A Night for All Souls

Paula Jardine, artist in residence for Mountainview Cemetery, talks with Carol Sill about her work creating the remarkable Night for All Souls event, an inclusive community remembrance. It is described as “a family friendly sanctuary of beauty for tender feelings, with fires to warm us, music to uplift us, tea to refresh us and materials to create personal memorials for our dead.”  “We consider ourselves hosts, and that our job is to create a sanctuary, and we call it “A sanctuary of beauty for tender feelings,” that’s how we think of it.
This past week, we’ve just completed the fourth year of  this event, our mantra was, Beauty is the bottom line.

For more about this event, go to the Mountainview website.

Read the text of this conversation.

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Intention and the Unexpected

Matthew Spears talks with Carol about the need for space for the unexpected along with your intention.

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We’re All Connected

Karen Murphy talks with Carol about our global interconnection and awareness.

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Iqbal Ishani on Chi Gong

Iqbal Ishani discusses the benefits of Chi Gong with Carol Sill: including, stress release, chakra opening, expanded energy flow, health and well-being.

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Collage 911

This collage series was created in the month just before 9/11 and I put it up on slideshare a few years ago.

Here’s a bit more description for many of the collages included in the slideshow.

Emergence of the Serpent of Wisdom
This collage was the first in a series that literally burst through. I hadn’t done any collages since the 80s, and suddenly restless, I created a series with many dark images. Strangely, they comforted me. The series began in late August 2001, and the revelation of the serpent force was totally unexpected and unplanned. I had wanted to show only a window revelation into another reality, but the articulated being appeared. I felt it was a shamanic communication, so I followed that lead and created the series as shown here. They are like astral snapshots.

The Old Country
I envisioned this as a northern Scandinavian afterlife, where souls arrive to be transported to other levels. The ancient dolmen, the hanged man, the boat of souls in the crisp cold sky somehow connect me to my dad’s side of the family. Here the supplicant approaches the ruler of this afterlife.

From the Stars
Here the eternal feminine forces of moon and water bring messages to earth in a procession pouring downward like a waterfall. Priestesses bear golden bowls, cups fill to overflowing, the mysterious planetary forces beam into our lives

The Oracle
The masculine force of the oracle predicts the future. His realm is one of magnificent glorious interplay of form. He is embedded in it, and in all he sees. His companion spirits flank him on either side. They open their mouths to articulate his vision, and he speaks the words which predict the future.

Dolphins and Dolmen
On earth, tourists see dolphins on land, leaping in communication with the ancient dolmen. Unconnected, they can only observe. Magic is afoot.

Goose Girl in the Stars
Far from earth, a part of the great mother archetype looks after things. This young girl, tending geese with her starwand, is known for her “healing, performing miracles and teaching” while the magnetism of the earth remains in her view.

Mysterious Stranger
One of these things is not like the others. On the horizon, he sends his energy ball to glide along the path, while planetary storms brew behind. On the right, human remains lie folded in an ancient grave. Standing with him are the glittering saints. The stranger stands as one of them, but has he come from somewhere beyond, and far more primitive?

Near the End of Time
I had put together a collage before this one, but for some reason could not bear to complete it. Disturbed, I went instead to this integrated image of dangers unleashed into the world. As death extends technological dangers over a wasted sea, engineers in offices seem to map the complexities of disaster. Hope, in the form of the Buddha’s understanding, adds balance to a dark vision.

Miracle of Science
The virgin Mary is resurrected by scientists. Elevated against a grey moon, she is reconfigured by machine projections, monitored by banks of data controls. Believers with hands up grieve her death and pray for her. The resurrected self is a colourless figure, an overworked factory child.

Declaration of War
This hot blood red image nearly completed the series. I had hesitated to commit to it, and did the others in the series. Then 9/11 happened, and I knew then that the imagery had been true. I finalized this image of war. Mars influences the blood-covered demonic celebrant as he emerges screaming from the cannon. Warlike peoples march on the earth carrying kings as the hand fate has dealt is enacted. Red tentacles enter the scene and a beam from the cosmos glows like an evil eye, while the red volcano erupts and lava flows.

Let’s Rock
The world is tilted, off kilter. Waves crash and buildings topple, while Tibetan shamanic dancers tell the tale in movement. Above, in a pavilion, a rock band pounds out the tune. It is a cosmic unbalance, and world rocks to find equllibrium.

Most of these images can also be viewed individually here on Flickr.

The Direction of the East (Part 2)

Isabella Mori continues her discussion with Carol Sill about the Direction of the East and the Mind world.

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The Direction of the East (Part 1)

Isabella Mori discusses the direction of the East and its relation to the mind world. This conversation continues in Part 2.

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About Karen Murphy and Matthew Spears

Karen Murphy is a professional channel and a writer.  She is the voice of Polaris, a loving being who brings us encouraging messages of empowerment—real tools we can use to live more joyful and connected lives.  Karen writes several columns for online magazines around the internet, including at Literary Mama, and she’s also Reiki Master and a shamanic healer.  Karen is available for private channeling sessions both in-person and by phone, and Karen and Matthew give workshops all over North America.

Matthew Spears, though less-seen and less-audible when it comes to channeling Polaris, is nevertheless an integral part of the channeling team that is Polaris, Karen, and Matthew.  In other words, it wouldn’t happen without him!  Also an energy healer, Matthew has a Masters degree in Computing Science, has a theatre background, and is also a writer.

Channeling Site

• Polaris Rising

Video conversations with Karen and Matthew:

• Channeling Guidance
• Karen Murphy: We’re All Connected
• Matthew Spears: Intention and the Unexpected

Ceremonies and Life’s Journey

“So those things are forgotten, but I can kind of remember them still, though I was just a little boy. I used to just sit behind my grandmother. All those old people from the different tribes, they’d all be sitting around the teepee and they’d be singing and the ceremonies would go on then.”

Lee Crowchild in Conversation with Carol Sill

C: Hi Lee, glad you can be here and talk with us today. And I think today we’re going to talk a little bit about spirituality and what your point of view is on that, and tell us a little bit about your world view.

L: It’s kind of an open question too. Maybe there’s something that’s interesting you that you kind of want clarification on?

C: I wonder… Let’s talk a bit about how the spiritual life…when did you first find out about the unseen life?

L: Well, I’d have to go all the way back to when I was born, I think. Because when I was born, when I got to six months old… my grandparents invited my other grandparents from Montana – because on my grandmother’s side we’re Sioux, Dakota Sioux. And my old grandpa [….] told them to come up there, and they told my parents, “Bring over your son. Bring Lee over because we’re going to have a little ceremony, naming ceremony.” And so they came. We lived in an old shack that time, just an old wood stove with my grandparents and that, small little kitchen.

They came in. And so my grandpa, he held me in his arms, he started singing and they started dancing around, him and his wife, dancing around and singing these songs, and that. And then they handed me back to my mum and dad. And he said: this man, or this little baby, we’re gonna call him Wakinyan Duuta, which in translation means simply Red Thunder.

See, Wakinyan Duuta he was a war chief back in the old days. He was a chief that, when they went to war, everybody followed him. But his ways were kind of different. People had a hard time understanding the things that he did. And then they told my parents  and my grandparents, they said this boy’s going to be a little bit like that. He’s going to be chasing his spirit for a long time, for a lot of years, and he’s going to become a leader. But people will have a hard time understanding his ways and that.

That was when the spirituality first started, you talked about the spirituality. And from that time on my grandparents would take me to ceremonies, wherever they went to a ceremony they would take me. Mind you they both grew up within the church, in the Anglican church, so they were pretty strong Anglicans then.

The difference was they still had a tie to the old traditional ways so they would take me to these ceremonies. I remember when I was young ceremonies that they don’t do anymore, because I’ve asked questions about what was this ceremony, what was it about, because this is what I saw, and […] says Oh I don’t know, that was a long time ago.

So those things are forgotten, but I can kind of remember them still, though I was just a little boy. I used to just sit behind my grandmother. All those old people from the different tribes, they’d all be sitting around the teepee and they’d be singing and the ceremonies would go on then. So that’s kind of how that started.

I was always aware, anyways, when I was growing up in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s when this big renaissance, I guess, towards being native again, being cultural. Because you know we’re starting to understand that those residential schools were not really good things to do.

And so in my own ways I chose to, at that time grow your hair long. When you were native at that time and you grew your hair long, that was a sign of rebellion too. My dad at that time was pretty straight cut, but my grandparents they kind of saved me, “Just let him be.” My dad wanted me to go into law, and my grandparents thought, “No  he’s not going to go into law.” He wants me to go to residential school, my grandparents said, “No, he’s not going there either. “ So I was kept away from those things. I guess in the end it was probably the best thing.

And then out of high school I traveled around the world for a year and a half. Just from experiences, lived experiences, meeting healers. Not meaning to, just meeting them and talking, exchanging ideas with other cultures and that. When you’re young you just want to explore, and that’s what I did. I learned a lot that way, and so when I came back, rather than just being home and working on the farm, I thought I’d go to school because that was really interesting at that point. That’s what I did.

All along there my ties to traditions and that were getting stronger and stronger.  I ran a dance company that was within that same spirit: we may have lost a lot of what we know, and a lot of it was taken away from us, but whatever little we have, we have to hold on to and treat it as precious.

It’s taken me a lot of years to kind of at least have a bit of understanding of what that spirituality is. You ask me that question and I can’t answer it directly. But this is my long way of addressing it, to a point where I finally did my own fasting so in my way I started that real spiritual journey.

I’ve been involved with sundance for a lot of years, to the point where I’m one of the helpers, when you go to sundance. Now I’m the main fire-keeper, which I quite enjoy. That’s where I kind of see I fit.

And in that, in those experiences I’m able to pass on to people, and people ask me about spirituality. It’s not this is the formula for getting enlightenment or closer to God and the Creator and that… this is part of the journey, you know.

And for young men that’s really important. I fear for young men a lot because – from what I’ve learned is if you don’t go through the ceremony to become a man then our mind stays that of a young boy. Even though we feel the physical features of a man, and everything, our mind is still that of a young boy. And when you’re a young boy you don’t know right from wrong, you’re just impulsive – you do things…

So the ceremony is to tell your mind that now you’ve got to think like a man. Even if you’re a young man start thinking like a man. And that’s where you start to learn your responsibilities. But until that happens, you’re a young boy, you can just do whatever.

And I had this discussion with this man, his name was Arvol Looking Horse, and he’s the 18th generation Pipe Holder of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe. And those in the Native world that are familiar with that know what I’m talking about.  One time here at UBC we were talking, and for some reason we were talking about rights of passage of young men, so he was telling me about this. And he was saying, you know all of these men who become pedophiles, and that. Sometimes, I was telling him, they didn’t go through that ceremony, they still think they’re young boys and can’t tell right from wrong. So he was suggesting, maybe they need to do that ceremony, to get their minds in the right spot again. I remember him telling me that. Just the two of us…we were walking across campus that time, you know, and he was telling me that.  So that was an interesting time, and then I’ve always thought about that for young boys…

And then I see it, when I’m talking with young boys, or watch them in how they behave towards young women and that. I think, Gee they really need to have that ceremony for themselves. Go away and fast for a few days and really get to know themselves a little bit more.

Because when you lay it all out there, and you’re at that point when you say  “I can’t do it alone” that’s when the Creator talks through a lot of these spirits who’ll come and visit you, and you kind of get a vision of what your life is going to be. I can’t speak for that for women, because I’m not a woman.

That’s all I know.

C: Thanks

See the video of this conversation.

Piano Raga in ‘D’ Major

Piano improvisation by Jelaluddin Gary Sill.

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Channeling Guidance

Karen Murphy and Matthew Spears share their approach to channeling and guidance for a New Age.

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Mantra and Meditation Quiz

This quiz is rated difficult. Some of the questions are quite tricky. The original questions here were inspired by the scholarly book Mantra and Meditation by Pandit U. Arya, a student of Swami Rama of the Himalayas.

Please feel free to enter your own questions to expand this quiz, and of course, we welcome your comments in the comment form below.

Alchemy TV

A spiritual comic

Mansur Johnson in Conversation

Mansur Johnson in a wide-ranging talk with Carol Sill on energy, OTEC, US Politics, ending with a reading from his book, Murshid: A Personal Memoir of life with American Sufi Samuel L. Lewis.

Free Download: Mansur’s book on Shamcher and OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion).

Mansur Johnson’s site
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Diamond Sutra Quiz

We know it isn’t possible to have any one correct answer to this quiz on the multi-layered and deeply meaningful Diamond Sutra, a sacred Buddhist text. Still, the answers are taken from the text itself, revealing in some cases the limits of the linear mind. Enjoy playing within these concepts.

Michael Shandler: Journey to Non-Dual Buddhism

“And often I’d find I began to rest in pure awareness…. I wasn’t trying to concentrate, I wasn’t trying to achieve anything, I wasn’t trying to go anywhere. And after a while this began to feel very very natural.”

Michael Shandler in conversation with Carol Sill

C: Hi, I’m  Carol here in Vancouver.

M: I’m Michael Shandler, and I’m here at Amherst, Massachusetts.

C: And so today we’re going to be talking with each other about Radiant Mind, and about some of your interest and history. What would you like to start with?

M: Well, would you like to know a little bit more about Radiant Mind?

C: Let’s do that first, sure.

M: I came across Radiant Mind about four years ago when I met Peter Fenner. Peter Fenner is an Australian guy who is a professor, a PhD in Buddhist studies, and I heard about a course that he was offering called the Radiant Mind, which is a 9 month long course. And I was interested in steeping myself deeply, more deeply, in non-dual Buddhism.

So I thought this was a great opportunity to learn more, and little did I know when I signed up for this course, what I was actually in for.  So I went through the 9 month long course and I learned a tremendous amount. It was not an intellectual pursuit, though, so much as an experiential .. as an experience, really. And after that was done, Peter asked me if I wanted to continue working with him, and in fact to become a Radiant Mind coach and trainer, which since that time I’ve been actively doing.

C: Well, you were deeply involved in a spiritual life well before then, weren’t you?

M: I was, and I have been. I started actually, and I was thinking about it today – I think my first pursuit was when I lived on a Kibbutz in Israel in 1967.  There weren’t very many books to read but I came across a book – I’m struggling to find the name right now, but – it had to do with games people play. I think that in fact was it’s name.  Games people play about, you know, being a parent to child, or being adult to adult, or speaking child to adult or child to parent, and so on. I found it very very intriguing. It was really my first exposure, as a 20 year old, to psychology. And I really got into it, and I realized for the first time in my life I was interested in psychology and in spiritual things. So that’s how I got started.

And from there I actually came to North America and I went through the whole kind of hippie revolution, if you will, with taking psychedelics and blowing my mind. But perhaps paradoxically that was how I came to have a deeper appreciation of the spiritual realm.

C: How was that?

M: Well, I was exposed to an experience which was just beyond my rational mind, beyond anything that I’d ever experienced before. And it opened me up to the possibility of realms beyond my normal consciousness.

After that I became very interested in yoga and meditation , and I met Ram Dass. I heard a recording of his and I was so moved by it that I wrote him a letter and asked him if he would come to -  I was actually in Montreal at that time for a 3 month period -  if he would come to Montreal to maybe give a speech.  He wrote back and he said: Great, I’ll come.

And indeed, he showed up about a month and a half later, and he and I went on the radio together, we were chanting and doing all these sort of weird things – at least in those days they were still pretty weird for me.  And the next day was the talk.  5,000 people showed up, and we only had space for about 2. So he said to me: Do you think we could get another hall for tomorrow night? I’ll stay longer. And I said: Well I’ll make something happen. And I went out there and I found another large hall, and this time we crammed the place again. That started a kind of a very intense relationship with him, and I became his road manager.

And he introduced me to Baba Hari Dass who became a very serious teacher of mine for about  20 years. I got deeply into what’s called Ashtanga Yoga or Eight-Limbed Yoga and that was my path for a long while.

I did take some, how can I say, maybe not deviations but some side trips let’s say, into other things. I spent a year and a half during that time working as an Arica trainer in New York City with Oscar Ichazo. And sat zazen, and had a number of other… went through the whole human growth potential EST kind of thing, but remained very true to my meditation.

And even after I went back to Vancouver to help found a community there called Dharma Sara which is still going today. And in fact they host a community on Salt Spring Island called the Salt Spring Centre, which to this day is still very active.

C: I’ve heard of that.

M: So that’s a little bit of my background.

C: So, I don’t know how to ask you this, but…You were strongly in that yoga path, and yet you took some side routes here and there, focusing back into your meditation. So how do you relate to that now, in your practice now? What would you say is the change? Or is there a change?

M: Well I think that a really big change has occurred. I think the change can be summed up very succinctly …I think that this was caused a lot by my involvement in the  experimentation with the psychedelics, in that every time I took them  I would be transported very rapidly into another realm.  And so I found myself constantly wanting to go back into that realm. So you could say that I very powerfully was inducted into the search. And so everything became about the search. When I met with Peter Fenner, I had already gotten very tired of the search and found, like wow, this is a search that maybe will never end.

C: Right.

M: What happened with Peter was he said: Why not start from the result that you want here and now? You don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to do any particular practices. And I know this is going to sound heretical to a lot of people, and it was certainly very difficult for me at the time.

But basically what it did was it oriented me to working in the present. In the here and now, particularly with attraction and aversion, which as the Buddha said are the so-called core fixations. You either basically say: I want this experience that I’m having right now and I want it to go on, or you say: I don’t want this experience, I want it to stop, I want something else. Or you’re caught up in some kind of mixture of those two. And usually it’s a complex mixture, particularly if you’re fixated in a heavy kind of way.

So learning how to work in the here and now, rather than in a progressive way where I was doing meditation to get somewhere. I began to work in the here and now and to learn how to just be present, how to just be present. And often I’d find I began to rest in pure awareness, without trying to make anything…. I wasn’t trying to concentrate, I wasn’t trying to achieve anything, I wasn’t trying to go anywhere. And after a while this began to feel very very natural. That has become, again paradoxically, the practice. Because there are lots of biases and conditioning that we have that unconsciously come into our experience and take us away from the natural way of being.

C: Well that is a great start for us.

End of Part 1

View the video of this conversation.

About Michael Shandler

Michael Shandler has been a life coach, therapist and spiritual guide for over twenty five years. He is a certified Radiant Mind coach and teaches workshops in the Radiant Mind process in cities across North America. He has also served as a change-management consultant and leadership development coach in organizations internationally.

He is the author of six books in the human relations field, ranging from the The Marriage and Family Book: A Spiritual Guide to Vroom! - a graphic comic about collaboration and teamwork.  He has studied intensively with numerous psycho-spirtual teachers including Ram Dass, Baba Hari Dass, Adyashanti, Peter Fenner, Genpo Roshi and others. He holds a Masters degree in Counseling (1981) and a Doctorate in Leadership and Group Psychology (1983) from the University of Massachusetts.

Shandler1008@comcast.net
www.spaciousmindcoaching.com
www.radiantmind.net

Video conversations with Michael:

• Journey to Non-Dual Buddhism (transcript)
• Aversion and Attraction
• Natural Pure Awareness

Natural Pure Awareness

Michael Shandler outlines the non-dual approach he uses in his one-on-one Radiant Mind coaching sessions.

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Aversion and Attraction

Michael Shandler continues his discussion on the non-dual approach, beginning with an understanding of what the Buddha called the core fixations: aversion and attraction.

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Journey to Non-Dual Buddhism

Michael Shandler talks with Carol Sill about his journey into a deeper appreciation of the spiritual realm, from psychedelics to yoga to the non-dual. “And often I’d find I began to rest in pure awareness…. I wasn’t trying to concentrate, I wasn’t trying to achieve anything, I wasn’t trying to go anywhere. And after a while this began to feel very very natural.”

Link here for the text version of this conversation.

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