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Natural Awakenings Naples and Fort Myers

December 2012 Publisher's Letter: Home for the Holidays

Idyllic holiday scenes and favorite memories of family and friends gathered in a sea of love can sometimes be in stark contrast to the reality of unmet expectations many may feel at this time of year. Maybe we contrast today’s experience to some perfect moment when all seemed well in our world and we felt safe in a nurturing web of life. When our ideals of unconditional love and deep connections don’t show up to feed our hearts, holy days can magnify feelings of isolation and homesickness. What are we homesick for? Why are we feeling disconnected and how do we connect?

Deep inside, we know we are connected with a Divine Source… and each other. But how often do we consciously acknowledge that we are One? It’s as if an illusory veil of aloneness keeps us from the constant, direct experience of All-Oneness that we glimpse when we are awake and alert to the transcendent reality. I love Barbara Brown Taylor’s reminder in “The Luminous Web” (page 48): When the fog finally clears, we shall know that there is only One.

Lately, I’ve noticed that many of the conversations and relationships I’ve engaged in are richer, deeper and more openhearted than in the past. Something is stirring in the wider world. It hasn’t been easy, but we are gradually releasing old energies and stepping into grander versions of ourselves. Hearts are breaking open.

In this month’s special Awakening Humanity issue, we hear from some of the most powerful, inspiring voices of our times, people working individually and collectively to birth a whole new world. Rays of light are building toward critical mass.

In writer Linda Sechrist’s “It’s All About We” feature article, we read about thought leaders like Barbara Marx Hubbard and others that have initiated global movements intent on creating an evolutionary shift in consciousness. Thousands, if not millions, of people are collaborating around the world to prepare for a Planetary Birth Day celebration the weekend of December 21 to 23. This coincides with the ending of the current cycle of the Mayan calendar that began August 11, 3114 BCE, and the beginning of the next cycle on December 22.

Craig Hamilton, founder of Integral Enlightenment, provides an online telecourse called Awakening to an Evolutionary Relationship to Life. Recently 35,000 participants asked where they can connect with a supportive community of similarly committed kindred spirits. He observes, “We instinctively know that we can accomplish more together.”

Marci Shimoff maintains that we each have a “love set-point,” the upper limit of our ability to give and receive love. “We can’t feel more by trying to change the outside—by relying on others to fill us up—because it will never work in the long run,” she says. “We need to raise our love set-point higher; and then we will experience everything more through the eyes of love.” For seven access points to experiencing more love.

This holiday season, don’t allow a different point of view, past upset or closed heart get in the way of your being able to share all the love possible with those around you. By dropping the veil of illusion of separateness and opening your heart wide you’ll find yourself feeling at home for the holidays—wherever you are.

Happy Holidays to you and yours from the entire Natural Awakenings staff.

Spread the love,

 

Sharon