In this edition of Mystical Scuttlebutt:

A Note From Ragini
• Winter Offerings
• A Practical Tip
• Dilemma Of The Month
• Reflection
• Testimonial

Dear Friend,

;Greetings in this month of Hearts & Flowers! I’d like to remind you the 2009 Calendar remains available on the website as a free download. Please consider sending it with your Valentine to anyone you think would appreciate such musings To view and download, click here.

Also, I am again asking your help in continuing to spread awareness of the Facticity site and this newsletter as the home of the Marketplace Mystic. Many people are searching for guidance in developing their spiritual life and have not yet found their proper “fit”. It could be they are one of the many emerging Marketplace Mystics and unaware this is their path and that others are also moving in this particular rhythm.

Finally, if you have not yet attended our No More This Or That seminar, or have and know someone you think would find it appealing, please pass this month’s Mystical Scuttlebutt along as the February 28th workshop is coming up very soon.

May your February contain many gentle meetings with the Love that is beyond concept and also the very substance of your Being.
Ragini

;

No More This Or That:
Learn to navigate life’s dilemmas, opposites, polarities and paradoxes with wisdom and comfort. Highly experiential, deeply personal, and based on the Psychology of the Mystics. Can foster a profound shift in the way you relate to your outer and inner life. One Day Workshop – Feb.28. For more details & registration, click here.

Paradox Management Certification Training: 6-day Certification Program dedicated to the art of evoking Leadership Beyond Polarization. This training is designed for Coaches, Corporate Consultants, Educators and Therapists. Enter a growing international community of Paradox Management Consultants - pioneering individuals who have the practical know-how to help others navigate the paradoxical realm of Unresolvable Dilemmas in both professional and personal life. March 28 - April 2. For more details & registration, click here.

Paradox Soiree: Beginning February 20th, the Paradox Soiree will once again meet every 3rd Friday of the month through June. To attend you must have participated in a No More This Or That Workshop, or receive a personal invitation by an on-going member. The purpose of the Soiree is to deepen your ability to think in opposites and to perceive from a paradoxical perspective. The intent is to create community and support for the development of Leadership Beyond Polarization, and to more closely align your mind with the Psychology of the Mystics. For further information, please contact Ragini at 425 462 4369 or ragini@facticity.com.

    
Even as the economy offers us great opportunity for vivid imaginings of a dire future and dread of fear turning into terror, it is also paradoxically the perfect time for playfulness and joy. As the song goes, “Don’t worry. Be Happy!”. Becoming aware of how your mind is reacting to the current global crisis gives you the opportunity to flex your awareness muscle, and playfully jump in and offer your mind a number of different directions:

;- plaster a big X over the scary thought or scenario and run a positive one - run the movie backwards and then forward as a positive scenario - place a circle around the thought or image and put a line through it (the universal symbol for NO) - zap it with your awareness and send it out into the Milky Way - imagine handing it over to God, the Universe, the Mystery or whatever word fits your heart and soul

Whatever you do, you will be strengthening your awareness and your ability to move from the negative to move from the negative mind to "the peace that passes all understanding" is a big jump!; However, it can become fairly easy to step from a positive mind into the peaceful Presence of "What Is".;

Paradoxically, this is not setting up the positive against the negative. Simply allow the negative to be there, accepting it for what it is, feeling it fully, and then respond by turning your attention and creativity to the positive. Watch anything that arises against the negative, whether anxiety, hate, fear or judgment, remembering it is just a dark thought, a scary picture, a frightening sound-bite passing through the mind. Not to worry. The rhythm of duality goes on and you are learning the steps of the dance even as you read these words. Give it a try. Step aside from the fears of your mind and let them just pass on by. Then simply practice being grateful and positive for what you have right now. It’s not easy but it sure is simple!

 ;
During this month of love and valentines, what usually leaps to the front of the mind are visions of happy partners, newlywed bliss, and boyfriends and girlfriends melting and merging in starry-eyed joy. Focused on this inner ideal of heavenly partnership, most of us start comparing what we have to what we think we ought to have. Our general assumption that being in a relationship is better than being on your own can stir up a lot of trouble. If you’re not coupled, you may feel you ought to be. And if you are coupled, you probably can’t quite figure out why your partnership isn’t matching the ideal you carry in your mind and heart.

If this particular polar pair is not in your awareness as an interdependent polar pair, it can surely wreak havoc in your relationship, or your lack of one. To be polarized to togetherness as the mainstay of relating without adequate time apart creates solid groundwork for blame, fault, censure, and guilt. Likewise, to be polarized to having time to yourself as the mainstay of relating without adequate time together creates the same. And if you take either one too far, you have the makings for the proverbial power trip that saps your energy, exhausts your mind, and wounds your heart.

If you’re on your own, yet believe being together is the life you’re waiting for, your solitude can be depressing and your time with others disappointing. And if you think being alone is the only real ‘intelligent’ choice, it’s possible your solitude will morph into isolation and your time with others fall into awkward, uncomfortable, and perhaps cynical exchanges. Without understanding the interrelatedness of these two human experiences and the essential role they play in building bridges between us, neither being alone nor being together will generate the joy and pleasure they are capable of offering to your heart.

;
To manage this dilemma, approach both being alone and being together as the two sides of the coin of human interaction. Both are needed, and both arise and pass away in the natural flow of things. Whether you are in an intimate relationship or simply relating to the mailman, the grocery clerk, your boss, your friend, or yourself, human relating ebbs and flows in this rhythm of coming together and going apart. Our need to be alone with ourselves is a deep and pulsing urge to move inward. Our need to be together is a deep and driving push to move outward. By design, our nature embraces both and both provide us a path to essential wisdom and counsel – one inner and one outer.

In the context of intimate relationship, wisdom speaks to an eternal dance of getting married and getting divorced – several times a day! The need to connect and the need to separate are first cousins of the need to be alone and the need to be together. Intimate connections that flow with these natural comings and goings have the possibility of discovering real intimacy.

If you are single and struggling with the notion of failing to fulfill society’s expectation of the most “natural” way to live, then you will likely find yourself struggling with a sense there is “something” not quite right with you. Understanding your single status as a call for counsel and guidance from the essence of your Being makes the experience more workable, although perhaps no less painful in its loneliness. It is always a debate as to which loneliness is worse – the one that arises when you’re alone, or the one that arises when you’re with another.

Coming to human interaction with a richer understanding of what it means to be alone and to be together allows you to relax. You can begin to accept the texture, timbre, and feel of each experience for exactly what it is – part of nature’s circle of completion playing out again and again through the need to commune and the need to communicate – with others and with your own deepest Self. Relating is always an amazing opportunity to explore your capacity to embrace being truly alone and to open to truly being together. Embracing what unfolds within you and between you and others simply means being Present to what is happening.

Aloneness offers you communion with the Whole. Togetherness offers you communication with It’s Parts. And once you know both, your mystical eyes will see the Whole in all the Parts, and every Part as essential to the Whole. From that moment on, the dilemma of aloneness vs. togetherness will never again be quite the same.

  
To visit this month’s new Reflection highlighting St. Augustine, please click here.

“Ragini’s Paradox work is the most practical I have encountered. I went through the Facticity Wisdom School a few years ago and I still use the tools today to help me come back to my center in the midst of emotional distress and to re-charge my trust in life’s process.”  Dr S.C.., Veterinarian

To visit this month’s new Reflection, please click here.
To visit our On-Line Store, please click here.

All material (C) 2009 Ragini Elizabeth Michaels, www.facticity.com; or ragini@facticity.com