Did you ever think a challenge could be celebrated? Celebrate? Ugh! Me neither until yesterday during the Spiritual Spa Day when my eyes opened to how celebrating could be a tool for transcendence. Then Spirit bonked me on the head! “Wake up! You can move that fear of the challenge into abundance. How? Gratitude! Be thankful for every thing and every one God has given you.”
And so the day went with Nick Segal and Deborah Allen-Segal as they brought us through “the lessons” they called it, with a delightful sense of humor and poignant revelations about their own experiences of transcending fear into abundance, stepping through the challenges (the lessons), allowing the challenges to remind them to thank God for their lives, for their family, for whatever they had.
If you’ve had the opportunity to be mentored by Nick and Deborah on abundance, you know that anything can happen–beyond the plan for the day, beyond our expectations, beyond any thought about logic or expectation. So about a half hour into the morning session, Deborah veered from the script (“Oh oh,” Nick was heard to say) Deborah stood up and with excitement and immediacy in her voice, she asked for some paper. We gave her some plain white paper and then she said she wanted everyone to have a piece of paper. We rushed around delivering paper to each participant (and there were 80 that day).
Check out the photos and you’ll see Deborah had us all poke a tiny hole in the paper to look through. We could see very little. Then we tore a bigger hole and could see some more. Then Deborah tore a great big hole in her paper and plastered the remaining circle around her face, and the lesson she gave us, just like John-Roger did years ago, was that the bigger the opening we have to receive, the more of God’s abundance is available to us. How fun is that!
Then she began to tear up her piece of paper into little pieces symbolizing letting go of the past, letting go of the fear or anything that blocks our awareness of Spirit, anything that stops us from being present with the Spirit. And we all did the same. Well, after that fun and demonstration of how to let the Spirit touch us deeply, we were guided into a meditation to anchor the awareness.
We shared our experiences, and from what I heard participants say, in the very short time we had together, mountains moved, clouds lifted, and smiles and nods of agreement abounded throughout the group.
Then came brunch–a beautiful and delicious spread of salads, fruits, gluten-free pancakes with warm maple syrup and whipped cream, chicken apple sausages, and scrambled eggs. Topping off the meal were organic coffee and tea–all prepared by our delightful team of Chefs Guillaume and Claudie Botte and their assistants.
In the afternoon we carried the theme of gratitude and celebrating the lessons into the labyrinth. Nick explained not only the logistics of walking the labyrinth in a group, but how rich the experience can be if we set an intention to lift and let go. When we came back from walking the beautiful and sacred travertine marble outdoor labyrinth in the gardens there was more sharing, and some beautiful music that again anchored in our experiences. Thanks to Barbara Wieland for her melodic piano music both as the day got started and again during brunch.
At the end of the day, Deborah shared her experience of studying MSIA’s Soul Awareness Discourses, a course of study that is at the heart of the universal teachings brought into the 20th century by John-Roger, and now John Morton. She was funny and genuine in her enthusiasm for the Discourses, which warmed the audience and prompted her to admit she couldn’t help but “sell” them because they changed her life in such a positive way. If you are interested in learning more about Soul Awareness Discourses, click here.
Heartfelt thanks to Nick and Deborah for a profound look at celebrating God and opening up the channels to abundance through gratitude.
The next Spiritual Spa Day is on Saturday, August 25 –“The Power within You” facilitated by MSIA ministers and PTS facilitators Kevin McMillan and Zoe Golightly. What a great way to follow the theme of this month’s Spa Day–Celebrate the Challenges and access the Power within You. To register, visit www.peacelabyrinth.org, or email registrar@peacelabyrinth.org., or call 323-737-4055 Ext 127. See you at the Gardens.
