I came across an interview on www.SoundsTrue.com/podcast with Stanislav Grof founder of Holotropic Breathwork.

He is a psychiatrist who was involved with the original medical exploration of LSD before fellow researcher Timothy Leary went off the deep end and LSD exploration became taboo for legitimate science.

Dr. Grof’s interview on Sounds True is definitely worth listening to. He shares what the research discovered about consciousness and the nature of “reality”. One of the people involved in the LSD experiments had a near death experience and exclaimed that it was very similar to an LSD experience.

One of the more fascinating comments he makes in this podcast interview is “we have a lot of evidence that consciousness is not produced by the brain . . . that what we are experiencing as the material world is really virtual reality.”

Sort of validates the “you create your own reality” concept.

I hope you get a chance to listen to his interview. I’d love your feedback.

Love and light
Jennifer

I love my wall calendar that was gifted to me by my Buddhist friend, Jim. It has inspiring quotes and artwork guaranteed to put me in a blissful state. I was surprised to note that today, August 25, 2010, is Kiss and Make Up Day. I’ve never heard of this holiday, but I can certainly support the sentiment.

Just the other day I was wondering what ever happened to the Flower Power and Make Love Not War sentiments that were so popular in the 60s? So much of our current, volatile culture is laced with fear, greed, and vulgarity. How did we stray so far?

Just imagine if every person on the planet decided to Kiss and Make Up today . . . Wow! Heaven on earth! It can seem a distant, if not impossible dream from where we stand now.

Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that life as we have known it is shifting into something new. I know some people are fearful of what will happen to them as our culture continues to crumble right before our eyes. However, as a visionary, I am seeing this not as a death of a way of life, but as a whole new beginning in which we each have the opportunity to co-create the world into which we are stepping.

A major element of the Spiritual Growth Community is to be a resource and clearinghouse of information of interest to Pioneering Souls on a path of conscious evolution. So it is not surprising that my heart is calling me to explore community living as a way for people to come together to join in intentional communities. We have the opportunity to influence the emerging paradigm with our intentions and actions. Imagine living in a community founded on mutual support, and sustainable and joyful living where resource-sharing significantly reduces the amount of money needed to live the “good life!”

In some sense we are each already a part of many different communities — family, work, neighborhood, organizations, etc. The movement toward intentional communities is to self-select who you want to be in community with, then this community becomes your family, your neighborhood, your work, and the place to organize into the special-interest groups that call to your heart and soul.

A group has formed within the Spiritual Growth Community that is interested in knowing more about what intentional communities already exist, and exploring what sort of community they would like to create or be part of. We’ve gathered twice so far to share information and enjoy informal gatherings to get to know each other better, which is a form of developing community in itself. Go here if you’d like to be on the mailing list to receive notices of future events.

Back in the day, neighborhoods were mini communities. It was common to go next door to “borrow a cup of sugar.” Block parties, coffee klatches (defined as a casual social gathering for coffee and conversation, a.k.a. gossip) and shared supervision of the neighborhood children were common.

Today it is rare to know your neighbors, let alone socialize with them. With children in day care, the elderly in assisted living, and most adults working in environments away from home, there is little opportunity for true connection. Add to that the dwindling earth resources, and the resource-sharing benefits of community living begin to have some appeal.

Now, my first reaction to the idea of community living was reluctance to giving up my privacy. I have found I am not alone in that. But the more I explore the huge variety of intentional communities already in existence, the more certain I am that it is possible to create private space to retreat to whenever necessary to maintain a sense of self, while also being a full-fledged community member. 

After all, the new paradigm we are evolving into is one of “and” rather than “or,” all of which is possible because we are expanding our consciousness to easily integrate diversity in ways humanity has never before been able to do.

How this will play out for me personally, I don’t know . . .  yet. For now I am living in the unfolding. What I do know for sure is that community living is the direction evolution is taking us. In the meantime I am focusing on developing the communication and conflict resolution skills that community living will demand of me.

BOTTOM LINE: Once you get past the fear of “losing your privacy” and open your mind to exploring the myriad configurations of existing intentional communities, a whole new world of freedom opens up. Freedom from having to do everything yourself. Freedom from having to supply every resource for yourself. Shared appliances, tools, bicycles, cars, and on and on tremendously reduce living expenses leaving you free to pursue what you love to do to earn a living rather than working a soul-sucking job just because it pays well!

TIP: Start thinking about what qualities you like about your best friends. (If your best friends don’t have qualities you like, you need new friends!) What commonalities would form the basis for coming together in community? Who do you want to live with?

P.S. Having a diverse pool of viewpoints, coupled with great communication skills are a solid foundation for successful community living.

P.P.S. You don’t have to live together to be a community. Get a weekly or monthly potluck group together. Get together for a game night. (Canasta, anyone, or am I dating myself . . . oh yeah, it was my mother who played Canasta, with two decks, no less!)

What are your thoughts on community living and intentional communities? What is your vision of your ideal community? Have you lived in community in the past? Are you living in a community now? I’d really love to hear from you!

You know, having been married most of my life, entering the 21st century dating scene four years ago when I became single was daunting to say the least. Traditional dating that I grew up with, going out with someone who I’d pre-qualified as marriage material to assess their suitability, has apparently become “so last century.” Or perhaps that’s just the case for women “of a certain age,” many of whom have no interest in getting married again, anyway.  Maybe modern dating is still centered around mate selection for the twentysomethings and thirtysomethings!

In any case, you could say that “clueless” pretty much summed up my dating acumen!

The Universe always provides what I need as I need it, so I didn’t stay clueless for long. Sex and the Seasoned Woman: Pursuing the Passionate Life, by Gail Sheehy quickly found its way to me. This was the beginning of opening my mind to viewing sex outside the framework of church-dictated values.

In my first year of singlehood I relished my weekly calls with Georgia Dow, spiritual counselor extra ordinaire as she deftly captured my unconscious beliefs around sexuality, and, metaphorically speaking, pinned them to a board for me to thoroughly examine.

She did this with questions like, “Who says so? How do you know that is true? According to whom?” when I would state a rule I had adopted as “right” (the breaking of which would be “wrong”) .

With Georgia’s patient guidance I slowly began to think for myself and gain confidence in exploring what worked for me and what didn’t.

In this four year process of diligently deconstructing the moralistic, Victorian values I grew up with, I’ve had to come to terms with being a spiritual teacher, and a woman of a certain age, who is sexually active outside of traditional marriage.

In the deconstruction process I have had the good fortune to connect with elements of our society that believe that pleasure is actually good for you . . . and the people around you!

I’ll drink to that! (and sing, and dance and eat good food, and laugh, and love and anything else that comes my way that brings me pleasure and causes no harm.)

I love the phrase “responsible hedonist” that I learned from the pleasure mavens at Lafayette Morehouse intentional community. It gave me plenty of new information to ponder and integrate.

I’ll save the details for my next book, but you can trust me when I say, not only have I learned a lot about modern dating,  I have had a lot of time to contemplate the sexual “morality” I grew up with.

This led to wondering how pleasure got such a bad reputation.

Here is my best guess based on the little I know about pre-Christian (that would be Pagan) life. These pre-organized-religion folks lived lives inextricably entwined with nature. Rites, festivals, and ceremonies abounded in which sex was a major activity . . . an integral part of nature’s reproductive process.

By and by, along came Patriarchy with its organized religion and property-rights concepts whose destiny it appears to have been to obliterate these enjoyable practices. Sex morphed from natural and enjoyable to sinful and wrong outside of an imposed rigid framework of rules.

Bummer!

Thankfully the ‘60s Flower Children came on the scene. Woodstock happened . . . and the rest is history!

I’m intrigued by the number of women in their 30s who have shared with me their deep questioning of the cultural values of sensuality and sexuality, monogamy and  heterosexuality. They seem to be asking the same questions of “who says so?” and “what makes (fill in the blank) wrong?”

I’m also amazed at their integrity in honoring their bodies needs above their husband’s desires, making obligatory, marital sexual intercourse “so last century,” too.

I am also intrigued by the growing diversity of living arrangements and relationship arrangements that people are creating to meet their needs better than what tradition has offered. Polyamory, for example, which means having non-exclusive intimate relationships within a group of three or more people with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

While this appears to be a really far-out idea, it is really not so far from actual practice of a large percentage of our population who already engage in multiple intimate relationships (just think infidelity). The difference is it is done in secret, as opposed to everyone involved knowing each other, and knowing that it is going on, and being in agreement with it.

As I stated in my February 12, 2010 blog post No More Secrets! 2010 has become the year when the light is penetrating the shadows, and that which has been secret is coming into the light. This is certainly proving to be true, much to the chagrin of some politicians! For us to “own” behaviors previously kept secret is right in line with the evolutionary trend towards transparency.

How all this will play out, I certainly do not know. All I do know is that I am being called to take a stand to re-integrate spirituality, sexuality and sensuality. Healing the rift between “the Church” and sex is a big part of this next phase of human evolution. A person operating from a state of expanded consciousness, that has integrated thought with feelings and emotions, has the capacity to be in charge of their sexual energy in ways that can benefit the highest good of all involved. No outside authority needed, thank you very much!

BOTTOM LINE: It appears that humanity is evolving beyond the old paradigm of right/wrong thinking into one based on the recognition of the oneness of life.

New values are emerging:

• appreciating diversity

• co-creation rather than domination (of nature and each other)

• living in the flow of life-force energy rather than by the clock

A wider diversity of acceptable behaviors is emerging in all areas of life, including the expression of our sexuality. New ways of relating will require new relationship skills. Handling emotions of jealousy, and possessiveness, developing enlightened communication styles and living an impeccably honest and transparent life will be prerequisites to navigating the changes on the horizon.

TIP: The days of Privacy and Secrets are rapidly coming to an end. Capturing “private” conversations as they travel cyberspace is an everyday occurrence. With photos and videos taken with cell phones, special glasses that can let you “see” in the dark, surveillance cameras everywhere, and the ability to broadcast tweets to unlimited numbers of people instantly . . . there is very little room to hide. The key to success in the new paradigm is to live your life with integrity, honesty and transparency. To do otherwise will surely prove regrettable.

P.S. The sooner you claim your right to living a pleasurable life and extinguish remnants of old paradigm guilt, the more you make the way for others to do the same. Imagine a world of pleasure-filled people . . . might be hard to drum up interest in going to war, doncha’ think?!

P.P.S. The diva of pleasurable living is Regena Thomashauer, a.k.a. Mama Gena. Her book Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts: Using the Power of Pleasure to Have Your Way with the World makes a great case for living pleasurably in all areas of your life.

I know this has been a provocative article, indeed. I’d love to hear your comments and opinions. Have you been questioning the values around sex and pleasure that you were raised with? Have you changed some of those values? How supported do you feel in living out your values?

Developing trust in the goodness of the universe didn’t come easy to me. In 1989, when I was first introduced to the idea that there is a reality beyond our five senses, I was both skeptical and fascinated. The idea that “life” was “guiding” me to experience my “highest good,” and that learning to “follow my heart” would lead me to living in the “flow” . . . well, it seemed like a nice idea, but way too risky. I was well-grounded in my rational, logical mind and I had great confidence in my ability to figure things out and plan ahead.

Fast forward twenty-one years to 2010 and I’m pretty well-grounded in my higher mind, that state of consciousness that holds all the information available to us: body sensations, the subtle energies in our environment and the people we are interacting with, our intuition/sixth sense and our rational mind.

The higher mind is able to hold all this paradoxical information with no conflict, and synthesize it into natural knowningness that is far more accurate than logic alone. The prerequisite to developing your higher mind is having sufficiently expanded your awareness and built enough consciousness to be able to simultaneously hold many things in your awareness.

Once I got the knack of living a guided, co-creative life, the not-knowing how something will work out became part of the adventure rather than a source of anxiety.

With our world changing so fast, and no guarantees on what will happen next, the more consciously aware you are of all the guidance signals constantly being transmitted to you, the more likely you will find yourself in the right place, at the right time, no matter what is going on in the outer world.

The “trick” is to be committed to expanding your awareness and building your consciousness, while continually moving forward toward what your heart and soul desire, one step at a time, not knowing what the next step will be until the current step is taken.

Strategic planning is sooooo last century, and a trap that blocks the flow of your life!

As many of you know, I have been given the vision of community-living as the next evolutionary step. When I first received the knowing that bringing this vision into reality was a calling, I had no idea how to bring it about. Step-by-step I have been following the bread crumbs leading to the fulfillment of this vision.

In my quest I have realized that community-living fosters sharing resources, trading services, and fulfilling recreational needs, while greatly reducing expenses. We are more likely to have our needs for love, companionship, human touch and soul connection more easily fulfilled in community-living than with our current societal structure that segregates children to day-care, the elderly to assisted-living, and working adults to eight or more hours, five or more days a week, at jobs that few find enjoyable.

It has been said that the current “economic condition” is not a recession, but the end of an era, and that our security lies not in a stockpile of money, but in the network of community we are able to generate.

It took me a while to see that the benefits of community-living were definitely worth “giving up my privacy.” But, given that my group-living skills are limited at best, joining an existing community would be a lot like learning to swim by being rowed to the middle of the lake and pushed into the water. Sink or swim. No thanks.

Soon a gentle next step presented itself . . . to “bloom where I am planted” . . . invite someone interested in exploring community-living, who would be willing to put up with me as I learn group-living skills, to join me in my home for the purpose of experimenting with community-living. This felt fun and exciting so I knew that was the right next step for me.

How to actually implement this great idea proved to be the sticking point! In order to be on equal footing with the person who would be joining me, I needed to divide my home so there was an equal division of “territory.”

I let the idea simmer in the back of my mind for a month or so, and slowly the picture came into focus. By me relocating from the master bedroom into the tiny 3rd bedroom adjacent to the room I use for my office, which is also adjacent to the hall bath, I could create a “suite” comparable to the master bedroom.

This downsizing would be like trying to fit a pound of sugar into a sugar bowl . . . where to begin? It took another few weeks of pondering (not trying to figure anything out, but just “sitting in the stillness” while actively listening for guidance) for the perfect solution to present itself.

Go here if you’d like to see the steps I took to accomplish this rather humongous task.

Suffice it to say the transition is almost complete. All that remains is to sort the excess left in drawers, closets, and cabinets into “keep” or “discard” piles, and I will be ready for the next phase . . . locating the perfect person who is willing to work with me in learning the art of pleasurable group living.

The funny thing is after all this downsizing I feel so EXPANSIVE! I thought I’d feel a loss at giving up my space, but instead I feel like I have integrated parts of myself into a more unified whole.

BOTTOM LINE: As the evolutionary force grows even stronger, now more than ever life is demanding that you step into your authentic self and live On Purpose. Every soul has received the message that it is now or never in this lifetime. The old paradigm of laying out each step of a new venture before starting is the very obstacle that must be overcome to successfully transition into the new paradigm of love and abundance. You must be willing to take one step in the direction you are being called without knowing what the second step will be until the first step is taken. Risky? Only to those not connected to their Source, or those who have not developed consciousness beyond their rational mind.

TIP: To develop faith and trust in the process of your life requires taking steps as if you believed the Universe loves you and that you will be taken care of every step of the way. The more you do this, the more faith and trust you develop.

P.S. It really helps to be in community with people who are committed to expanding awareness and building consciousness while developing faith and trust in the process of life. Seeing others model this new way of being as they encounter so-called negative events on their spiritual growth journey, who then use these negative events to grow into their bigger selves, and watching them land on their feet over and over, is a powerful reinforcement in the belief in the goodness of life and the process of co-creation.

P.P.S. I wonder how much of the exhilaration I’m feeling right now about this change I am making into seeding the beginnings of an intentional community comes from the fact that this change is voluntary . . . that it is the result of answering the whisper of spirit that is guiding me in the direction of community-living. I wonder if I’d had an outside circumstance, like a job loss or home foreclosure, if I would have experienced these same feelings of freedom and expansion rather than grief and loss.

Are you making big changes in your life? Are they voluntary or involuntary? How are you being impacted? I’d love to hear from you so please leave a comment below.

On Sunday, June 27, 2010 I made a presentation on Community Living to a small group of Pioneering Souls who gathered in my home. We decided we wanted to continue to meet to start creating a closer knit community among ourselves. I also see us as a welcoming hub for anyone seeking to grow personally and spiritually who wants to explore community living in whatever form best fulfills their heart and soul’s desires.

If you’d like to receive notices of activities like Game Night, Karaoke Night and whatever other fun, community-building things we come up with, go to http://www.SpiritualGrowthCommunity.com/events and click on the link to register to be on the email list.

What follows is the general overview of the multi-dimensional arena of community living and a listing of resources for further investigation that I presented to the group. Once you begin exploring the concept of community living you find the choices to be beyond what you ever could have imagined!

There are two broad categories of community living: cohousing and communal

Cohousing is more for people who want to have their own private living space, (house, apartment, condo) while also sharing common facilities and participating in neighborly connections. The economics of a Cohousing community is similar to living on your own. Your income is yours, and so is your mortgage. The community may share some resources like cars or tools, and they share community activities, but each person is responsible for their own livelihood and their financial contribution to the shared facilities and activities. It is usually less expensive than living on your own, but it is not usually substantially less than living on your own. The main objective is the value of community.

Communal Living covers a continuum of financial arrangements that range from 100% income and chore sharing, to a core group of people who run the place and rent out rooms to people who want to have the advantages of communal living without the responsibility of chore-sharing or the burden of income sharing, the advantage being lower living costs.

As you explore different communities you will find that each community develops their own system that works for their members.

Within these two broad categories are more narrowly defined categories:

Ecovillages are generally communities with a strong ecological focus.

Co-ops are generally communities that are expense sharing, often urban, shared housing communities. Many are focused on college students.

Off the Grid generally on land purchased by the community with the intention of being self sustaining.

Organizational structures include:

•Guru Directed
Example: Ananda Village, Nevada City, CA  www.ExpandingLight.org

•Organizational, Top Down, Majority Rules
Example: Omega Institute for Holistic Studies  http://eOmega.org

•Consensus Based where everyone must approve a change before it is made.
Example: Morehouse www.LafayetteMorehouse.com

Visions of Utopia is a 2 volume DVD produced by, and available from, Fellowship for Intentional Community  www.ic.org

Volume I – 94 minutes
Gives an overview of 2500 years of shared living, and insights about what works and what doesn’t. Includes interviews of 7 communities

Volume II – 124 minutes
Consists of interviews with 11 communities

(So far) this is my vision of my ideal intentional community:

A community of pioneering souls on a path of conscious evolution that embraces diversity of people, customs and view points. What we have in common is a desire to transcend ego and victim consciousness. We recognize ourselves as co-creators of our lives. We value transparency, authenticity, integrity, accountability, allowing, and tend to focus on what is working and making it better, while letting what is not working dissolve from lack of attention.

We value humor, fun, and the full range of being human, including our sexuality in whatever form consenting adults find pleasurable that does not negatively impact non-consenting adults.

As I explore various communities these are some of the features I’ve encountered that I want in my community:

1. Consensus based. Nothing happens unless everyone agrees. The philosophy behind this is that in a small community, having even a few disgruntled people diminishes the happiness of everybody. My (admittedly untested) philosophy is that it is possible for everyone’s needs to be met, and no one has to sacrifice something important to them, as long as having everyone’s needs met is held as a desirable community value, and that every interested party is willing to keep thinking outside the box until an acceptable solution is reached. (Notice I said everyone’s needs can be met, not necessarily everyone’s wants, which is an important distinction.)

2. Living joyfully is important. No matter the task at hand, I’d like an underlying focus of “how much joy can we experience in accomplishing this task?” be part of the equation.

3. I am inspired by Lafayette More House community whose only rule is “don’t do anything you don’t want to do.” I’d like our community to agree that if one cannot give a whole-hearted “yes” to a request, they have the courage to say “no” rather than perform with resentment.

4. My ideal community supports a high-level of clear, non-judgmental communication skills. I like the Non-Violent Communication guidelines put forth by Marshall Rosenberg as a possible communication blueprint. It fosters a partnership approach to relationships as opposed to hierarchical relationships based on reward and punishment.

It is my opinion that we are in the midst of an evolutionary leap and the current economic situation marks and end of an era, rather than a recession from which we will recover. Most of the jobs that have left this country are not coming back. This is our opportunity to shape a new way of living that nourishes our hearts and souls and lets every person contribute according to what they passionately love to do. No more wage slave jobs to earn money to buy distractions to numb the heartache that comes from doing soul-sucking work eight or more hours a day, five or more days a week!

Besides, Earth’s resources are dwindling as population grows. Conserving and sharing resources is inevitable. History has shown that large populations of “have-nots” lead to revolution!

Once examined closely, the benefits of community living become, not only apparent, but desirable . . . imagine a community of people who love and care about you, who share your values, who need the gifts you have to share, and share their gifts with you that fulfills your needs.

Our task is to evolve in consciousness to the understanding that, at essence, we are all one, and what we do to others, we do to ourselves, and we darn well better learn how to get along!

Jennifer Recommends
Better Off, by Eric Brende  —  This book takes a look at the “simple life.” The question is posed “what is the least we need to achieve the most?” The answer will delight and entertain you. This book will cause you to seriously reconsider what you currently think of as “the good life.”

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver  —  The author and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, they’d only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, this book will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.

Quote

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

What are your thoughts on community living? I would love to have you leave a comment below!

Thanks.

Love and light,

Jennifer

I read about an experiment in which a group of lab rats were born into “rat hell”. They received random electric shocks. The food was unappetizing and the supply was unreliable. They were overcrowded, and room service was terrible. OK, just kidding. They didn’t have room service. Suffice it to say their living conditions were miserable.

When the rats matured they were transferred to a nearby environment which had been designed as “rat heaven”. Beautiful, peaceful environment, great food whenever they want it, comfortable temperature, soft music, fine wine, Cuban cigars (OK not the wine and cigars, I am just painting a picture here).

Would you be surprised to learn, that given the choice, the rats chose to return to rat hell?

I know people are not rats, but there might be some correlation that would explain why so many people willingly tolerate suffering in their lives. Bad marriages. Crappy jobs. Ill health. Their mantra that supports this suffering? “That’s just the way it is.”

Really . . . what a load of baloney! But then, that is the American culture to suck it up and do what is expected. If we complain we are told “life is hard, it is no picnic, and you just gotta do what you gotta do, whether you like it or not, otherwise we will call you selfish and label you a bad person and tell you that you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” (Or was that only me who was programmed that way?)

It’s easy to look with dismay, judgment and sometimes horror, at someone from another culture living up to a value we consider barbaric. A father suspending his young son by his thumbs as punishment for a misdeed. A mother and aunt of a 12 year old girl performing female genital mutilation on her so she will be an acceptable bride. A father, to preserve the honor of the family, killing his daughter because she kissed a boy.

Yet we willingly mutilate and punish our own hearts and souls so we can live up to our cultural beliefs about what makes a “good person”.

How did we ever buy into that, when the truth is life is intended to be Joyful and struggle-free?

Who knows? And, really, it doesn’t matter why we bought into it. The only thing that matters now is that we extricate ourselves from our unconscious, programmed conditioning and start living On Purpose as our Authentic Selves.

My first response in 1989, when my spiritual teacher, Judy Reis, encouraged me to follow my heart was, “You gotta be kidding! If I just did what I wanted to do, my life would fall apart!”

It would be laughable, if it weren’t so sad, that my first reaction to freedom from “rat hell” was resistance!

Fortunately, I was so mesmerized by Judy’s unconditionally loving heart and her ability to see and know things that I couldn’t see or know at that time, that I started letting my heart have a little say-so in my life every now and then.

Guess what? Nothing bad happened! In fact, my life kept getting better and better.

It has taken twenty plus years of expanding my awareness and building my consciousness to really get the hang of operating from my higher mind, and trusting my natural knowingness of what is right for me.

The children born today are already wired to operate from their higher mind. They are not so easily programmed to “adapt” to the culture they were born into. Most know “rat hell” when they see it, and they are not buying it!

Those of us who have been around a while will need to consciously make the choice to wake up to the reality that we are living in the midst of an evolutionary leap designed to create heaven on earth.

We either recognize our programming, which usually shows up as fear, and transcend it, or stay unconscious and go extinct.

BOTTOM LINE: Don’t be a rat! Wake up and know life is intended to be Joyful and struggle-free. If yours is not, you are not in alignment with who you truly are, and you need to begin making the changes you know you need to make!

TIP: Our unconscious self (ego) will resist every effort to change. Get support in making the changes you know you need to make. Read books, take classes, hire a spiritual growth coach, join or create a group of people consciously on a path of spiritual growth. Settle for nothing less than creating a life that is Joyful, struggle-free and full of FUN!

P.S. In order to transcend fear, you first have to acknowledge it. The next step is to sincerely ask “what do I need to change?” and then follow your guidance in taking just the next step. I like Jack Canfield’s analogy of driving at night with only the few feet ahead of you in the light. You can have the same confidence in your spiritual journey. All you really need to see is your next step. Take it and the next step will come into view.

Are you getting close to the “last straw” in some area of your life? If you feel trapped and like you have no choice, look for just one tiny step that can take you in the direction of what you want for yourself? (Notice I didn’t say take a step away from what you don’t want! A subtle, but significant difference.)

Please enter your comments below. I’d love to hear from you.

The nice thing about time speeding up, catastrophes multiplying and social civility disintegrating is, I no longer have to wonder what it would be like to live in the midst of humanity making an evolutionary leap forward. We are living it!

Honestly, I know it sounds nuts to say our species is evolving in real time, but I don’t know how else to explain the overall collapse of society as we have known it, and the general overwhelm most of us are experiencing. One day I am on top of the world and the next I am frantically rummaging my spiritual toolbox for an antidote to fear, or guilt, or worry, or just plain wanting off the planet.

It helps not one bit (in the moment of overwhelm, anyway) to remind myself that what I am experiencing is part of the birthing process into the next phase of human evolution. No. I just want something that will make me feel better . . . NOW!

But there is no escaping this evolutionary process. Just as a fetus must progress through the birthing process in order to live, so must humanity progress through its birthing process. Our planet is quickly running out of resources to sustain us. As a species we must either evolve or go extinct.

Shift or Die!

I am no evolutionary scholar, but I have seen the evolution chart that iterates from ape to man-in- business-suit, so it is easy for me to believe that human evolution isn’t stopping with homo sapiens.

Have you noticed on the evolution chart that each iteration of our species is a bit more “refined” than its predecessor? It makes sense that part of our evolutionary process is going to involve some refinement . . . actually we could benefit from quite a lot of refinement, doncha think?

It is this refinement process that is causing us so much emotional discomfort and overwhelm.

You see, the energy stored in our physical bodies from unresolved/unhealed emotional trauma (like being ridiculed in front of a class, or dropped by a best friend with no explanation, or fired, or on and on and on ) creates a density in our subtle energy system. With lighter, finer evolutionary energies washing through us it is like stirring a pail of water in which the silt has settled to the bottom. The activated energy comes to our attention so we can clear it.

The good news is that getting an energetic mass of unhealed emotional trauma out of the darkness where it has been eating away at our joy and happiness, into the light so it can be seen and healed allows us to have more Joy, less struggle and more Fun in our lives.

The bad news is the process feels like . . . well it feels really BAD!

But just as the fetus is birthing into an expanded environment in which to grow and develop capacities way beyond what was possible in the womb, so is humanity evolving into an expanded environment in which to grow and develop beyond anything we can now imagine.

More good news is that there are innovative things popping up in all segments of our culture, ready to fully blossom as the old, no longer effective systems collapse.

For example:

The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) has a Literacy Program called Seeds of Change. In a pilot program in several Oakland, California high schools a group of openly disinterested, non-compliant students were exposed to this program that included music, movement and meditation.

Here are some quotes from a few students after just eight weeks in the program: “Consciousness is all it takes for one to transform and transcend the obstacles we face in life and to really see deeper into the beauty of life that surrounds us . . . I am learning how to know my inner self and recognize all that’s meaningful and authentic to me.”

Another student shared that at first she couldn’t imagine how the class might become “a community where every individual has the space to speak out what is ‘real’ for them while everyone listens . . . Now I have seen it and think it is the most beautiful thing in the world.”

People, this is from high school students after only eight weeks in the Seeds of Change program!

You have to be blown away by this, right? So the next time you are exposed to yet another example of what a shambles our educational system is you can take heart knowing that the sooner it collapses, the sooner these kinds of innovative programs, that actually work, will rise to take its place.

Here’s another example: The Collaborative Law movement, which has evolved beyond the right/wrong adversarial “justice” system we’ve had for centuries. In Collaborative Law the needs of each party are put on the table and resolution is sought that meets the needs of everybody.

That’s “justice” I can embrace!

BOTTOM LINE: We are living in the midst of an evolutionary process that is requiring that we either shift or die. This has happened at every turn of the evolutionary spiral. While we are mostly exposed to stories of what is not working, there are numerous and frequent stories of innovative systems springing forth in every aspect of our culture. You just have to know where to look to know about them.

TIP: The Spiritual Growth Community is a clearing house for good news of the evolutionary kind. To receive blog postings of the numerous good things that are springing forth go to http://www.SpiritualGrowthCommunity.com/blog enter your email address and click submit.

P.S. Remember what you focus on expands and what you are grateful for multiplies. Put all of your attention on what is working, and what isn’t working will dissolve from lack of attention.

P.P.S. The more each of us focuses on our own growth, becoming authentic, and speaking our truth with love and wisdom, the wider the path we create for others to follow. The greatest gift you give to your family, friends, loved ones, the world, and yourself . . . is to have a life that works! It is not selfish to do what it takes to grow into your authentic self!

How are you doing in navigating the changes you are experiencing? I’d love to hear from you!

I have been a fan of non violent communication for quite some time and feel a strong affinity for their philosophy that all people have the same basic needs and when all people’s needs are met we can live peacefully.

The BayNVC group in Oakland, CA has formed a Consciousness Transformation Community that holds great promise. Learn more: http://ctc.learnnvc.com . Check out their core commitments and if it resonates you might want to sign up to receive their monthly bulletins. http://baynvc.org

They are having a Self-Acceptance Without Limits workshop this Saturday, May 8th. Most of us can use a little more self-acceptance. We Pioneering Souls can sometimes be so HARD on ourselves!

Love and light,

Jennifer

I am so tempted to make a sign that says “The Beginning is Near!” and hire a weirdo looking guy in a white robe and long beard to display it while standing on the corner in front of the Lodi Stadium theater. He’d implore passersby to wake up and notice that what looks like the end of civilization as we know it is the beginning of an evolutionary leap that is propelling humanity into an age of love and beauty!

“It is darkest before the dawn” is quite an apt phrase to apply to the current world situation. Just when it seems things can’t get much worse, it gets worse. The contentious political factions seem to be gearing up for civil war. The world-wide monetary debacle fuels fear and worry. And on and on . . .

The thing is, though, this is exactly what you would expect when an old, decaying paradigm is collapsing, making way for the new to emerge. Patriarchy, and top-down authority based on a reward/punishment system, is on its last legs.

Yeah!

What is emerging is a partnership paradigm in which we understand the interconnectedness of all life. We are becoming aware of the finite resources of our planet to sustain us. We are beginning to understand that there is no place on earth we can dump our garbage, test our weapons, or “win” a war that does not eventually return to us a negative consequence.

This expanding awareness is fueling an emerging paradigm that is founded on cooperation rather than competition. New ways of living cooperatively are springing up everywhere. I know because about six months ago I Googled “intentional communities” and found www.ic.org the website of the Fellowship of Intentional Community, which promotes community living and cooperative lifestyles across North America.

There are thousands of communities listed. Some people have formed eco-villages out of concern for the sustainability of the earth. Some formed intentional communities to reduce individual living expenses so they can quit their “wage slave” jobs and earn their living doing what they love. Some formed communities because they have a shared life philosophy.

People who have lost their jobs, and/or homes, out of necessity are currently forming communities by moving in with family and friends in order to survive.

As each intentional community works through the challenges of living cooperatively, mass consciousness is being prepared for cooperative global living. Just in times nick, too! As we can plainly see, unless our world community learns to live cooperatively, we are going to blow ourselves off the planet.

On the national level we, as a society, seem evenly divided on just about every issue, with each side 100% sure they are absolutely right, and the opposition is 100% dead wrong. Civil war is becoming a real possibility!

For those of us who choose to step outside the current cantankerous paradigm and participate in the creative process of shaping the future paradigm, community living is gaining appeal.

Now, at first, I was not so keen on the idea of living in community. I mean, I really like my privacy. And I have enjoyed living alone, doing what I want, when I want, how I want. Yet, my guidance has clearly told me community living is what is next for us. Dwindling earth resources demands a halt to excess consumption. Sharing resources is an obvious alternative.

“OK,” I said. “I am willing. Show me the way.” You see, I have learned that the Universe is going to do what it does and I can either go along willingly or be dragged, pushed, or shoved into what is for my highest and best good, even when it doesn’t seem like it at the time.

So I subscribed to the Intentional Community magazine. I purchased the video set documenting various communities so I could get an idea of what’s already working. I listened to people talk about how California is going to fall into the ocean and I’d better think about leaving the area.

I responded by saying I am willing to go where spirit directs. Yet, no doors were opening. No whispers were guiding me to do anything different than to just stay put. Fine by me. I love my home, and as I said, I was not too keen on “giving up” my perceived perks of living alone.

Then one day last month the quarterly magazine from the Fellowship of Intentional Community arrived in the mail. “Raising Children in an Ecovillage” read the magazine’s cover banner. Being well passed the raising children stage, I set it aside.

A week or so later, taking a break from the computer, I began idly thumbing through the magazine and found the articles more fascinating that I would have imagined. Children talked about the advantages of having a variety of adults to interact with. Parents talked about the blessings of having other adults share parenting chores.

When I came to the article about the Morehouse community I was excited to learn they were relatively local. I dashed back to my computer to Google them and found they were having a presentation at the Open Secret bookstore in San Rafael the following week. I knew I had to be there.

As I listened to them talk about their community every part of me was feeling “this is it!” This was the open door I’d been anticipating. Where it will lead I don’t know, but I do know I need to investigate further.

“One step at a time,”I said to myself, reining in my enthusiasm. I reminded myself how important it is to stay connected to my guidance every step of the way. I had learned the hard way how easy it is to get off track by letting my rational mind/ego take over when a new door opened. Uh . . . I’ll spare you the details . . . but the end results were not so good! (Other than the wisdom gained, of course.)

The Morehouse community has been in existence for over 40 years with many of the original members still in residence! They are a consensus group, not a top-down authority group. They have a community business that supports the community so that, ideally, people do not have to take outside jobs that are not soul-satisfying.

As visions are prone to do, one popped into my head at 3 a.m. two weeks ago. There were two elements to it: one, that spiritual growth is synonymous with becoming conscious. And, two, that the Spiritual Growth Community will morph into the Community for Conscious Living.

I jumped out of bed and secured the domain name www.CommunityForConsciousLiving.com and went back to bed marveling at how this is unfolding.

The vision expanded as I was preparing for the six month class series, Awakening Your Light Body, that started last Saturday, and in working with the practitioners I am coaching in practice development.

OMG, wouldn’t it be great to have a community business that allowed the practitioners to do what they do best, while other community members did what they did best . . . marketing, bookkeeping, handling recording equipment during seminars, doing website maintenance, handyman work, yard work, auto maintenance, and on and on?

YES!

So that’s the vision. A community of people who want to live consciously, that is authentically, and want to sustain themselves doing what they love. What remains to be seen is how this community will form itself.

Will it be a virtual community linked by Facebook, Twitter, cells phone, the internet, and occasional group get-togethers? Will it be a community that locates individual abodes on shared acreage?  Will it be a small community occupying a large Victorian house? I don’t know . . . yet.

The unfolding continues, one step at a time with no attachment to the outcome, yet being pulled forward by a vision of community living. I have attended a few Morehouse classes, and a few fun events called Mark Groups, which are open to anybody wanting to have fun. That is, you don’t have to be a community member to attend.

Mark Groups foster a sense of community because the game that is played let’s people get to know each other at a deeper level than ordinary social gatherings. So I am taking the next obvious step in the unfolding. Beginning Sunday, May 2nd, from 3 to 5 p.m. I will host a Mark Group in my home each Sunday for a while. If you like to have fun, you are definitely invited! Watch your email for your invitation.

BOTTOM LINE: We are in the midst of an evolutionary leap for humanity. No one will be untouched by the changes that are coming. Many people will leave the planet. Those who remain will co-creatively shape the future. The more easily you can go with the flow of change, the more graceful will be your experience. Taking baby steps through the doors that open can be a joyful adventure. Resistance to change will not halt change. The more you resist it, the bigger the trauma when the change does finally occur.

TIP: If you can view the coming changes as a birth into the new instead of the death of the old, you can have an adventure-perspective rather than a fear-perspective. I like to think of these “trying times” from the perspective of a fetus who is being expelled from the womb. Truly it is the death of a comfortable way of life, but with no more room to grow, literal death would be inevitable. The birthing process must seem terrifying to the fetus, not to mention painful for the mother.  Yet the “death” of the womb-life is the birth into a whole new beginning.

P.S. One of the great things about this life is the gift of free will. We are free to choose any belief that pleases us. We are free to choose whatever perspective we want when evaluating any situation. I choose to believe in ideas that make me feel good. If ideas of civil war, doomsday, and the “end times” bring comfort . . . great! Have at it. In the meantime I choose to believe that the best is yet to come which results in me living with more Joy, less struggle and lots more FUN!

P.P.S. Hope to see you at my home on May 2nd, from 3 to 5 p.m. for the first Mark Group. Be there or be SQUARE, hehe!

You know the graphic depicting evolution . . . the one that shows the progression from cells to today’s human? You’ll notice at one point in the process a fish has left the water, and the next image is of an oxygen-breathing reptile, followed by evolutionary iterations ending at today’s human.

This is the perfect metaphor for the leap of consciousness that we Pioneering Souls are making . . . rising up out of 3rd dimensional reality (the sea of victim mentality), into 4th dimensional reality (the land of co-creation), and then into 5th dimensional reality (the newly evolved human being living from the higher mind)!

Although letting go of victim consciousness and stepping into the co-creator role is an evolution of the mind, not the body, it is still as big an evolutionary leap as a sea creature leaving the sea and evolving into the ability to breathe oxygen, and eventually into an evolved human being. Really . . . this evolutionary leap humanity is making is HUGE!

I doubt that one day a fish jumped out of the ocean, developed lungs in the afternoon, and that evening was sleeping peacefully under the stars. No, indeed. I bet the first evolving water creatures gave it a go on land, again and again racing back to water so they could take a breath or three before giving it another go, until these pioneering sea creatures eventually spawned oxygen breathing animals, and evolution took a giant leap forward.

By the way, if you ask me, this leap of a shift in consciousness from victim to co-creator we Pioneering Souls are making is way easier said than done! We not only have centuries of victim mentality to overcome, we are also impacted daily by mass-consciousness victim mentality, which seems to poison the very air we breathe!

Take for example the mass consciousness agreement on the state of “the economy.” You may remember that as soon as the news broke that there was a “financial crises,” massive fear caused a majority of people who did have jobs and money to stop spending . . . and “this economy” was born.

In his book Spiritual Economics, the author, Eric Butterworth, describes the economy as the barometer of mass consciousness, that is, the collective thought forms create the outer circumstances. Whenever even a few people get together and talk about how bad the economy is, the energy of “bad economy” gets fed and . . . voila! (which is French for “here it is!”)

Taking charge of our thoughts and feelings is a daily spiritual practice. In one of our Spiritual Growth Community member teleclasses it came up how hard it is to rise above mass thought forms of worry, fear, anger and hopelessness, especially if you are immersed in it on a regular basis, which, of course, thank God/Goddess, I am not! I work in a solitary environment, don’t watch TV, and 99.9% of the people I interact with are Pioneering Souls on the path of evolutionary spirituality. I am so grateful for that!

So for you Pioneering Souls who are responding to the impulse to evolve beyond 3rd dimensional reality of the “if you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist” mentality, I hope you are plenty kind to yourselves as you jump back and forth from 3rd dimensional victim mentality to 4th dimensional co-creator mentality, while also developing the skills to recognize and harmonize with the subtle energies that make up our Universe that is birthed into material form by our thoughts and emotions.

Once you develop a modicum of 4th dimensional mastery in managing your daily life by effortlessly “working the energy” instead of striving and struggling trying to make things happen, then you’ll be ready for gaining mastery in 5th dimensional living.

How will you know you have become a 5th dimensional being? Your lower mind (your rational, thinking, analyzing mind) will have evolved into your higher mind that integrates thought with feeling, has the ability to hold opposite concepts in your mind without conflict, is aware of your own subtle energies, as well as the energies of the people you are interacting with, and the situations you are in. From this vast array of information you will make decisions in the NOW moment that are harmonious and for the highest good of all.

Hey, won’t that be nice? Keep the faith, baby . . . that is where we Pioneering Souls are going!

BOTTOM LINE: When evolving to the next level of spiritual growth cut yourself some slack and expect to make regular course corrections. As one of my mentors, Duane Packer of LuminEssence says “the measure of mastery is not how long you stay in an expanded state of consciousness, but how quickly you return when you recognize you have fallen back down into the illusion of the 3rd dimension . . . and more importantly, how quickly you want to return to the higher state of consciousness when you realize you have ‘lost it.’” (There is no denying that sometimes it feels really good to feel miserable!)

P.S. Be on the lookout for new tools to manage thoughts and emotions. As you evolve you can outgrow tools that worked well in the beginning, but are not as effective now that you are at a higher level. My latest addition to my tool box is Matrix Energetics. I’ll be demonstrating Matrix Energetics at the Spring Retreat next weekend by offering mini sessions at the break and at lunch.

Where are you in your process of becoming a 5th dimensional being? When you notice you have lost your connection to Source (you’ll feel something less than joy, that’s how you’ll know) what tools work for you to get back in the flow? I’d love to hear from you!

P.P.S. If you would like to receive notification when I make additional posts to this Evolutionary Spirituality blog, please enter your email address in the field at the top of the left hand column and click subscribe.