INTERSECTIONS IN TIME with JOHN WELSHONS

Posted on October 15 2013 by Fabienne Meuleman

Intersections in Time that changed my life with John Welshons, by Marj Britt

Sometimes paths of Destiny intersect in unusual ways.  Only when you look back can you see clearly how the Universe ‘arranged’ something that was so significant in your life.  It happens way beyond you having the ability to orchestrate it.

It must have been a beautiful sunny warm day in Maui with ocean breezes and the joy of being in the company of amazing souls.  My beloved friend, Mary Omwake, was having lunch with a group of people, all friends of Ram Dass, all participating in the ritual of the beach, potentially a swim, time together and good company.  Ram Dass, Roger Walsh and Mary were all sitting at the lunch table experiencing the delight of great conversation with wonderful friends.

JohnWelshons Marj Michael

Mary, Roger and Ram Dass somehow began to talk about me…and decided to…quite simply…call me on a cell phone.  I answered in California.  Pure love was the foundation of the conversation.  We talked about when Ram Dass came to Unity of Tustin not too long after his stroke, with me telling him that his ‘silence’ at Unity wouldn’t matter…we would simply ‘surf the silence’ with him.  It had all become possible because Roger had connected us.  It was 100% a benefit for Ram Dass at a time when life as he had known it had shifted.  It was so beautiful.  We remembered the Love and the Joy as we spoke.

Ram Dass Marj

Overhearing the conversation from the edge was John Welshons…  That was the beginning of what has emerged as a deep and beautiful life transforming dialogue …during one of the most difficult times of my life.  Three major life changes had happened within months of each other.  The third one, the unexpected death of someone I had loved since I was 13 years old…took me into what I later wrote about as “Tsunamis, Earthquakes and Womb Houses”…the white board of my life being erased and I experienced what I called ‘my left-brain going off-line’.

I was in deep grief.  And the Universe responded, Spirit camouflaged as John!  He connected with me about coming to Unity of Tustin for an intensive, I hosted him in my home.  He is the author of ‘Awakening from Grief’ among other books.  I was struggling to find my way through immense grief.  Our long hours of conversation guided me through my dark night.  There is a little-understood teaching:  ‘You must die before you die’.  In my life, one life ended and another life was giving birth.

It happened not through grief counseling, it happened through ‘stories’ and deep sharing.  Another of John’s books reflects it:  One Soul, One Love, One Heart.  Since then John has co-taught with me in some of the intensives for Called By Love, one about the Four Ashramas, stages of life, in Eastern spiritual traditions.  More pieces of the Vastness were falling into place.

On his first visit, John particularly noticed a book in my bookcase just outside the guest bedroom door.  It was “God Speaks” by Meher Baba, a great soul he considers one of his teachers.  I have had the book since the late 1980’s.  Unseen forces guide our way.  The visible and Invisible, time and Timelessness are One.

INTERSECTIONS IN TIME with RUSS HUDSON

Posted on October 15 2013 by Fabienne Meuleman

Intersections in Time that changed my life with Russ Hudson, by Marj Britt

In the late 1980’s, while I was in Walnut Creek, I ‘happened onto’ Don Riso’s first slim book on the Enneagram.  As I read the description of my ‘type’, I felt like I was totally seeing myself…sort of like for the first time.  What I had no possibility of knowing was that he would partner with Russ Hudson in writing and teaching and they would become, for me, the Voice of the Enneagram.  Seeds are planted.

Of course, it’s up to us to cultivate and follow through.  Now in Southern California, I learn that an Enneagram intensive was occurring in Santa Monica.  Don and Russ were co-teaching.  Going to lunch, Russ just happened to be walking behind me and a friend and I spontaneously asked him if he would like to join us as we turned into a small café.

RussHudson Marj Kathleen

It was the beginning of Russ coming many times for multi-day intensives and being part of the emerging Campus of Consciousness that I have seen so clearly in vision.  Don Riso came once…after that it was only Russ.   Classes on the Enneagram became an on-going part of the curriculum of transformation for many years.

One of the greatest gifts Russ could have ever given me was when he said that he loved to come to Unity of Tustin to teach ‘new Awareness that was downloading and emerging’ for him.  I knew it was a safe place to explore one’s edges of consciousness, edges that had perhaps never been taught before.  It was like that for me also.  It was safe because there was a Field of Love…without an opposite.

As more and more of my path integrated the Maps of Consciousness, including the Spiral, Integral and the work of Dr. David Hawkins, I knew the Stages of Development that Russ and Don had brought into the Enneagram world to be essential in my own process of weaving the Vastness.

The initial experience of ‘seeing myself…sort of like for the first time’ flowed into the emergence of what some have called The Unique Self or The Elegant Self in my own life and my passion for exploring the Vastness in the Maps of Consciousness.

With Russ, the heart and the mind dance with pure delight.  Lunches at Zov’s with Kathleen or Richard or other friends become hours long.  We find our way into Mystery whether it is the emerging edge of Russ’s travels now teaching around the world, or sharing our fascinations and travels in places like Egypt, recognizing the inter-woven mysteries of ancient cultures and friends who have been our guides.

And sometimes…I stop to remember that it all began walking to lunch on a street in Santa Monica when the Universe happened to arrange it so that we would be in that moment at the same time.  It was when we would say ‘Yes’ to a possibility that would emerge into magic that would span continents and perhaps even lifetimes.

I wonder, sometimes, what are the connections to come???

INTERSECTIONS IN TIME with ROGER WALSH

Posted on October 15 2013 by Fabienne Meuleman

Intersections in Time that changed my life with Roger Walsh, by Marj Britt

Roger’s writing about the paths of transformation in A Course in Miracles first penetrated my soul when I was the minister of Unity of Walnut Creek in the late 1980’s.  Several years later in reading the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, I found out about his convening a semester class with his doctoral students at UC Irvine where he teaches to deeply study the pre-publication manuscript of Sex, Ecology and Spirit for his close friend, Ken Wilber.

Dr. Roger Walsh with Marj

By that time I was the new minister at Unity of Tustin, near Irvine, CA.  I wrote Roger a letter and asked if it might be possible for me to be part of it and told him why I thought I would be a perfect addition.  He responded…Yes!  Ken wanted feedback on the manuscript before it was published…  It was an incredible time.

We sometimes don’t act upon all of the ways that the Universe brings to us.  This time is an example of ‘acting’…and also of not ‘acting upon’ a significant moment.  Ken’s primary spiritual path had come out of the Buddhist tradition.  All through these gatherings, we read Buddhist scriptural references.  My often response was something like ‘in the Bible, it is spoken of this way…’  These were Bible references, all coming out of my own deep immersion in a fundamentalist Christian path from my childhood, still imprinted even though my path had emerged from ‘literal’ to symbolic and transcended into the mystical.

One day Roger wrote down Ken’s personal home address and asked me to write all of this down and send it to Ken.  He also said to put a note on the outside of the envelope because Ken didn’t always open his mail!  With my ‘busy schedule’, I never followed through.  I’ve often wondered what might have been if I had…  We can miss potential significant crossings…

The last day of those gatherings, Roger taught the Zen Ox-Herding pictures with visual slides.  I’m still teaching them…the last stage is the 8th Site in Unity of Tustin’s beautiful meditation gardens.  It is about coming back into the marketplace with gift-bestowing hands.  Now, I know I am living it.

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Roger has been a profound gift in my life, an incredible friend…over all these years.  The many times he has been to Unity of Tustin, to speak, to bring his medical students to walk the labyrinth, the ways that some of those students have returned.  I am thinking now of Vanessa and Dr. Nicolaas-John Van Nieuwenhuysen.  Vanessa is one of the angels of Called By Love on Facebook.  Nicolaas-John co-teaches with me sometimes in the intensives.  They have become like family.

Most of all, I knew the beautiful soul that Roger is when he just ‘checked in’ when all the changes that I now call my ‘whiteboard being erased’ happened nearly two years ago.  Roger caring felt like amazing grace.  It’s strange that even very strong spiritual teachers can go through ‘wipe outs’.  That’s when one really knows who their true friends are…

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