In The Shadow Of The New Age, By Carolyn Baker

Carolyn Baker, Ph.D. is the author of Dark Gold: The Human Shadow And The Global Crisis. Her radio show, the Lifeboat Hour, airs on Progressive Radio Network every week. She may be contacted at Carolyn@carolynbaker.net.

Carolyn’s  NOTE: At the request of Andrew Harvey and Stephen Dinan Of Shift Network, I penned this article which was posted today on Huffington Post and which I am reposting here.

In her Time Magazine article “In Praise Of Darkness,” professor, author, and Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor speaks of “full-on solar spirituality.” According to Taylor, solar spirituality excludes the inevitable darkness of human experience which on the one hand feels ominous, yet without confronting it, the spiritual journey is incomplete.

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“Darkness” is shorthand for anything that scares me — that I want no part of — either because I am sure that I do not have the resources to survive it or because I do not want to find out. The absence of God is in there, along with the fear of dementia and the loss of those nearest and dearest to me. So is the melting of polar ice caps, the suffering of children, and the nagging question of what it will feel like to die. If I had my way, I would eliminate everything from chronic back pain to the fear of the devil from my life and the lives of those I love — if I could just find the right night-lights to leave on. At least I think I would. The problem is this: when, despite all my best efforts, the lights have gone off in my life (literally or figuratively, take your pick), plunging me into the kind of darkness that turns my knees to water, nonetheless I have not died. The monsters have not dragged me out of bed and taken me back to their lair. The witches have not turned me into a bat. Instead, I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.

While Barbara Brown Taylor is not part of the New Age movement, her brilliant assessment succinctly captures a reality which has incessantly escaped that movement, namely that darkness must be valued as wholeheartedly as our veneration of the light.

Marc Gafni: A New Age Cosby?

While American culture has been recently rocked by ubiquitous allegations of Bill Cosby sexually assaulting women spanning at least the past fifty years, a lesser-known but equally repugnant scandal has erupted among the professional purveyors of “solar spirituality,” namely a plethora of accusations against New Age teacher and former Rabbi Marc Gafni. Born Marc Winiarz and sometimes known as Mordechai Gafni, the spiritual guru, according to Wikipedia, has been accused by multiple women of sexually assaulting them, dating back to 1980, and he himself has admitted to having had sexual relationships with girls as young as 14. He was also accused of molesting a 13 year old girl over a period of nine months. I do not wish to enumerate or comment on all of the accusations against Gafni because the focus of this article is not litigious. Nevertheless, some accusations beg to be mentioned.

In the December 25, 2015, New York Times article “A Spiritual Leader Gains Stature, Trailed By A Troubled Past,” Gafni’s long history of accusations of sexual abuse was examined as well as his associations with the founder of the Integral spiritual community, Ken Wilber, and with Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey. Clarifying the definition of “Integral,” Barbara Marx Hubbard stated that, “Integral theory is based on the understanding that evolution itself is an expression of a spiritual universal force of creation embodied in each one of us as us, as unique selves.”

In Sara Kabakov’s article of January 13, 2016 in Forward Newspaper, “I Was Thirteen When Marc Gafni’s Abuse Began,” she writes, “Right now there are children in the Jewish world, and in other communities, who are being abused and forced into silence. Their parents and teachers don’t know what is happening. I know, because it happened to me. I am the woman Gafni molested when she was 13 years old. This is the first time I am telling my story in my own name.” Kabakov tells her story in depth and also recounts her healing process and her struggle to recover from years of sexual abuse and emotional manipulation at the hands of Gafni.

Only days before Kabakov’s story was released, Forward Newspaper published a daring piece that came after Gafni’s team mistakenly sent Forward a recording of them plotting a strategy of suing journalists. The tape is extremely revelatory and includes Gafni’s statement, “Let’s have a separate meeting, and figure out — do we want to sue someone and who would that be?” Gafni said to Michael Wright, his press representative, and Christopher Marston, his lawyer. Earlier in the conversation, Gafni said: “If we do decide to take action someplace, maybe the Forward would be the test case.”

Another damning piece regarding Gafni, “Gafni Faces Fallout From New Age Community,” was published by Jewish Week on January 5. The article states that, “Already some 25 New Age leaders — including Deepak Chopra, the best-selling author; Andrew Harvey, founder of the Institute for Sacred Activism; Craig Hamilton, CEO of Evolving Wisdom; author Jean Houston; and Stephen Dinan, CEO of The Shift Network — have signed a public statement disavowing themselves from Gafni.”

Perhaps the most thorough piece to date is from William Harryman writing in his Integral Options Café blog and highlighting the psychological aspects of Gafni’s devastating actions. Harryman notes that,

“One of the many things missing in the NYT article, and most of the ones that have followed, is a recognition that Gafni’s pathology is not only emotional and sexual manipulation and other forms of abuse, it is also a sociopathic personality that almost hides the malignant narcissist within. The NYT article exposed some of the controversies surrounding Gafni (which has led to the current outrage in the Jewish community and in the integral community, but in each instance allowed him to refute the allegations with no further exploration of the facts or statements by the victims.) What could have been an important document revealing Gafni’s 35-year pattern of abuses–interpersonal, sexual, and control–became little more than a PR piece for him and his ‘think tank.'”

Harryman, who has two Masters degrees in counseling psychology, states that he has worked extensively with survivors of sexual abuse, and pointing to Gafni’s repeated defense that his abusive encounters were “consensual,” Harryman argues that,

“It is also important to understand that Gafni works hard to make these issues be about pseudo-consensual sex because the reality is much darker. His survivors ARE sexually manipulated, and there are consistent reports of debasing sexuality (woman as whore), but the sexual relationships are simply the seduction that brings women into his circle of influence. Once he seduces someone, then he begins the process of mind control, shaping their thoughts and experiences so that they come to see things his way.”

Additionally, Harryman dares to use the term sociopath to describe Gafni and adds,

“Sociopaths… can be VERY charming and seductive, and if you’ll notice in some of the online statements, even those who have distanced themselves from Gafni marvel at his charisma. It is the charisma that lures women, and it also lures in supporters (financial) and defenders (students). Once they are seduced, especially the women, Gafni’s mask will begin to slip. These women discover the porn addiction, the rage, the manipulation of others, the lack of remorse, the debasing sexuality, and the inability to tell the truth. Understandably, they are frightened of him, and when they escape, they remain trapped in silence out of fear or reprisal — because if they do speak out, he will call them liars, or say they are mentally unstable, and on an on.”

In telling her story, Sara Kabakov (above) reinforces Harryman’s perspective.

Since the publication of the December 25, 2015 New York Times article, over 40 other articles from a variety of sources have been published regarding the Gafni scandal. In addition, a number of spiritual teachers and authors have spoken out against Gafni and distanced themselves from him. One of the largest networks of spiritual teachers is Shift, which recently posted on its blog a statement of disavowal of Marc Gafni with a very specific explanation from one of its members, Andrew Harvey, which stated:

We, the undersigned, have concluded, based upon direct experience, investigation, or conversation with trusted allies, that we cannot endorse Marc Gafni as a teacher in any way. Furthermore, we will not feature him in any event, publication, or online activity we produce, nor will we participate as a speaker or promote any event in which he is featured.Signed by:

Sera Beak – Author of Red Hot and Holy
Adam Bucko – Hab Community
Rev. Diane Berke – Founder, One Spirit Learning Alliance
Deepak Chopra – NY Times bestselling author
Stephen Dinan – CEO, The Shift Network
Scott Edelstein – Author of Sex and the Spiritual Teacher
Lion Goodman – founder, Clear Your Beliefs
Andrew Harvey – Founder, Institute for Sacred Activism
Craig Hamilton – CEO, Evolving Wisdom
Harriet Hawkins – Center for Spiritual Living Livermore Valley
Ross Hostetter – Founder, The Fieldwork School
Jean Houston – Author of The Possible Human
Kurt Johnson – The Interspiritual Network
Anodea Judith – Founder, Sacred Centers
Bill Kauth – Founder, The ManKind Project
Rory McEntee – Foundation for New Monasticism
Devaa Haley Mitchell – Co-founder, The Shift Network
David Nicol – Founder, Subtle Activism Network
Terry Patten – Integral Evolutionary Practice
John Robbins – Author of Diet for a New America
Ocean Robbins – CEO, The Food Revolution Network
Robb Smith – CEO, Integral Life
Mirabai Starr – Author of Caravan of No Despair
Marcia Wieder – CEO, Dream University
Claire Zammit – Founder, Feminine Power

Additionally, Change.Org published a petition entitled “Stop Marc Gafni From Abusing Again,” signed by more than 100 rabbis who stated that:

As a group of religious and communal leaders, we are motivated by the obligation embedded in the belief that whoever saves a single life, it is as if they have saved a whole world. Marc Gafni has left a trail of pain, suffering, and trauma amongst the people and congregations who were unfortunate to have trusted him. He has abused his extraordinary intellectual gifts and charisma to harm many who came to him in search of spiritual guidance and teaching. He has used professional alliances to legitimize himself by association, and thereby be able to continue creating more harm. As a result Marc Gafni is neither trusted, respected, nor welcome to teach virtually anywhere in Judaism. In community after community, those who have trusted him have had their trust betrayed. Some of those who sign here were severely mislead and even once defenders of Gafni’s integrity only to see that we too had been deceived.

Polyamorous Or Polyamoral?

Gafni defends his sexual proclivities as polyamorous, and to that orientation, he is certainly entitled. However, the trail of alleged sexual abuse documented by his accusers and those who believe them reveals manipulation, mind control, and ghastly incidents of misogynistic abuses of power over his victims. Moreover, Gafni touts himself as a “sexual pioneer” who is being persecuted for his polyamory in a manner similar to the way in which a gay man might have been persecuted for his sexual orientation in the 1950s, daring to compare his twisted sexual cannibalism with the benign sexual orientation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered human beings.

Chaya Kurtz nailed it beautifully in her article “How To Spot A Spiritual Sexual Predator:”

Anybody Who Ideologically Justifies Polyamory: If he’s really “progressive”, this man can quote The Ethical Slut. And since his predecessors in his spiritual lineage had multiple wives, certainly he should have them. While he is free to enjoy his spiritually-sanctioned dalliances, you’re in big trouble if he even thinks you’re cheating on him. After all, it’s Tantra! Or it’s Christianity! Or Abraham had more than one wife! He has so much spiritual mojo that he is simply gifting it to all the women he’s intimate with. How dare you refuse his gift!?

While Marc Gafni attempts to package himself as a spiritual and sexual revolutionary, he has shown himself to be yet another ethical train wreck–a sexual predator with a pretty face, an impressive resume, and terrifying charisma. Gafni is nothing more than a retread of an ancient archetype with which world literature is replete and religions in particular are infested. Whether it’s the prurient guru system of a variety of Eastern spiritual traditions or the Vatican’s soul-murdering path of sexual carnage among innocent children, the story is always the same: Power, control, manipulation, conquest, and psychological mayhem.

Where Are The Voices Of Solar Spirituality?

Marc Gafni is the co-founder, with Ken Wilber, of the Center For Integral Wisdom, one of many organizations promoting Integral Spirituality. According to Wikipedia, “Integral theory is Ken Wilber’s attempt to place a wide diversity of theories and thinkers into one single framework. It is portrayed as a ‘theory of everything’ trying ‘to draw together an already existing number of separate paradigms into an interrelated network of approaches that are mutually enriching’.” Gafni has been long associated with two heavyweights of the Integral movement: Ken Wilber and Sally Kempton.

In 2006, three women from a spiritual community in Israel, headed by Gafni, filed complaints with the police of sexual misconduct against him. At that time, Ken Wilber did not distance himself from Gafni but offered his opinion on the Jews School website:

I have stated my conclusion, after reviewing the evidence and as many perspectives as I can, that there is truth to some of these allegations and that this is due in part to Marc’s illness, and that as long as this dysfunction is not addressed, I do not believe that Marc should be teaching. But I want to point out that emotional illness can be treated and in many cases cured. Marc may or may not be sincere, and his therapy may or may not be effective–but that is exactly the purpose of the therapeutic board: namely, to make that decision, and not to let either of the partial sides do so. I do not know if this solution will work, but to date it is the only rational, compassionate, and fair one that I have heard, and therefore the only one which serves justice.

At that time, Ken Wilber and Sally Kempton published a lengthy defense of Gafni, asserting that the women in Israel had lied.

More recently in the New York Times, December 25, 2015 article, Wilber was quoted as saying that, “Marc has a lot of Shakti,” [Mr. Wilber said, using a Sanskrit word for energy.] “I don’t think he understood the impact it had on people.”

To date, neither Ken Wilber nor Sally Kempton have spoken out about the ongoing, incessant, enduring charges of sexual misconduct against Gafni that surfaced in 2006, 2011, and 2016. In fact, on Gafni’s website, one finds endorsements from Wilber and Kempton who have been aware of Gafni’s proclivities for years, yet neither have distanced themselves from Gafni. What are we to make of this?

Living In The Light, Ignoring The Shadow

For the past three decades, I have been a student of the immortal Carl Jung and currently as a life coach, a former psychotherapist, and an author, my life has been profoundly altered by Jung’s work. Perhaps most personally profound for me in the body of his work is the reality of the human shadow of which I was totally ignorant when in my thirties I wildly embraced solar spirituality

After many years of immersion in New Age spirituality, at the age of 40 my life fell apart as a result of my shadow blind spots. I subsequently entered Jungian depth therapy, and as I persevered in it, I quickly came to understand the extent to which my reliance on New Age spirituality had served to mask my pain and obscure the deep childhood wounds I needed to attend to in order to experience the wholeness for which I longed. My obsession with positive thinking and attempting to manifest a pain-free life had fostered within me an ego-inflation that was rapidly de-flated as I became more familiar with the ugly, obnoxious aspects of my shadow.

While basking in the sunlight of positive thinking was more pleasurable for me than allowing the presence of the so-called “negative,” it neither rang true nor felt consistent with the full spectrum of my humanity. As I read the works of Jung and as I opened to the reality of my own personal shadow, on the one hand, I felt more emotional distress, but on the other, exploring the forbidden territory of my psyche felt profoundly authentic and substantial. I soon realized that solar spirituality, focused primarily on the light, offered a dubious peace of mind at the expense of familiarity with my deepest humanity and the human condition at large. In fact, I came to understand that addiction to positive thinking precariously ignores the dark side of humanity and in doing so, conceals the shadow of manipulation, abuse of power, self-righteous arrogance, and compulsive control that lurk beneath the still waters of “living in the light.”

Seldom does one find discussion or instruction on shadow dynamics within the New Age movement. In an astonishingly hypocritical article by Marc Gafni himself, “Shadow Integration,” Gafni reveals that he has no idea what shadow work entails:

Why would you want to integrate your darkest impulses? Perhaps those impulses need to be transmuted and evolved. At the very least, it would appear that they need to be disciplined and controlled. Is shadow integration merely a sophisticated license for ethical libertines, as some spiritual moralists have wanted to claim? And if it is not, if shadow integration points to some profound and important intuition about our wholeness and enlightenment, as others have loudly claimed, but not explained, then what is it?

As he blathers on throughout the article, Gafni repeatedly reveals his ignorance of the shadow and implies instead that he has a fuller grasp of it than all of the world’s wisest teachers on the topic.

In my 2016 book Dark Gold: The Human Shadow And The Global Crisis, I offered a detailed definition of the shadow, bolstered by several other authors in the Jungian tradition.

For example, mythologist and student of Jung, Joseph Campbell, states that “The Shadow is, so to say, the blind spot in your nature. It’s that which you won’t look at about yourself. This is the counterpart exactly of the Freudian unconscious, the repressed recollections as well at the repressed potentialities in you.”

In The Shadow In America: Reclaiming The Soul of a Nation, Jacquelyn Small notes that:

Until made conscious the shadow causes us to act in ways that create catastrophe or explosions of emotionalism….When we try to deny the shadow, it multiplies. When instead, we choose to invite it in, we gain stability and expand consciousness, losing our self-righteousness, and becoming flexible, less defended, more balanced.

In her 2005 book The Sacred Purpose of Being Human, Small refers to the shadow as “…our holy grit. It’s the sandpaper in your psyche that rubs you raw until you make it conscious.”

It is important to understand that we commit to working with the shadow not only because failing to do so impedes our loftiest intentions but because we are “prospectors” in search of the “dark gold.” If there are precious metals to be mined, why would we settle for less? For as Robert Johnson reminds us in Owning Your Own Shadow, “…these disowned parts are extremely valuable and cannot be disregarded. As promised of the living water, our shadow costs nothing and is immediately—and embarrassingly — ever present. To honor and accept one’s own shadow is a profound spiritual discipline. It is whole-making and thus holy and the most important experience of a lifetime.”

Clinical and forensic psychologist, Stephen Diamond asserts that authentic spirituality requires consciously accepting and relating properly to the shadow as opposed to repressing, projecting, acting out and remaining naively unconscious of its repudiated, denied, disavowed contents, a sort of precarious pseudo-spirituality.

”Bringing the shadow to consciousness,” writes another of Jung’s students, Liliane Frey-Rohn (1967), ”is a psychological problem of the highest moral significance. It demands that the individual hold himself accountable not only for what happens to him, but also for what he projects. . . Without the conscious inclusion of the shadow in daily life there cannot be a positive relationship to other people, or to the creative sources in the soul; there cannot be an individual relationship to the Divine.”

Thus engaging in meticulous and astringent shadow work is a moral and spiritual imperative. Moreover, in situations of ghastly abuse as we witness in the sordid saga of Marc Gafni, a host of enablers always encircle the perpetrator. He would not have been able to continue his devastating sexual behavior without the likes of Ken Wilber and Sally Kempton fluffing pillows and making tea for him. The Gafni scandal reveals nothing if not the grotesque head and monstrous appendages of the human shadow writ large across the entire New Age movement, intoxicated with the Kool Aid of solar spirituality. Overwhelmingly, the New Age movement and the spiritual guru system is in abject denial of the shadow, and until it confronts its shadow, we can expect to see lives and communities ravaged by the darkness ignored while spiritual celebrities bask in the light of happy-faced, huggy, saccharine spirituality.

In his January 3, 2016 statement on behalf of Shift Network, Stephen Dinan wrote: “I strongly believe that the full truth of this situation needs to be surfaced, witnessed and addressed, not just for the sake of those involved but for the sake of our whole movement so that we may do collective shadow work and face the abuse of power that too often happens under the guise of spiritual teaching.”

Integral teacher, Terry Patten, who has firmly distanced himself from Gafni offered wise counsel in a recent blog:

The victim narrative is too easy, too convenient, and very incomplete. We are all autonomous adults. No matter how smart, talented, and tenacious Marc Gafni might be, the only power he has over anyone is the power we have given him. If he has compromised our community, it’s up to us to reclaim it. It’s our responsibility to draw a clear line if we want greater goodness and moral intelligence.His unexamined shadow compromises everything he associates with, so it’s undermining those remarkable philosophical ideas and this community of practice and inquiry, not serving them. They are the victims I’m most interested in defending.

But make no mistake: this is a teachable moment, a developmental opportunity. Our community needs a way to protect itself from talented sociopaths with histories of unprocessed shadow and violating others’ hearts, souls, and bodies.

With respect to Marc Gafni, the trail of accusations against him is so long and so despicable that it is difficult to discern if Gafni is just another so-called spiritual teacher who needs to do shadow work, or if he is a sociopath who truly lacks a conscience and for whom, therefore, shadow work would be meaningless. In any event, until individuals on a spiritual path have done deep shadow work, they are highly susceptible to being blinded to it by solar spirituality, making themselves vulnerable to taking advantage of others or being taken advantage by them. One of the risks and liabilities of solar spirituality is that it makes us prey to exploitation and abuse and also increases our own potential for becoming a perpetrator of abuse. Unfortunately, the more “light” associated with anyone in the public sphere, the more vulnerable that person is in terms if his or her own shadow. Likewise, the more “light” we project onto that individual because we have not done our own shadow work, the greater the danger of shadow eruption and the greater the disservice we do to them and to ourselves.

The poet William Stafford in “A Ritual To Be Read To Each Other,” notes that “the darkness around us is deep.” Without doing our own shadow work, we severely compromise our ability to engage with the gargantuan challenges of shadow and darkness in the world. Embracing a spiritual path compels us to commit to doing shadow work so that we may skillfully and compassionately navigate both the darkness and the light.

Aaron Pyne www.spiritap.com Geometric Creationalolution Awakening the Divine
Aaron Pyne www.spiritap.com Geometric Creationalolution Awakening the Divine

Harmonic Spiral 4

Marianne Williamson on Women in Religion (Powerful!)

Marianne Williamson speaking on women and religion at the Parliament of World’s Religions, in October 2015, Salt Lake City Utah.

Marianne’s voice is clearly becoming more powerful as she moves even more directly into her wise woman, sacred activist, priestess self…..the Goddess and this goddess, is fierce! And it’s about time that these words be spoken….thank you Marianne, for speaking on behalf of the herstory of women in patriarchal religions, and the priestess within all of us.

 

Merging with the Ancestors: The Adventures of the Crop Circle Clan August 2015

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We gathered together in South West England from many places: our South Aftrican crystal skull carrier Jennifer the furthest, then Daniel in the Phillipines, then Jacqueline living in Tuscany, and from Kansas City, Cincinatti, Atlanta, Washington state, Central Florida, and North Carolina. Our local right side-of-the-vehicle, left-side-of-the-road drivers Christina and Sara live the closest. We are a friendly and enthusiastic bunch. We have been connecting by email for months, and many of us are in interconnected circles, students of Daniel, priestesses in my lineage, and like-minded adventurous souls. The cross-quarter time of Lammas, Venus’s close conjunction with Mercury and Jupiter and her movement into the Underworld to transform into her incarnation as Leo, all set the cosmological stage.

Our gathering place is an old country estate and villa in Swindon, UK, some 600 or more years old, added onto to many times. It was owned mostly by a family of elites with legacies of rigid, crippled people and acting out rebels. More than a few wives were “banished” to this summer estate for some kind of impropriety (Oh, to be banished here must have been such a hardship!). A few of us take the tour of the ancient house, walls lined with portraits of stiff but important people, and we easily conclude that this was one unhappy family. The 250 acre estate grounds showcases several huge old trees, a pond, and a carefully tended ancient walled garden with species dating back to the 1700’s. The park continually buzzes with families, children and dogs. There is a very old church in the back yard of the house, which must have been a constant source of angst for the household residents. 600 years later in our built-on hotel next door, we had sumptuous food served to us 3 times a day, afternoon tea, sweet single rooms, and a swimming pool. We had a big meeting room with windows and breezes blowing through, all looking out onto uncharacteristically sunny summer English days, to immerse ourselves in the Shamanic Astrology mysteries. We shared our stories and our place on the wheel, listened to Daniel teach, to stories of the Celtic pantheon, enjoyed two fascinating guest lecturers, danced a bit to Celtic favorites, made a collage, and dreamed into our daily excursions and ceremonies. We sensed that the ancestors of Lydiard Park were happy to have us, and accepted our presence.

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Heritage apple trees from the 1700’s,
gigantic thistles and large thriving
blooms of the Lydiard House
Walled Garden

Our intention was to weave back together what Patriarchy has torn asunder in humanity, and in ourselves, especially in our connection with our ancestors. We all resonate with the Celtic lands, and in this area of the UK, we can feel the magic that surrounds us. We are an hour from Stonehenge, and the new archeological finds in that area that continue to be unearthed daily. We are 20 minutes from the Avebury area, where a series of stone circles within stone circles, stone avenues, chambered cairns, barrows, man-made hills, and curious chalk drawings etched into hillsides are everywhere. As a bonus, this is where crop circles pop up during this time of year, and we are all keen to visit at least one. After all, we are The Crop Circle Clan. The first day we head off to the village of Avebury, smack dab in the middle of all the stones.
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Bookstores, Cottages, and
the irresistable Pub
at Avebury

The local metaphysical bookstore has a large map of the Wiltshire area, a county of 1,300 square miles, with the season’s crop circles dotted across the landscape. Unfortunately, the farmers of the area are not often willing to open their land for visitors to see them these days. After years of losing money because they sacrifice the crop in the field where the circle appears, and folk disrespecting their property in various ways, there are not many who take kindly to crop circles. We were lucky, though, and we found two that were close to each other and allowed access, thanks to Gabriella Kapfer http://peace-trails.com/ who scouted them out before we arrived. The Crop Circle Access Centre, who sponsored a Crop circle exhibit in Marlborough that several of us visited (imagine, an exhibit of circles, research, videos and photos over 25 years), was on hand at our first circle, the Eagle at Uffcott Down, to collect funds for the farmer. The second circle seemed to be on land that was not oveseen. The Eagle was huge, with no way to know where we were except for a map we were given when we paid our £3 admission. With Gabriella leading the way, we headed to the crown chakra of the Eagle. Some of us felt electrical energy, hands buzzing, a charged feeling. I was fascinated at how the wheat was precisely combed, layed and cornered by whatever force created this masterpiece. Later we headed to the heart, just below the crown, and we concluded the energy was yang, activating and definitely solar. The Crop Circle Connector interprets this one as 2016 being the possible return of Quetzacoatl, the year when the circle makers meet humanity. See the full interpretation here.

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Eagle Crop Circle 2
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Walking into the Eagle, discovered a week before we arrived, and sitting at the Crown Chakra

The eight-pointed star within the square and circle, Etchilhampton near Devizes, discovered August 7th, a few days after we arrived in the UK, was 15 minutes away. As we headed down the road, we were the Crop Circle Clan On Fire from our experience at the gigantic solar eagle. This next circle was a new kind of woven formation, seen in recent years. The wheat is layered over itself  in exquisite patterns that cannot be fully appreciated from within the circle. The eight pointed star is subtle, and can barely be discerned in the arial photos. We promptly feel asleep or went into deep meditation in this layered feminine energy, as if we were being held in a basket.

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The eight-pointed woven star, and earlier woven formations (below), breathtakingly intricate and complex.

 

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After that, crop circles sprung up around us all week, and we are pretty sure we called in one of them, as it was an astrological wheel! There was no time left in our fast-paced, full-to-the-brim week to chase after them. Because of our crop circle immersion day, we all seemed content to be surrounded by them at a distance. It was clear to many of us that we wanted to come back for more on another adventure at another time.

The largest stone circle, dated about 2,600 BCE that surrounds the village of Avebury, is itself surrounded by a henge, an ancient circular ditch, that probably contained water at one time. The two inner circles are connected to two stone avenues, that lead to a meeting place between the two. One seems for the masculine and one for the feminine, and it is easy to imagine the surrounding site of Silbury Hill, a huge human-made hill also surrounded by a henge, alight with a flame on Beltane, and processionals of people gathering to celebrate this Wheel of the Year point from all over the world. Many still do. The Avebury area draws many thousands of visitors each year. Artifacts have been found from Egypt and other parts of the world in the the West Kennet Long Barrow, a 5,700 year old multi-functional chambered site.  We could not get enough of the magnificent and prolific sites at Avebury. There was too much to explore and not enough time to do it all.

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Peter Knight, guardian and expert on West Kennet Long Barrow, emphasized how all the sites in the area are intimately connected, with site lines to other sites as long as 3 miles. The crop circles add another texture to this rich area of sacred sites.  West Kennet is 16 miles from Stonehenge and just south of Avebury, part of an extended landscape of earth temples. Every mile or so, there is a chambered longbarrow, with West Kennet being the largest. Peter feels it was the abode of wisewomen and priestesses who oversaw births, deaths, and other rites of passage. The burials that were most predominant were the placements of only human bones in the chambers. Huge boulders in front of the entrance indicated that the site was closed 1,000 years before the Avebury circles were built. Perhaps it had served its purpose and a new era was ready to be birthed. Perhaps our current monotheistic religions will someday see that they have outlived their own uselfulness, too! Peter guided us in a night-time shamanic journey within the longbarrow, where we were encouraged to call to, and receive messages from the ancestors. Many of us saw images and heard messages that continued to stir the pot of ancestral awareness.

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Stonehenge was scheduled many months ahead by sound healer Gabriella, so that we could actually go inside this closely guarded monolith. This beautiful large stone circle was a disappointment for many reasons. The police guard warned us that if we so much as touched a stone, we would be asked to leave. The stones were clearly restored to the point that they could have been part of a museum or Disney display, the life in them long gone. Our sound healer and her partner did their best to create music over the loud traffic on the ground and in the air. A large group of us paid thousands to the curators for the privilege of sitting inside Stonehenge for an hour, and got up in the wee hours of the morning to travel there to boot!

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On the way back from Stonehenge, we visited the Salisbury Cathedral that was celebrating the Magna Carta signing 800 years ago. There was an old pagan site next to the church that emphasized how Christianity built over the sacred sites, and knew that the ancients were connected to the magic of the land. We wandered around, intrigued by the stylized but spooky beauty of the place, where hundreds of notables were buried in tombs in the floor, the strange religious custom of the day. I suppose if you had the money, you could get really close to God. Some tombs were built into the walls, and had porcelin effigies guarding them.

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The ancestors were stirring within and without, the Partriarchs, the Celts and the Neolithics. Daniel’s keynote of the week was his famous evolving lecture Who Are We and What the Hell Happened? As we visited the sites, felt the stirrings of our own personal ancestry, and heard from Daniel about the recent discoveries around this area and around the world, we felt ourselves getting ready to honor them. On a rainy day towards the last of our week, we gathered an altar cloth, symbols of the old story and the new story, a libation and some food and headed out to the park-like grounds of Lydiard House under a big old tree. We called in the directions and the elements. We spoke to them from our hearts, from our personal stories, forgave them, and asked them for forgiveness. We asked them for what we needed in the coming times to help us bring in a New Earth and a renewed connection to the land and to what really worked in their times, especially the pre-Celtic times before patriarchy. We honored that in this part of the world they held off patriarchy till 1,500 BCE in some places in England, Scotland and Ireland, as much as a few thousand years after it had overtaken the rest of Europe. We felt that our ceremony was good and our week was near completion.

Our final ceremony began at one of the ancient standing stone avenues of Avebury, where we wound down and around to two huge standing stones that are obviously yin and yang gateways. In the twighlight crack between the worlds, we gathered together the jewels of our week as adventurers of the Crop Circle Clan, and spoke our commitments to our own sacred marriage within. So Be It As We Make It So!

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2016 Excursions: Ireland and Scotland

Visit our webpage on this webiste, and our facebook page for details on the 2016 Renaissance of the Sacred Feminine: Stars and Stones of Ireland and Scotland excursion~retreats. Join us for all 14 days or just 8 days, on the wild western coast of Ireland at Kilronan Castle and then the Newgrange area, then 6 nights on the Isle of Lewis at lovely Doune Braes hotel, our homebase to explore the great Callanish Neolithic circle and surrounding sites for 6 nights and 7 days: August 20th through Sept 3rd, 2016.

Daniel and Anyaa Avebury 2015

If you have read this far, enjoy my SPECIAL ADDITION BELOW! Pictures from the Cropredy Music Festival, Cropredy Village, UK August 12-15, 2015 sponsored for the last 10 years by the 70’s British band, The Fairport  Convention! The Brits love their dogs as much as us Americans do (attended by me, Daniel and Jacqueline after our Avebury adventure).

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An Ireland Shamanic Priestess Process: Brighid and St. Brigid

Ireland, Part 2: Brighid and St. Brigid

from http://introverthitsthestreets.blogspot.com/

“A river of tears is one of the strongest evidences of a ‘crash and burn’ initiation into the Scar Clan.”–Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Priestess Glenys of the glacial river valleys of the Pacific Northwest greets you. Glenys is my new name, by the way. It’s Welsh and means from the glen. A glen is a narrow valley, sometimes a river valley. Baby name sites insist that Glenys also means fair, clean, and holy, but I just discovered that this morning when I woke up at 2:00 AM, still on
Ireland time, and can’t be held responsible for it. Keep all this under your hat for now, until I get used to it.
I am also one of the Daughters of Danu, the name my fellow initiates and I gave our circle, but if tears shed are proof of membership, I might also claim a place in Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Scar Clan.
I’ve been through something in the last year or two that recently culminated in a dismantling or even a disintegration. I’ve been sharing my efforts to renew myself in this blog. This time they’ve led me pretty far from what I know, into things I can’
go to http://introverthitsthestreets.blogspot.com/ for the rest of the blog!

The 1944 Prophecy Of Peter Deunov

This was the third time I have read this prophecy, but I do believe it is worth the share on this Thanksgiving eve!

And, he is an interesting looking chap, eh?

Blessings,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Anyaa

Peter Deunov

 

 

The prophecy of Peter Deunov regarding the end of our civilization and the beginning of the Golden Age on Earth.

Also known under the spiritual name of Beinsa Douno, the Bulgarian Master Peter Deunov (1864-1944) was a being of a very high level of consciousness, at the same time an incomparable musician, that gave during his whole life an example of purity, wisdom, intelligence and creativity. For years he was established close to Sofia where he lived surrounded by numerous disciples, he, by his radiance awakened the spirituality of thousands of souls in Bulgaria as well as the rest of Europe .

Some days before his departure to the other world, he was in a profound mediumistic trance, he made an extraordinary prophecy in regards to our troubled epoch that we are crossing today, a prophecy about the “end of time” and the coming of a new Golden Age of humanity.
Here is this deeply moving testament. It is current and so vibrant that one doubts that these words were spoken almost 60 years ago.

“During the passage of time, the consciousness of man traversed a very long period of obscurity. This phase which the Hindus call “Kali Yuga”, is on the verge of ending. We find ourselves today at the frontier between two epochs: that of Kali Yuga and that of the New Era that we are entering.

A gradual improvement is already occurring in the thoughts, sentiments and acts of humans, but everybody will soon be subjugated to divine Fire, that will purify and prepare them in regards to the New Era. Thus man will raise himself to a superior degree of consciousness, indispensable to his entrance to the New Life. That is what one understands by “Ascension”.

Some decades will pass before this Fire will come, that will transform the world by bringing it a new moral. This immense wave comes from cosmic space and will inundate the entire earth. All those that attempt to oppose it will be carried off and transferred elsewhere.

Although the inhabitants of this planet do not all find themselves at the same degree of evolution, the new wave will be felt by each one of us. And this transformation will not only touch the Earth, but the ensemble of the entire Cosmos.

The best and only thing that man can do now is to turn towards God and improve himself consciously, to elevate his vibratory level, so as to find himself in harmony with the powerful wave that will soon submerge him.

The Fire of which I speak, that accompanies the new conditions offered to our planet, will rejuvenate, purify, reconstruct everything: the matter will be refined, your hearts will be liberated from anguish, troubles, incertitude, and they will become luminous; everything will be improved, elevated; the thoughts, sentiments and negative acts will be consumed and destroyed.

Your present life is a slavery, a heavy prison. Understand your situation and liberate yourself from it. I tell you this: exit from your prison! It is really sorry to see so much misleading, so much suffering, so much incapacity to understand where one’s true happiness lies.

Everything that is around you will soon collapse and disappear. Nothing will be left of this civilization nor its perversity; the entire earth will be shaken and no trace will be left of this erroneous culture that maintains men under the yoke of ignorance. Earthquakes are not only mechanical phenomen, their goal is also to awaken the intellect and the heart of humans, so that they liberate themselves from their errors and their follies and that they understand that they are not the only ones in the universe.

Our solar system is now traversing a region of the Cosmos where a constellation that was destroyed left its mark, its dust. This crossing of a contaminated space is a source of poisoning, not only for the inhabitants of the earth, but for all the inhabitants of the other planets of our galaxy. Only the suns are not affected by the influence of this hostile environment. This region is called “the thirteenth zone”; one also calls it “the zone of contradictions”. Our planet was enclosed in this region for thousands of years, but finally we are approaching the exit of this space of darkness and we are on the point of attaining a more spiritual region, where more evolved beings live.

The earth is now following an ascending movement and everyone should force themselves to harmonize with the currents of the ascension. Those who refuse to subjugate themselves to this orientation will lose the advantage of good conditions that are offered in the future to elevate themselves. They will remain behind in evolution and must wait tens of millions of years for the coming of a new ascending wave.

The earth, the solar system, the universe, all are being put in a new direction under the impulsion of Love. Most of you still consider Love as a derisory force, but in reality, it is the greatest of all forces! Money and power continue to be venerated as if the course of your life depended upon it. In the future, all will be subjugated to Love and all will serve it. But it is through suffering and difficulties that the consciousness of man will be awakened.

The terrible predictions of the prophet Daniel written in the bible relate to the epoch that is opening. There will be floods, hurricanes, gigantic fires and earthquakes that will sweep away everything. Blood will flow in abundance. There will be revolutions; terrible explosions will resound in numerous regions of the earth. There where there is earth, water will come, and there where there is water, earth will come. God is Love; yet we are dealing here with a chastisement, a reply by Nature against the crimes perpetrated by man since the night of time against his Mother; the Earth.

After these sufferings, those that will be saved, the elite, will know the Golden Age, harmony and unlimited beauty. Thus keep your peace and your faith when the time comes for suffering and terror, because it is written that not a hair will fall from the head of the just. Don’t be discouraged, simply follow your work of personal perfection.

You have no idea of the grandiose future that awaits you. A New Earth will soon see day. In a few decades the work will be less exacting, and each one will have the time to consecrate spiritual, intellectual and artistic activities. The question of rapport between man and woman will be finally resolved in harmony; each one having the possibility of following their aspirations. The relations of couples will be founded on reciprocal respect and esteem. Humans will voyage through the different planes of space and breakthrough intergalactic space. They will study their functioning and will rapidly be able to know the Divine World, to fusion with the Head of the Universe.

The New Era is that of the sixth race. Your predestination is to prepare yourself for it, to welcome it and to live it. The sixth race will build itself around the idea of Fraternity. There will be no more conflicts of personal interests; the single aspiration of each one will be to conform himself to the Law of Love. The sixth race will be that of Love. A new continent will be formed for it. It will emerge from the Pacific, so that the Most High can finally establish His place on this planet.

The founders of this new civilization, I call them “Brothers of Humanity” or also “Children of Love” They will be unshakeable for the good and they will represent a new type of men. Men will form a family, as a large body, and each people will represent an organ in this body. In the new race, Love will manifest in such a perfect manner, that today’s man can only have a very vague idea.

The earth will remain a terrain favourable to struggle, but the forces of darkness will retreat and the earth will be liberated from them. Humans seeing that there is no other path will engage themselves to the path of the New Life, that of salvation. In their senseless pride, some will, to the end hope to continue on earth a life that the Divine Order condemns, but each one will finish by understanding that the direction of the world doesn’t belong to them.

A new culture will see the light of day, it will rest on three principal foundations: the elevation of woman, the elevation of the meek and humble, and the protection of the rights of man.

The light, the good, and justice will triumph; it is just a question of time. The religions should be purified. Each contains a particle of the Teaching of the Masters of Light, but obscured by the incessant supply of human deviation. All the believers will have to unite and to put themselves in agreement with one principal, that of placing Love as the base of all belief, whatever it may be. Love and Fraternity that is the common base! The earth will soon be swept by extraordinary rapid waves of Cosmic Electricity. A few decades from now beings who are bad and lead others astray will not be able to support their intensity. They will thus be absorbed by Cosmic Fire that will consume the bad that they possess. Then they will repent because it is written that “each flesh shall glorify God”.

Our mother, the earth, will get rid of men that don’t accept the New Life. She will reject them like damaged fruit. They will soon not be able to reincarnate on this planet; criminals included. Only those that possess Love in them will remain.

There is not any place on earth that is not dirtied with human or animal blood; she must therefore submit to a purification. And it is for this that certain continents will be immersed while others will surface. Men do not suspect to what dangers they are menaced by. They continue to pursue futile objectives and to seek pleasure. On the contrary those of the sixth race will be conscious of the dignity of their role and respectful of each one’s liberty. They will nourish themselves exclusively from products of the vegetal realm. Their ideas will have the power to circulate freely as the air and light of our days.

The words “If you are not born again.” apply to the sixth race. Read Chapter 60 of Isaiah it relates to the coming of the sixth race the Race of Love.

After the Tribulations, men will cease to sin and will find again the path of virtue. The climate of our planet will be moderated everywhere and brutal variations will no longer exist. The air will once again become pure, the same for water. The parasites will disappear. Men will remember their previous incarnations and they will feel the pleasure of noticing that they are finally liberated from their previous condition.

In the same manner that one gets rid of the parasites and dead leaves on the vine, so act the evolved Beings to prepare men to serve the God of Love. They give to them good conditions to grow and to develop themselves, and to those that want to listen to them, they say: “Do not be afraid! Still a little more time and everything will be all right; you are on the good path. May he that wants to enter in the New Culture study, consciously work and prepare.”

Thanks to the idea of Fraternity, the earth will become a blessed place, and that will not wait. But before, great sufferings will be sent to awaken the consciousness. Sins accumulated for thousands of years must be redeemed. The ardent wave emanating from On High will contribute in liquidating the karma of peoples. The liberation can no longer be postponed. Humanity must prepare itself for great trials that are inescapable and are coming to bring an end to egoism.

Under the earth, something extraordinary is preparing itself. A revolution that is grandiose and completely inconceivable will manifest itself soon in nature. God has decided to redress the earth, and He will do it! It is the end of an epoch; a new order will substitute the old, an order in which Love will reign on earth.”

Source: Disclose.tv forum <http://www.disclose.tv/forum/peter-deunov-1944-prophecy-t36573.html>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Deunov#Esoteric_scientific_work