Venture Fourth Weekly Work
Week Twenty-one May 9, 2010

Dear Venture Fourthers,

I'm sitting somewhere above western Michigan on this cloudy morning, en route to Santa Barbara, my brand new and lovely laptop open in front of me. It's been almost 4 weeks since I had a fully working computer. Last week I limped through with just a few needed programs available on a loaner. Now I have my mail address book back, and the Venture Fourth files.

All the mail of the past year was gone with the ruined hard drive, so any mail you sent to me that was not saved into a folder, is gone. (The last full mail backup was last fall.) For most of you, that is probably back to my last trip to California the end of March, as the old laptop died just after that trip so I didn't get journals saved to folders.. However, it could be as early as the beginning of March. My normal process when you send journals is to copy the contents into a folder under your name, an ongoing document of your journals; those files did survive. I also do have journals sent this week.

I return home on Tuesday night. If you wish, please resend me any journals from March and April on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday, after I come home, as email is irregular as I travel. If possible, please compile them into one larger document rather than sending each as they originally came, in several emails. Thanks very much. It will help me a lot if you'll do that.

If any of you have any change in phone numbers or emails since Jan 1, please send that too. My 'address book' didn't make it through. I have an old one pasted in, saved on a flash drive before I went to Brazil last Jan.

I see the last mailing was VF #20 on March 18. Number 21, ready to go out in early April, died on the mac.

This has been an interesting process, and challenge to equanimity. I do have a back up, an off site one called carbonite, but mail was not backed up on it because of the size. And it took two full weeks before I could start the carbonite backup onto my old mac with new hard drive. The new mac had what had been saved from the dead hard drive. Then they had the be merged as each had different material. Great tech support (thank you Nicholas) and patience pulled it through. I hope to never experience it again. Now (as of Wednesday) I have two identical macs, old and new, and the old will be an ongoing backup.

On to VF things. I'm not going to try to repeat the lost mailing, just to start fresh from today.

Our first new item is a new member to Venture Fourth. A big welcome to Jim Jarvis, wife, Pam Chastain. When we started VF, she was one of the first people I invited to join, along with Jim, but they felt it was not workable for them both to participate, so Pam has followed along with out assignments and practiced with Jim. Now that Lynn has dropped out and there is space, I have invited Pam again and this time she has accepted. I know she's "up to date"with all we're doing and i think you'll be inspired with her commitment to do this work so far without the group support. So please join me welcoming Pam. Pam Chastain

I'm looking forward to meeting with all of you next week... whoops...

I just realized my i-calendar data was lost; I do have meeting times written out in the paper calendar, not with me, and intended to send them now as reminder, but there is nothing on this i-calendar! Well, hopefully, you know the times. Most are next Thursday, Friday and the following Monday and Tuesday,

Aaron and I have been looking ahead, at this midpoint between Intensives 3 and 4, at where we have been and where we are going. Intensive 4 will focus in several areas. As you already understand, we're working is a spiral, not a straight line, introducing things and then deepening in them as we come around again. This July, we'll be deepening in areas of meditation (vipassana and Pure Awareness), of supports, (working with our guides, crystals, and support from breathing, from the guides we met in our journeys with Heather, from the refuges, the brahma viharas, and more.) We'll go deeper with chakras. And especially we'll work with elements. Aaron and I have a delightful element exercise that some of you did with us on the beach at Emerald Isle. We'll spend at least an evening and day mostly in silence.

New areas for July: 1) we'll begin to look at the question of service; what forms of service are most appropriate for each, as we ask this from a centered place and not the ego. Who serves? How do we deal with the emotions that may get in the way? What happens in any situation of service in the world when there is extreme challenge? Many years ago I was at Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village for a while. One of the nuns spoke about a situation where some Vietnamese boat people were adrift and in grave danger of drowning and Thay had been asked to help. Everyone was "on it, " working feverishly to find a solution and save these people's lives. The lunch bell rang and Thay said, "We must go to eat."The nun said, "Even now, with this urgency?" He replied, "Especially now."Meals were held in partial silence and he said they all needed that time to re-center. All the skills you are learning will support this re-centering.

We will read Donald Rothberg's book, The Engaged Spiritual Life, Beacon Press, Boston, 2006. It is available from Amazon. I bought a copy at Border's. Donald is a teacher at Spirit Rock and an advocate of living dharma in the world from a place of spirit. I am hoping he will be able to come next May for Intensive 6. Donald and I are exploring it together. Please read this book this spring, before the intensive, just as a place to start as you address the questions, who serves, where and how?

We'll also work in Intensive 4 with more deeply knowing our wholeness. Here we will go deeper with energy practices. I have some plans for that, not yet finalized, so will wait to share them. But this knowing our wholeness is the greatest support. Buddha Nature, or whatever we choose to call it, is the base for work in the world. You've heard me talk about this; there is no denial of areas of distortion, only no self -identity with them, What supports this deepest knowing of the Center?

When I get home and have my calendar back, I'll write with suggested times for June meetings. Meanwhile, I look forward to receiving your journals and to our conversations next week.

Now we're just emerging past Nebraska at 30,000 ft.; this has been a four-state letter!

With love, Barbara