I’m preparing to give a five minute presentation about A Whole New World to the audience of conscious cinema here in Nelson. It’s going to take discipline to convey the most important aspects of my all consuming passion in such a brief moment. Lying in bed this morning, looking out into the starry sky, I decided to write a blogpost about it and spread the word a little further.

I’ve been dedicated to developing A Whole New World, full time now for four and a half years. The seed was planted in 1995 when I first arrived in the South Island, and in the intervening years I was mostly on a spiritual path, releasing my story, learning to be present, participating in community, experimenting with creative offerings. By 2006, the seed had gathered enough life force to compel me to clear a space so that it could grow. And in doing that I was creating a space in which I could grow.

Through A Whole New World I’m living an inquiry; it’s a vehicle through which I have an ongoing creative conversation with the Universe. One of my first questions was, what does it mean to live my passion? And how can I create a sustainable livelihood from living my passion? I went some way to answering these questions through my book, “Living your Passion: How Love-in-action is seeding A Whole New World.” Now people come to me and say, “I don’t know what my passion is.” Or “I want to find my purpose.”

Our purpose is to awaken

I have come to the conclusion, for all of us, our purpose is to awaken and actualize our potential; our passion is the fuel to move us forward and keep us going; and the particular form of our creative expression is the vehicle. Once we create such a vehicle it has a life of its own and carries us forward. It is bigger than the little self.  And that is what it means to live our passion: to put our creative energy in service to something bigger, something transcendent which serves the Whole. When we do that, everything in us which isn’t yet whole, healed, grown to its full potential, comes forward to be seen, heard, reckoned with, and ultimately embraced.

A central question I have been living is: how do we individually and collectively make the transition from the old, dysfunctional, crumbling, melting world, to a new world built from the values of peace, creativity and respect for all life?  And within that, how can I, as a conscious awakening individual, stay open to all of life with all its tragic waste, imperfection and suffering, whilst focusing on what is positive?  And then, how can we make the shift from the “I space” to the “we space”?

The first question is too big to address in this article; suffice to say, that we change the world from the inside out, one relationship at a time, one circle at a time. We do so by connecting all our little lights into one BIG LIGHT, by joining together in love and truth; heart to heart and soul to soul, whilst holding the most expansive visions.  And how do we ground that higher consciousness and bring our visions into manifestation? It’s easy one thing to know it all in our heads but it is not at all easy to live truth in all our relationships, all of the time, is it? It’s in the details of everyday life where we are challenged and where we see the work that still needs to be done.

Life can be pretty overwhelming these days and being a conscious person doesn’t exempt us from stress, in fact the more awake we are the more open we are to all of life, to all our feelings.  There’s so much going on at once isn’t there? While we’re doing the inner work of letting go of the old story and our conditioned limitations, at the same time we’re creating the new with all the challenges that involves. Both the inner and outer worlds are full-on intense at this time of transformation.

When we’re awake we’re alive to everything. For example, I see the global crisis manifesting right here in Nelson. I walk down the main streets and see how many of the little independent businesses have closed and their spaces been filled by national or international chains. What happened to all those businessmen and women who may have earned their livelihoods for a lifetime serving the community? I see the global crisis in my friends who are struggling to pay rents, mortgages, credit card debts, who are stressed by what it takes these days to keep a home together. I see it in other friends who are feeling isolated, far from family, with not much community, getting older, not knowing how they will support themselves for the rest of their lives. I see it in people of all ages who are suffering from stress related diseases, and in the steady erosion of natural beauty and public amenities for the profit of private developers.

The global crisis is being lived every moment in our lives

Further afield the news is more dramatic, but right here, in our private lives, the crisis is being lived day to day, moment to moment. What is an enlightened attitude to all of this? How can I, as a conscious awakening person respond, stay positive and be of service? If I cut off my grief and outrage at some of what I see and hear, I also cut off my joy and my connection with Source. It is necessary to feel it all, experience it all, contain it all, transmute it all, use it all as passionate fuel.

Those of us who are creating a whole new world are in transition from “What about me?” to “How can we do this together?” We’re waking up from the old paradigm which taught us we have to be strong and struggle alone, and take care of ourselves and our own, and hang on to what we’ve got and compete for our slice of the cake, and take a bigger piece of cake than we really need because it might come in handy later. Aren’t we? And we’re all in this process together of learning how to do something new. Like, learning to really listen to each other, and appreciate each other, and share what we have, and live more simply, whilst at the same time knowing that what we already have is outrageous abundance and that what we are capable of creating together is beyond our wildest dreams.

I have huge faith in collective intelligence and the power of the imagination and in the magic that can happen when we join heart to heart and soul to soul. I have experienced this magic and I love to create spaces where this magic can happen. That’s what A Whole New World is for. I’m currently creating some spaces for growing conscious co-creative community in Nelson and Golden Bay, and soon I will be doing more tele-gatherings and interviews also. If you’d like to join me please email me: rose@awholenewworld.net I’d love to hear from you.

Its 3am, I’ve been woken from sleep by an anguish in my gut and I have to write from it. I know there is a trend these days amongst conscious people to focus on the positive, to spread the good news, to keep our vibes high; and mostly that’s what I choose to do. It makes sense. But every so often I have to express my No to the world’s folly and it’s a No that comes from way down deep in my soul. This is one of those times.

Those of you who have been following my return journey to Aotearoa, Land of the Awakening Dawn, will have heard how my soul has been singing here at the far end of Golden Bay, as I sit in the peace, beauty and simplicity of this undeveloped piece of coast, looking out over Farewell Spit. In this unspoiled nature, far from so called “civilization” there is a life giving wholeness which feeds the soul. Because of this I say this land is holy; it is sacred land. And there is not much land left in our world which still has the Life-Love-Force in it.

Much of our world was sacred once and now it is profane. The sacredness of nature has been destroyed by so called “progress”, by developers making a quick buck, people who see the land as an exploitable product.

Well sadly, there is now someone here who wants to make a quick buck by developing this unspoiled piece of coast. He’s shut down the local store and petrol pump that served the rural community for miles; and he’s bought one of the few campsites in the Bay and is planning to build a trendy sustainable village for rich people, adobe and grass roofs, all very pc. And you know what, that’s just the beginning of the erosion of this unspoiled piece of coast. Because once one person has “developed” and sold his trendy apartments at vastly inflated prices, there will be more. Remember “Dances with Wolves”? “The white men are coming, and there will be more.” Yes, there are always more. And my soul is hurting so much because I know how the indigenous people feel when they lose their sacred lands, and I know how the animals feel when they are hunted to extinction. And please don’t tell me that it’s all Ok, and all perfect, and the animals are just going into the next dimension, tra-la. That’s not the point. The point is that I am here now, watching this Earth that I love so deeply being destroyed and eaten up bit by bit by people who want to make a fast fat buck to put in their pockets, and I am alive to the pain of that and I will not numb it out or rationalize it away. I simply want to express and be heard. Not fixed, not smoothed over and calmed down, not shunned, not argued and disagreed with. This isn’t a head thing, it’s a deep feeling thing. Just heard is enough. Being deeply heard in a loving environment is balm for the soul. I long for us to be able to give each other that.

A few weeks before I left the States, I listened to a broadcast from Joseph Giove of Common Passion, www.commonpassion.org , from the Gulf of Mexico. A group of Native American elders had been at the beach surveying the damage, praying and doing ceremony. The seabed is being destroyed, people’s lives and livelihood are being destroyed, sea life is being destroyed, and the authorities are lying about the extent of the damage. It feels scary to even speak about this; I feel I am breaking taboos on all sides. While I have been living in the States I have watched the anguish of my dear soul friend Woods in response to what is happening in his own country. There are wonderful things happening in the States too, a huge explosion of consciousness, and I have many wonderful friends there, but I certainly felt I was living in the belly of the beast, with both the best and the worst of human nature in full view. I was there when the presidential election happened. I watched the enormous hopefulness of the people when Obama was elected. I watched the biggest bank robbery in American history, as the Bush administration and the bankers walked away with billions of dollars of the people’s money, just stole it point blank in full view with that characteristic Bush contempt for the people, and hardly anyone said a word. I watched people being made redundant, and having their homes repossessed and left to stand empty, while decent people crept away into tent villages to eke out an existence as best they could. I watched the depression that crept over the people as small business after small business closed and the streets became eerily empty. It was like being at a national funeral, a wake, and sure enough it was followed a year later by an awakening. I watched the quick ebbing of trust in Obama, and the crisis in the Gulf, and the continued pouring of tax payer’s money into unjust wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where whole cultures have been destroyed and millions of innocent men, women and children killed. For what? And still very few people speak out. And all the entrepreneurs are jumping up and down and saying, oh this is a great time to make money! And everybody’s twittering away trying to make a slice of the action. Sometimes it all feels insane to me.

Aaah!  So, I decided to come back to the comparative sanity of New Zealand. Only here there are many signs of erosion too. The development I am talking about here on Pakawau beach is small fry, but that’s how it happens, little bit by little bit, while we’re looking the other way, while we have our heads in the sand, the soulfulness of our sacred Earth is sucked out. Remember “Avatar”?

I want to take a stand beside the indigenous peoples for the sacredness of the land.  I want to take a stand for the deep longings of my own soul.

A few days ago I went to visit the house I lived in before I left NZ, which I called the Garden of Eden. It’s still there, and the quiet rural lane that leads down to the beach, which I walked most days, is still the same. Only when I got to the campsite at the end of the road, the gate was locked and there was a no entry sign. I entered anyway. So many times I had imagined walking down that road once more and feeling again the joy of stepping onto the beach at the end, I wasn’t going to give that up for some old keep out sign. But it robbed me of some joy nevertheless.

Where I come from nobody owns the land. This is actually true. I grew up in England and there were rights of way and public footpaths everywhere. Provided you did no damage you could walk through farms and stately homes and wherever the ancient rights of way existed. This freedom too has been eroded, but I grew up knowing that the land belongs to everyone.  And this law is written deep in my soul.

The Earth cannot be bought; we are the guardians of the Earth.

I feel it is very important that we have safe spaces where people can express their anguish and fear and outrage, without being shut down or “fixed”. This is the teaching of Joanna Macy, one of my sources of inspiration and the creator of “Despair and Empowerment in the Nuclear Age”; to contact and fully connect with our power, we need to express our despair and be lovingly witnessed.  I was one of hundreds who trained with her and her husband Fran, about twelve years ago when she decided to pass on all her teachings and encourage others to take them out into the world. I have been developing different forms of Soul Sanctuary over the last five or six years. A Soul Sanctuary for me is a space for deep inquiry and a container for transforming the base metal of the whole spectrum of responses to our world, into the alchemical gold of our highest potential. In the States I was offering Soul Sanctuary as a tele-gathering, with a community drawn from across the US and Canada. Although we had never met in person we developed a deep soul connection or soul field, and I know when we connected our higher selves in that way and then connected consciously with the energy of all the other thousands of groups doing similar practices in the world, we were making a positive difference to consciousness on the planet.   I call this spiritual activism; raising our love-wisdom energy and focusing it for world healing. At the very least it makes everyone feel better, and when we feel better our good energy ripples out into the world.

I will be starting the Soul Sanctuary tele-gathering again at 9.30 am Sunday September 12^{t h} NZ time; that’s 5pm Saturday September 11^th Eastern Time and 9.30 pm Saturday GMT.  I invite anyone who would like to join me for this meditation/visualization/heart sharing and community building to do so for 45 minutes, wherever you are. I would love to build this practice into a global community and September 11^th seems like a good time to start the next chapter.  If you would like to join in, please email me by Friday, rose@awholenewworld.net, or Woods thereafter, woods@awholenewworld.net and we will send you the number.

Namaste

Each one of us makes a difference and together we can do what seems impossible.

That’s the only word that sits on the open page for the longest time, as a state of relaxation pulls me into stillness.

It has been a 35 ½ hour journey from Williamsburg Virginia to Pakawau Golden Bay: four planes and a drive over the mountain. It was worth every minute. I know now how the migrating birds must feel. You just keep going because your inner magnet is calling you home and you have no choice, you have to go. It’s only when you arrive and let go, you realize how very tired you are. Now I can rest.

I have driven over Takaka hill many times in my imagination, and every time it was a glorious day, and when I topped the ridge and saw the green valley beneath me and the sparkling waters of the Bay in the distance, I was always filled with immense joy. Today it is raining and I felt I was descending into the mists of Avalon.

The excitement started at the last lap, when I turned left at Takaka and headed North West. My whole being came alive, alert, zingy. How is landscape so exciting to the spirit? This land today, sodden with rain and shrouded in cloud, sings to my soul, welcome back, welcome back, as I fly into the arms of my Beloved, Golden Bay.

It’s something about the vegetation, the pointed stems of the harakeke with their lofty red flower stalks, the lone cabbage tree trembling in the breeze, so exotic, so alive. The harakeke are bent over like the graceful necks of cranes, moving this way and that, looking around, communicating. And the cabbage tree is gently waving, reaching out pointed fingers to touch my heart.

Flax, palm, heart, breeze, rain, eyes, consciousness.

All One.

This is how they said it would be; this state of Oneness is a constant celebration, a love affair with Life.

Count me in.

The rain has stopped. Quietude is palpable. The top of the low lying hill in front of Thelma’s cottage has emerged from its shrouds of cloud and trees dance, higgledy piggledy along its crest. Here’s that feeling of fullness and aliveness again. The landscape is full of itself; brimming with life force, frolicking along.

I have never been so aware of the consciousness of nature; the living, breathing spirit nature is. The Life-Love Force. And yes, it is loving; not neutral nor hostile, but loving, curious, communicative, friendly and welcoming.

I am filled with gratitude. How fortunate I am to have this experience. I’ve always felt like one of the luckiest people in the world in Golden Bay, to be here in this peace and beauty. For others this would seem like nothing; emptiness, just a rainy day. Yet I am so full of glee I can’t bear to go outside and experience more, I would burst trying to contain so much. With sudden insight I see why so many of us work so hard and make do with so little, why we feel we don’t deserve: it’s overwhelming to take in the extraordinary beauty of life, it blows the little self into oblivion. We defend against this too muchness of it all to conserve our egoic sense of who we are, to have something to hold onto.

Heartache

On the other side of bliss is the heartbreak of Paradise Lost. I open up a book I chose at the library yesterday, Finding Beauty in a Broken World, and read:

“This is what is wrong with us, we are bleeding at the roots.” And

“Our kinship with Earth must be maintained; otherwise we will find ourselves trapped in the centre of our paved-over souls with no way out.”  And

“We are all complicit.”

Yes we are. I have just returned from a walk on the beach here in Nelson and I noticed with sadness that Nelson is going up-market. The back road that led to the far end of the beach had a wild and unkempt feel, now everything has been tidied up. Consequently there are many more people at the far end of the beach, where it was always possible in the past to find solitude. This is where I loved to swim in summer, beyond all the crowds where the bush came right down to the water and the overhanging branches made little private coves and I felt I was swimming off an exotic desert island. Now the sandy bank where the giant macrocarpas grow has eroded, significantly so in the three years I’ve been away, the bank has flattened out, many of the trees have gone and the whole character of the beach has changed.

I notice how I resist these changes. The only thing we can depend on in the world is change, right?   Yet there are certain forms of change that make my heart sink. And yes, I know I sound like a spoiled brat wanting the whole beach to myself and I should be glad so many people and their dogs are enjoying the beautiful sunshine and fresh air. Yet I feel like a hounded spirit when I can’t find empty spaces, and I’m sure I speak for many disappearing species.

There is a continual battle being waged between the driving force of “development” and the integrity of the land and its ecological balance. I generally tend to blame the greedy capitalist developers who come in with their bulldozers and build hideous townships and shopping malls which nobody can afford to inhabit now. Yet of course there are other factors at play: the burgeoning world population for instance, rapidly growing to 7 billion, and the drive in people everywhere for material comfort, toys and leisure, which causes us to spread our tentacles further and further into nature’s bounteous web, depleting these essential riches and tearing the web, just as the blood-oil is being sucked from the core of the Earth.

Having just spent a soul renewing few days submerged in the comforting arms of Golden Bay, my being is open and sensitive to everything, including my heartache in response to the world’s suffering and heedless destruction. My heartmind goes to those 20 millions affected by flooding in Pakistan, to the devastation of culture and life in Iran and Afghanistan, to the undermining of the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico. And of course always the extinction of species, my beloved four legged and winged friends.

I can’t join those who say that this is all OK. For me it is essential to feel the heartache from time to time, because this is part of our global reality, and this is what drives my passion and motivates me to work for positive change, as much as my love of humanity and human potential. Finding a way to respond appropriately to the devastation of our world is an evolutionary driver. For me, an appropriate response is to feel my grief and outrage as well as my gratitude and awe; to feel it all, to know it is all part of having a human experience. To remember that whatever small inconveniences are appearing in my life, I am one of the fortunate ones. And then to transmute the heartache into a motivating force for heart connection, community building, and service to evolving a Whole New World, a new way of living together that honours life. And this has to start with honouring all our feelings and all our experience, and allowing our own inner diverse eco-system to grow into an abundant garden.

Namaste.

Bliss, is from a new e-book by Rose Diamond and Woods Eliott,  Moments of Magnificent Being, which will be available soon from A Whole New World.

Finding Beauty in a Broken World is by Terry Tempest Williams, publ. Pantheon Books. It tells the story of how the prairie dogs are being driven to extinction in the American Southwest, and how these small creatures hold the key to the health ecology of the region.

The last few days have been fun. My friend and I have been gathering furniture to make a group room, a little Soul Sanctuary, here in Nelson. I knew I was coming back to New Zealand to create a retreat centre and had no idea how that would happen, and here is the first small and simple manifestation of my dream; a place where people can gather to raise consciousness and step into the bigger space and energy of co-creation.

My heart sings. It’s such a wonderful feeling when things come together easily like this. I’ve been studying and practicing and inquiring into the creative process all my life, yet it still remains a mystery. Numerous people have written about the process of manifestation, talked about it, made dvds about it, yet how do we actually translate all those ideas into practice? And what makes the difference between success and failure? Why is it that sometimes things flow easily and effortlessly, like the group room, and other times, try as we might our efforts only meet with frustration and disappointment ?

I’m remembering how, as a younger woman, I experienced an ease of creation most of the time. So much so it was as if I was charmed. For example, when I decided I was ready to start working as a Gestalt therapist, I declared I would have four clients by the next week. And I did. Around the same time I started my first business, Teamwork, and with no experience of how to run a business, I easily acquired a weekly allowance and swanned into the bank for a small loan to get me started. It all lined up effortlessly.

A decade later my lucky charm appeared to fail. Rubbing my Aladdin’s lamp to bring forth these easy connections with business and money, brought forth meager results. Or, at least that’s how it appeared to me at the time. What had changed?

The first thing I notice when I look back on my younger self is, I didn’t have any doubts. There was no gap between my desire and my expectation of success. That surety was sometimes interpreted by others as arrogance; I was sovereign in my domain and commanded reality to follow my will. I didn’t worry about whether things would work out or not. There was a seamless movement from desire to action.

Yet, at the same time, this confidence was built on shaky foundations and when push came to shove I easily crumbled. As a manifestor , I had a lot to learn about standing in my power and carrying things through all the way to the end.  During my 30’s I experienced several painful personal disappointments and traumatic group events which fragmented my sense of self. It was as if I had been ambushed and my magic lantern smashed.  At the same time this fragmentation opened up deeper dimensions of Self and I entered into my journey of deep soul healing. It has taken many years to piece the lantern back together again in a new way. Now I see it whole and burnished and glowing with light.

The other day, I was looking for something to read and my friend handed me a copy of “Ask and it is Given” by Esther and Jerry  Hicks. I had seen this book many times yet never been attracted to it. Now, I was reluctant at first yet, as I started to read, the magic of the words communicated to me.

It’s message is very similar to the movie, The Secret.  Here is a brief summary:

Source energy is a stream of well being.

We are one with Source.

Whatever we ask for, we are given.

We will only receive what we ask for when we are open to receive it. That means our energy has to be aligned with the well being of Source.

When our energy is not so aligned, we receive a reflection of our lower consciousness energy. Or, in other words we receive a reflection of our fear, resentment,  feelings of unworthiness or disempowerment.  ( And our failure to manifest what we desire  then reinforces those feelings of unworthiness and disempowerment.)

Our emotions are a surefire guide to show us when we are aligned or not aligned with the well being of Source. When we are aligned we feel positive and radiate good will. When we are not aligned we feel miserable and vibrate at a lower level.

The Aladdin’s lamp of manifestation is our radiant Source energy and our first responsibility as a powerful manifestor is to keep this Source energy burning bright.

Old trauma in our energy system blocks Source energy. There are still relatively few people on the planet who have reached a stable state of enlightened consciousness and are at Source constantly. Most of us on a conscious path are in a process of healing and mending the holes in our psychic foundations. I call this being on the Soul Journey, the journey to remember who we truly are and reconnect with our true power. When we become consciously engaged with this process we start manifesting more from a soul level rather than from the needs of the personality. The personality is concerned with self image, with looking good and feeling good and being seen to have it altogether. The old paradigm consumer culture caters to the needs of the personality. The soul is on a very different mission and is only concerned with truth, wholeness and unconditional love and acceptance. What we manifest from soul we are often shown how we are not yet whole, and from the personality’s point of view this can look like failure. It wounds our immature narcissism to be seen as needy, disheveled, wanting, not knowing, impoverished. All those years when I thought I wasn’t being successful I was actually manifesting  powerfully, but  because I was in a process of stripping away the old, rather than adding something to myself, I didn’t always recognize what came to me as being for my good. When we can learn to welcome everything that comes as a manifestation of the sacred mirror of life and part of our soul’s healing, then we live in gratitude and gratitude connects us with Source.

In my Soul Weaving Mentoring Programme for women, I encourage participants to consciously trawl back through their lives to discover the unconscious patterns still lurking in the psyche. This takes courage because most of us would rather keep going and get by and not have to dig around in old pain and misery. But we can’t build an empowered present and future on shaky foundations. Many of these old disempowering patterns are collective patterns: fears and hurts held in collective memory, from way back, from the witch burnings for example, or the Holocaust. When we free these patterns in ourselves, we create an energy field in which others can more easily and quickly free themselves. In this way, as Soul Weavers, we contribute to the collective liberation of consciousness.

It takes a compelling reason to do this deep soul healing. Sometimes that reason is, we are simply sick of our own misery and self sabotage. Or, we wake up to the realization of the interconnectedness of all life and know we can be conscious creators of A Whole New World. In order to be so we desire to be the very best creator we can be; one who can build truly on firm foundations.

My first group event in my little Soul Sanctuary in Nelson, will be a Soul Weaving Mentoring Programme for creative and visionary women who are building projects and businesses which make a positive difference in the world. I will also soon be offering a short course on the Soul Journey. If you don’t live in Nelson, both of these programmes will be run as teleclasses very soon and can be accessed from anywhere in the world.  I also offer 1-1 coaching and mentoring sessions in person or on the phone. Please email me in the first instance for more information and if you haven’t already done so, sign up for the A Whole New World newsletter in the box above.

Until next time, have  a very soulful week.

Rose Diamond, August 4th 2010

As soon as I stepped onto the Air New Zealand plane for the flight from LA to Auckland, I experienced a difference in the energy. The urgent go-go-go of the USA was left behind at the gate and the time chariot to transport me back to my soul home stood waiting and vibrating with calm presence.

I noticed a slight irritation in response to the calm atmosphere, as if a stimulant or adrenaline rush had been suddenly withdrawn, leaving a bland absence. I’ve heard people speculating that a peaceful world will be boring. Don’t we all thrive on drama? Or are we simply habituated to it?  Could we live without the constant drive for self improvement, to get ahead, get by, keep it altogether, be heard, be seen, be someone, make a difference, tweet, twitter and jump at the sound of the next email dropping into the inbox?

After many months concentrated work in creating my internet business, I jumped streams and crossed the world to re-discover how it feels to be unplugged. It’ a long way to go for a rest, I joked, as I contemplated the 33 hour journey. I wasn’t sure if this overwhelming desire to return to New Zealand, my former home for 12 years, which had arisen like a whale breaking the surface of resistance, was an act of self sabotage, or, as all my friends assured me from the vantage point of objectivity, was exactly what I needed to do.

I will soon find out.

After we touched ground, the same sense of calm accompanied me through passport control and customs and on to the domestic lounge of Auckland airport, where a four hour wait afforded me the opportunity to watch and observe. By now I was deeply relaxed and mindless and I remembered Eckhart Tolle’s two years on a park bench. Yes, I could get into this. As I watched the comings and goings of lean attractive women, happy laughing men, beautiful children; Maori, European and Asian faces, I felt no separation. I was seeing with my heart’s eyes, One Family.

The energy in New Zealand is very soft and Yin, the people are open, friendly, helpful, natural and smile often. It was this that attracted me on my first visit, 15 years ago when I made the choice to stay and make the South Island my home. I was on my Soul Journey and my soul was stirred and soothed. And now a new chapter of the Soul Journey unfolds.

And then it dawned on me: this is A Whole New World. It’s already here. I know I am prone to idealize New Zealand and like any other country it has its shadow side. But I know peace when I find it and I could sense my being vibrating on a higher level of consciousness in tune with this environment.

A beautiful day blessed my return to the South Island and sunny Nelson as we flew over the Land of the Long White Cloud and the clear sparkling waters. And when we touched down and I stood on the land again, I didn’t cry as I thought I might, but laughed when I turned to see the mountains capped with snow, and the glorious spaciousness of the land/seascape. I had been away for three and a half years yet it was all so vibrantly familiar and homely, time seemed to collapse.

The next day, July 25^th was the Mayan Day out of Time and I went to a celebration of Time is Art. This was such a typical Nelson community event in the beautiful community house where I’ve given and received so many workshops and gatherings. Old friends and familiar faces, dance meditation, thai curry and chai, a dvd of Jose Arguelles reminding us that it is Time, and a concert from the Gong Masters with their big gongs tuned to the Earth and the Moon and Chiron, that resonate through and bathe the whole being. Who-hoo, I’m home!

Arguelles spoke of the necessity, for those of us who intend to hold a higher frequency of consciousness, to unplug from the distraction of technology and open our minds and hearts to the higher intelligence of the Cosmos and of the Earth and to expand  our telepathic abilities. He urged us to surrender totally, to give up the illusion of control. Nothing is more important than holding this higher energy now.

Personally, I don’t want to give up all my technological tools. I value the global community I have been able to create and participate in using the telephone and internet. An important part of the mission of A Whole New World is to help to join up all the little lights of conscious community into one big light of radiant consciousness, and technology has an important part to play in this. Yet, it is just this calling to be closer and more attuned to the Earth and the Cosmos that has brought me back to New Zealand. I crave immersion in Being and Nature to balance the focused work of building and creating the new culture.

It feels very important at this time to follow these inner callings, to find this balance, to create situations where we can listen to the emerging wisdom of the universe and drink deeply at the well of renewal. May you all find these blessings.

An earlier talk by Arguelles,   vodpod.com/watch/ 578447-2012-spiritual-journey-jose-arguelles

Dvds from the Prophets Conference http://www.prophetsconference.com/audio.html

If you are interested in joining me for an exploration of the Soul Journey, I will be giving and introductory teleclass soon. Please email me to express your interest.  rose@awholenewworld.net

Photo by Henrique Araujo, www.henriquearaujo.com

Unplugging, July 27th, 2010, Rose Diamond

As with any soul adventure, when I began the work which metamorphosed into A Whole New World I had no idea where it would lead me.

I’ve just completed a course in Integral Enlightenment in which we focused on understanding the evolutionary impulse and becoming more aware of all the faces of ego so we can free ourselves from these limited stories. Creating a whole new world is definitely the work of the evolutionary impulse, the drive in us to create the highest we can imagine.

It is the parlous condition of the unholy havoc being wreaked on nature and culture, which calls out the impulse towards wholeness; a means of balancing the energy towards equilibrium and homeostasis.  I see each one of us as being involved consciously or unconsciously in this balancing.

I can look upon the task of balancing the world from the point of view of one individual soul, one drop in the ocean, or I can look at it from the point of view of the ocean, the interconnected waters of the world.

So let’s contemplate for one moment the ocean of intelligence, you and I, as conscious individuals, are part of.

First we are part of the intelligence of nature and nature’s been around a long, long time and has survived many earth and climate changes.  The intelligence of nature is awe inspiring when you stop to consider the perfection of a flower; the way the human body keeps on going according to its own plan without us having to give it a thought; and the intricately finely balanced web of life in which everything in the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms is recycled and interdependent. This is an intelligence we would do well to befriend.

And then there’s the intelligence of the cosmos, a great vastness of finely balanced atomic particles, planetary bodies, black holes and mystery, all held together and kept in motion by universal laws. Surely, it is from this vast mystery the evolutionary impulse emerges.?

Are we wounded and imperfect humans a growing tip of the Universe? Are we the rainbow bridge stretching from Heaven to Earth and from Earth to Heaven?

And then we have the intelligence of the heart as part of our ocean: our feeling for each other, our compassion for human frailty and suffering, our ability to empathize and feel  with and for each other; to love each other despite our faults and failures.

Another part of our ocean of the Good, the True and the Beautiful are the enlightened souls who have gone before us, or who walk in the world with us as examples that it is possible to transcend the limitations of ego, to find wholeness and holiness and dissolve forever the imagined boundaries between self and other, self and world.

The evolutionary impulse is urging us toward unity consciousness; the knowledge that we are each a drop in this vast ocean of intelligence, energy, flow, the natural laws of homeostasis, balance and chaos.

And yes, there are those who are plundering the ocean but life is self renewing, self healing, infinitely experimental and perservering.

One drop in the ocean has the power to effect all the other drops. Water is responsive and communicative, it carries and conveys vibrational messages and feelings.

What message is your drop communicating today?  Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?

The problem is that we see ourselves as separate, competing, ailing. The solution is to know we are one global organism, moving in many different dimensions with multiple streams of intelligence available to us at all times.

When we move beyond our skin encapsulated egos and stories of me, into the ocean of collective intelligence, we are powerful indeed.

Rose Diamond

photo from www.flkir.com, h.koppdelaney

Woods and I were having a conversation this morning over breakfast as we relaxed into the blessedly cooler weather. We’ve been steaming for weeks here in Virginia, blaming it on global warming.  We were using big words like Hope, Faith, Trust and Commitment as we explored our perceptions of current collective reality here in the States. Woods is a counter-cultural American and I’m a new cultural global citizen, and we were attempting to come to terms with the puncturing of the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico and what this portends for humanity.  Surely, along with the failing economy, this has to herald the end of Imperial America; the end of a phase of human civilization, or uncivilization, depending on where you’re standing. As an American Woods is well aware that voicing such perceptions out loud is political heresy, and as an American he is very despondent about the way events are unfolding in his country.

Throughout history, humans have witnessed countless apocalypses. What was it like for people when the Ice Ages arrived , or when Atlantis, Lemuria or Gondwanaland sank beneath the waves? Or when the great Chinese dynasty collapsed, or the Greek and Roman civilizations waned in power? Closer to home the 20^th Century was one of the most barbaric ever. Last year, whilst visiting in my native England I watched TV documentaries about the Second World War “blitz” when night after night and week after week thousands of megatons of bombs fell on cities like Coventry and London. Civilians ran for shelter below ground and hunkered down together waiting to see if they still had a home, a street, a city, a life, when the bombing stopped. What struck me as I watched was how the barbarity of the war and the resilience of the human spirit lived side by side, how we humans thrive on drama, and how intrinsic to life is the determination to survive.

What would our world be like if we were able to move beyond the drama of good guys and bad guys and transcend duality?

What is an appropriate stance to take in response to the destruction of the natural world and the obliteration of cultures; to the continuance of unjust imperial wars and widening social inequality? If we really open our hearts to it all, how do we live with the pain of it? What do we do with our fear, rage and grief? If we don’t express these feelings where do they go? And if we do express them what further havoc do we release into the world? Isn’t it easier to numb and dumb ourselves and live in denial as the docile wage slaves who keep the unjust system going?

Let’s take a breath! These are hefty considerations.

I see a Libran figure balancing the scales of justice. If we put all the horror and suffering into one side of the scale, what is on the other side balancing it and keeping the world turning despite it all?

Well there’s the resilience of the human spirit I spoke of earlier, and there’s the new evolutionary consciousness, and the collective enlightenment through the ages,  There’s faith in the goodness and natural justice of the cosmos. I have carried this like  a candle flame in my heart. Is this hope?

The great spiritual teacher, Krishnamurti, said hope doesn’t serve us. What serves us and our evolution is facing reality and then using what we see and know to motivate right action. Which is action on behalf of the whole and on behalf of what is life giving and life renewing.

I tend to agree with him. This is what I notice in myself.  Sometimes fear comes. I experience it as a wave, a contraction in my torso and I know I have a choice in this moment. I can choose to go with the fear and spiral down into what ifs. Or I can choose to recognize that I don’t know and when I do this I move into a bigger, freer space.

I don’t know. There are forces at play much bigger than me. We inhabit a cosmic mystery.

What if in this boundless mystery I do make a difference? What if my thoughts make a difference? And my emotional state makes a difference? And my actions make a difference. What if I am one cell in a bigger organism and whatever I am experiencing is immediately communicated to every other cell in the whole body? What if this is the way collective consciousness works?  Certainly, it’s easy to see the truth of this in my immediate environment. When I’m peaceful and contented everything flows better, when I’m oozing with resentment the energy is palpable and offensive to others. Have you noticed how, when you’re with someone with a big energy, you relax and expand and when someone’s feeling mean and petty you contract and move away?

By choosing to stay peaceful and contented amidst the unknown and the chaos of the world, I am choosing to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. The more I make this choice, the more I am in a state of equilibrium, no longer caught in the drama of good and bad, no longer attached to outcomes, but here in this moment.

And in this moment I can take an inspired action. I can create something new from a place of peace and love. This is empowering. And if the ship goes down, at least I’ll know I did what I could and I stayed true to myself. This is something.

Photo by Braveheart

I have just passed a happy couple of hours reading all the good news from Yes! Magazine, http://www.yesmagazine.org

I decided to copy this extract from an article by David Korten “The Big Picture: 5 ways to know if you’re making a difference.”  http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/the-big-picture-5-ways-to-know-if-youre-making-a-difference

This is so relevant to building a Whole New World, if we want a new world we have to each start living it today. Here is what David Korten has to say:

” This is the model I think of when I think about what it will take to build the New Economy—one based on fulfilling the basic needs of people and planet—that we need. It’s also the way that that economy is already being built: step by step, in creative and surprising ways, by people looking for alternatives to a system that isn’t working for them.

To bring down the institutions of Empire, we must begin to build the rules, relationships, and institutions of a New Economy. These must be lived into being from the bottom up.

So how do you know whether your work is contributing to a big-picture outcome? If you can answer yes to any one of the following five questions, then be assured that it is.

1. Does it help discredit a false cultural story fabricated to legitimize relationships of domination and exploitation and to replace it with a true story describing unrealized possibilities for growing the real wealth of healthy communities?
2. Is it connecting others of the movement’s millions of leaders who didn’t previously know one another, helping them find common cause and build relationships of mutual trust that allow them to speak honestly from their hearts and to know that they can call on one another for support when needed?
3. Is it creating and expanding liberated social spaces in which people experience the freedom and support to experiment with living the creative, cooperative, self-organizing relationships of the new story they seek to bring into the larger culture?
4. Is it providing a public demonstration of the possibilities of a real-wealth economy?
5. Is it mobilizing support for a rule change that will shift the balance of power from the people and institutions of the Wall Street phantom-wealth economy to the people and institutions of living-wealth Main Street economies?”

A Whole New World is aligned with all five of these questions and I’ll be exploring them on the A Whole New World Radio Show with some of my guests over the next three months. Join me at 1pmET at : http://www.realcoachingradio.net/content/live-studio-call-vip-show-hot-line-303-872-0503

Information about weekly guests will be posted on the Events page on this site.

Stay cool in troubled times and

PRACTICE RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS

In these troubled times we are challenged to be super-human; to extend beyond our human limitations into our divine powers of love, creativity, forgiveness and compassion.

We’re each experiencing the challenge of global breakdown and breakthrough on many different levels, from staying cool in relationships as old patterns hit the fan, to how we respond to the gushing oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

It takes enormous vigilance and courage to stay awake, aware and open-hearted; to see and feel without getting lost in fear or hopelessness.  Each of us has our own mental filter for interpreting events, colored by our political, religious or spiritual views, and distorted by our particular childhood wounds and traumas, the habitual ways we’ve learned to defend our hearts and minds. None of us sees the whole truth and to remember that is to remain humble and open to learning something new.

That’s one reason I love groups. Because even amongst like-minded people, everyone has a slightly different perspective and when we listen deeply to each other we can piece together and touch a larger truth.

Every Sunday, a small learning community, drawn from all over the US and Canada, meets for a one hour Soul Sanctuary on the telephone. We are holding an intention for planetary healing and experimenting with the best ways to direct our energies.

In the light of what appear to be profound and potentially far reaching disasters occurring around the world,  what can an individual or a group, do to make a difference? How do we become empowered?

Each person has a different answer to this. For some, political or environmental activism is the key, others are active in local communities. In our Soul Sanctuary group there’s a general agreement that shifting consciousness to higher levels is what will make the difference. We start with ourselves and our own consciousness and an intention to stay open, loving and creative; to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. In everyday life I do not always succeed in staying in this higher vibration, like everyone else I can be irritated, impatient, stressed, angry, sad, the whole gamut of contracted feelings. But in a group that meets with the express intention of expanding energy and consciousness, it’s much easier. And this weekly energy boost reminds each of us that we’re not alone but connected to a movement of conscious energy shifters around the planet.

The global crisis is real and serious, yet we don’t have to buy into a doomsday scenario, instead we can choose to live as if the Whole New World is already here and embody it right here and now.

Here are some suggestions for daily practice:

Breathe. Conscious breathing – following the breath all the way I  and all the way out – is delicious! Just two or three minutes will reconnect you with yourself and with all of life because all life shares the same air. Breath is life.

Take some time every day, preferably first thing, to be in nature. Drop your thoughts and come to your senses: smell, listen, touch, taste, see.  If you live in a city with no nature nearby, create your own corner of growing things and get a recording of water and birdsong.

Whenever you can, stand on the Earth with bare feet and feel your connection with the Earth, listen to what the Earth is communicating and talk back. Especially, tell the Earth how much you love and appreciate her for her beauty and bounty and all the ways she sustains us.

Think about all the things you love about your life and your immediate environment, no matter how bad life seems on a particular day we live like kings and queens compared to most people in the world and compared to how the majority lived 100 years ago. Appreciate, celebrate, be grateful, these feelings will immediately expand your heart and consciousness.

Once you connect with your heart energy, expand out from there to connect with all the other heart centered beings, let your heart light circle the world and hold it in a loving embrace.

Hold a vision for a whole new world, with the Earth restored to full glory.

From a place of unconditional love, feel the peace in your heart and connect soul to soul with all those who make decisions that affect our environment: the corporate leaders and politicians, speak to them from your heart.

Expand into the Universe and know how multi-dimensional and powerful you are.

And then, practice random acts of kindness and senseless beauty: smile at strangers, ask the person at the supermarket check-out how she is and mean it, walk the talk, be wildly experimental with giving, give 100%, and have fun!

Listen here to a planetary healing meditation from our Sunday Soul Sanctuary:

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If you would like to join us in the weekly telephone link up for Soul Sanctuary please email me:

rose@awholenewworld.net

Have you been sorting out and letting go recently? I know it’s a nightmare for some people when the time comes to face the chaos of accumulated possessions. But what a relief it is to live more simply without so much stuff.

When I look back through my own life the only thing constant is change! I’ve lived in four different countries so far, and in the end it just gets ridiculous to keep carting things across the world.

Here’s an extract from my Soul Journey book, Migration to the Heartland, where I describe  the process I call “sorting the seeds” because it’s more than physical stuff we’re sorting, we’re also defining who we are now when we sift through our possessions and let go of what we no longer need. This is part of the adventure of becoming more authentic: this is me; that’s not me; this I need, that I don’t need.

“Just in case the peace and abundance should prove too much I had a little challenge to contend with – the attic!

I had already disposed of many of my belongings, but those that remained were stored here in the Highlands.  The dilemma of how to sort my stuff preoccupied and teased me.  My treasure was fifty miles away, guarded by an unfriendly dragon.  I had no transport and nowhere to do the sorting.  It was midwinter and the days were very short.  I could afford to transport a few cartons to New Zealand and I had to get rid of the rest.  I had no idea how I was going to accomplish this task.

A few days after Christmas, Gem drove me along the coast and deposited me at the house which had been my home for nine months.  It was a mild, damp day with weak sunshine and I stood outside the house for a few moments smelling the farmyard aromas of the next-door croft mixed with the tang of seaweed from the sea loch below.  The land was stripped to essentials; a few deft strokes sketched the mountains and the loch in shades of grey and mauve.  Four years ago I’d fallen in love with the view of sea loch and mountains and sat in inspiration before them writing my first book.  I’d explored the myth of Eros and Psyche and set out on my journey towards conscious loving.  Now, like Psyche, I was being challenged to “sort the seeds.”

I climbed the ladder to the attic and pushed up the trap door.  My heart fell: there was much more than I had remembered; a great pile of books, records, clothes, photographs, papers, crockery, camping gear and other miscellania.  I had to sort this now into what was essential for my new life and what I no longer needed.  I had to be quick too because I didn’t want to spend any more time than was absolutely necessary in this cold, gloomy space where I wasn’t welcome.

Conflicting desires and impulses warred within me.  A vision of traveling light with just one bag danced before my eyes.  I could go cold turkey and get rid of everything, but if I was to let go I wanted to know what I was letting go of.  My goal was to integrate the old self into the new rather than disown it.  Besides, there were old friends here – records, books, journals, clothes, photographs ….  I started to unpack the boxes and in a very short time had created chaos: clothes in big colourful piles, boxes of books and papers spilling onto the floor.

I tried on some of the clothes.  I’d bought this salmon-pink silk shirt for the launch of the Leadership manual – how on Earth had I got into it?  And here was my winter coat, which I’d survived without now for three winters.  It had that smart-woman-about-town-executive look that would be silly in Nelson but it was warm and comforting all the same.  There were high-heeled shoes, which I’d never wear again, and hardly worn cowboy boots.  Everything I picked up was shrouded with memories and soon the attic was jostling with places, people and events which spun threads of emotion around me.  This was indeed the dragon’s lair and I knew that the ghost of my former self was here amongst all this rubble.  I had to find her and set her free.  My rising panic at the enormity of the task made it more difficult to contact my gut feelings and make decisions.  It was like sorting the effects of a dead person, only that person was me and I pinched myself to make sure I was still alive.  I wanted to travel light, to shed whatever was not essential.  But how was I to know what was essential and what wasn’t?

When Gem mercifully arrived to carry me back to the ongoing Christmas festivities, I stuffed piles of photographs and some of the journals into plastic bags and fled.  Now our midwinter feast with its earthy laziness was interspersed with detours into the past.  With the journals and photographs as evidence I was a detective on the trail of self-discovery.  I wanted to know what myths I was carrying about myself and I felt ready to face the truth.

As Gem and I sat before the roaring fire that night I said, “I’ve been thinking how liberating it would be to let go of all the books and papers in the attic and reduce my personal possessions to one change of clothes and a notebook …  Or no, not even a notebook …  What if I give up my studious life of reading and writing and start looking for truth instead in the people and daily events that flow naturally through my life?  What a radical departure that would be to live in such simplicity.  And what a challenge! ”

Gem looked back at me impassively.

“I’m fantasizing dragging everything down to the shoreline of the loch and creating a big bonfire to burn my past life.  I could even burn the book I’m so diligently writing.”

“Why?” Gem asked, poker faced.

“Then I’d be really free from attachments.  I’d have a clean slate, with all the past wiped out.  Get rid of all my karma.  Boom!”

I sat for some time contemplating this purification by fire.  As I watched the flames leaping I experienced moment by moment the conflict between my desire to let go of all attachments and sit gloriously emptied in the present, and my identification with my history.

“If I let go completely and razed my old life to the ground, maybe I’d be catapulted into an expansion of consciousness, a lightness of being, a spaciousness ….  Too many possessions and attachments to the past cloud the new reality I’m reaching for, make me feel cramped and congested …. On the other hand if I let go of everything I might become so insubstantial that I’ll float away.”  I was remembering the Peace Walk and my insecurity at having no home base.  “If I put a match to this motley pile of possessions and memories will I walk away victorious or foolish?”

I looked at Gem for an answer and she looked straight back at me.

A few days after New Year I returned to the attic to continue sifting and sorting.  In the end I decided against the fire.  It was tempting to think of standing so shriven of the past, yet I knew now that I didn’t want to destroy my history.  I wanted to appreciate it for the treasure house it was.  So I sorted the books and packed those I most needed.  I took CD’s, tapes and stereo.  The remaining books and records I left with friends to collect another time.  I did decide I would read and then burn my journals, for they contained stories I had told once and didn’t need to tell again.  After I’d read them I would remake the stories as I re-created myself.

After two days in the attic “sorting the seeds” I stuffed as much I could into Gem’s car and fled.  I couldn’t bear to spend any more time in that cold, gloomy space sorting the debris of the past from its treasures.  I’d been watching a movie of my life for days, an intense emotional roller coaster of a movie: dismay tipping over into amazement, shame side by side with admiration.  In the end what I felt was a deep sobriety.  I carried the parcel of journals under my arm. This was my life so far.  I wanted to honour it.  As I closed the hatchway into the attic I saw the cobwebs lit up by the last rays of the wintry sun and knew that I was leaving behind several veils of illusion.

From “Migration to the Heartland: A Soul Journey in Aotearoa” See

http://www.awholenewworld.net/books.htm

I will soon be offering a free introductory teleclass exploring the Soul Journey, please email me:

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