your inner courage.
Your Inner Sun sits at the horizon of your consciousness. Only your inner work can move it above the horizon so it can enlighten and empower your sense of self and form the right relationship to spirit and matter.
As you contemplate on your Inner Equinox, take heart, and look into the shadows and encounter the challengers. You might want to post your thoughts to share with others by leaving a comment.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Encounters - Confronting Your Challengers
CONFRONTING YOUR CHALLENGERS
Recognize and overcome the challenges to your spiritual and moral development.
This is the time of the Inner Year when we seek the wisdom to recognize and overcome the counter forces who seek to challenge us and undermine the truth, beauty and goodness of our human spirit.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
Henry David Thoreau.
In this course we will seek the root understanding of evil.
The maturity of the soul is not its ability to avoid evil, but its ability to confront evil.
Archangel Michael's slaying of the dark beast of evil is recognized and attended to each year on September 29th. Michael carries the sword that points to, penetrates, and slays evil.
Encountering the Challengers intends to awaken in our souls the powerful force of Michael, the inner ability to recognize and overcome personal encounters with evil.
As the dark of night overtakes the light of day, it is time to look at the darker questons and realities of consciousness and self-development. We need to look at our personal encounters with evil. The dark topic of evil needs to come out of the swamps and shadows of our souls and into the light!
What are your questions about evil?
How do we live with our own sins of commission and omission? How do we heal and resolve our experiences of victimhood? What is the karma of evil? What does it mean to “forgive us our debts and we forgive our debtors.” How are we protected from the temptations of evil? How do we atone for our sins? Just what is atonement?
Esoterically, what are the beings of evil? How do they engage us? What do they want from us? Can we redeem them?
In our difficult times of greed, war, global warming, terror and trauma, we need to find meaningful and practical definitions, perspectives and practices that develop courage, integrity, forthrightness and understanding. Without a conscious and articulate sense of evil, the demons and dragons hold sway, while we hide in anxiety, depression, doubt and confusion.
Encountering the Challengers
How do we live with our own sins of commission and omission? How do we heal and resolve our experiences of victimhood? What is the karma of evil? What does it mean to “forgive us our debts and we forgive our debtors.” How are we protected from the temptations of evil? How do we atone for our sins? Just what is atonement?
Esoterically, what are the beings of evil? How do they engage us? What do they want from us? Can we redeem them?
In our difficult times of greed, war, global warming, terror and trauma, we need to find meaningful and practical definitions, perspectives and practices that develop courage, integrity, forthrightness and understanding. Without a conscious and articulate sense of evil, the demons and dragons hold sway, while we hide in anxiety, depression, doubt and confusion.
Encountering the Challengers
offers you the following content:
Session One:
Definitions of evil, harm, violence.
How evil appears in thoughts, feelings, actions.
How we do evil to ourselves.
Session Two:
Inner immunity to evil
The victim/perpetrator relationship
The role of evil in personal biography
Session Three:
The three forms of evil in our souls.
The four basic relationships to evil.
The four inner declarations that redeem evil.
Session Four:
Evil and the four bodies of the Human Being.
The mysteries of justice
The karma of consequence
The lessons of reconcilliation
Session One:
Definitions of evil, harm, violence.
How evil appears in thoughts, feelings, actions.
How we do evil to ourselves.
Session Two:
Inner immunity to evil
The victim/perpetrator relationship
The role of evil in personal biography
Session Three:
The three forms of evil in our souls.
The four basic relationships to evil.
The four inner declarations that redeem evil.
Session Four:
Evil and the four bodies of the Human Being.
The mysteries of justice
The karma of consequence
The lessons of reconcilliation
Your Benefits
(How will you profit from this course? What advantages will you receive?)
- You will be able to make choices and decisions with a more mature confidence.
- You will be able to reflect on your life, your relationships, and your work with a compassionate objectivity.
- You will have a deeper understanding and a greater capacity for forgiveness - forgiving yourself, others, circumstances, and conditions.
- Evil will no longer be a vague but powerful threat to your goodness.
- You will be able to recognize, name, locate, and assess evil in its myriad forms.
- You will be able to meet the challenges of evil and vanquish its temptations.
- You will release yourself from the demoralizing roles of victim and perpetrator.
- You will be able to understand your life dramas and patterns from new and liberating perspectives.
Thursday Sessions: September 29, October 6, 13, 20
Time: 8 - 9 PM Eastern
Sunday Sessions: October 2, 9, 16, 23
Time: 4 - 5 PM Eastern
Time: 4 - 5 PM Eastern
Cost: $47
Webinar format using your desktop and your phone (or Skype). All sessions are recorded and available as an MP3 download in case you can not attend the live presentation or want to relisten.
REGISTER HERE
http://www.store.lynnjericho.com/CONFRONTING-YOUR-CHALLENGERS-IY-CC11.htm
REGISTER HERE
http://www.store.lynnjericho.com/CONFRONTING-YOUR-CHALLENGERS-IY-CC11.htm
Supplemental Private Sessions:
Individually scheduled, will provide deep intimate attention to your personal questions and needs regarding your relationship to the challengers to your spiritual and moral development. These 30 minute sessions cost $40. Contact lynnjericho@gmail.com
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Out of the Shadow Into the Light - Ten Years Later
OUT OF THE SHADOW
INTO THE LIGHT
ONLY YOU CAN DO IT!
Thoughts on 9/11 - Ten Years Later
I had been working on a manuscript about the Twelve Senses. I put it aside and wrote an essay on trauma. I walked down to the waterfront often, especially at night when the lights at Ground Zero lit up the sky and illumined great changing shadows in the smoke.
The mood of Ground Zero lit up the souls of most with a deep caring for community and a sense of possibility. But it also cast dark shadows of fear, anger, powerlessness on the same souls.
A month later at a women writers conference in midtown, a woman introduced herself to me and asked to know about my experience of Ground Zero. We had been in a random gathering of woman at the lunch break who had been sharing their thoughts on the event that filled everyone's thoughts and feelings. Inspired by years of working with Rudolf Steiner's descriptions of the evolution of consciousness, my perspectives were not reactionary, alarmist, nor retaliatory. I was certain there was the potential for a new world view, a new moral and creative responsibility, a new relationship to a shared future if only each individual became a world citizen, if each human soul reflected on the questions living in the light of 9/11, not the shadows.
This woman, Bethene LeMahieu, initiated a year long conversation that became a six-hour audiobook we called Ground Zero and the Human Soul: The Search for the New Ordinary Life. Well-reviewed, it spent a few months on the shelves of Barnes and Noble and Borders amongst all the other 9/11 literature and we were interviewed on a number of radio shows, but very few individuals ever heard the thoughts, the challenges, and the creative perspectives distilled from our hundreds of hours of conversations.
As we all know the "leaders of nations" had another perspective -- war, homeland security, destruction -- they prolonged the terror of 9/11 promising a return to the life of 9/10. The conversations between Bethene and me imagine a different life for 9/12 and a dawning of a different consciousness in the individual.
Will you search for the new soul life that will shape the new ordinary life?
Below you can listen to and download the six conversations. Each is about one hour long.
Listen to them. Share them. Write comments.
And please, have conversations about the future that is shaped by you and all the other world citizens, not governments, not corporations, not ideologies.
If you would like to purchase the transcripts, please contact me by email.
Conversation #1
The Creative Challenge of Ground Zero and A New Picture of the Human Being
Conversation #2
Feeling and the Search for Personal Harmony
Conversation #3
Thinking and the Search for Personal Truth
Conversation #4
Willing and the Search for Personal Goodness
Conversation #5
Meeting Evil
Conversation #6
The Search for the New Ordinary Life
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Life is a High Wire...Are you Out of Balance?
Life is a High Wire...Are you Out of Balance?
Are you confused? Are you having difficulty making a choice? Does your life look like you want it to? Is there too much or too little of something or everything?
Are you floating away with your fantasies or collapsing under the weight of your daily drudgery?
Do you lean towards things, people, activities or pull back? Are your relationships too intense or too distant? Do you work too hard or not enough or love too hard or not enough? There are lots and lots of out-of-balance questions. You probably ask your self these questions all the time or just declare and bemoan your lack of balance.
Your life is out of balance!
Don’t go negative around this statement.
What needs to be added, subtracted, multiplied and divided to get you to that equal sign?
I want you to worry about balance so that you pay attention to it, question it, discover it, define it, maintain it, challenge it. Get an education in balance. Grasp and wrestle with the essential elements of creative balance. Balance is not tame, easy, or compliant. It takes focus, core confidence and practice, practice, practice. And lots of tipping over, spinning around and course correcting. Just ask Phillipe Petit.
Are your balance points where you want them to be to be content and creative?
Balance of tension and relaxation?
Balance of activity and rest?
Balance of attention and diversion?
Balance of self and other?
Balance of work and play?
Balance of spirit and matter?
Balance of moving toward and moving away?
The balance I am exploring in these questions is the balance of proportion. Is your life in the right proportion for you? Right proportion provides you with a core sense of self and an ability to stand strongly in the world without falling into confusion, doubt, anxiety or exhaustion.
Only you can determine and maintain your balance.
Once you find balance, you find yourself. Life nourishes, restores, creates, takes off, makes meaning, feels good when you have your sense of balance. Best of all, you laugh a lot more at yourself, the world and the gods.
At the same time, I want you to consider the mysteries of being off balance. Being consciously off balance will not create dizziness or other disturbing feelings because you know how to restore balance. Its an art and requires knowledge, skill and practice. It is a science that requires research, experimentation and proof. And it is the sense of the divine majesty of your selfhood which requires imagination, inspiration and intuition.
To move we go off balance consciously, moving our weight from one foot to the other.
We leave the security and stability of balance when we take risk and do, think or feel differently. Having the wisdom of choosing to be off center, also brings more laughter.
I feel it is so important to understand the concept and perception of balance. With attention, balance becomes a personal art form providing the firm standpoint for inner truth, beauty and goodness. For you, the true sense of self, that allows you to stand strongly in the world.
The SATURDAY sessions begin next weekend, AUGUST 21. The THURSDAY evening sessions begin the following week, AUGUST 25. The course is recorded and you can download any session you need to miss. Learn more here.
This course will not balance your life. It will give you a way to work with the mysteries of balance. It is a schooling of the meaning, purpose and possibilities of creative personal balance. It will empower you to create balance in your inner life and outer life - not a magic wand, but a clearing of the way. And enjoy the blessing and fun found in the confidence of standing at the edge of startling cliffs and feeling off balance before you start to fly.
You will arrive at the Autumn Equinox with a new sense of creative equanimity - an inner Equinox.
Are you confused? Are you having difficulty making a choice? Does your life look like you want it to? Is there too much or too little of something or everything?
Are you floating away with your fantasies or collapsing under the weight of your daily drudgery?
Do you lean towards things, people, activities or pull back? Are your relationships too intense or too distant? Do you work too hard or not enough or love too hard or not enough? There are lots and lots of out-of-balance questions. You probably ask your self these questions all the time or just declare and bemoan your lack of balance.
Your life is out of balance!
Don’t go negative around this statement.
- Almost everyone is out of balance in some way.
- What were you ever taught about balance?
- It is very advanced work to learn what feels balanced to you (it is not about what looks balanced to everyone, its about what feels balanced to YOU.)
- Balance is a true mystery and life is a high wire.
What needs to be added, subtracted, multiplied and divided to get you to that equal sign?
I want you to worry about balance so that you pay attention to it, question it, discover it, define it, maintain it, challenge it. Get an education in balance. Grasp and wrestle with the essential elements of creative balance. Balance is not tame, easy, or compliant. It takes focus, core confidence and practice, practice, practice. And lots of tipping over, spinning around and course correcting. Just ask Phillipe Petit.
THE HIGH WIRE
To walk or dance on the High Wire of Life, you need to be knowledgeable about the wire, choose your balancing pole, know your body, be confident, feel your strong feet and align your head with your heart. You can discover your inner balance needs by taking the Inner Year Balance program beginning next weekend. I urge you to watch, at least a hundred times, the brilliant documentary on Philllipe Petit, MAN ON A WIRE. Here is the wikipedia link to this master of the mysteries of balance on so many levels.
HOW OUT OF BALANCE ARE YOU?
Are your balance points where you want them to be to be content and creative?
Balance of tension and relaxation?
Balance of activity and rest?
Balance of attention and diversion?
Balance of self and other?
Balance of work and play?
Balance of spirit and matter?
Balance of moving toward and moving away?
The balance I am exploring in these questions is the balance of proportion. Is your life in the right proportion for you? Right proportion provides you with a core sense of self and an ability to stand strongly in the world without falling into confusion, doubt, anxiety or exhaustion.
Only you can determine and maintain your balance.
Once you find balance, you find yourself. Life nourishes, restores, creates, takes off, makes meaning, feels good when you have your sense of balance. Best of all, you laugh a lot more at yourself, the world and the gods.
At the same time, I want you to consider the mysteries of being off balance. Being consciously off balance will not create dizziness or other disturbing feelings because you know how to restore balance. Its an art and requires knowledge, skill and practice. It is a science that requires research, experimentation and proof. And it is the sense of the divine majesty of your selfhood which requires imagination, inspiration and intuition.
To move we go off balance consciously, moving our weight from one foot to the other.
We leave the security and stability of balance when we take risk and do, think or feel differently. Having the wisdom of choosing to be off center, also brings more laughter.
I feel it is so important to understand the concept and perception of balance. With attention, balance becomes a personal art form providing the firm standpoint for inner truth, beauty and goodness. For you, the true sense of self, that allows you to stand strongly in the world.
TAKE THE INNER YEAR COURSE ON BALANCE
The SATURDAY sessions begin next weekend, AUGUST 21. The THURSDAY evening sessions begin the following week, AUGUST 25. The course is recorded and you can download any session you need to miss. Learn more here.
This course will not balance your life. It will give you a way to work with the mysteries of balance. It is a schooling of the meaning, purpose and possibilities of creative personal balance. It will empower you to create balance in your inner life and outer life - not a magic wand, but a clearing of the way. And enjoy the blessing and fun found in the confidence of standing at the edge of startling cliffs and feeling off balance before you start to fly.
You will arrive at the Autumn Equinox with a new sense of creative equanimity - an inner Equinox.
Friday, August 5, 2011
The Summer Flow of Self
On a hot summer day, the thought of diving into a secret shaded cooling pool of water feels so freeing as the still summer heat fights the flow of life and discourages inner and outer activity and vitality.
Sometimes I feel like my inner life is hot, sticky, breathless and unmoving. I need thoughts that cool me down and bath my soul with flowing waters. Sometimes meditating on a word that is beautiful and inspiring offers a flow of inspiration to my lazy, hazy summer soul.
Today I meditated on “fluency.” I love saying this onomatopoetic word. Flu - en - cy has such flow to its sounds. Flu sounds like a graceful stream that never ends. En seems to create a soft containment for the stream. Cy creates an image of a waiting sea.
Rooted in the Latin word for flow, fluency in the Imagine Self context becomes the quality of self-fluency. Certainly the graceful stream of self-imagination never ends. The core of being human offers soft guidance to the flowing awareness of self. We each need to hold the image of the welcoming destination of becoming I.
I invite you to cool your summer soul with a creative swim toward the sea of self-fluency.
The dictionary offers several sensitive meanings for fluency that can guide you to the sense of self that you long for:
Let’s look at each of these meanings in relationship to personal meaning.
Imagine having at the tip of your tongue the language of your own being that speaks the truth of who you are in the moment. Imagine knowing yourself so well that the slightest fluctuation or undulation of self immediately finds imaginative expression.
There is an exercise I love bringing when I work with groups. I ask everyone to come up with seven words. Three nouns, three verbs, and one preposition. I encourage them to choose creatively such as
Imagine being clear, well-formed and on the mark about each of the myriad aspects of yourself. If you could speak fluently about yourself, people could “get” you! You could “get” you. You would be received and understood because every expression would be the truth and without error.
More and more often, I find myself questioning myself. Is this truly what I meant? what I feel? what I want? Or am I being lazy in my self-expression by relying on old identities, expectations or habits. Are my perceptions, thoughts and feelings about myself complete, beautiful and transparent?
How articulate are you in expressing yourself? How accurate are the expressions?
Imagine moving gracefully through your inner world? If you are not graceful inwardly, you will never be graceful outwardly. Just think of how water flows. It is always graceful, even when as fierce as class 5 whitewater.
Water responds to its environment as it moves over, under, through, around. How graceful are you as you move through your life and your imagination?
Just how fluent are you about yourself? What is the degree of self-knowledge you possess as you move through life? The more you know about being human, the more you can become fluent in being I.
What is your fluency in the qualities of successfully being human? Are you fluent in the language of selfhood? Are you flowing gracefully to a purer image of your true self?
The summer of the soul is about standing strongly (fluently) in the world and in yourself. Balance is the source of this powerful fluency.
How articulate and accurate are you in the meaning of balance in your sense of self?
If you became more familiar in the nuanced language of balance (and imbalance) could you move with more grace through your life? Could you increase the degree of flow in the center of your being?
How could your fluency of balance change your life?
I am offering the Inner Summer Becoming I program on Balance later this month. Here is the description and all the fluent information you need to participate in this rich and enriching program. http://theinneryear.blogspot.com/2011/08/inner-balance-webinar.html
Sometimes I feel like my inner life is hot, sticky, breathless and unmoving. I need thoughts that cool me down and bath my soul with flowing waters. Sometimes meditating on a word that is beautiful and inspiring offers a flow of inspiration to my lazy, hazy summer soul.
Today I meditated on “fluency.” I love saying this onomatopoetic word. Flu - en - cy has such flow to its sounds. Flu sounds like a graceful stream that never ends. En seems to create a soft containment for the stream. Cy creates an image of a waiting sea.
Rooted in the Latin word for flow, fluency in the Imagine Self context becomes the quality of self-fluency. Certainly the graceful stream of self-imagination never ends. The core of being human offers soft guidance to the flowing awareness of self. We each need to hold the image of the welcoming destination of becoming I.
I invite you to cool your summer soul with a creative swim toward the sea of self-fluency.
Self-fluency
The dictionary offers several sensitive meanings for fluency that can guide you to the sense of self that you long for:
- a skill at speaking a language with ease and familiarity and nuance.
- to speak articulately and accurately
- to move with grace
- the degree of flow
Let’s look at each of these meanings in relationship to personal meaning.
- a skill at speaking a language with ease and familiarity and nuance
Imagine having at the tip of your tongue the language of your own being that speaks the truth of who you are in the moment. Imagine knowing yourself so well that the slightest fluctuation or undulation of self immediately finds imaginative expression.
There is an exercise I love bringing when I work with groups. I ask everyone to come up with seven words. Three nouns, three verbs, and one preposition. I encourage them to choose creatively such as
banana, song, star
laugh, twist, knit
within.
I write these words down on a flip chart as everyone takes their turn. Then I explain that the nouns represent how they think, the verbs how they act, and the preposition how they relate.
It is amazing how accurately the self-chosen vocabulary of self reveals the individual. give this exercise a try either alone or with someone who knows you well.
- to speak articulately and accurately
Imagine being clear, well-formed and on the mark about each of the myriad aspects of yourself. If you could speak fluently about yourself, people could “get” you! You could “get” you. You would be received and understood because every expression would be the truth and without error.
More and more often, I find myself questioning myself. Is this truly what I meant? what I feel? what I want? Or am I being lazy in my self-expression by relying on old identities, expectations or habits. Are my perceptions, thoughts and feelings about myself complete, beautiful and transparent?
How articulate are you in expressing yourself? How accurate are the expressions?
- to move with grace
Imagine moving gracefully through your inner world? If you are not graceful inwardly, you will never be graceful outwardly. Just think of how water flows. It is always graceful, even when as fierce as class 5 whitewater.
Water responds to its environment as it moves over, under, through, around. How graceful are you as you move through your life and your imagination?
- the degree of flow
Just how fluent are you about yourself? What is the degree of self-knowledge you possess as you move through life? The more you know about being human, the more you can become fluent in being I.
What is your fluency in the qualities of successfully being human? Are you fluent in the language of selfhood? Are you flowing gracefully to a purer image of your true self?
Fluency and Balance
The summer of the soul is about standing strongly (fluently) in the world and in yourself. Balance is the source of this powerful fluency.
How articulate and accurate are you in the meaning of balance in your sense of self?
If you became more familiar in the nuanced language of balance (and imbalance) could you move with more grace through your life? Could you increase the degree of flow in the center of your being?
How could your fluency of balance change your life?
- Spiritually?
- Emotionally?
- Economically?
- Your relationships?
- Your energy?
- Your creativity?
- Your choices?
I am offering the Inner Summer Becoming I program on Balance later this month. Here is the description and all the fluent information you need to participate in this rich and enriching program. http://theinneryear.blogspot.com/2011/08/inner-balance-webinar.html
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
The Inner Balance Webinar
The Soul's Focus for Inner Summer
INNER BALANCE
Standing Strongly
in Yourself & in the World
“ Lynn Jericho's seminars are so very worthwhile. They are engaging, revealing, insightful, and deeply satisfying. Lynn brings great wisdom, humor and kindness as well as a gift for being present with the group and to the needs of individuals.
Working with Lynn has brought clarity of thinking, awareness of feeling and certainty in action to my life. I am grateful to Lynn for offering these seminars and look forward to her future offerings. ” Lisa Boisvert MacKensie. Editor of The Wonder of Childhood
Inner Balance
In the course of the Inner Year, late August and early September is the time of year when we feel the pull back into our inner realities. Late Spring and Summer drew us out to our consciousness of our relationships to others and the world. Now as we feel the increase of darkness in nature, our souls need to renew our attention to the inner experience of equilibrium, feeling centered, clear-headed, upright, integrated, and free to evolve to a greater gesture of confident self-expression.
In the four 90 minute sessions we will work with the following questions:
What is inner balance? Did you ever ask yourself this question? Is now the time? What is dynamic balance and how do you live well through creative chaos? What are the three questions that allow you to compose your life? How do you experience vertigo? Do you feel that you or the world are spinning out of control? Do you feel light-headed, unable to focus, like you are losing consciousness? Do you feel like you are swaying back and forth, side to side, wondering how to establish new footing and a solid standpoint? Which of the seven types of soul/spiritual vertigo do you struggle with? Just identifying the type(s) will give you a new ground of self-awareness on which to balance your thoughts, feeling, time, energy. How would life feel if you found a new core equilibrium?
What are the four aspects of aerodynamics and hydrodynamics that applied to your inner life will allow your sense of self and your self-expression to soar into the sun and sail through rough seas? (This is truly spiritually and practically of enormous value.)
With each session other questions will be asked leading to new possibilities for all participants.
Summer is the time of year when your soul is most open to the mysteries of balance and standing strongly.
The Intensive will bring new understanding to the imbalances of your life, why they have caused you so much struggle and why you can now move beyond them with courageous creativity. Like all the Inner Year programs, the Balance Intensive will make sense of your inner experiences and guide you into a truly creative and grounded imagination of your future.
If you are a student of the work of Rudolf Steiner, you will find truly personal applications for his wisdom.
Please share this with your friends and colleagues.
Benefits
You will ...
- develop compassionate control of your inner and outer life
- name and transform the threats and obstacles to your sense of inner harmony
- feel a core strength and uprightness
- learn how to make responsible and creative choices that make sense for you
- feel more spiritually awake
Is this for YOU???
- You are on a quest for self-knowledge.
- You are in crisis. Life is overwhelming your sense of self. This may be a sudden disruption from a change in relationship, job, or health. Or it can be a chronic sense of feeling you don’t know who you are.
- You are at a threshold of your life. It is thresholds that demand balance from you so that you don’t fall backward or forward but stand strongly as you step into your future. Here are some of the major thresholds of living.
- You are at a seven year threshold. Every seven years we evolve into a new phase of development. 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63, 70, 77. These thresholds can be rocky as we feel the demands of a new maturity.
- You are 37 or 56 and experiencing the the emotional development of a natal moon node. This can be a powerful shift in how you veiw your self and your relationships.
- You are 42 or 63. These are the extraordinary thresholds of 21 year cycles. Your “I am,” your core Being, incarnates into a new gesture in the world and within your soul.
- You are in crisis. Life is overwhelming your sense of self. This may be a sudden disruption from a change in relationship, job, or health. Or it can be a chronic sense of feeling you don’t know who you are.
Am I addicted to your classes? That's one story....
I do know that your presence, through your classes, emails, and telephone consults keeps alive in me the striving toward an ideal, a soul consciousness, that easily becomes dimmed by the demands, conflicts and even the celebrations, of "life on the surface". You keep re-minding us of a whole other plane of being and meaning. For that, and for you, I am grateful, Marilyn Dixon
Course Description
Session One - Shaping a Balanced Life- Defining Balance
- The Three Discoveries of Balance - a neuro-spiritual understanding
- The Three Anxieties and Balance
- The Four Functions of Balance in Your Life
- Creating Your Wall of Balance
Session Two - Understanding Imbalance
- The Three Feelings of Imbalance - Vertigo, Malaise, Disequilibrium
- The Three Sensory Experiences of Balance
- How These Impact Your Thinking & Feeling
- The Significant Role of Object Relations
Session Three - Vertigo & The Void
- Spinning, Overwhelm, Swaying To & Fro
- Balance and Sense of Identity
- Spiritual Balance - The 70/30 Wisdom
- Neurobiology and Balance
- The Abyss and Filling the Void
Session Four - Developing Spiritual Balance
- The Wisdom of Proportion
- Establishing the Right Share
- Seeking Results
- Spiritual Aerodynamics
- The Spiritual Elements of Balance
- Managing Ever-present Ambivalence
"Blessings to you for speaking to my inner experiences.
Your ability to understand and articulate and SHARE how to navigate these natural patterns is a life boat for me." Sally Nurney
Process
We meet as a group via the internet or phone for 90 minutes each week for 4 weeks.
There is a slide presentation on your desktop and you hear Lynn and each other on the computer via Skype or on your phone. Directions for connecting are sent in an email - it is simple. These sessions are recorded and can be downloaded for relistening.
We have personal conversations with partners from the course…
Everyone is assigned a partner from the group for a 30-60+ minute conversation on the weekly topics. These are remarkable and deeply sacred conversations. When each partner is working with the same set of archetypal questions, rich dialogue emerges to nurture and clarify the biographical insights of each. This is awesome, thrilling and by far the most transformative aspect of the program.
We each create personal binders/notebook ...
Participants are encouraged to create their own binder to fill with the handouts and the selfwork for each session. The handouts include descriptions of the key elements found in our biographies and sets of questions for each topic. Your binder contains all your biography work and your personal biographical reflections - in this case, the story of your first seven years. The binder gives you a place to continue your reflections beyond the time frame of the program.
There is a personal conversation with Lynn...
During the course, you will schedule a 20 minute private conversation with Lynn on any personal question you have. These are powerful conversations. Lynn brings her intuitive listening and her creative and compassionate wisdom to the conversation.
Logistics
4 - 90 minute webinars
SATURDAYS, August 20, 27,September 10, 17 No session Labor Day Weekend
11AM - 12:30PM Eastern
8AM - 9:30AM Pacific
4PM - 5:30PM BDT
OR
Thursdays, August 25, September 1, 8,15
8:00PM - 9:30 PM Eastern
5:00PM - 6:30 PM Pacific
10:00PM - 11:30PM BDT
Because this course is a webinar, people from all over the world are able to attend. Please check you timezone. I have had people attend from five continents. Email me, if you have questions.
Location: Your computer and/or your phone. Directions for this internet process are sent to you. It is relatively simple even for the technically challenged and insecure.
Cost: $147USD
You register on my online store and can pay via debit card, credit card or PayPal. If you need to pay by personal check, please email me. Discounts and payment plans are available.
REGISTER HERE
http://www.store.lynnjericho.com/BALANCE-IYBAL11.htm
Facilitator
Lynn Jericho has been leading inner development courses for 20 years. She is the developer and designer of the Imagine Self programs: Inner Christmas, Inner Year, & Inner Life. Learn more about Lynn at www.lynn jericho.com
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sleep on it! Why?
SLEEP ON IT!
We all know the truth of the benefit of a night’s sleep to making a decision or getting a clearer perspective on a question or a concern. Why does this work? How can we actively use the mystery of sleep to live richer lives?
Here are some of my thoughts.
THE MYSTERY OF SLEEP
What is sleep? What happens to consciousness? Where do “I” go when I go to sleep?
When I was a little girl my mother would tuck me into bed and tell me I was going to Lily White’s party which referred to the white bedsheets. I loved the idea because it seemed to make sense that when I went to sleep I was going somewhere where others would be interacting with me.
But … my living body was there in the bed so how could I be going somewhere else?
When we fall asleep there is a separation. Our soul and spirit separate from our living body and the world/life of our senses and enter what is called the Spirit World, the supersensible realm of Source beyond time and personal story. It is there we are refreshed and restored.
Each time we sleep we cross the threshold between waking and sleeping twice. Once when we fall asleep and then when we wake up. The thresholds of sleep are similar to a death and birth of earthly, sensory consciousness. Thresholds hold rich meaning for us. We cross thresholds when we enter into different space or begin something new and we reach thresholds of magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, result, or condition to occur or be manifested.
When we sleep on a decision, question, or concern we seek a new or intensified sense of selfhood. We reach and cross thresholds.
Sleep is a spiritual activity. In meditative practices, we essentiallly work to create the phenomenon of sleep without sleeping, while remaining awake.
There are three spiritual activities during sleep.
- we spiritually “digest” all that has entered our consciousness during the previous waking time
- we offer the spiritually digested, morally alive content of our earthly day to the spiritual records known as the akashic records since ancient times.
- we receive insight, guidance and comfort from spiritual beings inspiring new thoughts and understandings, clarification of feelings, and directions for impulses for actions and deeds for the future.
While we are sleeping and in this state of separation, our living physical bodies are also actively restoring. Healing and (re)growth take place during sleep. Consciousness (thinking, feeling and willing) use up the resources of our living physical bodies. The brain is only 2% of your body but uses at least 20% of your energy. If you think a lot or are emotionally intense managing CPTSD, or are super active, you are using much more than 20%. So when your soul or consciousness is finding its reSource in the Spirit World and not depending on your brain, your heart or your gut, your living body can use the creative, renewing energy of life to restore, heal and grow itself. Ideally, every night your living body becomes a better earthly home, servant, vehicle for your consciousness and your inner divinity.
PREPARATION FOR
THE SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY OF SLEEP
We can certainly just fall asleep in simple physical exhaustion. In this case, we still go into the spiritual world, we still get inspirations and our living physical bodies still restore, heal and grow. However if we consciously prepare for sleep, the benefit is much more powerful.
Preparation for sleep is a discipline requiring a self-awareness and a self-regulation that can challenge your tired soul who that would just like you to brush your teeth, read a few pages, and fade into dreamland. However, beginning a practice with the preparations below you will find sleep is much more restorative and inspiring.
These preparations are best done sitting up on the edge of your bed. I keep thinking about them once I am under the covers when it is all too easy to fall asleep in the middle of the exercise (which I often do). As I write this, it’s occurring to me to use my meditation timer (I use the insight timer app on my ipad - it announces that time is up with the sounds of a variety of Tibetan gongs.)
This preparation is not prayer or supplication, nor is it meditation. You are opening a particular pathway in your soul to the guidance available during your sojourn in the spiritual realm of sleep.
SLEEP PREPARATION PRACTICES
Review of the Day - This is a slow methodical review of the day. You do the review backwards as if you were unwinding something you just wound up. Essentially, you are recollecting, reviewing and releasing the sensory perceptions and the material expressions and impressions of the day.
You are undressing the day and getting it ready for bed. You wouldn’t go to bed with your clothes on, would you. If you did you probably wouldn’t feel like you had had a good night’s sleep. So undress your soul from all it put on during the day.
Here are some of the ways you can undress your soul:
- Think of the interactions you had with other people during the day (you might want to include all the people you thought of)
- Think of all the activities of your day - your work activities, your home activities, all the things you did and all the things you thought about doing. Try not to load them with emotions but keep you judgments neutral.
- Think of your experiences of nature.
- Think of your experiences of material things.
- Think of your feelings during the day - try to do this with equanimity - anxiety, annoyances, delight, sadness.
Now put on your soul pajamas.
Asking A Question: Each night before you go to sleep, ask an open question. You are not asking for a specific outcome when you ask an open question. You may say
“I am confused about …., how can I find a organized structure on which to find clarity and certainty?” or
“I am concerned about my child (or any other person), is there something I can say, do, feel, meditate on, to support their life?” or
I feel I must make a decision or take action in a particular situation, how do I make the right choice, do the right thing, make the right change, let go of my anxiety?”
The gesture must be open. Imagination, inspiration and intuition only come to those who are free. If you have an agenda, you are blocking your development through and of sacred sleep.
This is also the time to speak to members of your karmic community that have crossed the threshold of death. Imagine them with warmth and light, then ask them a question or invite them to help you. If you are aware that your deed is significant to the future, you can also reach out to those human souls that are close to a new incarnation, asking for direction.
Have a good night’s sleep in the Spirit World. You will wake up to a new you, a new perspective, a new understanding and a good day’s waking.
I will address your sleeping environment and the mysteries of insomnia in the next couple of weeks.
PLEASE COMMENT - Share your practices for preparing for sleep. Thanks!
UPCOMING INNER YEAR PROGRAM
INNER BALANCE
INNER BALANCE
STANDING STRONGLY IN THE WORLD
I will be sending out the full description of the Intensive Inner Summer Program on developing inner balance in a few days. Meanwhile you can visit my store for the short description and the opportunity to register early - there are only 12 spots in each session.
Saturdays 11AM Eastern August 21, 28, Sept 11, 18
Thursdays 8PM Eastern, August 25, 31, September 7, 14
I will be sending out the full description of the Intensive Inner Summer Program on developing inner balance in a few days. Meanwhile you can visit my store for the short description and the opportunity to register early - there are only 12 spots in each session.
Saturdays 11AM Eastern August 21, 28, Sept 11, 18
Thursdays 8PM Eastern, August 25, 31, September 7, 14
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