JANUARY 2004,
Dear Friends,
This month I wish to announce a few things and then open the floor
to two entries of friends of ‘Angel Valley’.
Our guest writers:
The first page is an inspiring article by a dear friend. We have
a very special connection with him and he has the gift of assisting
us in shifting our minds and ideas if he feels guided to share.
Please see below for his article.
The second article was written by Sarah Franck. She shares
with us in a beautiful way about her first vortex experience at
‘Angel Valley’. Please see below for her writing.
The announcements
(more can be found on the calendar pages):
1. The Sweat Lodge comes more and
more alive. On February 7th we
will have a Medicine Lodge. Our facilitators wrote the following:
Greetings Sweaters,
A full moon is rising and the ceremonial fires will
be burning this Feb. 7th at Angel Valley for our Medicine Lodge.
We will be blessed with didgeridoo soundings of Scot Bennick, a
local network chiropractor with a green thumb who helps us tend
to our organic gardens.
In addition we will have a "Seven Chakra"
herbal blend formulated by Bill Mitchell, co-founder of Bastyr University
of Seattle Washington. The tincture is made by our own local botanist
Dr. Rochan and will be shared at the lodge.
This lodge will be a powerful experience calling
upon the healing powers of the plant people and sound vibrations.
We are honored to be able to provide this experience for you and
hope to see you here at ‘Angel Valley’.
In Love
and
Joy Debra and Don
2. On February 8 our staff member Devi DeLavie will
start his teachings on Sunday mornings 11-12am. See the calendar
and his personal page.
3. That same day we will have a Face Reading Workshop by
Julie Cox. Most interesting to learn more about yourself
and what you show the world and also to add face reading to your
toolbag as a healer or use it in any other relationship. For more
information see our calendar.
4. For a few weeks I am enjoying the company of my
mother and my daughter visiting. A unique situation that never happened
before in this way. A wonderful opportunity to increase my awareness,
appreciate and if necessary heal what has been passed on from mother
to daughter and then again from mother to daughter.
My daughter Irene Annink, a beautiful musician/singer, will
perform a concert at ‘Angel Valley’ for all of us on Sunday
February 8 at 6 pm. Feel welcome to join us on this special occasion.
5. Make a note in your agenda for the return of the
ancient crystal skull
Max on May 21-23, 2004. We are going to make it into a weekend
with special activities for skull keepers.
Love and Blessings,
Michael
and Amayra Hamilton and all of the Staff of ‘Angel Valley’.
JANUARY
2004,
From our Guest Writer:
The
Agony in the Garden
by the Messenger
God commands us is the Bible to love others as we love ourselves.
How can this make sense? If God imbues each human being with a spark
of divinity embedded within a soul, free will and a deep love connecting
human hearts to God, why would God then ask us to simply love others?
Why not just truly love the vast, beautiful self endowed to each
of us?
Infinite empowerment is the only reality
that explains this commandment. God knows that we are created such
that we are infinite and possessed of an all-knowing wisdom. Nothing
can be done to us by another that does not contribute to our greatest
good. So we are to honor and cherish the actions of our fellow man
and woman, and acknowledge their contributions to our accession.
Each human being has a power within, ultimately constrained by no
one and no thing. Infinite beings interact in a finite arena. To
love others is to acknowledge the power within us all, for all seeming
constraint is an illusion.
Jesus lived within his empowerment and became a living human example
of how to live and embody in action such power. In the Biblical
stories, his conduct is at center stage as he sees through all of
the problems and obstacles placed before him to embrace a magical,
powerful essence of the human being. Consider any story about Jesus,
and this truth shall be the hallmark and guiding principle of his
conduct. He exhorts others to find a similar power within them.
He glorifies faith only as a means to power.
Let us consider a few examples. Jesus could not be tempted from
his self empowerment by worldly riches. When the Devil took him
on high and offered him the world’s bounty, Jesus embraced God’s
power above all temptations. The self empowering universe is not
that of gold and treasure, but another realm
entirely aligned with divine goodness, truth and power. Likewise,
with those who asked Jesus to whom to pay tribute, to Caesar or
to God, Jesus looked at the silver coins and pointed to Caesar’s
likeness upon them. “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and
render unto God that which is God’s.” This is the essence of claiming
one’s power. Align your heart and your unwavering purpose with the
divine essence. Go to all of your favorite Bible stories and see
how Jesus evokes empowerment in this fashion.
There is just one story in the Bible where Jesus loses, for a moment,
his knowledge of divine empowerment. It is the story of his tribulation
in the Garden of Gethsemane. The four gospels describe the scene.
Jesus is at the place where he will be betrayed, and events are
about to be set in motion that shall lead to his crucifixion. Jesus
prays alone whilst the disciples slumber. It is a moment where Jesus
shows his humanity, in that he loses for a moment his understanding
of his divine purpose, and the sense of “knowing” truth so evident
in all of his other actions.
In the garden, Jesus suddenly seems at a loss for his sense of purpose.
Perhaps fear clouds his vision. He wavers and asks God to “let this
cup pass from me.” He asks God to not make him go forward, and asks
why he has been abandoned. I believe the moment of crisis in the
Garden was singularly the most important moment in Jesus’ life,
for he has lost his alignment with divine empowerment and must find
it again with personal faith. He must step alone into the abyss
and find his purpose again. Suddenly, that which he has preached
his entire life to others must now be lived by him in a moment of
deep torment.
And Jesus succeeds masterfully in a moment of monumental alignment.
He returns to see the disciples asleep. He is free, by God’s grace
it seems, to leave, to run - to place his human survival above divine
purpose. His actions reveal his return to power. He awakens the
disciples and prepares them for the coming betrayal. A few moments
later the soldiers arrive to take him, and he stops the disciples
from resisting. In essence, he begins “living” his role of savior
and reclaims his divine purpose. The Bible does not explain how
Jesus realized his alignment in this shift. The Gospel Luke says
that an angel came to strengthen Jesus. We can judge Jesus by his
actions, and what he overcame.
Blessed are those who are lost and then found. Each of us has had
and will have many moments when our self empowerment, our divine
sense of purpose, is lost or betrayed by us. When we give up our
true self, our true calling in life and our divine empowerment for
another person, for an external object, for worldly goods or any
external thing, we know it in our heart and in our
soul and in our desperate longing to “please make it different”
or “make it better” or “make me not do this,” when the thing we
avoid or evade aligns with or true calling. In this we suffer, and
in this alone.
Nothing will redeem our fall, other than reaffirming and empowering
actions of the self. We can look at Jesus’ life and ask why, for
a moment, did a person who lived divine empowerment his entire life
seek suddenly to evade his purpose? Then consider the power that
then followed his reaffirmation, that came to Jesus once he, himself,
from within reclaimed his life’s calling. This “coming home” to
the true self must have engendered the strength that carried him
through all the hardships and trials surrounding his crucifixion
and death. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was truly “reborn;”
all that came after his rebirth was his destiny.
Let us ponder Jesus’ agony in the Garden and his conduct. Let us
remember that being lost is only one aspect of renewing and reclaiming
that makes our knowing all powerful, all glorious, and all steeped
in faith and love. We must pass the dark night with the faith in
the light ahead, and in this faith there is trust in one’s self
and the love only such trust can engender. Never berate yourself
for losing your way. Finding yourself again merges faith with knowing,
and returns truth and power a thousand fold. We each shall find
ourselves in our own Garden of Gethsemane. We shall be alone, as
it must be for such a moment. We shall emerge from the Garden to
change the world.
All grace and power and every blessing
to you, my human companions.
JANUARY
2004,
Our guest writer Sarah Franck shares her vortex experience:
Earth
energies affect health and consciousness.
The red rocks were stunning, the mountains majestic, the sound of
Oak Creek peaceful. Combined, they lifted my spirit and put me in
a positive frame of mind. But was there really any more than that
to the stories of earth energies and powerful vortexes that make
up the reputation of Sedona? I was about to find out.
I had come to Angel Valley, a spiritual retreat center on the west
side of Sedona, Arizona. My morning was scheduled for a vortex tour
on the property. Apparently, Angel Valley was host to an extraordinary
intensity and diversity of energy lines and vortexes.
Sitting in the ‘Light’ House at the beginning of the tour, our guide
explained that Native Americans knew the power of the earth’s energies
to balance and heal themselves. Their kivas, (ceremonial chambers)
were constructed on energy centers or vortexes.
Explaining how to focus our attention in the vortexes by connecting
with the earth and the cosmos, we were instructed to close our eyes
and see what we felt. In the silence, my legs and feet seemed to
root themselves into the ground, giving a sense of security and
assuredness, while the area around my heart, felt like it was lifting
and opening. Warmth and peace filled my being.
On sharing our experiences, our guide informed us that we were sitting
on a heart chakra vortex. Moving outside, we walked to an area where
there was a circle formed from rocks. Sitting on a rock in the circle,
I again closed my eyes and with anticipation felt into the moment.
Curiously, all I was aware of was the left side of my body. The
right side seemed to have ceased to exist. Eager for an explanation
I recounted my experience. I was told that as the left side of the
body relates to intuition, the earth was telling me that I needed
to learn to trust my intuition.
A
third vortex area produced a painful sensation in my chest and back
of my throat, which was related to an unexpressed sense of frustration,
of not being totally in control of my life. The final vortex we
were led to again gave me a sense of being rooted in the ground,
a comforting feeling.
Later that night as I lay in the tipi, listening to the sounds of
the creek, I experienced a series of emotions through my body, accompanied
by pictures in my mind of past happenings in my life. As the experience
came to an end, a feeling of tranquility settled over me. I now
know that the earth has a wisdom of its own and in order to connect
deeper with myself, all I need to do is connect with the earth.
Sarah Franck.
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