The following obituary was written by her grandson, Peter Hubbard:

Barbara Marx Hubbard 89, noted futurist thinker and popularizer of Conscious Evolution, passed away on the evening of April 10, 2019, in Loveland, CO, surrounded by her family, after a brief illness. Influenced by Catholic theologian Teilhard de Chardin and dismayed by the misuse of humanitys extraordinary technology, Hubbard sought to promote a spiritual interpretation of evolution. She saw humanitys purpose as to fulfill our creative potential and collectively evolve toward a divine potential, which she envisioned as becoming a universal species.

Buckminster Fuller said of Hubbard: There is no doubt in my mind that Barbara Marx Hubbard, who helped introduce the concept of futurism to society, is the best-informed human now alive regarding futurism and the foresights it has produced. In 2012, the New York Times described Hubbard as a beatific presence with a mantle of white hair who quoted Jesus, Buckminster Fuller, the Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the current pope, Benedict XVI. NYT Columnist Ross Douthat said of Hubbard, I suspect that the religious trends that a figure like Hubbard embodies which lead further away from core Christian ideas without shaking off the Christian influence entirelymay be more important to the future of American religion than the more familiar post-1960s story that the press has been telling.

Born December 22, 1929, in New York City, Hubbard was the eldest child of toy maker Louis Marx, founder of Louis Marx Toys, the worlds largest toy company in the middle 20th century, and hailed as the Toy King of America. After attending Dalton and Rye Country Day schools, she graduated Cum Laude from Bryn Mawr College. While studying abroad at the Sorbonne in November 1949, she met artist and painter Earl Hubbard at a Parisienne caf. They married on January 3, 1951, in New York City at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue. After two decades of intellectual collaboration that saw them become leaders in the pro-space movement, they separated in 1973.

In the 1970s Hubbard formed the Committee for the Future in Washington D.C. and she co-invented the SYNCON PROCESS developing a new social process moving toward a more synergistic democracy to seek common goals and match needs with resources The SYNCONS were held, with many different types of groups, including gang leaders from Los Angeles, space scientists from Huntsville, and students at Southern Illinois University to examine a new global goal to build new worlds on Earth, new worlds in Space, new worlds in the Human Mind.

In 1984 her name was placed in nomination for the Vice Presidency on the Democratic ticket proposing an Office for the Future to map, track, connect and communicate what is working and a Peace Room as sophisticated as a war room in the office of the vice presidency. She delivered a speech on the convention floor.In the early 80s she was an active Soviet-American Citizen Diplomat, working with Rama Vernon to hold Soviet-American Citizen conferences in Moscow and in Washington D.C. using the SYNCON conference format.Hubbards books include The Hunger of Eve, Conscious Evolution, and Emergence.

In 2011, Conversations with God author Neal Donald Walschwrote the biography, The Mother of Invention: The Legacy of Barbara Marx Hubbard and the Future of YOU. She was the subject of the recent documentary film American Visionary.In recent years she worked closely with Catholic sisters to bring forth her view of the evolutionary approach to the New Testament.She is a co-founder of the World Future Society, the Association for Global New Thought, The Club of Budapest, the Evolutionary Leaders, and is co-chair of The Foundation for Conscious Evolution.

Barbara Marx Hubbard is survived by four children: Suzanne Hubbard, a tapestry artist, Woodleigh Hubbard, an artist and illustrator; Alexandra Morton, a marine biologist and environmental activist, and Lloyd Hubbard, retired USAF Lt. Colonel. Her eldest son, Wade Hubbard, a musician, preceded her. She has 8 grandchildren: Danielle Hubbard, Peter L. Hubbard, Jarrett Morton, Renee Brown, Clio Morton, Savannah Hubbard, Liam Hubbard, and Tegan Hubbard. She is survived by her sibling financier Louis Marx, Jr.; artist Jacqueline Barnett; social-change activist Patricia Ellsberg, wife of Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg; and Curtis Marx, a computer scientist. Her longtime partner, Sidney Lanier, passed in 2013.

See original here:
Tribute to Barbara Marx Hubbard - Ubiquity University

The Ordained Ministerial Counselor training applies the principles of A Course in Miracles to spiritual ministry. Being an Ordained Ministerial Counselor (OMC) prepares you to fulfill your purpose of serving in this time of the Great Awakening. Upon completion of the Ministerial Curriculum you are qualified to offer Accessing Inner Wisdom Spiritual Counseling as well as to facilitate Pathways of Light Spiritual College courses and 8-week programs.

Click each course for details & fees. Click again to close.Click here to see a summary of curriculum fees.Click for FAQ about downloadable e-courses.

You may still feel plagued with fear, anger, resentment, self-doubt and guilt cropping up here and there. Intellectually you know better, but those old, subconscious scripts still seem to be around.

Self-image transformation means changing the way we perceive ourselves. To transform our self-image, we don't need to change what we do. We need to change who we think we are. What we do comes from who we think we are. In A Course in Miracles we are taught to remind ourselves frequently, "God is but Love, and therefore so am I," and "I am not a body, I am free. For I am still as God created me."

This course will provide practice in becoming aware of the trance formations that make us act like robots, controlled by unconscious, habitual ego belief systems. You will learn to retrain your mind to develop new mental habits while releasing those old mental programs that are limiting and painful.

Click here to view a sample of E-Course 132 with a link to listen to the guided meditation.

Credentialed Correspondence E-Course 132 Downloadable: US$109.00 free shipping worldwide (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order E-Course 132.

Credentialed Correspondence Course 132 in a Binder: US$109.00 plus shipping (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order Course 132 in a Binder.

Self-Study E-Course 132 Downloadable: US$54.00 free shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order E-Course 132 Self-Study.

Self-Study Course 132 in a Binder: US$54.00 plus shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order Course 132 Self-Study in Binder.

This course seemed simple on the surface; that was deceptive! It was so much more than I expected. I value hugely what it brought up for me. It has led to better relationships with my loved ones and greater inner peace.

This is a very powerful, invaluable course. It helped me learn to identify false self-image beliefs and transform these false beliefs to truth with the help of Spirit.

I felt that through the readings and visualizations, I made a greater shift to the Light within. My self-image improved. I feel more open to love, joy and peace. I really felt that this was a major shift for me.

I learned to look at how I think about myself and change that image with the help of Inner Guidance.

This course allowed me to stop, and become aware of the gaps and differences between what I have manifested into my life and relationships to date, and what I consciously desire to focus on. I gained valuable insights into how and why I set up limiting relationship patterns..

This course helped me realize at still another, deeper level that I make the trance scripts and I can let them go with the help of Holy Spirit. I also enjoyed the experience of deep peace and feeling connected with my Source in the meditations..

This course brought me clarity and a sense of peace about where I am in my life. I was able to focus more clearly on differentiating between ego and my Higher Self, especially in relation to my own issues of worthiness.

As you open to understanding your true purpose, you enter a new time a time of looking at the concepts you are holding about yourself and others and letting them be replaced by the awareness of your unlimited True Self.

Understand how the veils of forgetfulness can be lifted to give you a new sense of life purpose. Learn how to change your beliefs about time. Learn to access long-held thought patterns you picked up as a child, and heal these limited thoughts with the help of the Light within you. Find out why it is important to quiet your mind and listen to your Self, and how you can better serve your true identity as Spirit in this life.

Receive insight on new choices, new ideas, and learn how you can extend the qualities of your true Self in your life. Take an inward journey to a Haven of Greater Awareness to connect and identify with qualities of Spirit, such as universal Love, and feeling deep inner peace. Transcend time and communicate with your unlimited Self. Imagine seeing life differently in the years ahead as you dissolve blocks to the greater awareness of Love's Presence. Practice seeing yourself knowing and expressing your true life purpose.

Credentialed Correspondence E-Course 112 Downloadable: US$109.00 free shipping worldwide (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order E-Course 112.

Credentialed Correspondence Course 112 in a Binder: US$109.00 plus shipping (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order Course 112 in a Binder.

Self-Study E-Course 112 Downloadable: US$54.00 free shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order E-Course 112 Self-Study.

Self-Study Course 112 in a Binder: US$54.00 plus shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order Course 112 Self-Study in Binder.

Wow. It was such a joyful, elevating experience. The meditations were deep and transforming. It was an enlightening experience, more than I expected.

The exercises were created in such a way that they directly got to important life issues. I felt like I shook hands with myself and my unconscious self. I learned to create a bridge for conscious dialogue with Higher Self.

For the first time in my life I found myself going very deeply into guided meditations. I always brought back some important new information, some new awareness. I was impressed with the gentle and nurturing approach. Growth doesn't have to hurt.

I would recommend this highly as a powerful class for opening to the Higher Self.

I love all the extra benefits of these courses how they are synchronistic with events in my life. I also love the little jewels in each course sentences that are profound. I increased my sense of peace.

It made me aware of my issues and my solutions. I gained insight into the changes I need to make to get back to my True Self. The experience was relaxing, rejuvenating, profound and very enjoyable. The materials are simple, direct and precise.

I have the knowledge and the ability to change my present experiences by changing my thoughts and beliefs about the past, and to have a future of Love, peace and joy. It helped me a lot with meditation. The CDs and the course brought the wisdom I needed to access my Inner Truth.

This course helped remind me why I am in this world and assisted me in remembering/discovering how to return to the reason: My purpose. It has come at an extremely difficult time in life, thus proving extremely beneficial.

I believe that the course opened areas of forgiveness for me to a greater degree than ever before. It allowed me to review and release situations in my life which I still held judgments about. I am aware to a greater extent that my Higher Self is always there to help and comfort me.

In this course you will look at core aspects of your personality which are holding on to ideas that do not come from your true Self. Some of the ways these aspects express themselves include self-righteousness, suffering, victimhood and projecting guilt and blame onto others. If you still find yourself sabotaging your innate happiness, this course will give you practice in identifying and healing those self-defeating aspects. You will learn how to quiet your mind to let your true Self lovingly transform your mind your thoughts and feelings to higher levels of awareness.

As you learn to quiet your mind and listen, you awaken to the real you to your true Self. As you gradually welcome awakening to your inner Spirit, your experience changes to allow in more joy, love and the knowing that you are safe in God. Your true Self is your true nature, the essence of what you are. You will learn to allow in the awareness of your true Self more fully and receive helpful insight. Your true Self is your inner Teacher and will help you transform your thinking to see the outer world differently to live a happier and more purposeful life.

As your thinking increasingly comes from your true Self, you become more gentle with yourself and others. You are able to see past the fearful thinking and resulting behavior in yourself and others, to see the true reality of Love that lies behind all fear. You are able to make choices and decisions from a place of Wisdom and peace.

Credentialed Correspondence E-Course 111 Downloadable: US$109.00 free shipping worldwide (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order E-Course 111.

Credentialed Correspondence Course 111 in a Binder: US$109.00 plus shipping (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order Course 111 in a Binder.

Self-Study E-Course 111 Downloadable: US$54.00 free shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order E-Course 111 Self-Study.

Self-Study Course 111 in a Binder: US$54.00 plus shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order Course 111 Self-Study in Binder.

It really helped me look at areas in my life that I wasn't facing. The meditation CDs are wonderful and I enjoy listening to them more than once or twice. This course reinforced my values and beliefs in my spirituality.

By becoming aware of the limiting aspects in my personality, I can more clearly choose to hear my Inner Guidance. Receiving the guiding vision of my True Self was very moving and powerful.

This course reinforces the work I am doing with A Course in Miracles. The CDs facilitated getting in touch with my True Self and receiving a vision of the next evolutionary step of my "practice."

This course helped me clear away the blocks that prevented me from discovering my true Higher Self and has freed me to proceed with my personal growth. It has a helpful, building block approach of recognition, healing, cleansing and awareness. The excellent recorded meditations were so helpful in guiding me through inner explorations.

This course is more far-reaching in its scope than I anticipated. It facilitated a change that is an ongoing process. My experience can only be described as miraculous. I stand a changed person on the inside, thereby creating a changed perception on the outside. I gained a deep sense of union with myself and an absolute conviction that I am never alone.

By doing one of the exercises and applying the insights to my daily life, I came to a clearer understanding that I was projecting my limiting personality characteristics onto those whom I seemed to get upset with or angry at. With this realization, it became easier to see myself in those people, whom I used to blame for their 'bad' behaviors. I was them and they were me! Seeing oneness with those who seem to upset or hurt me has been a big challenge for me. But this experience helps me move in the right direction.

All the exercises brought me to deeper and deeper levels of my being. The meditations were profound and moving. I was able to see things so clearly.

The meditation CD helped lead me to the Holy Spirit (inner guidance) naturally, to a profound depth of inner insight, with peace and Love.

There were many ah-ha's, such as: All need for "specialness" is a belief in scarcity a belief that there's not enough goodness or universal abundance to go around.

I realized that my abundance is so incredible that I couldn't even really imagine how great it is. And the Holy Spirit is there to guide my creativity. Each session was so right on. It amazed me how effective they were.

This course will help you feel more confident about trusting your Inner Guidance, spiritual intuition and your ability to know what is right for you. Trust opens the door to living a purposeful life, following Spirit. Trust helps you experience the quiet peace that comes with letting go of fearful thinking. When you trust that your Source is working for you and with you, you relax and allow It to lead you.

Learn how to let go of the doubt that cuts you off from experiencing trust in areas of:

Learn what pushes your buttons, causing you to lose your trust, and how to get back to trusting your true Self as your source of Guidance. Trusting your inner Teacher changes how you see everyone and everything. This trust allows you to see the world from a new perspective of oneness. As you place your trust in your true Self, you see through the false veils of ego thoughts of conflict, limitation and lack. You are unlimited Love and Light. The more you can trust in the Christ within, the more it will be reflected in your life.

Credentialed Correspondence E-Course 114 Downloadable: US$109.00 free shipping worldwide (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order E-Course 114.

Credentialed Correspondence Course 114 in a Binder: US$109.00 plus shipping (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order Course 114 in a Binder.

Self-Study E-Course 114 Downloadable: US$54.00 free shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order E-Course 114 Self-Study.

Self-Study Course 114 in a Binder: US$54.00 plus shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order Course 114 Self-Study in Binder.

I increased my awareness, commitment and TRUST in Spirit, learning to see that Spirit does the work and I just need to be mindfully connected in a place of peace, allowing it to take place.

I learned so much about myself. This has been the best course for me yet. I learned to locate the things that trigger mistrust for me and how to trust Spirit more.

I was reluctant to take a correspondence course, preferring the group sharing environment. I was very pleased with the opportunities and insights I received by doing individual and guided facilitated study. I would now recommend correspondence as a very valuable experience, and I would correspond again in the future.

Trust has been an issue with me in the past. I believe that by doing this course, I attained a new level. The experiential work allowed me to feel trust in a way that is wondrous and new. It is the experiential meditative exercises which made this course come alive for me.

The meditations are profound. I play the meditation CDs over and over, and each time I hear them differently. So I have an actual "physical way" to realize the layers that exist and work with myself at each level.

I gained a renewed trust in Self, extending that trust to everything and everyone. I became aware of areas I want to let go of and areas I want to focus on to make stronger in my life.

It helped me realize how powerful my thoughts are and how important it is to monitor my thoughts. I was able to release some doubt I had in communicating with my Higher Self.

It helped me let go of doubt and fearful beliefs of separation, and to trust my inner powerful Light and true Self. I can trust in Love to heal all things.

I learned to trust my inner Self, listen to It, and relish the beauty It gives me. Simply amazing!

Within everyone is a desire to return to Love, our Source. In our search for Love, we may look to someone outside of ourselves to give it to us. In this stage we are not aware of the Love within. We don't recognize our inner worth, our Light, our own perfection. As long as we continue to look outside ourselves to fill this sense of emptiness, we will feel unfulfilled.

When you realize that you have not found Love by looking for it from others, you are ready to go into a new stage of your life. You are ready to walk into an expanded awareness of Love. You are ready to consistently express your true unconditional loving nature. You are ready to wake up to What you are. In this course you will practice healing and releasing your barriers to Love. With the support of others, you will experience the depth of unconditional Love which lies within you. You will learn how to tap into this reservoir and bring Love to situations in your life which need healing.

You will learn to let go and let Love take over, seeing the world from a new perspective. You recognize that Love is giving, not getting. As Love extends from you, the sense of scarcity and lack gently falls away. Extending the Love that you are is your top priority. It is what you are here to learn and teach. You will focus on opening up to that Love and letting It shine through. Love is the healer. It will change your life.

Credentialed Correspondence E-Course 115 Downloadable: US$109.00 free shipping worldwide (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order E-Course 115.

Credentialed Correspondence Course 115 in a Binder: US$109.00 plus shipping (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order Course 115 in a Binder.

Self-Study E-Course 115 Downloadable: US$54.00 free shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order E-Course 115 Self-Study.

Self-Study Course 115 in a Binder: US$54.00 plus shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order Course 115 Self-Study in Binder.

It helped me remember that love is everywhere and that I can share love without fear or anxiety. The processes were uplifting and inspiring. I feel peaceful all over again.

This course helped me remember that everyone, including myself, perceives the world based on our fears, feelings of lack and inadequacy, etc.... That we can only allow in the amount of love that we feel we desire. This allows me to see situations in a manner that is more serene for myself and others. This is a course I will definitely repeat for myself.

It was a very love-filled experience. I absolutely loved the material and exercises. It had a nice balance of meditation, processing and reading material.

This course helped me feel more comfortable in expressing the positive things I feel about other people. It also provided an unusual opportunity to receive positive comments about myself in a comfortable, safe environment, which helped lower my defenses.

I realized that I have looked for love outside of myself and do not see myself as a vessel of love. The experience of having the group tell me that I am worthy and deserving of love was profound. I truly value this experience.

The sharing with my inner child experience helped me recognize that I am love and loving.

My inner child received a healing and incorporated some new, healthy qualities. I now have a greater desire to love others. It helped me move through resistance to receiving love. It also helped me realize the value of extending love at all times.

This course gives an overview of the important ideas and lessons presented by A Course In Miracles. You will to learn to tell the difference between ego thoughts and the thoughts of your true Identity. You will learn to choose peace instead of conflict, Heaven instead of hell.

Learn a process that helps you see past the physical form to the Light in everyone. It helps you forgive the people in your life whom you find difficult to love. Take an inventory of your patterns of right-minded and wrong-minded thinking and practice shifting your thoughts toward right-minded thinking with the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your mind. Focus on the true Self in others and experience how that focus helps you recognize the true Self in you. Learn how to transform upset feelings into a healed perception with the help of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit's teaching is a lesson in remembering. Let us join together in our remembering. It takes just a little willingness.

This course also includes a 3-CD set (MP3's with the downloadable e-course) of Gary Renard explaining ACIM in a full day workshop.

Credentialed Correspondence E-Course 203 Downloadable: US$126.00 free shipping worldwide (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order E-Course 203.

Credentialed Correspondence Course 203 in a Binder: US$126.00 plus shipping (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order Course 203 in a Binder.

Self-Study E-Course 203 Downloadable: US$71.00 free shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order E-Course 203 Self-Study.

Self-Study Course 203 in a Binder: US$71.00 plus shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order Course 203 Self-Study in Binder.

Before this course, I didn't know anything about A Course in Miracles even though I had tried to do some reading on it. Now I feel like I have a very good overview of ACIM. It was very enlightening for me. I have more clarity about the ego and forgiveness.

This course brought healing on many levels. I experienced a deep healing with the Forgiveness meditation. I have been working with ACIM for over 10 years, yet this course brought greater understanding and clarity with it.

The Forgiveness and Recognizing Illusion & Reality meditations were especially meaningful for me. I want to work with them more.

All the meditations were valuable. I was particularly moved by the exercise in which we practiced seeing the Light in each other. It was a deeply beautiful class that called upon me to see the Truth in all situations.

My experience has been one of relaxing and opening to the concepts a deep peace an open pathway. This has been very different from the way I first entered the Course.

This course helped me experience insight into myself and my belief system. I now realize that the only thing that needs to be healed is my belief in separation from God. Once this is healed, all seeming lack in my life will disappear.

You don't have to experience life as a serious, stressful, day-to-day grind. In this course, you will identify the mental habits you may have developed which create tension, guilt and self-doubt. See how inappropriate expectations cloud your ability to experience unconditional love.

Learn how you are unconsciously telling others how to treat you, to fit your unconscious expectations. Discover ways you may still be following the unconscious expectations of others or trying to live up to unhealthy models of perfection. See how learned childhood responses become unconscious knee-jerk reactions. Learn how to release these reactions for a happier life. Realize that you are not your programming. Consciously choose how you want to feel and how you want to think. Connect with your Inner Source of direction. Learn to be in peace and be happy.

This course will help you allow more constructive inner scripts which empower you. You will learn to perceive yourself and the world in a way that brings happy experiences of unconditional love, no matter what is happening around you.

Credentialed Correspondence E-Course113 Downloadable: US$109.00 free shipping worldwide (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order E-Course 113.

Credentialed Correspondence Course 113 in a Binder: US$109.00 plus shipping (includes 2-3 hours with your facilitator). Click here to order Course 113 in a Binder.

Self-Study E-Course 113 Downloadable: US$54.00 free shipping (does not include facilitator or certification). Click here to order E-Course 113 Self-Study.

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A Course in Miracles Minister Training - pathwaysoflight.org

After many years of offering our integrated program of solar-lunar evolutionary vinyasa from the roots, we are so happy to offer our first LUNAR only Teacher Training path.

Join vinyasa teacher Shiva Rea and the Global Prana Vinyasa Collective for new Personal Change and Professional Teacher Training programs to create balance, healing and greater accessibility of all forms of yoga for all.

This is an all-level teacher training path for your wisdom, life-experience and embodiment without any physical restrictions upon the level of your asana practice. In this training you develop your skills to

Program includes live modules in both healing and sacred places around the world and urban yoga centers combined with our Yoga Alchemys Lunar Arts Online Program integrates lunar arts into your daily life through the rhythm of the year.

Embody and Learn:

54 / 108 / 200 / 300 / 500 Hour Certification Pathways. Complete your pathway with the Lunar Arts Modules that fulfill your desired contact hour certification and speak to you as Lunar Prana Flow Yoga Teacher & Wellness Guide.

Choose your combination of modules:

Core Modules (Required, if taken in past 5 years with Shiva may count)

Lunar Prana Vinyasa - Slow Flow Lunar Foundation Prana Vinyasa or Slow Flow Lunar Elemental Prana Vinyasa

Soma Prana Flow - Tantric Yin

Elective Modules

Power of Pranams - Practices for Healing and Balance

Chakra Prana Flow - Tantric Movement Meditation

Rasa Prana Flow - Art of Tantric Yin

Bhakti Prana Flow - Devotion in Motion

Shakti Prana Flow - Healing and Empowering Practices for Women

Sahaja Prana Flow - Flow Arts and Ecstatic Yoga Trance Dance

Inner Arts - Meditation Mandalas

Woven into the tapestry of the Lunar Arts Prana Flow modules you will learn and circulate:

Foundation, Elemental, Chakra, Rasa, and Bhakti Meditations, Mantras and Mudras

Additional Elective Course Modules:

Relaxation in Flow: Soma Prana Vinyasa and Moon Salutations

Global Ecstatic - Yoga Trance Dance & Tribal House Jam

Tending the Fire - Living in Rhythm to explore the Art of Teaching

Body Flow Arts: Self-Partner Massage

Prana Flow Massage I - Rolling Arts - Self-Massage Tools

Prana Flow Massage II - Nadi Flow Arts- Nadi Sampradaya & Ayurvedic Massage

Prana Flow Massage III - Anatomy through Massage: Know Thy Self

Online Sadhana at http://www.yogaalchemy.com

Living in Rhythm

Online course offerings for all offering seasonal and lunar cycle meditations, sadhanas, and reflection. Supports health, vitality, and embodied living in sync in with nature.

Modules (live and with online course support) and Descriptions

Power of Pranams - Practices for Healing and Balance

Experience the Power of Pranams- the practice of bowing within to full recpeptivity to the earth and rising that is at the heart of the worlds spiritual traditions, central to yoga in India and open to all as a universal movement meditation. Learn to teach and practice pranam as movement meditation- flow for all.

Lunar Prana Vinyasa - Slow Flow Foundation

Applies theory of Elemental and Foundation Prana Vinyasa- embodying Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Space with focus on the Lunar Prana Flow sequences and creating a healing, calming quality to the elemental sadhana. You will learn 5 Lunar Prana Flow Elemental namaskars or 5 Roots Lunar Prana namaskars and Lunar Prana Vinyasa sequences.

Soma Prana Flow - Tantric Yin

Soma Prana Vinyasa is a moving meditation into a deep whole-body opening, relaxation as a flowing tantric-based approach to lunar or yin yoga. This regenerative practice offers one half meditative Prana Vinyasa namaskars and deep lunar mudrasanas, and one half inner arts of meditation, mantra, mudra, self massage, and deep savasana. Soma is a Vedic-Tantric understanding of the revivifying elixir-nectar, the secret to longevity, and a refined healing essence that can be generated with us through forms of meditation and natural flow.

Chakra Prana Flow- Tantric Movement Meditation

Chakra Prana Flow embodies the circular power of the Chakra Prana Vinyasa mandala namaskars as lunar healing arts. This sadhana includes one or more of the four Prana Vinyasa Chakra namaskars paired with long lunar mudrasanas, backbends, inversions, mantra, pranayama, and deep savasana.

Rasa Prana Flow - Art of Tantric Yin

Literally translated as juice, essence, taste, plasma, alchemy, or transformative state rasa assumes the concentrated essence of something, such as the sweetness of the mango. Rasa Prana Flow cultivates the relaxing, softer essence of the four Rasa Prana Vinyasa namaskars and sequences. You will learn to invoke lunar energetic states of flow through Prana Flow namaskars for Vira, Sringara, and Shanti rasas.

Bhakti Prana Flow - Devotion in Motion

In this transformative immersion, we will integrate both universal and traditional yoga practices of the heart and awaken and regenerate the body of love through meditations of the mystic heart, transformative Prana Vinyasa backbending sequences and life practices. This module explores heart practices to open us to every breath for cultivating love and compassion to support our health, longevity, and genuine happiness.

Shakti Prana Flow

This module is a path to awaken the living connection of the sacred feminine from fertility, pregnancy, motherhood and the change that continues to deepen through the loving and transformative process. Deepen your cultivation of embodied spirituality, opening to and nurturing the creative juices, creative empowerment, and wisdom change. As students we explore how to teach Prana Flow lunar arts for women through three Shakti Prana Flow practices , exploring the universal aspects of the Goddess as Great Mother.

Sahaja Prana Flow - Flow Arts and Ecstatic Yoga Trance Dance

Learn to lead this internationally celebrated prana yoga and free-form movement meditation. For yoga teachers and yogadventurers who are interested in the interconnections of yoga and dance, this Trance Dance intensive provides the basic tools to explore the foundations of Yoga Trance Dance.

We are all born knowing how to dance; this inherent movement is well documented as one of the oldest planetary yogas. Evolving since 1994, Yoga Trance Dance is a contemporary exploration of the spirit of dance within yoga. Beginning with sahaja prana vinyasa or the experience of prana initiating yogasanas in a spontaneous, natural flow, yoga trance dance unfolds into an exploration of free-form, breath driven movement to liberate ones creative life force and cultivate embodied freedom.

Additional Elective Modules

Relaxation in Flow: Soma Prana Vinyasa and Moon Salutations

Experience a regenerative immersion into Soma Prana Vinyasa - a tantric yin approach to rejuvenation and meditation in motion. Soma is connected to the inner water, ojas (essence, vitality, and amrita), and the healing energy that can green a desert, and restore love. Includes practical tools for soma cultivation in Tantra, Ayurveda.

Global Ecstatic - Yoga Trance Dance & Tribal House Jam

Experience a universal tribal gathering into the roots of trance as a rhythmically induced state of natural flow that is innate within all beings. The activation of free-form movement as one of the oldest ecstatic pathways of collective meditation. This dynamic and rejuvenating exploration accompanied by global tribal rhythms from the roots and contemporary pulse will release tension, generate energy and new neural pathways, entrain your breath, heart and brain wave rhythms to all the movers and shakers around the world.

Tending the Fire - Living in Rhythm to explore the Art of Teaching

Experience the integrated approach of Prana Vinyasa as a living and teaching flow to navigate the rhythms of body and mind. Through daily practices, workshop-style practicums and interactive presentations, you will learn and experience energetic, elemental sequences within Prana Vinyasa Flow as well as the Ayurvedic insight for awakened and illuminated living.

Apply online to our Lunar Arts program

Email teachertrainings@yogadventures.com

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Teacher Training - Shiva Rea

Living Institute Existential-IntegrativePsychotherapy Diploma

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This experiential, competency based program draws on the humanistic, existential, transpersonal, psychodynamic, archetypal and somatic depth traditions. We offer consciousness development, a service orientation toward cultural evolution and an appreciation of the spiritual dimension of nature.

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The Living Institute is a teaching centre committed to exploring humanistic, psychodynamic, existential and mythological themes in individual, cultural and cosmological evolution. The basis for this work is the Holistic Experiential Process Method (HEP). HEP is a model for understanding systemic management and growth that is both social and personal, providing a method for facilitating the evolutionary emergence of self-organizing complexity from apparently chaotic disorder.

The Living Institute recognizes the importance of spiritual and human values in institutional and organizational functions that serve society and culture, based on the interdependence of humans with each other and the natural world.

The Living Institute is also participating in the current re-emergence of spiritual models that draw on ancient cosmologies, from both eastern and western mystical traditions, where nature is seen to embody patterns of integration that link the part with the whole, so that everything is understood to be interconnected.

What makes the Living Institute exceptional is the depth and breadth of our faculty. They are leaders and innovators in their fields.

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Influential German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is known for his writings on good and evil, the end of religion in modern society and the concept of a "super-man."

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844, in Rcken bei Ltzen, Germany. In his brilliant but relatively brief career, he published numerous major works of philosophy, including Twilight of the Idols and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In the last decade of his life he suffered from insanity; he died on August 25, 1900. His writings on individuality and morality in contemporary civilization influenced many major thinkers and writers of the 20th century.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844, in Rcken bei Ltzen, a small village in Prussia (part of present-day Germany). His father, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, was a Lutheran preacher; he died when Nietzsche was 4 years old. Nietzsche and his younger sister, Elisabeth, were raised by their mother, Franziska.

Nietzsche attended a private preparatory school in Naumburg and then received a classical education at the prestigious Schulpforta school. After graduating in 1864, he attended the University of Bonn for two semesters. He transferred to the University of Leipzig, where he studied philology, a combination of literature, linguistics and history. He was strongly influenced by the writings of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. During his time in Leipzig, he began a friendship with the composer Richard Wagner, whose music he greatly admired.

In 1869, Nietzsche took a position as professor of classical philology at the University of Basel in Switzerland. During his professorship he published his first books, The Birth of Tragedy (1872) and Human, All Too Human (1878). He also began to distance himself from classical scholarship, as well as the teachings of Schopenhauer, and to take more interest in the values underlying modern-day civilization. By this time, his friendship with Wagner had deteriorated. Suffering from a nervous disorder, he resigned from his post at Basel in 1879.

For much of the following decade, Nietzsche lived in seclusion, moving from Switzerland to France to Italy when he was not staying at his mother's house in Naumburg. However, this was also a highly productive period for him as a thinker and writer. One of his most significant works, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, was published in four volumes between 1883 and 1885. He also wrote Beyond Good and Evil (published in 1886), The Genealogy of Morals (1887) and Twilight of the Idols (1889).

In these works of the 1880s, Nietzsche developed the central points of his philosophy. One of these was his famous statement that "God is dead," a rejection of Christianity as a meaningful force in contemporary life. Others were his endorsement of self-perfection through creative drive and a "will to power," and his concept of a "super-man" or "over-man" (bermensch), an individual who strives to exist beyond conventional categories of good and evil, master and slave.

Nietzsche suffered a collapse in 1889 while living in Turin, Italy. The last decade of his life was spent in a state of mental incapacitation. The reason for his insanity is still unknown, although historians have attributed it to causes as varied as syphilis, an inherited brain disease, a tumor and overuse of sedative drugs. After a stay in an asylum, Nietzsche was cared for by his mother in Naumburg and his sister in Weimar, Germany. He died in Weimar on August 25, 1900.

Nietzsche is regarded as a major influence on 20th century philosophy, theology and art. His ideas on individuality, morality and the meaning of existence contributed to the thinking of philosophers Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault; Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, two of the founding figures of psychiatry; and writers such as Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse.

Less beneficially, certain aspects of Nietzsche's work were used by the Nazi Party of the 1930s'40s as justification for its activities; this selective and misleading use of his work has somewhat darkened his reputation for later audiences.

See original here:
Friedrich Nietzsche - - Biography

During his final decade, Friedrich Nietzsches worsening constitution continued to plague the philosopher. In addition to having suffered from incapacitating indigestion, insomnia, and migraines for much of his life, the 1880s brought about a dramatic deterioration in Nietzsches eyesight, with a doctor noting that his right eye could only perceive mistaken and distorted images.

Nietzsche himself declared that writing and reading for more than twenty minutes had grown excessively painful. With his intellectual output reaching its peak during this period, the philosopher required a device that would let him write while making minimal demands on his vision.

So he sought to buy a typewriter in 1881.Although he was aware of Remington typewriters, the ailing philosopher looked for a model that would be fairly portable, allowing him to travel, when necessary, to moresalubrious climates. The Malling-Hansen Writing Ball seemed to fit the bill:

In Dieter Eberweins free Nietzches Screibkugele-book, the vice president of the Malling-Hansen Society explains that the writing ball was the closest thing to a 19th century laptop. The first commercially-produced typewriter, the writing ball was the 1865 creation of Danish inventor Rasmus Malling-Hansen, and was shown at the 1878 Paris Universal Exhibition to journalistic acclaim:

"In the year 1875, a quick writing apparatus, designed by Mr. L. Sholes in America, and manufactured by Mr. Remington, was introduced in London. This machine was superior to the Malling-Hansen writing apparatus; but the writing ball in its present form far excels the Remington machine. It secures greater rapidity, and its writing is clearer and more precise than that of the American instrument. The Danish apparatus has more keys, is much less complicated, built with greater precision, more solid, and much smaller and lighter than the Remington, and moreover, is cheaper."

Despite his initial excitement, Nietzsche quickly grew tired of the intricate contraption. According to Eberwein, the philosopher struggled with the device after it was damaged during a trip to Genoa; an inept mechanic trying to make the necessary repairs may have broken the writing ball even further. Still, Nietzsche typed some 60 manuscripts on his writing ball, including what may be the most poignant poetic treatment of typewriters to date:

THE WRITING BALL IS A THING LIKE ME:

MADE OF IRON YET EASILY TWISTED ON JOURNEYS.

PATIENCE AND TACT ARE REQUIRED IN ABUNDANCE

AS WELL AS FINE FINGERS TO USE US."

In addition to viewing several of Nietzsches original typescripts at the Malling-Hansen Society website, those wanting a closer look at Nietzsches model can view it in the video below.

Note: This post originally appeared on our site in December 2013.

Ilia Blinderman is a Montreal-based culture and science writer. Follow him at@iliablinderman.

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Go here to see the original:
Discover Friedrich Nietzsches Curious Typewriter, the ...

Published: November, 2011

Expressing thanks may be one of the simplest ways to feel better.

The Thanksgiving holiday began, as the name implies, when the colonists gave thanks for their survival and for a good harvest. So perhaps November is a good time to review the mental health benefits of gratitude and to consider some advice about how to cultivate this state of mind.

The word gratitude is derived from the Latin word gratia, which means grace, graciousness, or gratefulness (depending on the context). In some ways gratitude encompasses all of these meanings. Gratitude is a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible. With gratitude, people acknowledge the goodness in their lives. In the process, people usually recognize that the source of that goodness lies at least partially outside themselves. As a result, gratitude also helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals whether to other people, nature, or a higher power.

In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.

People feel and express gratitude in multiple ways. They can apply it to the past (retrieving positive memories and being thankful for elements of childhood or past blessings), the present (not taking good fortune for granted as it comes), and the future (maintaining a hopeful and optimistic attitude). Regardless of the inherent or current level of someone's gratitude, it's a quality that individuals can successfully cultivate further.

Two psychologists, Dr. Robert A. Emmons of the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami, have done much of the research on gratitude. In one study, they asked all participants to write a few sentences each week, focusing on particular topics.

One group wrote about things they were grateful for that had occurred during the week. A second group wrote about daily irritations or things that had displeased them, and the third wrote about events that had affected them (with no emphasis on them being positive or negative). After 10 weeks, those who wrote about gratitude were more optimistic and felt better about their lives. Surprisingly, they also exercised more and had fewer visits to physicians than those who focused on sources of aggravation.

Another leading researcher in this field, Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, tested the impact of various positive psychology interventions on 411 people, each compared with a control assignment of writing about early memories. When their week's assignment was to write and personally deliver a letter of gratitude to someone who had never been properly thanked for his or her kindness, participants immediately exhibited a huge increase in happiness scores. This impact was greater than that from any other intervention, with benefits lasting for a month.

Of course, studies such as this one cannot prove cause and effect. But most of the studies published on this topic support an association between gratitude and an individual's well-being.

Other studies have looked at how gratitude can improve relationships. For example, a study of couples found that individuals who took time to express gratitude for their partner not only felt more positive toward the other person but also felt more comfortable expressing concerns about their relationship.

Managers who remember to say "thank you" to people who work for them may find that those employees feel motivated to work harder. Researchers at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania randomly divided university fund-raisers into two groups. One group made phone calls to solicit alumni donations in the same way they always had. The second group assigned to work on a different day received a pep talk from the director of annual giving, who told the fund-raisers she was grateful for their efforts. During the following week, the university employees who heard her message of gratitude made 50% more fund-raising calls than those who did not.

There are some notable exceptions to the generally positive results in research on gratitude. One study found that middle-aged divorced women who kept gratitude journals were no more satisfied with their lives than those who did not. Another study found that children and adolescents who wrote and delivered a thank-you letter to someone who made a difference in their lives may have made the other person happier but did not improve their own well-being. This finding suggests that gratitude is an attainment associated with emotional maturity.

Gratitude is a way for people to appreciate what they have instead of always reaching for something new in the hopes it will make them happier, or thinking they can't feel satisfied until every physical and material need is met. Gratitude helps people refocus on what they have instead of what they lack. And, although it may feel contrived at first, this mental state grows stronger with use and practice.

Here are some ways to cultivate gratitude on a regular basis.

Write a thank-you note. You can make yourself happier and nurture your relationship with another person by writing a thank-you letter expressing your enjoyment and appreciation of that person's impact on your life. Send it, or better yet, deliver and read it in person if possible. Make a habit of sending at least one gratitude letter a month. Once in a while, write one to yourself.

Thank someone mentally. No time to write? It may help just to think about someone who has done something nice for you, and mentally thank the individual.

Keep a gratitude journal. Make it a habit to write down or share with a loved one thoughts about the gifts you've received each day.

Count your blessings. Pick a time every week to sit down and write about your blessings reflecting on what went right or what you are grateful for. Sometimes it helps to pick a number such as three to five things that you will identify each week. As you write, be specific and think about the sensations you felt when something good happened to you.

Pray. People who are religious can use prayer to cultivate gratitude.

Meditate. Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on the present moment without judgment. Although people often focus on a word or phrase (such as "peace"), it is also possible to focus on what you're grateful for (the warmth of the sun, a pleasant sound, etc.).

Emmons RA, et al. "Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-Being in Daily Life," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Feb. 2003): Vol. 84, No. 2, pp. 37789.

Grant AM, et al. "A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way: Explaining Why Gratitude Expressions Motivate Prosocial Behavior," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (June 2010): Vol. 98, No. 6, pp. 94655.

Lambert NM, et al. "Expressing Gratitude to a Partner Leads to More Relationship Maintenance Behavior," Emotion (Feb. 2011): Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 5260.

Sansone RA, et al. "Gratitude and Well Being: The Benefits of Appreciation," Psychiatry (Nov. 2010): Vol. 7, No. 11, pp. 1822.

Seligman MEP, et al. "Empirical Validation of Interventions," American Psychologist (JulyAug. 2005): Vol. 60, No. 1, pp. 41021.

For more references, please see http://www.health.harvard.edu/mentalextra.

Disclaimer:As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content. Please note the date of last review on all articles. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

Continue reading here:
In Praise of Gratitude - Harvard Health

What has been confusing to many people is that until Gurdjieff introduced the teaching in Russia in 1912 it was not known. Since chronologically all teachings and religions appear before The Fourth Way, it is easily supposed that it is last. This perception, however, is quite linear. Though The Fourth Way does appear last, it is actually first. All esoteric and religious history is thus stood on its head.

We see the world, as Gurdjieff said many times, "topsy-turvy." Original does not mean newly invented, as it is often taken to mean. An original teaching is "of the origin," meaning that the teaching existed first, from the beginning, before other teachings that may derive from it.

In other words, The Fourth Way predates not only Christianity but the Egyptian, Judaic, Persian, Buddhist and Islamic religions.

Gurdjieff tells us that the earliest indications of the teaching of The Fourth Way lie in prehistoric Egyptan Egypt that existed before recorded history, which dates from 3000 B.C. "It will seem strange to many people," Gurdjieff said, "when I say that this prehistoric Egypt was Christian many thousands of years before the birth of Christ."

He said that the principles and ideas constituting true Christianity were known many thousands of years before the birth of Christ. In discovering these, he had "the blueprint," so to say, of the original Christianity.

As he said, "The Christian church, the Christian form of worship, was not invented by the fathers of the church. It was all taken in a ready-made form from Egypt, only not from the Egypt we know but from one which we do not know. This Egypt was in the same place as the other but it existed much earlier."

Read the original:
Gurdjieff's Teaching of The Fourth Way is The Original Teaching

Read the companion piece to An Evolutionary Roadmap for Belonging and Co-Liberation.

Dear Shanthi

In my thirteen years working in the field of racial equity, primarily in government, colleagues from the District Attorneys Office, the library system, and the health department brought to our attention the need to more fully integrate and prioritize healing, trauma-informed work, the arts, and power analyses into teaching methods. In the training we were providing public servants, numerous people expressed the need for more frames and structures that embodied belonging.

Because we do not spend time creating, articulating, and embedding the models and frames we do want that embody health and well-being, our strategies are often partial and at times can be harmful. All of this is strengthened by how sound bites are prioritized over complex and nuanced analyses in communication, how historical amnesia is more valued than critical historical reflection, and how conditioned we are to promote ruptured relationships within ourselves and to each other, our institutions, and our planet.

This essay is part of the work Ive done to put my experience and analysis in a frame that speaks to the whole health, life, and death of the living systems we are looking to improve and heal. This framework focuses on embodying belonging and co-liberation, and is an attempt to map out an emerging DNA of what belonging would look like when tied to health, spirituality, resilience, and well-being.

This work can be deeply challenging because many of us feel the need for certain kinds of proof of these connections in order to engage with an analysis around them. There is a tension between wanting to use the social sciences to research and define findings from this framework, as it would lead to more healthy societies together, and a solid desire to not root this inquiry from either a place of defense or the need to buy into unhealthy systems and ways of knowing and being.

We spend so much time articulating, framing, and researching things that are symptomatic of and rooted in oppression. We are experts at this. Weve all been schooled in the modern project that thrives on valuing capital and profits over people and ecosystems, setting up hierarchies within and around all of that based on race, sex, gender, religion, ability, and ideology. White, male, and hetero-centered thinking being the dominant system of our theories and culturethese are the waters we swim in.

john a. powell, director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at UC Berkeley, speaks about a systemic antilife project. Hardened nation-states bent and dependent on isolating groups as other are gaining momentum. Our biological and conditioned needs for certainty cause anxiety and stress. Globally, were seeing the dire effects of climate change and illness. Our collective rhythms, which are intrinsically linked to the health of the earth and should be in sync with our ecosystem, are off.

Dr. David Williams, Professor of Public Health at the Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health, speaks of the negative health impact of high levels of incivility and how hostility in the larger environment can create adverse impacts as well. The experience of such angst and weathering is not equal across populations. People of color and other marginalized populations live shorter lives, tend to get more sick while young, and experience greater severe illness.

Although many cultures possess a wealth of knowledge around the interconnected worlds of spiritual and social change, the reality is that in todays antilife project, many religious and economic systems have poisoned the waters around this embodied connection that many believe is inherent to what it means to be fully human.

The terms we use to define these concepts,and realities, can be tricky and sometimes, themselves, may produce an othering effect when used. The definitions and language used mean many different things to different people. Its important to note that terminology and language have been used to erase or deny key aspects of well-being and justice.

Also important is the recognition that people who forefront their engagement with the work of spirituality have been perceived as too often conducting that work at a mostly individual level, without acknowledging, and often outright denying, that we are connected to larger systems that produce racial injustices and outcomes. A damaging belief that many religious and spiritual practices hold is that things like racism and inequities just happen because a [insert any higher power] deemed it so. This denies the socially constructed reality of injustices and helps maintain an innocence to how complicit we actually are in their creation and maintenance. On the other hand, many involved in equity work often leave out a discussion of anything perceived as spiritual because it is seen as synonymous with the negative aspects of religion affecting populations across the globe for centuries.

More movements are choosing to lead with traditionally marginalized people who carry cognitive and spiritual maps together with the wealth and wisdom of their own lived experiences. The entertainment industry is giving rise to marginalized experiences, reflecting liberatory movements and visionary ideas. New forms of knowledge production are on the rise. Decolonization efforts are gaining momentum. Indigenous communities are leading movements in visionary ways that are rooted in ancient cultural and spiritual beliefs.

The impetus for the following framework is the recognition of our need to make better alignments toward what is healthy for all of us. This work centers on and builds from the experiences and paradigms of people of color while also speaking to the fluidity and multidimensionality of our identities, bringing into the fold all populations.

The reality of belonging is that all of these strategiesof leading with ways that shift consciousness, that utilize different modes of critical examinationare already within us. They are not outside of us collectively or individually. They are present and waiting for us to break down the barriers that hold them back from organizing into social arrangements that bring us health.

This framework is intended to be a dynamic model that can adapt and evolve. While the work is emergent, I do offer specific key strategies as examples of what the muscles and fiber of the framework look like in the following key areas: beloved; be still; behold; believe; becoming; and belonging, co-liberation, and well-being.

These six guideposts work together. Doing work in one is often tied to others. Ultimately, all guideposts and actions are grounded in the root of belonging and in recognition of the beloved, or the larger interconnectedness we all belong to.

The social outcomes we are striving for can be seen as similar to the experience of the leaves and branches of a tree when it is healthy. These areas are also the DNA and living threads that run throughout the entire frame as a whole.

When I was growing up in Eastern Congo, meetings in the small community I lived in often happened in the shadow of a tree. It was a place of rest and work, but it also held religious and cosmologic significance that I was aware of, although limited given that I was an outsider. This experiencesitting on the ground and around natural formsis a very different model than a table or in a cube. It elicits some questionsWhere do we meet? How do we meet? And then its not just about the form.Its about the why.

Across all the watercolor pieces I drew to accompany this essay, there is a movement. We start from more of an individual perspective as an accessible entry point for the viewer, all the way through to the group perspective. The figures and images move from more of a sitting position to standing. Sitting is more appropriate in the beginning because it makes one think of pausing. Colors move between them, the use of shimmer is consistent, the green appears universally, as do the reds and the purples. I dont know where many of these images came from. Ive never seen them before. Thats something I think is interesting to reflect on in the process, which is that things emerged that I didnt plan for, that came from a different part of my brain. They came more from the gut.

Samuel Paden

Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lovers war, and he does at this best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and what that revelation, to make freedom real. James Baldwin

This figure was a Gaia figure for Beloved. A spirit figure and a genuine person. I attempted with this piece to speak to the connection between self, open heart, and greater life, of expansion and growth. Samuel Paden

At the root of belonging and co-liberation is the living connection among the spiritual, ecological, social, and political realms. It is based on how our individual and group realities are just as multifaceted, multidimensional, and connected as the greater living systems of which we are a part. The components in this frame of beloved and be still are intrinsic to our nature as the type of living systems that we are.

We speak deeply to what it is we love, what and whom we care for, and what we find sacred. This area speaks to the practice of openness, openheartedness, expanding our circles of human concern, and committing to put it all into service. It is essential to understand that we are hardwired to experience this, both unconsciously and consciously, to maintain mutually beneficial relationships with each other and with the planet. Our collective health is guided by both spiritual and social well-being, and negatively affected by surplus suffering in both connected realms (john a. powell, Racing to Justice, 2011).

Beloved is not a romantic ideal. To love and to be loved can also be tough, grainy, and sharp. It can require putting up necessary boundaries, unearthing what is poisoning us, or deconstructing something creating excessive suffering.

This might mean taking the time to connect to a deeper purpose toward equity and belonging, articulating that purpose, and revisiting it regularly in meaningful and provocative ways.

Our health and well-being benefit from connecting to what we find sacred and actively embodying a greater interconnectedness. Such engagements can decrease the feeling and experience of social isolation. Research has shown us that the experience of social isolation and mortality is similar to the effects of cigarette smoking and mortality.

Social and collective spaces and practices that embody the beloved can improve our well-being by providing necessary social and emotional support, strengthening our collective sense of purpose in this work, and improve our nonverbal and socially intuitive abilities that call forth love in all of its forms. Shelly Tochluk describes in her book Living in the Tension: The Quest for a Spiritualized Racial Justice the context of how these practices occur and why it matters. Religious or spiritual practices can also be employed in power over ways, furthering the exclusion of those deemed others, worsening mental health.

Going nowhere, as Leonard Cohen would later emphasize for me, isnt about turning your back on the world; its about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply. Pico Iyer

The intention with this piece was to engender a sense of calm and reflection, and coming around what is important. The figure is folded inward, surrounding a circular object in the middle. This painting also speaks to the connection between Be Still and Beloved. Be-stilling is all about holding, connecting with, and caring for what we love and hold sacred. Samuel Paden

A crucial guiding principle of health and healing is that you must be more still than the thing in front of you that you seek to effect. This type of action, prioritizing this be stilling, is not typically rewarded in a world that emphasizes profit over people and which asks us to be complicit in our addiction to speed. We are taught to act on the fly and quickly.

Yet the amount of complexity in navigating the world today requires wisdom, not strategy alone. Developing skills around patience and creating informed actions from this space help make the best of our energy, resources, and time. Being still can help create more energy, energy of the most creative kind; the type of energy required during immense periods of change and turmoil. Being still is a constant struggle and involves attention to prioritize greater reflection and silence.

It is through the consistent practice of being still that we are able to touch what we have available to us and what is already present. A key and well-researched strategy for be still is for people to reconnect to the natural world, spending time with the other species that coinhabit the earth with us. Our nervous systems seem to recognize our interconnection with other species and can relax nonverbally into the living web. We find the core rhythm we have with other living systems to be mirror images of our own species as partners in something more expansive than any one thing.

There are direct ties to the well-being of our individual and collective bodies, and by employing in our work, we can better behold what we are striving to organize and support.

Being still slows down the part of the nervous system that stimulates our fight-or-flight responses (our sympathetic nervous system) and improves our abilities to rest and digest (our parasympathetic nervous system). We are better able to repair ourselves and eliminate our toxins. These processes are inherent to who we are as human beings. When we are out of balance, bringing about greater equilibrium in these ways not only better sustains our health but also helps us be the vehicles for social change we aim to be. Research from neuroscientists suggest that all models of social change could benefit greatly from a be-stilling space and practice as a part of the work.

Socially, there are great possibilities to integrating meaningful reflection and pause. Being still does not mean we remain in a state of inaction. We need our responses to be timely and accurate when it comes to responding to political infection and toxin. Anger and frustration are necessary emotions and movement builders, activating our organizing muscles and actions. Yet bodies are healthier if they are able to maintain balance. Prioritizing a grounding in mindfulness and stillness best helps the initiation and recovery from our mobilizing and change efforts. We improve our abilities to more accurately and holistically behold and take in situations and people in front of us when our collective and individual bodies are calmer.

You cant be what you cant see. Melissa Harris-Perry

The fundamental feature of every now reveals itself, not in only what is past or what is present, but also in what is absent. Ernest Bloch

This particular sphere is about decolonizingholding what is in our view as living systems and not as dead and mechanical. The figures and the globe are all interconnected, highlighting the global nature of belonging and co-liberation, as well as oppression and othering. I deliberately cropped the beings at the perceived ends of their body, as that space is critical to speak to no beginning and no end. I also deliberately included different colors, shades, and the presence of androgyny. This shows how the dynamism of our identities enriches what we are able to Behold.Samuel Paden

Our ability to mobilize and organize around the areas we care about and want to bring greater health to depends on our mapping of the areas and the issues themselves. Capitalism and supremacy run deep socially, and I am constantly shocked by how something so huge, so systemic can affect what we can see and understand in the first place before any related strategic action even happens. There are deep wells of anger and grief around witnessing these partial social lenses that are strengthened by historically perpetuated systems of oppression, misused power, and othering.

If we come from a grounded place of love and stillness, we can better hold what is in front of us, as a compassionate doctor effectively holds what a body is presenting to her in order to better understand its current condition, what led up to it being ill, and where to go from there in terms of healing strategies. Spiritual and social teacher Reverend angel Kyodo williams pressingly asks in her writings, What is being left out? How do we better notice and identify where we enact superiority around who should experience greater life chances and health?

Beholding applies not just to the structural conditions of the situation or topic but also to the emotional and relational balance present or not present. We are not adept at recognizing pain and suffering connected to social illnesses. To behold while grounding in spirit-based and liberatory practices calls for first touching base with beloved and be still. This will open up to a greater interconnectedness and resulting willingness to stop seeing things from conditioned perspectives and will calm our nervous systems socially and individually. We can better see, listen, and feel clearly from these spaces. Bearing witness to hope, as well as grief and anger, propels this work into the transformative by increasing our understanding of the suffering we hope to shift.

How do we embody the ability to literally behold what is in front of us and work toward greater well-being? How do we expand our frame by integrating decolonizing practices and multiple methods of knowing and learning, helping us move to a space of liberation and not toward simply a kinder, gentler suffering? Beholding for colonizing influences, as well as places of expansion and health, helps provide a more accurate map of change, including where our implicit biases play a role in the perpetuation of surplus suffering.

Key behold strategies also move us to push the edges around how strongly we place value on simple communication. While there is an elegance to conveying things in simple ways, as well as experiencing improved accessibility, we often misapply the simple rule and reward overly simplistic analysis, solutions, and approaches in order to increase our number of likes, for instance. What we behold is affected by our negative connotations to things we project and deem as overly complex, perhaps because they lay just beyond our realm of conditioned and perpetuated understanding. While I think all things can be better laid out in simple and engaging ways that speak to our overly stimulated minds, the processes and outcomes of belonging require us to be with multiple perspectives, to integrate some space for chaos and messiness, and to allow strategies to emerge from this.

Key racial equity-driven movements possess incredibly sharp lenses and analyses to better behold racial inequities and the contributing structures and practices to the undergirding systemic racism that roots it all. Examples of such analysis include the tool kits and processes put forward by the Government Alliance for Race and Equity, Race Forward, and PolicyLink. All of these groups have also been expanding their frames to integrate healing- and trauma-related content, practices, and questions, helping to more accurately behold what they are seeking to transform. And with this expansion, I look forward to these efforts and countless others to be more intentionally grounded in indigenous-based decolonizing analyses, leading to more accurately identifying and addressing systemic racism and oppression as well as their antidotes. Examples can be found in the work of Vanessa Andreotti of the University of Vancouver, British Columbia, and that of Sandew Hira of the Decolonial International Network.

For the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Audre Lorde

The predominance of red and largeness of the form that are related to ones beliefs speak to how much we are guided by what we believe and what incredible passion moves through us as a result. The presence of eyes as part of that Believe form above the head of the figure also speaks to the strong influence what we Behold has on our beliefs. The paint appears to be in motion, in the cloud formations above the figure, as well as into, out of, and through the figure, speaking to how dynamic and powerful our beliefs can be. Samuel Paden

Glenn Harris of the organization Race Forward shared the following astute observation: You need believe to be a part of this frame if youre really going to address systemic racism.

We collectively hold and perpetuate beliefs of superiority, which state that some people deserve to experience illness, poverty, and unequal chances at lives of ease. Such beliefs help inform the design of our social arrangements, keeping rigid racial and social hierarchies in place. Just as with the natural laws of our own personal bodies, our beliefs about the mappings of our social body and its anatomy influence how we move and how we think we can move.

Merely learning about belief systems that breed supremacy and superiority are not enough. Knowledge alone doesnt interrupt or disrupt. This is something I experienced myself in my own professional work, complicit in promoting, for example, that educational sessions could help solve the issue as sole strategies. All the trainings and capacity-building sessions in the world wont change the culture of racism alone. Such beliefs will still be present without, first, their thoughtful and consistent deconstruction and, second, the centering of beliefs that expand our collective imagination and promote well-being.

So how does what we behold relate to what we believe? What and how we behold affects what we believe and how fiercely our grip is on those beliefs. If were taking in partial information that goes unexamined, our beliefs will reflect that, and then our actions or inactions are partial as well and possibly even more harmful than we intended.

Somewhere between what we behold and what we believe are processes of noticing, attaching huge feelings to what we notice, and then crystallizing all of that into mental formations and, eventually, beliefs.

What are some practices in believe that can help us lead to greater belonging and co-liberation? For starters, we can intentionally build in practices that help us critically question and interrupt our conditioning and assumptions, both used with situations and people external to us, and those that guide how we view ourselves internally. This could look like creating spaces, just like in artistic processes, where we focus on looking at the things were working with from multiple perspectives. We turn it upside down, put it on its side, and engage people most affected by inequities to tell us what they see. We might find examples of superiority and inferiority. From here, our presence and willingness to change, which weve developed in be still, and our ability to more clearly behold help us shift such beliefs.

And just as important is connecting what we believe to what is beloved. How can what we believe about what guides us toward belonging and well-being be grounded in the natural laws of interconnectedness and in the connection between the social and spiritual? Grounding in such wholeness and sacredness is helped along by surrendering and de-emphasizing intellect-only approaches, which most often guide how we create and maintain our beliefs. Such surrender also helps our innate, as well as our constructed and learned, needs and obsessions to experience certainty at all times. Connecting believe to beloved involves engaging with multiple ways of knowing and being, allowing us to better engage with the unknown.

After all the years Ive dedicated to working with racial equity, and doing so from within heavily bureaucratic and usually white-led hierarchies, the energy to sustain my contribution cannot be disconnected from my being a queer woman of color from an immigrant background, and one who has also struggled with chronic illness. Tarell Alvin McCraney shared in his keynote at the last Othering & Belonging conference that if we turn our attention to those who dont want us or if we believe weas communities of color, as queer people, as all the aboveshould not live, we leave unprotected our own people.

There can be real negative health impacts to working with people who believe we should not live, and within our movements, we need to get more strategic and real about how, with whom, and in what ways we work within oppressive structures.

This framework is unapologetically based on promoting an expansive ethics of caring. We are hardwired for connection. This is also true in relationship to human caring, having memories of caring and being cared for. The experience of such caring is connected to having an ethical response to bring about justice, for instance, or address inequities.

Having a deeper understanding of power and acknowledging the power that comes from spiritual practice and personal challenges can also increase our relevance to the communities we work with. We rarely use power-mapping techniques that include the power we get from within. This intellectual approach to landscaping power can unintentionally disempower our organizations and communities. While its hard to quantify spiritual or emotional power, leaving it out of the overall picture leaves little room for us to imagine ourselves as powerful. Kristen Zimmerman, Neelam Pathikonda, Brenda Salgado, Taj James

Becoming doesnt have results yet. It is sparse. But the figures are all in this space together. There is an engagement in a similar soil, although they are distinct, very much so. Some are connected, and some arent. There is a form of a tree thats singular, but theyre part of that tree. -Samuel Paden

Feedback from activists and advocates across sectors on this framework helped refine the concept. What does spirituality and practice have to do with building power? Why should I care at all about a bunch of theory with no application? Show me why all of this is important. I found it challenging to try and describe a connection that I had been culturally and spiritually taught was ever-present and self-evident, which could also only be described verbally up to a point. But research guiding the frame makes it clear that these areas of building power, activism, and spirit-based practice were inextricably linked.

Becoming, belonging, and co-liberation are inherently messy at times, nonlinear, and can elicit multiple perspectives that love and hate, and include and exclude, the emerging innovations and alternatives. This frame has both resonated with many people by providing more expanded views of change and ways of being to improve their work and turned people off who shared they felt the need to actively disengage with it. And then there were many people who said they just didnt have the language to comprehend what they were seeing and reading, and wanted to learn more.

There are a few key learnings here. First, epistemic injustice has been perpetuated for centuries around splitting spirit from matter and spiritual suffering from social suffering. While the laws that protect us from the harrowing and negative effects of church integrating with state affairs are necessary, we seem to have also thrown out Beholding and embodying the positive health social and structural practices of meaning-making, connecting to purpose and what we love and hold sacred, and acting from a place of essential interconnectedness (Beloved).

Also, spiritual practices denying and not integrating social practice is a contributing factor. For many justice-focused people, not integrating spiritual practice that denied the realities of social and racial injustices was a protective factor and necessary in order to maintain the required focus on structural and systemic change to bring about greater belonging.

Lastly, language. Language can be used to exclude or include, often tied to desired outcomes and agendas that are not usually transparent. I have been complicit in these acts as well, as I imagine all of us have been. The tension is the desire for accessibility for the masses alongside the desire to what we commonly refer to as speaking truth to power. Of course that speaking is also influenced by our formal and informal schooling, experience of intersecting cultures, and our need to participate in the systems of capitalism in order to live.

Ultimately, I believe that if our feelings, thoughts, connections to what is sacred and to a greater interconnectedness, and beliefs are moving along the journey towards belonging and co-liberation, then our communications and actions will follow. We desperately need not just multi-verse, but pluri-versal decolonizing ways of talking, discussing, and enacting, and within that, leading with the voices of the most marginalized.

Becoming practices seek to deconstruct barriers and colonizing processes and support emerging alternatives to such colonizing realities. For those within bureaucratic systems, Becoming can look like hospicing the things that are dying, which are also harming our collective well-being and health, and hacking or breaking up and through oppressive structures and practices.

Building power and organizing economically, politically, socially, and spiritually are key to strengthening the branches and bridging structures in the tree of belonging. Such organizing is done, however, in a more supported fashion by grounding in what is Beloved and in the liberatory strategies of Behold and Believe. A key priority throughout would be the resiliency and well-being of all of us engaging in this work, if we elevate and focus on conditioning as an integral part of Becoming. One of my interviewees, a fifth-degree black belt, shared that people doing social and racial justice work need to condition ourselves. Most of the work of karate is about conditioning ones mind, body, and soul for if and when a strike occurs. The art isnt geared toward taking people out, but rather developing an immense preparedness and solid health in order to work through the fights.

Becoming is non-linear and dynamic, although still embedding strategic thinking, narrative, and action. Organizing movements that embed spirit-driven practices as defined in this article are growing; in the national and local scenes, we need to hold up these examples and strive to embody their learnings in order to more accurately achieve our social visions for belonging, and sustain our individual health and resiliency. Examples of these movements include: generative somatics trainings, healing justice strategies put forward by groups such as WorldTrust, transformative leadership sessions held by the Movement Strategy Center, yoga and equity initiatives, the collective strategies embodied by indigenous movements worldwide, and so many more.

You cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it, and responsible for changing it. Grace Lee Boggs

I define politics as the ongoing collective struggle for liberation and for the power to createnot only works of art, but also just and nonviolent social institutions. Adrienne Rich

Action is happening both up and down, in both the Belonging individual and Belonging collective [next page] paintings. In the collective one, there is looking at the tree and the results, but its not singular. There are all of these different voices and the state of living and being organic. What I was wanting to have concentrated in the visual is whats happening in our communities. Its not a singular person or thing, its multiverse.- Samuel Paden

Aspects of this frame came to life as she was talking, grounded in what is beloved, decolonizing what they were beholding, and becoming in such a holistic, intergenerational way. Alone, each one of these aspects is not enough. But if approached and interacted with as an interwoven whole, they light up as a map toward the experience of greater social health and belonging, take shape, and self-animate. As we play with working models, such as this embodying belonging and co-liberation frame, it is crucial we take the time to reflect on our experiences and take in through all our senses what feels differently when enacted. By doing this sort of intentional and holistic reflection we solidify healthier ways of being, and going back to our old more destructive ways will be unthinkable (Dr. Darya Funches, Founder of REAP Unlimited, on the meaning of transformation).

For to be free is not merely to cast off ones chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. Nelson Mandela

We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. Anais Nin

Our shared work in justice-related efforts calls for us to renew, cocreate, and follow boldly emergent narratives and frames that urge us to embody belonging every step of the way. How we get there matters if we want to improve our overall outcomes while also sustaining and promoting positive health and well-being during the journey.

Read more:
An Evolutionary Roadmap for Belonging and Co-Liberation ...

8 Best Industries for Starting a Business Right Now | Inc.com

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Best Industries 2018

The time is right

Got the entrepreneurial bug? Think about launching in these sectors, based on analyst data and interviews with industry experts, investors, and entrepreneurs.

Disaster relief

A spate of natural disasters andmanmade emergencies has increased the demand for services and boosted startup funding. Revenue for the disaster relief industryis expected to jump to $11.2 billion in 2022 from $10.1 billionin 2017, according to IBISWorld.

Alternative-protein food products

The technology is now available to meet consumer demand for great-tasting foods that use proteins from nontraditonal sources. The market accounted for $4.2 billion in 2016 and is expected to grow 6.8 percent between 2017 and 2022, according to Research and Markets.

eSports

Amazons $970 million acquisition of Twitch and the possibility that the NCAA will support collegiate gaming is driving enormous growth ineSports. The industry is expected to reach $1.7 billion in 2020, upfrom $1.1 billionin 2018, according to SuperData Research.

Influencer agents

These startups represent social-media stars who need help turning Instagram followers into cash. As social medias influence continues to surge, revenue for the industry isexpected to increase to $10.8 billion in 2022, a 2.2 percent jump from 2017, according to IBIS.

Beauty tech

The integration of tech and the beauty businessis resulting in a wave of new,innovativeproducts. It's ahuge opportunity: The overall beauty market is expected to jump to $27.8 billion in 2022 from $22.1 billion last year, according to IBIS.

Womens reproductive health care

Startups are helping women take control of their reproductive health with fertility-tracking apps and other services. A2015Harris Williams study estimatedthe U.S. fertility market's value at between $3billion and $4 billion.

Canned wine

The product inside hasnt changed, but the new packaging is gaining acceptance, especially among Millennials. Total U.S. sales for canned wine jumped to $32.3 million last year--a $29 million increase from 2014, according to Nielsen.

Elderly care

Businesses are findinginnovative ways to care for the large population of aging Baby Boomers. The industry generated more than $50.7 billion in revenue in 2017, a figure IBIS expectsto increase by about42 percent by 2022.

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8 Best Industries for Starting a Business Right Now | Inc.com