Two Things to Ask Before Having a Conversation With a Spiritual Being

The First Question:

What is a conversation?

How many conversations do you have in the course of a day, a week, a year, a lifetime?

Having been part of so many conversations, how do you define conversation? If you were to write your own definition of conversation would it change your response to the the question about how many conversations do you have?

Let me help you with your thinking about the meaning of conversation.

The key root to converse is a Latin word, vertare, which means to turn. Con, of course means with. Conversation as a word means “turning with.”

When I think of “turning with” two images appear: spirals and dancing.

Spirals: spinning inward to the details or outward to the expansions.

Dancing: leading and following, choreography, navigating the floor.

How do I “turn with” in the art of speaking and listening? I turn toward and in turning toward, I also turn away.

I am turning toward my conversation partner and away from myself when I listen. I am turning toward myself and away from my partner when I am speaking.

What speaking and listening is not a conversation? I think of empty phrases, reporting of data, untruths. What else?

Do I pay attention to this turning? Does it matter?

Are most of my conversations about thoughts and ideas, about feelings and emotions, or about deeds and possibilities? What does the content of the conversation tell me about my turning and what I turn with?

And the contexts of my conversations? What are they?

Do work with these questions. Any answers you come up with write them down and then turn them into questions. Wisdom lives in the next questions, so always find the next questions. Is there a conversation if there is no question? Is the question the turning?


I want to read your thoughts on conversation. Please leave a comment below.
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To learn the second question you must ask before having a conversation with a spiritual being, wait for my next post to the Inner Year blog in a few days.

November in the Inner Year is the time to pay attention to conversations with Spiritual Beings. The darkening of the Sun asks us to turn away from material existence and the surface of things. The soul is turning toward what exists beyond the surface seeking spiritual contexts and content and beings behind, beyond, below and above.

Now is the time to evolve your capacity to have conversations of all kinds and all purposes with spiritual beings. Learn the meaning, the design and the grace of these conversations.

I am offering a 4 session Inner Year teleseminar: Having Conversations With Spiritual Beings. In the teleseminar we will explore these questions and others about conversations. There are two options for this teleseminar series. The Basic is 4-40 minute presentations of content. It is essentially a lecture over the phone. You will find lots of insight and creative possibilities on having conversations with spiritual beings. However, it is not a conversation. If you want to engage in a conversation on having conversations with spiritual beings, you will want to take the Intensive Option which includes many conversations. (I didn’t make this distinction between the two learning options until I wrote this blog.) Visit here to learn more about the teleseminars.

Do invite your conversation partners in life to join you in the teleseminars. Forward this blog to all your friends.

Peace and Goodwill

Last year at Christmastime, I gave an interactive presentation on exploring the personal meaning of

Peace On Earth to Human Souls of Goodwill

I find this translation from Rudolf Steiner, the most empowering of the individual and the most meaningful in awakening the forces of community. Do you?

Let me give you two contrasting translations,

"Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men." King James version and the one I grew up with.

"...on Earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." New International version
(which I feels leads to war - one group feeling another group is in disfavor and therefore unworthy of the respect and safety of peace)

Whatever translation you feel most comfortable with or most engaged in, I encourage you to seek the deepest personal connection to the declaration. Is this wording the right wording for what lives in your heart?

I thought I would share with all of you the basic questions and thoughts I explored with my audience.

I took them through each word and asked them to meditate on the meaning.

How do you experience "Peace"? How do you experience "Goodwill"?
These are words of great mystery and live beyond personal definiton. What is the thought behind each word?

I led my audience through brief meditations on each word asking them to let the meaning of the word speak to them in their hearts rather than thinking a definition in their heads.

As everyone shared their imaginations of Peace and Goodwill, I captured them on the whiteboard. "Seeing" these heartfelt meanings brought a warming energy to the group.

Perhaps each individual expression of Peace and Goodwill was filled with the resounding voice of an angel. Certainly there was a sense of a host of meaning.

How does Peace live in your soul, your actions, your conversations? How do you practice goodwill. When in the last year have you been the beneficiary of the goodwill of another? I hope this stimulates deep thoughts. This is the time of year when our souls call out for these questions.

Ask your self, your friends, your family members to meditate on these words. What a Christmas gift. Remember these words were spoken to simple shepherds.

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I have spent some time considering our Christmas music and the relationship of Christmas carols and songs to each of the six Christmases. In looking at the Christmas of Nativity and the Shepherds and the Kings, I was surprised to see most Christmas music relates to the experience of the Shepherds.

Interestingly, most paintings of the Nativity focus on the Kings.

The shepherds hear the voices of the host of angels. The kings see the Star. Magi share the same root as image. The shepherds and the kings reflect on the two gestures of our brains. The left hemisphere is auditory and analytical and the right hemisphere is visual and intuitive. I see the shepherds as auditory and intuitive and the kings as visual and analytical. I find this fascinating. Do you?

With all my heart, I wish you peace and goodwill.