Christal Temple on Earth

Expanded States of Ecstasy?

2012-01-26T11:40:00.000-04:00

Ultimate Tantra Summit has a week to go.
Today it's about expanded states of ecstasy!

They sound good to me!!!!

John

PS My own interview hasn't been scheduled yet,
so if you're a fan, there's still time to get in and hear me!
Sign up here (it's **fre*e** - as Joe Vitale usually says!)

Ultimate Tantra Summit

2012-01-19T22:21:00.002-04:00

Doesn't it sound delicious...
a dozen wise people being interviewed about
what Tantra is (and isn't) for them!

I have been privileged to be part
of this illustrious group.

There are many different paths,
and even more reasons for taking them.
Everything from deep spiritual exploration
to finding ways to intensify the sensual life.

I just have to admit
I LOVE this stuff.
Bringing Heaven and Earth together!

Here is a couple of minutes' preview
of the interview I gave for the series.

If you want to hear it all
and all the other wonderful speakers
you'll just "have to" sign up on the
Ultimate Tantra Summit page

It's free!
Or you can pay for the CD recordings to keep.

Any which way
It starts January 20th.
That's approximately NOW!
So don't delay!

Sign up here now!
You've nothing to lose -
and maybe a wealth of wisdom to gain!

This is the snippet from my interview...

To hear the rest of it
and all the other wonderful people
sign up here

Enjoy!
I know I did!

Blessings

John

Really Knowing Earth, Divinity and Our own Place

2011-12-16T13:36:00.003-04:00

Talking change?

I suspect that most people on this planet

would agree that we are living in challenging times.

Whether we buy into conspiracy theories or not,

whether we are noticeably affected by Earth changes or not,

whether it is we ourselves or people we know and love

who have had their lives and livelihoods upturned

by economic, political, or other type of stricture,

daily we can see signs that Life-as-we-know-it is changing.

And, for better or for worse,

we ourselves are being changed, too.
This is a tide we cannot resist.

There is a process which is predominant in our western culture...

become aware of a "problem" ->
have discussions and work out possible "solutions" ->

try to put the "best" solution(s) into practice

and later..

change and/or "correct/modify" the "solutions"

when they don't seem to be working as well as we'd hoped.

Publicly, this process has been done for centuries

by the people who have been given

(or, more often, have taken) the authority to do it;

It is done predominantly "in the head"

and then talked/written about

until some kind of decision is reached

- hopefully, in agreement -

a decision which is then enforced at some level.
Most of us use the same process to reach agreement at home.

But much of the time this process doesn't work.
Seldom does it seem to give

the long-term results we say we desire.

People and nature are hurt in the enforcement.
Yet we continue to use the process.

Any pattern of discussing/talking which never really succeeds

and any method of enforcement

which doesn't really ever give the desired result

will, sooner or later, lead to a mind/body split

and a break-up of society;

our control-processes and our gut-feelings

become permanently out-of-sync,

leading to national/community/family/personal sickness.
And no amount of "surgery"

- whether political or medical or psychological -

or "drugs"
-whether TV/computer-entertainment or things we ingest -

can be more than a temporary fix.

~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the interesting things about the Occupy movement

is that it does not have a unified agenda
- no common mental construct.

Its supposed weakness

- that many people are motivated to join in
by responding to a feeling of just "being called" -

is actually in many ways its greatest strength;

yes, there are discussions,
but since there is no common agenda

there can be no absolute decisions to be reached -

only a flow of change to be part of!

"Trust the process!"

In the ancient hidden practices of Left-hand tantra,

there was a recurring theme of
daring to "allow the unthinkable"

in order to reach a deeper Knowing (in the Biblical sense!)
This was the Knowing which could not be defined,

something which could only be experienced

by suspending the rules and habits of ordinary living.

As is fairly obvious from the news in our mass media,

connecting with indefineable Knowing

is not a predominant way
for our modern politicians and doctors!

Yet allowing and conjuring
the pathways into indefineable Knowing

is what ancient cultures have used for milennia

to come into contact with and then effect

processes of deep and potent transformation.

These process are not only "divinely-inspired";
they are Earth-friendly and People-friendly.

And they are still being practised in modified ways

by modern indigenous shamans, spiritual mystics,

alternative healers and visionary leaders today
to enable a body-experience
of being part of desired change.

Bradford Keeney demonstrates one way to access the Knowing

in this video-clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGt1L7QXSDw

What I feel Bradford Keeney is sharing here is

As we come to allow Knowing to be felt by our bodies,

so the process of change is allowed to happen in us.

We cannot think it or discuss it into being,

but we can align with its process already begun in us

and by extension through us into the world,

- in connection with us and everything.

It is a pattern of process which develops

from the inside -

the more we trust it, the easier it comes.

This Knowing is what we in everyday terms

might call a non-knowing, an emptiness,

an open book with no pre-meditated plot.

To be in this open space takes courage

and a willingness to be vulnerable,

two ways of being not particularly prevalent

in mainstream public life today!

(After all, can real vulnerability and honest

not-wanting/looking-for "solutions and answers"

win you an election in today's climate?!?)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Trying to solve a problem using the same methods

which brought the problem in the first place

is seen by modern prophets of change

as a waste of time and energy.

Yet, even among those of us who profess

deeper connections and understandings

there seems to be a reluctance to let go of

the discussion/enforcement model

as our "best solution" for humanity's

and the world's perceived problems.

Here I would like to share a deeper longing.

There is an intense desire in me to see

today's political green movement

more in-tune with the kind of body-connection,

the not-knowing, that is shown

in Badford Keeney's video.
And in those of us who espouse
divine connection and healing through

many-levelled body-awareness and practice

I long for the greater embodied recognition
of the value of irresistable awe -
like when we are first in love,

blissfully discovering without needing to know why;

to be, if you will, in the delicious

"I'm a cosmic moron"-space

(like those fools for God of old.)

Maybe, by not having any "solutions"
but by being willing and daring to be limitless
in our experience of life (what a concept!)

we can open ourselves into
allowing healing to happen -
on its own terms, in its own way,

a healing which in its absolute Essence

knows its own process

as an integral part of the fabric of Creation.

What a relief to be able to hand over our deepest worry

and yet be Co-creative with Life itself!

Let's SHAKE!

John O

GoddleFub and a tiny green planet on the edge of an amazing galaxy

2011-09-21T21:58:00.001-03:00

Once upon a time
GoddleFub looked down from the Heavens
at a tiny green planet on the very outskirts
of Galaxy MIC666HelStar7LO
and decided it was time for an experiment.
The people of the tiny green planet
were becoming very sure of their own magnificence
(which, GoddleFub thought, was a "GOOD" thing)
but they were losing that connection to
"important pastimes which give Life meaning"
(which, GoddleFub felt, would be detrimental
the the planet's further development.)

So GoddleFub gave inspiriation to some planetlings
on one of the larger continents,
who came up with an idea for helping
people connect with each other
by pressing black things on a metal board
which most of the planetlings now had in their homes.

Not exactly Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam, Simpsons-style

GoddleFub's experiment was this...
first to make it seem as though the metal-board connectors
(we'll call them MBC's, for convenience's sake)
were an amazing answer to deep-held yearnings
which the planetlings felt they had....
so that nearly every planetling made sure
that they got one.. (some even had several!)

GoddleFub then inspired a couple of planetlings
on the same continent to start a club -
using the MBC's which nearly all now had.
How the planetlings flocked -
especially since the club was free to join for all.

GoddleFub waited until the planetlings had forgotten
what life had been like without the MBC's and the club.......
now it seemed to them as though the club was the deepest experience
one could have as a planetling.

GoddleFub's next move was ingenious,
as befitting an extraordinary High-Powered Being (HPB)
- GoddleFub put the idea into the club's creators
to keep changing the club, and what the club looked like
when the planetlings touched their MBC's,
so each time they were just getting used to a pattern
the creators changed everything drastically.

Finally, HPB GoddleFub moved the club's creators
to turn the whole club inside out,
the look of it, what it did, everything.

Well, you can hardly imagine...
there was general howl of agony and rage and frustration....
I mean, how DARE the club's creators
do something so unfair?

GoddleFub was sad.

Why?
Because the experiment was to show that
GoddleFub wasn't the only HPB -
that on the green planet on the very outskirts
of Galaxy MIC666HelStar7LO
there might in fact be real HPB's too,
perhaps not fully-fledged, but nonetheless
HPB's in the making -
God-like creatures who would, in general,
be able to see which things had galactic importance
and which things did not.
And now GoddleFub knew it would be a long time
before there were any real HPB's there
on THAT tiny green planet.

So GoddleFub turned attention to another galaxy,
to another, rather similar planet on the very outskirts
of an amazing galaxy with a huge cloud of stars
some of these planetlings called "the Milky Way."

GoddleFub repeated the experiment.

It was nearly the same.
The MCB's had a special name and there were
funny small metal things which the planetlings
held up to their hearing-apparatus to speak
to each other..
GoodleFub was pretty sure this time.
"When the club starts and everyone joins
and then when it all goes wrong,
they'll all just leave without a worry.
And THAT will prove to me that
I'm not the only HPB for Universes around!"

And sure enough, there came the moment when
the club and the machines were all-at-odds....

... and the planetlings on that other tiny green planet
on the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy
just .....

(to be continued...... maybe....)

The Future of Now - rediscovering Compassionate Personal Cosmic Power

2011-09-16T19:38:00.003-03:00

So you've seen the latest scare-you-stupid YouTube videos
and read David Icke's dire predictions....
and desperately tried to get the "truth" about Elenin
(was it a comet or an "Illuminati"-arranged hologram spectre?)
and you're trying to find out how to feel secure
while everything is either closing in
or crashing around you ......

Welcome to the club!

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!!!!

fanfare ...... ♫♪♫♪♫♪!!!!

Allow me to present to you
THE LATEST and MOST UPDATED VOYAGE OF YOU

It doesn't have to look like this

Joachim Patinir: Überfahrt in die Unterwelt

.....unless this is what you really want!
(... paddling in a leaking boat, all on your ownsome
over the river-of-deathly-experiences!)

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
Believe it or not, but
there are people "out there" who are just longing
to be part of a common experience of doing "something else"
so that a new, exciting REALITY (Yes! It's real!)
can be formed - personally, communally and more!

What is required?

Well, you don't need a credit card...
You don't need to subscribe to anything...
You don't need to say you'll believe and trust in anything...

... and there is no catch, no price-tag.

What you "need" to do is breathe
and be more of who you truly are.

Yes, you can do this with an intimate partner ...
agree on a space of absolute communion
without limits in fullest trust and integrity.

You can also do this in a group -
people you trust and who
really rely on one another.

But you can also do this yourself
without anyone else present.

And what do you do?

NOTHING!

You allow everything and do nothing.

You breathe.
And allow the new you -
the new You-niverse -
to arise in you.

If you find you're thinking - OK!
If you find you're desirous - OK!
If you find you're sad or scared - OK!
If you're angry or fidgeting - OK!
(etc. I think you understand...
you just ALLOW!
... and follow, if you wish!)

And then....
after a while....

see
and FEEL the NEW WORLD
exactly as you'd love it to be..

and then..
KNOW it as TRUE.

Breathe it into Being.

That's all.

Forget Elenin.
Ignore David Icke (with a thankful nod!)
Feel sympathy for the scarediheads of Wall St.
Forgive the Illuminati
(.. "they know not what they do")
and breathe out.

And tomorrow...
watch for all those fantastic "flukes"
as miracles start to happen
in Your Life .....

And if you desire for fellow-travellers,
log in to your Facebook or Twitter account
and dare to tell them about your journey....

(You could go down to the local Farmers' Market
and start dancing, if you prefer!)

Trust that
your journey is known
and
your desire is seen and felt.
And be ready to say "YES!"
when you otherwise might have said
a habitual "No!"

That's all!

Ready?

En-JOY!

Money Abundance, Passion, Creativity and ENJOYMENT

2010-10-15T12:20:00.000-03:00

Resonance Repatterner Liz Tobin
gave an extraordinary webinar yesterday evening
about how we can only heal our money dilemma
in co-operation with and compassion for
everyone else.

The good news is that through doing this
we have the chance to heal our own financial challenges
with very real, practical results in this physical world!

She talks about our hidden financial archetypes,
(see this page www.liztobin.com/tma !) and,
at the end of the broadcast, links this to work on
our PASSION, CREATIVITY and ENJOYMENT!

I find her insights so deep, so wise.

The work she does in the group
I can feel the effects of in my BODY
long after the session is over.

These webinars/sessions change things for me -
I can manifest what I know so much more easily,
because my body is not giving me
sub-conscious (and often so strong) counter-orders!

If you enjoy body-work and heartily desire
the healing of your own financial situation
in aligment with the healing of mankind's
huge, financial disparity-money-knot,
and playing and working towards
the manifestation of enjoyment-in-abundance,
then this webinar is for you.

Or just go to Liz's site and read for yourself
the miracles she is helping people to bring about!

Here is the link to the webinar...

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=88257&cmd=tc

May your life and the lives of all
be blest with wonderful Abundance
in every aspect!

John O

The Ordination/Priesting of Women and Pope Benedict

2010-07-20T04:25:00.010-03:00

Pope Benedict has declared
the Ordination of Women

by Roman Catholic Bishops
a crime comparable to

child-molestation

by Catholic priests!

Any bishop who dares flout this papal declaration

will be referred to the modern-day version of

the INQUISITION

- the Congregation for the Defence of the Faith -

for "punishment."

For one independent bishop
this has been just "too much."
Following his conscience
he has taken a drastic step.

This is not just of general interest to me.

Helen is in discernment process towards priesthood,
and I am studying to become a priest
in the independent ("heretical") lineage
led by this bishop, Bishop Keizer.

Bishop Keizer's action
with the support of his fellow bishops
though perhaps seemingly insignificant on the world stage
is courageous, and full of spiritual power.

The Inquisition's ways

of dealing with heretics

- even those who are "outside"
the walls of its own church -
are well-known;

Bishop Keizer is worthy of

our deepest prayers

and support.

May God keep him safe from all forms of harm

and increase in him the Holiest Spirit

of Wisdom, Courage, Peace and his soul's Passion.

Blessings

John O

PS Bishop Keizer's blog is here

The Flowers of the Beauty of Summer, the Mexican Gulf Disaster and God's Power in us

2010-07-04T08:28:00.002-03:00

In the Old Testament there is a striking passage

from the prophet Habbakuk,

which in its setting by CV Stanford seems to me

to bring the worlds together and

demand of us that we take our God-powers seriously

and in fervent prayer and absolute 3-D determination

reclaim our respect for and co-operation with Earth.

Here is the link ..

the sheet music and the piece

sung with vibrant passion...

Stanford: For lo, I raise up

I feel the "Lord" in my cells, in my bones

and ready to spring me into action

way beyond what I ever thought possible.

Miracle Time!

And here below is the text:

Blessings

John O

For lo I raise up that bitter and hasty nation,

Which march thro' the breadth of the earth,

To possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.

They are terrible and dreadful,

Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.

Their horses also are swifter than leopards,

And are more fierce than the evening wolves.

And their horsemen spread themselves,

Yea, their horsemen come from far.

They fly as an eagle that hasteth to devour,

They come all of them for violence;

Their faces are set as the east-wind,

And they gather captives as the sand.

Yea, he scoffeth at kings,

And princes are a derision unto him.

For he heapeth up dust and taketh it.

Then shall he sweep by as a wind that shall pass over,

And be guilty,

Even he, whose might is his God.

Art not Thou from everlasting,

O Lord, my God, mine Holy One?

We shall not die.

O Lord, thou hast ordained him for judgment,

And thou, O Rock hast established him for correction.

I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower,

And look forth to see what he will say to me,

And what I shall answer concerning my complaint.

And the Lord answered me and said:

The vision is yet for the appointed time,

And it hasteth toward the end, and shall not lie,

Tho' it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come.

For the earth shall be filled

with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,

As the waters cover the sea.

But the Lord is in his holy temple:

Let all the earth keep silence before Him.

The Awesomeness of Creation!

Ascension Day

2010-05-12T18:32:00.001-03:00

As readers of this blog may know

Ascension Day (this year 13th May)

is one of my favourite days ..

It celebrates in Christian tradition

the lifting up - through the cloud into "Heaven" -

of the Risen Christ, 40 days after Resurrection.

The Ascension of Jesus (from Wikipedia)

Though this event in itself is full

of meaning and mystical experience,

there are also deeper, esoteric meanings

which I feel are important for

personal and global community transformation.

Among these are the parallels with the Microcosmic Orbit

- the inner which reflects the outer.

One of the most important aspects of Christianity

is God's incarnation (flesh-becoming) in Jesus.

This represents the Enfleshment of Absolute Divinity,

which, in the human experience of Jesus

eventually led to a horrific death, and,

in the words of the Apostles' Creed,

the after-death experience of the descent into Hell!

(Something for those scared by Christian fundamentalists

to take great comfort from!)

This descent into Hell is then transmuted into

Rebirth through Resurrection, and, eventually,

into the taking up of all aspects of human life

back into the "Heavenly realms" -

presumably with an amazing, cosmic party,

to celebrate the Homecoming of the Beloved,

and the re-connection, in all dimensions and

at all levels of all life, of divine energy everywhere!

The Microcosmic Orbit invites us to remember

in our own bodies the reality of connection,

and the absolute Reality of our resting in God

in everything which happens to us at every level

of experience!

Let us celebrate and enjoy this feast-day,

for it is a mirror of the way we are all woven together

in the vibration of God, down and up, all at once!

In love, gratitude and vibrating truth

John O

The Tantric Wisdom of Volcanic Life

2010-04-20T07:35:00.006-03:00

Eyjafjallajökull has brought in its wake
everything from magnificent images to
disturbing stories and pictures of
a dark, airless, frightening world where
frustration over changed travel plans
and having to wait without being told anything
could be the least of our worries.

As with events like those of September 2001,
Doomsday TV-talk and futuristic Armageddon-type movies
suddenly start coming to life in the midst of
our ordinary "safe" reality, showing us
not just our human vulnerability and smallness,
but the transient nature of the Earth-system
upon which all our lives seem to be dependent.

And for those of us who have been exploring
Self-realization or esoteric paths to other realities,
and are accustomed to practices which can attract
powerful personal change for ourselves and others,
such events cut to the core of our supposed Knowing.

They also prompt deep questions about our attempts
to change the course of the events of our lives -

What is the wider picture?
What will the things I do have for effect on others?
What is the extent I can play God?

Television newscasting is something I avoid as much as possible,
but I've been finding myself following volcanic ash updates
and the personal testimonies of reporters and travellers,
etching extraordinary stories and pictures on my mind.

And once again the same realization has become apparent -
in some way it seems NECESSARY for humans to experience
extraordinary events which turn ordinary life upside down,
in order for our deeper humanity and humility to break through.

Another realization, which comes over time as events unfold,
is that the GIFTS of these events in so many ways outweigh
the discomfort, distress and possible long-term desolation
which they bring; we are "forced" back into human connection
and into connection with the world we live in day-by-day.

And we cannot avoid the questions of our own empowerment
in the wider context of the ways the Universe has
its very own Agenda, and Reason and Ways of Being,
in a drama in which WE are NOT the leading character!

Which brings me back to the title of this blog:
The Tantric Wisdom of Volcanic Life

The ancient art of Tantra is about the weave of EVERYTHING -
nothing left out!

Our modern life is mainly about the complete opposite -
the SEPARATION of everything, and especially of people
into "life-boxes" disconnected from one another.

But when erupting volcanoes or crashing aircraft or Death
break into our self-protected world, turning it upside down,
our boxes crumple and our fellow-human-ness comes back.

Tantra is also about the deepest of Presence, one with another.

Suppose we each were to start practising that deepest Presence
with one another NOW, in widening areas of our lives, so that
we began to re-connect more and more to the Weave of Life;
maybe we would need physically to travel less, and more
would engage in mutual journeys into one another's human-ness;
and maybe we would be less appalled at our own vulnerability
when the ever-changing Nature of Life surprised us.

And maybe, just as in deep Tantric practice, we would learn
to Ride the Wave of Existence, unshielded and expectant,
like those extraordinary "extreme sport" surfboarders
revelling in rough seas. How passionate and alive!

Picture from Wikipedia

In this "being-with-what-unfolds"-learning to ride, there is
deep, divine empowerment, and amazing excitement and fun.

Time to learn the Art of Receiving!

Blessings

John O

Eyjafjallajökull in peaceful summer mood

More eruption images here

Yearning

2010-03-07T12:50:00.032-04:00

I have never considered that "looking back"
and longing for former times, was a particularly
constructive occupation in life. But quite often
I have caught myself "trying to work things out"..
- Why did X happen?
- What was the "point" of that?
and similar questions.
After all, learning from the past is a very useful thing,
especially if we wish to transform our lives!

The past few weeks I've found myself looking backwards again,
this time (I hope) from a deeper level of awareness;
partly in order to take a renewed look at
the possible wisdom past experiences may have for me
from another vantage-point in my own space-time,
and partly to re-visit my own resurrected memories
in the light of what I have been studying recently -
an eclectic mix of everything from String Theory,
Kabala & the Essenes via David Wilcock & Gregg Braden,
to movements within Anglican Christendom like
the formation of The Anglican Church in North America,
and how all of these experiences together might
connect with my immersion in the Anglo-Catholicism
of the churches I was so intimately part of in my youth.

All Saints' Day at All Saints, Margaret Street, London, UK

I had been googling the web and came across
this curious title for a blog entry:

Beware the Anglo-Catholics

I was immediately triggered into action!
Following the links I found a striking book-title,
a book that turned out to be available for download
as a pdf:

The Church Impotent:
The Feminization of Christianity
by
Leon J Podles

Strange feelings in my stomach - I just had to start reading this!!!
As it turned out, the first chapter gave me
what I was unconsciously seeking -
not that I agreed with Leon Podles, but he helped me
start a process towards some kind of unifying feeling (or theory?)
that might perhaps be able to encompass the disparate
claims on my inner loyalty with regard to

- deeply sacred liturgy connecting time and space
( or shamanic ancestral lineage and tradition - if you will)

- affirming sexual difference while embracing
the Oneness and utter Validity of all genders
(One of Shantam Nityama's constant themes)

- understanding the social conditioning which may have
influenced my "choice" of Life Purpose
(see http://www.christaltemple.com/John_Overton.htm )

and

- my preoccupation with both the body and
the non-physical as equal spiritual dimensions
(rather than the current mind-preocupation "over" the body.)

I also read a paper by David Hilliard called
UnEnglish & Unmanly: Anglo-Catholicism & Homosexuality
and found myself suddenly understanding hitherto
half-veiled aspects of my childhood's church experiences -
the sacred crucible which intertwined with my own
unbridled inner imaginative childhood worlds.

50 years ago I was aware of sexuality between males
in these Anglo-Catholic churches, but since the world of
Church and choir-school and private school were such
enclosed spaces and, in many ways, so safe from outside harm,
it didn't feel as tho' this sexual expression was especially unnatural.
And, a few years later in private school, I noticed that
when otherwise enclosed teenage boys were "let out"
many of them "roamed the village" in search of female company!
The only people who seemed outwardly concerned that
there might be sexual goings-on between the "inmates"
were priests and teachers who the child in me felt to be
"odd in some way" - though I couldn't put my finger on
what this "oddity" might be.

What I was acutely aware of, was a feeling of the way
everyone in these enclosed worlds seemed to have
a mission to "do it better", "properly" or "more completely"
- as though the outside world of "ordinary Anglicanism"
and the "ordinary schools" didn't either know or, perhaps,
didn't wish to know the deeper truths of what they were doing,
and the "proper practices" (like in the esoteric societies)
which were the portals into the veiled worlds of truth "beyond."

When I read David Hillard's paper, I was immediately
struck by an extraordinary paradox which I so recognized
but had forgotten beneath piles of "ordinary living."
The paradox was that of the genuine male homosexual Christian
who fled to and immersed himself in the rituals and faith-life
of a church which held that almost all forms of sexuality
were forbidden by God except in child-bearing marriage.

Why?

Because their YEARNING was given space to grow among
accepting others who were in exactly the same predicament.
And more, there was a place to sublimate this yearning in the
ever-increasing ecstasy in the ritual service of God
where the music and ceremonies, the smells and postures,
the incantations and processions and bowings and knee-bending
allowed the BODY to experience Divine Bliss here and now!

I can assure anyone who doesn't know what this feels like
that real Anglo-Catholic Divine Worship experience can be
as ecstatic an experience as any sexual orgasm!
(It isn't just the charismatic fundamentalists who "know" this!)
These experiences are "mystical states" just like the
medieval mystic saints write of (especially the women!)
Here we're experiencing Divine Comm-union with God.

I have often wondered what the real reason was
for the "high church" factions of Anglicanism to reject
the idea of male-female equality within the priesthood.
Claiming that Jesus only had 12 male disciples,
when the women round him had such a prominent role,
does not really sound or feel totally genuine.

It was recently, when the Church of England decided
that women were to be eligible also to become Bishops,
that I suddenly understood the deeper unspoken reason
for the mass desperation among "orthodox" Anglo-Catholics.

Their beloved safe havens were no longer "safe"!

And this, in turn, meant nowhere to go to express or sublimate
the inner yearning to do it better with every fibre of one's body!

After 30 years in Sweden, I know may women who are priests -
and now in both the Anglican and Lutheran churches.
Many of them are, in my humble opinion, far more suited
to their ministry than some of the male priests I know,
and I believe deeply that they have been called by God.
Yet I mourn the marginalising of the male Anglo-Catholic sanctuary.

I do not believe that the traditional view of sexuality held
by the churches (almost certainly because of St Paul's
self-attested control and self-denial of his own sexuality)
is in true accordance with God's wider vision and wisdom.
Yet I mourn the taking-away of the excitement and vibration
of places where a specific and very special longing to "keep chaste"
in total acknowledgement of one's sexuality, may be honoured
and its energy formed into something even greater -
the opportunity to taste and know the Divine in ritual worship.
Yes - "know" God in the "biblical sense"!

Single-mindedness and focus (however often one may fail,
or fall "into temptation" to give up and give in) are not
easy virtues to live up to, outside in a seemingly hostile world,
when one is accustomed to a safe church other-wordly haven.
Deep down I feel deep admiration for those who will not move
from their conviction, even if it means losing jobs or "having to"
change churches to find a second home. And I must express
gratitude to them for their part in my own mystical experiences.

If you've read this far, you may be wondering how this all
relates to David Willcock and Nityama and Gregg Braden,
and to modern astrophysics as in String Theory.

The key to this is the 2012 Myth.

No, not "myth as in untruth" but
"Myth as a tool for deep alchemical storytelling"
where, the unravelling and knowing of ever-deepening truth
not just in one's mind but inside one's body,
at the same time as becoming more and more "divine"
is living-life-as-a-ceremony-of-connectedness-with-God
as it becomes totally transformed and new and fulfilled.

And this is exactly what my childhood Anglo-Catholic friends
were tasting the first-fruits of, and longing for
at ever deeper levels!

I will explain in the next blog-post.

Blessings

John

In Alignment with God

2010-02-24T21:07:00.003-04:00

I've posted a new post on the "Cretan blog"
About living and playing in alignment with God.

It's here.

Blessings

John O

AWAKE!

2010-01-08T08:27:00.000-04:00

Hello again!

I would like to share some thoughts

brought on by my European journeys

of the past few months.

They are being posted on my Crete blog

at http://johnincrete.blogspot.com

Enjoy!

And, rather belated ...

a HAPPY NEW YEAR to ALL of you!

Love n' Blessings

John O

PS This is what I look like when I'm AWAKE!

Blurry-eyed!

2010-01-05T09:45:00.001-04:00

Sometimes

a picture

says more than

a thousand words.

I Am Here

(as always!)

And yet, still arriving.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

2009-12-25T07:36:00.000-04:00

May your lives be filled with JOY!

Blessings

John O

There will be no more posts on this blog for a while

2009-10-21T14:31:00.005-03:00

Fall Winter and Spring
in the island of Crete

This is the view from the Alpha Hotel and Healing Centre in Azogires, south-west Crete

This page is where you will be directed when
you access Christal Temple's blog

We look forward to seeing you (t)here.

The Healing and Meditation Room

Blessings and warmth

John O

http://johnincrete.blogspot.com

Journeying into the lands of the Goddess

2009-10-10T15:37:00.003-03:00

Time to journey.

Out in the unknown.

To the lands forgotten

before the times of the fathers

we now remember.

To tap back into

the resonances of our roots.

Mediterranean lands -

those islands in the wine-coloured sea

maybe some

Ireland

, somewhere

and the links between

north and south

and all those west coasts

woven together by a common thread

Journey with me

loving blessings

John O

Thank you for the Back Temple Kitchen and Moving On

2009-09-27T22:47:00.004-03:00

Today the Christal Temple community
celebrated its Divine Communion
in the Back Temple Kitchen
and then de-commissioned the Temple
and restored it to an art studio
for Val Hearder and her art

It was a very moving ceremony
celebrating over 3½ years of our
rituals and transformational meetings
as well as our facilitations and "therapies."

It was a confirmation of the power of
tantric embodiment in the power of the
Holy Spirit in ways beyond our human comprehension
and yet touching us with empowered strength.

This was the prayer with which
we finished our ritual ...

THANK YOU
for this
BACK TEMPLE KITCHEN SPACE

which we have used
in Divine order for

DEEP RITUAL
HEALING
TRANSFORMATION
and as a place of
MIRACLES

We now hand it back to you in
Deep Gratitude
and we pray
Enhanced Abundance
and
Inspired Creativity
over Val’s Art

Thank you Val and Varyan for your vision
and for welcoming us with such ecstatic joy.

We are now moving on to new places and
new callings, empowered by the Spirit.
Part of our expansion is to do with
the re-connection of the Goddess with the
prevalent western modern concept of God,
affirming the deep knowing inherent in the body
so wonderfully fashioned of God for our
wisdom, understanding, enjoyment and sustenance.

Crete is the island in the Mediterranean
where the goddess culture lived longest
before the present male-yang culture took over.
We will be undertaking a pilgrimage there,
and this you will be able to read about on
John's new European blog.
I invite you to join us in spirit
or to contact us so as to be
part of this new adventure.

Nova Scotia will remain as a place where
our transformations and rituals take place.
But, for a while, we will be concentrating
on new pilgrimages in the crucible where
our modern civilization was formed -
Greece.

Please join us in prayer and
on the inner planes.

Thank you, Val
for all you have given us.
Thank you, Christal Temple community
for realizing the deeper
shamanic, gnostic, esoteric dream in
Earth Joy and Ecstatic Reality.

New ways of being part of our community
and joining our celebrations and
transformations on the internet
are now being put in place
Welcome to join us.

With loving blessings

John O

Holy Cross Day at Christal Temple

2009-09-12T14:37:00.007-03:00

This time in September
many of the Christian churches celebrate
feasts of the triumph of the cross, as in
The exaltation of the Holy Cross

In Zoroastrianism this is the time of
Ghambar Paitishem - when the creation of the Earth
is celebrated and the harvesting of crops.
The 15th is this year Laylat al-Qadr , an Islamic celebration
during which whoever prays to Allah receives
forgiveness for all and every sin ever committed!
And at the end of the week, Fri/Sat 18/19 Sept
Judaism celebrates Rosh Hashanah ראש השנה,
the first of the Ten Days of Awe, a time for
Repentance - returning to one's inner Purpose -
and being reunited with one's Divine Connection.

It is in this Spirit of Exalted Connection and Re-dedication
that we will at Christal Temple be celebrating a

Liturgy of Embodied Personal Renewal
with
Prayer-Dance, Spirit Healing, Inner Journeying
and
Divine Communion
giving thanks of Gratitude for our many blessings
and doing a ceremony of
Dedication of our Inner and Outer Journeys-to-come

We will be meeting on

Monday 14th September
in the
Back Temple Kitchen
at 7pm

Please come with a prayerful intention
for your own healed and renewed life
and with prayers for those who have asked.

Join us in person
or on the Inner Planes

Blessings

John O

Websites working again

2009-09-05T13:01:00.003-03:00

The websites are working again.
Everything is "back to normal."

Yet, when things get turned around
or stopped, or something strange happens,
things are never "really the same" afterwards.

The invitation is still there to examine
what we have put our trust in,
the "normal" modes of day-to-day life,
those inner unresolved tensions,
and the "darknesses" hidden from view.

And, sometimes, simple disruptions
of the everyday put us in a frame of mind
and into a physically experienced space of
making long-intentioned practical changes
which will help us be and do what
we know in our hearts is the Purposeful Life
for us.

At our next Christal Temple meeting
on September 14th, Holy Cross Day,
we will explore and ritualize this further.

Until then,
many blessings

John O

PS For those who have missed
Tempest Baroque Ensemble's
concert program LOST IN VENICE
there is a new opportunity
Sunday 6th September
St Barnard (Arcadian Shore, ns) 4pm

Websites hacked and down

2009-09-01T15:53:00.005-03:00

If you've tried to access the Christal Temple websites or my johnoverton.org/personal website, you'll see that you get an error message.

This is because a Turkish hacker has managed to infiltrate NewBieSite, my webhost and hack some(?) of their websites, including all of mine.

If you Google Christal Temple, you'll see his name under the first christaltemple.com entry.

Luckily all my webpages are backed-up, including the new websites that I am developing.

I invite you to send loving energy to this hacker guy (he really needs it) and healing to the web of life, as well as to the internet as a whole. As we grow in awareness into the new paradigm, more and more of the old (yes, especially within ourselves) will be showing up, ready to challenge us at ever deeper levels! Ho'oponopono, for example, may lead to peace and reconciliation, but it requires ever-deeper courage as we deal with stuff we absolutely do not wish either to own or face!

I#k&r*i%x - in co-creation with and on behalf of the Divine,
I forgive you,
I thank you and
I love you.

Ow!

Blessings

John O

Christal Temple Celebrations

2009-08-16T10:25:00.009-03:00

Christal Temple will be having
Shamanic Divine Communion celebrations
in the next few weeks on the following dates
at 7pm in the Back Temple Kitchen:

Monday 17th August
celebrating Haga Sofia
(Unlimited Inner Connection to
Ascended Holy Divine Wisdom)

Monday 31st August

Monday 14th September
celebrating Holy Cross Day
(releasing/transforming any bonds to
suffering, incompletion & non-alignment)

At these celebrations we will, in deep union with and compassion for everything -

pray Healing over others and ourselves
share Divine Wisdom & Inspiration
do a Tantra-inspired Embodiment Ritual
engage in a Shamanic Journey
share blest Bread and Wine in Communion

Please come with
an intention or prayer
for yourself and/or
someone who has requested prayer.

Welcome to join us in person
or on the Inner Planes.

Blessings

John O

Transfiguration - Harry Potter, Jesus and more

2009-08-05T20:39:00.003-03:00

My knowledge of Harry Potter
and his Hogwarts education, is,
by anyone's standards, appalling.

So when I googled the Transfiguration,
a festival traditionally celebrated
in the church on August 6th, I was
surprised and delighted to find
a wealth of fascinating Potter-pages
dedicated to the possibilities for and limits to
magickal transformation of matter
and especially "transfiguration" (Gamp's Law)
as part of a school curriculum.
It put all talk of transfiguration into
a completely new light!

How wonderful!
Our modern western educational system
has always seemed to me to be severely lacking
when compared to the breadth of subjects
taught at Hogwarts School!

Mountain-top experiences which transcend
our everyday experience are awe-inspiring.
Magickal and cosmic-type journeys, even better.
imagine learning how it's "done" as part of
one's on-going school education!

Yet that New Testament gospel narrative*
of the way in which Christ bestrides the "gaps"
between heavenly realms and our experience
of ordinary time and reality, can leave us with
unease and even fear - as the icons show!

Only one
"human" face
is turned to
what is going on.

The others are
hiding in
terror!

For many of us,
the "problem" with magickal moments
is our attempts to hold on to them -
to try and find out how they happened
so as to be able (we hope) to recreate them!
Not all the education in the world
(or even in Hogwarts, for that matter)
could help us with this, for,
the magick is in the moment, and
moments come of their own volition;
(as all Sondheim/Into the Woods fans know!)

Perhaps we can learn this ......
1. Let us delve into discovering how to make
magick and transformation happen
and
2. When it does happen, enjoy the experience fully
rather than trying to take a mental video.

So while we are celebrating the moment,
we allow ourselves to be fully alive,
however strange things may seem!

I think Harry Potter would approve!

Blessings

John O

* Matthew 17:1-9, Mark 9:2-8, Luke 9:28-36

Happy Lammas Day

2009-08-01T13:05:00.002-03:00

Today, 1st August, in
the old Anglo-Saxon Christian Calendar
is Lammas Day - the Feast of the First Fruits

Based on the old pagan celebration -
an important day in its own right/rite
- opposite Imbolc (1st February) -
it is also the portal for the Chinese Medicine
Season of the Earth, the fifth and central
aspect of the Five Elements.

Monday 3rd August
we will be celebrating a
Lammas Day Divine Communion
in the Back Temple Kitchen
at 7pm

Come with your intentions of celebrating
your harvest of treasures and
in gratitude for what you have received
as the first-fruits of harvest.

Or join us on the inner planes

John O

Mary Magdalen's Day at Christal Temple

2009-07-17T00:04:00.008-03:00

Red is Her colour.
Red is for Passion and Blood.
For Suffering, too, but also
for the Fire of Joy
and Commitment.

Mary Magdalene
attributed to
Gregor Erhart
(at the Louvre, Paris)

Christal Temple is celebrating her.
On her own day...

Wednesday
22nd July
Back Temple Kitchen
Mahone Bay
7pm

Shamanic, esoteric, Divine Communion
in honour of the Divine Feminine -
Healing, Embodiment, Prayer
and a drummed journey -
a tantric weave into
holiness and wholeness.

Please join us in person
or on the inner planes

John O

NB No Christal Temple celebration on Mon 20th

For more information about Mary
see Wikipedia here

There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary..... And the companion of [the saviour was Mar]y Ma[gda]lene. [Christ loved] M[ary] more than [all] the disci[ples, and used to] kiss her [often] on her [mouth]. The rest of [the disciples were offended by it and expressed disapproval]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Saviour answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness.

from the Gospel of Philip

Christal Temple Celebration on Monday

2009-07-11T16:10:00.002-03:00

We will be having a

Christal Temple Celebration
with shamanic journeying,
prayer and Divine Communion

Monday 13th July
in the
Back Temple Kitchen
at 7pm

Please join us in person
(do bring an extra cushion to sit on)
or on the inner planes.

Blessings

John O

Being Holy

2009-06-27T19:43:00.004-03:00

So many times,
so many places,
we are tempted to make one thing
"right" or "better" by deciding that
other things are "wrong" or "worse."

After years and years of
western 3-dimensional thinking
where the spiritual had often become merely
a hobby at the side of "real reality" (ie physical)
the cry has gone up "We are more than this!"
and the predominant thought now for
the accredited modern spiritual guru is
"We are not a body."

Mmmm.

In ancient Kabbalistic thought
there was a maxim that
when one believed one had arrived at Divine Truth,
one was deceiving oneself to the maximum.
Enlightenment was instead that space of
no-knowing.

This sounds wonderful until one
begins to realize what living in the world
with no-knowing going on in one's head
would actually mean, practically!
On this webpage there is a video where
the man describes the hell of living
in a post-egoless state on Earth!
He describes his anger at being
"let down by God" - the God who
led him back into Earth-life after he had
experienced Oneness with the Divine!
In the Bible's first book, Genesis, there is
the often-repeated statement....
You cannot see God and live!

And yet, for many of us, seeing more and
more of God and living is the fulfillment
of a promise - Heaven on Earth - even of
some kind of Earthly immortality,
(whatever that may mean!)

In case I have lost you completely, here,
may I point you to this blog or
you can "google" Leonard Orr or
Rebirthing/Source Breathing.

But back to the main point....
if living on Earth is meant to be so devoid
of the earthly, then the questions pose themselves..
Why Earth in the first place? Why us?
Why Creation? Why manifestation?
The Fullness of Creation must surely demand
that everything created is necessary for its
balance and well-being, whether dense or
light, easy or difficult or anything else
between or beyond (or "somewhere else"!)

When we say "we are not a body," then
let us also say "we are a body!'
When we say "the Divine is within us"
let us also say "the Divine is outside us"
(and within-the-within and beyond-the-beyond
and not and absolutely and much more.)
This way we open ourselves to that Divine
not-knowing so that miracles can happen.

Like
Boundless Ecstatic Living on Earth!

Now there's an idea!

Blessings

John O

Midsummer(!) and Celebrations

2009-06-20T10:55:00.003-03:00

For those of us who live further north, climate-wise,

this weekend is very important.
It affirms the sun and the warmth and
the joy of sensual, physical togetherness
(though the rain and black flies and mosquitoes
may dampen our natural body enthusiasms!)

For so may spiritual paths to enlightenment
the body and the physical realms are seen as
"lesser" ways to divine connection.
The church uses the Birth of St John the Baptist
- an extreme ascetic - as its way of getting this celebration
into some kind of people-manageable framework;
it's celebrated as Quebec knows, on 24th June.

Yet there is no part of creation which is less worthy
than any other - if we are not to make God/the Creator
a liar and hypocrite (which we do, frequently!)
So celebrating our earthly warmth and sensuality is
actually the most "godly" thing we can do -
as the goddess, pagan and some of the tantric paths
have so wonderfully shown us!

I wish you all exquisite, godly, sensual joy and
togetherness in loving, holding community,
as we celebrate this divine sun-of-suns in our lives.

Blessings

John O

PS Today's family celebration in Le Have is not taking place
but we are having a gathering 6pm on Monday 22nd

Back Temple Kitchen
Monday 22nd June
6pm (Note time)
A celebration
of summer
(shorter, family-friendly!)

Christal Temple Celebration

2009-06-04T12:41:00.003-03:00

Monday 8th June 7pm
- Back Temple Kitchen -
Mahone Bay

- a celebration of Holy Spirit
and living as the Body of Christ Consciousness
(our Christal Temple version of Corpus Christi)
- Shamanic Journeying, healing,
divine adoration and Divine Communion

Please join us in person
or on the inner planes

Blessings

John O

Pentecost and the Spirit of Fire

2009-05-29T19:28:00.007-03:00

Speaking in tongues
Slain by the Spirit
Fearless speaking
Kundalini rising
Explosion of Joy
Samadhi

- more than
just a connection?

Sunday 31st May
- Pentecost or Whitsunday -
is celebrated in Western Christianity
as the outpouring
of the Holy Spirit
upon the apostles.
It is a powerful festival
with many different hidden meanings.

Two and half years ago I wrote about
some healing experiences of the Spirit
in my life. You can read my post here.

My heartfelt and convinced conclusion
was then, and is now, perhaps even stronger,
that the Holy Spirit is One, whatever form
She* may choose to take to manifest
Her* power in tangible form in humans,
on Earth, in this physical Reality, and that
no one religion or group within a religion,
or spiritual group, however miraculous,
has any cosmic claim on being the only
true interpreter of how the Spirit works.

I love the tangible way the Spirit can be
experienced in charismatic Christian services.
As I implied in my 2007 article, I think I was
subconsciously drawn to these services
so that I might experience in my own body
the Spirit tingling within. Yet I was shown that
what I experienced there was the same Spirit
I experience in tantra, in shamanic healing,
and in the way music forms its own patterns
in my head when I let go of consciously composing!

In our Christal Temple celebrations all the
prayer and healing and journeying have
increasingly become places of inspired depth;
none of us have really done anything other than
dare to be whole in the presence of the Divine,
within and without and beyond - we have
"showed up" and offered ourselves in service.
But in allowing Creator Spirit to infuse us, I know
we have been made better channels for
leading Spirit-led lives in the world,
and there are miracles taking place,
quietly and powerfully in our own lives,
and in the lives we touch.

In the body lies our inner Divine Fire.
It hides in the depths of our body's most
intimate part (sacrum - the holy bone.)
When it is deeply connected to Earth
and raised in Spirit (google Kundalini!)
we become inspired by Heaven to be
whole and fearless in living all of
our Divine Purpose - herein lies real Bliss,
a state which may well be likened to the
Buddhist Samadhi.

Through that Breath of Fire Within,
connected to the Anointing from Above
and the nurturing of the Ground Below
(that Earth-oneness-with-us which
Patrick of Ireland so wonderfully
expressed in his prayers and hymns)
we have the Power to live our dream and
experience the deeper Heaven-on-Earth.
Somehow the words of the great hymn
Veni Creator Spiritus, written for this
Pentecost feast over 500 years ago,
are being fulfilled now in this place.....

The Well of Life, the Fire of Love,
Our souls' anointing from above!

In us, appeared in seven-fold dower,
the sign for us of Holy Power!

The Eternal Promise, making rich
with every Truth, our Earthly speech!

Our senses with this Light inflame,
our hearts in blissful Love reclaim!

The women and the apostles in the picture
found themselves transformed by a power
they had not known - these careful people
became bold and eager and inspired.
This power was always within them; yet
it took the Holy Wind to blow where it wished
to transform the "limited" into the limitless.
(See Chap 2 in the New Testament Book of Acts.)

May your lives be transformed by the
miracle powers of Creator Spirit -
to live that deepest Life which is
truly, divinely yours!

Blessings

John O

PS I know that I'm liable to denunciation by those
who see the Bible as God's literal Word,
only to be known in handed-down traditional
*male-centred ways within the "saved" club.
But I cannot deny the evidence of experience,
nor that inner knowing of the Spirit, working
absolutely beyond our human confines of how
Divine Creation and Inspiration "ought to be"!

HAPPY ASCENSION DAY!

2009-05-20T23:48:00.003-03:00

Thursday May 21st 2009 -
Ascension Day!

May your ascension day be filled
with Joy and Earth-brought-into-Heaven!

The circuit is fulfilled and whole
- God has come home to God!

Wonder of wonders.
The Reconnection as it always was
and now always shall be.

How shall we celebrate?
Day after Day after Day after Day ...

Enjoy!

Blessings

John O

Christal Temple Divine Communion

2009-05-18T23:10:00.001-03:00

Monday 25th May 7pm

in the Back Temple Kitchen -
Shamanic Drumming and Divine Communion
to celebrate EARTH-COME-HOME-INTO-HEAVEN
recalling the Triumph of Divine Reconnection
and to call forth the Holy Spirit into our own lives

Christal Temple Celebrations

2009-05-04T08:26:00.005-03:00

Time for our Family Celebration!

Saturday 16th May 3pm
(we are promised a sun-drenched weekend!)

we will have
a Family Celebration in Le Have
- this is an outdoor celebration
with prayers, ritual games and a
sharing of cake.

Monday 18th May is Rogation Monday
in the old western Christian Calendar.
On this day we will pray abundance
over the crops and "beat the bounds"
- more on this soon.

There will be a celebration

Monday 18th May 7pm

in the Back Temple Kitchen -
Drumming and Divine Communion.

Please join us in person
or on the inner planes.

Blessings

John O

Connecting with Global Celebrations

2009-04-16T15:30:00.002-03:00

Saturday 18th April in Northern Arizona
there begins a celebration called

Return Of The Ancestors

It starts at dawn on Saturday 18th April
and finishes 10 days later.

There is a request for local events to join forces
through Earth acupuncture and prayer
so as to strengthen the effect of what
is being celebrated.

This Saturday 18th April,
just before first light (!)
we will be gathering at
Sunshine Farm Community in
Maplewood, Nova Scotia
for a ceremony that connects
with the Arizona event.

5.45am
Gathering and Temple Sacred Circle
6am
Silent Meditation, Birdsong concert
6.36am
Dawn Drumming and Ecstatic Dance
after which, in the yurt, there will be
Prayers and a Sharing of Blest Wine

After the ceremony ...
POTLUCK BREAKFAST (approx 7.45am?)

This ceremony is "early-riser-family-" and "child-friendly"!

On Monday 20th at 7pm,
in the Back Temple Kitchen,
Mahone Bay
we will be honouring
Nancy Burson 's EC-well-water

Our ceremony will

connect with DNA-recalibrating water,
be a time of healing and praying,
have a foot/hand-washing ceremony,
some shamanic journeying
and a celebration of Christal Temple's
Divine Communion

If you would like some water to take home
and then share, please bring a clean bottle with a stopper
to the Monday celebration.

On Monday 27th at 7pm,
in the Back Temple Kitchen,
Mahone Bay,
we will meet for another

Shamanic Divine Communion

connecting with the end of
the Arizona gathering.

Please join us prayerfully
on the inner planes
if you cannot be present in person.

Easter blessings,

John O

PS Here's more on global links
to the Arizona event

The First Dance of Easter - an ecstatic vigil

2009-04-12T00:08:00.009-03:00

The power of this holy night
dispels all evil,
washes guilt away,
restores lost innocence,
brings mourners joy;
it casts out hatred,
brings us peace,
and humbles earthly pride.
Night truly blessed
when heaven is wedded to earth
and we are reconciled with God!

(from Exultet, the hymn of praise for the Easter Vigil)

Tonight,
for the first time ever(!) in my life,
I danced the first communion of Easter.

This holy Easter night is the climax
of everything that has been prepared
through Lent. In this holy night
we are filled, celebrating how the Light
not only shines in the darkness, but
BRINGS THE DARKNESS UP HOME
and restores it to its Divine Place by
the most radical transformation -
not by subduing it, but by inhabiting it!
Once and for all, we can understand that
Light is for ever more now in the darkness,
so that we never need to hide our darkness
ever again! It is safe to live wholly!

It always was that way in Divine Reality,
but most have not been able to see it -
that is why guru upon guru has needed
to use radical ways to explain Real Reality!
And rising from the dead and living all
multi-realities at once, is a truly radical way!
There is a thunder, a sublime voice shouting ...

"Do you get it now?
Anything and everything is possible!
Live this Truth!
Now!"

This evening I traded my church pew for
a dance space (in the shadow of a cathedral.)
Lights were lit, an altar was set up
and adorned with colour and our prayers.
We sat in sacred circle ready to dance.
And then as the music rose, we allowed
everything in us to be safely nurtured
by the spontaneity of the dance that arose,
and at the same time were joined in
with one another as a communion in our
moving together through our inner journeys.

This holy night we celebrated Resurrection.
We celebrated Divine Inner Empowerment
in deep humility and compassion for all.
It was a perfect metaphor for the new world
that is reborn through the act of bringing
Death back to Life in ecstasy!

This holy night, I have cried
tears of gratitude to Jesus.
For this joy, for this opening,
for this daring to go there beyond everything,
for showing what is possible
for all of us.

This holy night of nights as the church
next door celebrated its holy worship,
I danced Easter into being in my body,
in my emotions, in my spirit and soul.
This night not just my mind and my head,
but also my body and my feelings know
the ecstasy and the bliss of rebirth!

Hallelujah!

John O

In Halifax, Nova Scotia's main city,
there are opportunities each month
to experience both Ecstatic Dance
and Trance Dance.
The sessions are run by an awesome
facilitator, Maryse Thuot, and her gifted
team of co-facilitators. Information
can be found on this blog.

Holy Saturday - identifying with Peter or Judas ...

2009-04-11T16:57:00.003-03:00

It’s done.
Over with.
He’s gone.
Dead and buried.
We can go back to our ordinary life.
Dream crushed.

We have failed.
And we understand also that
we have been failed.
Betrayed even.
It isn’t as we were promised…..

or did we get it wrong?

One of the lessons to be learnt
in deep transformation, is that
what appears to be the truth,
ie the-“truth”-on-the-surface,
is so often not at all the Truth
when we go really deep down.

Even harder is the lesson
provided by Life's mirror ….
the learning which tells us that
those things and people which we resent,
despise, shy away from, get triggered by,
or shun and disown, show us
the spaces inside ourselves where the seeds
of our own healing can be found.

This past week in churches -
on Thursday evening and yesterday -
we are reminded again of two of
the friends of the guru/master Yeshua;
one “friend” who premeditates and carries out
betrayal (the betrayer’s kiss is fascinating -
Why did he betray? And why kiss Jesus? -)
the other, who never plans to disown, and
mistakenly believes he is courageous enough
to stand firm when his own life is threatened,
but who denies and weeps and flees.

And there is more than betrayal and denial -
not just that the male friends all take flight,
(the women stay, close or farther away,
depending on which account you read,)
not just that men’s worst sides come out
in ever-expanding viciousness and fear,
but that the most exultant imagined dream
is so quickly, efficiently and violently crushed.

So, who are we in this story?
(And, who do we try and avoid being?)

The god-man being put to death is an amazing
narrative that says many things at many levels.
For me, two of the most important are

- there is nowhere that the Divine cannot be found

(see my last blog-posting)
and
- the seed of even more joy lies in "the crushing" of what is.

I love the popular movement of the last few years
to encourage people to shed old limiting ways -
to let go of old hurts, of old beliefs, of anything
which stops them from becoming whole,
so that their lives may become empowered,
and that they may begin to shine brightly.
But there is a price which is not usually stated:
For a person to become whole, everything held tight -
it doesn’t matter if it’s “good” or if it’s “terrible” -
has, sooner or later, to be given up, crushed.
The radically new and stunningly blissful is
only able to emerge through the total surrender of
absolutely everything, whatever it is, to God.

Looking at the Passion story from this perspective,
perhaps Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial were
crucial ways for them to surrender whatever it was
that stopped them from receiving the new life -
it wasn't just about releasing “good appearances”
or no longer being trusted friend in different ways -
everything of deepest importance within them
was totally challenged and turned upside down.
(In the New Testament accounts, Judas, of course,
gives up too soon to reap the fruits of being real.
Or perhaps not. And there are also modern scholars
who don’t believe that Judas committed suicide.)
Perhaps all the cruelty and violence that we are shown
are, dare it be said, at some level a fundamental opening.
Perhaps this story, so full of horrors repeated in
so many violent places today, is an important lesson
in going deeper, in "trusting in a point beyond " -
in allowing sight beyond the hate and cruelty.

In a church I was working at ten years ago,
the midday prayers bulletin had an illustration of
God going down deep on the cover (from Africa)
showing that there is nowhere deep enough,
evil enough, painful enough, that the Divine
is not there before us (as Psalm 139* says.)

I believe we are asked to show as much kindness
and compassion as we are able, wherever we go.
But there will be times when the complete and
absolute opposite overtakes us in some way,
and then it is time to dare to go down deep within.
For me, surrender to God often means allowing
this going-down-deep journey, however difficult
or ugly or painful it may be. Especially when
there seems no rime or reason why something
awful has “had to” happen.

Let’s go back to the mirror image for transformation
which I mentioned at the beginning of this post.
There is a hidden gift here; a wonderful “positive side”
to accepting that what we see in others is also in us -

The wholeness and holy joy
which we see and honour
in the saints and gurus and friends
whom we love, admire and look up to,
is mirrored in the seed of wholeness and holiness
and the essence of the Divine Creator and
that Godly Connection within us!

Or to paraphrase the Gnostic Gospel of Philip,

we are who we truly see and get to know.

I also asked the question which character we feel
we are in this holy unfolding, leading to death.
I risk being called a blasphemer by some, but
I suggest that it is our holy destiny
ourselves to be the god-man, Jesus.
Part of this being Jesus, is the learning that
by not holding on for dear life, we also may
transcend all pain and hurt and death, and so
allow ourselves to be
reborn in glorious elation.

I dare to believe that the more of us
who are convinced of this principle,
- we are who we truly see and know -
and have the courage to live by it,
however often we may fail by denial,
or by betrayal or any any way,
the quicker our rape and pillage of the Earth,
and of each other, will cease.
And that our New Age, so longed for by Jesus,
so long prophesied by every spiritual tradition,
and so clothed in beauty by so many poets,
visual artists, dancers, musicians, etc.,
will at last be manifested among and in us
with a joy and bliss beyond our imagining.

May your Easter be full of dreams
and of rising Joy!

John O

*
If I say,
"Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day -
for Darkness is as Light to you!
(Ps 139, vv.11-12)

A passionate lesson in non-duality

2009-04-07T13:20:00.004-03:00

It's now 2 days into Holy Week
(well, according to the Gregorian calendar,
western version - west of Constantinople, that is )

Holy Week? Holy in what way?
Who is holy? What is holy?

Holy, according to the dictionary, means
something or someone to be revered
and comes from the old English word for
WHOLE.

I've always been fascinated by
this time of year in the Christian Church;
suddenly, it seems, there is no need to
preach dogma or doctrine or moral rules -
for everything is self-evident;
the stories speak for themselves
and we become fellow journeyers
in and through a transformational world
of cosmic, divine proportions.

There is a wonderful phrase in
the Apostles' Creed .....
after the brief crucifixion narrative
comes the sentence ...

He descended into Hell

For me, this is the ultimate confirmation
that the Divine is in everything,
however "good", however "evil" -
whatever we may think of something
or of someone, however "impossible",
God is not just "also there", but in totality!

The very Essence of Divinity dwells there!

So how do we in Western Society
get to a place where we can allow ourselves
to explore the physical and emotional intensity
of the dark places of Earth-life in safety?
And, more important , how do we access
the hidden darkness within us
- those recesses which we do everything
in our conscious power to hide
from ourselves and others?

I believe that most of us really endeavour
to live - and try to appear to live -
"good" lives. Any perceived dark faults
and cracks in our personality ......
- such things as our anger, our frustration,
our raw passion, our longing to break out,
the yearning to stamp our feet or
scream as loudly as possible,
the desperate urge to let go and
freely allow our bodies and minds to do
absolutely what they will, etc., -
we try and lock away in our body-cage
and perhaps even try to pray, meditate
and therapize them into submission.

Mind over matter we tell ourselves.

Part of western civilization's baggage is
the Gentle-Jesus-meek-and-mild Syndrome.
It matters not whether one professes faith
in the traditional church manner or not -
the cultural imprint of the erroneous
"Be good/nice, or you'll go to Hell!" is
still very much with and inside us!

Yet, not having any pathways to explore
and express the darkness inside us
is a sure way of avoiding the very inner peace
we long for! By desperately trying to avoid
our own "unacceptable behaviour" we are
opening ourselves to "Hell on Earth" - the
hidden personal misery which finds no outlet
- or worse, school shootings, rapes, murders,
dangerous abusive relationships,
and pointless, seemingly unstoppable, wars.

Holy Week actually inspires us to be whole.
We follow a man who gets so angry that he
- takes a whip to drive traders out of the Temple
shouting at them as his whip stings them,
- curses a fig-tree early in the morning because
it didn't have any fruit on to feed him,
(what happened to his morning meditation?),
- gets totally exasperated with his loyal friends
and speaks kindly to his betrayer (?!?)
a man who is so brazen that he quotes for himself
the divine name of I Am in front of the very
people (church leaders/puppet politicians)
he's just slandered as vipers, liars, hypocrites,
and then flatly refuses to even speak to
the authority that is trying him as someone
totally beneath him, etc.......

One of the points of this story seems to me
to be the example it shows of someone
who dares to be whole.
Uncompromisingly whole!
Not just following that inner knowing
whatever the cost, but also being totally
raw, real, open and vulnerable along the way!

In this totality of being there is little
space or time for duality, (except, of course, in
moments of doubt - those Gethsemane experiences!)
Shall we dare to explore what it means
to be real, to be whole, to be so impassioned
that we must follow our calling wherever
it may take us, and dare to be real and raw
as we let go and tread the path?

More on this, soon.

Holy blessings of wholeness

John O

Monday Liturgy at Christal Temple

2009-03-25T17:43:00.002-03:00

Christal Temple Divine Communion
will be again be celebrated

Monday 30th March
at the usual time of
7pm
in the Back Temple Kitchen

As usual, we will gather in intention and joy
to hold those we love in prayer,
especially those who are ill or injured;
we will drum a shamanic journey into
the depths of passion*, compassion and
the Divine Purpose which we are called into,
and we will share blest Bread and Wine
with one another, as a token of
our Oneness with each other and with
every part of Creation.

As you will have seen from the website
Monday's Divine Communion is the last of
this regular winter series -
Easter is nearly here (April 12th)
and it is time for our community
to talk about how (and where) we
wish to meet in the coming warmer months.

For those on the email list
there will be an email, inviting ideas
and thoughts on our meetings.
You can also post comments here below.

I look forward to seeing you on Monday,
either in person, or on the
Inner planes.

Every blessing

John

*In the older western Christian liturgical calendar
Sunday 29th March is Passion Sunday when
the Passion and Purpose of Christ comes into focus.
Not even the knowledge of forthcoming death
would he let stand in the way of what he knew
he was to do. And yet we are called to transform
suffering and pain into Joy, so that the
New World may come into being. For us,
will and does this involve any kind of crucifixion?
This is the journey we will make on Monday.

Did you ever see an ULO?

2009-03-20T16:12:00.003-03:00

Have you ever been to Nancy Burson's website?
And clicked on the IFO's video?

It's quite an experience!
I came across it the other day.
It wasn't the first time, but
I had forgotten since the last time.
I've been interested in the
orb-phenomena for a long while.
And crop circles seem to give me
inner wisdom which I can't quite decipher -
not consciously, anyway.

Today I realized I'd forgotten something
that I'd filmed one September afternoon in 2007.
I suddenly found myself awake from a
"lying meditation" and discovered these
Light patterns playing out above my eyes.
I rushed to get the camera and managed
to film the play of Light before it stopped.
When I watched the film again,
the EC videos on YouTube seemed to take on
new meaning.

I invite you to judge for yourself!

Blessings

John O

Tonight - Spring in the Back Kitchen!

2009-03-20T14:37:00.004-03:00

I was asked this morning if we are doing anything
for the celebration of Spring.
They reminded me that the Spring Equinox is now!

The weather in Nova Scotia in late March
doesn't exactly make it easy to remember Spring!

Anyway, in a spirit of
- "why not?!!" and
- "Yes, of course"
I said...
Yes, we'll have a Celebration!

So..
we will be having a celebration

TONIGHT at 7pm
in the Back Kitchen,

with
drumming for the Spring (YEEEEEEEES!)
prayers
and a
celebration of wine.

This will be a very all-people-friendly event!

So to those who are having other celebrations ..
we will, if we may, connect with you
on the inner planes!

Love 'n' blessings
and loads of Spring WARMTH!

John

St Patrick's Eve at Christal Temple

2009-03-15T22:23:00.004-03:00

Monday 16th March
7pm
Back Temple Kitchen

There is much to be healed ...

not just the rape of Tara's Hill
not just the widening cracks left when
the diminishing new money cannot
fill the holes of unforgiven hurts

...
there is so much more

We will pray healing over the Celtic Lands
over any violence and scarcity imprints
still too fearful to be going towards
Joy, Oneness and new Celebration,
and we will, in the Spirit of Patrick,
invoke the Mighty Cosmic Elements
of Peace and Holy Connection!

Welcome to join us
also on the Inner Planes
- the mighty seas of our
Inner Oneness and Connection!

Blessings

John O

Healing the Perceived Divide

2009-03-14T11:10:00.006-03:00

One of Christal Temple's aims
is to heal the perceived divide
between what is considered spiritual
and what is considered "of the world."

Our journey into and through our duality
helps us to experience material things
and Earth-life in a fairly "logical" way, yet
the essence of the paradigm shift which
we are yearning for, and now in the birth-pangs of,
is to bring duality and
the experience-of-Oneness
i.e. our Divinity or
our Connection to, and Beingness in, All-That-Is,
back together.

For me, this bringing-back-together
is the cornerstone of Ascension;
- the being-experienced-in-living "different" multiverses,
"different" levels of life all at the same time,
in increasing comfort and ease,
and in mutual acceptance, love and support,
in ways that "work practically" on the Earth!

This coming-back-together is not just about
increasing awareness and connection on the "inside"
by joining what may appear to be "opposites" -
It is also about committing to a deep spiritual path
which one can have the courage to "stick with"
whilst welcoming without judgment
the diverse expressions of others
as the Divine meeting us in our brothers and sisters.

The challenges of living a spiritual path whilst
allowing oneself to be in tune with new awareness
are discussed compassionately by Ken Wilber
and Br. Wayne Teasdale in this YouTube video.
Deep wisdom!

I came across Anakha Coman
- a former US executive in the corporate world -
who writes a blog about, and has released
a number of videos on, really living Embodied Spirituality.
This video, released last year not long before the US election,
is a good introduction to her thought-world.
I found myself resonating strongly.
I notice that Daniel Odier,
a very integrated western tantra teacher from France,
is one of her inspirations.
Among Odier's books are Yoga Spandakarika*
(The Sacred Texts at the Origins of Tantra)
and The Tantric Path to Awakening.

In this seeming maze, there are new
and ancient realizations waiting to be born again!

Blessings

John O

*the "Tantric Song of the Divine Pulsation"
- Daniel Odier's own site is here.

Monday's cancelled meeting now on Wednesday 4th at 7pm

2009-03-02T11:15:00.006-04:00

Last Monday's cancelled

Christal Temple
Divine Communion
celebration

is now on

Wednesday 4th March

at 7pm

Our theme:

Fasting and Contemplation

(on the inner and outer planes)

Go carefully on the ice!

Love and Blessings

John O

Ash Wednesday and Orthodox start of Great Lent

2009-02-26T11:10:00.001-04:00

Yesterday (25th Feb) we celebrated

Christal Temple
Ash Wednesday Midday Prayer

It was simple and very moving.

For those of you who would like to read
what we did and prayed, here is the link
to the bulletin - opens as a pdf.

On Monday (2nd March) we will be
celebrating our Divine Communion
in the Back Temple Kitchen at 7pm.

The ash from Ash Wednesday will
remind us of our Orthodox friends
who start their Lent this coming Monday.
We will journey into the spiritual lands
of Life's inner concentration and focus,
contemplating what we shall transform.

Welcome to join us,
either in person, or
on the inner planes.

Loving blessings

John O

Ash Wednesday again

2009-02-20T16:50:00.004-04:00

I thought it was about time that we
reclaim Ash Wednesday for Life
rather than painful experiences.

Two years ago I wrote a little piece about
Ash Wednesday and fasting.......

You can find it here
As you can see, there was a long journey
to be taken to find the gift.

This year I decided to try something different.

We will have a Christal Temple Midday Prayer
to celebrate(!) the day ...
it will be a short ritual in the manner of
communities who pray several times a day.

An invocation to the Holy Spirit,
a hymn, a psalm, a reading,
a meditation and some prayers

We will also bless ashes as our means
of looking forward to the time of being
raised into the Spirit of the Divine Phoenix -
Easter, New Life and Resurrection -
letting go of those things which hinder us
from being True to our Divine Purpose.

Wed 25th February
12 noon
in the Back Kitchen Temple

Please join us on the inner planes

Every blessing

John O

Candlemass and Imbolc

2009-01-29T13:41:00.005-04:00

Our next Christal Temple Celebration is on

Monday 2nd February

in the Back Temple Kitchen, Mahone Bay at 7pm.

Barring extreme snowstorms or completely impossible weather of another sort, we will celebrate this even if next Monday were to be a "snowday."

Our focus on Monday will be:

Bringing our Divine Light into the World

We will (weather permitting) have a short outdoor procession of Light during which we will chant and sing! Indoors we will share, journey and then celebrate our Multifaith Divine Communion. We will also connect in prayer to all other known sacred circles celebrating this Spring-in-winter festival of Light this weekend. Part of the ceremonies is the bringing of house-candles to be blest. Please bring some house-candles if you wish them to be blest in the ceremonies. They also represent the Light taken out into the world and into our homes.

Please bring
warm boots(!)
a lantern (a candle in a covered square lantern, for example) or flashlight,
and a sacred intention for your life (and prayers for anyone you know who would benefit from them.)
A cushion is always good for sitting on.
Any house-candles you wish to be blest.

Candlemas(s) is a Christian celebration with Pagan roots - we light the St Brigid's Fire, the hearth in our homes and the representation of our Inner Fire - we look towards the still dormant Spring and make our intention to receive Divine Light and Warmth, re-empower our own Light with this, and make holy intention to live within this Light in the world.

If you are not able to join us physically, please pray with us from "afar" - this connection helps us all be One in the Spirit and to return this Earth and ourselves to the Paradise of Eden from whence we have journeyed.

In love and Joy

John O

Be careful on the Ice!

2009-01-19T14:09:00.003-04:00

We are celebrating our
Shamanic Multifaith Divine Communion
tonight at 7pm

Walk gently and carefully
upon the ice!

If you are at home
please do join us in prayer
and Spirit!

Blessings

John O

Multifaith Gnostic Shamanic Celebrations

2009-01-14T16:55:00.015-04:00

This is an old post with information about Christal Temple's Monday Night Celebrations and Children's/Family Gatherings. While I've been away in Europe (Fall 2009) there have been no formal gatherings here.

As of January 2010, we are discussing how and when to resume our gatherings.

WATCH THIS SPACE!

BOUNDLESS SENSUAL ECSTATIC PHYSICAL LIFE

CHRISTAL TEMPLE
Multifaith
Shamanic
DIVINE COMMUNION
celebrations
(in the lineages of Yeshua and Mirjam
and the Peruvian Q'ero)

Usually on Mondays (see dates below)
at 7pm
- Mahone Bay -
(and sometimes in Maplewood's
Sunshine Farm Community)

Sacred circle, shamanic drum-journey,
healing prayer and multifaith Gnostic communion
(with incense.)

Two Christal Temple celebrations in June
and one in July...

Monday 8th June 7pm
- Back Temple Kitchen -
Mahone Bay

- a celebration of Holy Spirit and living as the Body of Christ Consciousness
(our Christal Temple version of Corpus Christi)
- Shamanic Journeying, healing, divine adoration and Divine Communion

Saturday 20th June 3pm
- Family Celebration for Summer Solstice -
LeHave

- a summer celebration with journeying and praying,
ritual games and the sharing of cake.

Wednesday 22nd July (Mary Magdalen's Day) at 7pm
- in honour of the Divine Feminine -
(place to be announced.)

- a gnostic, shamanic communion celebration of
Hieros Gamos - the Sacred Marriage

Please join us in person
or on the inner planes.

Blessings

John O

For information/details see this blog
send an email message
or phone 902 624 0100

At our Christal Temple celebration rituals we
- enclose ourselves in Sacred Space
- read and/or talk about and connect to any
important spiritual/religious festival/gathering that is taking place
- do a drumming/journeying ritual
- pray for ourselves and one another
- share blest bread and wine together
in the esoteric tradition of
Hieros Gamos, the Sacred Marriage

There is opportunity to share personal experience.
Please come with a sacred intention for your life.

Through the Magdalen and the Q'ero
we are assisted in being able to heal the
misconception of the Heaven-Earth Divide,
and come home to a
Divine Self embraced by Creator Spirit
at all levels of our lives.

Christal Temple

Divine Ascension
International

The day went by so fast .....

2008-12-11T22:54:00.002-04:00

and I never knew .......

What was I doing?
Where was I?
Where did my dream disappear to?

And yet, NOT!!!!
NO Way! Something shifted,
and suddenly ......

Today is the appropriate time

- or to put it in modern words

The Vision is Now

What?
When?
Why?
How?

Watch this space!

John O

Tonight - by popular request

2008-12-08T11:08:00.003-04:00

Tonight (Monday Dec 8th)!

A CHRISTAL TEMPLE Divine Communion
at 7 pm
- Mahone Bay -

Sacred circle, shamanic drum-journey,
healing prayer and
multifaith Gnostic communion (with incense.)

Join us on the inner planes!

John O

There is a Plan.... and the Art of Surrender

2008-11-22T08:59:00.019-04:00

.....and my "job" is
"to get out of the way enough"
to be able to hear what
I'm being asked to do

Since Christal Temple's celebration
5 weeks ago in the yurt on Maplewood Hill,
there have been many small, private gatherings
of some of us who regularly take part
in our community Divine Communion.

We have come together to do personal work -
many different kinds of transformation -
where the personal needs of each of us as
"independent beings" have been shown to be
variations of deeper stories which turn out
to be our common thread, past and present.
That which we thought was just our own
challenge or problem or need, seems now
always to be mirrored in those we meet.

Was it always so
and we didn't notice?
Or is this a confirmation
of the coming-closer which
is now manifesting clearly ...
the lifting of the veils of
the separation illusion?

I have spent some time the past month
looking into passive residual income.
Faced with a seemingly inexhaustible number of
websites offering "the newest, best and most
secret way" of becoming financially plentiful,
(often at the manipulative "expense" of others,)
I have tried to sift for a sense of deeper Truth
and compassionately generous Vision in those
who would enroll me in their schemes.

I have been surprised to find among these sites,
(so many of which play to the desperation of
people caught in a recession that they fear will get
very much worse before it - if ever - stabilizes,)
nuggets of divine, alchemical gold with visions
not just of a world in which more people can
"get more" but also where the spiritual nature
of our existence and its value is integrated into
the expressed vision and commitment.
Instead of coming from a space of fear and lack,
there is an invitation to share Abundance.
In a few, this is clearly-spoken; the understanding
of shared joy and abundance as a pre-requisite
to allow any type of business/economic dealing to
flourish - now and for the future.

(For more on this, see my Abundance blog.)

What has this to do with "the Plan" and
with our small, transformational meetings?

I am becoming increasingly aware that the
Paradigm Shift is not the domain of the few -
the self-proclaimed enlightened ones - but a
divinely-inspired phenomenon which cuts across
our limited human religious, economic, artistic,
left vs right, "real"-life vs "spiritual life" boxes.
We don't have to be mystics or recluses or
"deniers of 3D-reality" to access that voice -
in fact the "normal" processes of human growth
in seemingly spiritual deserts (like much of the
business world may appear to the "spiritual")
is just the space where the Spirit thrives,
making of joyful and collaborative marketing a
holy space where the divine is easily seen and
experienced, and where people are honoured.

Those successful marketeers, many of whom
now use their profits to fund specific projects in
war-torn places of despair and drought, seem
to give themselves time to be led, to be shown.
Most of them write about how they toiled and
worked, only to find that easy, lasting success
just evaded them. They wanted to give up.
And then the "miracle" happened, they saw
the Light, or met someone and their life
and enterprise were changed, transformed.

What happened?

I believe it was, in each case, that they
admitted fully where they really were,
they accepted the limited and limiting
earthbound truth of their situation in
all its parts, however uncomfortable.
In short, they surrendered to "What Is."
By doing this, they allowed the connection to
that deeper Truth which brought the "miracle"
into their lives.They aligned with the Plan!
(Actually, it is not always necessary to have
a life-shattering experience to be able to hear
and be at one with that Inner Inspiration!
But it often helps the process, especially if
one is stubbornly into the negative self-talk
which crowds out the still, small Voice!)

In my musical life, I have an experience
which happens again and again when I practise.
I come to a place where I can nearly play the
piece of music, but can't really "get it together."
Often I forget the divine process and try to
stick it out, just practising more and more, and
getting increasingly frustrated and angry!
It takes courage to surrender to What-Is,
especially when there's a concert coming up.
But if I don't surrender, I just don't "get it"!
When I do surrender, allowing myself to wait,
the piece comes together in its own time,
funnily enough, always in time for the concert,
and I play better than I have played it while
I was "practising"!

What we have done in those small groups I
wrote about at the beginning of this piece,
is increasingly to allow the inspiration of
where we are being led to inform us and
what we do, therapeutically and ritually.
I feel we have been enabled to do this by
the practice we have previously undertaken.
In other words, practice is in my experience
a pre-requisite for receiving inspiration
through surrender and allowing it to
take root practically in our work.

In this way, I feel that we have empowered
ourselves to "get out of the way" and let
God, and the Divine Plan, flow in us.

And what are the marketeers showing us?
That the Plan really works, not least
in Earthly terms as well as "Heavenly" ones!
Turns our self-imposed distinctions of
what is Earthly and what is Spiritual
on their head, does it not?!!!!

The question arises:
How do we know
when it is time to
practise
and when time to
surrender and
let go?

Ah!

Blessings

John O

Exercises in Multidimensional Seeing

2008-10-15T21:26:00.008-03:00

Yesterday evening,
14th October 2008
on Maplewood Hill,
Nova Scotia
was awesome!

We had gathered to celebrate the UFOs and
welcome possible extra-terrestials in Love -
or were we really welcoming the hidden parts
of ourselves?

Some of us gathered early.
I found myself hearing a message about
looking towards the distant clouds and
being observant for "flashes."
This was later independently confirmed by
our hosts, their children and others gathering with us,
who, without previously hearing my message,
saw how flashes of white and silvery Light
broke through the dusk sky.

We attuned ourselves to what we called
"cosmic space" and allowed ourselves to intuit
how the evening would go.

We prayed and meditated.

Later,
as we finished our shamanic drumming in the yurt,
we found ourselves called to go outside again
and saw a huge underside of light and "white cloud"
mingled with darker sky formations with
streaks of light going in directions quite different
from the rays from the full moon,
which was shining brightly in another
part of the sky.

The streaks and stripes we saw were
like the underside of a huge canoe!

Back in the yurt we celebrated our Divine Communion,
and the door kept on being blown and held open
as though we were to join with the unseen -
the words were leaping out at us
"...in union with all the worlds!"

Yesterday evening and, even more today,
it became so obvious that we had seen and joined
streaks of a many dimensional presence
breaking into our mainly 3D-vision.
Our concept of Reality was being visibly
challenged!

This morning, when I was recalling
the events of last night, and how
the yurt door kept on being raised of its own accord,
I was startled and amused to remember that
I had seen white and silvery figures who
joined us for our divine communion of shared wine
- we had shared our Oneness and communed
with these Representatives of the Light.

As I pondered what our group were given to see
I reflected on how prone we are to look upon
UFOs as either saviours or threats outside ourselves.

Last night showed us and confirmed for me that
only by allowing the Light inside to connect
in compassion and love in all worlds and realms,
can we take the next huge, necessary step into
our Ascension-in-coexistence-with-Earth and
All-that-Is.

What we were seeking to see last night is actually
the Light that is emerging from within us
- what is outside us is our mirror and our teacher.
I understand that this is scary - last night my body
was scared, though my mind was unusually still -
but, then, all deep birthing can be scary beforehand!

I feel so blessed to have experienced
last night on Maplewood Hill!

In Light and Love
in all dimensions

John O

PS Blossom Goodchild had shown great courage
in sharing her channelled message - she risked that
the galactic promise "would not be fulfilled"!
There are many who would call "hoax" or "mistaken."
Sympathetic commentators have pointed out the
underlying condition of our own readiness and
willingness to receive in Love and Openness.

ETs, UFOs and Federal Elections

2008-10-13T20:33:00.010-03:00

TUESDAY
14th OCTOBER

FEDERAL ELECTION in CANADA

AND

the UFOs/ETs are COMING!!

* ^ * ^ * ^ *

Christal Temple is having a celebration!

See our
ritual celebration link

Join us in spirit!

John O

Thanksgiving in Canada

2008-10-12T08:22:00.005-03:00

This weekend is Thanksgiving weekend for Canadians. In Nova Scotia, most people seem to celebrate on Sunday and then sleep and walk off the celebration on Monday (the "official" day.)

It's one of those amazing fall weekends here, just slightly warmer than frost in the morning and then gently warm and "fuzzy" and sometimes clear-blue skies. So beautiful!

At the same time the money systems of the world are truly bouncing - the CDN$ is the latest "victim" of market unpredictability.

This weekend, especially, we are invited to be thankful.
As the Harvest Festival hymn goes

"All is safely gathered in
'Ere the winter storms begin."

At some level this may not really ring true,
at least, not when it comes to that inner work!
There is still much to be done!

I'm reading The Mayan Code by Barbara Hand Clow,
much of it based on the work of Carl Johan Calleman;
the date for the end of our "preparation for the
End of Time" is put at

October 26th 2011

the "remaining time" until December 2012, intended
to be a kind of celebration and and thanksgiving!

Perhaps we could use this weekend and
the turbulent times that are around us
to cultivate that inner stability and peace
which the world is so desperate for...
so that we are in a state of readiness to
celebrate and give thanks at a moment's notice!

Prehaps we can learn to look in deeper compassion
and love on our nearest and dearest and
upon all creatures and things, near and far.

It's not just Thanksgiving and Harvest.
It's also Election time .....
I wonder what would happen if there were a
surge of compassion and understanding for
all our political "opponents" - for all those
who are voting differently from us - I wonder,
would the world start to change then?

I'm going to try and do this "compassionate-thing"
this week - see what happens.
I think it's worth the risk!

Blessings and Abundance and Peace
this weekend

John O

The Bridge between Spirit and Matter

2008-09-19T08:41:00.006-03:00

is a journey,
not a place

Last weekend at our Christal Temple celebration
we did some interesting things.

As we usually do, we stood in a circle
and invoked the "sacred winds" of
protection, experience, radical change -
one could say we were making intentions
and then strengthening them in community.
Then we did a "release exercise" -
the kind you would do at a workshop to help
participants become unstuck, on fire and
empowered in new ways in their lives.
After this we drummed and journeyed
as the shamans do, sharing stories.
Finally we ritually shared bread and wine.

In the next few days amazing things happened.
Those who were there, and, even more curious,
those who had wanted to be there, or
who had "avoided" being there, found that
all sorts of changes started happening,
they received deep insights, life-openings.

Why?

The shamans say that when we do such practices
in a "sacred way" - i.e. completely, wholly,
changes have to happen, it's unavoidable.

Shamanism is in vogue today,
especially among the "alternative" community.
The word is bandied about, its meanings are discussed
and courses held "in its name" abound on the internet
- and yet, it cannot readily be defined.

The word, originally meaning a "psychopomp"
from Northern Asia, especially Mongolia/Siberia,
has been extended in meaning to encompass all the indigenous
peoples' Spirit-led practitioners of the "magickal" healing arts
and those in modern western society who have been called
and/or trained in the same (or similar) way.

As with western adaptions of ancient, unfamiliar
and often secret wisdom from forgotten traditions,
possibilities for fraud and incompetence abound.
Alberto Villoldo, founder of the Four Winds Society
- one of those intrepid western pioneers of the
practical translation of ancient healing wisdom into a form
appropriate for use in a post-modern "first-world" context,
never ceases to point out the dangers of attempting to
distill decades-long training based on deep ancestral traditions
into a few weekend New Age course workshops -
shamanism is not a quick fix for anyone!

One of the foundations for indigenous shamanic practice
is the knowledge and uses of healing plants, including
hallucinogens, and other plants which aid the connection
between what are felt to be the seen and unseen worlds.
Most notable among these plants is ayahuasca, the
Vine of Death, administered as a drink made with other
vital ingredients, in a sacred ceremony held at night.

The point of this ceremony is whole-person healing and
enlightenment; the opportunity, usually in community,
to release that which is stopping us from being wholly
who we truly are, whether through fears, illness, emotional
upset or deep generational patterning, etc.

The ceremonies are much more complex than they might
seem on the surface; the powers unleashed by drink
and ceremony are not just dangerous done in an unprotected
environment; here we are dealing with sacred connection!
The botanicals are part of a holy communion.
The shamans who lead the ceremonies have years of
ayahuasca use and experience behind them, and are deeply
conversant with the chanting and prayers which are an
integral part of the journeying-process for all present.
For the shaman, the plant essences in the drink are
living "beings" who they are working with to effect life-
changing transformation, refashioning the substance of life
- a true transubstantiation!

The combination of journeying, chanting and sacred ceremony
changes things in its own way, not as we might "want."
The bridge opened between the realms, between Spirit
and Matter, between Life and Beyond-Death, turning all
perceived "normal" reality (often violently) on its head, is a
many-edged sword. Knowledge is not always bliss - there is
no turning back once the old reality is seen in its true colours!

How does this relate to our weekend Christal Temple celebration?

I am convinced that what we did on Maplewood hill was
a gentler version of what the South American shamans do.
The combination of intention, transformation exercises,
drumming journeying and multi-level communing/communion
brings us into new places from where there is no turning back.
Our responsibility is to use these powerful tools wisely
and to support one another in coming-back-to-ourselves.

Do not expect governments, education establishments or
current health organizations to support this - they are
enmeshed in ways that keep us in a place of servitude.
But limitation, however well-devised cannot win.
The empowered will always burst forth, sooner or later.

Doing sacred exercises like last weekend brings up
Why did I wait so long to grab these amazing tools?

Abundance, freedom and blessings
on us all

John O

The Summer has faded

2008-09-12T15:49:00.003-03:00

.. and the tents are in the process of being dismantled.

For the latest behind-the-scenes "gossip" on
what a Temple Tent can conjure up in a small town,
see Helen's blog.

Soon Pine Grove Street will once again be
the uneventful, quiet street that the
Realtors write of in their sales blurb.
Nothing remarkable or eventful to talk about.

Shame, really ......
passionate praying, even in a "quiet backwater"
can bring such wonderfully abundant results for all!

We are still praying, of course -

Though now hidden and silent again,
we are still heard in those "other realms."
Prayer is
- un-dismountable,
- unstoppable,
- master of its own divine law.

May all our lives be blest!

John O

When two or three (thousand) are gathered in My Name

2008-09-10T05:03:00.023-03:00

This coming Sunday, September 14th 2008,
there will start an experiment in Global Oneness
combined with Quantum Physics, to lower
violence in the world.
(see http://www.theintentionexperiment.com/ )
Every day for a week, at the same time each day,
a gathering of a large number of people at once,
all over the globe, will send a huge "energy prayer-ball"
to different violent hot-spots on Earth.
The effects of this prayer-ball will be monitored by
a team of scientists and statistical experts.

What a wonderful idea! All support and praise to
Lynne McTaggart, who previously pioneered
similar experiments using Transcendental Meditation.
Christal Temple will be joining this global prayer
for peace.

The whole experiment raises interesting questions
about time and space and about what, in Quantum terms
is really outside us and what is actually inside.......

One of the healing practices of Reiki, common to
many healing disciplines, is "distance"-healing,
otherwise known by the rather disarming name of
"Absent"-healing. (If someone is praying for me,
or energetically connecting with me to support me
in a health or an emotional issue, I would much prefer
that they be "present" as they do this, even if they
are many miles away!)

Actually "distance"-healing is really "somewhere-outside
of-time-and-distance"-healing, brought back into
a third-dimensional manifestation on Earth.
Furthermore, in the quantum realms, third dimensional
realities of you/me/us/them/it/out-there/inside-me
are absent, the observer being the cause of the effect
being "observed", and not an "outsider" at all!
Which makes Lynne McT's experiment even more interesting
than it seems at first glance!
If we go one stage further, and accept the deeper teachings
of the Hawaiian Kahunas called Ho'oponopono, we discover
that all the violence in the world is "merely" a macro-mirror
of what is going on "inside" us in our inner micro-climate.
Joe Vitale tells a wonderful story about his conversations with
Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len and how a mental institution cured(!)
its inmates with Dr Len's help without Dr Len ever seeing
any of the patients! (see this blog.)

So, in theory, we could do Lynne McT's experiment without
- going on the internet and registering
- knowing which "violent hotspot" is targeted each day
- keeping to the appointed time each day
and by doing the Ho'oponopono process whenever we feel
angry or annoyed or frustrated at anybody or anything ..
(which in my case is several times a day!)
I'm not suggesting that we ignore the Intention Experiment -
I think it's a wonderful down-to-Earth spiritual practice to
stop everything for 10 minutes a day and pray for World Peace.
And I hope those of us who join this prayer-chain will continue
long after the experiment is over.
What I am saying, is that our own power to exact change is
not dependent upon thousands of other people outside of us -
we ourselves are the change we wish to see in the world.
Which means I can't blame anyone else any more.
(And that sucks!)

Yeshua put it so well when he said
"When two or three are gathered in My name,
I am there among you......" meaning
that the Inner Kingdom of Go(o)dness can start to manifest
when we are as few as two or three.
In fact, I would venture to say, when we are as few as
one.

Me. (or You.)
As the shamans say, I (you) just have to show up!

That Unitarian song keeps coming round ..

Let there be Peace on Earth
and let it begin with me!

Blessings on Lynne McT and her team
and on all our own prayers

John O

PS Christal Temple will be holding celebrations on
Sunday 14th September
and
Monday 22nd September*
at which we will pray for this experiment,
and for peace in the world and within ourselves.
We welcome all to join us in Spirit on the inner planes.
(* the 22nd September celebration date is preliminary.)

Temple tents, the Labyrinth and Suspicion

2008-09-06T10:07:00.007-03:00

Chanting, incense, drumming, prayer....
and an ominous question .....
"Are you meditating up there?"

Read the full story here!

Stories from thousands of years ago suddenly recreated.
Funny ol' world!

Blessings

John O

Looking from outside the Temple Tent

2008-08-11T16:17:00.011-03:00

We have a Temple Tent.

Yes, it's a sanctuary for praying.
No, it isn't a yurt.
Yes, it's cramped when we are more than 5.
No, it's not 100% waterproof.
Yes, it's a place where deeper truths are discussed
and where we can work on inner journeys.

And, yes, it looks like a space-ship in the dark!
(No, this is not necessarily a GOOD THING!!!!)

Just as well that deeper truths are often discovered
in strange or unlikely places!

Joy!

John O

PS And what goes on there?
See for yourself, here!

Dumbing down, Hallowe'en and the Dead

2007-11-02T17:41:00.006-03:00

When did
the celebration of the
Thin-ness
of the
Veil-between-Heaven-and-Earth
become an orgy
in throwaway plastic
and
unbelievably bad taste?

The Day of the Dead in
Mexico,

All Saints
(with its eve, All Hallows' Eve,
now known as Hallowe'en)
and All Souls
in Christian tradition,

and Samhain in Celtic tradition,

all coincide
with that change-of-season feeling of
"everything's different now."

The veil between Heaven and Earth
is said to be at its thinnest,
we ponder issues of mortality and
remember the dead

- some we have made into "saints"
- others we mourn
- some we may even be pleased they've
"left for good."

Have they left for good?

When the veil thins
so does our hold on what is real.
What is the truth?

In this modern age we pay much attention to
political crises, wars, economic situations,
medical breakthroughs, third world disasters
and the like,
going deeply into the whys and wherefores.
We let our television news
form our days, taking each crisis
with us into daily life.

But life in the media-news-version
is not much fun,
so we buy ouselves out of misery,
or watch anything that will
lift us for a moment out of the creeping fear
that would enrol us in its march.

The result?

A tendency to live at the extremes

- either a life lived in fear of the "real"
and desperately seeking ways "out"
to bring about something better that works,

- or inanity.

We're either crying and fighting or laughing stupidly.

Times like the Days of the Dead
pull us out of this see-saw for a moment.

What we are instead led to experience
may well give new perspectives
unlimited by television news,
and uninfluenced by what malls would have us buy.

Not easy. Not easy at all.

Questions like
Why am I here on Earth?
What is the point?

Perhaps it's easier to make a joke of this time -
"it's all just a bit of fun"

- and help companies who are totally
without any sense of beauty or artistic taste,
make money out of gaudy plastic,
("ecological" plastic that they assure us
will shrink and wither with age.)

The same happens at Christmas, but
Christmas has been so overlaid with other feelings
from sentimental to "duty and service" that
the plastic is the least of our worries!

It
takes courage
to go deep

and to plunge
the mysteries of
Life and Death
and our
intimate connection
with them.

But all this IS
a matter of life and death -

for this planet,
for each of us personally.

Niceness doesn't count for much
when faced with such questions.

And orange plastic imitations of pumpkin faces
won't get us any closer to truth,
though perhaps they may
remind us that it is
in one anothers' faces that we may see
reflections of deep truth
and a reminder of
who we ourselves are.

Have you ever looked deeply
into another's eyes unflinchingly
for 20 to 25 minutes, and seen
how the worlds become revealed to you,
new spaces in the other that you
never knew?

It is a scary and wonderful thing.

Even if we can't resist buying the plastic,
let's take this Allhallowstide
as a time
to see more deeply into one another
and use this wonderful body we have
to make contacts of another kind -
of acceptance and love.

We may even find that we start to
forgive
and even understand the
"unforgiveable" and perhaps
even thank those we were pleased had left us
for what they gave.

That is a gift which will not
shrink with age.

And it will
open the veil between
Heaven and Earth.

Blessings

John O

They passed Mary Magdalen by....

2007-07-25T15:54:00.001-03:00

The Goddess of Christianity? Perhaps.
The one who Jesus confided in and the first to fully know him as risen?
Most probably.
An intended at-least-equal with James the Just, Peter and Paul in the early church?
Almost certainly.

Her festival was last Sunday, July 22nd.

Most churches passed her by, the Sunday-by-Sunday texts more important than daring to balance nearly 2000 years of supposed male religious "supremacy."
Here was a chance to re-establish in humility the Divine Feminine on the day, week-by-week the Christians celebrate Resurrection, the Re-empowerment of Human Beings.

By passing Mary Magdalen by, we lost an opportunity to be ourselves re-balanced and re-empowered by the most creative power upon the Earth, the feminine.

And "worst" of all for me ...

I'd forgotten Her day, the 22nd, until afterwards!

Two weeks ago, when we gathered to do the 2-hour meditation that the Hathors had told Tom Kenyon about, she came and was present with us. To re-balance and claim us for the greater Light.

For me, remembering this is a reminder to reclaim that Yin-creative self within, in a Yang-gone-mad-world - to be a part of the Divine Transformation of Earth, and to practice encompassing Love.

God knows, it is needed, now.

A few weeks ago, John the Baptist's day (June 24th) also fell on a Sunday. The radical Essene who demanded complete turn-around repentance. (They passed him by, too - is he over-the-top uncomfortable?) Maybe it's time for a dose of turnaround radical repentance - living Truth rather than fearful compromise. It would really help the balance, as well.

The "other" Mary, the "other" John.
Time to bring them out of the closet!

Blessings

John O

Thank God Ash Wednesday's Over!!!!

2007-02-24T21:56:00.000-04:00

Ash Wednesday
the first day of Lent in the Western church
(fell on Feb 21st, this year, in case you'd missed it)
is, for me, one of the most unpleasant,
horribly challenging, joy-deprived,
grey days of the year.

And it heralds 46 more days of self-examination,
of learning to look at the shadows within,
of encouraged austerity, quiet contemplation,
feastlessness and all those things I would prefer to avoid.

(Even if Sundays are supposed to be exceptions
in honour of Jesus' resurrection -
all Sundays are really Easter Days
in ancient Christian tradition -
yet the flavour of fasting never quite leaves.)

Come on,
I'm a Fire Boar, for goodness' sake
(sometimes it's useful to quote the Chinese!)
I love feasting and warmth and sensuality
and generosity of climates and people
and an abundance of everything wonderful -
how can I possibly have anything to gain from fasting?!!

Doesn't God WANT us to be happy?

Just as well I wasn't born Greek;
the orthodox Christians have 8 weeks!

The first time I went on a Source Breathing course,
it was on the island of Gotland, Sweden
one early, sunny-but-cold April.
(By the way, for any followers of Jesus Christ reading this,
Source Breathing was started by a born-again Christian,
Leonard Orr, back in the 1970's, as part of his search
for the literal truth behind "if you believe in Me,
you will not die!" Leonard's travels have taken him
to meetings with "immortals" that seem both bizarre
and full of that fulfillment of spiritual longing
that so many carry in these times!)
Although the course was not primarily
about receiving mystical experiences,
one of its key components was
making peace with God, in order to live a life of
empowered love and compassion as "it was intended."

I had had many deep experiences of Christ,
throughout my life, in so many ways;
of spiritual community, of wonderful praying -
for many years a church life of
musical pastoral ministry was my job -
yet, though I knew God within me,
I was still longing for that community of belief where
I could completely feel safe to let myself go with
a passionate abandon that was true to who I am.
What completely blew me over
about the Source Breathing course
was the way I was suddenly surrounded by
a group of people literally breathing Unconditional Love.
And the meditations and singing that we did
brought me face-to-face with God like a naked Adam -
but this time, forgiven and embraced fully for
who I really Was and Am.

All of me.

Completely accepted and Loved.

How did we all get to this space?
(For what we all received in terms of acceptance and love,
we also gave ....)

One of the ways was fasting!
To help us stop using food as an addiction
to hide the inner shadow.
For what is not seen and acknowledged
can never be used or transformed, at least consciously.

On Gotland, that April,
as on this last Ash Wednesday,
I shivered and froze as my body tried to shake off
my inner examination.
I yawned, longed to go to bed,
longed for anything to take me away.

On Gotland, Community held me!
And, I believe, that I also held them,
as we dared to face the inner demons that had
disempowered us for so long.

And after much breathing,
after reconciliation with God,
after waiting for food and finding
how much less I really needed than I thought,
a wonderful, strange transformation occurred.

I felt able to see forward into the future again.
Not only that;
I could bask in God's presence,
I had re-found my Life Purpose, my soul's Joy,
I wanted to shout for happiness
(I'd never, ever felt this before!)
And the world buzzed with colours and an energy
I didn't remember ever seeing.

I could look God in the face.
I could look my friends, my children,
my co-workers in the face and say
"Life is AWESOME!"

Talk about being saved!!

So,
why do I hate Ash Wednesday.

Because it reminds me that,
as with a loving relationship,
if you don't cherish Life regularly and often,
you lose...
first the point of it,
and then, eventually,
Life itself.

And so, my friends,
I am required to do some
hard work!
(Fire Boar problems again!)

But Leonard Orr knew what he was doing;
though starting to breathe fully again
takes some disciplined effort,
the rewards are stunning -

For the Breath of Living is indeed
the Holy Spirit of Life,
and breathing well is the best way of coming back to
living in harmony with oneself and everyone around.
- with good help of clean water,
wonderful sensual (in its best meaning) experiences of friendship,
and the space to be able to scream for JOY!

I needed this Lent
to remind me of Real Life,
so that I could see
God.

In vibrating colours!

Again.

May your life be
Joyous and Blest and Ecstatic.

Peace and Love

John

What on Earth are you doing down there?

2007-01-16T19:07:00.002-04:00

Down in the ditch
or behind the bump in the meadow
or in an out-of-use workman's shed
hidden under the rail-bridge,
out-of-sight,
playing, day-dreaming,
in another world.

Miles away from the cares of being "good."

And then one day,
that voice that cut into the field of fantasy,
"What on EARTH are you doing down there?"

In a brief moment,
all secrecy shattered,
all play exposed to an interrogative spotlight,
the pictures of innocence, called into question.

And then that walking home,
tail-between-the -legs,
stomach sinking, shoulders hunched forward,
wondering -
"how could something with so much fun
be so wrong?"

Many of us still have that program running -
the one that censures,
seemingly from outside, or from above.
Some of us choose to stay in religions that
honour a "war-god" who blames and threatens
if we do not behave and obey.
Some of us have denied religion access,
but secretly, the censure-program is still running
like a hidden virus, ready to strike
when we feel weak or despairing.

Actually the question is valid and very opportune -
What on Earth ARE we doing?
- but not from outside us,
but from deep within.

Some say that what is now happening to the Earth's climate
would be happening anyway
(perhaps more slowly, but the same processes,)
- they are part of the natural planetary cycle of things.
Others say that it is entirely our greed
and lack of understanding that have
brought the Earth and us to where we now stand.
If the truth is rather the latter than the former,
we might have been able to avert the disaster
that looks like happening in the ever nearer future,
if we'd acted 50... 40... 30... years ago.

Perhaps those voices of prophetic knowledge and seeing
seemed far too like adults
breaking up the child's world of enjoyment.
And now - perhaps it's too late to act,
those moments for action, perhaps been and gone.
(And just maybe, it would be happening, anyway.)

Either way, when we really look out and forward
it is difficult not to become scared, for
the nature, the size and the extent
of the hidden forces now being unleashed
are of a proportion we have not been trained to fathom.

This is absolutely not a time for blame.
It is a time for creativity.
It is a time for empowerment.
Being aware of what is "around the corner" may just
help some of us remember the empowerment we felt as children,
the "divine" connection, the invincibility -
before we were "discovered" in whatever our "transgression" was.

Sounds like the Garden of Eden in Genesis.

But let's turn it round ........

Among the Q'ero of Peru,
there is a deep knowledge that
we have never, ever left Paradise.
This knowledge is common among the indigenous peoples;
it is found on Hawaii, in northern Scandinavia, in New Zealand,
a kind of in-built pre-knowledge that speaks of the path of
growing up to spiritual and earth empowerment.
In other words -
it was our job as spiritual "teenagers"
to go against our "God-parent"
in order to find our real selves.

Suddenly,
doing "our own thing" and being "disobedient"
is actually our divine purpose, and not our "sin."
And the state-of-the-Earth and we-upon-her
exactly the right combination of what-is-needed
for us to wake up to who-we-really-are.

Yes, it is to do with the Source of all existence.
Yes, it is to do with Earth-life,
and God and the universal scheme of things.
But, most of all, it is a wake-up call to our own
God-given innate inner strength and power.
It is a wake-up call to go inwards
- to be the change we wish to see in the world
as Ghandi showed us,
- to envision and know and therefore create and manifest
another type of world,
where we co-exist respectfully with all of Earth-life
as empowered divinely-centered human beings
in something much vaster than
the "media-reality world" of conformity and limitation.

To do this, we must reopen our channels
upwards and downwards, as well as inwards,
just as we did as children,
to be our God-selves
and take upon us our power of knowing that
"All is well. All will be well."*

The invisible may well become visible
and the visible, invisible.
The weak will certainly become strong
and the strong, weak.
And all of this in a transformation of cosmic proportions.

Our choice?

- to be drowned in the huge waves of the paradigm shift

or

- in empowerment,
to surf them in Joy as, possibly,
multi-dimensional beings.

This new-world performance is actually already upon us,
like the first light before dawn.

But it is still not too late to start practising -
an opportunity we will really be blest
by taking.

Perhaps the Earth
will not have to throw us off
after all!

In Light and Joy

John O

*divine words heard by the mystic Julian of Norwich (from her work Showings.)

PS For more on our divine empowerment, see http://scripturereflections.blogspot.com

Christal Temple on Earth

Expanded States of Ecstasy?

Ultimate Tantra Summit has a week to go. Today it's about expanded states of ecstasy!They sound good to me!!!!John

PS My own interview hasn't been scheduled yet, so if you're a fan, there's still time to get in and hear me!Sign up here (it's f*r*e*e - as Joe Vitale usually says!)

Ultimate Tantra Summit

Really Knowing Earth, Divinity and Our own Place

GoddleFub and a tiny green planet on the edge of an amazing galaxy

The Future of Now - rediscovering Compassionate Personal Cosmic Power

Money Abundance, Passion, Creativity and ENJOYMENT

The Ordination/Priesting of Women and Pope Benedict

The Flowers of the Beauty of Summer, the Mexican Gulf Disaster and God's Power in us

Ascension Day

The Tantric Wisdom of Volcanic Life

Yearning

In Alignment with God

AWAKE!

Blurry-eyed!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

There will be no more posts on this blog for a while

Journeying into the lands of the Goddess

Thank you for the Back Temple Kitchen and Moving On

Holy Cross Day at Christal Temple

Websites working again

Websites hacked and down

Christal Temple Celebrations

Transfiguration - Harry Potter, Jesus and more

Happy Lammas Day

Mary Magdalen's Day at Christal Temple

Christal Temple Celebration on Monday

Being Holy

Midsummer(!) and Celebrations

Christal Temple Celebration

Pentecost and the Spirit of Fire

HAPPY ASCENSION DAY!

Christal Temple Divine Communion

Christal Temple Celebrations

Connecting with Global Celebrations

The First Dance of Easter - an ecstatic vigil

Holy Saturday - identifying with Peter or Judas ...

A passionate lesson in non-duality

Monday Liturgy at Christal Temple

Did you ever see an ULO?

Tonight - Spring in the Back Kitchen!

St Patrick's Eve at Christal Temple

Healing the Perceived Divide

Monday's cancelled meeting now on Wednesday 4th at 7pm

Ash Wednesday and Orthodox start of Great Lent

Ash Wednesday again

Candlemass and Imbolc

Be careful on the Ice!

Multifaith Gnostic Shamanic Celebrations

The day went by so fast .....

Tonight - by popular request

There is a Plan.... and the Art of Surrender

Exercises in Multidimensional Seeing

ETs, UFOs and Federal Elections

Thanksgiving in Canada

The Bridge between Spirit and Matter

The Summer has faded

When two or three (thousand) are gathered in My Name

Temple tents, the Labyrinth and Suspicion

Looking from outside the Temple Tent

Dumbing down, Hallowe'en and the Dead

They passed Mary Magdalen by....

Thank God Ash Wednesday's Over!!!!

What on Earth are you doing down there?

Ultimate Tantra Summit has a week to go.
Today it's about expanded states of ecstasy!

They sound good to me!!!!

John

PS My own interview hasn't been scheduled yet,
so if you're a fan, there's still time to get in and hear me!
Sign up here (it's **fre*e** - as Joe Vitale usually says!)