On October 26, 2024, some fifty-five of us gathered at the newly cleaned out and beautifully decorated barn at our beloved Windermere Ranch for Spiritual Exercises (SEs), the celebration of a Traveler’s birthday, and some fun surprises. Many more attended online from the comfort of their homes, adding to the incredible Traveler energy-field. To me the gathering was so out-of-this-world uplifting I felt like I experienced a mini-Living in Grace retreat.
The day-long event was a delightful PTS workshop and fundraiser at the Windermere barn. And its success was the fruit of a lot of people’s labor.
This year the Whitaker family became the lead caretakers of the property and led a number of work-parties focused on cleaning and clearing out the barn to make it useable for an MSIA event once more. The Whitakers have also been wonderfully welcoming and supportive of volunteers coming to serve at Windermere, sustaining more than ever the ethos of spiritual family on the ranch.
Enter Christi Mider with her organizing prowess, and the SEs Workshop was born: a coo-ing, blissed-out, happy baby that only spit up on itself a couple of times and holds promise of many younger siblings in the years ahead.
Pauli Sanderson led the workshop and invited us to redefine our ideas of spiritual exercises. She shared a story of taking care of her dying mother and feeling guilty because she had been letting her usual Spiritual Exercise practice slip. She went to J-R about it. He asked her if she was still calling in the Light. She was. He asked if she was still chanting her tone when she ran. She was. He told her she was still doing her SE’s.
J-R further encouraged her to consider her practice of taking care of her mother as a spiritual exercise, to bring all the devotion and wonder to this action of service that she would bring to relaxing in the quiet and chanting her tone. To observe the blessings that were coming present from her action and listen to the guidance from her Inner Master.
John Morton served as a spiritual slugger doing clean up in the ninth inning of a baseball game. When he wasn’t wearing his Traveler hat and knocking the sharing out of the park, he was playing auctioneer, taking bids on tickets to shows, concerts, and a trip to Italy! An online silent auction gave people more chances to win items from the days of Mandeville.
Over lunch, before Johnny blew the candles out on his 73rd birthday cake, he invited everyone to make a wish for themselves, saying that he liked to share. And indeed, the blessing of sharing was very present in our midst with delicious food, fellowship, and friendly animals walking the land. Perhaps you, too, can make a wish now as part of the celebration that continues to reverberate in Spirit. All for the highest good, of course.
View the Photos by David Sand from the Spiritual Exercises Workshop at Windermere, Oct 2024
As a final surprise, a grass-roots effort led by Jsu Garcia turned the barn into the unofficial site of the Los Angeles Global Ministers Meeting the next morning. About a dozen people joined John and Leigh at the barn and made it a ministers meeting to remember. MC Debbie Roth invoked the peace mission of the ranch during the meeting, and John’s generous Traveler sharing spilled over into what would have been the Moment of Peace video to close the meeting. As Debbie pointed out, the live version was even better than the recorded one.
View the Photos by David Sand from the Ministers Meeting at Windermere, Oct 2024
Perhaps in the coming January our beloved Leigh Taylor-Young’s birthday party will be the next item up, as Johnny hinted during the ministers meeting. I’m incredibly grateful to all who made the Spiritual Exercises Workshop such a success, and I feel truly blessed to have joined the festivities.
