“It’s been raining for four days here in New Zealand and with Christmas coming up and the economy bleak, there must be millions and millions of people in the world, suffering and afraid. It’s easy to get pulled down into negative thinking, limitation and a spiral of disempowerment. As an evolutionary and new culture maker, I know that no matter how precarious my own life situation appears to be, I am still one of the most privileged people in the world, and one of the most vital services I can offer is to keep holding open the space of possibility and trust. I can choose where I put my attention and intention.”

I would add to that now, that the space of possibility has to be held from a place of clear open eyed and awake seeing of the dangers we are all in. We need to deeply and courageously know the gravity of our global crisis so that we can respond appropriately. There is no place for denial or complacency.
I’m holding together this need for the shedding of illusion with a deepening insight into the interconnectedness, and abundance of the universe. Even though the universe may appear to be an impersonal force, I had strong sense of being take care of in a personal way throughout the disaster. In a way that is quite difficult to put into words I experienced the place where the personal I and the universe intersect and influence each other. A friend referred to this recently as mystical physics. A movement arises from this meeting of little mind and Big Mind. Any sense of separation I had before the flood has been replaced by a knowing that I am interwoven with all of life. And so are you.

I know I am not separate from nature. This was not something nature did to us, rather nature is responding to the imbalances caused by the unsustainable practices of humans, so human and nature are one movement of cause and effect. Similarly I don’t see myself as separate from the generosity of people and the universe, I understand that I am creating my reality each and every moment by the thoughts and intentions I choose to have and the actions I take. I know now I am much stronger and have more resources to draw on than I thought and that reality is more mysterious than I knew. You could say that my connection with life has deepened.

I am still in the midair of transition. I know everything has changed but I’m not sure what that means in terms of actions I will take. Being homeless is “inconvenient”, it upsets one’s plans, illusions, certainties and sense of being in control. Yet it offers amazing lessons in being in the flow of an ever changing reality, in holding the complexities of life in both hands and learning how to keep finding an ever deepening truth to align with within the paradoxes. I am learning how to stand on my surfboard and ride the slipstream. Wanna join me?

I felt all of this and yet I also knew that as a white westerner I am one of the most privileged people in the world and I knew I would be taken care of. I thought of all those millions of people all over the world who are made homeless by natural disaster, or war, or other forms of social injustice, and who are forced to leave with only what they can carry, with no certainty of finding food and shelter.

I am sure this flood was caused by global warming, by our human inability to live in harmony with nature, and these disasters are happening in all countries. Our disaster was too small to make international news and, compared to the floods in Queensland or Pakistan or parts of Europe, or the tsunami in Japan it was a relatively gentle wake up call. I became aware how much we are all suffering from compassion fatigue and unable to respond to disaster. Over the days as I met people on the street I told them that our home had been destroyed and most people looked blankly back at me and quickly changed the subject. I began to better understand the massive denial we mostly live with in response to our global environmental and humanitarian crisis, and the fragile illusion of solidity that is our “civilization”. I also came to see how essentially the whole shebang is only held together by human and universal love, a force much bigger and more magnificence than little “me” .

For 3 weeks we had no internet access and very little phone access and yet we managed to reach out and find the help we needed.  The community of Golden Bay and the universe came through for us big time. Whilst we carried boxes, sorted stuff and sat in the uncertainty of where to from here, we were showered with abundance.  It was nearly Christmas and summertime when accommodation is at a premium in Golden Bay, and yet we were never without a place to stay, and it all fell into place effortlessly. We were treated to eight days in a fabulous cliff top luxury holiday home , completely free,  and from there to another beauty spot, and yet another. This gave us a sense of expansive possibility and deep gratitude which kept us buoyed through what was also a demanding process. Whenever we thought we had reached a place where we could rest another challenge arose.  For Maggie, one such challenge was securing all her art work, and for me, it was discovering that my computer had been attacked by viruses and needed to be completely deconstructed and reconstructed.

Have you ever experienced this too, that a time of crisis can present the most wonderful and unexpected riches in the form of new insights, overwhelming feelings of love and gratitude, or simply recognizing the generosity of the human spirit? Can you relate to this idea of being a container for the complexity of human experience? There is a challenge in seeing both the horror and the beauty of experience all at once; holding our fear and our courage and hope, and taking the next step into the unknown.

There can’t be many people alive on the planet just now who aren’t touched by crisis is some way, whether that’s a personal healing crisis, financial crisis, relationship crisis, or being hit by a “natural” disaster as a result of climate change. My own experience has revealed  so much that has deepened my understanding of healing, creativity, the soul journey and our collective evolution. I am looking forward to sharing much more with you and growing with you through 2012.

Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter on this page to stay connected with A Whole New World.

A Whole New Human launched yesterday with a wonderful deep discovery conversation with Barry Brailsford, New Zealand author and wisdom carrier. As I was preparing for the interview and taking another look at some of Barry’s books, a whole piece of my own story came flooding back. I arrived in New Zealand in late 1994 from the UK. I was personally and politically disillusioned. Much as I loved Scotland where I had lived for nearly 20 years, I didn’t love the Trident missiles, nuclear power plants, fall-out from Chernobyl, nuclear dumping, or the conservative government which had just been re-elected for a third term. I had been working intensively with people to support change from the inside out and within organizations and institutions. I was soul weary and in need of renewal.

And then my path converged with Barry Brailsford and I heard him tell some of the stories of this land. He told of the People of Peace who had lived in the ways of peace for a thousand years, and the way he spoke connected me with the Earth and the stars and the heart. He inspired me to set out on my own journey to discover what it means to be a person of peace. I know he has inspired many thousands of people all over the world. The same thing happened yesterday when I spoke with him in our interview, I could feel the truth of his words rippling through my being.

Over the last few years it has become apparent to me that a part of my calling or soul work is to spread some of these seeds of inspiration through my enterprise A Whole New World. This started with my book, Living Your Passion: How Love-in-action is seeding a Whole New World, where I interviewed 20+ New Zealanders who I came to know as the new culture makers: people who are creating communities and businesses, or working sustainably with the land, in alignment with whole-person values. I then became a radio show host, first on internet radio in the States and this year with the Passionate Women Show on Fresh FM. In doing the interviews I discovered it’s something I love to do and I have a gift for it. I love creating a space for others to talk about what is most important to them and when we speak from that place of passion and authenticity it is always inspiring to others.

Awaken the Whole New Human grew from this desire to spread seeds of inspiration for growing a whole new world by sharing the gifts I have been given and supporting others to share their gifts. The first series flowed in as much as I lined up a wonderful group of speakers for the New Zealand launch of the journey: Makuini Ruth Tai, Maori spiritual teacher, will talk about Aroha Light Language on September 13th; John Broomfield, author and shamanic/integral teacher will speak on Other Ways of Knowing, September 15th; Anahata Ishaya, Ishaya monk and Oneness Blessing Trainer will speak about her own process of awakening, September 17th; Margaret Jefferies, visionary grassroots leader will talk about her community in Port Lyttelton after the earthquakes, September 19th; Richard Oswald of the Eden Foundation will talk about awakening practical solutions to some of our common problems, September 23rd, and I will do a session on September 21st on Empower your Creative Genius, with collage Joey Walters from Scotland. There’s also a bonus recording with co-creator of A Whole New World, Woods Elliott, on the process of awakening, and an introductory session with Joey and me.

So I had an inspiring vision, and a plan, and I’d already spent several years building the infrastructure for A Whole New World as an internet based enterprise. Now all I had to do was build the next piece of technical infrastructure to support this series of interviews. Well! This is where it started to get interesting in terms of process. I think you would need to have an internet based enterprise yourself to fully understand what goes on behind the scenes. I am not a “techie” person. I’m more of an intuitive, visionary, big picture thinker and when I spend too much time around precision and details I start to feel cramped and eventually ungrounded and even unwell. Having said that, I’ve been amazed how much I’ve learned over the last six years which I never would have dreamed I could have mastered. And the learning goes on; it seems to be never ending, there is always more.

Anyway, having set out on this mission to take A Whole New World to its next level and do justice to a wonderful group of speakers by creating some fine, inspiring interviews to share, I have been tested over the last few weeks every step of the way. I won’t enumerate all the technical hitches and obstructions that have arisen, suffice it to say there have been many. And I have been doing all of this on a budget so tiny you can barely see it! Oftentimes I have felt like a spider weaving the threads of life from my being and launching across the void on my fine thread. How do those spiders do it? What holds them up as they spin the threads from their being? And what holds us up as we lay the tracks into the future from our passion?
Before I tell you some of the things I have learned from this process of overcoming obstructions, I’d like to tell you the last piece, which happened yesterday. I’ve been living for the last two months in an amazing sustainable adobe house, or actually a group of houses, on top of a hill, on the wild side of Golden Bay, with only wind and solar power and internet via satellite. Everything works fine as long as it’s sunny! When the clouds come in the internet becomes unreliable and I need internet in order to manage the calls. So, launch day arrived yesterday and it was pouring with rain! For almost the entire previous two months it had been mostly sunny and bright, today rain and low lying cloud. Ok. I got up early, tested the internet, tested the phone, went and started up the generator, prayed to the weather gods to lift the cloud and calmly prepared myself for the interview at 11am. At 9.45 my house mate came in and said, “Rose I think you need to go and do the interview somewhere else, the internet isn’t working and I know how important this is to you. “ I considered. To drive to my friend’s house on the other side of the Bay would take 45 minutes, that meant I had to leave right now, this minute. She was insistent and I realized she was right, grabbed my computer and my notebook, hurtled through the mists and down the hill in the 4WD, jumped into my car and set off at breakneck speed through the pouring rain, past the fast rising rivers, into the howling winds. I made it to Maggies’ just in time and did the interview with Barry. With a little help from my friends I’d managed to find within myself what it took to be present at the starting line.

This article is already long so maybe I will share some of the learnings in the next article. You see, this isn’t just about me. I’m pretty sure that anybody setting out to be a new culture maker, to weave the new world from their own being, will be faced with challenges and obstacles along the way, just as I have been. Your challenges and obstacles will be different from mine but we will all be tested. It is said that the greater our commitment the greater the challenges we have to overcome. Sharing our stories creates a common understanding and a common language: community. That’s what this is all about for me: doing everything I can to bring a vision of community into reality. As Barry Brailsford said:
“”Remember the journey is everything. It is the destination.”
“ If we lose our story, we lose our dream and if we lose our dream, the spirit dies.”

It is time to weave the new stories of the Whole New Human from our being and stretch across the void, to create A Whole New World.
If you would like to sign up for the Awaken the Whole New Human series please go here to register: http://www.awholenewworld.net/awaken

The recorded interview with Barry will be available to listen to until Friday this week, and the other live interviews will be happening every other day until Friday 23rd September. Then there will be a second leg of the journey starting in October.

Rose Diamond September 12th 2011
P.S. Today the sun is shining. Dare I go back to my visioning place on the top of the hill on the wild side?

For all of us living here in Aotearoa – New Zealand life took one of those irreversible shifts last Tuesday when we heard about the quake in Christchurch.

Those who have lost loved ones or whose homes and livelihoods have been destroyed, it is too soon to talk about the opportunities loss brings. Grief and mourning are a sacred process which unfolds over time and can’t be hurried. Likewise shock and trauma need time to heal.

Those of us who have been shaken, but not physically affected, are going through our own process each in our own way. The first question on most people’s lips is, “Do you have family and friends in Christchurch?” then, “How can I help?” and then “What does this mean for Christchurch and for the country as a whole? And inevitably, “Will there be another quake?”

At some fundamental level our sense of security is shaken and I venture to suggest that although this is grave, grievous and scary, we can choose to see it as an opportunity.

Papatuanuku, our Earth Mother, is shaking us awake and touching our hearts. She is speaking to us and through us. She is showing up in all our interactions. What do you hear her saying?

These are some of the things I am hearing:

1. We are all connected and we are all in this together.

In so many practical ways this crisis reveals the infrastructure we depend upon and take for granted: power, water, sewage, telephone, workplaces, schools, food transportation and storage, protection for crime, the regular rhythm of our day which keeps the economy and the country running. When these services are interrupted we have an opportunity to step back and see how many people we depend upon, just how interconnected we all are and how blessed we are.

2. The most important thing is to love and take care of each other.

When we are made vulnerable by loss and disaster the heart opens and we are more aware of our own feelings and more available to each other. This is a wonderful opportunity to let go of old hurts, judgments and resentments that have been keeping us separated from each other and to see each other anew. Have you been noticing these opportunities arising in your daily life? Are you feeling called to take more risks with friends and family in a gentle way? To break free of old habits which have kept you captive? Are you expressing more appreciation and gratitude of those you love?

3. We need to stay awake and alert and follow our own heart and truth.

The animals know when danger is coming and they run for cover. We humans have our own psychic radar that tells us where we need to be and what we need to do in any moment. At the time of the quake on Tuesday I was at Pupu Springs, the sacred waters of Golden Bay, with an overseas visitor who had flown up from Christchurch the day before. It seems this is a time when we all need to stay very attuned to what is right for us, not to be ruled by should and ought tos but to be moved by the heart. It seems important also to stay open to joy and to acknowledge all the gifts life is constantly showering upon us, in whatever form they come wrapped in.

4. We are One Global Family.

Our interconnectedness starts here at home and spreads out to encompass the whole world. The Earth Mother is erupting everywhere. The small community of Cockermouth in the Lake District was devastated by flood in 2009,  floods came too to the people of Pakistan, Queensland, Europe, Bolivia; the people in the Gulf of Mexico suffered the most horrendous oil disaster; in Haiti a terrible quake took many lives; in Western Australia and California, fires raged; in Indonesia an awful volcanic eruption. The world is in chaos and sometimes there is just too much to respond to; we switch off, we go a little numb, we busy ourselves with what we can do. Yet right now is a moment to remember that we are all One Family. Despite all our different languages, cultures, ethnicities, colours of skin, religions, we are all more alike than different. As his Holiness the Dalai Lama has said, “All human beings have two things in common: we all long to be happy and we all suffer.” What would it really mean to live as one human family?   How would you live that on a daily basis?

5. This is an opportunity to rebuild in a new more humane and sustainable way.

One of my teachers, Joanna Macy, calls this the time of the Great Turning, others have called it the Great Awakening, or the Great Compassion. If we want a more humane world in which each one of us is honoured for who we are, living a whole and holy life together, it is up to each one of us to create that. It starts in the heart and we live it through all our relationships.

Namaste,

Rose Diamond.

P.S. If you are a woman living at the top of the SouthIsland of New Zealand, or indeed if you would like to come up from Christchurch, my one day Soul Sisters Retreats provide space for processing, connecting, deepening, community building and renewal. We will be meeting In Cable Bay, near Nelson on Sunday 13^th March and in Tukurua, Golden Bay on Sunday March 20^th. Genuine inquiries please leave a comment and your email address and I will contact you.

March 1st 2011

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

How do you know what your unique gifts are? That’s a great question. And what I love about great questions is, as soon as you ask them the answers start to show up in the next person you meet, the book you pick up, from your dog or from the trees; the question becomes a magnet drawing to you what you need, and everything and everyone becomes your guide.

The first realization which comes to me when I contemplate this question is: your gifts aren’t in what you do, they are in who you are. When you truly, fully, authentically be who you are by showing up and being present, you are the gift!

This can be difficult to understand because most of us are action oriented, we want to do something and we want to master an art or a craft or a skill. Bringing our gifts into the world is part of our human nature to expand and evolve.  But our unique gift is in our being. Have you noticed for example when someone with a calm peaceful energy enters a room something shifts for everyone, they don’t have to say anything, it’s their state of being that makes the difference.

We’re all so self critical it’s difficult to accept that just being who we are is enough. Yet being fully who we are helps everyone. Co-creation and collaboration are much talked about these days; these are the skills we need to learn if we’re going to survive, thrive and evolve as a species. And co-creation starts with each of us playing our unique part by being fully who we are.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. I was privileged to live in New Zealand for twelve years and I think of it as my home. A feature of the New Zealand culture is the Heart Sharing Circle, influenced bu the hui of the  Maori. For those of you who haven’t participated, imagine a gathering of twelve or perhaps a hundred people seated in a circle.  The purpose of our gathering is to share our stories of who we are and what has meaning for us in our lives right now. The bigger purpose is, as we share our stories, we connect more deeply with each other and create community.

One by one we stand to speak. We pick up the talking stick or another object chosen to symbolize the power of the circle and to empower the speaker. You know it’s your turn to speak when your heart starts beating and the movement of your heart propels you to your feet.

I remember the first Heart Sharing Circle I took part in, it was a women’s circle. I’d been in New Zealand for a month and found my way to the Tauhara Centre, a spiritual education centre overlooking Lake Taupo and home of the Heart Politics movement. www.heartpolitics.org.nz  At a certain point my heart started beating so loud I couldn’t ignore it and I had to stand. Yet I had no idea what I was going to say. In the Heart Sharing Circle you stand and trust that the words will come; you wait in the silence until you know. When the words come, they are coming from you but they are also coming through you. Everyone in the circle is silent, present and attentive, and their presence creates a  focused energy field which enables you to connect with your own wisdom and truth in a new way. Speaking is a process of discovery because you haven’t rehearsed a speech and you’re not repeating what you already know. You are being in the moment and venturing into the unknown, discovering who you are in each new moment.

This is a truly awesome experience because when one person speaks from this place of truth and wisdom, it sparks the next person to find their truth and wisdom, and then the next and the next. And soon you realize you’re in a collective weaving in which each person holds a thread and all the threads are essential to the weave.

This to me is an example of what can happen when we simply show up and be present, listen deeply to ourselves and to each other and be receptive to what wants to express through us. There’s a bigger intelligence available to us all the time. I call it evolutionary intelligence, or in the words of the American novelist, John Steinbeck, the life-love-force present in everything. Finding our own gifts has a lot to do with  being open to the life-love-force, trusting whatever makes our heart beat faster, and learning how to intuitively receive that intelligence and bring it into form. Paradoxically, our gifts are expressions of our unique essence and they are also expressions of a deeper collective purpose.

We’d like you to approach our blog as if it is a Heart Sharing Circle. We see the blog as an interactive space for A Whole New World. Please feel free to introduce yourself, tell us who you are, what’s brought you here and what gifts and hopes you bring to the creation of A Whole New World.

Namaste,

Rose Diamond

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

A version of this post first appeared in www.happyzine.co.nz

The image is a detail from A Whole New World by Mary Ryan, www.chrysalisfarmstudiogallery.com