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June/July 2007 Volume 45Welcome to this bi-monthly edition of our newsletter! You will find these columns contained in our June/July issue:
Metaphors for Life
Carla Woody, Founder Metaphors for Life
I was delighted when I came across this quote. It shows that wisdom prevails; runs through the ages and disparate teachings. Said another way through Don Américo Yábar, “The wind has a direction and knows where it’s going.” This is a very different state of being than having a goal, typically taught in Western culture. The condor doesn’t sit there frantically flapping its wings. Instead, it merely waits, senses the wind, then raises its wings – and allows the wind to take it. GrowthWorks The Cleanse Excerpted from Calling Our Spirits Home by Carla Woody I was drawn to go to India. I was inexplicably drawn from the depths of my soul. I had no words of explanation for my friends and family. I had no expectations toward the outcome. Yet, I knew that India had something to teach me and that I would learn. I found myself in a state of not knowing, but trusting. We landed in Delhi in the early morning hours. As our taxi conveyed us to our hotel, I was immediately transported back to 1978. Magically, my time travel took me to the six months I spent in Iran. There was a palpable aura of dejá vu as I noted the walls at streets’ edges barring glimpses into homes beyond and battered shutters rolled down over crumbling shop fronts. The same coating of dust blanketed everything. I saw the faces of the Iranian people I knew back then in the dark skin and beautiful brown eyes of our taxi driver. I said to myself, “This is nothing new.” In the days that followed, I made entries into my mental databank: beautiful architecture, beggars on the street, tent dwellings, exquisite handicrafts, waves of people, gracious smiles, noxious fumes and traffic without rules. Each time effectively disassociated I said, “I’ve seen this before.” Then, we left Delhi and went to Jaipur. While still in Delhi, I journaled my feelings that as I looked back on them later seemed prophetic to me. I wrote, “I feel as though I am waiting to leave Delhi and go to Jaipur where something awaits me. I have the sense of going into myself and knowing that Self in all its manifestations¾past, present and future¼will make a conscious choice and emerge reborn. The energies are moving inside my body as I write this, as though in agreement. This will be Initiation.” I spent the first couple of days in Jaipur in meditative practices sequestered in the compound of Diggi Palace where we were staying. Diggi Palace was so named from its history of having been the hunting lodge of a long-gone maharaja. Its modest rooms and grounds provided an oasis in the heart of Jaipur. On the third day, my companion and I left the grounds and encountered Choutu Singh, the young Indian man who would become our constant guide. He offered us the services of his rickshaw and there I began my Initiation. It seemed that Choutu drove us through every aspect of Jaipur that existed and suddenly I experienced all as new¾and connected directly to me. From my enduring meditations, or perhaps from just being in Mother India for some days then, I was in a heightened state of awareness. As we drove through byways and alleyways, the material destitution of the people I saw entered me. The filth that I saw entered me. The barrage of noise and toxic air entered me. The open sides of the rickshaw found no barrier, physical or psychic, that divided any experience from me. There were no boundaries. All was seamless and I said out loud, “I’ve never seen anything like this.” We had stopped in a gem shop when I noticed the sore throat¾ immediate, sudden. Although feeling enormously healthy prior to our venture out that afternoon, by the time we returned to Diggi Palace less than an hour later, I was starting to feel very ill. Fever, chills, insomnia and acute body aches were my companion through the night. Inexplicably, waves of intense sadness would rise from unaccountable depths within me. It was mine and it was not mine. Tears streamed down my face off and on through the night and during meditation the next morning. Then, I put hands on myself with the intent of healing and began to feel better throughout the day. That night I had a normal night’s sleep and awoke feeling energetic and light as though I had been through a deep cleanse. © 2007 Carla Woody. All rights reserved. Carla Woody is the author of the book Standing Stark: The Willingness to Engage and Calling Our Spirits Home: Gateways to Full Consciousness and founder of Kenosis, an organization supporting personal transformation. Carla has long been leading people toward mind/body/spirit wholeness using integrative healing methods blended with world spiritual traditions. She may be reached by e-mail at info@kenosis.net or by telephone (928) 778-1058.Special Events
Review More often than not, the publications or music you will find reviewed here will not be new or “bestsellers.” Websites or organizations may not be well known. But all are spotlighted by virtue of their impact and value.
Beyond the Gates of Splendor
This is a film that is in one instant horrifying and then delivers lasting inspiration and hope for humanity. It centers on the Waodani, also called Acuas, a tribe living in isolation in the Amazon rain forest in Ecuador. Anthropologists haven’t been able to determine their origins. They live in areas otherwise populated by Quechua Indians, but have their own unique culture quite different than any other – especially one aspect. A heritage of extreme violence. The teaching passed down was “spear and live, or be speared and die.” Six out of ten deaths were the result of spearing. They had no method to resolve conflict other than this. Their two highest values were egalitarianism and autonomy. Should anyone within or outside the tribe violate those values, attack was the answer. Because of this practice the tribe was threatened with extinction and their Quechua neighbors lived in great fear of them. In the mid-1950s five American missionaries living in the region sought them out and attempted to befriend them. What started out as a promising venture ended in massacre. The tale could have ended there, but didn’t, which is where the inspiration comes in. In an amazing show of courage, compassion and forgiveness, the wives and children of the men who died entered the Waodani village responsible for the deaths and were invited to stay. The story of the positive effect of these missionaries unfolds across a few decades. A thing I especially appreciated is that these women didn’t attempt to replace the Waodani’s religion with their own but incorporated beliefs toward nonviolence and love. Not the usual case with most missionaries or conquerors who seek to erase any outside influences. To quote an anthropologist interviewed in the film, what changed was the information available to the Waodoni about another way to live. The spearings ended and the tribe has lived in peace for many years. There’s much more to recommend this film, but that’s for you to discover. I also watched the Hollywood version “The End of the Spear” and it was equally well done against incredible backdrops. See www.beyondthegatesthemovie.com for more introduction. - Carla Woody | |||||||||||||||||||||
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