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Archive for “restoring wholeness” – Page 2

Tiny Things

Posted by Amy Lenzo 
· Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 

Leaves
I was sitting in ceremony last weekend with my friends & colleagues from the TLG, contemplating a question facing us about Restoring Wholeness. We’d each found a spot to think and be silent beside a little stream, and I chose one in the sun at the base of a tall slim tree.

Busy at my task of thinking and being silent 🙂 it took me a few minutes to slow down. When I did, I started to notice things. I saw the lazy shadows of water-skimmers on the bottom of the creekbed, a brilliant butterfly skuttered past on my left, and with a start – I suddenly saw these tiny delicate leaf skeletons that were all around me.

Categories : Beauty, Cosmic Pattern, Nature, RestoringWholeness
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In this Moment

Posted by Amy Lenzo 
· Tuesday, September 19th, 2006 

Berries_1
This last Friday Craig & Patricia Neal from the Minnesota-based Heartland were here for September’s  Thought Leader Gathering, the every-other-monthly invitational event that I help produce with the Neals & Firehawk & Pele of Resonance.

The conversation starter, Mal Warwick of BSR and SVN, was wonderful as each and every one of them have been since we started these evolutionary dialogues back in 1999, but it is immediately clear that the TLG experience goes far beyond the specifics of any given conversation starter.

What is happening at these gatherings is ‘presence’. The TLG calls us
to Presence… to be here, in this moment, with ourselves, with each
other, and within nature.

The methods are deceptively simple, as these things tend to be (after
all, Presence is our natural state), but profoundly effective. How many
of us regularly take the time in our busy lives just to ‘be’ together? To turn off our email and cell phone and tune in to the messages coming from our own inner being? How many of us have the deep pleasure of a community of peers where we have the opportunity to listen deeply to each other. To feel the fundamental connection between us as fellow meaning-seeking creatures, and the inspiration & catalytic impetus we can be to each other as a tribe of humans committed to making a difference in our world?

We sit in circle and speak our words, and listen to the words of others, and all the while alongside this profoundly satisfying level of connection and interaction, something else is happening. Our hearts are opening, and we are experiencing a deeper rhythm, a silent resonance between us. There is a calming of our everyday concerns and a re-alignment with the larger patterns that have a sense and reason that gives meaning and direction to the actions that will arise from our time together.

Presence_1
At the center of these gatherings, quite literally as well a metaphorically, is Beauty. Each time we gather, Firehawk and Pele bring abundant expressions of beauty – candles & fabric, stones or feathers or other ‘medicine’ materials from their cupboards & trunks, and flowers & plants & the all-important clippers with which they bring the outside in – and gather the elements into a beautiful patterm which is laid in a place of honor in the center of our circle. This ‘beauty in the middle’ is our anchor. We don’t have to speak it, it just is. Beauty calls us to presence, and shows us who and what we are at an essential level.

Categories : Beauty, Ceremony, Dialogue, RestoringWholeness
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Coyote Ridge

Posted by Amy Lenzo 
· Sunday, July 23rd, 2006 

These two experiences for a number of reasons. One is that they both gave me the sense of connection and perfection and order that I am associating with beauty in these dialogues, and another because this is one of the groups with which I am pioneering the ‘feminine’ relationship with technology I’ve also spoken about here.

TlgiconLast Friday I spent the morning at a Thought Leader Gathering, where the conversation (started by Richard Barrett, but quickly picked up and expanded by the group), circled around the real possibility of a unified humanity that recognizes itself as one body.

That evening a few of us from the core TLG team convened in a circle around a fire at Coyote Ridge, an incredible spot high in the Santa Cruz mountains, to discuss a new initiative we are launching.

Land
Coyote Ridge is an incredibly beautiful place, perched on the edge of
1000s of acres of wilderness, which you can see misting off into the
furthest distances, 360 degrees around you. The people who steward this
magical land offer restorative Vision Quests there for those who would answer the land’s call to wholeness.

I mention these two experiences for a number of reasons. One is that
they both gave me the sense of connection and perfection and order that
I am associating with beauty in these dialogues, and another because
thse folks are one of the groups with which I am pioneering the ‘feminine’
relationship with technology I’ve also spoken about here.

Both the Thought Leader Gathering and the summit at
Coyote Ridge were gatherings that focus on the elements that go into
creating true relationship, whether face2face or online. Since one of the
‘laws’ that governs our work together is holding beauty at the center
of all we do, we were held not only by the environment of beauty & safety we created at the TLG site and the incredible serenity of the land at Coyote Ridge (which you really have to experience to know fully), but also the deep pleasure of connection to each other and to a vision larger than any of our individual dreams. And that’s saying a lot because this is a group that dreams big!

I look forward to the development of this journey.

Categories : Beauty, Nature, RestoringWholeness, Technology
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Why Beauty Dialogues?

Posted by Amy Lenzo 
· Friday, June 2nd, 2006 

We have dialogues about war, about societal decay and spousal abuse, landfills, collapsed morals & the lack of universal health coverage… I think it’s time to start a dialogue about Beauty.

We have dialogues about war, about societal decay and spousal abuse, landfills, collapsed morals & the lack of universal health coverage… I think it’s time to start talking about Beauty.

What is Beautiful to you? What commands your attention and attracts your sense of awe?

What do you hold so precious that it is always beautiful to you, no matter how it might appear to others?

What does it mean to ‘Walk in Beauty’?

One of the people I most admire in the world always talks about the importance of holding ‘Beauty in the Center’ and I dedicate this conversation to a deeper collective understanding and embodiment of that reality.

I want to use this space to talk about all those things I find beautiful, and explore why I find them so. About how important it is to me to keep Beauty in the conversation, and not relegate her to a shelf of something that ‘would be nice, but isn’t essential’, because she IS essential, in my life, and I believe Beauty is essential in all our lives and in the world today. It seems to me that we need her presence now more than ever, so I want to call her into being & illuminate her as best I can through word and color, image and sound.

As a designer of online communications like websites and blogs, e-zines, online conferences, etc., I’m always fascinated by how far I can go within the limits of my medium, and I don’t believe anyone has yet touched the boundaries of this connective ether-web we share here in cyberspace… This is my pleasure and my passion, dancing simultaneously at the center & on the edges, so I would like to explore Beauty from this perspective, both in this conversation and in my work as it continues to evolve and develop.

From a more personal perspective, I notice that my life is an interwoven play between my art, my career and work in the world, my feelings and thoughts, my current passions and the myriad personal and professional relationships that sustain me. I want to illuminate that interconnection between all my parts here, and not pretend that my professional life is completely separate from my creative explorations or my personal joys and sadnesses.

If you are drawn to this dialogue and want to join me in the sacred play we’ve embarked upon here, I’d love that! Your collaboration is most welcome… and you are welcome to just dip in once in a while and read what others have to say. It’s all good.

Blessings upon you wherever you be,

Amy

Categories : Beauty, RestoringWholeness, Technology
Tags : , , , , , , ,
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