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
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Re-imagine

“A traveller puts his head under the edge of the firmament in the original (1888) printing of the Flammarion engraving”

The Pilgrim reaching from one realm, through, into another.
Is this what we are also being called to do.
Can we look beyond our known world, witnessing an other realm?

Dare we re-vision our world?
Can we welcome both/and rather than either/or?

How might it change? How might we?

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

Jung – Sea of Faith – BBC documentary (Part 1 of 2)

Let me know what you think.

From Bryan Magee’s 1984 BBC’s Documentaries.

 

The point is, to live everything – Happy Thanksgiving 2012!

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Today,Thanksgiving day, I hope you can take a moment, pause and listen. Listen to the stories, pause to feel connections, and maybe even make a gratitude list for all of the blessings of this last year. If it is true that what we pay attention to grows, perhaps if we are more patient to all that is unsolved in our hearts, we can live into unexpected answers.

I recently returned from a Vision Quest. The ‘gold’ of the quest, for many of us, was in the unexpected, transforming moments. They came while doing what was in front of us, whether that was sitting or standing in prayer, making a fire, singing a song, fixing food, washing dishes, sharing stories, or hundreds of other small tasks . The gift of the experience was e being willing to be present, and allow it to unfold. And even if we could not welcome the idea, at least accept, that change requires growth. Growth usually requires surrender of cherished false beliefs and old familiar certainties. Growth sometimes means staying awake for painful moments. Sometimes it means daring to embrace exquisite joy, knowing it is like trying to hold water in your hands. There is no way to know how long it will stay, or what is next.  In the place of sacred sacrifice there is a fluidity of possibilities.

Is it time to live into those un-lived possibilities? It may be the most important decision  each of us make today. Do we dare allow those possibilities to take form? Answering yes, may mean being more vibrantly alive, more authentically yourself. It also means following your path, making your unique contribution. Our world has never needed that more. I am grateful we get to share the Web of Life. 

Happy Thanksgiving 2012!

.

Why care about Soul’s realm?

 

Soul’s realm is found by listening, seeing, and knowing differently

What is Soul’s realm? How to find it? Why do we care?What is it?

What is it?
Soul’s realm is hard to talk about.
It is invisible, mysterious, and often dismissed as unreal.
It is outside the limitations of time and space.
It is invisible, precious, and sometimes terrifying because it is unknown.
It is not measurable, or scientifically definable

Learning soul’s language invites an adventure,
a journey led by inspiration, dreams, and synchronicities.
Connection with it guides us to unimagined possibilities

Soul’s realm awaits everyone.
Experiencing it ignites a longing for more.

How do we find it?
Following whispers from soul’s realm soften either/or certainty, offering new points of view.
Paying attention to synchronicities discloses important clues about who we are.
Paying attention to symptoms reveals what has been too painful to remember
but too important to forget.
Listening to Oracles invites reflection and flashes of  insight.

This mysterious, invisible realm urges us to slow down,
experience Eros and Wisdom.
Soul’s realm offers a different sensibility, rich with feelings,
saturated with images, and poetic illusions.

Why do we care?
Connecting with Soul’s realm,
invites a different experience of life–
more complex beauty,
liberation of imagination, and embodied knowing.
We experience a more intimate awareness of nature and wildness.

Stepping into this kind of knowing,
crossing the threshold into soul’s unknown, shadowy realm,
offers us access to missing pieces.
Those discarded pieces that did not seem to fit, yet contribute to who we are.
Reclaiming these lost parts of ourselves offers new freedom.
A freedom to step out of the shadows and choose more life, and more love.

Stepping into Soul’s realm invites wonder and vibrant energy.
It encourages each of us to celebrate our unique gifts.
It invites us to take our unique place within the web of life

 

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?

Awakening

One morning, early, in California, I was refreshed by allowing Gaia’s rhythm to wash over me. Do these sounds sooth you in some strange way, the way they do me? We could be any where in time saturated by peaceful harmonies.

Can you take a few minuets, step into timelessness, and allow yourself to slow down. Allow your breathing to slow as you pause to listen. Can you hear whispers of Wisdom, urging you awake, as you come to your Self?

It is a moment of pure alchemy as what is above and what is below join birthing a new day, and a new me. How about you can you step into the possibility?

Enjoy