Vision Matinee 14 Sept 2009

Topic SPIRITUALITY

Kissos Campus, Yurt

Ilsemarie (Germany)—focalising, Jock (USA), Shirley (England), Adam (Arizona), Vicky (Greek), Eleni (Greek), Monica (Scotland), Helen Ford (England), Ali (England), Simon Cowper (England), Malika (California)

We commenced with a song “Into the presence would I enter…Nowwww”, sung as a round.

HELEN FORD (England): I have realised that everyone has an essence or soul that is an expression of perfect love. I now understand that spirit is on my side, always supporting me to express what feels right inside myself. I know this applies to everyone else. So I do what I can to sort out the patterns in myself that interfere with my listening to spirit and to my own inner truth and try to support others to do the same so that we can relearn to trust spirit and relax into the arms of love

ADAM ASPLUND (Flagstaff, Arizona): I personally re-encountered my spirituality recently. As a child I experienced my connection with the divine. Then I tried to put on a façade to please others. It’s been wonderful recently to get back in touch with the purity of my youth.

ELENI ASVESTA: (Athens) At age 8 I had a calling for service. I want to be me. It’s difficult for me to be in the arms of the divine. My mother and father were communists, pushing their ideas onto me. I discovered spirituality through art.

JOCK MILLENSON: At age 7 was pondering “what’s it all about? Where did I come from? How could I not have existed and then briefly exist and then no longer exist”. It didn’t make sense to me so I became a seeker after Truth. I tried to find the answers through science and I got some answers and realised that this Jock character was just a complicated machine, but that knowledge didn’t fully satisfy. So I dropped out, got involved in the spiritual supermarket in California, took up meditation in Burma as a Buddhist monk and then joined the guru trail in India, which led me to Advaita (non dualism). One day I came across a sentence in a book by Jan Kersschot and reading this sentence, it all became totally clear, and 50 years of seeking dropped away. I’m still working on the inner to become more of the being I could be and I see authentic community as described by Scott Peck and the ecovillages movement as the vehicle for this self work. I value sitting quietly in silence contacting that which is beyond words. I don’t know what people mean when they say “so and so is ‘spiritual’; or that’s ‘not spiritual’, since I can’t find anything that isn’t just the play of consciousness--in this yurt…now.

MALIKA RUBIN-DAVIS (California) I’m part of a community back home. For Easter we don’t eat chocolate eggs, we climb a mountain, give a prayer with a mantra and a enact a ritual. At age 6 I had a spiritual experience. I believe there is magic and wonder in the world and the more I believe this the more I experience it. People get caught up in their spirituality, become monks and nuns or group hippies and think their way is the only way. I myself find true peace in sweat lodges and silence and my art work which works out emotions. Song too is a big way for me to connect with Spirit.

MONICA McMAHON (Glasgow, Scotland) I’m just looking at what’s out there. I started to explore how the word “spiritual” is used by some groups. I think its something bigger, something to do with the planet. I’m confident that something will come that fits for me.

SIMON COWPER (England/Germany) I ask the question: “Whats the difference between religion and spirituality?” Celebration, rituals and community are important to me. I grew up in a Christian world, going to church every day at boarding school. This took me out of nature and I lost connection with knowing who I am. I moved to California and did sweat lodges on Big Mountain, Arizona, experimented with drumming, sage, smoke, horses, saw people hanging from trees. This was a strong experience with great depth of feeling. Since then Taoism has become a strong path for me. I do a lot of looking outside, but in the end maybe I should be looking inside. I’m in a kind of “don’t know” place, holding on to loving kindness and to the vision that everything fits. I seem to be in a gradual process of pouring the tea out of my cup.

VICKY VERGOU (Greek, living in Britain). Growing up in Greece where religion is strong force, I spent a large part of my life being a warrior against convention and society. I became a drug addict. Then in 1995 I had a dearly beloved one die, and I started going to anonymous meetings and learned about a higher power that could be what I wanted it to be. In the last dozen years this has changed form and shape. Through meditation I’ve learned to take distance from my needs, my thoughts and my emotions. Now I want to stop this struggle against society. I never had a god, but I had this intuition to learn. I’m on my own on this planet and I’m responsible for my own happiness. Maybe me and my present partner have different ways and different paths and that’s okay. I’m not dogmatic. I want to reach acceptance, I want to trust because when I do trust I feel happy. Through trust it helps me to be in touch with the moment. I’m dealing with illness and since 1999 I’m in close touch with death. There was a shift when I realised one day that “it doesn’t matter if I die.” I still get in connection from this precious memory which is my reminder, my daily practice.

ILSEMARIE FULFORD (Germany & Findhorn, Scotland) I grew up and practiced the Catholic religion, but found that God was a punishing God and I had to leave this religion in my early twenties. As a child I connected with nature, this gave me connection with Oneness. After seeking and trying to find a way to open my heart I went to Findhorn because it’s a place where everything spiritual is welcome, and because I like the rituals we share there and how we live together. Needing more personal guiding I trained to become an Interfaith minister, first of all to deepen my own spiritual connection, and it gives me great joy to support other’s as a spiritual companion and create meaningful ceremonies. I’m still exploring different ways of connecting with Spirit. At the moment I feel the need for a more devotional practice and I can sometimes sink back into the arms of the Beloved. I know from experience that it takes discipline to dedicate time to my spiritual practice. Here at Kalikalos in the sun and in holiday mode I find this more difficult, but that’s okay. A Course in Miracles has been very meaningful to me and has helped me to find my way back out of separation into unity again and again, through forgiving myself and others and ultimately understanding that in reality there is nothing to forgive.

SHIRLEY WENDY (England) Interfaith ministry has helped me. Being a reverend lets me have reverence for all life. As a child I felt magic and the Lord’s prayer spoke to me. Then I closed all this down because I was told it was weird. I went to interfaith but I had resistance because of how I was judged. The Course of Miracles is learning how to let miracles happen. Now I’m living a balance between exhaltedness and the humour of the ordinariness. The older I get the less bothered I get about dying. This is the illusion that death separates us.

ALI LEUW(England/Spain) I spent a lot of time thinking about what is Spirituality. Now I don’t do that anymore. I spent years as a Buddhist nun, lived in an Ashram for many yeaers. After that I was a hermit on my own for a long time. Now I just see it’s beyond words. I see spirituality is about an open heart, helping others. These days I just talk less and let the silence be as it is and know its my deepest being.