Shalom Mountain

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See map: Google MapsBig Heart is an experiential group process designed to help participants discover, experience and appreciate their lives in a new way. People of all backgrounds have found it to be a terrific way to identify and work through the unhealthy patterns that can sabotage our best efforts. By fostering a compassionate exploration of the intricate network of the diverse dimensions of the inner self, the Big Heart process empowers participants to live richer, fuller lives.

Big Heart is a novel technique of self exploration that combines tools of western psychology with the teachings of eastern non-dual traditions.  Participants in this non-denominational process emerge with the realization that they now can answer their most pressing questions about their lives with a greater level of compassion and wisdom than they previously thought possible.

There is no preparation or training needed in order to participate in Big Heart.  Life itself has provided all the preparation you need.

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See map: Google MapsShalom Mountain takes pride in the growing number of skilled and heart-centered process leaders who work both on and off the Mountain. Really alive collaborative leadership means intimacy among the leadership. Those who have responded to the call into Shalom leadership need a place just to be, to share our lives, to nurture, to give and receive support. What better way for us to show our most intimate selves to each other than through a Shalom Retreat? Bring yourself, your love for each other and for this life-giving process. This retreat is available to anyone who currently leads, or has led, Shalom Retreats.

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The Shalom Retreat™ is an intensive growth experience set in a loving and supportive community. Shalom Retreats are based on our understanding of love:

• More than anything else, we want to love and be loved.
• Love is a gift.
• Love is not time bound.
• Love is good will in action.
• Love is a response to need.

Loving is an art. The skills of loving can be learned. They include seeing and hearing another, expressing good will, recognizing another’s right to think and feel as he/she does, and being fully present in our relationships with others. Through the practice of intentional loving, open space is created in which individuals can learn to express themselves with integrity, creativity and passion. Our ability to love and our life force can be blocked by unexpressed feelings of anger, fear and pain. By unblocking energy, we are able to reclaim our joy, passion and sexuality and to fully embody the Divine in our lives. A variety of techniques (e.g., guided fantasy, primal therapy, role-play, gestalt and bioenergetics) are used as a means for releasing and transforming repressed emotions, so that one’s passion for life may be fully realized.

I have been enamored of Genpo Roshi’s “Big Mind” (http://www.genpo.org/Big%20Mind/) process since I first encountered it on Integral Naked (http://in.integralinstitute.org/) several years ago. I taught myself how to facilitate it long before Roshi began to lay down guidelines regarding who could and who could not facilitate the process. As a result of my ignorance of these guidelines, I have had the good fortune of facilitating the process a number of times, with groups ranging from three to 65 and settings from living rooms to retreat centers.

And yet, I have seldom used this profound – indeed, revolutionary – enlightenment practice as part of my personal practice. I guess I’ll chalk this up to a lack of imagination. In retrospect, it seems pretty obvious that this is a powerful vehicle for both translation and transformation when incorporated into a personal practice. I simply never have taken the time to do that.

I have waited long enough.

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See map: Google Maps"I'll never understand men/women!" is a popular refrain in our culture. The other sex is indeed a mystery to most of us, irrespective of our sexual orientation, or partnership status. I'll lead this month's gathering, not with the intention to figure it all out, but to offer a rare opportunity to safely and confidentially explore the questions and curiosities we all have about the opposite sex. Only when we see and honor the differences of who we are as men and women can we begin to see the divine in each other. This sacred awareness provides the foundation from which real intimacy, vulnerability, and relationship can emerge. Guided by Shalom Mountain's Principles of Loving, we'll talk with others in an individual and group setting. Women will be able to present their curiosities to men and vice versa. All responses in this setting are of course voluntary. Join us in a session sure to be wonderfully rich and full of honest and heartfelt sharing!

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See map: Google MapsCome one, come all, to the Winter Holiday Party at the Community for Spiritual Living! More details soon!

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See map: Google MapsWhat's your relationship to the Divine? Is it an intimate, personal friendship? One of distant awe? Perhaps you experience yourself as Spirit, a component of Spirit, or all this and more. Or maybe you long for a relationship with the Divine, but are struggling to establish one.

Join us as Tom Goddard leads us through a series of experiential processes in which we will examine not only our existing relationships (or lack thereof) with the Divine, but also alternative perspectives that may enrich our relationship. Informed by wisdom traditions from across the globe and from throughout the centuries, these processes may take you from what you know about God to perspectives you've never known, or haven't tapped into in years.

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See map: Google MapsLast February, participants in the Community for Spiritual Living ("CSL") had a great time at our first ever drumming circle. The most memorable comment was "when can we do this again?" Well, the time has come.

September promises to be quite a month at the Shalom Mountain Retreat and study Center. As usual, the month will start with the Labor Day work weekend. This will be no ordinary work weekend, as many of the activities will focus on the transfer of ownership and control of the center from Joy Davey and Lawrence Stibbards, who have run the place for over 16 years, to Shawn Ramer, Victoria Myer, and Terry Shirreffs.