Healing the Feminine Heart Women’s Workshop

Taking another GIANT STEP!

I’m looking forward to participating and assisting again at another Women’s Mindfulness and Intimacy workshop with Nancy Mortifee.

This one will be held on the first weekend in March at Cascadia Retreats in Roberts Creek – on BC’s Sunshine Coast. A wonderful way to welcome the coming of spring in 2012!

Info on registration is here at Nancy’s site, info on the event is here at the Cascadia site.

And the news gets even better!

For this event Nancy is waiving her usual fee and so there is just the cost of accommodation and food, a meta-reasonable $150 for the 2 nights (Yes vegetarian option of course).
If you, or someone you know, would like to come, this is the best arrangement you could ever imagine! Especially since the next one will be at Hollyhock, and a far more expensive 5 day intensive.

If you’ve never attended one of these workshops before, don’t worry. Nancy’s approach makes it easy to engage right away. And we promise delicious food, comfortable sleeping arrangements, and great company.

I’ve found these workshops to be so incredibly satisfying and revealing, with deep understandings just naturally emerging from the depths. It is really great to share these experiences in a group of women, too. Something very good happens from it all, which is why I so enthusiastically endorse this process.

See more at Nancy’s newsletter

Puttin’ on the Marketing Hat – does it look silly?

It seems I’m coming late to the new year, and we are already half-past January. The wave-shift from publishing the book of letters is still in process, as I’ve had to change from editing and preparing the book itself, and put on a marketing hat. I just hope this marketing hat isn’t too silly-looking.

It goes against everything my mother ever taught me about good manners, but these times are very different. What used to be called “boasting” and was frowned upon, is now “self-promotion”. What used to be called “name-dropping” is now “networking”. The game has always been the same, actually. I’m learning to overcome the barrier inside myself that says “don’t call attention to yourself” “don’t outstay your welcome” and other such adages that were drilled into me at a very early age. Now some people hire others to boast for them – the PR people or the advertisers who do this for a living. Without embarrassment. I’m not able to afford that.

I realize I need to do it for the sake of the book, nothing to do with me at all. I can get my mind around that. I certainly feel no qualms about promoting, recommending, and lavishing praise on the work of others. I genuinely want people to see and know about all the books, movies, sites, objects, etc. that are wonderful to me, and I just naturally want to enthusiastically share them. But when it comes to my own work, I feel the block, and have to use inner force to move past it.

One way I’ve done it is by telling myself that this is for Shamcher and his work (which it is) and I’m just a messenger of that (and not the only messenger either.) This works for me. Another help is to realize, as I have, that I actually didn’t even write this book, it wasn’t written with an audience in mind, but was always an intimate correspondence. Even though Shamcher asked me to publish the letters someday, and he always saw the book somewhere in his mind’s eye, it didn’t make any difference to what we wrote to each other at all. We never wrote for the public. So with that in mind, I can promote the documentation of this relationship – not as a book about MY relationship but about the inner impulse and resonance of the abstract message behind and within the letters.

So maybe the marketing hat isn’t so silly after all. I’m just helping the book reach the people that would like to know about it and to read it….

And for me to think that my little feelings and awkwardness are more important than the message within this book – now THAT attitude is foolish – I’m the one that’s silly! The marketing hat can be graceful and beautiful – and for the next little while it is the required dress code for the day.

Finally published “Letters: Shamcher Beorse and Carol Sill”

I’m excited! So many thoughts and feelings related to bringing this book of letters out into the light of day, and I’ll be catching up on that in the next while. But for now, here is a photo of me, a proud mama of  the first box of books!

Wow. It’s been a long time coming….. and now I’m so very happy to finally have the books in hand!

212 Pages, Trade Paperback, 6" x 9", ISBN 9780978170554

What’s this book about? Find out more at the website for the book: Letters: Shamcher Beorse and Carol Sill, 1974-1977

I’m just so happy – the book is available now from Amazon.com and also on Kindle. And here, direct at CreateSpace. I’m still waiting on the iBookstore, but that will come soon.

Old Friend

I’m sad today knowing that an old friend is close to his final passage, and that there is nothing I can do but send loving thoughts from a distance. I’m also sensing the collapse of my own history as it reconfigures to continue without his presence, feeling these shifts and changes. Memories of course come rushing in, along with understanding that as he lets go more and more of the life in the seen universe, he becomes a pinpoint in preparation to pass through the narrow gate. Dissolution or reunion? Natural reality reveals itself no matter what you may believe. This is the greatest human journey.

“I was a young man, back in nineteen sixties. You made your own amusements then, going to the pictures….” Incredible String Band.

Wonderful Wedding on the Sunshine Coast

It was an honor to perform the wedding ceremony for Deanne and Geordie this August, adapting the standard Sufi Universal Worship service to include their love of nature. We were on the gorgeous deck overlooking the ocean, with eagles in the evergreen treetops. Along with their wonderful family and friends, the ceremony was witnessed by all the beings of earth sky and sea who happened to be nearby.
I love being able to do this ceremony, and the others that are part of the Universal Worship work, first established by Inayat Khan in the 1920′s. Shamcher ordained me way back in the 70s in Edmonton, and since then I’ve officiated at weddings, baby blessings, house blessings, and memorial services, whenever asked.

Gastown Quiet?

Gastown is as quiet as any residential neighbourhood this Labour Day Saturday morning. Its like this every long weekend. We went to Hon’s for dinner last night and it was quiet and empty there, not the usual noisy bustling Chinatown restaurant.
This is my first time using the iPad wordpress blogging app and it seems fine. I certainly love the way the blog looks on the iPad, and will be changing my theme from the MacBook next time I’m in there. Lately it seems I use the iPad for pleasure and the MacBook for work, and since I got it I haven’t been blogging at all. But I have had fun with journalling using the moleskine app.
Next I’ll have to organize dropbox or something to find the photos I want to use. But for now, here’s a pic of the quiet street from my iPad camera, just for today, before I head out to the trout lake farmers market.

Yikes! 2011! Catching Up vs Carrying On?

Many bloggers before me have answered this Hamlet-like question, do I catch up with all that has happened up until now, or do I just carry on, one post at a time. It was the same dilemma I faced as a child, given a beautiful bound daily diary with its own special lock and key. I wrote in it faithfully for the first week, then it faded to weekly, monthly, rarely, never…. and the shame I felt when I picked up the diary, knowing I hadn’t filled up the dated pages, but – horrors – had just left them blank, letting time pass.

Yet there is the other example of all those dead boring diary entries from the 18th and 19th centuries, featuring weather reports in one line, still sunny today, or rain again. So what? So is daily and regular best? Only if there is something to say.

But now I face the dilemma, dear reader. Do I catch up and give highlights of all that has happened in the past since the last posting, or do I merrily continue on with what is in the now right now?

You know I’ve decided: I’m carrying on.

I Love “In Love with the Mystery”

Editorial work for Ann Mortifee’s new book and cd project, In Love with the Mystery, has been extremely satisfying and a personally deepening experience. Ever since I had the opportunity to work with curator Pavel Alejandro Barrios Sosa on the English translation of his catalogue essay on the group exhibition in Cuba, Los Artistas Majos, I have been yearning to editorially go deep into the meaning and implications of words on a poetic level. Ann’s project brought this to me, and it has been a great joy mining her words to ensure they are saying what her heartsoul was pouring out through her. Along with her exquisite inspired writing, there is also a beautiful music CD that accompanies the book, featuring Ann and her husband Paul Horn and friends.

The book is now available for pre-order, and it is absolutely beautiful. Photos by the renowned Canadian photographer, Courtney Milne are integral to the stunning design by Diane Jensen-Feught.

Find out all about it here on Ann’s new site.

Nancy Mortifee and I put together this new site for Ann’s work, giving her an updated web presence and a place that could be easily added to when her workshop and appearance schedule changes, and as the reviews and interviews happen around the book and other events. Just waiting for the video to come into place and it will be wonderful.

8000 Sacred Drums Ceremony in Vancouver

8,000 Sacred Drums Ceremony

March 21, 2009 2:00-5:00 pm Victory Square Park (Cambie and E. Hastings)

This is a worldwide call to Indigenous Peoples and Humankind to join together. According to a 500 year old Otomi (Mexico) Prophecy, the day when the sounds of eight thousand sacred drums join together an intense healing Healing of Mother Earth will commence. The earth we share today is in total disequilibrium. Let’s work together so we can live together on the road to Sacred Peace, in harmony with the Universe, Mother Nature, the Community, the Family and our own Hearts.

** PROGRAM:** – Gather at 2 pm – Elders opening, followed by speakers – 3 pm: Drumming circle (ALL NATIONS, PLEASE JOIN US!) – 4 pm: Elders/youth storytelling and sharing circle hosted by Indigenous Action Movement and No One Is Illegal

Organized by the Indigenous Action Movement with the support of No One Is Illegal, Anti Poverty Committee, and BCGEU.

Email: powwowlistings@gmail.com or see Event page on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=56178215317&ref=nf

Good for US but not in Canada

I was really interested in the Amazon print on demand arrangement for books that are all ready to go, and only need to be printed. This is different from their BookSurge service that does the kind of work we offer here at Alpha Glyph. At first I was very keen for it, because it combines the Amazon sales engine with your self-published books. This automatic listing is a real help, and they will also drop in an ISBN number for you, or you can use your own. I have liked using Lulu, and have been very happy with them, but there is still the issue of listing with Amazon, which this service solves. Or so I thought until I discovered the fatal hitch: US only. Drat. They don’t arrange the financials outside of the country. And this has nothing to do with amazon.ca, only .com. So I’m back to where I was before – recommending Printorium in Victoria or Lulu, or the venerable Blitzprint in Alberta (Venerable in print-on-demand years, which are kind of like dog-years.)