Spiritual Community and Sacred Ceremony - Why Light Beings Gather
by Ask a Healer
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Sacred Relationship to All has been a challenge and a blessing in my life. I have struggled with trust, issues of privacy and empathic overload. After I discovered Human Design and got my free design chart, a lot of my struggle made more sense. As I read about being a 6/3 Generator profile, I felt as if Ra Uru Hu had been following me around for 60 years, writing about my life.
My own struggle with balancing solitude and public life aside, there is much to be said for retreating from others for a time but then, it's time to come down off the roof and back into the world. I have been baptised into many realms, while retreating and totally apart from other human contact whereas, just speaking as a 6/3 Generator, I often get bumped into when I go out into the world. Things, people, circumstances bump into me and I experience pain.
Yet, despite the pain I often feel when I go off the roof and into the world, it is the times of community and group ceremony that have provided my most powerful lessons and greatest gifts. I wrote this article after a decision to go back into spiritual community by way of gatherings and fairs. I am grateful that there are still those who have the vision and dedication to preserve land on the earth that is dedicated to ceremony, healing and Sacred gatherings for the purpose of spiritual acceleration.
What the Dalai Lama said about festivals and gatherings
"There is too much emotion, too much negative emotion: frustration, hatred, anger. I think that's the great obstacle. So I think as a first step this should be cooled. Reduced. Forget these things.
And I think for the time being, we need more festivals, more picnics. Let us forget these difficult things, these emotions and make personal friends. The we can start to talk about these serious matters."
Quote taken from 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama
Let us Celebrate Life Together
I used to participate in new age fairs, both as an intuitive reader and a healer. I found them rewarding but intensely challenging as well. As an empath, any situation where there is a gathering of conscious seekers is intense. To feel all the energies of the other
vendors, readers and healers was one thing......to feel all the questions, emotions and desires of the thousands who came through the room was quite another. I've also attended my share of festivals, faires and Sacred Ceremony over the years and, while I enjoyed most, I typically also found myself energetically overwhelmed at times.
When my life fell apart around 2001, I leapt back up on the roof. Ra says 6/3's don't even need a ladder. They just leap back into solitude. I just stopped seeking out Sacred Relationship, stopped offering myself in service at festivals and faires, and retreated into a very private, almost hermit-like existence for 7 years. I stayed on the roof too long, in fact, and could have died up there but then came something to respond to that pulled me back down again.
I don't recall how I found out about the Spiritual Events and Renaissance Faires at Heartwood Sanctuary, in Mentone, Alabama, but the knowledge came at a time when I was open enough to follow it. I attended the very first of their Spiritual Renaissance Faires. I can't say this event was without challenge for me. I had been living a very secluded existence for years and to open myself to the energy of so many at one time again was not easy.
Looking back no that decision now, I know that choosing to attend this spiritual faire was the beginning of my greater choice to come back to life, come back into Sacred Relationship with others, and celebrate in community. If you look within and find that you have retreated from service, from spiritual community and from Sacred Relationship to others, one way to step back into the world of Spirit is by attending spiritual festivals or ceremony.
There are groups of Light Beings all over the earth that are holding space for you, and people like you and me, to emerge again into spiritual community. There seems to be an ebb and flow to this, with some of us retreating to heal, to reinvent ourselves and to awaken to a new level of purpose while others of us are in a position to hold Sacred Space for those returning. I've been at both places on the wheel and am very grateful for those who held space for my own return in 2007.
About Heartwood Spiritual Center:
Heartwood Sanctuary was stewarded with much love and integrity by two amazing people, Cathy and Ted. They have since struck out on a delightful adventure and are now a lot more mobile in their spiritual offerings but still do host events at Heartwood.
What makes land more Sacred in one place than another? I believe all land is Sacred but that human choices, made by all of us, to pave paradise and put up parking lots has weakened the the healing vibrations over much of Mother Earth.
Conscious spiritual stewardship of land is now needed to encourage the land to dance again and breathe with Sacred Breath into those who walk upon it. In my experience of them, Cathy and Ted have always taken their stewardship seriously and you can feel it when you step onto the land there. This is the kind of steward to look for if you want to spend time on dedicated land.
Update: Changes at Heartwood....like so many others during this fast flowing river time, Heartwood is transitioning. The property is being sold and Cathy and Ted are moving on to some other path of service that will be revealed. Please check the website for more information on their new path.
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Spiritual Awareness Article: I see Light Beings
Spiritual Health Disclaimer: I would be the last to say that solitude and retreat, even for very extended periods of time, cannot be a vital and fulfilling spiritual choice. How could I say that when I've spent years of my own life alone. Yet, I would also say that it is dangerous to remain alone out of fear, woundedness or empathic overload. This, I have also done.
In times when I just felt that my spiritual being was akin to raw skin exposed to fire, I retreated to balance, heal and strengthen. The danger for
me was getting comfortable with being comfortable. I had to come back into life, into spiritual community, and into group ceremony. Otherwise, the lessons I learned in solitude would help no one, not even myself. Faires and festivals are a wonderful way to reconnect.
