Naming It

Hello all; Laurie Pentell here, coming out from behind the scenes as a guest columnist today. It’s been ten months since the Rick Jarow AoA blog went live on WordPress. I’ve enjoyed witnessing this largely successful experiment that opened a channel between Rick and folks interested in his ideas re: manifesting the life and livelihood they desire. Many thousands of guests have visited these pages. Learning to engage life as a grace-full dance of energies instead of a glut of enemies to be conquered is gaining ground — as it must. (Now for this to trickle up our governmental food chain…) The discernment between these approaches is crucial; it’s all about the energy signatures we engage as co-creators of our manifest reality. Are energies flowing in harmonious collaboration, or fractured into opposing dualities much of the way?

Early on, Rick encouraged me to contribute some writing in this space, and I have shied from doing so. Recently, though, I’ve been feeling, observing, and experiencing a few things along a certain theme that I thought I’d share, before the maiden year of the AoA blog closes out. So, while Rick is busy manifesting elsewhere, here’s my offering to the Alchemy of Abundance crucible – involving a manifestation journey of my own. Perhaps there’s something in it for you.

For over a year, I’ve had a slippery hold on a vision for a project I’d like to manifest. Like most creative projects in “this Now,” this one involves a website. In fact, the website is the core aspect; the sun around which numerous planets and satellites would revolve in mutually supportive alignments. The mere expanse and complexity of this project intimidated me, and moreover… the working title I had for it didn’t ignite me. This might not block most people, but I realized recently, looking back at other creations, that I seem to need to name a thing I want to call forth — its signature, or mantra, so to speak — before I can successfully manifest it. So the project kind of sat there, orphaned, burdened with a boring name.

These past couple of months I’ve given more attention to this situation, this name issue, and spent more time focusing on the nature of “the being” trying to come into manifestation. What is trying to emerge here? Who would the primary players be? What is the important service I’m feeling called to provide by way of it? What is the primary theme that is up for me that I dearly want to energize through this expression? I keyed in on the primary theme (not as easy/obvious as one might expect) and then a primary word, and then played with that word, in all kinds of forms and pairings with other words, for several weeks. THE name remained elusive. On occasion I thought I might be on to something, only to find that the domain was already taken, or the vibration just didn’t quite resonate in some other way. On and on.

Last week: a breakthrough…

Rick on Zentertainment

Hey everyone ~ thought you’d like to know, there’s a lively new interview with Rick on Zentertainment radio now available for listening. Click over to http://www.zentertainment.org and enjoy the podcast!

Prophets Conference Special Offers

THESE OFFERS WERE RE: THE NOV ‘07 CONFERENCE ONLY FOLKS::::::::: 

Greetings all,

As you may be aware, Rick will be appearing at the legendary Prophets Conference in LA the weekend of Nov. 9-11, and also leading a post-conference workshop on Monday, Nov. 12. The conference theme is “Manifesting a Rich Life,” and it features many of the top author/teachers in the field of manifestation, abundance, living the life you’d love, and so on. The intention is to pick up where “The Secret” left off — meaning, to approach “abundance” from a higher perspective, to balance the more material aspects highlighted in the wildly popular book and film. To see the impressive array of presenters who will be joining Rick at this event, please visit http://www.greatmystery.org/events/la07.html and look around!

The Open Hand Revisited

The “open hand” is a wondrous image of manifestation, for it is at once fully receptive and powerfully active. By simultaneously allowing and offering, it opens a way into the experience of the Alchemy of Abundance. I have previously discussed how the flowering of human creativity may be envisioned as a great offering. We are truly here, here in our most radiant luminosity, when the life-offering of our deepest essence flows into the world. This offering can appear through our thoughts, our words, or our deeds – our projects, our products, our art, our services, but we are only fully satisfied only when we have given everything, glowing fully in the intense fission of energetic release.

At the same time, however, the “open hand” indicates our willingness to receive the grace of whatever life is offering to us. And this simultaneous exchange of receiving and offering moves to the ever flowing reciprocity of love.

To open to this inconceivably synergistic process of offering and receiving is to live in the miraculous alchemy of the presence of the present. It allows one to accept the present as a present, as a gift, and the resulting deep gratitude overflows as the intuitively appropriate response to whatever is necessary.

The open hand of offering and allowing solves the riddle of how to let things be in their own way while simultaneously moving toward the ideal of what can be. When these movements meet one another in the nexus of offering, we literally hear the music of the spheres and become crystalline receptors of each and all in every moment; all space becomes here, all time becomes now, and we ever open to be the reflector, refractors, receptor, and regenerators of the life force as it flows through our particular holographic configuration. Every breath, every step, a wonder, even as we walk though caverns of darkness and density, for we have surrendered our resistances at the altar of beauty, justice, and wonder… and feel the cool breeze of Spirit through all creation.

Open Heart: Open Hand

This summer at Esalen we were playing an inspired CD, “Spirit Rap” by Astarius. During the “transfer period” between one workshop and another, the CD was either lost or taken. I had built this CD into the upcoming  “Alchemy of Abundance” workshop and was upset by its disappearance. We made flyers asking if anyone had seen it and placed them all over Esalen. There was no response. Meanwhile, my colleague and “Idea Tribe” aficionado, Athena Katsaros, suggested that I close my eyes and open my palm every morning as I entered the Dance Dome, where we were meeting. 

I did this everyday, and maintained focus, noting also that the workshop was doing quite well without the CD. On the last day as I walked in and closed my eyes, Athena placed the CD in my hand. Someone in the nearby Art Barn had seen the poster, remembered seeing the CD in some bin, and returned it. 

This is certainly a positive manifestation, but I would have been quite alright if the CD had never been found. I had released attachment to outcomes every time I had simultaneously visualized the CD, for I refuse to be a sniveling complainer before the vast universe just because I did not get what I wanted.  

On the other hand, I had also made posters and placed them in strategic places alerting the community about the CD. I had done everything I could do to maximize the possibility of its return, and then I let it go. 

There are times that we will not get what we want. It is that simple, and it is guaranteed (just as there are times when we will). A CD is a minor object, of course, compared to larger issues: people coming back into our lives or not, our health coming back or not, our opportunities returning or not. What is relevant to me here, however, is the way in which we ultimately choose to live out these various dramas. Are we are becoming clear, free, noble, compassionate, and big hearted through our process, or are we slowly sinking into a grimaced posture of antagonism and complaint? The open hand does not ask for a hand out; it asks to receive the Grace of What Is, and such a small opening can turn a poisoned landscape into a paradise.
 

Fall Workshops Posted

Rick’s late 2007/early 2008 workshops are now available to see on the blog’s ‘workshops’ page:  http://alchemyofabundance.wordpress.com/events/   Reminder: he is taking a break from his usual workshop schedule next year.  Hopefully we will see a personal message from him soon, re: his plans and intentions.

Advanced Manifestation Program Cover Animation

Advanced Manifestation Animation

Friends:  Rick’s Advanced Manifestation Program’s cover has been animated (or perhaps “energized” would be a more apt descriptor) by its creator, German artist Eleonore Weil.  To see it come to life, click the Play arrow.  Perhaps ride the images toward your own manifestation goals.

Enjoy… Whitehawk

(The Advanced Manifestation Program may be purchased at
www.soundstrue.com, www.amazon.com, and most bookstores.)

The Sacred Art of Manifestation: This School of Earth

How many times have we heard that the “Earth is a school” and that we are in a process of learning?  But how many times have we refused to take the course?  The idea that manifestation is a process of consciously desiring, a conscious way to “get what I want” is immature at best and pernicious at worst, for it assumes that “man is the measure of all things.”  In fact, we cannot even remember what we did yesterday, not to mention our birth, or lifetimes past.  

Who are we, really?  Where do we come from?  Why are we here with one another?  Is it not, ultimately, to learn how to love, and to love more fully and powerfully? 

And what if, in this process, what we want is what we already have? This does not have to be resignation or fatalism.  What if we are being asked to work skillfully, lovingly, intricately, and mindfully with the exact circumstances given to us, with every detail from taking a drink of water, to tying our shoes, to fixing the car, to opening to our pain, to accepting the depth of our feelings, to working energetically for change?  

An ordinary day can become an eon.  A simple walk outside can be a walk into blazing glory. Can we love our life, the one we have been given, so much that we may be inspired to use it well? 

Can we receive so deeply that every exhale is an offering? 

Can this very day be the day, the time of our awakening? 

RJ

The Politics of Abundance

The Politics of Abundance: Should We Care Who is Elected?

First, this is not a “political” statement, this is about the Practice of Abundance, but if Abundance is to be real, it must manifest across the board, and that includes in the political arena.

On one hand, it does not matter who is elected, be it through big tobacco, oil, pharmaceutical money, or the like. The politician is the product of the cultural vibration and not its source. And it is a bit foolish to expect elected officials to “change things,” the middle moves slowly, human evolution moves extremely slowly, and public work takes patience and humility.

From the point of view of “the work,” we are the ones who must change. But why do we get hooked, as a people, into the drama of it? Why is politics such big news? After all, if the other guy had been elected president, would gas prices be any different?

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.