As you walk into the Lightwork Center these days the bulletin boards are covered with sign up sheets. For a festive winter dinner party, for upcoming classes, for the winter retreat. What is of particular interest about these sign up sheets is that they are all full! We know that the Lightwork community is growing and deepening but it is fun to have such evidence displayed on a good old fashioned cork board!
This fall we decided that instead of taking on new projects as we are usually keen to do, we would finish up old ones. This has been a very satisfying process of taking stock and finishing and implementing projects that have been in process for a while. Lightwork productions has taken a jump forward as a result.
- Julia Watson
Click here to visit the Lightwork Photojournal/Blog
In the Apprenticeship Program it is more important than ever for me to make the distinction between me, as Spirit, and my body. The apprenticeship asks a lot from both, and often as Spirit, I am gung-ho, and my body is dragging it’s heels. Here is an excerpt from a conversation I often have with my body right before I begin my evening apprenticeship duties...
My body states, “Change?! Let go?! No! I’ve done enough today! I just want to sleep!”
As Spirit I reply, “Body, this is what we are doing. I love you. After class there will be time to lie down and rest in bed.”
“Okay.” My body agrees, sometimes it takes time.
“You’re valid. 100%”
“?”
“Yes.” As Spirit I am the one my body most wants reassurance from.
Assisting holding the space for others to grow their spiritual seniority is no doubt assisting my own to grow. Developing a loving relationship between myself as Spirit and my body is a crucial step on my healing journey.
Lightwork Productions- the creative wing of Lightwork- does ongoing work to put spiritual information out into the world using creative means. Check out the updated Lightwork Spiritual Development video webpage, a collection of Lightwork videos.
This month, The Lightwork Band released the latest album, Sacred Love Pop . The new album was celebrated and the creation process was also explored at the release party. The album proved to be 100% danceable, as tested by those who attended the release.
Another project that is ready for release is the Lightwork Life videoblog series. The first "season" of shows is ready for viewing, and will be updated to the Lightwork website on a monthly basis. Lightwork Life is a Lightwork Productions project to make the Ecovillage more visible on the planet. The videos are about 5 minutes long and can be viewed here !
- Julia Thiessen& Jeanine Longley
Click here to visit the Lightwork Band's Blog/News and Photos
The garden at the ecovillage just keeps on giving! We have a hearty supply of kale to eat over the winter, we are still digging up potatoes, and the late summer planting of lettuce mix paid off in rich abundance. We’ve collected dried bean pods to save for replanting next summer and we’ve planted a cover crop of rye in a few of the beds. A cover crop, sometimes called green manure, protects your beds from erosion and weeds. The idea is to plant early enough in the fall to have the cover crops grow a few inches. It usually slows down over winter and then gets another new burst of growth in the spring – at which time you dig it back into the bed allowing the nutrients in the young crop to go back to the earth enriching your bed. Last year the rye cover crop had rather poor results so we are thrilled this year to see it already a hearty size. We’re learning! Check out the ecovillage blog to see photos.
In other news…a few months ago we formalized our legal entity into the Lightwork Ecovillage Corporation. This fall we finalized documents to move the land out of personal ownership of a few of the board members into the Lightwork Ecovillage Corporation. This will make it easier to apply for grants, it limits the board's personal liability, and it gives the whole project a big boost in visibility.
Want to come to a work party? We’d love you to join us! Here are the upcoming dates:
Sun, Nov 22
Sun, Nov 29
- Julia Watson
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if you would like to visit the Ecovillage.
Click here to visit the Lightwork Ecovillage Blog/News and Photos
If you don’t feel valid inside, you create situations in life where people will validate you. It’s the old story of trying to fill the cup that simply will not fill. It doesn’t work that way. You can have millions of people worshipping your every footstep, but you still won't feel valid. Say hello to Hollywood.
What makes you valid is an internal process. It’s your connection with Source, your innate wholeness. Everywhere you look in Western culture, there is programming saying if you don’t have a husband or wife, girlfriend or boyfriend, something must be wrong. The spiritual warrior is always working on having life be whole and not dependent on others - living in a state of autonomy. You may choose to have relationships yet a relationship won’t make you whole. Relationships are extras. They are support and a lovely part of life, but if you can’t exist without them, or if you get depressed when they are not present, then I encourage you to look at why.
The pillars of the temple stand apart in order to be strong is a clear statement about relationships. If the structure is the relationship, and the pillars are the people, and if the pillars have become one, then the structure is weakened.
So then why do we buy into the idea of losing space to another? This is an area I see vulnerability. I train spiritual warriors who become powerful, own their space in most situations, move forward and become more powerful every day. I find sometimes when they get into a physically intimate relationship, they become vulnerable. They lose their path, they lose their power. Why?
Obviously there is a vulnerability around sexuality. Even more than the vulnerability is the programming defining a sexual relationship. Often this is unexpressed as “we are no longer two people, we are now one”. This programming is dangerous, spiritually speaking.
What is your vulnerability to losing your space in relationships? Losing yourself can be like a drug. It can numb pain, and you don’t feel as much when you have someone else’s energy in your space. There is usually a loss of choice and direction because you are no longer choosing for yourself.
A relationship based in respect and autonomy is one where two people can be together and honour each other’s paths, without loss of space. Western culture is obsessed with merging in relationship. We even believe it’s what everyone wants. For example, there is a romantic notion that if someone in a long-term relationship dies, the other will die soon afterwards because they couldn’t live without the other. This is held as a beautiful thing. What has really happened is they were so much in each other’s space they couldn't physically exist without each other! Basically this means neither one was free. Of course we can have deep and meaningful relationships and they don't have to involve loss of space.
Loss of space doesn’t only happen in romantic relationships. Romantic relationships are usually the more dramatic version, but you can lose your space to anybody. What is your vulnerability to losing your space? You can have a relationship without loss of space. I’m a romantic and I believe in relationships with autonomy.
Look at the anatomy of the energy around loss of space. What does it feel like when you’ve lost your space to somebody in a romantic relationship? What is the sensation of it? Some of my students have described it as feeling numb, “love is blind” – you can’t see clearly what is going on, it is unclear what is your emotion and what it their's, you're constantly wondering how the other person thinks or feels about you, it becomes a preoccupation.
You want to be aware of what this feels like when you embark on or seek to maintain a relationship. Many people define love as "we are one" - this is actually loss of personal space. You can love someone and not lose yourself ("we are two!"). Maybe you haven’t experienced this yet, but you can. Many people’s experience of love is basically taking over or having someone else taking over their energy system. It may feel like being swept away. There is a big price to pay for being swept away.
In order for a spiritual being to lose his or her space to another there needs to be a wound. There are many types of wounds. A simple message like, "I need protection, my lover will protect me" - is based in the belief that you are not powerful. This belief is the type of wound I am talking about. Another wound might be an abandonment wound. The belief that you are unworthy of being loved and that it is inevitable that your lover will leave you. Suddenly you’ve got two worthless people being worthless together, and supporting each others worthlessness, rather than each other's power, each other's autonomy. The idea of loving without losing space is more challenging in an intimate physical relationship and it can be done.
You can create all your relationships to embody love and autonomy. You can have friends, associates, parent-child relationships, lovers, or partners who are respectful. It is your right to be in a respectful relationship. We are talking about true love. The creation of these types of relationships requires you to own your space, take responsibility for your life and your actions, be self-referring and love.
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