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Ron Mangravite: Modern Meditation Master (A Tribute)

The publicly available information about metaphysical teacher and healer Ron Managravite barely rise above the surface facts of his life:

Ronald Vincent Mangravite was born in New York City, New York, on August 15, 1933 to Carmine and Ellen Joy Glenfield Mangravite.
He died in Leicester, North Carolina on October 1, 1998. There are currently no flowers on his FindAGrave entry.
Proud of his Italian heritage, Ron was a son, brother, husband, and father.

But to a relatively small group of people, Ron Managravite was a modern meditation master.

And given that it’s been more than twenty years since his passing from this dimension, I feel Ron and his work are highly overdue for an online tribute.

Ron Mangravite

About Ron

As I said, there is precious little online about Ron’s life and teachings.

This article from the September 1, 1993 edition of The Edge magazine starts with a brief synopsis of the facts of his life and especially how he came to teach meditation:

Sometime during his 30s, Ron Mangravite attended a party where the conversation centered around a topic called bioenergetics. As he listened, he felt a familiarity with the concept, though he’d not heard it before, and found himself saying, “I can do that.” So they all formed a circle, holding hands. To everyone’s surprise, some people began to fall over when he did, ‘that.’
Though he’d had an unusual childhood, marked with serious illness, Ron had, up to that point, lived a fairly conventional life. After completing collegiate studies in chemistry, he held positions in industry as a chemist, and has operated his own chemical consulting firm since 1973. But it was his “taste for the infinite” which began to play a larger role for him after that pivotal party. He became active in parapsychology, investigating phenomena of all types, and was the consulting parapyschic for The Amityville Horror, as well as many other hauntings.
He has been featured on TV shows, magazine articles (New York Magazine, Fate, Psychology Today,) and in the book, The Joy of Touch, by Dr. Russ Rueger (Simon and Schuster, 1981.) In that book in a chapter on psychic healing, Dr. Russ Rueger discusses his own experience with Ron in an energy circle again with one participant vomiting, another shuddering and weeping uncontrollably.
As his understanding evolved and deepened, he widened his circle as teacher/mystic/healer to include workshops and meditation groups all over the country, and week-long intensives with Foundation, his group for consciousness and spiritual growth. Among his many gifts, however, the ability to concentrate, generate, and transmit energy for transformational and healing purposes remains a standout.

My Connection

In 1993 I was fired from my job as a shoe store manager in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and moved back into my old blue bedroom upstairs in my parents home on Gratiot Road in rural Hemlock, Michigan.

One of my colleagues from the shoe store had moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and I plotted a visit to escape the miserable Michigan winter. Secretly, though, I was hoping to move to Athens, Georgia – the home of the rock band R.E.M.

I did visit my colleague in North Carolina, then went down to Savannah and stayed on nearby Tybee Island.

I arrived in Athens and settled into a furnished one-bedroom apartment on Olgethorpe Avenue by the now defunct Navy Supply Corps school.

One day I walked into a store downtown, looked around, and left thinking to myself, “This is not the right store.” A few months later I walked into same space.

It was now rented by Cynthia Gayle Clayton the proprietor of new age metaphysical store called Pathfinder. I’d found my meditation teacher, but didn’t know it; she seemed like an ordinary person to me.

I left the store that day with a book about pole shifts, and returned over and over again for many classes, workshops, and meditations.

Transformation of the Self & the Universe

In March 1995 I attended a two day weekend workshop called “Transformation of the Self and the Universe” led by Ron Mangravite.

Ron reminded me of Sean Connery in the roll of Ramierz in the move The Highlander. He had sparkling blue eyes and a mischievous smirk.

And, unlike the brash swaggering of Ramierez pictured below, Ron on first glance was kind of quiet and unassuming.

But then he started to teach or do energy work, and he commanded the room with startling authority.

In some ways the workshop was boring because Ron lectured a LOT about a host of convoluted subjects. He could talk for hours slowly tying themes together.

Sometimes he didn’t tie things together, but instead dropped a hint that there was more he could talk about regarding…well, whatever.

Long hours of lecture were broken up with energy work and potluck lunches. And as you may have guessed, the big attraction to these workshops was the energy.

The Energy

The sad thing is that, if you have no experience with someone who transmits energy, you may have a hard time understanding what I’m talking about.

Maybe the closest equivalent is the feelings of love or fear. Once you experience those energies, you know them.

Here’s another example: Ron could cause energy to move up, down, clockwise, or counter clockwise. Standing in a circle holding hands with other workshop participants, you could literally feel that movement.

But Ron did a whole lot more than move energy in these simple ways.

He transmitted lightning hot energy (clear/focused) into this lower (dense/cloudy) dimension. And that energy moved through that standing circle.

Words start to fail when you try to describe these things.

Anyway, I was in several workshops taught by Ron in 1995-1998 in Athens, Georgia.

My time in Athens was magical and extraordinary; there were a lot of friends, good food, and great poetry (I wrote a lot of poems in my book The WordStorm while in Athens.)

Ron and his teachings were a large part of those phenomenal years.

Timeline

This is a list of known dates for workshops, retreats, lectures, etc., and I’ll update this list as I learn more. These are listed by year, title or topic, and location if known.

Disclaimer: Some of these have recordings; however, the recordings are held privately and are not available for purchase or download or anything. As far as I know, it’s not possible to buy Ron’s work anywhere. I do not retain copyright control for any of Ron’s metaphysical work.

1976 Orgone Energy, QSP Seminar
1977 Parapyschology
1977 Paranormal Modes of Healing
1977 An Alternate Reality
1977 Haunted Houses, Pennsauken, New Jersey
1981 Transparent Psychology and Chakras
1981 Foundation
1982 Tampa, Florida
1982 {William} Reich 25 Years Later at LSP
1983 Aspects of Sexuality at Mensa Snowball
1984 Seacliff LT2
1985 Earth Meditation, Guildford-Greensboro, North Carolina
1985 Esoteric Psycholgy, Tupelo, MS
1986 Lambertville
1986 Bonclarken I
1986 New Teaching in Tampa, FL
1987 New York City Group
1987 PSI in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
1987 New Overview Workshop, Denver, Colorado
1987 Cosmology at SE SFF
1987 Bonclarken IV
1987 Concepts of Harmonic Convergence at UUPSI
1988 Bonclarken V
1988 Holy Blood, Holy Grail at NE SFF
1988 Bonclarken VI
1989 Foundation
1989 Stargate – Treatise on the Death Process
1989 The Mysteries and their Origins, Atlanta, Georgia
1989 Myths of Extraterrestrials
1989 Psychosis, Olivette SFF
1989 Great Space Meditation
1989 Creation in Minneapolis, Minnesota
1989 Foundation II
1989 Mystery Schools and Extraterrestrials
1990 Foundation
1990 Conscious Dying at SFF NE
1990 Meditation Weekend, New Jersey
1990 Foundation IV
1990 Karma, Consciousness, and Healing Workshop
1991 My Death Experience
1991 Myth and Psyche
1991 Foundation V
1991 Summer Intensive
1991 Speech at Ananda Center, Tampa, Florida
1991 (December 4) Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship
1992 Religion & Science: Is the Conflict Over, SFF Great Lakes Retreat
1992 Kundalini/Chi, Windham, Portland, Maine
1992 Teaching the Close
1992 Foundation VII
1993 Foundation IX
1993 Foundation X
1994 What Is Our Future Path? SFF Midwest Retreat
1994 Foundation XI
1994 Energy System, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1994 Spiritual Growth: Promise and Paradox, Poconos, Pennsylvania
1994 Universal Mysteries, Sacred Marriage, SFF Midwest
1994 Foundation XII
1995 Brain Mapping Technique
1995 Transformation of the Self and the Universe Part I, Athens, Georgia
1995 Foundation XIII
1995 Transformation of the Self and the Universe Part II, Athens, Georgia
1995 Foundation XIV
1996 Opening Into A Higher Reality, Athens, Georgia
1996 Myth and Consciousness, Chapel Hills, North Carolina
1996 Foundation XV: A View From The Bridge
1996 Sacred Geometry and the Mystical State, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1996 Space, Time, and Spirit, Athens, Georgia
1996 Ego, Ritual and The Twelve, Poconos, Pennsylvania
1996 Attributes of the Higher Realms, Athens, Georgia
1997 The Initiate Teaching, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1997 Greater Mysteries, Poconos, Pennsylvania
1997 Ritual and Consciousness, Diviana, New Jersey
1997 Tantra of the Body, Denville, New Jersey
1997 Tantra of the Body, Georgia
1998 Meditation Intensive, Asheville, North Carolina
1998 Bonclarken XXII
Unknown date, Earth Meditation at Awareness Motivation Institute

Notes

Bonclarken is a private conference center in Western North Carolina. Ron rented space there for week-long intensives.
Retreats were also held at the Montreat conference center near Black Rock, North Carolina. The Reynold’s Lodge was often rented; it has two communal bathrooms, housing for up to 32 guests, a working stone fireplace, a fully equipped kitchen, and a rocking chair porch.

Quotes

A small collection of quotes pulled from those 1994-1998 lectures. I won’t include the bad dad-style puns and jokes that broke up the long hours of lectures.

To learn to play the role of a conscious being, you are a part of the highest being you consider to be your ideal: Jesus, Buddha, or magician. To fully pass that level, you must become all of them.

You must be in the system. You cannot affect the system and be out of the system. You can affect the system by being above it. You cannot affect the system and be below it. How do you get out of the system? By being conscious, you cause things to happen to other people.

The world is full of dead people. People who formed a functional ego and then refused to allow it to change. They are rigid, strong, solid, and will not change. They cannot conceive of their fundamental nature changing… Rearranging your outer behavior does not accomplish the inner work. Rearranging your inner self gets the work done How? By re-scripting.

Personal power is a high level substitute for functional ego. A person with true power has no need to put people down.

The nature of true spiritual growth and enlightenment depends upon slowly changing your underlying premise. You never lose anything that is real.

In terms of ghosts, the average person on dying has a certain amount of conscious essence which lasts anywhere from a few minutes if they are highly evolved and they are attempting to translate themselves rapidly into some other dimension, or it can last for weeks or months. In the average individual, it lasts anywhere from a day to three days… What tends to last long is what’s been called a shell, a…record of whatever compulsions that ran through the person’s mind. These shells last longer if they attach themselves to something that is physically dense… {Haunts tend to be} an afterimage of the strong emotional patterns of someone who lived in the home.

Every conscious being is in total control of the universe. Why doesn’t one conscious being go to war with another conscious being? They can’t. If they are truly conscious, what is is, and you have no wish to change what is. You simply look around yourself and try to sort out illusion from what is. If you’re really conscious, no two conscious beings will disagree on what is illusion and what is because they recognize that they are each other.

Legacy

Ron Managravite lectured and taught around the United States in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Many times these were small, intimate gatherings in student’s homes; sometimes they were larger venues with more people. But the people who attended these workshops and lectures are still out there today – are you one of them?

Gayle Clayton taught extensively in Athens, Georgia, and at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, New York. She has written several books including Transformative Meditation and Mystery School: An Insider’s Perspective.
There is a course based on Gayle’s Transformative Meditation taught at the Awareness Institute in Sydney, Australia. One of these days, Australia, I’d really like to come and visit!
Claire Lewis Evans, student of both Gayle Clayton and Ron Mangravite filmed Masks during a week-long retreat in 1997. The 30-minute documentary “follows a group of seekers in an intimate day of mask making as an exercise in delving beneath the everyday persona and exploring the archetypal essences of self.” The video was filmed at the Reynolds Lodge mentioned above at the Montreat Conference Center.

How About You?

Did you ever attend a workshop taught by Ron Mangravite? Do you have a favorite quote or memory? Tell me about it in the comments.

The WordStorm Cover Reveal

At long last, I am releasing a collection of poetry and here is the cover:

This was immediately the cover that pulled me in and held me. Allen Ginsberg’s approach to poetry was ‘first thought best thought’ and -in the case of this cover- that really applies.

There’s something about that lightning and the purple and blue that speak to me. I love that WordStorm is huge. I like the use of different fonts add interest.

And the fact that there’s lightning in the Word and the Storm? I was stunned.

A friend said the cover “shows intensity and passion.”

The lightning is also a nod to a poetic term called a ‘turn’ where, at the end of a poem, there’s often a line or two that take your breathe away or makes you sigh in recognition. I think of turns as itty bitty enlightenments which lightning represents well.

And the fact that I can write a paragraph or so about the potential different interpretations? No doubt, this is the cover that’s perfect for this poetry.

What’s A WordStorm?

I don’t really know, but it has all sorts of implications. It comes from my poem called Starvation:

I’m hungry for a wordstorm casserole, fresh from the oven of my imagination, accompanied by cornbread dreams, steamed dictionaries, hot flashes of insight, and hot fudge recitations.

That sounds like one tasty meal to this word-loving lady!

The Back Cover

The back cover is as understated as the front cover is boisterous. The excerpt is the last stanza of my poem How To Express Yourself More Clearly.

Cover Design

The cover and interior were designed by the talented professional Danielle Smith-Boldt.

You know how when you meet someone you just hit it off? Working iwth Danielle was like that.

She even has a love of poet E. E. Cummings,which brings nothing but music (treble, bass, coda) to this mudluscious, puddle wonderful poet’s pitter-patter h.e.a.r.t.

Check out Danielle’s other work! Hire Danielle either directly from her website or, like me, on Reedsy.

Poems

The poems in The WordStorm cover several decades. There are a couple of poems from high school, a lot from my time living in Athens, Georgia, and several from my earliest years living here in Mount Pleasant, Michigan.

The “hits” from the Athens years are definitely here. When I think of Athens, these poems come to mind: 2Kewl, I AM Becoming One, Be/Learn/Know, Damariscotta, Luna’s Lending Library, On Shooting Trees, Sexrain, and -as mentioned above- Starvation.

There are poems that explore my inner world, look at the outside world of nature, and also those that examine the world and society around me. Heck, the book is more than 100 pages long!

Get The Book

Buy an autographed copy from me via PayPal or Stripe.

Head over to my Amazon author page and buy an ebook or physical copy.

You can also find me on

Library Thing Author Page | Personal Profile | Library
Good Reads Book | Personal Profile

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On Calm in the Face of Fear

So if you didn’t know, I’m a big Star Trek fan. And my favorite flavor is The Next Generation with Patrick Stewart in the role of Captain John Luc Picard which is why, of course, I’m loving the new Star Trek: Picard.

It’s a great story, both broadening the known Star Trek universe and endearing us to the story of Picard and his motley crew aboard yet another starship. This most recent episode was called “Broken Pieces” and it explored the ways in which most of the primary players have been ‘broken’ by their experiences throughout life.

Picard is talking with Rios, a broken former Star Trek officer, after a particularly revealing scene. Picard says, “We have powerful tools. Openness, optimism and the spirit of curiosity. All they have is secrecy and fear, and fear is the great destroyer.”

Fear Is The Great Destroyer

Earlier today I took a friend to the hospital for an outpatient procedure. We were there maybe two hours. She was nervous and her blood pressure was up. At first I reassured her; I’d had the very same procedure a couple of years ago and knew it wasn’t a big deal.

But then I sunk in deeper to myself and remembered my meditation training. I remembered how to literally be that quiet calm in the center of a raging hurricane.

I invited my friend to remember things she loves like the purr of cats and the unconditional love of dogs. She loves the warmth of sunshine and the sound of rustling leaves on a long walk in a nearby park. She loves a hug from beloved family members. I also had her shrug her shoulders as hard as she could and then release with a big sigh. I encouraged her to breathe in deeply, hold it, then release.

These happy memories helped my friend relax and let go of the fear of this minor procedure. I also encouraged her to limit exposure to the news – so much is bad and scary and designed to make us be more fearful. These very simple things allowed my friend to relax into the unknown of the procedure.

Fear Is The Mind Killer

Picard’s words also reminded me of the Litany Against Fear from Frank Herbert’s Dune series of books:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Got it? Fear is the mind-killer. Fear gets in there and keeps going. Fear is as much a virus as anything – once you’ve got it, it’s hard to get rid of it, and there’s no anti-biotic you can take, no recommended regimen to prevent fear.

Fear is buying all the toilet paper so that there is none for others. Fear is having enough stocked to survive a zombie apocalypse. Fear is listening to the news 24/7 so you don’t miss any important updates. Anybody who’s been following Q or who has tried alternative health methods knows that mainstream media is feeding us lies every day. Those lies breed fear.

Caution is different than fear. Being cautious – buying more than what you normally would buy, but enough to stock your pantry – that makes sense. Being cautious and proactive, fine.

But the crazy panic buying we’re seeing now is part of that fight or flight instinct that (in meditation) we work against. Or rather, you work to recognize when you are running from panic, to pause and reflect very quickly whether this particular thing is a true threat.

To rid yourself of fear, you must work at it, every day and throughout the day. This is not fifteen minutes in the morning and done thing. And one of your best weapons against fear is meditation.

WWG1WGA and Weitko

Bernhard Guenther wrote a long post about fear and shared an excerpt from that post on his Facebook page recently. He and his wife visited the grocery store for their normal weekly shopping.

The energy was eerie. The fear frequency and animalistic survival instinct palpable, the energy of greed and pure selfishness of people hoarding as much as they could into their carts was intense.

With empathic abilities, I feel energy and definitely feel the ‘fear frequency and animal instinct.’ For example, the ‘gauntlet’ of holidays from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s Eve always feels heavy and oppressive to me. I’m delighted when it’s all over.

(I’m not happy it’s January and freezing cold, mind you. More specifically, January always feels lighter and brighter to me. January is a breath of fresh air, a relief after the obligatory merrymaking the four holidays cause.)

But this energy of fear that Guenther wrote about is something altogether different. He uses a Native American term “Weitko” – the virus of selfishness. It’s heavy and oppressive like the feeling of my holiday gauntlet, but there’s more to it. It’s constricting. It’s squeezing. It makes everyone suspicious of everyone else. It’s the opposite of the WWG1WGA philosophy that Q espouses.

WWG1WGA stands for “Where we go one, we go all,” ie, we’re in this together and have to work together and serve each other. Buying all the things doesn’t help your fellow humans, it only helps you.

After I took my friend to the hospital, I went to Target. Later in the day, I went to my local big-box grocery store, Meijer. Both stores felt off-kilter.

Walking into Meijer around 7 pm I heard an employee reassure a man that no, the store had no plans to close; the man had heard rumors that everything was going to shut down, including Meijer.

There was no toilet paper. The TP shelves had signs “Due to the high demand for this product, please limit yourself to five packages.” Canned foods and frozen foods were quite empty; I couldn’t find any frozen kale, so I got fresh and will freeze. I did get a few cans of cannelloni beans because a) I like them and b) there were no chickpeas left.

I bought what I would normally buy if I was filling up my pantry, and a little bit extra. I think I might step up my plans to permaculture the yard, maybe plant more perennial vegetables that can be eaten instead of more pretty flowers that cannot.

But I’m not panicking and neither should you.

Be The Calm

During World War II the British propaganda machine produced a poster intended to help people stay calm. There were millions printed, but it wasn’t widely displayed at the time and faded into obscurity. Then in 2000 a bookstore ‘rediscovered’ the poster and now it’s famous.

Your job now is to Keep Calm and Carry On. Be the calm in the middle of this – and any – hurricane. Hold fast. Do not give in to these fearful thoughts.

Meditation helps, although at first, your brain is a runaway train. Err, most of the time it’s a runaway train. Eventually, it calms down…and then it runs again.

Don’t want to bother learning meditation? Focus on your favorite activities. It’s pretty easy to socially distance if you’re hiking in the woods, far away from this crazy world. Do art. Read. Go out and work in your yard, in your garage. Work on a project you’ve wanted to but never got around to.

Messy Nessy Chic has a creative list of things you can “do to not bang your head against the wall’ while stuck at home indefinitely. If only I had more magazines and so on to collage my bathroom wall…

Listen to some binaural beats. The creator of the video below explains that binaural beats are at 528 Hz which is also known as the miracle tone, or the love tone. It allows for positive transformation, as well as DNA Healing and repair.”

I just think they feel good.

And definitely turn off the news. Perhaps listen to the news twice a day. Turn off the 24/7 feed and treat the news like it’s poison.

P.S.

For me, not posting on a regular basis is more because I’m not moved to post something. I really tried hard to post once a week, but my heart’s not in it. Now when my heart is in it, a post like this rolls out of me with little or no editing.

P.S.S.

I finally faced every fear I’ve had about self-publishing and am working towards publishing a collection of poetry. These are things I’ve written over the years, and they’ll be all together in one volume. Looks like it will be ready for the whole world sometime in April. One of these days I’ll change the website around so it’s a little more writer and a little less life coach.

And if you’re hungry for a little poetry now, check out this or this.

Up The Mountain

There’s an old Chinese proverb that goes “There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same.”

Of course there are multiple interpretations of that, and this one from Hinduism is on my mind today:

There are hundreds of paths up the mountain,
all leading in the same direction,
so it doesn’t matter which path you take.
The only one wasting time is the one
who runs around and around the mountain,
telling everyone that his or her path is wrong.

Put another way, there are many paths up the mountain and only one truth.

That truth is love.

Or, the best way to express that truth is through love in action. You know what that feels like, yet explaining ‘love’ is like trying to slap a definition on a blue sky. You can’t make someone see blue when all they see are clouds and rain.

But this is not supposed to be a long-winded essay today. It’s a check-in, a way to let you know that I am still here, walking up that mountain. It’s the same mountain I’ve been walking up for some 25 years now – that’s about the time I identify as the official start of my spiritual journey.

It’s probably been longer, but who’s counting?

Who’s counting a belief in reincarnation that suggests hundreds or thousands of different lives and just as many years?
Who’s counting this soul’s multiple simultaneous incarnations?
Who’s counting multiple lifetimes happening simultaneously through multiple dimensions, time, space, etc.?

There is no time, so there is no counting, and all is now.

Still Climbing

At the start of the trail, the walk is always easy. Wide, smooth, well-trodden, and downright fun. As you rise up (as good a metaphor as I can muster this morning) the path is strewn with all manner of rocks, sticks, fallen branches. It’s steep and uneven and sometimes scary. It’s one obstacle after another because everything in life is the path.

I’m discovering that I have a great need to strip away non-essentials, to once again let go and let go and let go.

I’ve spent the last few years accumulating stuff – literal things like clothes and cookbooks, but also mental stuff like Reiki, QHHT, life coaching, mindfulness, and business ideas.

And I’ve gotten so turned around on the path that I think I have 10,000,000 things do to and am tired of 9,999,999 of them. I’m tired of grasping, wishing, dreaming, tired of thinking about and tired of not doing.

I’m tired of taking on things (Reiki, QHHT, Life Coaching, Mindfulness, business, clothes, and cookbooks) and having little to show — other than a PDF certificate and a large pile of cute clothes and vintage cookbooks.

Paint The Basement

My life coach asked me what I needed to do next to move along the path. I said, “paint the basement.”

I want to focus on the here and now and on things that make a tangible difference for me.

I could get all symbolic on how painting the basement equates creating a solid foundation on which to build my future, but really, there are enough metaphors out there for me to use on another day.

Today, I’m pausing at this grand turn on the path of my life.

Sidebar

(A sidebar is a short story or graphic accompanying and presenting sidelights of a major story. It’s a deviation from the main thread or idea presented here. So you can ignore this part if you’d like.)

I’ve unfollowed a lot of people and pages and businesses on social media. Each platform seems more like a bad joke. Social media wastes time and focuses energy on wants and desires over true connections.

And yes, I know people who use social media for true connections, but the majority of it seems fake and fake and fake. But yet I don’t want to cut the social media cord completely.

Frankly, social media manipulates that deep desire to spy on people. And deep down, that’s what it’s about – jealousy about that life lifestyle or activity or possessions. And in turn, that jealousy becomes fear of missing out (FOMO.)

I’m doing my damnest to seek JOMO (joy of missing out) but there’s the whole “missing out” part of both of these acronyms that bothers me: what exactly is missing from me that needs to be found and fixed?

Keep Climbing

Of the nonsense online, one blog stands heads, fingers, knees, and toes above the others at the moment for me: Schrodinger’s Other Cat.

The posts are usually short and funky, the comments thought-provoking, and the metaphysical humor 100% on point.

It’s definitely not for everyone. But it’s a cozy little box in the corner of the interwebs for consciousness naps and meows that I thoroughly enjoy.

Lately “the cats” have asked readers to experiment with a saying from a student of A Course In Miracles (ACIM.) My experience with this saying was quite interesting, so I thought I’d pass it along.

Take this saying and try it out on anyone and everyone. Include yourself, and those you’re struggling with or have struggled with in the past:

Boss pissed you off? Say the saying!
Cut off in traffic? Say the saying!
Annoying relatives? Say the saying!
Thinking of your ex? Say the saying!
Nosy neighbor? Say the saying!
Burned your dinner? Say the saying!
Former frenemy in your thoughts? Say the saying!
Pesky pests eating your tomatoes? Say the saying!

I work at holding that person in my mind’s eye and gazing into the person’s eyes. Then I say the saying (it’s not a mantra, but, if it’s easier to remember it that way, so be it.) I wait and see how it feels.

That’s the key here — how does it feel? Most people I can do one recitation and feel some change or release. Some folks take two, three, four or more recitations. You may need to stop, collect yourself, and really get in touch with the compassionate part of yourself that loves beyond love – unconditionally.

You’ll know you’re finished saying this for the person because there will be a clear release. For me, it’s usually quite subtle like a gentle sigh or stomach muscles releasing.

Notice any thoughts that appear while you’re doing this. It could be something like “leave me alone” or “thank you.” You might say “whew!” when you’ve finished with some, and smile with others.

Feel free to change the saying around to make it work for you. For the word “Brother” I’ll often say something like “brother, sister, father, mother, source, god, goddess.” And I found that I had to repeat “all is forgiven and released” over and over for some people.

This is one way of being love in action. It is a way to walk your path up and around the mountain of your life with as much love in your heart as you can muster.

Regardless, try it out and let me know how it goes.

You are perfect

immortal spirit

brother

whole and innocent.

All is forgiven

and released.

The Tapestry of Ordinary Life

So I’m on my third, fourth, or maybe fifth time watching the entire seven-season run of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

(I live alone…Amazon Prime and I are good friends.)

The fifteenth episode of season six is called “Tapestry.” And here’s a quick synopsis because it’s important to understand the essence of this episode for all that I have to say about my life right now.

Picard’s Regrets

Main character Captain Picard is rushed to the Enterprise’s operating table where he dies because his artificial heart has stopped. He’s given a second chance at life by an omnipotent character named Q.

In their conversation, Picard admits he regrets much of his younger life because he was arrogant and cocky. This intrigues the omnipotent Q, who allows Picard to “pull on this thread” of his life to see what happens.

So Picard ‘pulls’ on a very specific thread in his life: the events that led him to have an artificial heart. He returns to his early 20s, and we see him attempting to date multiple women on one day.

More importantly, we see the events that led up to him starting a bar fight which led to his knifing, which led to the artificial heart, which has caused his ‘death.’

Picard’s Boring Life

And while it’s funny to see an aging Picard playing out that incident with his youthful friends, the part of the ‘tapestry’ I’m most interested in is when Picard is placed back onto the Enterprise. This is the fleet’s flagship, and of which he is captain – but not in this ‘new’ reality.

Instead, someone else is captain and Picard is a Lieutenant Junior Grade Astrophysics Administrator – or some goofy title like that.

He goes to the starship’s bar, Ten Forward, and asks for an employee review.

It doesn’t go well.

I Am That Picard

Picard is so very, very wrong about that quiet life. It was not dull and tedious – it only seemed that way through his eyes.

It really bothers me (and bothers plenty of other people) that this normal life is portrayed as if it’s horrible.

What the heck is wrong with a “normal” life? I am that Picard. My day-to-day life is pretty darn dreary and repetitive.

I wake up.
I have some tea.
I go to work.
I come home.
I feed the cats.
I read a book.
I watch yet another episode of Star Trek.
I have dinner with a friend.
I clean the litter boxes.
I plant some flowers.
I buy cute clothes at thrift stores.
I meditate a little here and there.

And that’s it, folks, there’s very little excitement in my normal, everyday, ordinary life.

Or is there?

Ordinary Extraordinary

My blogging friend Beth Ann Chiles writes nearly every day at It’s Just Life: Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary. As the title suggests, the blog covers many aspects of Beth Ann’s everyday life: family, friends, devotionals, teapots, travel, and more.

In chronicling her life, Beth Ann elevates the everyday into something that approaches art.

Or maybe it is art, I don’t know.

But I do know that she’s created a cozy spot on the internet where I always feel welcome, and where there’s probably a pot of tea nearby.

I also envy her many trips around the world – and the fact that she’s at the beach again this week.

But the thing that gets me about Beth Ann’s blog is that her “ordinary” life is not Picard’s dreaded “dull and dreary.” It’s magical.

There Are No Dull and Dreary Lives

More to the point, my life isn’t dull and dreary. There are these amazing high points:

Living in London just after college.
My first apartment in Toledo and the writing and modeling friends.
Life in Athens with more writing and meditation friends.
Living and working at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.
That amazing trip to Peru a few years ago with magical waterfall experience.

All I have to do is start making a list, and I’ve had a lot of amazing experiences.

To be sure, there have been lows, too.

Filing for both bankruptcy and divorce in the same year was horrible.
Getting fired from a job wasn’t fun either, but retrospect shows me the journey from that point to now.

We all know life isn’t about the high or the low points. Life is a sum of all of those points and finding that middle road where all is well for us.

Getting Busy

It would be easy to argue that Picard’s view of that “dull dreary” life is flawed. Through the magic of storytelling, he’s thrown into that life without the benefit of the experiences that led him to the ‘end’ of the journey. Surely there have been wonderful things happen in that Picard’s life.

Unlike that Picard, though, you and I have the ability to stop and look back and the various twists and turns that led us to here and now. Having done this recently, I am at a still point with being the “dull and dreary” Picard.

Not long ago, I wrote about how I thought that if I “that if I just put up a pretty website and got busy with business-like things, my life would change.”

Unpacking The Story

Unpacking that sentence and the story behind that “still point” for you a little more, I was obsessed and enamored with the idea of having a business.

The idea of one – not the reality. I had grandiose ideas about what running a business by myself meant and had convinced myself that being busy = business.

In my mind, I needed to be as busy as possible because surely that would make my business succeed, right?

But the more I observed this desire to have a business, the less it felt real. It didn’t have meaning and purpose and felt terribly hollow.

So I let go of that desire. It really was that easy.

In writing one morning, I asked what I really needed to do. And the answer had nothing at all to do with running a business.

Stop Forcing Success

If you want coaching, I can do that. If you want writing, I can do that. But I’m not going to run around and try to force success to happen anymore.

One other thing I’ve realized is that all of the amazing things in my life came relatively easily.

Yes, I had to work at them.

But those things came together in a way that I can only describe as magic or happenstance or fate. The less I fight with life, the more it flows. And I know that miracles of all sizes happen every day when you least expect them.

So now my life is back to a normal, ordinary, gentle hum.

Does your life hum? Do you see the magic?