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.

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Last Saturday a group of women came together for the second Soul Sisters Retreat in beautiful Cable Bay, near Nelson. My friend’s house backs onto the tidal estuary. Both the house and the abundant rose filled garden have been created with lots of love and care and as soon as you walk through the door your whole being sighs with relief. Aah, a place where I can rest and be renewed!

A retreat is a space outside our challenging lives where we can switch off the busy mind and dive deeper into ourselves to remember what really matters. When we become very present with our experience we step into a space outside time, a state of pure being. When we share from this place we easily create a deep connection with others, a soul based community. It’s amazing how just one day can stretch into a timeless island of sanity and self nurturing.

Participating in a retreat is an opportunity to remember that simplicity is the key to fulfillment. Everything we need for life to be a deeply satisfying experience is here, now, in every moment. Much of the time we forget this simple fact because we are so busy running around searching and trying to create it somewhere else! It’s the mind which makes life complicated. When we succeed in stilling the mind, even for a few minutes, or for an hour, we enter the most delicious freedom.

You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars going from workshop to workshop looking for the Holy Grail. Here are three simple practices you can use to make every day a treat.

• Take five minutes a day to be totally present with your breathing. Just follow the breath in and out and enjoy the sensations. As you do so everything else fades into the background and you experience oneness with life.
• Take another five minutes a day to connect with nature. I mean really connect. Go outside in a state of presence and come to your senses. Look, taste, smell, listen, touch. Allow yourself to drink deep of nature’s beauty. Give yourself this gift.
• Then take another five minutes each day to really listen to someone you love. Really listen from that place of silent stillness within you. Open yourself to hear, not only the other’s words but their emotional tone, listen to what they’re not saying, to the spaces between words, and to what wants to emerge. Don’t interrupt, and drop any ideas of wanting to fix, change, disagree with or judge them. Just listen with the intention of seeing the same perfect beauty in this person that you have witnessed in nature.

I guarantee that if you follow these three simple practices every day, your life will transform. Of course, it’s easier in a group because when we come together with a shared intention we co-create a more expanded energy field which amplifies the higher state of consciousness. Held in the loving embrace of the Now, healing happens spontaneously, everything magically shifts into a new perspective, we see that everything we’ve always wanted was here all along and we simply have to show up, open up, and allow ourselves to experience fully.

The next Soul Sister’s Retreats are in Cable Bay on Sunday 13^th March 10.30-5. And in Golden Bay on Sunday March 20^th, 11-6.  Since this is near the autumn equinox we will be focusing on Harvesting our Gifts.

Rose Diamond, February 19^th 2011

Spring: Cultivating Balance and Harmony

Life isn’t a business to be managed; it’s a mystery to be lived.

Osho Zen Tarot.

Are you one of the fortunate people whose lives are perfectly balanced, so work, finance, relationships, health all dance together in a harmonious whole? If you are, then congratulations, you are a rare person these days!

In my own life periods of stress and harmony come and go. I see a certain amount of stress as being an intrinsic effect of choosing a life of spiritual growth and creativity which has cycles of letting go, deconstruction, creative tension and transformational leaps. Collectively right now we’re in a time of let-go-and-leap and the more sensitive we are, the more we feel the tension in this.

I’ve been noticing how, in these past few weeks, following the Spring Equinox, a number of women, including myself, have been unwell. The seasonal change and the surge into spring is calling us back to Source to be rebalanced and to come into a higher harmony.

I had an experience recently which showed me how much easier it is to say Yes to life, than to say No, and how this desire to keep saying yes can lead to over extension and burn out: to imbalance and disharmony. As women we’ve been conditioned to say yes, to be helpful, pleasing and nice, and I’m aware how many women suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome and similar illnesses, which point to some kind of habitual over extension and running on empty.

Shifts of consciousness and movement to new levels of integration are often accompanied by periods of confusion. For me, this confusion has manifested recently as difficulty in making decisions. I’ve felt that my plate was full and overflowing with creative possibilities and when faced with a decision I’ve often been unsure whether my motivation was coming from ego or Higher Self. Then I started to notice that there were some things to which I was getting an unconditional Yes and others to which I was getting a maybe. I noticed the Yes was a whole being response whereas the maybe was mostly coming from my head and from fear. Whenever I decided to go with the Yes, I met with success, excitement, renewed energy and flow, whereas if I followed the maybe it usually resulted in conflict, pushing and then feeling frustrated, depleted and resentful.

So here was a very simple answer to my question: a whole hearted Yes is a Higher Self response whereas a maybe could well be an egoic response. This may seem very obvious to you yet to me it revealed a whole new simpler and clearer path through life.

I was due to go to a Wellness Festival at Hanmer Springs last weekend where I was to give workshops and a talk. I was half way through preparations when my body protested so loudly I couldn’t ignore it. I simply couldn’t get out of bed. I lay there for 3 days while the rain poured down outside. Between sleep and more meditative states, my mind was working overtime. It was difficult to let the opportunity go, I was loathe to let others down, to be judged negatively, there were people I wanted to meet and I didn’t want to miss out on a good networking opportunity and an opportunity to be of service. I felt like a kid about to miss the party. Yet I couldn’t ignore my body and its insistence that this was not going to happen for me and eventually I surrendered. When it happened the surrendering felt like a homecoming to a deeper self.

Yet this showed me how difficult it is to say no and let the world go. To say yes, is to open to an expansion and delicious possibilities. To say no, is to close a door, sacrifice a possibility and face the unknown. Yet even when the initial choice is obvious, easy and flowing, real choice requires commitment, responsibility and effort to bring something to fruition. It simply is not possible to say yes to everything without becoming burnt out. Just as the gardener has to weed out the seedlings so some can grow into healthy plants, so too the garden of creative possibility must be weeded. Indecision and lack of commitment are draining too, the dance of will I? wont I? consumes energy.  Saying no means being willing to risk the void, to be empty, to not know, to be alone, to wait. Too often we take what is offered to fill an inner emptiness, a loneliness, a lack, a fear or a need for affirmation. Or we drive ourselves to prove our worth.

One of my former teachers used to say, “If you don’t have your No, then you can’t have your Yes.” I’m experimenting now with only doing those things for which I have a wholehearted Yes. No “shoulds”, no “maybes”; just Yes or No.  Some days this week Yes has meant leaping out of the door into the spring sunshine, today I chose to stay, finish this article and the Soul Sisters Newsletter. I am at peace.

Saying no means refusing what drains, depletes, overwhelms and robs us of energy. It means avoiding what poisons and pollutes us. It means being mindful of over-extending, doing what we think we should, acting from fear. Saying no can be an act of self love, self conservation and nurturing. Saying no makes more room for the Yes.  What are you saying no to in your life right now?  And what is drawing out your whole hearted yes?

Rose Diamond

The 22 Days of Transformation was one such act for me. The daily process ended eleven days ago and I am still unable to share fully what I experienced. Yet there is a new knowing in me. And a new understanding of how we create anything. Showing up every day for twenty two days and holding the focus for the group lifted me into a higher state of consciousness and creativity from which I was able to experience the playfulness and ease with which manifestation can come about and the enormous creative potential that is present when a group of people are resonating to the same soul songs.

We met in the state of Presence, in the Power of Now, a state which is full of life. Typically we view life as a linear progression of events. A story filled with joys, perils and challenges, right? And in one sense it is so. In soul weaving we gather up all the threads of this story and weave them together into something strong and resilient and beautifully patterned. I will always remember the discovery session I did with Woods  one day last year when, in my mind’s eye, I stepped from the side of the tapestry of my life where the threads are knotted, to the side where the pattern is clear and vivid and coherent and beautiful. The beauty of the soul’s intrinsic design is created and sustained by the knots and drab colors on the reverse side.

The state of Presence is not bounded by form or time; it is emptied of form and time, and yet it is not empty but filled with the stuff of life; the life-love-force that flows through everything, prana, qi, call it what you will. Is this the same substance the soul is made of?  Is that why Presence feels so restful and why, when we’re there we feel at One with Original Being?

Eckhart Tolle’s teachings brought the practice of Presence into mainstream consciousness a few years ago; now there is  a gathering movement of people who are interested in evolutionary consciousness, a more restless energy and intelligence which is always seeking to become more. Where does soul fit into all this? And what is the part of soul in the creative process?

I find I am much more interested and  involved in a process of inquiry and experimentation since the 22 Days finished. I am moving more slowly and I’m not feeling bound by things I “should” do. I feel more trusting of the process and the ways things happen in their own time, and I see how people are attracted to be in the right place at the right time when they follow the resonance. I know we have all the answers inside us and between us and that we can create the most magnificent things out of “nothing” when soul and universal intelligence meet in the state of Presence.

It was really quite an astonishing process and I look forward to sharing more with you.

Namaste,

Rose

Photo by Rose Diamond