A bigger role than I was aware of! I discovered that at the "relationships lab" that is an inner way of preparing the upcoming Awakening Relationships workshop. At some point I realized that my relationships with a community - whatever kind of a community that is - is more significant that I thought it was. It is an important as family relationships, business/work relationships, intimate relationships even and it does connect to my feelings of belonging, both to the community as such and in general.

I used to seek and create the feelings of belonging through "outsider communities" - communities based on special interests such a radical politics or radical life styles or radical paths to awakening. ;-)
Interestingly, as my inner feeling of belonging, of being at home already, expand, there is less dependency on belonging to a community - and more enjoyment in doing so - in belonging to whatever community is part of my daily life.

I love being part of the small community of so called "ordinary people" (there's no such thing!)where I live and where I work as much as my busting loose pals at Facebook .
I haven't been much on Gaia for many months, but I have a feeling that I'll be back, that after focusing on the busting loose path for a while I'd like to go back and share with a broader community.  

It strikes me these days how everything is a relationship and there is a relationship between everything. A relationship is what we make it - or rather, what the consciousness disguised as us makes it.

That goes for health and spirituality too:  Our spiritual journey is highly connected with our relationship with our body, and thus what we believe is health, or healthy. Health issues can become great opportunities to explore our spirituality - and opportunities to experience our beliefs in action so to speak.

There is this saying, "a healthy body in a healthy spirit" (or is it the other way round? :-)). To me, healthy really refers to a judgement of what a body - or a spirit - should be. When we like it we say it's healthy, when we don't like it we say it's sick. But really, it just is! Spiritual experiences and physical experiences are not all that different, and are totally interrelated. Not necessarily in terms of good/bad, healthy/unhealthy, but in terms of experiencing consciousness as different, ever changing forms and expressions.

If you asked me not so long ago I'd probably say yes and have quite specific ideas about it too. As I look at it presently, I wouldn't change a bit - for one particular reason:

Money is what we make it - and I so appreciate diversity! To me it's a miracle that we can use money to experience generosity, greed, abundance, lack, tragedy, humor - anything! And then all the ways it connects to all the other areas of our life. This by itself is a miracle.

And then there's the whole aspect of money as an expression of appreciation and how it can become part of an awakening journey. I've written quite a bit about it in the post about Money, sharing and relationships - you're invited to visit and see how it inspires you.

I know the world - including the world of finances - is exactly how we want it - and that it changes all the time - as do we. So I just stay on my path of contemplation...

:-)

Moving art, definitely! :-)
Here's the list of my favorite awakening movies

The best answer ever I know to this question is that given by one of my favorite movies: Pleasantville. Watch it - it's fantastic!

What strikes me is the feeling of pride as such - of being proud of myself. Or just confident about myself. A feeling that disappeared within the first few years of my life and was replaced by insecurity, isolation, resistance.... Coming back to it now doesn't feel like pride re-awakened - more like re-opening to the love of myself, of everything that I am and have ever been or done and therefore of everything there is and has ever been. Love that has been here all the way, love that I have been disregarding. Gradual opening, gradual transition.

As I'm considering early retirement - with absolutely no idea how it will unfold in terms of money - I'm going through a process where I feel that it's equally important, challenging and freeing to be open to the possibility that I can loose everything - and I mean everything. So the other day I spontaneously imagined letting it all go. It was a rather emotional experience - it was not detached - so this way I was also able to stay very open. In that openness my eyes rested on the things that were around me in that moment. Simple things - a flower, a TV set, a cup of tea. And I was in complete awe at the beauty of it  - the perfection of  this dream! So much to enjoy and cherish in this moment. I may loose it or not (I will eventually :-)) but in the awe of what is now it has no significance whether it lasts...

The last time I whispered was in the kindergarten where we gathered a group of children and played we had a secret club. It was fascinating to watch how the very fact that we called it secret - and whispered simple things that we'd usually say aloud - made it so exciting for the children, regardless of what we actually did or whispered about. The secretiveness and the whispering as such was the key to the excitement... It was also an easy way to catch children's attention, and motivation.

It reminds me of the blog post I wrote the other day about "The secret of being unstoppable" - not to mention The Secret as such of course.... The very word "secret" is a funny way to trigger our curiosity. Not that there needs to be anything wrong with the secrets we find this way...

At the end of the day, the biggest secrets are those we keep from ourselves, silently, with not even a whisper to reveal them...  :-)

The other day, as part of the research for my novel, I went to a lecture about the native shamanic traditions of the Amazon, by an elderly anthropologist. Listening to her, I suddenly found myself almost aching for having taken a similar education - rather than the interesting, changing road that I have taken.

Then I noticed that I would probably feel the same if she had been lecturing about music, or mathematics or anything else. It was the apparent (and illusory I'm sure) singularity / simplicity / purposefulness of her life that I convinced myself was hers but not mine. Not true, but the feeling was there.

Then another observation: My life is the life of an anthropologist too: A spiritual anthropologist you could say, always on an inner journey, exploring the inner world, living there, gaining insights, writing about it....  :-)