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Sacred Pilgrimages
Spiritual Preparation for Spiritual Journeys
2. Make a list of all your virtues on 3x5 cards and pack them in with your clothes. The conscious recognition of ones virtues creates a strong self image and allows, in turn, the positive energy force so important to the personal growth process to flow freely, the primary benefit of all spiritual pilgrimages.
3. If fear crops up while preparing for your spiritual retreat, write down what you are afraid of and and put these names in a special envelope. Before departing home, seal this envelope and burn it safely in your travel shrine allowing the Universe to decide which fears will be helpful and which shall be left behind.
4. Take along small special inexpensive gifts. Planning ahead to feel and express gratitude sends a powerful message to the Universe about what your spiritual expectations are and allows the healing energies of courage and gratitude to flow throughout your journey and create an embracing aura of love around you and all who come in contact with you. Small, inexpensive personal possessions are even more spiritually charged and ever more precious to the receiver. Giving to strangers acknowledges the Universal truth of sacred oneness and enhances the opening and harmonizing of the heart chakra, the most important healing event we can experience.
5. Upon departure declare: I leave my past behind and willingly and lovingly step into the present.
6. As you journey, write down your feelings about events on this spiritual retreat. A record of feelings can lead one to important discoveries of trends and truths which may need reevaluating.
7. Seek silent mediation during the spiritual retreat in inspiringly beautiful places and try to balance your social activities with fellow travelers with quiet time, solitary walks and purposeful encounters with people, animals, plants and geological formations of the region. Create a meeting time for sharing among group members preferably after an early dinner around a fire with regional music softly in the background.
8. Seek out quality conversation at some point with everyone in your group during the journey. Emphasize your concentration on those who least stimulate your interest or who irritate you for some reason. Write down your feelings before you sleep for future reference.
9. Notice what is going on around you and take responsibility for everything that feels negative, as well as, the things that feel positive. Imagine everyone you meet in the street (or anywhere) to be a messenger. Try to understand the message. Thank everyone for whatever they give you on any level whether it feels positive or negative. If you think thanking someone for something negative will cause them to become angry, choose to thank them silently without them knowing.
10. If you are visiting a healer or doing a workshop, surrender totally to the work at hand. Follow directions to the "T" and allow doubt to flow swiftly through your being if it should come to your consciousness. Never force your emotions away. Feel and let go.
11. Before coming home make a contract with one or more from the group to meet on the full moon, just by looking at it together from wherever you are. When this day comes each month, remember your journey and nourish the spiritual ties that were created among the brothers and sisters who you traveled with and who you met on the journey by filling your heart with the feeling of gratitude and imagining strings of light flowing out of your heart an attaching to the hearts of each and every one.
12. Celebrate your journey and share your Journey with everyone you know. Allow them to receive a spark of the light you have accumulated from your spiritual journey experience. Allow the new light that engulf you to radiate outward gently embracing these friends as a gift to them for their support and love.
13. Decide what to do about your shrine, what meaning it still has, if any, and whether it should be dismantled or not. Incorporate the object, thoughts and feelings you brought back home with you into your new home. Make what you have become present. Make what you have learned your new starting point.
14. Make your everyday life a miraculous spiritual journey of love, personal power, surrender and gratitude.
Communicating
with Nature
Carl Jung
As
scientific understanding has grown, so our world has become dehumanized.
Man feels himself isolated in the cosmos because he is no longer involved
in nature and has lost his emotional unconscious identity with natural
phenomena...no voices now speak to man from stones, plants and animals,
nor does he speak to them believing they can hear. His contact with nature
has gone, and with it the profound emotional energy that this connection
supplied...primitive man was much more governed by his instincts than
are his "rational" modern descendants, who have learned to "control"
themselves. In this civilizing process, we have increasingly divided our
consciousness from the deeper instinctive strata of the human psyche,
and even ultimately from the somatic (bodily felt and known) basis of
psychic phenomenon. Fortunately we have not lost these basic instinctive
strata; they remain part of the unconscious, even though they may express
themselves only in the form of dream images.
Sacred
Sites
Martin
Gray
...sacred sites have a spiritual power; ...this power magically transforms
hearts and minds; and ...such transformation is a key to resolving both
our personal problems and those of the planet.
...a field of power, a density of holiness, saturates and surrounds certain sacred sites.
Sacred sites function as repositories of wisdom, teachings and transformational spiritual energies. Because each site has a different energy or feeling, people will resonate differently with various sites.
...there is a presence of power, a field of subtle energies at the sacred sites and ...these energies assist in the awakening and amplification of spiritual consciousness.
...it is important for people to physically journey to the power places...
... spiritually conscious people visiting the sacred sites have a subtle energetic influence on the sites and, by extension, on the vitality of the entire planet.
... there is abundant, yet mostly untapped, wisdom, power and energy within each and every human being...
... there is presently occurring a grand evolutionary process, manifest everywhere upon this planet, of the awakening of human spirituality. This process appears to be the result of a number of influences including long-term celestial cycles, changing terrestrial energies, the evolutionary momentum of planetary life, and the rapidly increasing level of social and environmental crisis all across the globe. A fundamental effect of these influences is the development in human beings of an increasing concern with the well being of the environment and a corresponding awakening of inner spiritual consciousness. A growing number of people are aware that this evolutionary process is occurring and that it is rapidly gaining force as a socially transformative power.
I
believe in the importance of people living lives of courage, truthfulness
and beauty. If we are awakened to the spiritual centrality of human life
(and by this I mean the recognition that life is for the cultivation of
awareness and the expression of wisdom, excellence, truth and love), then
we have a responsibility to act as beacons of that knowing to less awakened
people in the world. In order to assist in the evolution of consciousness
it is vital that we ... purposely become teachers and role models. Amongst
a human population mostly concerned with materialistic pursuits, our lives
of positivity and environmental awareness shine a much-needed light of
inspiration and education.
Planetary
Acupuncture Meditation
Martin
Gray
This meditation may be done anywhere at anytime. It is, however, most enjoyable to do it in a quiet place and when you are not rushed for time. Indoors is fine; outside, sitting directly on the earth, is even better. The technique, explained in the illustrations below, is quite simple to learn. To begin, sit with your eyes closed. Gently regulate your breathing so that each breath is long, slow, and easy, with the inhalation and exhalation being of equal duration. Breathe slowly enough so that you are able to feel each part of each breath. The slowing down of your breath serves to focus your attention so that you can begin to feel the celestial and terrestrial energies passing through your body. These energies do not come into the body through the breath, rather they pass through the top of your head and base of your spine (the location of the first and seventh chakras according to esoteric Hinduism). Breathing in a slow, regular manner allows you to feel these energies, add your own energy of love to them, and then direct this combined energy outward from your body as a life-energy beam.
Do
the three-breath sequence at least ten times whenever you sit to practice.
If you have more time and want to develop an intimate relationship with
these energies, then practice the sequence for thirty minutes to an hour
a few times each week. During the first month of practicing the meditation
it may be necessary for you to mentally visualize the celestial and terrestrial
energies passing through your body. With consistent practice you will
begin to physically feel the energies, and will soon realize that they
are in fact always flowing through your body. The more you practice this
technique, the deeper will you experience connection with and love for
the living Earth.
2006
John of God Journey Dates
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