{"id":7375,"date":"2009-03-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-16T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/archives\/7375-days-1-6-of-the-msia-travel-staffs-trip-to-australia-with-john-morton-2009"},"modified":"2009-03-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-16T07:00:00","slug":"days-1-6-of-the-msia-travel-staffs-trip-to-australia-with-john-morton-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/archives\/7375-days-1-6-of-the-msia-travel-staffs-trip-to-australia-with-john-morton-2009","title":{"rendered":"Days 1 \u2014 6 of the MSIA Travel Staff’s Trip to Australia with John Morton, 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Article MSIA travel staff are currently in Australia, providing MSIA Services<\/a> (Innerphasings, Polarity Balances & Aura Balances) as well as MSIA events. Staff member, Angel Gibson, provides this update from the trip:<\/i><\/p>\n

Click here to view photo slideshow by Ezra Mack from the MSIA Open Workshop in Brisbane, Australia, 2009<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Click here to view photo slideshow by Ezra Mack from the MSIA Closed Seminar in Brisbane, Australia, 2009<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Click here to view photo slideshow by Angel Gibson from the MSIA travel staff trip to Brisbane, Australia, 2009<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

DAY 1 – On the way to Brisbane<\/b><\/p>\n

Ah, here it is almost 9pm at the Los Angeles International airport. Check in has been a breeze and we’re now in the business lounge waiting for our flight tonight. Vincent and I are working away at our computers and Cleora Daily and Lesley Dupont keep us company chatting away. Lesley is feeding us a “to live for” lemon tart. Get her recipe! John Morton and Leigh Taylor-Young join us and now we’re all present and accounted for. Soon we’ll board our cozy United plane for Brisbane. We each have our own theories about handling the jet lag. Mine is to stay up for 7 more hours and then go to sleep to wake up on Brisbane time. Lesley’s is just to sleep the whole way and stay up all day tomorrow. It’s always fun to see what will actually happen. I’m looking forward to catching some movies! Well, Light to our flight and happy dreams and rest to all of us in just the perfect amounts.<\/p>\n

DAY 2 – En route to Australia<\/b><\/p>\n

I love this day en route to Sydney. Somewhere in the midst of our night time plane trip we cross this magic line of demarcation–the International Dateline–and advance one day. That means we leave Los Angeles on Wednesday night, and arrive on Friday in Sydney and Thursday just disappeared. We pass our time on the plane in different ways. Cleora and I opt for movies and try to stay up longer but sleep claims us and our fellow travelers earlier than we all expected I think.<\/p>\n

DAY 3 – Arrive in Sydney and transit to Brisbane<\/b><\/p>\n

After about 6 hours alternating sleep with spiritual exercises (S.E.s) I’m up and ready to work for awhile. The cabin is dark and just a few of us are up enjoying the mandatory break from the Internet. I look out the window and the sun is rising in a brilliant showing of pinks, oranges, gold atop some deep blue and clouds. We finally start to descend into Sydney and there is such a lovely landscape of water, inlets, bays, harbor and then touch-down. Our gang is in various states of mellow, spaced, ozone, and awake as we disembark and head for customs and the transit desk. Our stay in Sydney is pretty short while we wait for our flight to Brisbane. Somehow while moving through security to the bus for the domestic terminal, I lose my international cell phone. I retrace my steps, and with the help and Light of my fellow staff and John we search through my hand carry and purse. But it seems like my phone has just completely vanished. At first a little sad I tell myself that there must be something good in all this, but, at this point, heck if I can recognize what the good is. Still, I surrender and head onto the next bus with the rest of the gang. <\/p>\n

When we arrive at the domestic terminal it’s time for espressos–and the best mocha I’ve tasted in ages. I take the opportunity to go piece by piece through my hand carry, but still no cell phone. Some of our crew place a little seeding for the phone’s return. Ah, well, no point in wasting energy on how the phone can’t be found; it just must be time to download and work on email then. Vincent, John, Leigh and I boot up and take advantage of responding to some email that has added up in less than the 24 hours we’ve been off line. Then it’s time to board our plane to Brisbane. As we settle into our seats, my hands can’t help running over and through my back-pack again. I just can’t quite let go that my cell phone up and disappeared. All of a sudden I feel this odd shape on a rarely-used outside pocket. As I open up the Velcro, what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a little international cell phone. To my delight our crew cheer as I hold up the prodigal phone, and we celebrate its return. I even manage to get off a quick text message before the plane doors close. Ah, the simple things in life that make me and us grateful.<\/p>\n

As we arrive in Brisbane, Wendy Ingram, our Brisbane MSIA Rep, greets us smiling with bags of water and goodies. Yum! Our efficient team moves into operation with John, Vincent and Wendy getting their cars and the rest of us getting the luggage out to the pick up zone. Soon we’re on the way to the city of Brisbane and our hotel. There’s nothing like a little jetlag to keep things easy-going, and the climate here helps too. It is stress-less, like in Hawaii, balmy and breezy. Once at our hotel and settled with our rooms we meet at the restaurant which overlooks the river–paddleboats, sailboats and bridges. We are realllly hungry now and thank goodness there’s a buffet where we can quickly handle the pangs with some hors d’oeuvres while we wait for the rest of our order to come. Sleepiness is pressing in but we’re doing our best to keep up and get onto Brisbane time. We each go our own ways for the rest of the day to rest and refresh for tomorrow is chock full from morning ’til night. Cleora and I take a river walk down through the park, past interesting local birds, to the mangroves…this magical, almost mystical area of boardwalk and mangroves–a place where plants of sea and land meet. On the way we hear a band rehearsing in the amphitheatre. They sound like a cross of Coldplay and Nirvana. Well it is Friday night here almost, and the TGIF atmosphere has already started. Though our spirits are willing to play, sleepiness is starting to speak to us even more loudly. We decide to cooperate and head back to our room for rest and sweet dreams, perhaps with the Travelers.<\/p>\n

DAY 4 — Brisbane<\/b><\/p>\n

Today was lo-o-n-ng but fun. My eyes pop open at 1:30am (don’t you just love jet-lag!) so I do some email and go back to bed for a little more snoozing. Cleora and I both get up around 5am and head out to get some exercise in the quiet beauty of early Saturday morning by the river. We manage to work up a good appetite for breakfast, eating for almost an entire 1 1\/2hrs. You should taste the fruit here…papaya, passion fruit, grapefruit…for starters. There was still time left over for more email, a quickie additional run, and then dress for Services. Wendy picks up Lesley, Cleora and me and drives us to Kaye Rosnick’s home. Chris Haupt, our Aussie Services mate, joins us there. A sprite and efficient Kaye is working with Beverly McVicar in the early prep for our lunch. Paula Flynn is doing the last minute checks of the Services room. Each of us gals and Chris settles into our Service rooms and begins to focus on doing a day of Services. Once we sign up for our schedule, we’re off and running. <\/p>\n

It’s lunch time in a blink and a feast has indeed been prepared. Yummy lamb, rocket salad with feta cheese, a large assortment of breads, nuts, goodies, fruit and vegetables…everything is so tasty. We dine al fresco with a balmy breeze cooling off a warm temperature. It is delightful to visit with our Brisbane buds, and catch up with Chris who is all Aussie man. We gals are feeling pretty cocky about how awake we are as we move into the afternoon round of Services. Meanwhile Vincent with Wendy and company has jumped into setting up the room for tonight’s You Are the Blessings workshop with John Morton. As the day of Services come to an end, we’re feeling a touch of tiredness start to creep in. <\/p>\n

Tim, a soon-to-be new father (Light to you and the missus) drives us to Hotel Diana. We find the room almost ready to go and have just enough time to grab some warm caffeinated drinks to help us keep our eyes open. John and Leigh arrive and John hugs and greets those who’ve been waiting to have him sign their Blessings books. The happy hubbub is growing as the workshop room fills. Seeing such friends as Will Bickerton, Roz Jackson, and our very own Kerri Boyington and Tamsin Rothschild makes this quite a joyful night. Soon Andrew St. John takes the stage to welcome the group and introduce John to take the helm for this wonderful evening of blessings. John reminds us that even in these times when things outside of us seem to be shaken there is a blessing there if we want to look and receive of it. As the evening comes to a peaceful end the room has indeed filled and expanded with all the blessings that are being charged and received. Even though our eyes are at half-mast, we staff still are so grateful to be here and up. It is wonderful to love and be loved too! Thanks to all the assistants who handled so many aspects of producing this event. You are a blessing!<\/p>\n

DAY 5 — Brisbane<\/b><\/p>\n

It’s Sunday and we’re still getting our time clocks adjusted as we find ourselves waking up at all hours through the night. Once again Cleora and I head for a dawn arising walk since we’re wide awake. The gentleness of the air reminds me of Hawaii and we drink in the soft green of the foliage and listen to the morning wake up squawks and calls of the local birds. Then it’s another yummy leisure breakfast overlooking the river. The wind picks up and we see rain clouds starting to move in. The newspaper highlights the oncoming cyclone, Hamish, that has reached Category 5…that is moving south towards us. OK, we’re used to hearing about earthquakes, mudslides, tornadoes and hurricanes, but cyclones is different. We wonder if this weather development will affect our flight out tomorrow. Oh well, lots of Light to it. In the meantime nothing like staying present and heading over to Services at Kaye’s again. We’re happy that our energy stays up for the day, but as we drive over to the seminar location for the closed seminar tonight, we can feel that familiar drowsiness pulling at us. Ahh, no time to indulge sleepiness as we hug our friends at the seminar location. <\/p>\n

Soon the seminar program begins with Sue Heron gracefully welcoming the group as this evening’s MC. John takes the stage and right away starts regaling us with stories from his early days of working for the water quality control board in Northern California and the experiments with stickleback fish. (Not sure what stickles look like but makes for an interesting name). Anyway this was back in the early 70’s and while working near Berkeley, John started looking at bulletin boards for interesting groups\/happenings and that’s when he saw something about MSIA. And all this tied into meeting J-R and making the Traveler’s teachings available so that people who are looking for the Traveler and the teachings can find them.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite parts of this evening was when John talked about the Aussie saying “A change is as good as a holiday.” He then referenced J-R’s words “The only constant thing in the world here is change.” John went on to say that we don’t always get that this is a “holiday”. There were lots more of these gems throughout the evening too, and then John finished by taking a few questions and completing with a blessing. We topped off the evening by doing some ordinations and then went into pack up mode with the equipment. Now packing up the equipment is an exercise in focus. But when you add in some jet lag and out of body-ness, then it can really get “fun”. It took us awhile to get our four little bags all packed up, but finally we did thanks to help from Ezra Mack who has joined us as a roadie\/photographer, Chris Haupt and others who jumped right in. By 11pm-ish we are driving back to the hotel tired and happy. We still need to do some email and pack for tomorrow we will travel to Sydney. Many many thanks to Wendy Ingram, Kaye Rosnick, Marie Grant, Roz Jackson, and a host of other volunteers who assisted in making our trip to Brisbane go so smoothly and fully.<\/p>\n

DAY 6 – On to Sydney<\/b>
\nThe skies are cloudy this morning looking ready to dump the rain that is accompanying the edge of cyclone Hamish. We manage to grab one more river walk and big breakfast and then we head to the airport. Wendy Ingram leads us there. We now have Chris Haupt in tow who is returning with us to Sydney (and his lovely wife, Helen). On arriving at the airport the skies open and we’re deluged as we unload. It’s a warm, but very wet rain. We scurry with the luggage inside to find crowds of people waiting in lines that are at a standstill. The power has gone out and no one is being checked in. A perfect Light opportunity. We cooperate by standing in line with everyone else, entertaining each other with little chitchats. Then the power starts to return and we’re whisked to the front of the line for a group check-in…one of the advantages of traveling together. It’s mighty warm still in the airport, but at least the luggage and we are checked in and have barely enough time to get through security and board our planes. We hug and thank Wendy oodles for looking after us and then make a run for it. <\/p>\n

At last we’re on board with barely a few minutes to spare and as our plane takes off I’m grateful for a little rest time. The seatmate to my left is interested in what we’re all involved in, so we have the opportunity to share about what we do and what is MSIA, and he takes the time to tell us about the drilling he does in the coal fields up in the northwest. It’s a constant surprise to see who God and the Traveler bring to us, as we travel, to learn about the teachings and the Light. Across the row from us John and Leigh are animatedly talking to their seatmate about the teachings too. More fun! After a few bumps and swishes as we descend our plane lands safely in Sydney. <\/p>\n

As John, Vincent and Chris go for their cars, we ladies start collecting the luggage and setting it up outside for pick up. Our men arrive, load us and the equipment up and we’re off to our hotel that’s in a new part of Sydney. At least it’s new to me. I always enjoy exploring new places and new sections of familiar cities. Today is no exception. It’s a free night tonight so we decide that each of us can follow our own drummer for the evening. No sooner do we unpack then Cleora and I take off for dinner down by the water in one of the bays nearby. It’s sunset and the magic lighting that comes with the magic hour enhances the scenery ten-fold. We enjoy dinner watching small boats rocking in the wavy waters. I start to hear the siren call of the circular quays and Sydney Harbor. I walk Cleora back to our hotel and then jump a cab to spend a little walking time down by the Harbor and do a little advance scouting for our staff dinner expedition there tomorrow night. I could walk all night–it’s so beautiful; however, I head back to our hotel. I know that there will be more time to come. I see an almost full moon shining above the opera house and am grateful for the gift of beauty in this moment. Light ahead to our the activities this week in Sydney and to all who will be participating and our loved ones too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MSIA travel staff are currently in Australia, providing MSIA Services (Innerphasings, Polarity Balances &amp; Aura Balances) as well as MSIA events with John Morton. Staff member, Angel Gibson, provides this update from the trip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":87492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[257],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ndh-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}