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ESSENTIAL LIFE WISDOM

Jan 16, 2006

Happy New Year Everyone –

It’s incredible to me that it’s 2006. I’m sure most of you feel that way. It’s already the middle of January. I can only imagine what this year has in store for us after the tumultuous 2005 we just went through. Actually, I can’t imagine – do I even want to? I do know that what I never could have imagined as I look back at who I was during the 1960’s etc. was how absurd and surreal our world would become. Nothing is even remotely sane anymore. Every government is out of control – every one of them…which brings me to the topic I wanted to chat about in this newsletter.

The paperback edition of INVISIBLE ACTS OF POWER has just been released. I had the subtitled changed to what it should have been all along: Channeling Grace in Your Everyday Life. This subtitle fully embodies one of the central reasons why I wrote this book and in my opinion has released the deeper spirit of the book. The message that each person is a channel for grace in this world and that everything we do, say, and think is essentially a channel for grace as well, is a truth worth realizing. I am once again on a book tour only this time it’s a “radio show book tour” because I do not have time to be on the road. I am writing a new book – ENTERING THE CASTLE – in which I explore the new spiritual calling that is so clearly penetrating the souls of so many people: to enter into the experience of mysticism within a context appropriate to our contemporary world. Many, many people are being “called by name”, as mystics always are, but they don’t realize it. I could write on that subject for hours and days and forever – in fact, I am, which is why it’s been a while since you’ve seen a newsletter from me. I’ve been locked away working on ENTERING THE CASTLE and developing the CMED Mysticism course of the same name.

During the many radio interviews for INVISIBLE ACTS OF POWER, I could tell how much has changed within me since the book came out in hardback last year. By that I mean, interviewers always ask, “What inspired you to write this book?” and I was surprised at how differently I responded to that question in these interviews than they way I responded last year. But a great deal has shifted in this past year and the world seems like a very different place to me. As I explained to interviewers last year, I was inspired to write INVISIBLE ACTS because I noted a particular pattern that is present within our spiritual culture; specifically, that at some point in our lives, the need to be of service in this world takes on a profound significance to each individual. Therefore, I wondered, what is it that we consider to be “service”? What acts of service have we done for others and what acts of service have we received from others?

To be clear, some acts of service are a bit different from acts of kindness, which are more spontaneous interactions of goodness between people. Acts of service can include a dedication of years of your life to someone, like the family I know who decided to put two orphaned siblings through school. Or one family who took in a neighbor when he developed cancer because, had it not been for all the volunteer repair work he had done on their home, they would never have been able to sell their home for a profit and thus afford the home they now live in. And some acts of service are much more spiritually subtle, like the story one young woman wrote about an episode in her life in which she was picked up while hitchhiking following a brutal act of rape. She was completely traumatized and looked it. To add to her horror, she was also in a foreign country so in addition to the nightmare of being raped, she had also been robbed. The first man who offered her a ride could tell she had been raped and had a “you must have asked for it” attitude.

She quickly got out of that car and was eventually was picked up by another man, only this gentleman never asked her anything about what she had gone through. After a few hours into their journey down the highway, however, he began talking about some of the experiences from his own life, which included some brutal war memories. He gradually introduced the subject of God and the mystery of why things happen as they do to us, and then the challenge of forgiveness. He told her about his own sufferings, only with wisdom and strength. Finally, intuiting that she did not have a cent on her, he took her to a youth hostel and arranged for her to stay there for three days, telling the owner he would return for her, and promising to cover her expenses. She said that she spent those three days – like Lazarus’s three days in the tomb – deciding whether to emerge a bitter, raging, raped woman or a woman who had just experienced a miracle of being sent a healer immediately after her injury. Which would it be? Would she accept the gift of grace or would she spend her life demanding the God give her an answer for why that experience had to happen to her? By the time this man returned, she emerged healed. She had accepted the gift of grace.

This year, as I anticipated sharing many of these same stories, I found myself emphasizing the subtitle of the book as opposed to the title: Channeling Grace in Your Everyday Life. But here’s what really surprised me – the interviewers were asking me about what it meant to “channel grace”. They were intrigued with the idea that people are channels for grace and what did that mean? and how do we “channel grace”? and what is grace? Grace questions filled the interviews and so I discussed the nature of grace. But more significantly, I found myself talking on radio stations all over the country about how we have a “biological need” to be channels for grace – which is something I absolutely believe, just as I deeply believe we have a need to experience the kind of awe that only comes from contact with the Sacred. On that score, we are starving.

As I spoke about this subject at book signings, audience members locked into the same question: “How do I become a channel for grace?” Looking over this one particular audience, I shared my perspective that is shaping so much of what I am now writing and teaching, and the focus of the theme of the 2006 SALON’S: ESSENTIAL LIFE WISDOM.

Here’s what true –

Channeling grace is a part of a much bigger calling. It’s a part of a mystical renaissance that is at work within our contemporary spiritual culture. Mystical Renaissances have historically emerged when societies fall into times of darkness and despair – note the 11th and 12th centuries, just prior to the Bubonic Plague (Black Death) in Europe. What’s true is that the New Age is not new any more. It’s “middle aged” and it needs to mature and shed its “healer, victim consciousness, narcissistic” image and evolve into its next level of maturity.

It’s time now for everyone who has spent years – if not decades – working on themselves and their healing and their pain and their spiritual path to re-emerge outside of themselves and begin to practice their spiritual principles on behalf of every one else and not just themselves. We need to become “souls with stamina” in this world and to channel grace into every corner of our lives – into our relationships, our place of business, our neighborhoods, and our world community. We need to put into practice the spirituality that we have been developing within ourselves for the past two or three decades and working on ourselves is, to be frank, just not enough. In fact, it’s far from it. Here’s a question for you – Why are you on the spiritual path??? For what reason? If it’s just for YOU, then you do not understand the purpose of the spiritual path at all. You go on the spiritual path to refine your soul so that you can re-emerge and USE YOUR SOUL TO BENEFIT THE LIVES OF OTHERS. YOUR SOUL DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU – it belongs to the Divine. It is as much PUBLIC property as it is your PERSONAL property PRECISELY BECAUSE YOUR SOUL AFFECTS THE WHOLE.

Every time I introduce this topic into a lecture now, audiences resonate with it as if they were waiting for someone to finally – FINALLY – come along and break the new age spell of complacency. We’ve had our time of discovering our wounds and being victims – that was LAST CENTURY!!! We now need to see ourselves as strong and affective within this world. Never mind saying, “I know I was meant to do something special” – THEN DO IT!!!! STOP SAYING THAT ALREADY!!!! ENOUGH! Begin with blessing the life you have and every one in it and making conscious choices every day that put your spiritual life into practice IN THE MIDST OF THE BATTLEFIELD OF YOUR LIFE AND NOT THE SPA OR THE YOGA CLASS!!

I said to this one woman, “Tell me, do you ever get into a power play with any one?”

“My husband – all the time.”

“And do you also believe that negative attitudes are bad for your health?

“Yes.”

“So how do you apply all your work in consciousness to your power plays with your husband? Shouldn’t you make it a point to approach him more consciously or why are you doing all this work??? Just so you can consciously repair all the damage to your body once you’re done with the fight?”

Her response was that she wanted him to see her point because in her opinion, her point was the enlightened one. Of course she said that with that “tone” of voice that made her sound well intentioned, sweet, harmless….you know, she hid the dragon.

I said, “Oh come on. You don’t care about his seeing your point at all. You just want to win and win at any cost. This is about blood and power. Drop the high minded spiritual intention bit.”

Once she got over my “bluntness” – in other words, the fact that I took her mask off – she, God bless her, admitted it. “You’re right. I want to win – period.”

I said, “That is an example of exactly what I am talking about. What are you doing all this spiritual work for if not to USE IT WHEN YOU ARE EXACTLY IN STRUGGLES LIKE THAT???? This woman’s power play dynamic with her husband was the perfect opportunity for her to recognize that she was hemorrhaging her soul all over the place and that she had completely lost site of any principle to their argument. She could have made the decision to approach their power play from a more conscious position, EVEN if it meant looking as if HE WON because, if she really believed in her spiritual practice, she would have to believe that ultimately the dynamic was about her own insecurity and had nothing to do with him. To practice MEANS to put your spiritual principles into PRACTICE!!!! To put a more conscious choice into MOTION – a choice that actually CAN CHANGE THE COURSE OF YOUR LIFE BECAUSE IT IS THE MORE DIFFICULT CHOICE!!!

That is what it means to put your soul on the line and to channel grace. Everyone, look at our world….look at the shape we are in. Many of you are “mystics outside of monasteries” and need to recognize yourself as that. The world is our monastery now and it is vitally important that people learn how to channel grace, how to heal by standing in silence and learning the prayers that draw grace through them and into another and by learning many of the practices of the mystics who understood the power of grace so well, like contemplation.

Because I believe so strongly that it is time to get on with the business of “building souls with stamina”, I’ve decided to dedicate the SALONS of 2006 to that theme, beginning with the January Salon, which is:

January Salon: What Is A Soul with Stamina?
- followed by the
February Salon: Theory, Fact, or Fiction – Which Category Does Your Life Pattern Fall Into?

If all goes as close to a plan as possible, by the end of 2006, the collection of SALONS will provide you with a wonderful guide of Essential Life Wisdom.

The January Salon will be out the last week of January.

On another note, I will be doing a workshop on February 5th here in Chicago on, ENTERING THE CASTLE. It’s a day-long workshop, which gives me a wonderful opportunity to introduce this intriguing topic to you. I do hope many of you will join me. You can check out the details on my web site.

Also, I am so delighted to let you know that a long awaited project has finally been released – The Archetype Audio Library – a 12 CD series in which I go through a description of 75 or 80 archetypes. Whew, that was an undertaking….but it’s finally out. It’s great…you can just go to whatever archetype you’re interested in.

Let me close this newsletter by wishing all of you a blessed and healthy 2006. I have no doubt that this will be yet another year of interesting and extraordinary events. We are living in interesting times, as the proverb says. I consider myself so lucky to be a teacher on this earth at this time…so lucky.

God bless you all,
Caroline

It is time that every single person take an accounting of every single spiritual truth that they have poured into their head – examples:

Thoughts are things and attitudes influence my health (AND THEREFORE EVERY ONE ELSE’S!!!!!)
Forgiveness is better than vengeance.
All is ONE
What is in ONE is in the WHOLE
Any one if not all of the THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
What goes around comes around.
Like attracts like.
What you DO NOT LIKE is someone else is a projection of something YOU DO NOT LIKE IN YOURSELF.
COMPASSION is the better response over judgment of another.
Turn the other cheek rather than return anger with anger.
Now then – IF you honor any one of these, it’s time that you practice them ON BEHALF OF OTHERS or else consciously hold yourself accountable for choosing not to do so WITHOUT BLAMING ANOTHER PERSON FOR YOUR ACTION. NO MORE BLAMING YOUR PARENTS.
You’re on your own now...

Caroline...

Caroline Myss (Brand New) Archetypes CD !!!!!

Have you ever felt that your life was guided by larger forces? Unseen but very real energies that influence every direction your life takes? In her renowned work as a medical intuitive, Caroline Myss examined the patterns of hundreds of archetypes that exist in human consciousness, and uncovered an "alchemy of spirituality" we all can use for self-understanding, healing, and divine connection. On The Language of Archetypes, this three-time New York Times bestselling author brings to life a "gallery of archetypes" in a 10-CD audio curriculum over a decade in the making. Her first complete training course on how to identify and work with the eight major archetypal families, this landmark program brings listeners face-to-face with: • The Four Survival Archetypes everyone is born with: child, prostitute, victim, and saboteur • The Royal Family: queen, king, damsel, knight, and others • The Shadow Family: thief, trickster, addict, and others "When you learn to speak in archetypes," teaches Caroline Myss, "you start to see the world and everything in it in an altogether different way." Delivered with masterful storytelling, The Language of Archetypes gives listeners a personal introduction to the many dynamic yet often hidden characters that profoundly impact health, relationships, career—every facet of our sacred destiny.

To purchase this http://www.nexternal.com/myss/Product1097

May 2006 - ENTERING THE CASTLE: A Workshop For Healing
-Open To The Public-
The Crossings
May 18-21, 2006
Austin TX.
815 220 8723