September 2009 Transmutation News
I don’t watch sports on TV, but people who know me filled me in on the British Open, which is a golf tournament. Apparently during this last British Open in July a man by the name of Tom Watson had the possibility of creating history. If he won the tournament he would be the oldest man to have won the British Open.
The first day of the British Open Tom Watson was playing an extraordinary game and was in the lead. He said that he felt like the spirits were with him. This is not a phrase that is usually spoken openly by professional athletes.
By the second day he was still in the lead and again he said that he felt a spiritual force with him.
And at the end he lost the tournament by one putt. For those of you who don’t know anything about golf losing by one putt in itself is an extraordinary event.
The reason I bring this up is that I am sure the spirits were with Tom Watson. But that does not mean he was supposed to win that tournament. And even with his loss he did continue to say that the game he played was a spiritual experience.
I felt that this was a great metaphor for life. For we all have the spirits around us. And when we do a lot of spiritual work we often think that the end result will be some external “win”. But truly life is a spiritual experience and it is the expectations of what we are supposed to gain versus the spiritual lessons gained that can decide whether we live a life of peace and joy or frustration and disappointment.
To follow on the theme I wrote about in the August Transmutation News it is our soul that knows what valuable lessons and opportunities for growth sculpt us into the beings we are evolving into as we move forward on the journey of life.
It is when we can let go of expectations that we can evolve and grow without all the disappointments with gauging our success on external results. And as I keep repeating letting go of expectations has to be balanced with continuing working on creating what you do want. The letting go of expectations has to do with releasing to your own soul the decision of how a successful result will manifest.
Some friends were recently telling me about meeting the 88-year-old mother of a friend. They kept repeating how beautiful she was. I asked was it her physical beauty they were referring to.
They explained that she had been a devout student of a spiritual tradition that teaches the divine lives within each of us. And she has engaged in daily spiritual practices that this tradition taught for most of her adult life to a point that she lived the work. My friends remarked that the beauty she exudes is the incredible light and joy that shines through her.
You can imagine in all of her years of spiritual practice she probably had disappointments to work through. But this woman, like thousands of others who have stayed true to their spiritual work, are role models of the light and joy that is experienced within and without by staying focused on the work.
September 22 marks my absolutely favorite time of year – the fall equinox. In the past I have encouraged you to do a variety of practices of letting go of issues that no longer serve you. This time of year is a great time to let drop from you what is no longer needed to return to the earth to be composted creating new life. For with all types of death – the little deaths we experience through life as well as physical death – something new is reborn from what dies. The cycle of life and death is one unbroken circle.
This fall equinox I suggest you take some time to perform a short ceremony to release your expectations. Really look at your expectations that might actually be holding you back from peace and joy. It might be that you have been engaged in spiritual practices for a long time and you thought by now these practices would have brought you more success, better health, a great relationship, etc. Or you might be disappointed in the expectations of the level of peace and environmental health that exists on the planet.
We all do our spiritual work with the spark of hope that our wishes will manifest. And the key is to stay true to your intention and do the spiritual work. Don’t lose sight of your goals and desires while at the same time releasing them into the wisdom of your soul and the soul of the world.
On the fall equinox you can do this work alone or in a group. Create some kind of short ceremony that can help you feel as if you are releasing back to the universe your expectations. Feel what it feels like to do this. Does it feel freeing? Do you feel resistance to letting go of your desires? Do you feel a sense of safety knowing that your own soul and the soul of the world is working to give you greater gifts than you can imagine? Does this raise a feeling of fear or excitement?
I find for some of us letting go of expectations feels like giving up. But what if it is giving up to something better? What if we hold an intention of what we want to experience while at the same time we trust that the way our desires and intentions manifest is greater than what we allowed ourselves to imagine?
The key is don’t let go of your intentions and focus. But sometimes we have to let go of the outcome. Try working with this in the time of fall where the plants and trees are giving back to the earth the old so that the new can be born.
And for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere we wish you a joyous season as you celebrate all the new birth that life is creating for the beauty of the world. As I have said the circle of life and death is unbroken. As some of the world experiences the death of the old the Southern Hemisphere is celebrating the joy of new growth.
The full moon is September 4. Let us continue to experience the beauty of our divine light and as a global community allow our shining lights to weave together a brilliant fabric of love and light encompassing and holding the entire planet in love and beauty.
And let’s continue our monthly healing work in behalf of each other as is written in the instructions of Creating A Human Web of Light on the Transmutation News page of this site.
I wish you all a joyous fall and spring as we celebrate the power of the changes in nature and in our own lives as well!!
Announcements:
I have decided to delay creating a course only involving teleconferencing for my course Working in Community to Thrive in Changing Times.
I have enough participants who are showing up in Santa Fe for two workshops, which will continue with monthly teleconferencing.
As I am teaching quite a lot in 2010 and have two new books and two new audio programs in 2010 I feel I need to be careful of how much teleconferencing I am committing to.
I have in no way given up on the idea. But as I am new to teaching through teleconferencing I feel I need to see how these two courses continue through meeting over the phone. And then I can be realistic in scheduling the same course through the use of phone conferencing only.
The Dynamic Heart Project
I met Mark a couple of years at a workshop I was teaching in Portugal on Medicine for the Earth and Healing with Spiritual Light. He had told me about his work and I really appreciate all he is doing. I told him I would post the following:
The Dynamic Heart Project first came about in 2008. The intention of this project is to help abandoned children and destitute women in Nepal through the medium of Dynamic Theatre (DT), which was founded by myself, Mark Wentworth, and Filipe De Moura in 2003. It was inspired by Psychodrama, Shamanism and Systemic Therapies and a deep desire and passion to make a difference in the world. We believe that through DT we can achieve this mission.
The Dynamic Heart Project gives us the opportunity to share our skills and give inspiration to those who are not able to express their hopes and dreams due to difficult life circumstances. Our team will be working in Nepal in April 2010, on an entirely voluntary basis, and are already in the process of setting up fundraising events, which will include a charity concert in London, by Filipe, who is a professional Tenor.
Many a time this journey, thus far, has seemed a near impossible feat, but just at the right moment in time Transmutation News would arrive with exactly the right message for us to continue. For this we are in deep gratitude to Sandra Ingerman and all our Teachers in the Other Worlds. If you would like to either donate or raise funds on our behalf it would be greatly appreciated. Everyone involved with this project feels it is an honour and a privilege to give something back to the World Community, to which we all belong.
For more information please go to www.dynamicheartproject.blogspot.com or email Mark at mark@colourforlife.com
I wanted to let you know about a wonderful book that just came out The Return of the Feminine and the World Soul by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee.
I wrote the foreword for this book and here is what Marion Woodman (a brilliant Jungian analyst and author) had to say about it:
“Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee presents us with a clear picture of the Feminine which is now essential to building a new vision and value for our dear planet earth.”
The book is published by The Golden Sufi Center. The ISBN number is 978-1-890350-14-7. You can visit www.goldensufi.org for more information.
Over the past two decades Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee has given different teachings on the feminine and the anima mundi. Additional resources including free audio and video can be found online at: www.workingwithoneness.org/feminine.html.
In February of 2006 I joined with Llewellyn to speak about weaving a web of light in the world. You can find the talk we did together at: www.workingwithoneness.org/VideoAudio.html
|