Venture Fourth Weekly Work
Week Twenty-Four July 17, 2010

Dear Venture Fourth friends,

It was good to talk to all of you these past two weeks. With many, but not all of you, we got into discussion of the assignment below, from letter #23:

1) Donald Rothberg's The Engaged Spiritual Life. I want you to read chapters one through three carefully. It's fine to read the whole book but it's okay if you only get to page 90. We have plenty of time for the rest of the book later on. Read those first chapters carefully and practice with the exercises.

We have six weeks until the intensive. I want you to take one precept a week, such as non-harm, and look at that precept in relationship to your short list of qualities, the specific ones with which you have been working. For example, a number of you are working with humility; how does it connect with the precept for not killing and for non-harm? Another one many of you are working with is patience. How does that relate to the precept to non-harm. Does deep attention to the precept help you to stay more centered with the quality? Learn how they go together. Responsibility; kindness; gratitude; karuna. . . . whatever several qualities are your own special focus.

How does deep attention to not taking what is not freely given support your investigation of your special qualities? As personal example, humility is one of the present qualities I'm working with. I was just at a large family wedding, a three day affair, lots of talk with folks I have not seen for years. I watched the swing, talking too much or too little, shifting from pride to some slight edge of "no one will want to hear that. . . ." I watched this swing with the precepts of non-harm, not taking what is not mine, and right speech. It made me much more aware of the habits I carry, of the swing out of center, and I was able to share in comfortable and appropriate ways and with ease and joy.

Five weeks: five precepts. Work with his exercises. We'll spend time talking about this at the intensive. When I meet with you in early July, I want to focus part of our meeting on what you are doing with this. Please include in your journals too, those who are still writing them.

I am attaching a document on the elements and it will also be on the VF web site. Please familiarize yourself with this material and please print it and bring it with you.

I'm also attaching a draft of our schedule, as well as pasting it in the body of this email. I look forward to seeing you all in 12 days.

With love, Barbara

Schedule For Intensive 4 – Overall Day Plan

6AM: optional wake up

6:30: optional meditation sitting

6:45: second wake up bell for those not meditating. 

7:15: breakfast; verbal silence though the night, until mid-breakfast;

7:45 bell will sound to open the day to speech.

8:15: meditation – all: silent and "Tuning". 

9:00: morning session

12-2: lunch/ rest/ walk...

2:00 afternoon session

5:00 relaxed time

5:30: supper and clean up. 

6:30: meditation period while clean up is finished.

7-9: evening session (could go to 9:30).

9:00: silent meditation

9:30: rest; re-enter silence until mid breakfast.

(draft; things may change a bit)

Wednesday evening: go around, brief orientation from Aaron,

Then silent sitting

Thursday AM: If weather is bad, we will shift this to another day, maybe change Thursday morning and Saturday.

Optional early meditation/ breakfast

8:15AM meditation: all

9AM- 12 Weather permitting, elements practice by the lake. Short talks from Aaron interspersed with practice. We will be in and out of the water and playing with sand or clay; this is a fully experiential investigation of the elements.

12-2 rest

2PM – 5:00 Mini sound/ harmonics workshop with Norma Gentile – from her website. http://healingchants.com/

In Sound Shamanism the music (or the spoken voice) is the medium upon which healing flows. We will explore the power of sound to hold space for the healing of ourselves, other people or world situations. This is a nice blend of energy information for healers and experiential group toning that everyone can enjoy. All are welcome regardless of musical background. My aim is to give you practical ideas you can take with you to other healing groups, chant or drumming groups and out into your daily life

As a group we will use chanting, toning and quiet meditations to open our physical bodies and energy systems to conduct greater healing through us. Norma and her guides (most likely Archangel Michael and Mary) will share an idea, then put it into practice using sound, breath, and gentle movement. Along with her Hathor guide, Atamira, Norma will often offer a sound healing with her voice and her Tibetan Singing Bowls created specifically to work with workshop participants. 

5:00 relaxed time (swim time too)

5:30-6:30PM dinner

Thursday evening

6:30 meditation all –

7:00 back to the beach; more with elements, toning, work with the guides. Aaron or Norma and her guides may do more with us. A silent campfire to end the evening will focus us more on the fire element.

(silence from bedtime Thursday to Saturday morning)

Friday all day: in silence.

Practice, vipassana and dzogchen, chakras, intention, elements, toning, working with your guides. Aaron will give some guidance and instructions throughout the day.

Friday night: talk from Aaron; silence maintained but time for questions and discussion tonight.

Saturday: We will shift gears:

Morning: Rothberg's book, chapters 1 to 3, discussion and talk from Aaron. We also will

work with some of the exercises such as the speech mindfulness exercise on page 48.

Afternoon: Satyagraha: talk from Aaron and Barbara and discussion of it. This term is central to the precepts and our Mussar work. What does it mean in our lives?

Night: Aaron talks and group discussion, from mailing #23:

Working with the beginning of Donald Rothberg's The Engaged Spiritual Life. We will share thoughts about the question, what areas of service in the world call most to you? How do we interact with our world; with love and while resting in awareness, or from a contracted place? "Who" interacts?

Possibly a campfire.

Sunday morning:

Small groups meet to discuss the ongoing Mussar practice, each with your own special focuses.

Large Group discussion of plans for next Intensive.

The Elements:

Much of the following material is from Aaron, but some is gathered from assorted web sites and much from the book Alchemical Healing by Nicki Scully (thanks to Doron's wife, Juju for this book). It is so blended that I won't always attempt to annotate what is from what source.

Always look at the whole; that is, all elements together and within each one, not just what is in excess or lacking in any one.

Earth:

Physical body/ material

Base chakra

Associated with yellow

Characteristics: physical, solid, dense, weighty, strong, structural, related to endurance and stamina, firmness; Earth contains and limits.

Balanced earth element: person is grounded, stable, secure, organized, considerate, objective, able to manifest needs.

Excess of earth element (i.e too much earth element, not enough air/water/fire in the earth element): person may lack flexibility, be stubborn, ultraconservative unable to change, uptight.

Excess of earth and of fire: person may be greedy, grasping, overindulgent.

Lack of earth in the earth element: person may be unstable, weak, lacking cohesion (can't hold things together), unable to manifest. Consider which of these would result from lack of earth/ too much air, water or fire.

Scully says:

"Earth is a combination of the other elements. It is solid and dense; it has weight and substance. It has form. It is the doorway through which all things come into being. We are born of Earth when we manifest in out bodies.. Physical healing and manifestation of anything in physical form is done with the element Earth. It is used to mend broken bones and torn or lacerated tissue. ...It can be used to build up matter and to create etheric tools used for healing. Though these tools are fabricated with your intention and the element earth, they are not fully formulated in the physical world." (Aaron says this last thought involves the pathway of intentions and akasha which we will discuss last).

Water:

Emotional body

Second (spleen/ sacral) chakra

Associated with silver

Characteristics: fluid, in motion, penetrating, cleansing, cooling, giving, responsive.

Balanced water element: person is flexible, adaptable, fluid, nurturing, compassionate, intuitive, with appropriate boundaries.

Excess of water: scattered, unfocused, hypersensitive, fearful.

Lack of water: unable to flow; stagnant (again we need to consider the overall balance. Lack of water in the earth element is different than lack of water in the overall balance of the elements, is different again form a water element that is too earth or air or fire heavy), insensitive, feeling heat, stuck. Person may have poor boundaries; also addictions (balanced water flushes both physical and emotional toxins.

Fire element:

Third (solar plexus) chakra.

Associated with red

Characteristics: hot, dry, expansive, destructive, consuming, intense, passionate, energetic. Relates to vitality, activity energy.

Balanced fire element: person is self-motivated, responsive, energetic, able to be intimate.

Excess of fire: angry, hyperactive, out of control, reactive, getting into everything but in a different way than water. Fire consumes immediately where water touches first, then may consume.

Lack of fire: lacking energy, sluggish, sloth and torpor,

fire with lack of air: may have the quality of slow coals that burn underneath, such as lingering resentment.

Air element:

Fifth (throat) chakra

Associated with Blue

Characteristics: light, open, spacious, intelligent, adaptable, flexible, free of boundaries.

Balanced air element: person is communicative, thoughtful, balanced, not clinging.

Excess air element: flighty, silly, filled with "hot air," overly talkative, gossipy.

Think of the air element with too much air and also too much fire, versus the air element that is overly heavy with water. Ice vs. bubbling lava. Consider how earth could support balance.

Lack of air: tight, claustrophobic, tight-lipped and uncommunicative, rigid. Think of the difference between lightly aerated soil and baked clay.

Ether or Akasha:

What is "akasha?" What is "ether?" From my book, Cosmic Healing: (boldface added for emphasis)

The energetic expression of the physical level is called the physical etheric (from "ether" the state between energy and matter) body. Here we find the elements that support the physical body, in their material and energetic components. This is part of the gross state. This material and energetic expression body exists in our everyday space-time continuum. Within this etheric body are the gross tissues of the body as well as the energy meridians and chakras. The next energetic expression is the subtle or astral body, which is transitional between the Gross and Causal states.

So the etheric body is below the astral, but includes the energetic aspects.

Wikipedia

Akasha (or Akash, Aakaashá, Ākāśa, is the Sanskrit word meaning "aether" in both its elemental and mythological senses.

Aaron says "Akasha," is a Sanskrit word and meaning "primary substance" – that out of which all things are formed. Nicki Scully's book names it as:

Akasha is the basic medium of creation. It contains all potential and all information– the basic patterns of creation. It is associated with the crown chakra because the crown is the doorway to the superconscious mind, the collective higher intelligence. . . . Another symbol for akasha is the vessica pisces, or more literally, the vessel of the fish. . . . The sacred geometric design comes from the interaction of two circles, one symbolizing above, the other below. When these two circles intersect one anther, the space that is created in the center represents above and below coming together as one.

Aaron has given me the image of the akasha as this: ever thought and action sends out a filament of light from the chakra in which it originates to the object. When there is no contraction, it is a silver, fine filament. When there is tension, it hits the object and comes back to me, back and forth, creating a heavy rope. The field in which all this happens is the akashic field. It is the field in which karma is created and released. It interests all the planes and levels. Much more about this and the intensive.

Seventh (crown) chakra

Associated with Violet

Characteristics: Beyond space and time, universal solvent, all embracing and inclusive, intelligent, infinite potential.

Balanced akasha: the person will be in touch with the higher self open the akashic field and able to access information, able to astrally project, inclined to service to all beings,

Excess of akasha: disoriented, confused, even comatose. Ungrounded to relative reality, spiritually arrogant.

Lack of akasha: disoriented but in a different way than with excess. Lack of orientation into the vastness of being, so the disorientation presents as rigidity, with blinders about the true nature of things, self centered, narrow.

Overall on the elements: each element contains all the other elements. The elements cannot be balanced in the larger way unless each one is balanced within itself. We will spend considerable time at the intensive experientially working with the balance of each element, to get to know how it feels when balanced, in oneself and in another person.