"Chanting for Women" class starting June 23rd.

[This is from Freeana, the woman who gave us the wonderful chanting at our last drumming get-together...]

Dear All:

I am excited to be teaching a three week class through Newton Community ED called, "Chanting for Women". That class will be held on Tuesday 6-7:30 PM at Newton South High School starting June 23.

The tuition for the three classes is $55.00 which includes a free CD of drum rhythms to practice to.

I am very excited to teach something I really love and have been doing much of my adult life. The purpose of this class is to bring out what you already have inside and to learn to sing and chant in a fun and personalized manner. Free up your personal vocal expressions and tap into your inner chant. We will do vocal warm-ups and various syllables and you do not have to have singing experience so beginners are welcome!

We will draw upon various influences including Native American, Middle-Eastern and other genres.

For more information about this class and to sign up just click the link below which will take you to the Newton Community Education Site.

You may register online or call 617-559-6999. I hope to see some of you there!

https://newtoncommunityed.org/viewDesc.php?CourseNumber=M1531

Also I wanted to remind you of my new CD, " A Child's Trust" available at

http://cdbaby.com/cd/freeana2. It is full of affirming positive messages with wonderful arrangements and beautiful melodies. It features vocals, recorder, keyboard, bass, guitar, percussion and some saxophone. Take a listen.

Have a wonderful summer!

Best wishes,

Freeana

http://www.freeana.com/

A.R.E. discount on this Saturday's Plymouth Antiquarian Hearth & Home Tour

Reports from last year's event was that it was fabulous, with a great lunch of healthy catered food and a tour of wonderful old Plymouth homes. Tell them you're with the A.R.E. and get in at the $30 price. That's a $5 savings. Here's the info:

Antiquarian Hearth & Home Tours
Saturday, June 13, 2009
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Explore a fascinating range of private homes in Plymouth, open to the public for this special one-day tour. Your event program provides a history and description of each house, with map and directions. Includes luncheon on an estate boathouse with grand vistas of Plymouth bay. Fee $35; $30 members & advance discount. To reserve tickets, email the Antiquarian Society at pasm@verizon.net or call (508) 746-0012. (Website)

Pathwalk and drumming event in Plainville --Sat, June 20th

Spirit in Nature Pathways & Drums for One and All

Invite you to Crystal Spring

for our

7^th Annual Summer Solstice Earth Festival

Saturday, June 20, 2009… 1-5+ PM

Crystal Spring Center for Earth Learning-Plainville, MA

76 Everett Skinner Road

www.crystalspring.org

Tel 508-699-7167

Sponsored by Srs. Barbara, Carole, Chris

Program (Rain or Shine)

• Buddhist Chanting in the Oratory 1:00 to 1:45
  
• Introductions 2:00 to 2:10
  
• Silent Path Walk Begins 2:10 to 3:00
  
• Circle up/Introductions 3:00 to 3:15
• Musical Entertainment by Freeana 3:15 to 3:45
• Pot Luck (bring your favorite summer dish) 3:45 to 4:15
• Drum Circle hosted by David Curry 4:15 to 5:30+

Bring a percussion instrument and a chair.

Free will donations accepted to offset expenses.

Directions:

Take 1-95S to (exit 6B) onto I-495N to exit (14B), Route 1S.

When you exit onto rte.1S, you are in Plainville. Travel 1.5 miles to

George St. on right side of highway (just before Duncan Donuts).

George St. becomes Everett Skinner Road.

See Crystal Spring on left side about1 mile from highway.

Please park where indicated so avoid a ticket. Questions call Dan’s cell 781-439-8891

RSVP to Dan dshea2003@earthlink.net Bring a percussion instrument and a chair.

Dave Curry will be bringing an assortment of drums.

New SpIN Website: http://spiritinnaturepathways2009.shutterfly.com/ password "spin"

Folks: the Oratory has the most amazing acoustics! You'll want to check out the chanting!!! - A

Keep asking; shift reality

The following has happened quite a bit over the years and happened to me again this morning. It probably happens all over every day. You call a company with a question such as, "How much is your service?" They'll say $100. I'd rather have it for $50 so I say "OK, bye." I then call the same company again, and get a different rep. He says "$100, always has been." He reads from their rule book about why it's $100. OK. I go online, look at their information, and see that it's ambiguous. I wait a month or two and call again, get a third rep, and the same $100 answer. So after about eight months of this (in this case it's not a new service issue but one that I care more about) today I call, get a rep, and ask him. He says $50! How? Nothing has changed in their rule book according to him. It's just now the answer is the one I've been hoping for, and according to this rep it's always been the answer. He says he's sending me verifying papers.

The call and call thing tends to work. People do it until they hear what they want to hear, and then what they're hearing is not only what they wanted, it's right! It has become as real and valid as the stuff they hadn't wanted to hear used to be.

I've assumed different logical explanations for the disparity - untrained reps, honest mistakes, outright lying, luck, odds, etc. But this morning I wondered if somewhere in there reality shifting is going on. Then a couple hours later here comes Cynthia's February RealityShifters issue, (which arrived at 1:11 pm!) talking about retrocausality.

-----

Taken from a wonderful site, RealityShifters.com, which is very much worth your time.
See especially this ever-growing compendium of stories of reality-shifting experience (well over 100 pages!):
RealityShifters.com/pages/yourstories.html

This reminded me of Robert's comment a few weeks ago mentioning the bible passage in which Jesus related the parable about requesting some lamp oil from someone... Keep "knocking" and the door shall be opened...

The Way of The Cross - Tolle

There are many accounts of people who say they have found God through their deep suffering, and there is the Christian expression "the way of the cross," which I suppose points to the same thing.

We are concerned with nothing else here.

Strictly speaking, they did not find God through their suffering, because suffering implies resistance. They found God through surrender, through total acceptance of what is, into which they were forced by their intense suffering. They must have realized on some level that their pain was self-created.

How do you equate surrender with finding God?

Since resistance is inseparable from the mind, relinquishment of resistance -- surrender -- is the end of the mind as your master, the impostor pretending to be "you," the false god. All judgment and all negativity dissolve. The realm of Being, which had been obscured by the mind, then opens up. Suddenly a great stillness arises within you, an unfathomable sense of peace. And within that peace, there is great joy. And within that joy, there is love. And at the innermost core, there is the sacred, the immeasurable, That which cannot be named.
...

"The Power of Now" - Eckhart Tolle

Suffering and growth

“While suffering does foster spiritual growth, contentment creates even more. You learn through peace—and more important, you can better teach your children and others when you’re in a state of joyful relaxation. You don’t need to suffer for the sake of growth! God certainly doesn’t want you to endure pain, any more than you want your own children to do so.”

—Doreen Virtue, Ph.D.
“How to Hear Your Angels”

Exercise, Week Starting Monday, 6/8/09

[from "Experiments...", page 111:]

Select one area of your life in which you are suffering (physically, emotionally, or mentally). Write down the inner resources which might be available to you which would aid in overcoming this condition. Consider each day the possibility that you will become obedient to the Christ's awareness that these qualities are within you. Affirm each day in prayer and meditation that the needed inner resources are becoming available to you.

With meditation, we are gradually marrying the fifth dimension of consciousness with the four dimensions of time and space...

"...With meditation, we are gradually marrying the fifth dimension of consciousness with the four dimensions of time and space, so all five dimensions come to coexist together. Our nervous system is gradually cultured to give us the experience of all five dimensions simultaneously.

This has profound implications in our everyday life. Before meditating, everything we did was in time and space. All our action, our problem solving, was limited to the four dimensions. The options we saw before us were always time and space limited. With meditation, we are bringing in an additional dimension, consciousness. It makes a big difference. Now we see situations in ways we could not see before. We are able to influence the course of life in ways we could not before.

Imagine you are trying to solve a puzzle lying on a table. You are looking at it in two dimensions, on the flat surface of the table. Try as you may, the pieces won't fit together. Then a friend walks into the room and says, "Try this." She picks up two edges of the puzzle and curls them together above the table, and they fit together perfectly. By moving into the third dimension, the space above the table, the puzzle has been solved easily. Life is like that. Dealing with it only in time and space, four dimensions, it is often an unsolvable puzzle. We go round and round, never quite getting the pieces to fit together. When we begin to meditate, we are adding a new dimension, a new perspective. Then the pieces start to fit together, and it all begins to make sense."

Advanced Yoga Practices #36

Killing the Buddha

The idea of “killing the Buddha” comes from a famous Zen line, the context of which is easy to imagine: After years on his cushion, a monk has what he believes is a breakthrough: a glimpse of nirvana, the Buddhamind, the big pay-off. Reporting the experience to his master, however, he is informed that what has happened is par for the course, nothing special, maybe even damaging to his pursuit. And then the master gives the student dismaying advice: If you meet the Buddha, he says, kill him.

Why kill the Buddha? Because the Buddha you meet is not the true Buddha, but an expression of your longing. If this Buddha is not killed he will only stand in your way.

Why Killing the Buddha? For our purposes, killing the Buddha is a metaphor for moving past the complacency of belief, for struggling honestly with the idea of God. As people who take faith seriously, we are endlessly amazed and enraged that religious discourse has become so bloodless, parochial and boring. Any God worth the name is none of these things. Yet when people talk about God they are talking mainly about the Buddha they meet. For fear of seeming intolerant or uncertain, or just for lack of thinking, they talk about a God too small to be God...


KillingTheBuddha.com

An odd, amusing, little blog-ish site by a kindred spirit. Have a look!

Exercise, Week Starting Monday, 6/1/09

[From "Experiments...", Page 108:]

...Watts concludes... that freedom comes not from running away from our illusions but in the complete acceptance of the reality that lies behind them.
We may note that Watts uses the word "illusion" as a substitute for "cross." The truth of that equation is evident if we consider that the difficulties of life (which we often call "karmic situations") are rooted in illusory images of ourselves which we have built or in misconceptions about life. Freedom comes in seeing the reality or purposefulness behind what is happening and in accepting it.
There is a threefold progression that leads to freedom. It corresponds to a triune conception of ourselves: physical body (conscious, rational mind), mental body (subconscious mind and karmic habit patterns) and soul body (superconscious mind and spiritual freedom). First we ask ourselves, "Where do I feel trapped?" The answer comes from a rational, analytical consideration of our lives. Next we determine, "What is the illusion or misconception that has led me to this situation?" That answer lies in the karmic patterns of the subconscious mind. Our access to that answer can come through a conscious insight, an intuition, a dream or meditation guidance. And finally, we ask ourselves, "What is the reality that lies behind this illusion or this difficult situation?" This answer lies within the purposefulness of the soul. When the answer is given, through whatever means by which the soul reveals itself, our freedom comes in accepting that reality.
...
Try the three-step approach described above. Select and write down a situation in life in which you feel trapped. Determine and write down an illusory image of yourself or a misconception about life that may have created this situation. Finally, seek to understand and accept the reality or purposefulness that lies beneath this difficulty. Keep a record of your experiences which come from the acceptance of this cross.

Example:

Situation:
Having no friends

Misconception:
Having close friends means that I will be burdened by responsibilities to them and it's better to be without them.

Purposefulness of Situation:
I am learning how much I really do want to have people that I care about and who care about me.

Acceptance of This Cross:
I will not blame others for not having declared their friendship for me, but will work actively to be a friend to others.

As we are liberated...

“As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
- Marrianne Williamson

[-via Penny]

What is enlightenment?

"...as our attention comes to reside naturally in the omnipresent, undulating blissful silence in all things, we become that ever-present harmony. We find our own self to be the essence of all things. This is the experience of unity, union, enlightenment. The world does not disappear. It becomes transparent. Boundaries become like veils, thinly covering the essence of life, which we have come to know as an expression of our own nature. Can we still act in the world? Yes, but our motives are different than before when we could only see ourself as separate. We now act in the interest of a broader self. In doing so, we may seem to become selfless. The truth is that we always are acting for our own self-interest. But our self has become universal, so our interest is for the whole of humanity, and for the whole of life."

Advanced Yoga Practices

72 Names of G-D

http://www.ajudaica.com/guide_kabbalah_names.php

... via Penny. Thanks!

We Are One

Declaration of Principles, Interstellar Alliance (Opening):

The Universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice. The language is not Narn or Human or Centauri or Gaim or Minbari. It speaks in the language of hope. It speaks in the language of trust. It speaks in the language of strength, and the language of compassion. It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul. But always it is the same voice. It is the voice of our ancestors speaking through us, and the voice of our inheritors waiting to be born. It is the small, still voice that says: ‘We are One. No matter the blood, no matter the skin, no matter the world, no matter the star. We are One. No matter the pain, no matter the darkness, no matter the loss, no matter the fear. We are One.’ Here, gathered together in common cause, we agree to recognize this singular truth and this singular rule: that we must be kind to one another. Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us and each voice lost diminishes us. We are the voice of the Universe, the Soul of Creation, the fire that will light the way to a better future. We are One.

– Citizen G’Kar of Narn, for the Interstellar Alliance (Babylon 5, The Paragon of Animals, 1998, written by J. Michael Straczynski)

[Who says there's nothing good on television?]

Exercise, week starting Monday, 5/25/2009

For one day truly practice all that you believe. If the opportunity rises to "preach" to someone else try to do it through example rather than verbally.

A SPIRITUAL CONSPIRACY - [Found on the internet]

A SPIRITUAL CONSPIRACY

On the surface of the world right now there is
war and violence and things seem dark.
But calmly and quietly, at the same time,
something else is happening underground
An inner revolution is taking place
and certain individuals are being called to a higher light.
It is a silent revolution.
From the inside out. From the ground up.
This is a Global operation.
A Spiritual Conspiracy.
There are sleeper cells in every nation on the planet.
You won't see us on the T.V.
You won't read about us in the newspaper
You won't hear about us on the radio
We don't seek any glory
We don't wear any uniform
We come in all shapes and sizes, colors and styles
Most of us work anonymously
We are quietly working behind the scenes
in every country and culture of the world
Cities big and small, mountains and valleys,
in farms and villages, tribes and remote islands
You could pass by one of us on the street
and not even notice
We go undercover
We remain behind the scenes
It is of no concern to us who takes the final credit
But simply that the work gets done
Occasionally we spot each other in the street
We give a quiet nod and continue on our way
During the day many of us pretend we have normal jobs
But behind the false storefront at night
is where the real work takes a place
Some call us the Conscious Army
We are slowly creating a new world
with the power of our minds and hearts
We follow, with passion and joy
Our orders come from the Central Spiritual Intelligence
We are dropping soft, secret love bombs when no one is looking
Poems ~ Hugs ~ Music ~ Photography ~ Movies ~ Kind words ~
Smiles ~ Meditation and prayer ~ Dance ~ Social activism ~ Websites
Blogs ~ Random acts of kindness...
We each express ourselves in our own unique ways
with our own unique gifts and talents
Be the change you want to see in the world
That is the motto that fills our hearts
We know it is the only way real transformation takes place
We know that quietly and humbly we have the
power of all the oceans combined
Our work is slow and meticulous
Like the formation of mountains
It is not even visible at first glance
And yet with it entire tectonic plates
shall be moved in the centuries to come
Love is the new religion of the 21st century
You don't have to be a highly educated person
Or have any exceptional knowledge to understand it
It comes from the intelligence of the heart
Embedded in the timeless evolutionary pulse of all human beings
Be the change you want to see in the world
Nobody else can do it for you
We are now recruiting
Perhaps you will join us
Or already have.
All are welcome
The door is open
~ author unknown.....hehehehehe....

Some Playthings

A trembling brown bird
standing in the high grass turns
out to be a blown

oakleaf after all.
Was the leaf playing bird, or
was it "just" the wind

playing with the leaf?
Was my very noticing
itself at play with

an irregular
frail patch of brown in the cold
April afternoon?

These questions that hang
motionless in the now-stilled
air: what of their

frailty, in the light
of even the most fragile
of problematic

substances like all
these momentary playthings
of recognition?

Questions that are asked
of questions: no less weighty
and lingeringly

dark than the riddles
posed by any apparent
bird or leaf or breath

of wind, instruments
probing what we feel we know
for some kind of truth.

- John Hollander

Exercise, week starting Monday, 5/18/2009

Jesus accepted his cross, and through that acceptance, overcame it.

Throughout the week, try to accept what happens to you as a way of moving toward the law of grace.

Edgar Cayce (reading 295-6)

“Fasting—as is ordinarily termed—is as the Master gave: Laying aside thine own concept of HOW or WHAT should be done at this period, and let the Spirit guide. Get the truth of fasting!”

Noticed this quote on one of the Cayce websites today. Thought it was cute, and something to ponder/discuss: letting one’s inner listening, listening, guide our decisions and choices, and letting go of what we “should” or “should not” be doing according to modern fads and beliefs. I just heard that it’s totally fine for a chocolate chip cookie to visit my temple today. You?

List of Universal Laws

List of universal Laws as compiled by

Bruce McArthur in his book

Your Life

(in the order in which they are presented in his book)

• Like Begets like
• As you sow so shall you reap
• The spirit of your actions multiplies the results
• Like attracts like
• Opposites repel
• As you seek, you attract and are attracted to that which will fulfill your search
• As you seek, you repel and are repelled by that which will not fulfill your search
• For every effect there is a cause
• There is nothing by chance
• Nothing happens by chance; there is a purpose to everything that happens
• As thought and purpose and aim and desire are set in motion by minds, their effect is as a condition that is
• Know the truth and the truth shall make you free
• God is
• As you honor, respect, and love your own unique individuality, so you honor, respect, and love the individuality of others
• Your true needs, wants, desires, hopes, dreams, wishes and their fulfillment are as important as those of any other soul in existence
• You must first 'save' self if you would 'save' another
• As you put the God within first in your life, so you manifest the God you are
• As you become master of your lower self, so all things, conditions, and elements become subject unto you
• Spirit is the life, mind is the builder, physical is the result
• Life is the experience of your choices
• If you will be my people, I will be your God
• Seek first the Spirit within and all things shall be added you have need of
• Seek first the Spirit within and you will find
• Ask the Spirit, with faith, and you will receive
• Knock, with faith in Spirit, and the door will be opened
• All exchanges balance
• As you believe, so it becomes for you
• Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith
• Love transforms
• True giving manifests love
• As you give so it is measured to you again
• As you give you gain in understanding

Thanks to Edgar Cayce Australia… http://www.cayce.egympie.com.au

... much appreciated, mates!