Village Square III
In our AcimVillage, we have the plane tree that stands in the central village square. Its enormous branches spread out to cover an area wide enough to provide shade on a warm day for many a traveller or tradesman. Water bubbles and trickles from a stone fountain on the eastern side. It is under the plane tree and by the fountain that wandering sages have traditionally lead conversation with the local people, before setting off again on their way; it is here that the townspeople come to exchange views and thoughts on their beloved spiritual philosophy, learning from each other in kindness and wisdom.
Rules to ponder…
Study of A Course In Miracles benefits greatly from sharing our experiences in its practice. Here you can talk about what works, or doesn’t, for you, taking obvious care not to be ‘preachy’, please. We all learn best when someone talks from their own experience, rather than tries to tell us what we should be doing differently. Let’s take the position that none of us are teachers, we are all at the same point returning on the path Homeward. All of us will still be making mistakes for a while yet, so let’s be particularly humble and caring in how we deal with each other. Please keep in mind that this is a site dedicated to the approach Kenneth Wapnick takes to teaching ACIM. I shall certainly do my best to bring everyone back to the core principles as taught by him.
I would also like to point out that AcimVillage is the place to come to explore our judgments, but not to express them as judgments. If you feel you need to gripe, criticize and vent, even subtly, then contact me privately (at bernard@pauloandthemagician.com) where I will receive you with kindness and understanding. Please do not do so in the forums where I will inevitably moderate out this kind of post. Remember, you will feel better only when you are able to move past the investment in your judgments, not simply by unloading them for everyone to see. This means taking responsibility for your perceptions and acknowledging that ultimately no one has prevented you from feeling completely peaceful and safe, despite what might appear to be the unfortunate conditions of your life at this time. (I know, this is hard. Contact me if you’re struggling.)
So, two basic rules here. One, we avoid mention of other approaches to the study of ACIM (non-Wapnickian) as well as to other philosophies we might be studying. This is purely to achieve a stable, comfortable learning forum where we are all aiming at the same goal, using the same symbols and language to get there. This is not to cast any judgment on any other approaches or philosophies. ACIM is a sufficiently difficult path to undertake without bringing more confusion into our study than our minds already contain! If you have benefited from other paths and would like to share your thoughts, by all means do so. Just please do this in the privacy of your personal emails. It’s also my personal opinion (take it or leave it) that at some point a student of ACIM is much better off sticking with one set of symbols and one teacher, and working with these thoroughly, instead of getting too dispersed. Rule two, we try not to play ‘teacher’ with each other here, reminding ourselves to be humble and always equal with our brother.
Enjoy the discussion!
so…this is the 11th review of When Fear Comes Home to Love…(hinting to the Villagers that they may find gifts…)
By
Andrea from Africa :- See all my reviews
This review is from: When Fear Comes Home to Love: The healing gifts of art, play and forgiveness (Paperback)
This beautiful book came to me (as it does) via the Holy Spirit, in answer to some questions I had. Every page is rich in inspiration, a road map to healing, through play, art, and the investigation of archetypes. The dialogues with the Holy Spirit are simply ‘wow” and Leelah’s story of moving from the pain and burden of abuse, from profound fear to love, healing and freedom is a reminder of what is possible for us all. I am only a third of the way through the book, and wish to highly recommend it to A Course in Miracles students, as well as to anyone else who is engaged in the courageous journey of self discovery and healing.
Can you imagine how happy such a review makes me 🙂
Nina, how wonderful to realize your experience and climb to the light are being used to illuminate others! <3
Yes, Katrina – and I am bowled over by gradually realizing how much value i place on others loving that book – like it has no value if i don’t get a loving review – like I dont’ have a value if no “others” tell me that they love me and that I have done good work –
oh –
at least i don’t judge myself for judging myself for these thoughts 😉
Hi Nina –
Have you moved your web-site ? I used to come visit fairly often – there are only two or three sites I visit regularly… Good to see you here.
I got a little worried /in an unusual way, I might add/ when the site didn’t appear in the browser.
You sound good above, so am sure all is fine, (aside from the general depression that we all might feel, from time to time, in feeling trapped in this world).
Today’s Lesson has an interesting nugget at the end. It reminds me to *not* think of the concluding thought because I am still “inexperienced” in recognizing such cause-effect relationships such as that one.
of course, my immediate thought was that I have gone through the workbook at least three times, quite possibly four or five times in these last 10 years, so I’m sure I can “handle the challenge” ! (:
Not only am I in competition with God, I’m also in competition with J ! (:
and of course, I also want his A+ seal of approval. Look at me, J – I’m one of the most advanced students of the Workbook.
Ha ! (:
On that note of self-mockery (: — I will go and sit in the Garden with Tex, and ponder my thoughts in the lush green with my coffee in hand…..
Happy day/evening to you all…
love,
anil
Wow, that was a surprise – I spoke to a nice wordpress-helper, and now the blog is back – but only from the 4th of December – she is working on it, I am sure it will all turn up just fine
There were some very strange disturbances on the line when i chatted with the wordpress-helper – a sound I never have heard before, and I felt fear – I was prompted to leaf through a little Acimnotebook, and my finger stopped at the word “ghost.” I mailed my friend – and acim healer/teacher Coreen Walson – who answered:
Be still, and Know that I AM God. Just be still and let his angels minister to you. He is all powerful.he does not share His power with another.
As we learn and understand that our consciousness equals our experience, then as we know that God is truly all there is, whatever is discordant in your experience must leave. ❤️
WHAT A RELEASE! IT HAS GONE!!!!
PS – the blog is back – to the newest date 🙂
No it isn’t – worked for 2 days now, no luck. I can read them, but not post. Need prayers 🙂
Hi Nina, glad that the blog is back at least for reading, and agree with you that not being able to post is difficult to deal with. Reading your posts keeps me connected to your world and where you are, and I miss reading them.
I pray that what is in your best interests happen as soon as possible. Miracles can collapse time, as we have often read, and it always takes great learning (for me, and perhaps for all of us) to see that all things, events, situations, relationships happen for the good.
I do hope you don’t mind that I am not directly praying for the blog, but trying to join with with, and give up all my demands at the altar to God. May what is in your ultimate best interests happen. The Christ mind is united in you and me and all of us.
I simultaneously pray that all my other demands and wishes (not related to your blog, but other apsects of my life, my work, my other demands of how things should turn out for me today, and the rest of the year, let me offer them all on the altar to God). May what is my best interest in those matters happen as well.
And so your blog prayer for request has been a great help to me this sluggish morning for me in Singapore, as the power of the prayer slowly catalyzes my mind towards God, where we all eventually are.
God Bless us EveryOne.
dear Anil, that was exactly the kind of prayer I was asking for – just holding the “problem” in Love and offering it up. Yesterday it felt just hellish to think about it – going into “having to understand technicalities in order to keep the blog” really felt hellish for me, I saw only dark iron gates and walls surrounding it, and made a lot of stories – oh my – today I have started to care a lot less – maybe its not so serious and important any more, you know maybe this will change the way I share my life – hmmm –
and it felt so good that you joined with me, dear Anil – big hug coming from here to you
hah – ego is having fun: now the WordPress support tells me that I do not have the Leelotchka44-identity – no, that belongs to another identity LOL
isnt it a great classroom?
Of course i am not a leelotchka44
or no Nina neither
I am Gods One Holy Son
and you can call me whatever you want, my darlings – and Nina is practical to use here, i think – as long as we all are pretending to be persons – 🙂 and the thing is, I love all theses persons – the flavors of the One –
big group hug –
Nice message, Nina dear ! (:
love n hugs to you, too…
many smiles and blessings too…
i love you.
ahh…. so I am sitting nicely and watching everything… getting things done… quite happy, actually! And watching and looking… hi y’all!
Hi tex♥
<3 🙂
LIFE – here – and here- and here
25 Mar 2015 Leave a comment
by leelah saachi in A Course in Miracles blog, Healing, Presence Tags: Birdman, choreography, different levels, dots, Family Man, life, Michael Keaton, perfection, Sils Maria, synchronicity, time and space, Turtle Diary by Russel Hoban Edit
The synchronicities are overwhelmingly loudtalking the last month:
First the movie BIRDMAN with Micheal Keaton – which is about actors who mesh with the narrative/manuscript they are playing, and you end up not knowing what is script and what is “real” – and in the end, Keaton becomes his fantasyfigure and transcends physical laws.
Then , a play, 2+1, where 2 terminal old patients take a trip into their common dreamworld/past, and somewhere there a woman says, comfortingly when the one oldie hesitates, “It’s only theater you know -”
Then I am reading the marvelous book “Turtle Diary” by Russel Hoban. It is about an odd couple who steals the big turtles from London Zoo and drives them to the sea and launches them into freedom.There is this fantastic description:
“When a a photograph in a newspaper is looked at closely one can see the single half-tone dots it’s made of. There one sees the incidence of a single dot,there another and another.Every picture is a pattern of coincidence unrecognizable in the single dot. Each incidence of anything in life is just a single dot and my face is so close to that so that I can’t see what it’s part of. ( My italics.) I shall never be able to stand back far enough to see the whole picture. I shall die in blind ignorance and rage.”
Then she describes how she recognizes the perfection of all the dots, and how they fit – and how every move she does, and everything/person she meets, are parts of this perfect pattern.
And at that sentence, i felt it too – and everything and everybody around me, a busy bus terminal fell into perfect choreographed movements of such beauty that I started to cry.
I was on my way to a Electronic shop to repair my cellphone. On the way there I sensed that I would later experience yet another wonderful synchronicity.
And when i stood at the desk with the repairman and waited, I lookd through the long room onto TV- screens at it very far off end:
There were film clips of big turtles there, diving with humans
Then I go to a movie: Sils Maria – where yet again the actor who plays an actor in a new version of herself 20 years older than the first-play-version – that was simple to understand, right? and she and her assistant mesh with the script of the new film…and if this isn’t enough, there is a line that the actor says, that is almost identical with what I just read in the Turtle Diary book: “I shall never be able to stand back far enough to get the whole picture”
Ah
And then I turned on a taped movie for late dinner:
“Family Man” … where the couple go through 3 possible lives /constellations together –
Nothing is cut in stone, people
Tine and Space are constructs
And I did not need to be far away from the bigdot-picture – I just had to recognize the beautiful choreography of absolute everything my eyes fell on – inclusive myself – and marvel marvel marvel at the perfection of it all
I am nudged to share this from today’s blog. It is about our unconscious choice to stay separate
The Know-It-All
Or, should we call him/her the Besserwisser, the Lecturer.
Yesterday I had a serious case of being besserwissed. (Ha, the word-corrector suggested blessed!) And it sure has turned out to be a blessing.
I asked a question to a teacher and for over ten minutes he lectured and besserwissed and droned on, with great power and conviction. I felt: invisible – dropped – powerless- crushed – intimidated – a stupid klutz. And angry.
I subconsciously called that response out of him, so to at last see the pattern and heal it.
So this morning I went into the Observer mode of the Spontaneous Transformation Technique: *** see below
Neutral, emphatic, patient, no agenda – just wanting to BE with this part that was lectured to. I told it I saw it ( it sat in my solar plexus): I am here. I am not going anywhere. I am in support of you.
There was a substantial relaxing response, showing me that this “part” had made the connection. It was no longer isolated and separated. And there is the first shift: awareness comes into this old pattern of victimhood: the one with no power, no voice.
So what was the advantage of that position? was my question – (I know that I can’t let go of anything that I think I am the victim of -) why did I need others to lecture me?
Simple. So that I could be the nonthreatening powerless one. The one who was not noticed, had no responsibility. The one who did not provoke status quo, the belief system/religion of the rulers – and who therefore was reasonable safe from being accused and burned at the stake or tortured by one of the zillion inventive was man has concocted.
I truly saw that this was a CHOICE I had made: to shut down my true authentic voice and will. I have made that choice WITH the power that God has given us all – the one we have, being created in His/Her Image. So that choice to be powerless is mighty powerful!
So I had made my Universe, as Jennifer McLean teaches: we all made it from 1) the beliefs we made when small when we were hurt and traumatized – in my case: ” Life is dangerous if you talk back, if you say no. You are here to make others feel better. You do not count at all as YOU – you are a “wrong copy.”
And then life works like this: 2) we make our coping mechanisms to survive – based on these beliefs – and voila, this is our Universe now: I think/believe that I will not be respected – this is a “Universal Law” for me now, based on my beliefs based on early experiences. And I will perceive the world THROUGH the filters that I put up – and people who enters my Universe will have no choice, they will turn up to disrespect me – until I can forgive myself for these creations, and deeply honor and love the aspect of me who started this Universe:The story about ME separate from YOU.
When I encouraged that aspect of me to feel it all, there was tremendous fear from all the times this soul experienced torture – and most of all, all the times it spoke up and loved ones suffered the consequences of that. It’s all there, in the One Mind we all share – and what we all heal, seemingly on our own, we make available for us all to tap into and share.
These times, huge waves of awakening sweep over the planet – what was before tucked under, now comes up to confront us – (a reluctant thank you, Mr. Trump!) – We can only heal what we allow ourselves to see, to forgive, to release. And my deep experience is that when I allow these old defense and protection-mechanisms to come up – to be seen, and HONORED for their way of protecting us from harm – then my Universe mirrors THIS new view of me/my life/ back to me.
*** The Spontaneous Transformation Technique is a unique, therapeutic system of healing. You can read more under “Services.”
This is a healing way to deal with the energy that get trapped in our stories and traumas, and help it to unravel and transform, when it at last is looked at with love: FORGIVEN . This opens a space of great healing and allowing of what is – and from this space you can play and explore how you want your future to look – free from the old patterns.
1.session is free!
Dear Nina, Lots of love to you, thank you for posting this. Love, anil
Hi Bernard – wondering if you have let the site go – no wonder if yes –
Thank you for everything, dearest Bernard
I love you all
Nina
Somewhere I noticed in Nina’s comments that she wrote a book or books. Could you please give me the title/titles?
The books written by Nina are called:”When Fear Comes Home to Love” and “Healing Crisis: 108 ways to turn crises into possibilities”
https://www.amazon.com/When-Fear-Comes-Home-Love/dp/1491219904
and
https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Crisis-ways-crises-possibilities/dp/1484159063/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
hi beauties – who is Anna? Gerard? is my memoriy failing me again? Please share – and what a great surprise to come her and notice this, thanks Bernard for mailing me!x0x0x
Hi Nina, No worries, your memory is not failing you. Every now and then I read your blog and so I happen to know the titles of the books Gerhard was looking for.
And so I decided just to be helpful and answer his question. That is all 😉
Have a nice day!
thank you Anna! So much!