Community for Spiritual Living

Community for Spiritual Living: Communicating with Heart

Tom Goddard — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:19:00 -0400

Start: 08/02/2008 - 4:00pm

End: 08/02/2008 - 8:00pm

Timezone: US/Eastern

Many believe that the heart is at least as important an organ as our brain. This month's gathering will explore how signals from the heart can positively affect how we deal with stress, anxiety, insomnia, and even improve cognitive and athletic performance.

Leda Cummings, longtime CSLer, is a trained PhD research scientist who is licensed to teach a technique called "emWave" technology. She will demonstrate this technique and guide us in experiencing heart-based communication. One real benefit is seeing how it enhances intuitive intelligence, which in turn positively affects relationships.

Here is a chance to learn some new techniques to help us access the wisdom of the heart. We are a blessed community to have so many good teachers in our midst! This should be a different approach that most of us have never experienced. Come join in the curiosity and fun.

Community for Spiritual Living: Drumming Circle

Tom Goddard — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:00:52 -0400

Start: 06/07/2008 - 4:00pm

End: 06/07/2008 - 8:00pm

Timezone: US/Eastern

It's time again to light your rhythmic fire this coming Saturday. Dan Petersen will again lead us in a drumfest. Note that no experience is necessary, and everyone can participate in the drumming (or movement, if you like--in fact, last time we had some delicious belly dancers!). You can also just meditate and let the communal beat carry you into a transcendent space.

Bring one or more drums or percussive instruments if you have any. If you don't, there always seem to be extras to pass around. So just come!

Stay for POTLUCK FROM 6 TO 8PM-be sure to BRING A DISH FOR 8 PEOPLE (main dish, salad, side dish, bread & beverage, or dessert).

Invite along a friend if you like. Can't make it at 4pm? - then just stop in at 6pm for the potluck! No Need to RSVP.

Community for Spiritual Living: Alexander Technique

Tom Goddard — Fri, 02 May 2008 08:39:52 -0400

Start: 05/03/2008 - 4:00pm

End: 05/03/2008 - 8:00pm

Timezone: US/Eastern

We are exquisitely designed for movement with a capacity for ease, flexibility, power and expressiveness, whether we are dancing, singing or working at a computer. All too often, however, we unwittingly interfere with this design resulting in tension, effort, and fatigue. Diana Bradley, a skilled practitioner, will lead us in explorations in the discoveries of the F.M. Alexander Technique to restore our natural coordination and poise.

Wear comfortable clothes, bring a beginner's mind, and be willing to question, and perhaps release old myths about moving with "good posture." We will explore ease in sitting, walking, standing, bending, yoga, meditation, and anything else you love doing in your lives. Through verbal coaching and gentle hands-on guidance you will gain heightened kinesthetic awareness and a sense of belonging in your body.

Community for Spiritual Living: Sacred Sexuality: Masculine & Feminine

Tom Goddard — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:14:39 -0500

Start: 03/01/2008 - 4:00pm

Timezone: US/Eastern

Somewhere in the struggle to find "equality" between men and women over the last 40 years, we began to dilute our essential masculine and feminine qualities. "Good" male/female relationships were modeled as 50/50 compromises. Could it be, however, that we lost something along the way?

Barra Kahn and Roger Telschow will lead an exploration this Saturday for women and men in the community. With the support of our peers, the intention is to honor and celebrate the sacred masculine and feminine in ourselves and in the opposite sex. You are invited into a dance of yin and yang that can enliven our relationships and rekindle a passion for life.

Community for Spiritual Living: Men & Women Coming Together

Tom Goddard — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:51:19 -0400

Start: 11/03/2007 - 4:00pm

End: 11/03/2007 - 8:00pm

Timezone: US/Eastern

"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!

Community for Spiritual Living: Drumming Circle

Tom Goddard — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:24:38 -0400

Start: 08/04/2007 - 4:00pm

End: 08/04/2007 - 8:00pm

Timezone: US/Eastern

Last 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.

Community for Spiritual Living: Befriending Death

Tom Goddard — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 11:59:51 -0500

Start: 04/07/2007 - 5:04pm

End: 04/07/2007 - 9:04pm

Timezone: US/Eastern

Most months, the first Saturday of the month, from 4 to whenever, the Community for Spiritual Living gathers to explore how to integrate spirituality into our daily lives. The next gathering is April 7, in Falls Church, Virginia. We'll do process work from 4-6 p.m., and pot luck from 6:00 p.m. to whenever. Please bring a dish for 8.

April 2007: Befriending Death

Many of the Wisdom Traditions have understood that Death can be a great teacher about Life. In the encounter with the reality of death, whether we view it as the end or merely a passage, we can glean much about the richness of our lives.

Tom Goddard will lead the community through a series of experiential processes designed to create a series of profound learning encounters with Death. As a result of participating in this workshop, participants likely not only will have a deepened appreciation of the life we are given, but a clearer notion about how to live a life filled with meaning and joy. It is no overstatement to say that some participants in the March 2006 CSL exploration of Death, led by Dr. Goddard and Michael Smith, emerged with a radically transformed view of their lives. Some even made profound decisions that changed the very course of their lives, both professionally and personally.

Bring a friend if you like, and then stay for POTLUCK FROM 6 TO 8PM-be sure to BRING A DISH FOR 8 PEOPLE (main dish, salad, side dish, bread & beverage, or dessert).

An Improvised Life

Tom Goddard — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 10:21:36 -0500

What does it mean to "improvise"? What is the essence of "spontaneity"?

Heck, should we even value improvisation? Some might argue that living a well-planned life is a good thing. How can you plan well yet commit to spontaneity?

Well, first, what is it? My dictionary says that improvisation is "a creation spoken or written or composed extemporaneously (without prior preparation)."

First of all, I feel like arguing with that definition. I certainly like the use of "creation" -- my every encounter with improvisation tells me that it is an act of creation. It is the parenthetical part of the definition with which I differ: "no preparation".

No preparation? Are you kidding? When Parker and Coleman met in a dark bar in Chicago and made magic, can we say there was no preparation? When Jonathan Winters walked through a room full of junk, picked up an odd item, and made us laugh, was there truly no preparation? When a Zen teacher and student engage in dharma combat and, thereby, reach a new understanding of the Ultimate, is there no preparation?

Honesty on a Saturday Afternoon

Tom Goddard — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 14:31:57 -0400

The August meeting of the Community for Spiritual Living ("CSL"), my spiritual "home" community, focused on radical honesty. Michael Smith took the reins this month to lead the roughly two-dozen participants in a series of exercises and discussions to raise consciousness around truth-telling.