While I was living in the States, I was developing my internet based business, A Whole New World, experimenting with a range of transformational ways of connecting with people far and wide. This meant I was sitting for long hours at my computer and after a while I realized  my life had become unbalanced. I cherished my virtual communities and the new friends I had made yet I longed for more face to face contact and physical presence. I was excited by all the things I was learning, yet my body was complaining of neglect. The Hopi Indians have a word for life out of balance: KOYAANISQATSI. Me and six and a half billion others!

This was an important part of my decision to return to New Zealand, where I knew my soul would be fed by access to wild nature and local spiritual community. For the first three months I was back here, I spent large chunks of time in my soul home in Golden Bay, submerged in deep presence with wild nature all around me and the inspirational flow of writing coming from within. What bliss! During these times I had no access to the internet or telephone, no distractions and nothing to pull me away from my own centre, no temptations to look for what I needed outside myself. Everything I needed was right there in that simple space, in solitude and deep soul connection. I felt utterly fulfilled. And the world kept turning without me!

However, nothing lasts forever, and after a while I began to hanker for my global connections again. I had friends, commitments, responsibilities, and projects on hold, and I was eager to get back to them. I wanted to bring all the parts of myself together. Surely the lover of silence and solitude and the global citizen could find a place to be at one?

However, as John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”  I have had to learn to be patient. Long story short, I found what appeared to be a perfect place to live over the New Zealand summer, a little eco-cabin, surrounded by trees and looking out to sea, but getting the internet connected there turned out to be a saga, stretching over weeks, and finally global connection won and I decided to move on.

I will write more about what I learned about living simply in the eco-cabin but right now, here are some reflections on being without internet:

We are always connected.

Each of us is a cell in the body of humanity/nature/spirit/consciousness/cosmos/God.

We are always connected to our soul family whether we can speak to them and see them, or not.

When we are attuned to our inner being we know what is happening in the world without listening to the “news”, we may not always know the details but we can feel it inside.

Whenever we take “time out” to focus on our spiritual development and to clear limiting patterns from the bodymind, we do this for everyone. As each of us frees ourselves, we free the whole.

I love this inhalation, breathing in to the self, breathing out to connect with community. I wonder if connecting through the internet actually helps us to remember and develop these intuitive ways of knowledge, or whether the busy-ness and information overload drown out the whispers of this subtle knowing? Probably both are true. Which brings me back where I started: the ongoing, everyday need for balance.

Oh, and just as I was finishing this article, a wise man and a gardener passed by my cabin and told me that the internet service farms used by Yahoo alone use more power than all the tvs on the planet. Not to mention the electromagnetic energy they release into the environment – poor birds and bees! There are costs to our convenience which we rarely reckon.  Bring on the next stage of our evolution when our intuitive powers are more highly developed and we cast no shadows on our companions.

Namaste

Rose Diamond

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