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Last week I attended the annual Unity retreat at the Kanuga conference center in North Carolina.  The photos above are a few that I took on my phone.

The theme for this year’s retreat was “The Wall, the Walk, the Wisdom, the Wonder: Transcending the Illusion of Limitation”.  Some of the activities included rock climbing and mountain walks.  I, however, stayed with the indoor sessions, listening to excellent speakers and then doing my own exploration, walking the labyrinth, and bodywork with a local massage therapist.  I went to meditations and created my own quiet journaling time.

The two keynote speakers were Mark Nepo http://www.marknepo.com/ and Rev. Sky St. John www.unityhawaii.org.

Mark Nepo presented concepts from his book, Facing the Lion, Being the Lion: Inner Courage and Where It Lives. He talked about three arts that are part of inner courage:

• The art of putting things together (seeing things in a new way rather than putting them into the old boxes that we have created).
• The art of facing what is ours to face.
• The art of feeling what is ours to feel.

It was impressive how the work of the two keynotes worked together.  Both emphasized acceptance of our experience, whatever it may be.  It is all “part of the tapestry” as Mark Nepo called it.  Another quote that I wrote down from him was “A spiritual warrior always has a crack in the heart, that is where the blessings come in.”

This theme of acceptance (and thereby transformation of) our experience was reflected in the words of a song that Sky St. John taught us:

Let it draw near
Let it come in
Let it pass through
Let it move on

In my opinion, the purpose of a spiritual retreat is to reexamine one’s life and rejuvenate, perhaps set goals, reevaluate and prioritize.  I feel like I did all of this as well as just had fun and connect with old friends.  One thing that I love about these kinds of retreats is the depth of the conversations that go on around me.  It seems that we all come together to focus on our higher selves and see the higher selves in others.

I have just returned from a spiritual retreat which I will write more about very soon. While I was in the beautiful North Carolina location, my new iphone did not get telephone service. The top of the screen read “No Connection”.

I worked hard to put aside the feeling of annoyance. I had internet access through the retreat center’s wi-fi network so I was not totally cut off. Also, I had chosen to leave the world for a few days in order to focus on spiritual matters. I really did not need to be connected.

Since my phone did not work in this location last year I was semi-prepared to be out of reach. Despite this, on the first day I did struggle to stay positive. As I got caught up in the retreat experience this feeling subsided.

Today, I was scheduled to participate in a two-part teleconference from New York. This morning’s session was totally unavailable to the teleconference participants. After listening to silence for awhile I had to find something else to place my attention on. The afternoon session was fine for the first hour-and-a-half then cut out for about half an hour. Again, no connection.

On the email list where some of us on the teleconference were reporting the outages, someone suggested that we take the attitude that we would know what we needed to know when we needed to know it.

Good advice.

It occurs to me that I have been exposed to a wealth of new ways of looking at things and encouraged to assimilate them into my life during the past week. No connection could on the physical level signal a technical problem but on a deeper metaphysical level signal that no new input is necessary.

I have traveled a great deal in Concord –Henry David Thoreau

This is one of my favorite quotes from Thoreau because it expresses that travel does not have to be through large outer spaces. Concord was a small town but Thoreau traveled great distances in this small space, gaining insight though paying close attention to every detail.

I like this quote because it reflects my own experience. As a person who does not drive I travel on foot (as Thoreau did) and observe the relatively small geographical space that I call my neighborhood. Much of my experience is interior sparked by exterior circumstances or generated through my own self talk and will.

Yes, I think we can create our own inner experience. This is done by what we choose to focus our attention on. We can shift our inner experience by choosing something that makes us feel good rather than something that generates a negative emotion.

This is what I have learned from the teaching of Abraham. (www.abraham-hicks.com). Abraham is now calling that feel-good place the vortex. It is where we learn to create our reality by reaching for things that feel good.

Today I was reminded of this as I was watching a TV show on the home network. A couple were looking for a house to buy and could not find one that was big enough. They were looking for something a little larger than 3000 square feet and around a half-million dollars. My critical mind kicked in and I almost started an inner tirade about how some people just could not be happy, and what did people need with that much, etc, etc. Then a calmer voice took over and I reminded myself that my judgments did nothing but diminish me. Then I was able to see and enjoy the beauty of the houses they were looking at. There was an inner shift that made me feel peaceful.

Sometimes it takes an effort of will to focus on something that feels better but the time required to make a shift is surprisingly short.

Today, was a quiet day spent attending to small things. Nevertheless, I feel that I traveled far on the interior journey.

Today was a day to experiment. The result is my first webcam video.

I have spent the past few hours listening to the audiobook edition of “Racing Toward Armageddon: The Three Great Religions and the Plot to End the World” by Michael Baigent. This is a just-released book. I heard the author in a radio interview Saturday night. The thesis is quite scary but I am afraid may be true. Baigent contends that there are factions in all three major religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism that are actively working to bring about the apocalypse. He develops this argument with many examples through much of the book.

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian setting and learned (and read) Revelations at a fairly young age. I was taught that this was something that would happen, not something that should be helped along by the efforts of men. In the thirty-plus years I have been away from the church it seems that this may have changed, at least in some circles. There are also counterparts to this development in the other two religions of the book.

Baigent’s conclusion is that there must be a shift in our thinking about God, from an outer understanding to an inner understanding. This is something that I am very familiar with. The inner way has been my chosen path for many years. For the fundamentalist of all three religions, God is the external, punishing, exterior being. All three religions have an interior component which has been overlooked or considered heresy by fundamentalists. There are the Christian mystics, Kabbalists of Judaism and the Sufi’s of Islam, all of which have a great deal in common.

I, like many, subscribe to the theory that all paths lead to God which is in reality the life force that infuses everything. I also have a desire to respect all religions and as a result feel uncomfortable placing one above the other. For me respect for my neighbor’s path allows me to advance on my own. Dogma is not necessary and can easily get in the way of spiritual growth.

I do not think there can be an apocalypse willed by the divine. I believe that what is perceived as apocalypse is really transformation. The end of Revelation speaks of “A New Heaven and a New Earth.” Given all of the contradictory forces at work in the world it is easy to believe that destruction must precede this New Heave and New Earth. But, do we know that is the only way it can be? Can we imagine a different way?

I work in the IT field and have for 20+ years. I am used to things going wrong and taking the position that if it breaks then I will find a way to fix it. I deal with custom written software and have a great trust in my ability to fix whatever may go wrong there. I can not say the same for hardware and purchased software.

Despite frustration with when things go wrong I love new toys and this weekend had the experience of setting up and playing with my new iPhone. I am going from no internet access on a phone to the Cadillac version. There were only a few snarls, such as setting up my email which I hacked away at for a great part of the weekend and finally, after deleting and starting over, got it to work last night.

I tell people that one of my greatest strengths is that I am stubborn and do not let something go until I have solved it. This is a strength but also a weakness in that it induces stress when things are not working. Its not uncommon for me and my friends to say “I hate computers” when in fact we obviously love them.
When the technology is working everything is right with the world. When it is not, the sense of frustration can become almost overpowering. I realize that a lot of people have learned to walk away but for me, I hang in there until there is a solution and so bring on a lot more frustration that is probably unnecessary.

And sometimes it is the littlest things that I can not let go of. When I ordered my iPhone I ordered a clear protective cover which I put on as soon as I receive t. It fits perfectly, so perfectly that I can not get it off. So, I began to notice that there were blotches under the cover, either condensation or some kind of smear on the back of the cover or the phone itself. This was bothering me, and all I wanted to do was get the cover off so I could clean it. But, the cover wouldn’t come off. So I tried to ignore it and turn on the phone and try all of the wonderful things it would do.

So, I have been setting up my phone for two days and all I have left is to finish my contact list and I love it except for these horrible blotches. I’m sitting at my computer updating my address book when three fire trucks come roaring up my street and I jump up to see what is going on and drop the phone on the floor, pulling the USB cable out with it.

So, now I’m a little concerned about my new phone but somehow the blotches are gone.

Technology is after all a tool that is meant to be used; however, I find that I am often annoyed by relatively simple technological problems. My annoyance seems to come from the feeling that my personal experience is being disrupted by these incidents. I want my experience to be simpler, cleaner, crisper and do not have a good way of handling the disruptions without annoyance.

I believe this is a reflection of what is going on on a larger level. There is a lot of static in our experience. We have a lot of wonderful gadgets that make life interesting and fun but when they break down we somehow feel diminished.

Technology represents the best and the worst of times.

And, Technology also seems to be somehow related to our concept of time because it can be a time saver, a time waster or something that consumes much more time than anyone ever anticipated.

I have to write this. I am feeling more and more that I must say what I believe politically.

Yesterday, as I watched the tributes to Sen. Ted Kennedy I wondered why it had fallen out of fashion to be political or patriotic, especially for those of us on the left. Why has the word liberal become a curse? As I listened to the tributes to Sen. Kennedy it strengthened my resolve to say what I believe and to do what I can.

Today Arianna Huffington wrote about the spirit that died with Kennedy, the spirit to help the less fortunate and the least among us:

Ted Kennedy and the Missing National Conversation

Being a liberal is not about spending other people’s money, it’s about taking care of other people. Here’s another quote from Ted Kennedy:

During my service in the United States Senate, I have often been called a Liberal, and it usually was not meant as a compliment. But I remember what my brother said about liberalism shortly before he was elected president. He said: “If by a Liberal, they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind… Someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions… Someone who cares about the welfare of the people—their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties…Someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and the suspicion that grips us… If that is what they mean by a Liberal… Then I am proud to say I am a Liberal.”

Finally, in a day of tributes, this is the one I heard on the radio as I was falling asleep from one of my favorite Air America hosts, Nichole Sandler.

click here

Rest in Peace, Senator Kennedy, may we, as a country have the courage to continue the work that you have just begun.

Its been months since I’ve written here. I recently changed my email address to use my own domain name and realized that some folk may say, hmmm, veraholly.com, what is that? So I felt obliged to write something current before spreading the email address around to friends. But, one can not remain without a known email address indefinitely.

Webpages are processes. They are never finished. Sometimes the evolution is temporarily halted but inevitably, in my experience, it begins again.

I began my blog because I wanted to explore ideas. I was not interested in dwelling on the details of my actual life. It is ideas that move me.

Recently I have been talking with friends about my unwillingness to put myself ‘out there’ because the ideas that I support may differ from the image that I believe that people that know me personally may have of me. This is a result of a long-time habit of revealing my deepest thoughts only to the people that I believed would be receptive to them.

It seems that in the past month the anger that is publicly expressed has been ratcheted up. The health care debate has become the issue that has caused much resentment and frustration to boil over. When I look at the faces of people (particularly older people) on TV who are so angrily protesting something that may be in their best interest I feel a deep sorrow. It is very sad to me that we, as a society, can not act with compassion and find a way to give the people that need the help the most the help they need. I am definitely for health care for all people. I do not know how this can be accomplished but I know that when one person in a society is lacking the entire society is lacking.

Some of my friends feel the same way as these people on TV.
I keep thinking “why can’t we have a civil discussion?”

It almost feels irrelevant to me right now that I would feel so motivated to hide my beliefs from those around me. I don’t want to yell them or argue about them. I simply want to be respected. But, I am sensing that this may not always be possible.

I do not have the power to change another person. The only influence I can have is to put myself out there and if it resonates then perhaps there has been influence. More important than having influence, I think, is to facilitate discussion.
In order to have the civil discussion that I want I must respect those that I do not agree with. This is sometimes a very hard pill to swallow but it’s the only thing that will bring the change that I want.

No one has the right to force their ideas on others. The divisions among people seem to be becoming more pronounced. In the past this may have caused me to retreat further from everybody whose ideas I did not agree with. In a very strange way, as the discussion gets more heated I feel that this response is no longer appropriate. Collectively, we need to find a synthesis that is acceptable. That means all voices need to be heard.

I have not written on my blog for a while.
I do not know what to think of the world I am living in.
I want peace on earth.
I want to be able to live my life in peace.
I want to bond with others.
I want to fly:

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me:

Lately, I have been connecting with the energy of Abraham.

When I need inspiration I sometimes turn to Abraham, a group of non-physical beings channeled through Esther Hicks. (http://www.abraham-hicks.com). Abraham speaks in terms of vibration and teaches us that The Law of Attraction.

I’ve referred to the Law of Attraction in previous posts without definition of the term. Law of Attraction involves raising one’s vibration to match the thing that we desire. In other words focus on the thing that makes us feel good.

I have been in a discussion about why we call God father. I pointed out that often God is referred to as father/mother. I find it helpful to emphasize the feminine aspects of God such as nourishing and one who gives birth. I was listening to a favorite album of chants by Robert Gass and On Wings of Song. The song/chant “Ancient Mother” is a classic. I found several versions on youtube. This is my favorite. It beautifully illustrates various ways God has been imaged in feminine form across cultures and time.

I was reminded today of something that I heard when I was at Kripalu.

The seeker said to the guru: “What is the best practice?”

The guru said: “The practice that you do.”