In This Edition Of Mystical Scuttlebutt:
Upcoming Events
Practical Tip
Dilemma Of The Month
Clues For When You're Stressing Out
Testimonial

August 13, 2006 - Opening of The Hayfield Labyrinth, Emerald Glen Farm, Monroe, WA
Facticity's own Narayana Granatelli and engineer husband Andy Olney have created a 261 foot diameter Labyrinth at the request of Dr. Susan Connor, Emerald Glen Farm owner and graduate of the Facticity Wisdom School. The 2-mile walk (one mile in and one mile out) and the 58 foot diameter center offers you a physical metaphor for moving inside to find the sacred within and then bringing that Wisdom, Light, and Love back into your outer world. An opening day celebration will be held August 13. The Hayfield Labyrinth will be available to the public until it disappears sometime this fall or winter back into the natural cycle of things. The Opening Celebration will run from 4 to 8pm on Sunday, August 13th. It will include a Ritual Opening of the Labyrinth, followed by a vibrational attunement with musical instruments. The Celebration will continue with performances by Wicked Phoenix, a local teenage rock 'n roll band, and the Monroe Community Band. Entrance is free as is parking, but donations will be accepted and passed on to The Monroe Arts Council. For details or more information, call Narayana @ 425 681 0017, or Susan @ 360 794 7877. Don't miss this amazing opportunity to experience the power of this ancient meditation tool.

October 21-22, 2006 - Getting To Now
Consciousness Teacher Ragini Elizabeth Michaels will help you explore and embrace the paradoxical nature of simultaneously being both human and divine. You will identify the obstacles that challenge your ability to find the NOW and live in the NOW through the lens of paradox the most fundamental of all human dilemmas. Integrating your spiritual life into your practical daily life requires a different perspective than when living in a monastic setting or attending retreats. You will discover whether or not you are actually a Marketplace Mystic. You will receive a unique way to use your spiritual learnings to bring clarity to many confusions and concerns about family, relationship, work, success, time-management, decision-making, and the deeper issues of beliefs, purpose, meaning, and faith. This workshop serves as an adjunct to your existing spiritual path and will strengthen your ability to investigate your experience with a paradoxical eye. Location: Seattle, Washington  Time: 9:30 to 5:30 - Fee: $425 Early Bird Discount - $395 if paid in full by September 1, 2006. Click here to register.

May 20-26, 2007 Paradox Management Practitioner Certification Training - for Therapists, Coaches, and?Organizational Development Consultants.
Polarized thinking is but a stage in the evolution of human understanding. Paradox Management delivers you to the next stage for your personal and professional growth. This training fills an important gap in the professional and spiritual training of Coaches, Corporate Consultants, Business Leaders, Educators, Therapists, and Spiritual Teachers. An absolute must for anyone interested in the conscious co-creation of a different kind of world.
Please visit our website for additional information - Led by Ragini Elizabeth Michaels, Consciousness Teacher and originator of Paradox Management. -7 Days Fee: $2,700  Early Bird Discount: $2,400 if paid in full by January 1, 2007 - $2,550 if paid in full by April 1, 2007. Location: Seattle, Washington, USA  Times: 9 to 5:30
Registration closes on April 26, 2007. Click here to register.

If in the middle of your stressful day, you find yourself wishing for some quiet time, peace of mind, or just a moment to catch your breath, here's a handy suggestion so private that no-one will ever know what you're doing.

With your eyes either open or closed (it doesn't matter) shift the focus of your hearing for a moment and notice all the sounds all around you on the outside - human voices, traffic, a bus going by, a jack-hammer, a horn blowing, a dog barking, the sound of machines, a radio playing, wind chimes ringing. Whatever is there in your sphere of hearing, notice it and then invite it to move through you like wind moving through the branches of a tree. Imagine as if you could become transparent and feel the sounds moving through your body as if you had no solidity at all like a light breeze can feel touching your skin but continuing to move on by - or the feel of letting that stream of water from your shower just run over your body and down the drain.

Staying alert in that moment of just being with the sounds as they are can open the door to the silence just behind the sounds holding them like the sky holds the clouds and the sea holds the waves. And in that silence, you may also feel the vibrancy of stillness and find yourself drinking in the quiet, and relaxing into a moment of peacefulness that carries you beyond your mind. Go ahead and give it a try. Guaranteed to relax and refresh in the midst of chaos.

Dilemma of the Month: Success Vs. Failure

As a member of our modern world, you cannot escape the media-driven frenzy to be successful and to avoid failure. Of course, we know intuitively that they go hand in hand. But that is a fact most of us would like to ignore or vehemently deny, so abhorrent is the presence of failure in our lives. Many of us believe that our intent is to succeed, but a deeper inquiry at the unconscious level can reveal another story. Have you ever been so intent on sustaining the absence of failure that you actually missed not only your success but the joy of having achieved it? Too often we are so focused on avoiding failure that we paradoxically fail to enjoy, or often even notice, our successes when they arrive.

Everyone is ready to embrace success, regardless of the name we give it: achievement, attainment, accomplishment, finishing, completing, overcoming, expertise, recognition, capability, triumph, feat, victory, conquest, coup, or winning. But almost no-one desires the experience of failure no matter what label it's wearing when it arrives: defeat, subjugation, downfall, beating, crash, disappointment, collapse, let down, catastrophe, fiasco, debacle, disaster, dud, mess, flop, ignominy, humiliation, bomb, washout, or slump. So, if success and failure are in fact two sides of the same coin called Self-Esteem, what are we to do?

Managing The Dilemma:

Success and failure can be broken down into two less dramatic polar pairs: gain vs. loss and praise vs. blame. This is a useful beginning in learning how to manage this dilemma that so greatly influences our decision-making and sense of self in everyday life.? In all three pairs, each pole defines its opposite.? Gain is the absence of loss.? Loss is the absence of gain.? Praise is the absence of blame.? Blame is the absence of praise. Success is the absence of failure. Failure is the absence of success.?

When you awaken to the facticity of opposites, you enter the realization that both success and failure, gain and loss, praise and blame are all a fundamental part of this life as we know it.? You simply cannot have one without the other.? This is the actual flow we all talk about ? the flow between opposites.? This is the hidden harmony that our Mystics keep pointing to - this pattern of seemingly opposed?polarities within the flow of change.? As you begin your investigation into the world of polar opposites, the harmony between polar pairs will become your own experience.? It then becomes very obvious that you cannot get rid of failure.? You actually perceive how it is only through the presence of failure that you can paradoxically sustain the presence of fresh success.? Shifting your gaze to the larger picture, the larger system, the Whole that contains this dance of duality, frees you to relax into a fundamental rhythm of life.? The dynamic cycle of creativity itself is being born fresh and new moment to moment.

I invite you to explore in your body any inner conflicts rooted in the dilemmas of success vs. failure, gain vs. loss, and praise vs. blame. Do you want one and not the other? Are you against one and for the other? Have you set up what you like against what you dislike? Whatever you find, I invite you to explore for yourself whether you can really have one without the other. If both are necessary, how does this awakening affect your sense of self-esteem? Awareness and acceptance of the Tao of Dilemma (how it works) simply makes daily life more workable and your role within it more enjoyable regardless of whether you're succeeding or failing in your endeavors.

1) When you feel anxious about the world situation and want to find security somewhere, anywhere
2) When you feel angry and hateful about the world situation and want to blame someone, anyone
3) When you feel sad and despairing about the world situation and want to give up or find someone somewhere to give you hope

Remedy:
Take a breath and move your attention inward to the sensations of the emotion in your body. Shift your attention from the future and/or the past and come to this moment when you are filled with these sensations, these emotions, and all the stories that go with them.? This is "what is" in your moment. The content of this moment is not nearly as important in finding your inner peace of mind as the consciousness with which you experience the moment.? Embracing and accepting your moment for what it is brings you closer to finding the understanding, the hope, and the sense of security you seek arising within yourself  on the inside. However strong they feel, these emotions are not statements about who you are. They are simply feelings, arising on the inside, in response to what is on the outside. How can you know this for certain? Be aware that whatever you see, hear, or feel cannot be who you are. Because you are the one who is aware of the sight, sound, and sensation, you cannot be what you can see, hear, or feel. You can only be that which is aware of the content of your moment. Freedom from struggling with life's dilemmas is just one degree of consciousness away - just a tiny shift - that changes everything. I invite you to give it a try and explore for yourself.

"An excellent, deep, and thorough exploration of a fundamental dynamic of the ground of Being (opposites) which trips us all up at one time or another. It affected me on the mental, physical and spiritual levels simultaneously.

Malcolm MacKay, M.Ed., Therapist & Educator

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