Jody Renee Sillence: Forgiveness

Jody Sillence continues her conversation with Carol Sill on the power and beauty of forgiveness in the path of awakening. If you have ever experienced the deep healing feelings of forgiveness then ….

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Jody Renee Sillence: Self-Discovery

Part 1 of the discussion between author Jody Sillence and Carol Sill, on self-discovery and awakening through journaling.
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Nothing New Under the Sun

Poem by Seppo Kaarlo Odell

Nothing New Under the Sun

republican democratic
supersize s.u.v.
soccer den mothers!
Your thoughts are safe with me
imagination is just too scary for you!

the wise Woman
the ancient eyes that guide
buried
somewhere in your house.
Isis hides
between the pages of Town&Country,
culture has halted
stopped!

you know everything is connected!
bad breathing air
bad mothers’ milk
melting glaciers
dead forest
confused cells.

stir yourself up…pyramid Priestess!
Awaken your sons!
So busy creating
more
greed culture
frat house beers
on the lawn…
the date rape babes
graduating
asleep in the dorm
class after class
while the Earth turns into Mars.
Come on, Mom…!

Making Spirits Bright!

Advice for the holiday season from Feng Shui consultant, Teresa Bockhold.

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Teresa Bockhold: Feng Shui (Pt.2)

The interpenetration and influence of the inner and outer realms and the metaphysics behind feng shui are discussed by Teresa Bockold in conversation with Carol Sill.

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Teresa Bockhold: Feng Shui (pt.1)

Feng Shui consultant, Teresa Bockhold, talks with Carol Sill in West Vancouver about her holistic approach to feng shui.
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Rough Diamond

Found on YouTube, “Malvasio” sings All the Diamonds by Bruce Cockburn, an exquisitely beautiful redemption song.

On his Youtube channel, Malvasio2, the singer says “I was a subway musician for 25 years from 1975-2000 here in Montreal, I also played in night-clubs and sang in the summers at a tourist area called the Old Port. After 25 years of trying to make a living as a musician I switched careers and became a computer nerd. About 18 months ago I came upon YT and it hit a nerve, my love of music reared its head and my guitar which in the previous 6 years had remained mostly dormant once again became part of my daily routine….”

His channel features a wide variety of songs, sung with guitar, at home, at the computer, posted on YouTube for all to hear.
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John of God and My Story of Spiritual Healing

by Sheila Verily

In August 2008 I travelled to a small town in Brazil on a sort of pilgrimage.  I was seeking whatever blessing may come of this journey and in particular relief from phobias related to food intolerances and cumulative personal stress.  This had become a considerable problem in my life – an unlikely candidate or so I thought, but at times limited by fear - and although other healing modalities had helped, nothing had taken me back a few years to when the problem did not exist.

So I journeyed the 6,000 miles from Vancouver to see the Brazilian miracle man dubbed John of God [in Portuguese: João de Deus].  John of God is a trance medium through whom spirit healers perform their work.  There is no charge to see him.

I have been interested in metaphysics, have studied spiritualism most of my life, and I was able to sense when the healing began.  It began in the beautiful capital city of Brasilia even before reaching destination.  Fortunately for me, my very capable guide Gary Walker (www.JohnOfGodHealing.com) knew just how to approach this journey for maximum benefit, and our first day of touring included three sacred sites before carrying on our way.  The healing had begun!

What I would soon come to witness in the little town of John of God will be impossible to explain in this one brief story, but it was all nothing short of powerful and moving.  Miracles have been known to happen there.

I briefly met with John of God.

Did I experience healing?

Yes, I certainly did – I have not felt phobic since my return, thank God.

Did others experience healing?

Yes, they have told me they have, some even from life-threatening conditions.

Some people sought physical healing and relief from serious or painful problems, while for others the trip was more about emotional healing.

I met people of all ages and from all around the world who had travelled to Abadiania, Brazil for help and in my opinion no-one leaves that precious little town without being changed for the better.  Since returning home my meditations have been deeper and more meaningful and I look forward to doing them with regularity.  Even my prayers and affirmations have a much sweeter feeling to them, as though they are coming from more deeply within and with even greater reverence.

What I experienced clairvoyantly, was another magnificent blessing.  I wish that everyone had seen what I saw: Saints and other beneficent spirit beings.  [I feel a duty to state here though that it is not necessary to be clairvoyant or to even believe in spiritual healing in order to experience benefit—a young New Jersey man on a return visit to Brazil confirmed that when he spontaneously shared his healing story with me.  Ideally one is sincere, is interested in a quiet although fun retreat, and is simply open to possibility.]

John of God (born João Teixeira de Faria) has said: “I do not heal.  God is the one who heals.”

I so look forward to returning to this marvellous little town in Brazil – a town where an abundance of lush papaya trees, gorgeous small green parrots, and a bounty of quartz crystals are all sights to behold amid the ever-warm Brazilian smiles.

If you have made such a journey or consider doing so, or simply care to share your thoughts with me, I would be delighted to hear from you.

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About Lee Van Patten

During the past 40 years, Lee Van Patten has studied Sufism, Hatha Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, and Chinese martial arts.

He has applied the knowledge and experience gained from these disciplines to the fields of health, business, and music production.

He is happily married to the woman of his dreams.

View video conversation with Lee

On Soul and the Inner Family

Transcript The Soul and Balanced Mastery

The Soul and Balanced Mastery

In my experience of myself as the soul I feel that my main purpose in the world is to create, and that’s where I get the most joy. That’s the feedback that comes to me from those higher levels. So it has nothing to do with being able to control other people or have power or money or influence or any of that, it’s just the sheer joy of creation.

Lee Van Patten talks with Carol Sill

C: Hi, I’m Carol Sill and I’m here in Vancouver talking with Lee Van Patten about spiritual life and inner development and how that expresses in the world. So maybe you could just tell us something about your path, and what you are involved with right now?

L: I’ll tell you a little about my path. I think I really got going in my spiritual life back in the ‘70s. I studied for a while with a man who was involved in Indian guruism that had to do with a Swami in India and he was carrying on that tradition. I kind of fell into it by happenstance, and I wasn’t really attracted to it and I became disillusioned with guruism in general. I could see how it was not a balanced system that created a lot of problems among the people that were following gurus.

But at that time I also read the Ouspensky material, about George Gurdjieff, so I became interested in Sufism. And then I read some Idries Shah stuff as well, so I learned a little more about Sufism. Then I met some Sufi people in Toronto and studied with them for a while but there were some things I didn’t like about organizations, spiritual organizations in general.

Over time I came to feel that any organization that has to exist for a long period of time, maybe it’s based on a charismatic leader. The charismatic leader passes away but the organization continues on. But in order to continue on it usually attracts people that are bureaucrats basically, who are there for their own self-interest, to have a career. And the organization begins to lose the essence of the spirit from which it originally came. So I moved away from that as well, but I continued my own inner process to the best of my ability.

I’m almost 60 years old and what I’d like to convey here is a couple of things I’ve learned along the way. One is that I believe it’s wrong to think of ourselves as having a soul. I think it’s kind of the other way around, that we’re actually the soul, and we are manifesting through a physical form.

That change in perspective is important, because if you think that you have a soul, that is your ego owning the soul and essentially controlling it. And when people think of their soul in that context they often think of a child-like kind of a semi-formed entity that has feelings but no real power. In actual fact, when we come from the soul perspective, we have a lot of power, and we have a lot of creative energy.

In my experience of myself as the soul I feel that my main purpose in the world is to create, and that’s where I get the most joy. That’s the feedback that comes to me from those higher levels. So it has nothing to do with being able to control other people or have power or money or influence or any of that, it’s just the sheer joy of creation. When you’re in that space I think you’re really well connected with your soul. The minute you try and own your artwork or own anybody’s anything then you begin to lose that feeling and you go into the ego.

The other thing that I’ve learned over the course of my life is what I call the Inner Family. And that is that people don’t really grow up, in the sense that we think of growing up in our society, where you develop from a child to an adolescent to an adult. I don’t think it’s really like that. I think it’s more like these are developmental layers that pile on top of each other. That child persona or aspect of ourselves doesn’t go away, nor does the adolescent.

So therefore in order to be a balanced person at the adult stage we need to have a balanced inner family. It is our adult that provides the stability and security for those earlier aspects of ourselves that are still present and are still expressing. If we don’t have a balanced inner family, if say there are unmet needs at the adolescent level, that adolescent’s going to keep rebelling in our lives in our internal life and in our external life, regardless of how strongly developed the adult level appears to be.

That’s important in the spiritual sense because in order to bring through the soul and have that soul be able to express in a balanced and productive way, all of those aspects of ourselves have to be happy, with each other. And then that’s going to express in a really positive way. Without that, I guess an example would be like a person who meditates for several hours a day, and yet in the rest of their life they’re not happy, things aren’t working out for them. Well, that’s because there’s an overabundance of focus on spiritual practice, but they haven’t done the inner work that’s necessary to bring all of that into harmony and bring it into expression.

And that, I think, is the essence of being a spiritual master. Mastery is not in the sense of control but in the sense of skillful use of everything that comes to you in your life, that you have all of those things well-lined up with each other, and you have that inner peace that allows the soul to express. Without that you haven’t really gotten there yet, no matter how adept you are at one spiritual path or another.

C: Beautiful. Thank you.

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Secrets in the Christmas Tree

O Tree! The natural beauty and mystical meaning of the Christmas tree custom is honoured in this simple yuletide slideshow. A poetic meditation on the secrets of the Christmas tree, its meaning, ancient origins and present day symbolism.

Slideshow transcript:

Slide 1: Secrets in the Christmas Tree personal vision :: winter light By Carol Sill

Slide 2: A Tree of Life • In the form of the Christmas tree, the beautiful tree of life comes into our living rooms. • It is an altar, a symbol and an embodiment. • Each year we go through the ancient ritual of the tree – its sacrifice and resurrection in light.

Slide 3: Green, Even in Winter • Even in the coldest dead of winter, when all the other trees have become skeletons, the evergreen is permanent, stable and constant, a symbol of everlasting life.

Slide 4: Why Do We Do This? • Why do we bring this symbol of everlasting life into our homes, into the main room of the home, where we live and enjoy ourselves? • To remind us of life everlasting and to bless our future.

Slide 5: Life’s Continuity • By honoring nature through the evergreen tree, we affirm the continuity of life and light throughout the darkest days on earth.

Slide 6: Decorations • When we decorate the tree, it is a ceremony of offerings, which involves placing upon the tree of life precious and beautiful objects – spheres, miniatures, sparkling things, shining things, pretty things, funny things, things that only the family understands.

Slide 7: Offerings • By offering decorations to the spirit of life through the tree, we call to the life force and entrust our family’s future welfare to it. • By year after year placing objects which have meaning only within the family, a resonance is built up which protects the family.

Slide 8: Meaning and Memory • Each time the decorations are taken from their box in the yearly ritual, they have accumulated more meaning and memory. • These fragile, often reflective, and precious personal objects of beauty adorn the tree of life which becomes an embodiment of the family spirit.

Slide 9: Symbolism of the Lights • The lights on the tree symbolize the energy and life force of the magnetism and colors of breath, as growth and life radiate out from the branches, especially the tips of the branches. • The lights symbolize the divine presence which illuminates all.

Slide 10: An Altar of Light • The illuminated tree becomes an altar of light in the home. At this altar is an offering to the naturally existing divinity in all beings.

Slide 11: Light in Darkness • The lights are also a human comfort in the darkest days. A tree covered in lights indoors would mean little in the peak of July. This contrast gives the tree much of its beauty and meaning.

Slide 12: Light and Dark • As the lights contrast the dark days of winter, our hearts are reminded of the life force always present and the divine in all life.

Slide 13: Ancient Resonance • Ultimately it is an ancient thing we do when we bring a tree into the home. • It is an ancient nature worship, allowing an embodiment for a most ancient protective being, a form of God as a generative everlasting being of light living through the harmony of humanity’s reverence for nature.

Slide 14: Being of Light • Yet this being is nothing but a reflection of ourselves, a light- filled jewel-gifted transfigured reflection of the human form standing before us. • The decorated tree reflects the lord or lady of light within each of us.

Slide 15: Sparkling Beauty • We offer gifts beneath this being and adore its beauty. • We delight in its presence, gathering round its radiant glow.

Slide 16: O Tree! O tree of life that grows in each of us, O being of light and gifts and precious delights: “How lovely are your branches.”

Medicine Wheel

..when you’re in the center of the circle, which is the place of creator in that system, you are the human being that’s at the cross-point between the life and death earth-walk and spiritual beings that can come through our experience of this earth walk; there is a point of integration of those two, and we can embody that.

Judy Evaski continues her conversation with Carol Sill on the Medicine Wheel Path

C: Hi, we’re continuing our conversation, this is Judy Evaski and I’m Carol Sill, and we’re here in Vancouver talking about Judy’s spiritual path and her relationship with nature. I think that’s our next topic, right?

J: Yes. I would add that when I was working with, and I’m still working with, the Native elder, one of the first teaching tools that was used with me, aside from offering tobacco, was the medicine wheel. I was able to construct a medicine wheel, with his guidance, and began to learn some of the basic teachings in that path through that vehicle.

It was a wonderful tool for me to integrate all the paths that I had been exposed to. I’d always had a strong link to nature, to the other creatures in nature, not just us two-leggeds, as we are called, but also with the winged ones in particular. Also with the stones and the rocks, which are called ancestors. What my goal was, I’ve come to realize, in pursuing that path, was to try and learn the manner of speaking to all my relations, which the Native path teaches.

There have been millennia of time that humans have understood their place in creation, their relationship to all the other beings that we share this time and space with. And so my deepening has been in learning the language that promotes communication between all my relations and two-leggeds.

And one of the most wonderful things in the medicine wheel that I began to learn, this is just a simple thing that I think it’s okay to share in this format, is that you have the crossed axis. You have the north-south axis and you have the east-west axis. And in that tradition, and probably in many others, such as the Christian with the cross symbol, the east-west path is often considered the spiritual path. And the north-south is actually the earth walk.  So I’m just realizing as I speak that it’s maybe reversed in the Christian path, where I’ve heard the cross described as the horizontal is our outreaching to other beings, other humans, and the north-south or the up-down axis is our connection to spirit.

Anyway, the point is: when you’re in the center of the circle, which is the place of creator in that system, you are the human being that’s at the cross-point between the life and death earth-walk and spiritual beings that can come through our experience of this earth walk; that there is a point of integration of those two, and that we can embody that.

And I think that’s the purpose of the practice, and of all practices, is that we train ourselves to be more and more ready and more able to allow those energies that we can call divine sometimes, or we call inspiration, to flow through us and to stimulate us in some way to express what those divine energies are.

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Varied Paths to the One Center

And so we in Edmonton, Alberta, did a ritual by a sacred spring that we were lucky enough to find. And that was all simultaneously done. There were people, I know, as far south as Patagonia in South America. There were people in England and Europe as well as North America simultaneously doing ceremonies, lighting sacred fires.

Judy Evaski talks with Carol Sill on Open Pathways

C: Hi this is Carol Sill and I’m here in Vancouver today talking with Judy Evaski about Open Source Spirit, and her spiritual path. Hi Judy.

J: Hi Carol.

C: You were talking a bit about how your path has been varied…

J: Yes, it’s a really interesting project, open source spirituality, and I notice that many people have chosen a path and developed it really fully. Often from starting on another path. I would say that my path is a little different, in that it’s been a sequential exploration, but with the same essential seed from the beginning.

C: So what would that sequence be? How did you start?

J: Well I started out as most North Americans did, in the Christian church, and then gradually got involved with the social movements, the social justice movement, the peace movement, and trying to make spiritual ideals into a reality.

And from there I was lucky enough to meet up with some of the North American Sufis, who actually I think contain or hold the essence or the seed that is in the center of most of the spiritual paths. And so it wasn’t a religion, per se, it was a spiritual philosophy that gave me tools and confidence and some basic techniques of meditation, as well as various spiritual paths. So that I became able to understand the language that was in each of the paths and to start to identify what were the common threads.

So many of us compare religions or philosophies by finding the essence of what’s different between them. And that’s kind of a western way of thinking. Although that’s evolving now, and I think that’s why a project like this can occur, because we are now more able, and we have a language. Many people have pursued spiritual paths other than the one that they began in, and so that’s why we’re seeing the blossoming of something like this, I believe.

C: So after your sufi involvement, you went into some other directions as well?

J: Yes, and it was more that life provided me with these experiences. I was very fortunate to have met a Tibetan lama who had escaped Tibet in ’54 (59?)  with the Dalai Lama, and made his way to Alberta, where he began to become who he was before. And he was also, I would say, someone who had a sufic perspective: in terms of – he had a very formalized Tibetan Buddhist path, and we did practices with him in that path.

However he had a very well-developed heart which I believe is the essence of all of the religions. And all of the spiritual paths. And in fact all of the political paths. I understand now that people who are very involved politically are every bit as much on a spiritual path as others.

C: I know you’ve had experience in the Native tradition as well. How did that happen?

J: That was a wonderful thing. A sufi friend sent me an email about the Giant Medicine Wheel that was occurring in 2004, with its center based in the Grand Tetons in Yellowstone Park. Apparently every 500 years or so, it was a tradition that native communities from North America and South America possibly, certainly Central America, Mexico, would come together and they would share their rituals in a way that would affirm the stability of Mother Earth, of affirming our love for her, our understanding our place within the matrix of creation. And it appealed to me to be part of that medicine wheel ceremony, because although there was the center, they also had the 12 sites around the perimeter, about 500 miles out from the center.

And so we in Edmonton, Alberta, did a ritual by a sacred spring that we were lucky enough to find. And that was all simultaneously done. There were people, I know, as far south as Patagonia in South America. There were people in England and Europe as well as North America simultaneously doing ceremonies, lighting sacred fires.

It was a time of great sharing from the Native tradition from the elders to those of us who were not, but had a spiritual leaning. There was a lot of special teachings released for us at this time.

So out of that I met the current elder that I’ve been working with. He was a Seneca elder, from Six Nations, although living off reserve. And he was mixed blood, which I am as well. I discovered not that long ago that I have Basque blood. I was adopted, so I didn’t know that. The fact that he was mixed blood and able to speak of it was already a resonance. I grew up in that area, and I had always wanted to connect with the old spirits of that land, and I didn’t have a context in which to do that, other than through the Native path.

So luckily this man was willing to strike up an email correspondence, again something that’s very unusual and outside of the norm of that culture. And yet, we’re all adapting, which is why you can do a project like this now, whereas  a few years ago you probably couldn’t. Many of the sacred teachings wouldn’t be spoken of in a technological framework.

Similarly, if I were to speak of Native teachings, it would be expected that I would do some smudging, like with some sweetgrass or sage. And it’s just a very wonderful tradition that they have that creates a sacred space to talk about sacred things.

C: That’s beautiful. Thanks.

View the video of this conversation.

Soul Work (pt.2) with Forest Shomer

Soul Work involves speaking and living from the soul, and both group and individual process. Forest Shomer continues his discussion with Carol Sill, describing an upcoming gathering in central Argentina.

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Soul Work (pt.1) with Forest Shomer

A new depth of self-knowledge is available through exploring the realm of the soul. Forest Shomer talks with Carol Sill about how he became acquainted with the Soul Work.

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