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PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY TODAY
NewsLetter
Vol. 7
Issue #07
"After seven years of searching for myself, I
found him in my bathroom mirror"
Roy E. Klienwachter
Editor's Notes...
Dear
Free Spirits,
Hello free spirits, and welcome to the July Issue of Practical Spirituality
Today.
*Summer has taken the slow way to the west coast of Canada, but it is
finally here and all I can see out my window are dozens of little sail boats
circling the inlet. There is also the sound of the neighbours lawn mower and
the smell of freshly cut grass. All of these things are uniquely summer on
the west coast. I am afraid to close my eyes because in a very short time it
will all be gone. But this is some of the wonderful things about living in a
four season area--enjoy it while you can!
*I was given a copy of "Awakening into Oneness" by Arjuna Ardagh to review.
It is a great new book published by Sounds True. It brings a very important
message and an opportunity to jump to the next level in your awareness with
the "Oneness Blessing" or "deeksha". I have had the blessing three times now
and I have already written one article about it. You can read it here:
http://www.klienwachter.com/adarticles/Article/The-Oneness-Blessing--Deeksha-/12275
There will be more to report on as I personally experience the effects of
the blessing.
*I must apologize to my friend who's article I inadvertently published a
couple of weeks ago--sorry!
*My new book "Led Down the Garden Path" is going through the process of
editing and minor changes and should be published by the end of this year. I
am really excited about this one as it is more mature than the others and
brings a profound message that may shock you. More on that later!
*Have a great summer, and I know that all you desire will come to you.
*Special
link information on my new book in Australia and New Zealand
The Editor
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Ask Before You Help
07/02/07
Recently a friend of mine submitted an article to me she
wrote about helping out in nature.
After reading the article I was so excited about how well
it was done and the message it conveyed, that I was inspired to write an
article about her. I immediately published her article to my directory as
well as the article I wrote about her.
With all the good intentions of helping her I made two
major mistakes. First I judged her situation. Over the years she has given
selflessly and has received little compensation for her efforts. From what
she has told me, people seek her advice but are unwilling to compensate her
for it. Many times she has told me she is just so tired of helping others
and not having it returned.
Knowing this I set out to write my article and direct
people to her article so that maybe they would visit her site and help her.
I did this without her knowledge and with the beautiful message of her
article still resonating with me.
The lesson in her article was very clear—sometimes when
you set out to help, you make things worse!
I apparently misjudged her and her situation. I published
the article and uploaded it to my site. While I was doing that I was having
a chat with her online. I told her about my article and how it may help her.
She read the article a little bit later and returned an email to me. She was
devastated that I would write such an article about her. I had gotten it all
wrong and I had hurt her, and she didn’t know how I could have done such a
thing. I immediately removed the article from my site before anyone had seen
it, but it was too late—the damage had already been done. It was now
personal. It’s been over a week since the article was published and she has
not returned my email or chatted with me.
Clearly I blew it. After all the articles and books I
have written with this one message in it—I did it myself. I committed
spiritual malpractice. I made a judgment and acted on it, without knowing
the intention of the soul—her soul. As the saying goes "The road to Hell is
paved with good intentions."
Because we can never know what the true intentions of
one’s soul is, when we interfere no matter how well intentioned we are, we
interrupt a natural process that can have harmful effects. This is spiritual
malpractice.
Even if the outcome seems to be more positive on the
surface, it may not have been the intention of the soul to experience that
outcome.
It is OK to offer help to someone, but it is not OK to
give it without asking no matter what your intentions are. I think this is
something we all do from time to time. We may never no the after effects of
what we have done, but we may have delayed a desired result for the other
one’s spirit. The very best we can do for another without their permission
is to wish them well. We are not interfering with a natural result and we
are sending positive energy to that person.
Sorry my friend and thank you for a lesson well learned.
Namaste
Roy E. Klienwachter
Written by: Roy E.
Klienwachter Feel free to copy this article and use it in any non
commercial way as long as credit is given to the author and the content is
not changed in any way and a link to this site is included with the article.
http://www.klienwachter.com
Roy's Quotable Quotes
(You are free to use these quotes anytime)
"Confession may be good for the soul, but humanity is going to burn you for
it!"
To download a
FREE complete volume of Quotes by Roy E. Klienwachter
CLICK HERE!
Resurrecting the Divine Feminine
“Whatever words we use to name, describe, or address God,
they are only a means to an end. That end is to speak of God. And to speak
of God is to speak of mystery. We know that each of us is created and loved
by God. Much else we do not know. We can only deduce, only imagine. But in
the imagining of God, we draw closer to her (or him) and learn to love her
children as she has loved us.”
—Baptist Pastor Peter King, Enysham, England
“The hands of God hold us up, they hold us tight, they give us strength. But
at the same time they give us comfort, they console and caress us. They are
the hands of a father and a mother at the same time.”
—Pope John Paul II, speaking to pilgrims in Rome, September, 1999.
“Until women can visualize the sacred female they cannot be whole and
society can not be whole.”
—Elinor Gadon, author of The Once and Future Goddess
Many people in modern western culture are prepared to entertain the idea of
a genderless God. Far fewer are willing to consider that the Divine might
wear a feminine face. I’ve been in many conversations with people who will
argue that I should not be offended by anyone referring to the Divine as
“He” because God is beyond gender, and it does not matter. When I suggest,
however, that if it really doesn’t matter, we could just as easily refer to
God as She, or (scarier yet) Goddess, people are often surprised by how
strange and threatening the very idea seems to them.
The reasons for the strong and sometimes violent reaction to the Divine
Feminine are ancient and deep. For tens of thousands of years, human beings
have been warring over how to define the ineffable. Recent archeological
finds (beginning in the 1980s) have demonstrated that most of Europe and
Asia imagined the Divine as Female for nearly 20,000 years. However, when
those cultures fell to more patriarchal societies, God became Male.
People in power have always known that gender does matter. The images we use
for the Divine create our reality and determine how we view ourselves, each
other and the earth. The easiest way to control human behavior is to divide
people, to convince them that certain groups or ways of being are superior
to others. Then demonstrate, usually by force, that questioning dogma is
disgusting or even dangerous. After some time, force is no longer needed.
The dogma becomes reality.
Beginning about 5,000 years before Christ, women began to be systematically
and violently stripped of spiritual power as well as the right to be
reflections of the Divine image. By the time of institutional Christianity,
God was certainly male. And since woman was the downfall of Man (remember
Adam & Eve?) it was only natural that women, who could not be trusted with
free will, much less spiritual authority, must be subservient to men. In
case there were still any questions, the Inquisition and the witch trials
were the answers.
Enter the 21st century. It is no longer necessary to threaten western women
with death for exhibiting spiritual power or questioning the masculinity of
God; we tend accept what we have been taught for several thousand years. I
grew up with a male Trinity, and it served me well in many ways. I never
questioned it until my mid-20s, when my historical, cultural and theological
studies all began leading me toward evidence of a feminine face of God, even
within my own tradition. At first, I felt terrified to continue my
exploration. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit I knew were not punitive
entities, yet the idea of a Goddess was so threatening I began to have
dreams and visions of being drowned or burned at the stake. At the very
least I wondered if I was betraying God. In spite of my fear, I found the
images that had once brought comfort too limiting for me now. I could not
turn away from the Goddess.
In August, 1997 I attended a retreat called “Finding your Path.” The weekend
confirmed my growing sense that my path involved re-introducing the Divine
Feminine to western consciousness. I struggled with the feeling that God the
Father, who had guided me for so many years, was angry with my choices. I
felt compelled to go forward with my work, but I had some healing to do in
relation to the Masculine. I wrote to God, explaining how angry I was
because of the harm that had been done to women and men, to the earth, and
to the Goddess in His name. I realized I had shut him out in my anger
Was he angry with me? Could he understand my need to seek the Divine in a
face that looked like mine? Even as I was writing out my anger, fear and
sadness I could feel the old, familiar voice in my heart—gentle, loving,
insistent. I began to write what I heard God saying to me: If I am your
Father, if I am your Brother, how could I not want you to know, worship,
adore and love Her? She is my Mother, my Sister, my Lover, my Daughter. She
is Me. I am who I am. It matters not whether you call me Mother or Father,
Goddess or God, Jesus, Buddha, Maiden, Crone, Isis, Cybele, Dionysus or Pan.
I am all of these and more...Your task here is not to find the One True Way
to me, but to open human eyes to the Divine space in their hearts, and to
make it easier for each one to find her or his own way to me. Each way will
look different! If you were able to see inside each soul in the Universe,
every being who has ever lived, is living, will live, you would begin to
understand who I am. My glory can only be glimpsed through diversity. So
yes, call me Mother, call me Goddess. Call me Father and call me Jesus. Call
upon me by whatever name brings you closest to me in this second.
Ironically, my ability to resurrect the feminine in my own spiritual life,
rather than leading me away from the church, helped me stay and appreciate
the gifts it had to offer me. I’m no longer limited to someone else’s
definitions of who God is, so I can enjoy the rituals, music and connections
to my ancestors. I’m happy to pass a richer understanding of our heritage on
to my daughters. I do still call upon the Father, and upon Jesus. More often
I speak to the Otherworld through Mary, Brigid, Kwan Yin or the Holy Spirit.
At least for now. Kimberly Schneider is a Licensed Professional Counselor
who draws upon ancient and modern healing methods to assist clients in
reconnecting with the Divine and with their authentic selves. She has a
Master's Degree in Counseling with an emphasis in women’s spirituality, as
well as a degree in law. www.findsforseekers.com
New Testament
Come back to Me,
Daughter of Earth,
and reclaim your holiness!
I am your Mother:
The Feminine Principle;
The Great Goddess.
You may not remember me,
for you were torn from my breast long ago.
I have been beaten, bruised and buried;
I have been raped, then scorned, then ignored.
You have worn my sorrow on your face.
You have carried my shame in your womb.
And you have run in terror
from that emptiness in your soul
that lives where my spirit once held you.
You may have heard that I am dead.
But I am alive! I am alive! I am alive!
And I have come to show you
how to redeem
yourself.
Come back to Me,
and I will show you the secrets:
of holy fire, of wind, water and earth.
I will make your heart soar
and your spirit sing
and your body dance.
Move with me. Feel my rhythm
beat within your breast.
Let the flow of my love carry you
down and in,
down and in
down and in….
There, in that dark secret place
you will find Me.
You will find all women
and you will find
your Self.
Rise up daughter,
and cast off your shame.
Stand tall and free
in the strength of my Love.
Feel my Breath
resting sweetly on your lips.
Hear my Voice
rising sure and steady from your heart.
Experience my power
in the cycles of your blood.
I am alive.
And you
Are my Testament.
Come back.
©Kimberly Schneider, 1998
www.findsforseekers.com
Article Source: http://www.klienwachter.com
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Don't Look to God for Change--He is Looking to You For
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Thank you for all your support... Live well and
Prosper, R.K.
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