A Time of Hopeful Challenges

Hello my dear one

Welcome to this most auspicious time

This is a time that asks, some would say requires,

you see what is most precious and valuable to you.

It is a time of practicing small, incremental steps in your awakening –

an endless journey toward wholeness.

Now you are more able to see,

as there is a lightening in the shadowy times just past.

Seeing what is valuable, precious, and significant

what is calling you awake.

You are unwilling to be led by dreadful stories of gloom and disaster, hopelessness and terror–even though it seems all around you.

I am not suggesting you don rose color glasses and deny the very serious conditions needing attention today.

Rather I am saying you have innate, hidden, powerful connections.

Connections meant to be harvested each day.

Connections that nourish you, inspire you, and lead you.

Connections that change you, the way you see the world,

and the contributions you make.

Together we can consider these connections,

practice and expand a more awakened response to yourself, family, and the world.

Small steps, filled with hopeful challenges, invite you to more fully embrace life and breathe hope into the world

God Bless you and good day,

Isaiah and Friends

Sunday Afternoon with Isaiah & Friends

This Month in Lyons CO

December 27  1-4 PM MST

More information jotoddphd@gmail.com.

Isaiah is an invisible presence and teacher dedicated to awakening and enlightening.

 

Stepping into Sacred Space in North Texas

 

November 20 -22, 2015

 

The inspiration you seek is already within. Be still and listen. Rumi

Our first visit to North Texas!

This transformational gathering invites you into a new worldview.By stepping into sacred space you touch dreams, dialogues, oracles, and intuition—Wisdom’s whispers 

Space is very limited. Pre registration is required

An Evening with Isaiah: You are more than you can see

Friday November 20, 7-9 PM
Isaiah, a well-loved Invisible Presence, is a mentor and guide. Jo and Isaiah met in the late 1970’s. They invite you to join them for an evening of joy and laughter.  People report breakthroughs and insights—the result of Isaiah’s simple wisdom.
While this idea may seem strange to modern, scientifically trained minds, it is supported by experiences older than time. Spending time with Isaiah, invites you into transformational experiences.

Stepping into Sacred Space—Create Healing Alliances

Saturday November 21-22, 10 AM – 5 PM & Sunday 10 AM – 1PM
This time together encourages you to re-view your world and your place in it.
Welcome intuition and knowledge, seen and unseen as you
expand your relationship with Wisdom.
You are stepping into a sacred healing space,
learning new ways of listening.

Begin to realize that you know more than you know you know.

You are inviting healing alliances within your Self and with others. They change your experience of the world, and the world’s experience of you.

Details:
Pre-registration is necessary Space is limited to the first 15 people who register

For questions or to register contact Crow at <sacredtreeusa@yahoo.com>

 Jo Todd, PhD’s unique work blends spirituality, depth psychology, ceremony, and recovery. Drawing on more than 4 decades of experience she acts as a teacher, mentor and guide. This blended process is therapeutic and healing. It helps you deepen, expand, and enriches you: as you collect lost pieces of yourself. Some describe her as a spiritual mid-wife, birthing soul into the world one person at a time. In addition to being the founding director for The Healing Alliance in 1983, she is President of Jung Society of Austin and a member of the Board of Directors for the Pacifica Graduate Institute Alumni Association. For more information about her current work see wwwjotoddphd.com
.

Living with Love: A Sunday Afternoon with Isaiah–September 28, 2014

Hi,

I hope you can join us for what promises to be a fascinating afternoon with Isaiah. You may already know Isaiah, but just in case you don’t, He is an invisible teacher who seems to bring a “somewhat different point of view”. I think, actually, he touches some deeper part of the heart of us, inspiring, energizing and awakening us to an unknown realm of possibility in some cases In other places I think he reassures us of what we already know but are afraid to trust. You know the part that longs for more. In some ways he seems remarkably accessible, and yet after more than 30 year he continues to be part of The Mystery beyond my comprehension. I am grateful to get to share him and this sacred invisible place, an imaginal space, we enter together with you.

If you are interested in joining us the details are below. If you want the conference call information please let me know.

Jo: Isaiah could you tell us what you would like to talk about it, what is timely in our world?

Isaiah: Of course my dear, as you wish. There is no question the greatest challenge facing you all today is what we need to ponder together.

This Sunday’s Topic: Living with Love

Hello my dear ones,

Your dharma, your birthright is to live with Love

Oh,  I am not talking about that candy cotton sweet, sticky-stuff, although that is also fine as a special treat for children, beautiful, tasty, exciting — temporary

It melts in the heat you know. And life, by its very nature, creates that heat

I am speaking of something larger, more profound, and much more precious

It is the gold of life, your true wealth

Sometimes it is mistaken for false gold, the tawdry glitter of material things taking its place

It cannot you know, nothing can replace the numinosity of Love

The generative experience of being Love, giving Love, connecting with Love

Love is fierce, committed, and enormously huge.

Beyond simple description, it must be seen, felt, thought, and held in awareness

J: How do I know Love?

I: Why, you are it

First, look to yourself, for the best parts and the worst, all of you, embrace the enormity of the energy extending all around you

Consider ways to give away the wealth that is your birthright. 

Love is magnetic, drawing to it all that it needs, in order to give more freely.

Trust in Love, practice trusting, falling short, and trusting again.

Listen for it, look for it, expect to see it.

Watch carefully, and find others who want to practice with you.

God bless you and good day

Isaiah and Friends

J: Thank you

Details: Sunday September 28, 2014 1- 4 PM
RSVP for Conference call details
In Austin at The Healing Alliance
3939 Bee Caves Rd A -200, 78746
RSVP so I know which room please
Donations are appreciated

For questions or more information contact jo@thehealingalliance.com or 512-680-1540

Wisdom Circles

Excerpted From Isaiah’s New Year Message:
Will you risk, this year, being seen, heard, and valued?
That, of course, is the challenge you have been backing up from for years.
Not who should you be, how should you be, or even what should you be.

Musings:
In 2005 I was gifted a 3rd phase of the my “work”. It is a network of circles–Wisdom Circles. Negar Kidman created a fabulous page for it.  Alas, it is still blank.
Is this part of the Partnership? I am passionate about the idea of social as well as personal alchemy. We need forums, incubation places of new solutions. Wisdom Circles create a living practice–birthing the unexpected. They host alchemy, inviting a different world view.

Wisdom Circles

I am reminded of an Oracle familiar many of us. It was the Oracle of Delphi who said, ” To Thine Own Self be True”. As so often happens with Oracles, there are layers of meaning. It was years before I realized it was asking me to be true to my Self, and the way I could do that was to have my daily self be in service to that higher Self.

Maybe this year is a kairos, a perfect moment, welcoming breakthrough.

,

Listening to the Oracle

Sitting in the early morning stillness I wonder what is this all about. What will it mean to accept yesterday’s suggestion, directions or challenge? What is the next step? So many questions chased by thousands of different thoughts.  Following a decades old practice, I turn to the Oracle, ask the question, and draw a Rune for another point of view.

Today’s Question: What is this all about?

Today’s answer:
Partnership – A gift

An Invitation

January 3, 2014!

Hello my dear ones,

Welcome and good day, and a Happy New Year to you all

All is well, regardless of how it seems, does that seem like a mindless thing to say, yes well perhaps it is.

It is a truth that lives happily in your heart,
that needs for you to turn your attention to how to live it into life.
It is a truth that calls to you, asking you to  make your contribution to right now.
It is a truth that asks you to stop the draining ideas about what is wrong with you, and focus on what is right.
It is the truth that says you are here for a reason –there is reason, purpose and meaning possible in each step and misstep along the way.
Does that mean there is not error, of course not.
Does it mean there is not evil, absolutely not.

But it does mean that beating in your heart, there is a knowing, a wisdom, and wholeness that calls to you – a space of grace, regardless of circumstances, a place of love.
Love filled  with enormous potentials and possibilities.
Is it effortless, not at all, but very nearly, in ways that sometimes defy understanding.
Is there struggle, sometimes.
Is there danger, often.
Is there failure?
That depends on you, do you continue, learn, love and laugh in the face of falling short.
Cry when it is there to be done.
Feel all there is to feel?
Tears as real as laughter and as valuable.

In other words, are you willing to love life fully and experience it freely?
Are you willing to share pain and joy, life and death, hope and sorrow?
Are you willing to be fully alive?
Are you willing to pause along the way, asking what would you have me do, be and become?
Are you willing to step out of a comfortable place of knowing how you react, fall short, and survive?
Are you willing,sometimes, to step off the cliff into free fall, and sometimes not?

Can you redefine what is being asked of you.
Can you redefine what you think you know about yourself, and extend it far beyond what you think you are capable of today?
Can you simultaneously be willing to be both less and more?

Will you risk, this year, being seen, heard and valued?
That, of course, is the challenge you have been backing up from for years.
Not who should you be, how should you be or even what should you be.

Rather the question is will you be you?
Will you let others see you?
Can you be willing to do more that survive, or even thrive.
Can you contribute your unique gifts each moment of the day?

Sound too idealistic and naive? It is not. It is the great challenge of each life.
Simply put, will you allow the world and yourself to, more fully, know you? 

If your answers are yes, or even I’ll try, that is enough
Let us begin.  Happy New Day

Love and Blessings,

Isaiah & Friends

Life as a pilgrimage, or 2014 – a pilgrimage. Those are the topics I have been playing with for this year. Or even something as esoteric and exciting as Rebirth & Renewal–following Sacred Whispers.

It has been almost a year since I posted to this blog. At the end of 2013 I said I was going to post something for the first 30 days of this new year. Oops!

Today is the first day I could figure out how to sign on again! Do you ever lose pass words? There must be a secret of the universe about password retrieval. I guess that falls into being prepared, organized and something else. I know journey’s take preparation. It is usually the mundane things, like passwords, finding the right socks, and all of the daily tasks required for living in the world simply and successfully, that trip my up.

So when all else fails I usually turn to the invisible for guidance. Not immediately, it has taken 2 days in this case to remember I want to share Isaiah’s New Year’s message. Of course that means I had to listen, let go of my angst and figuring, and be still! I can feel Isaiah smiling as I step into that space with him again. We visited some with a dear friend on New Year’s day but that was different — more directed. If you are unfamiliar with Isaiah, he is a most amazing mentor and teacher I get to journey with. You will hear from him frequently this year, as well as others I imagine. Weaving the invisible into the visible is one of my challenges and joys.

I hope you will say, yes, I want to join in the journey and conversation–this year’s adventure. I want to add my voice! I love hearing from you.

Jo

Called or Uncalled God is present

Walking the Spiral

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

T.S. Eliot
Four Quartets

I love this poem. I used it for the end of my dissertation, and for so many other times and places of return.  The idea that we will arrive where we started, and know the place for the firs time. Initially this idea was very distressing.

I used to say, “Well I guess I just have to keep doing it over till I get it right.” It was a statement about falling short. I graded it as a failure at the game of life.One day, a few months after my return to Texas, I once again found myself doing the same old thing. I was disappointed in myself. Here I was again.

Then, I felt my invisible teacher, Isaiah, smiling.What is it, I asked. “Do you not yet see,” he said, “Step back for a moment and look differently. Ask yourself, is this exactly what you have done before? Have you not yet realized that you bring all of the information, all of the experiences, and a somewhat different perspective to this now. Your journey is not an endless circle, rather, you are walking on a spiral. You continue to change and grow bit by bit, step by step, because of your willingness to look, see, and hold your Self more consciously.  Awakening may come with a blinding flash of insight, or gradually as you come to more of your self. Whichever it is you still need to continue. Taking small steps forward, listening for guidance, building bridges and weaving Wisdom into the spiral dance of life.”

With all this in mind, please read it again.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

T.S. Eliot
Four Quartets

It is pure alchemy isn’t it?  Your thoughts?

Making Space for the new: Release, redress and repair

Hello my dear ones,

Join us for an instant refresher!
I know how you love instantaneous solutions,
and why wouldn’t you?

Invite mystery, potential, and possibility
See old forms, old ideas, old actions–even old beliefs
Ask,
Is this true now? How, if at all, does it serve me and those around me?
Pause, take a deep breath, relax, and reflect

Then ask:

Can I realize cherished illusions of confining protection?
Am I ready?
Can I dare, truly, be more free?
Do I dare to begin to see what is uniquely my gift to give,
mine to add to the rhythm, meaning and purpose of life?

What needs to be released to open space for inspiration and learning?
What will encourage me to see more clearly–differently?
What can I do to add my small, infinitesimal, significant piece to the web of life?

What can I do to mend, redress and repair what has been broken
and begin to find what is lost?

A most exciting adventure, this part of the journey called Life!

Blessings

Isaiah and Friends