SPIRIT IN MATTERS: Taking a Higher
View of Life on Earth
By Dianne Eppler Adams
Vol. 2, No 14– December 13, 2004
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FROM THIS VANTAGE POINT...
Remembering the “Why”
The holidays are upon us with all the hustle and bustle that usually accompany
the season. There are gifts to buy, decorations to make or purchase, parties to
attend or give, groceries to buy and special recipes to prepare. Without a
doubt, our to-do lists are longer at this time than any other time of the year.
Yet while balancing (perhaps juggling) your checkbook or wiping cookie dough off
your hands or sitting in the midst of wrapping paper strewn across the room, I
suggest that this year you stop for just a moment and consider...
Why are you doing what you are doing?
Are you busy buying gifts, selecting just the right color or size, to please a
loved one? Then enjoy what you are doing. Enjoy the task of shopping and revel
in the possibility of pleasing Aunt Susie with your choice. Imagine her face as
she opens your package.
Or are you anxious about what to buy, worried about your purchase. Perhaps
you’ve allowed yourself to feel obligated and don’t feel open-hearted. What is
your motivation to buy?
Above all, the holidays (no matter what your tradition – Christmas, Chanukah, or
Kwanza) have Love as their significance, caring for family and friends.
When you find yourself harried and hassled with too much to do and too little
time to do it, stop and remember why you are doing what you are doing? If love
is at the center of the season, why aren’t you feeling loving and joyful? And
what can be done to change your experience?
One suggestion: When you’re feeling particularly stressed, stop and sit for a
moment. Ask yourself, “Why am I doing what I am doing?” Remembering why may help
inspire you with new energy. If you don’t like the reason, don’t do it! It may
be that you are following a tradition that no longer has meaning for you. This
holiday why not do things differently, more joyfully.
Remembering why can revitalize the significance of your holiday and refocus you
energies toward Love and Joy.
I close this last issue of 2004 with a very sincere THANK YOU for allowing me to
share my thoughts with you this year.
Happy Holidays!
(Your comments are always encouraged and welcome at
SpiritInMatters@aol.com.)
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Now for Some Shameless Self-Promotion
NEW SERVICE - Host an Astrology Party and get a FREE reading!
Here’s a fun idea! Gather 6-8 of your friends for a party. I will do a general
talk about the astrological energies of the time and provide each guest with a
private 15 minute reading for $25. They get to experience what astrology is all
about and you get a complimentary full personal reading to schedule at your
leisure. I will provide each person with a copy of their chart and a brief
printout. Everyone gets to have fun!
DECEMBER SPECIAL - $10 off a reading until December 31
Is it time for an update? Take advantage this special. Mention this newsletter
announcement and I will take $10 off my fee.
REFERRAL THANK YOU - $15 credit toward your next reading
The highest compliment you can pay me is to recommend my services to a friend. I
am always deeply grateful and to show you, I will hold a $15 credit toward your
next reading.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR ASTROLOGICAL CHART: The Basics
Saturday mornings, Jan. 8, 15, 22, 29 – 10-1 PM
Series of 4 classes, $140, due at first class
To register, email
SpiritinMatters@aol.com or call 703-548-4552
Would you like to understand your birth chart? Wish you could figure out how
Astrology works? This 4-week class will provide a basic understanding of the
signs, planets, houses, elements & qualities. We will work with each others
charts to dramatize what we are learning and help internalize the details, as
well as discuss the current planetary picture in the heavens on that day. This
is not be a lecture course, but is intended to be highly interactive.
TEAM BUILDING IN THE WORKPLACE
To my great joy, I have landed my first corporate client to do team building
using astrology. Building on the workshop – Treasuring Your Uniqueness - through
a group process, each person's unique attributes are explored, confirming and
honoring their essential contribution to the whole, fostering greater
understanding between team members and improving group functioning and
cohesiveness. Each person's astrological traits will be interwoven with others,
in a spirit of confidentiality and inclusiveness, while celebrating differences
and illuminating similarities. If you know of a workplace that could benefit
from team building, I would love to assist.
Remember if you can't come in person for a reading, we can meet by phone and
you'll still get a recording of our complete conversation.
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FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION...
PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS
By Mike Purton, The Guardian, Saturday, Dec. 5, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1366172,00.html
A series of scientific experiments in the early 1980s changed forever our
understanding of the nature of matter. It is likely that it will also prove to
have been the greatest religious discovery of the 20th century.
Physicists call it entanglement, and it describes the state of two or more
particles once they have interacted with one another. From then on, irrespective
of time and space, a correlation will always exist between them. What happens to
one will affect the other - even if they are now at opposite ends of the
universe.
The word entanglement is really a misnomer. Some scientists use "non-separability"
to describe the same condition. And the difference is significant. For if matter
emerged from energy in the singularity of the big bang, it would seem to follow
that all the particles of which it consists are in that state of correlation.
They have not become entangled, but at the fundamental level they have never
been - and can never be - separated.
Although it is now more than 20 years since non-separability was proved
experimentally, its significance has yet to enter the public psyche. It seems to
be too immense a concept, too remote from our everyday lives - until we view it
from the spiritual perspective.
We are then reminded that it is this same matter which is both the physical
manifestation of spirit and the means to redemptive action. This being so, then
the correlation of all matter must also apply to all spirit. Our separateness is
an illusion; the reality is an indivisible unity.
[Follow link to more of this article.]
THE WHITE BETWEEN THE RED AND BLUE: Engaging the Soul of America
By David Spangler, The Center for Visionary Leadership
http://www.visionarylead.org/David%20Spangler.html
David Spangler is widely acclaimed author of Emergence: The Rebirth of the
Sacred, Blessing and Everyday Miracles, and was formerly co-director of the
visionary Findhorn Foundation in Scotland. Here is a recent letter he wrote to a
friend after the election, helping us understand how we are each contributing to
what happens next in our national life:
Towards the end of the campaign, the sense of Kerry’s victory was strong for me,
though my inner observations of how energy was flowing in the country suggested
otherwise. It was a close call. But was that strong feeling in vain? Was it
wrong?
A Presidential campaign is very similar to a manifestation project. At the end
of such a project is a step I call "Inhabiting." This is where you step into and
inhabit the energy, the felt sense, the image of your desired manifestation as
if it were real. The purpose of this is to create a clear and substantial,
imaginal incarnational shape around which energy, probability, and substance can
configure and coalesce.
To me this process is not predictive but topological, if I may call it that,
referring to my manifestation objective as a "terrain". So, I'm not so much
determining what terrain IS going to manifest as I am shaping a terrain that,
all things being equal, has a probability of manifesting. A key to this is the
felt sense of the reality of that terrain, as if its contours and dimensions
were really there rather than just imaginally there. The power of a felt sense
that embraces and engages more than just a mental image is precisely the power
that enables manifestation to occur.
... The human tendency is to see such contested manifestations as contests, with
winners and losers, but that is almost never the case on the inner--or I should
say, they are not resolved in that manner. So we in embodiment might say that
the Bush Manifestors won out over the Kerry Manifestors, that the former shaped
reality more successfully than the latter.
But the formative forces on the inner, as I understand them and understand the
process, would not see it that way. They take information and power from all
sides; Both terrains are present in the outcome in what might be understood as
an ecological process rather than a competitive one. Very little is wasted. The
good energies, hopes, and visions of one side are part of the mix that
ultimately manifests. They are not lost or discarded in the wake of another's
victory. So on the outer, Bush is reelected but he is reelected into a terrain
that is just as much shaped by the clarity of manifestation of Kerry supporters
as of Bush supporters.
Unfortunately, the hateful and fearful energies generated in the contest and
perhaps held by the "losers" afterwards can also become part of the final mix as
well, unless there is forgiveness. I'm sure neither the Bush supporters nor the
Kerry supporters would envision hate and fear as part of the natural energies of
the America they hope will emerge--people generally don't wish that their
futures will be filled with hate and conflict--but those energies will be
present without steps to contain, understand, and transform them through larger
embracing visions, forgiveness, and love
[Follow link for complete article that’s really worth reading in its entity.]
BRAIN SCAN SHOWS DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TRUTH AND LYING
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent, Reuters, Nov. 29, 2004
http://www.alertnet.org/printable.htm?URL=/thenews/newsdesk/N29414549.htm
Brain scans show that the brains of people who are lying look very different
from those of people who are telling the truth, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
The study, using functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI, not only sheds
light on what goes on when people lie but may also provide new technology for
lie-detecting, the researchers said.
[Follow link to more of this article.]
TEAM CLAIMS TO FIND ATLANTIS NEAR CYPRUS
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041114-101155-3076r.htm
(UPI) - A team of U.S. researchers have claimed to have found convincing
evidence of the lost city of Atlantis off the coast of Cyprus, the BBC reported.
After six days scanning the Mediterranean Sea bed between Cyprus and Syria using
sonar technology, the team said they believe they have evidence of massive,
manmade structures beneath the ocean floor, including two 1.25 mile long walls
on a hill.
Team leader Robert Sarmast said their discoveries match accounts of the city
written by Plato.
Sarmast said the walls appear to be sited on a flat-topped hill where the
temples of Atlantis may have once stood.
He intends to use the sonar data to make a three-dimensional computer image of
the site before returning for further research.
However, Sarmast and his team are not the first to believe they found Atlantis.
Other searchers have placed the lost kingdom off the coast of Spain, Cuba, south
west of England, and under the South China Sea.
LESSONS FROM GEESE
http://members.aol.com/CuttyhunkRose/geese.html
A beautiful message!
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©2004 Spirit in Matters: Taking a Higher View of Life on Earth
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