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Editor's Note

Job Search

Dear friends:

I know I should not use the newsletter to advertise that I am looking for a new job, but I am hoping that you are compassionate enough to lend me an ear, and perhaps help me out.  The company I have been working for, Harcourt Assessment was recently purchased by one of our competitors – Pearson Educational Measurement. As a result, Pearson is in the middle of eliminating all duplicate departments including the one I work in. I am currently looking for a new job, and if you have any leads, I would really appreciate your help.

I would be glad to join your company’s board of directors or something like that... : )   For the last ten years I have been working as a professional writer in different capacities; creating proposals, writing technical manuals, IT documentation, book publishing, layout and design of publications, telecommunications, marketing, and bio-medical writing. I also have an extensive IT background working with databases, doing some programming, a little bit of program management, etc. I am looking for something that might have a little bit of a creative side. If you have any leads or would like a copy of my resume please let me know. Thanks.

Heather Ash - A Recapitulation Technique That Really Works

On May 22nd, I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting Heather Ash, Author of The Four Elements of Change and co-founder of Spiritual Integrity. Heather Ash Amara weaves the most powerful practices of shamanic traditions to support each individual in the manifestation of their highest potential. Beginning in 1994, she apprenticed with and taught extensively with don Miguel Ruiz, Author of The Four Agreements, before founding the Toltec Center of Creative Intent in 2001. Heather spoke at a meeting of the Meditation Club in San Antonio.

Heather is a wonderful speaker with a warm attitude and great sense of humor. What struck me the most during her lecture, was the meditation exercise on recapitulation. She instructed us to visualize our daily events, starting with the moment we woke up that day, until the moment before we started meditating. She said that we should pay close attention to the moments in which we lost energy. Then, she instructed us to relive that moment without an emotional attachment and recapture the energy that we lost.

For me, this was a very interesting experience. I started my day in Iowa City at the end of a business trip. As I reviewed my experiences during the day, I came to a moment at the airport’s gift shop. I wanted to get a little souvenir for my four-year-old daughter, and saw myself standing in front of several small stuff animals. My intuition pointed at a cow in the back of the stand. However, my thinking mind started yelling, “Get the pink pig, pink is her favorite color, get the pink, get the pink…” I noticed that at that point in my day, I lost energy. I believe that whenever we do not listen to the Universe, who is guiding us, we lose energy. Instead, I decided to listen to my thinking mind. When I got home in the late afternoon, I took the pig out of my suitcase, and gave it to my daughter. She looked at me in disappointment and said, “I wanted the cow…”

After the meditation was over, Heather asked us to share our experiences. After I told my little story, someone asked me, “How can you tell the difference between your intuition and your thinking mind?” “Well, it’s not easy.” I said. “In my case, my intuition talks to me in a very soft tone, almost like a gentle suggestion. Unlike my thinking mind, which is very fast and loud at times.”

For those of you who might be interested in developing your intuition, I would like to recommend the book Practical Intuition by Linda Day. This book has some wonderful exercises to help you develop your intuition, and discerning between you intuition and your thinking mind.

I will be reviewing Heather’s book The Four Elements of Change next month. I am really looking forward to reading it.

American Buddhism

Rama - Dr. Frederick Lenz (1950-1998) was a warm and candid Buddhist teacher. He was well known for his best-selling books: Surfing the Himalayas, Snowboarding to Nirvana, Lifetimes: True Accounts of Reincarnation, and others. He developed a form of meditation that emphasizes the importance of focus and concentration to strengthen and clarify the mind. This type of mediation is called Chakra Meditation. It is an adaptation of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, Kundalini Yoga, and Original Zen. After 28 years of teaching, Rama inspired and motivated more than half a million students in the United States and Europe. He was an exciting meditation teacher and an incredible being of light who was able to lead his students into higher states of mind and well-being.

The following excerpt comes from the book The Last Incarnation. It is a collection of stories written by several of his students. Enjoy.