A Light on the Hill: Accomplishment in Flow

Among other things, we have been exploring on the BLOG the relationship between “loving what is,” and moving toward “what can be.”

Recently, I had the privledge to spend some time at Light on the Hill, a wonderful retreat center in Van Etten, New York, run by Larwence Muscat and Alice McDowell. I have been coming regularly to Light on the Hill for over 12 years, and during that time, I’ve witnessed an extraordinary manifestation: the conception, construction, and execution of a wonderful building, the “Inner Light Lodge,” that holds a powerful sacred space for workshops, can comfortably lodge over 30 people, has a first class kitchen, a breathaking view, and a palpable aura of luminescence all around it. Since the Lodge was completed over a year ago, various groups have flocked to the center, which is powerfully facilitating high quality of consciousness transformation work.

I know how many people dream of building holistic centers, and I know that Omega Institute’s workshop, “How to Start a Holistic Center,” draws huge numbers of participants each summer. But I also know how few of these dreams ever materialize, and how those that do materialize often wind up struggling with, and cowtowing to, the money economy that they wished to rise above. One thing I have noticed about Alice and Larry over the years is that even as their center grew, they were not consumed by it. They remain relaxed, open, and receiving to all who come by. So I asked them one evening about this question of manifestation in terms of the Lodge.  

Alice answered that when the vision of “what can be” takes birth within the “loving of what is” there is an alignment, and not otherwise. In the case of Light on the Hill, someone repeatedly asked them to consider building the Lodge. I find this very significant. Many people wait for an etheric vision or an inner voice, but the voice of manifestation often comes through someone else. What have people been asking you to do? This is one barometer of aligned direction.

Next, they opened the idea of the Lodge to the community. They did not hide their light under a bushel, nor try some anonymous marketing blitz; they appealed to their community. A board was created and the combined energy of committed individuals began to bring in the resources necessary to undertake this long term, expensive task. On more than one occasion, Larry observed, the money has run out, and there was no foreseeable way to continue the project. Each time, someone literally stepped up:  a person at a party, someone else, then the former local firechief showed them how to get through the complex zoning laws, etc. So, while moving toward what can be (the board had meditated together, envisioned the center, hired an architect who worked with them, etc.), what is was never lost site of.

This is the Alchemy of Abundance, where there is a constant creative flow between what is and what can be, where what can be is seen and felt to be emerging out of what is. To be in the right place at the right time becomes a viseral sensing and response.  This is the Alchemy that inspired Rosa Parks to refuse to remain in the back of the bus; it is the alchemy that inspired Ella Fitzgerald to declare “I will sing” in a talent show at the Apollo Theater in which she was billed as a dancer; and it is this creative drive that gives us the sense of what is “right” in our life, of what direction is flowing from our life in an organic and progressive way.  Like A Light on a Hill.

RJ