Click here for the photo slideshow from the Outdoor Walking Meditation Evening at Prana.

It’s another warm, wonderful, well-lit summer night in California; clear and sparkly, soft, and pretty mellow. The kind of evening where the air greets you like a good host, beckoning you outside, covering you with warmth and filling you with its soft, gentle life.

It’s around 9:00 p.m. Friday night here at Prana. A PTS student is in the upper courtyard practicing Light Body movements while down below a woman slowly circles the labyrinth. From my peripheral vision, she reminds me of one of those old fashioned toy tops–disappearing from sight, reappearing a few minutes later, then disappearing again. A visitor from Spain sits on the porch and tries to get a stray cat to come onto her lap. Inside some folks are tucked away on sofas listening to a J-R video seminar. A few more people are on the front porch awaiting the arrival of PAT Retreat trainees returning from Arrowhead. When the seminar ends, several folks wander on down to the new meditation gardens to relax and chat under the stars. I see a soft lamp glowing out the solarium window and wonder if someone up there is chanting away the names of God as they drift slowly off. The crickets are keeping all of this in time to their rhythmic music. And when I listen even more silently, I sense another sparkle and magic here–the breath of Spirit that seems to grow stronger and more stronger at Prana every day.

Soon the Arrowhead trainees arrive, quiet and sleepy, a bit disheveled after a week of camping, but with a Light shining through their eyes and smiles that makes me want to do more SEs. A Prana resident helps them call for taxis to come and drive them back to their places of origin and I experience something I’d heard about but never actually experienced before–of being breathed.

I can hardly believe all this is in my backyard–or at least in the backyard of where I reside.

I remember to thank God for his blessings of Spirit; but feel shy. “I don’t give back enough to have earned all this,” I think. Some part of me, in the thanking, feels unworthy and thinks I shouldn’t have this if I don’t give more.

Light Body movements help me open, shake a few things off. I see my friend–one of the Arrowhead PAT trainees–and greet her. We load up my car and I drive her to her home in nearby Culver City–and then I return to God’s “still life” at Prana–where I continue my personal lessons with giving, receiving, expanding, contracting–all under God’s quiet grace–as warm and gentle as this California night–and look for more ways to open, share this, give, receive–and most of all, be grateful for this wonderful gift.

This is an experience I had last summer at Peace Awareness Labyrinth & Gardens (also known as Prana and where I happen to live) when I felt the presence of Spirit here so strongly I still remember that night.

For those of you new to this: Prana houses the headquarters for the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA), offices of the Peace Theological Seminary and College of Philosophy (PTS) and the home of approximately 30 Seminary student residents. It also has beautiful gardens and one of the finest stone labyrinths in the state, if I say so myself.

My love of the spiritual presence that I experience here, the beauty of our gardens and sacred spaces, my awareness of all Prana has to offer in the way of assisting people to connect to Spirit and God is what inspires my heart to want to share this more. So we tried something new: “A Dinner and Outdoor Walking Meditation Evening at Prana.” (I guess we like long titles.) On Saturday, Aug. 9th, participants donned walkman radios and listened to seminar excerpts by John-Roger and John Morton while walking Prana’s grounds. At their own pace folks could gaze in front of the reflecting pond and fountains; walk the labyrinth; sit on a beautiful rotunda overlooking our grounds, the night sky and city beyond; and wind their way through a Japanese-style meditation garden. Or they could visit the Solarium–our meditation room.

“Let yourselves be touched by God’s outer beauty; then let Spirit coax you quietly inside to the God and beauty within you,” we invited our guests.

By an amazing touch of grace that evening was another one of those “warm, wonderful, well-lit summer nights” with an almost full-moon. It was like a small prayer answered!

There are many of us here at MSIA who want to share these blessings more, so we currently offer an evening once a month with a special dinner and seminar following. Sometimes these evenings have themes, such as this one. Next month the theme is music and harmonic frequencies, held on Sunday, Sept. 28.

I was asked to write about my experience of being the volunteer coordinator for this event. I’m not sure what more I can say except that taking steps to bring about something my heart just loves is easy, fun and rewarding. I experienced a lot of support from others–and that’s the only way we can do it. Whether it was the willingness of Guillaume and Claudie Bott