One month ago, on December 14th, after 3 days of torrential rain, our beautiful small community of Golden Bay was overwhelmed by flood and the home I shared with my soul friend and co-evolutionary, Maggie, was damaged beyond repair by a landslide.

It had been a good day. I was excited about being very close to launching the next phase of  A Whole New World.  After supper Maggie was standing at the kitchen window washing dishes when she called out, “The ground is moving” and sure enough the steep bank directly behind the house was slipping and creeping fast across the lawn, bringing with it trees, bushes and rubble.   We grabbed our computers, stuffed a few things into a bag and within minutes we were outside seeking refuge in our cars. It was the kind of rain that drenched to the skin in minutes even through raincoats, and Maggie who has a heart condition was struggling to draw breath. The only thing to do was to be in a state of calm alert presence, right here, right now, taking the next step.

Our next door neighbors invited us in. Their driveway was thigh deep in water so we had to clamber across a high fence. There we found two others who had just fled their beach cottage wading through water up to their chins. Everybody was amazingly cheerful.  We were making up beds for the night and getting cups of tea when we realized we had to leave there too. The same steep bank backed their property and some big trees were swaying dangerously at the top of the hill. We drove down to the village hall through streets which were now rivers, covered in mud and boulders,  strewn with potholes and trenches. From the hall we were then billeted to the campsite for the night. This worried me as the camp is right behind the beach and it was high tide that night but everyone assured me we would be safe.

The torrential rain continued unabated all night. They called it “weather bombs”. To be at the mercy of such an uncompromising, unstoppable force of nature renders one intensely vulnerable and humble.   At 2am I was shouted out into the torrent to move my car. The water in the campsite was now knee high. I couldn’t hear what was being shouted at me above the din and visibility was negligible. I had to turn my car into the flood to get out. That was a terrifying moment. Back in the relative safety of my bed for the night, I surrendered to whatever might come, including the possibility we might lose all our possessions or even our lives.

I’ll share more of our story next time and how we learned to find the gifts within crisis. For now, I wonder how this strikes a chord in you? Maybe  you have been in a natural disaster yourself, or suffered other unexpected loss and upheaval? This is my particular story but it is not just my story, for we are a species in transition. Our old world is crumbling through natural disasters, economic crisis and political upheaval. Perhaps parts of your life are melting just as is happening in the world at large?  Maybe you can relate to the need to surrender and you’ve learned that surrender does not mean being powerless or passive. Like the snake shedding its skin or the butterfly emerging, the process of transformation and renewal renders us vulnerable. And being vulnerable is a good thing. Crisis, loss and sudden unexpected change rip open the veils of illusion with which we normally shroud ourselves, allowing us to see more deeply and clearly and sense into the  soulful interconnectedness of life and the mysterious intelligent, energetic web which holds and directs us.

I will be exploring over the next weeks both through the blog and a new series of tele-seminar interviews, or Deep Discovery Conversations, practical ways we can stay empowered and support each other through this exciting and perilous passage of transition.   As we create a whole new world we become the whole new human and as we become the whole new human we create a whole new world together. Please join me on this journey of discovery. To stay in touch and informed go to the home page at www.awholenewworld.net and sign up for our newsletter now.

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

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?

There’s a whole new world emerging all around us, within us and through us. Can you feel it? I’d love to know how the creative impulse to make the new is expressing through you, in your life right now.

One of the things I love most about being tuned into the new evolutionary consciousness is feeling part of a forward movement right at the unfolding edge of change. If you’re reading this then you are part of this movement of conscious change and transformation too. And if you’re a conscious change-maker like me, then you know there’s always more to learn; that life is a process of upgrading existing skills, learning new skills, pushing through limitations, stepping into the unknown, facing doubts and fears, and making sense of it all as you go.

To stay motivated with this often intense and demanding process of transformation, you have to have a big WHY. Why am I doing this? What is it for? Who does it serve?

What motivates me is, I know deep in my heart and soul there is a better way for us all to live together and share this still beautiful though sadly ravaged planet, our earthly home. I’ve known that ever since I was a little kid and that knowing has always been the flame burning at my core. And I know the only people who can create this better way of living are you and me, and all the other you’s and me’s around the world. This is a grassroots movement of evolutionary change, and there are millions of us each working in our own unique way, contributing our own unique gifts, to create a bigger and more magnificent whole together.

Just stop for a minute and really feel into that. Can you feel your connection with millions of like minded, creative change-makers all around the world? What does that do for you, when you remember to experience the power of our interconnectedness, and when you know you are part of a movement for positive change?

I’m living in a little paradise called Golden Bay at the top of the South Island of New Zealand, with friend and co-conspirator, Maggie Holling. We were laughing the other day because anyone looking at us from the outside might think we are just hanging out in a paradise rest home, not doing very much. Yet inside us, whole new universes are exploding, and for me personally this has been one of the most intense periods of creative work I can remember. I’ve always been hard working and I’m capable of sustained periods of focus and concentration, which I really enjoy, but recently I’ve been called to gather up the threads of the body of work I call A Whole New World and push through to a new birthing. I’ve been pulling out all the stops and really going for my big dream.

I’m recalling an image I had a couple of years back in one of my Deep Discovery sessions with soul friend and AWNW co-creator, Woods Elliott, in Virginia.  Imagine your life is a tapestry and you’re standing in front of it looking at the picture of your full potential. What do you see?

If you really allow yourself to see your full potential (or feel it if you’re a more kinesthetic person) you’ll see and feel someone pretty awesome and beautiful. You’ll see the Whole New Human, looking back at you.

Now imagine you’re walking to the back of the tapestry, what do you see now? The back looks quite dull in comparison, it’s a work in progress, there’s no clear picture and there are lots of knots where the loose ends have been tied together.  Get the picture? You are a work in progress, as a Whole New Human. And building a Whole New World is a work that is only just beginning, a creative project emerging through us collectively.

I’ve been working at the back of the tapestry, tying up some loose ends, upgrading products and services, getting ready to move forward. Over the next few weeks I’m going to be introducing some of the exciting new things I’m preparing for you. I know they are all very timely.

I believe the world goes around most easily when we all do the things we love to do, and one of the things I most love to do is interview people who are living their passion. Some of you may have read my book, “Living your Passion: How Love-in-action is seeding A Whole New World”. If you haven’t, go and check it out here: www.awholenewworld.net/books.htm It’s based on interviews with 24 innovative New Zealanders who are making a difference by living their passion. The book starts with the journey: how do people discover what their passion is? What does it take to really live it? Even though the book was written in 2007 and published in 2008, it’s very timely and revealing of this moment. And even though it’s about New Zealanders, it could equally be about you, if you live in Scotland, or upstate New York, or Sydney, or the back of any beyond, because we’re all in this together! It’s full of inspirational tips about the process of transformation and the transition we’re all living through.

My latest extension of this love for interviewing is the Passionate Women Radio Show on FreshFM, and I’ll tell you more about that next week. I’m also putting together a programme with more well know global change-makers too, to start in August, and that’s about Becoming the Whole New Human.

As you can tell, I’m buzzing, and I hope you will join me soon so we can create an even bigger buzz together.

Namaste,

Rose Diamond

p.s. And I haven’t even started to tell you about the new poetry I’m writing, which is my deepest soul love!

May 30, 2011

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 Planet Earth hurtles more deeply into chaos, and the fabric of the world as we have known it unravels, I am called to re-vision my life purpose. What is the most important thing to do now? In the face of major change what is the best contribution any of us can make?

I know we are in big trouble. I know we have a chance to evolve. I know the only way we can evolve through this transition is by awakening to higher consciousness. I know the only place to start is within me. But for me the inner world and inner work, although crucially important, are not enough. I need to act ; I want to make a difference and be one drop in an ocean of positive change.

How about you?  I’ve met many people lately who have been saying, “I know there’s something for me to do, but I don’t know what it is.”

What I’ve found useful these last few weeks during this period of healthy questioning has been to create an anchor. In the midst of uncertainty about where best to place my efforts, I chose to commit to writing and publishing one blog article a week. This fulfils many different purposes. Most importantly it’s about connecting. I’m writing this because I want to connect with you. I want to find that place in my experience of being alive at this time that touches your experience. For me, the growing realization of our interconnectedness is the most important thing. One of my teachers, Craig Hamilton, described evolving humanity as “one Being with many faces and many hands.”  I love this sense that we are all essentially One.

In the midst of typing out this article I had a skype call with my friend Woods in America. He’s a great philosopher of the Mystery of Life and reminds me how important it is to live with this sense of mystery. None of us know what’s going on in the bigger picture but it can be scary and a bit lonely to live with too much unknowing and most of us need some structure to get motivated. I realized that this feeling I’ve been having recently of being a bit cast adrift from my usually focused purpose  is because some of my old certainties are falling away and some of the old strategies I’ve used to comfort and motivate myself are no longer working either.  As the earth erupts and the economy shrinks, we’re all having to live with more uncertainty.  This being human takes courage.

If, like me, you’ve been feeling a little uncertain, I recommend creating an anchor, something you love to do and you’re willing to do, and something that will stretch you a little bit, and do it regularly. The regularity creates a rhythm, it sets intention in motion. And things start to happen out of this movement. Only three weeks into this experiment with blog writing people from many different parts of the world are finding me. That’s a wonderful feeling. And the rest of my work for the year has come into clear focus. This year for me is about networking. I’ve been creating the infrastructure for my project, A Whole New World, for several years and now it’s time to start building. I’m excited as I remember  that all I have to do is do what I love. For me this includes writing, interviewing passionate people, and creating spaces where people can come together to connect.

So if you’re someone who has many ideas and tends to get distracted, or you’re just not sure of your direction, choose one idea, one thing you love, and start with that. Commit to it, do it consistently and see what happens.   Be very clear why you are doing it. What is your one important thing?

As I said, my one important thing is to connect, so the blog writing becomes a practice for connecting with myself and with you. Then that starts to spill over into the rest of my life: how well am I connecting with each person I meet? How can I connect more and better? I start to hone my skills, to see where I am holding back, where I could take more risks, how I could go deeper, be friendlier, more curious, more open. So this simple decision to write a blog article every week has become a consciousness practice, a vehicle for my growth and for service.

Perhaps this moment now, is a very special turning point in the 14 billion year evolution of life on Earth because we have the opportunity to evolve consciously? For me, the one important thing is to participate fully in this process  and to use all the skills and gifts I have as I join with others to weave a web of light and creativity and purpose and passion; to join all our little lights into one big light.. Even if we don’t fully comprehend the Mystery, even when we don’t know, we can act “as if”. We can take the next step , we can choose something and commit to it. We can move forward together.

I offer a weekly, Soul Sanctuary tele-gathering at 11am Monday in NZ, 5pmET, every Sunday. It’s intended as a spiritual watering hole for people on a conscious path and consists of a meditation for presence, a sharing circle for connection and a Oneness Blessing for accelerating the process of transformation. If you would like to join please email me, rose@awholenewworld.net This is the beginning of building the A Whole New World global community, you can sign up for our newsletter here in the box at the top right hand corner.

Rose Diamond,

January 20, 2011

Are you on a path of awakening?

If you are, you know that cultivating your consciousness is the most important contribution you can make. Maintaining a state of peace, openness, love and creativity, is the foundation for fulfillment in all areas of your life.

Those of you who have worked with me before know that my passion is creating safe and sacred spaces where everyone feels free to explore, discover and share deeply. I call such spaces, Soul Sanctuary , and I have been experimenting with different forms,both face to face and through telegatherings, over several years. By participating in such intentional sacred spaces, we connect at a heart and soul level and create a more powerful collective field of presence than any of us can alone, and discover our Oneness. Such experiences are empowering for all involved. An experience of Oneness is the key to transforming our world.

Soul Sanctuary is a weekly telegathering at 5pm ET,  10pm GMT, Sunday and 11am NZ time, Monday.   The first in the series is January 2^nd if you are in the States or UK and the 3^rd if you’re in New Zealand.

Each session will include:

• A relaxation and awareness process to bring you into presence.

• A sharing circle focusing on what you are currently aware of /focusing on  in your consciousness on a day to day basis.

• A Oneness Blessing.

The Oneness Blessing is a very simple yet powerful transfer of Divine energy which helps to balance the brain so that you naturally and easily experience more and more unity with all life. It is completely non-doctrinal and its only goal is to awaken as many people as possible to higher states of consciousness.

The Oneness Blessing provides different benefits to different people, depending on your particular needs. Here are some possible benefits when you receive the Oneness Blessing on a regular basis:

• More fulfillment, happiness and joy from within
• Less desire to seek for what you want outside yourself
• Deepening states of stillness and inner peace
• Less frustration, stress, overwhelm and disappointment
• Increasing ability to be free of drama, conflict and reactivity
• Ability to work with less effort and to naturally maintain a healthy balance
• Ability to let go of addictive patterns, alcohol, cigarettes, comfort food etc
• Growing sense of freedom, mastery, self worth, optimism and trust
• More energy freed up to focus on your creative passions and contributions
• Effortless movement towards what is health giving for your body and mind.

As your state of mind becomes more peaceful and positive, all aspects of your life improve: relationships, health, work, prosperity, service. Primarily, this is for the evolution of consciousness.

I am a trained Oneness Blessing giver and a committed member of a local group here in Nelson.

Recommended donation: $7 per session, paid through paypal.  I encourage you to see this as a tithe (a donation for spiritual service which prospers the giver as much as the receiver).

If you would like to join me on January 2^nd (US/UK) or 3^rd (NZ) please email me in good time and I will send you the access details. Please also forward this to others who you think might benefit. In time I will be putting up a webpage for this service.

Rose Diamond

December 29, 2010

Email: rose@awholenewworld.net

www.awholenewworld.net

You have to love something very much to bring it into being.

I’m not a biological mother this lifetime but it’s easy to see how much you have to want and love a child to carry her in your body for nine months, then birth him through chaos and pain, and nurture her for a lifetime.

We are planetary mothers, birthing a new world through the expansion and contraction of our beings. We expand into new and previously unimaginable possibilities and contract back into limited egoic patterns so that we can bring awareness into them and release them. In this way the universe breathes us.

Then there are our personal acts of creation, projects which give form to self expression and unique contribution. The most fun part for me is the inspirational phase, when I’m receiving new information or synthesizing ideas to create something new. When I’m in this meditative, receptive state, I am sensing into the unfolding edge of evolution, where the new arises. I feel very alive on this edge and in a mystical, prophetic state.

It is necessary to bring this information down from the universal intelligence into the collective consciousness, and to anchor it into the Earth. That’s one reason why I write, the act of bringing the information through the body creates a space through which the information becomes immediately available to the collective field of consciousness. So even if my words are never read the thoughts seeds have been sown. In this way an act of creation is a form of spiritual or evolutionary midwifery. I’m noticing recently how ideas are spreading like wild fire, there are thousands of people tuning into the same information simultaneously, creating a mass flowering of consciousness.

I have intuitively known the importance of making myself a vehicle for evolutionary consciousness ever since I made the decision to follow my creative process and be a writer 18 years ago. But it was impossible to talk about it then; I would have been called grandiose or even psychotic. Now, I’m hearing how many, many, people have felt similarly alone over the years, as they’ve pieced together the intuitive soul knowledge of  what was unfolding in collective consciousness and visions of what was to come, yet were unable to share this widely for fear of ridicule, or worse.

To create something you have to love it enough to be courageous. You have to trust your inner knowing more than you trust anyone else’s opinion. You have to be unshakable in your commitment, dedicated and persevering, and remain trusting that all the hard work is justified.

In my experience, creating an educational product, such as a book takes an enormous act of labor. Beware anyone who claims you can write a book in a weekend! Take the 22 Days of Transformation which is now an audio product and e-book. This began as a desire many years ago to use my wisdom and skills to create transformational learning communities, and the desire has moved through many forms until it found its present one. In March I offered the 22 days as a daily 30 minute teleclass, a guided meditation and active visualization, followed by a group sharing. The whole process unfolded quite magically, as deep soulful community and a rich creative field developed between participants. If I hadn’t experienced it, I wouldn’t have believed it possible to create such synergy with people I had never met in person. But it happened! This and other experiences I’ve had recently have shown me how virtual communities can be a powerful evolutionary vehicle. They enable people to meet at a soul level more easily than in person, without personality and physical distractions. We feel the vibration of each other’s energy across thousands of miles, we touch each other’s hearts and meet soul to soul. Personally, I expanded into my full potential many times during the series, a glorious feeling of alive, vibrant presence, blissful fulfillment and open heartedness.

So because the series was so successful and loved by those who showed up on a daily basis, I decided to transform the daily visualisations into an audio product. It’s been quite a process, once again taxing my dedication and perseverance. As I said, you have to love something to bring it into being, you have to love it enough to pour hours of focused energy into it and to keep going even when Mercury’s retrograde and the thing just isn’t coming together! And yes, I do love the 22 Days of Transformation, and of course I hope you’ll love them too! Let’s take these seeds of transformation and sow a Whole New World together!

Go to: www.awholenewworldcoaching.com/22days.html for your audio series, or sign up for the new learning community starting on May 31^st.

Namaste

Rose Diamond

EGO from h.koppdelaney, Flickr.com

Four weeks ago I joined a community from all over the world to explore the hypothesis that we are an aspect of an evolving universe, and our participation is essential in this evolution.

That’s a very big thought to wrap our minds around, and maybe it is just another way we humans make ourselves so self important. On the other hand, in the midst of a dysfunctional world, it is a meaning maker and motivator. At least it is for me and for hundreds and thousands of others who are waking up to this new story for humanity.

In the process of consciously evolving we discover more about how we resist our growth. In the 25 yearsI worked as a Gestalt therapist, with the whole person and the unfolding creative process, I never met anyone who wasn’t almost equally divided between the desire to grow and the resistance to growth; between the love of expansion and the compulsion to stay small. I came to the conclusion that this tension within the self is part of the human condition. It’s what defines who we are at this stage of our development as a species.

It is ego that keeps us small. And our collective challenge is to transcend the limiting cage of ego which separates us and keeps us self involved rather than focused on the greater good of the whole.

Psychologically, the ego has an important part to play in helping us grow an identity so we can function in the world, it alerts us to our boundaries so we can protect ourselves from intrusion, and it defends against pain. Yet ego also has a pompous and self deluding nature. Think about the typically strutting ego, the one who pops up when we’re hurt or upset about something: self righteous, self justified, blaming, judging, even vindictive. We quickly leap into blaming the other person, or society, or life, for not being how we want, or not giving us what we want. We’d rather be angry and self righteous than feel our pain about the way things are, or to empower ourselves to change what we don’t like. We defend against our pain so we can keep the status quo going, yet more of the same means more pain. Our culture is very intolerant of pain, there are few places to safely express it, let it go, and heal ourselves.

I saw this very clearly recently on my first visit to a chiropractor when I could no longer ignore the fact my body was out of alignment. I had no idea something in my body had been out of alignment most of my life, nor how the body valiantly makes adaptations so we can keep going and not have to feel our pain. We go on adapting and adapting and adapting until we literally fall over!

At the end of the treatment I experienced the support of my spine and skeleton in a way I could never remember feeling them before. It was a revelation to me. Ah, so this is how it feels to be fully supported from within! I had been looking to psyche and spirit for a support which was right here in my body all along!

I have found Eckhart Tolle’s term, the painbody, to be very useful in better understanding the accumulated emotional pain which plays out through our unconscious behavior. I’d always thought of the painbody as energetic or vibrational and knew it is carried as a contraction held in the body, but because I wasn’t feeling physical pain, I hadn’t realized it was right here in the physical body. I feel deep gratitude to my loyal body which has labored all these years to keep going and to protect me from pain, despite the fact it didn’t have the full power of alignment and flow.

We are creatures who expand and contract, expand and contract. Like a woman in labor, we are birthing ourselves into the next stage of evolution.

We expand when we open to the flow of divine inspiration and express ourselves, and yet self expression takes us into the unknown. When we fear the unknown, or when others around us fear our expansion, we contract again.  When we consciously choose the deeper archaeology of healing, we enter voluntarily into the contraction to release it. Ego, is frequently not very pretty: change is often inconvenient and involves loss as well as forward movement; stepping into the unknown can be scary. This process of liberation is not for the faint-hearted

Contraction is held in the body and we learn to adapt and live with pain by stuffing it down, with food, alcohol, tv, overwork, consumerism, or any of our other pain avoiding, self comforting strategies. We numb ourselves, fully encouraged by the consumer culture, and we adapt to greater and greater levels of pain, until something gives and we have a health crisis. When you multiply this into every person on the planet, you can see how the structures eventually collapse as they are now doing.

Most of us on a spiritual path spend years taking three steps forward and two steps back. We experience the most beautiful expanded state of consciousness only to return again to resistance. We want to grow yet we shun the labor pains which would open us to our fullest potential. We keep coming up against the wily strategies of ego which capture us into the safety of limitation and self delusion, again and again. We settle, we compromise, we choose the safety of habit. I can see how this has played out in my life, can you? It is part of the human condition; a cause for self compassion rather than self recrimination.

In these last four weeks, as part of the Integral Enlightenment community, I have been challenged to see ego everywhere and more clearly, in myself and in others. I see how it does its job of accommodating and helping us to fit in and stay safe. I see how it can capture me back into playing small and talk me out of fully taking responsibility for my liveliness, or full commitment for being an evolutionary agent of change and a vessel for divine creation. I see the self delusion and wily avoidance strategies in others too. It is like seeing through a mass illusion, whilst being still entrapped in it.

This is an uncomfortable process, yet it also has the scent of liberation in it. As soon as ego is seen in the clear light of consciousness, I am no longer controlled by it. There’s a space of awareness now which provides the opportunity to step out of limiting thoughts and patterns as they arise; to make transparent what was murky. I am my own liberator and I am the key. To hold this key is true freedom.

Imagine dropping the limiting patterns which are keeping you from feeling fully alive: a physical symptom, a self limiting belief. Drop them like the shell of the chrysalis which has done such a great job of protecting and nurturing you as you grew. Now you don’t need that old chrysalis any more. Imagine fluttering away as the beautiful butterfly you are.

You may enjoy the 22 Days of Transformation audios which are available now, or perhaps you’d like to join the next 22 Days of Transformation learning community which starts on May 31^st.  Go to: www.awholenewworldcoaching.com/22days.html

Rose Diamond, May 13th 2010

www.awholenewworld,net

http://magnificentbeing.net

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