SoulArts Blog

Living Shamanism: The Art of the Everyday Journey & Living Your Destiny

2010-06-22T07:23:00.000-07:00

There’s a lyric to the song, “Circle of Life”, made popular by Elton John and in the Movie “The Lion King” that says: “You will find your place on the path unwinding…” This phrase and this song has become a favorite reflection of my life work as shaman guide and teacher in the art of finding and living your destiny.

What I’d like to offer you here is simply this: Your life is the shaman journey; and the conscious living/honoring of your life is how your find your way and live your destiny – It’s on the path unwinding that healing, insight, and direction informs your being and brings you to your true nature and wisdom way.

Even though I occasionally do still enter into a formal shamanic journey of the upper, middle, and underworlds to seek direction and clarity – and even though I still do occasionally still teach the traditional method of inner seeing to my students and clients (aka as learned through Michael Harner over 25 years ago) -- I’ve come to understand and fully see that life itself is “the shaman journey”.

When we learn the art of following and understanding the symbolic language of soul (what I’ve come to call the SoulArts Process of Awakening ™), everyday life becomes a living portal on the shamanic journey and path unwinding!

When our daily living becomes itself a meditation -- when daily situations and incidences are respected and regarded as the shaman journey itself -- all of life opens up; healing and synchronicity become common place; direction unfolds organically; there is no need to “journey for answers or to seek insight”: Rather, you enter into the artistry of living in the shaman journey itself as you go about your day. Life and living becomes multi-dimensional and freely inspired.

To me, and in my life work as a spiritual minister/healer and guide, this is where the “rubber meets the road”: In living the shaman journey every day in every day situations and the attention we give them.

I love the traditional shaman approach and respect the path of soul retrieval and all modalities of shamanism. But like other “religions”, I feel that true Shamanism is becoming too encapsulated in method; too tied to technique; missing the real life and truth and intelligence behind such methods, techniques and dogmas.

In my SoulArts spiritual apprenticeships and retreats, I teach daily living shamanism: One that lets go of what I call “needy greedy” constriction to heal, answer, grasp at solutions, or empower ego with allies…and instead simply falls in love with your own life’s genius and evolution as the shamanic journey of a lifetime itself!

When we fall in love with the Mystery, and learn the art of attending in everyday life to our own uniquely evolving path as it unwinds, we very naturally and organically discover the shaman within; and we very easily then step into expressing and living our true destiny.

When we live our every day life as a shamanic journey, seeing and attending to the language of soul as we go about the day, we very simply find that we are led to healing insight and direction, clarity of perception, “right service to others”, and awake to our unique genius and wisdom way. What I called in my second book: The Art of Living Your Destiny”, is always right here, now, on the path unwinding, as we live it, see it, honor it.

QU: How Can I Help Others When I Can't Heal Myself?

2010-04-10T13:20:00.000-07:00

Reader's Question
Ronda's Reply
Your Turn!

READER'S QU: Lisa in Australia

Hi Ronda

I came across your web page 3 years ago, when I left a stressful job that I knew was not my path in life. Over the last 3 years I have dabbled in different jobs and now find myself back again in the same spot with myself!

I have forgiven and let go of a lot of my past, but as I sit here today I realize I am not able to let go and forgive myself.

I desparately want to work with abused women and children and help them to rebuild their lives and have wanted to do this work all my life. However I have held back because I knew unless I am able to heal myself I am a fake and also I was worried I would be projecting my stuff onto them.

Is there anything that you can suggest that can assist me in starting the process of forgiving myself?

RONDA'S REPLY:

Dear Lisa,

Thank you for your email and I am touched to know my SoulArts work has helped you along your journey.

Here's what I have learned in my life:

You can't "wait til you are healed" to be a good healer. A good healer is honest and vulnerable to his/her own ongoing healing too. We never finish. It's a synergy. I learn and heal as much from my clients as they do in working with me.

As for projection, yes,that is something always to watch for. To be a healer is not to "fix another" but to be SO aware, that you are always getting yourself out of the way or acknowledging that it may be projection!. SEE?

Self-Forgiveness is a process of inner Seeing too. You could ask yourself this:

"What am I actually saying to Life/God/Source by NOT forgiving myself?"

In a way, not to forgive oneself is just another "tricky way" to avoid the courage of doing what we're called to do. It's actually a form of "withholding". (You might watch my "nevernothere.com" interview (second half is more to the point) and you'll get a feel for this I think.)

You have to be willing to "be human" to decide to love yourself, even with your foibles and failures... To not be willing is what? Investigate that for a while and then offer something up to what you see...

blessings

ronda

YOUR TURN! LIVING THE QUESTION...

If you refuse to get involved in something you love because you feel you are not worthy or ready, what are you really saying to God/Self/Life by that choice? ....Look & See :)

The Zen of Easter: "At the Crossroad of Yearning, a Seedling Breaks Through..."

2010-04-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

The Zen of Easter

"At the Crossroad of Yearning, a Seedling Breaks Through…"

Ronda LaRue

April 2, 2010

"What does it take, do you think, to shed your old conditions, old limitations, old self beliefs, and emerge into a new blooming potential? ...How do you find and follow your destiny? How do you heal, awaken and live your unique gifts in this world? The messages of Easter and springtime offer good pointers…"

I'm down in my meditation hut writing this morning and realize that this is the Jewish season of Passover. It is the time of the Spring Equinox. And it is Easter weekend in the Christian tradition, today being known as "Good Friday". Forget for a moment whether you believe, like, dislike or agree with any particular religion or its dogma. Please don’t miss the perennial wisdom as a personal metaphor, pointing the way to your own self-healing insight!

Good Friday is a message about transformation. It is about breakthrough; about healing and coming into your true wholeness. It is a message about how to find and follow your way…

We all yearn to find and fulfill our true potential. This urge is seeded within our very heart. We express our seedling's deep yearnings in many ways: in the desire for happiness, for healing self-love and inner peace, for meaning and purpose. Even our seeking to avoid pain through all the diversions and distractions and addictions of entertainment, are simply misunderstood attempts to sooth the yearnings of that seedling that rests in our heart, waiting to grow and become its true potential.

I invite you this Easter weekend, to take a moment to honor your life and it’s seasons. Please take a moment to stop and step consciously into the unfathomable mystery of your own destiny… What is it? You’ll find your destiny-clue in the seeds of your hearts deepest yearnings.

Each of us is unique, with unique conditions, growing environments, and possibilities. And even in what may seem the “worst of soils”, we each in fact do have an utterly unique brilliance and blooming potential to find and to express… if we but learn our way!

How do you find and follow your destiny? How do you heal, awaken and live your unique gifts in the world? The messages of Easter and springtime are good pointers…

A Contemplation on Personal Healing Transformation;

Ask Yourself this:

"What does it take, do you think, to shed your old conditions, old limitations, old self beliefs, and emerge into a new blooming potential?"

We make the BIG mistake of thinking that to heal our angst and to create a happy whole life is somehow about getting rid of our problems and healing our wounds, so we can “HAVE” our good life. Not SO!

Your specific life struggles and your unique wounds are the very ground conditions of your seed’s unique and brilliant potential! These conditions (“good bad and ugly”) are part of your unique blooming… But it takes a new level of “seeing” (and being) to realize this!

(…Enter a contemplation of the seed of spring and the cross of Easter):

Want to know how to transform your life and live your life’s deepest meaning? Here it is:

Willing, Conscious Surrendering…

To heal and transform your life has much more to do with what you are willing to see and courageously “set down”, than with accumulating insights, practices and identification of what blocks you!

Look to the seed:

It literally lays down its life as the seedling, to be broken open by the elements surrounding it, in order to emerge and spout into its true destiny…

Look to the cross of Easter:

What does it mean to lay down your life as it has been up until now; to hang on the cross(road) of unknowing; to find the center of that cross(road) – the still-point of the soul…and to realize, in such an attentive willing surrender, the resurrection of your true genius, purpose and light?

If you want to heal, transform and grow your life, see what it takes to lay down your life as you know it; to grow in your ability to surrender each moment into the unknown apex (center of the cross-road) that allows your yearning's innate wisdom to naturally breakthrough the hard seed-shell, sprout, blossom and shine, as your unique light.

With Blessings of Easter and Springtime,

ronda-larue

Postlude: “OK, how do you willingly, consciously, surrender open”, you ask? …Now THIS is a Question to Live you into Blooming! (impish springtime smile...)

A Contemplative Meditation on Renewal
(Poet: David Whyte. www.DavidWhyte.com)

___________________________________________________

RONDA'S ANNOUNCEMENTS: "Tending Your Inner Garden" Retreat!

What Does It Take To Be Truly Alive and Whole?

2010-02-27T11:44:00.000-08:00

Reflections on a 2-Year Miracle in the Making...

What if you were offered the opportunity to directly experience and know (INSIDE YOURSELF) what it means to still the mind, inwardly connect to wisdom, open to breakthrough healing, and take on the responsibility of embodying one's own unique genius and life of awakened artistry? Would you do what it takes???

If you were given the choice right now of a "quick comfort-band-aide" to your struggles and worries, or the realization of inner wisdom and your own uniquely creative genius... which would you choose?

One of the things I've discovered in my own evolution as a spiritual teacher and through my own inner process of self-discovery, suffering, and self-realization, is that most of us simply need help in learning how to "step up to the responsibility being one's Self". It takes something of you, in you, from you if you want to LIVE a soulfully whole life.

And even though spiritual awakening, healing transformation, and enlightenment can occur in an flash of insight... the realization of such an instant, the embodiment of being present to such "seeing" is a lifetime journey and a continual blooming evolution of consciousness. It never ends. There is no "there" It always is unfolding right "here"...

So what does it take to be truly alive and whole? It takes:

"spiritual muscle" (the ability to lift your awareness)
"soulful stamina" (the vigilant commitment to holding attention)
"an inspired heart" (a greater desire for love over fear/ for Soul over identity)
"the realization of grace" (a willingness to release into the Unknown Mystery)

What would you give to truly heal, free, and transform your life? Would you give 2-years? Not many in today's culture would...

I have just entered into such a sacred relationship with a group of 12 women and men in a SoulArts Master's Program. I hope my initial reflections here may pave the way for igniting your own spiritual muscle, soulful stamina, inspired heart, and the realization of grace...

SOULARTS Master's Group: 2 Year Miracle Making in Process

(Offered in Awe and Gratitude for our "SoulArts Familia" and All Sojourners of Soul...)

Imagine a small group of 12 women and men, with busy full lives and the same financial issues and personal doubts, struggles and fears we most all face these days, coming together and committing to a 2-year apprenticeship program in the art of awakening to a life of wisdom, wholeness, and soulful daily living.

Imagine a group of individuals coming together - and agreeing to stay together ("no matter what") in order to learn what is is to truly quiet the mind, heal the body, awaken to the soul's wisdom, and learn what is is to live in this authentic awareness in everyday life!

This is just what has begun with the 2-year SoulArts Masters Apprenticeship Program with Ronda LaRue.

...For the next 2 years this precious SoulArts Masters "Familia" of 12 will be following together the thread of inner wisdom in every day living. We will be doing this through our ongoing online "distance learning" graduate master's program, combined with meeting every 6 months for a week-long in-residence retreat intensive, where we will meet to deepen this embodied energetic.

I have just bid farewell to our SoulArts Master's group after our first 6 night retreat together. This morning each are traveling back home to their famiies, their work, their friends. This morning each carries the sure knowing of a kindred safe haven in our Master's Group; and each carries a deeper light of spirit.

And as we sojourn together-apart for the next 6 months, I am in awe at the courage and heart and miracle of each one who has joined this process.

In the last week together, we each witnessed many miracles, in ourselves as in each other. I will share here just a few of mine and entrust you to share yours in reply...

I saw someone tortured by "the insanity of the mind" grow still and finally see and know in herself, "the peace that passes all understanding"
I saw energy too big for the body -- and a body who that learned to embrace such a big love.
I saw wisdom come through the door of innocence and wonder, returned.
I saw angst and chatter turn into insight and compassion
I saw grief washed clean in clear seeing
I saw self given over to soul and pain given up for joy
I saw projection released and humility realized as courage
I saw unbouded joy in the simplicity of preparing a meal
I saw illness overtaken by love
I saw the moment of dawn
I saw the flame of creative inspiration unleashed
I saw 12 hearts willing to hold the light together in life...

In gratitude and love...

ronda

Mid Life Crisis and Holisitic Help for the Mind Body AND Spirit!

2009-01-22T16:32:00.000-08:00

This is a LONG blog post... probably a 30 minute read intended for deep personal self-reflection...

I really encourage you to PRINT it for later contemplation ...and also to PASS IT ON to friends or loved ones you know who are struggling with the challenges and changes unique to the MID LIFE time of life (say 39-65ish!) and seeking an integrated and holistic mind/body/spirit understanding to self-healing and renewal.

SPECIAL NOTE: At the end of this blog I have posted the dates for the upcoming life-transforming Midlife Retreats I currently have scheduled in Southern California and elsewhere.

...May this contemplative blog post help those of you struggling at the challenging middle years of life to start to fit all the pieces together, and thus find healing renewal and the insight to live your soul's true passion and purpose in the years ahead!

For those who have read my books or worked with me already in one of my SoulArts apprenticeship programs, you will be intrigued to know that my unique inner work processes have recently taken on a new depth resulting from my own next level of inner transformation. I will share some of this here!

What a surprising jolt, the radical and challenging changes that occur to mind, body and spirit at mid life! At least it was a TOTAL surprise to me! First of all I spent probably a good 5 years not even recognizing or understanding the signs...

By the time I finally "got it" and realized that my body, mind and soul were all going through something REALLY BIG! And that "something BIG" was affecting EVERY aspect of my former well being in ways very challenging (to say the least).

By the time I spent (dare I account?) many thousands of dollars on various doctors and lab tests for every possible dreaded disease imaginable that all seem to mimic the bizarre and shifting symptomotology of mid life and menopause, I finally realized that our standard medical culture is still not well enough informed to deal effectively with the slippery slopes of what is happening in our body, our heart, our psyche, and our spirit at mid-life.

I have been a research scholar much of my life. Now, an author and respected spiritual teacher for many years. But I confess: midlife caught me up short. IT GOT ME!...and it ALMOST took me down. Well it did in truth. .. which is part of the process of the transformation actually! But hell at the time!

In the last several years I have built a large library and practically earned a second masters degree in my desperate search to meet, understand, and rise above the dreadful physical, emotional and spiritual challenges of midlife and menopause.

So now, in addition to my very active spiritual practice as a healer/teacher/shaman (minister) and graduate training in social psychology, I have added a very deep study of nutrition, brain chemistry and the amazing complexity of the endocrine system, the functioning of neurotransmitters in the brain, and the medical vs. alternative science and art to curing mental dis-ease and restoring true health and wellbeing to the body/mind so that the spirit can again soar!

From a problem-solving standpoint, I've discovered primarily this: Until or unless we take a fully holistic and self-responsible approach to address the full mind/body/spirit interconnection of health and well being, the results of any incremental symptom relief we try will be very limited, and the true potential of restoring life to its absolute fullest just plain can't happen! We're a cosmos unto ourselves ...and true healing and balance restored has to take that into account and move the entire system back into its orchestrated magic if we are to know our fullest birthright. That's a BIG discovery!

So let's get into it....

There is something particularly awkward, damned stupefying, and deadly perilous that occurs to most people in our culture at and around the mid life years. It is an actual developmental phase of necessary transition, just like the transition from childhood into puberty that marks the entrance into adulthood...yet we don't understand this!

We're not taught how to effectively traverse this most challenging and powerful time of change in our life! It's a tragedy: What is meant to be a great time of liberation, empowerment, and freedom too often becomes a source of divorce, depression, and dis-ease. Not right!

Look at what happens to people at midlife. Usually we first come into it by surprise and ignorance. I for one never gave midlife any credence for being any different than any other time of life. I thought menopause and the male equivalent complaints where just "people being whimpy complainers" I APOLOGIZE! Eee gads! what whole body/mind/spirit changes this midlife era stirs up in one's life! Havoc!

Then too along with an understandable naiveté regarding the powerful biological and spiritual forces at play in ones life starting in these early to late middle years of life, comes an ignorant or well intended denial: i.e., most of us in today's hectic culture simply ignore or push away the various forms of angst and confusing physical/emotional experiences and just keep going "balls to the walls" (as they say) getting more and more depleted and distracted by all the roles and responsibilities of daily life.

We keep pushing against and pushing away fear of this inner nagging pain, so that by the time we finally stop to catch our breath (or "get stopped" by a disease or personal life crisis!) we look up and find to our dismay that a whole chapter of our life has passed us right by - and realize that we weren't really even there!

We were too busy fighting to stay "up", pretending all is the same, holding on to what is no longer working. All the assorted "things" in our lives have run us ragged right into the ground. ... and we find we've lost touch with our heart and our soul in the process. ..Now we start to recognize that the problem isn't just going away...

When this deadening soul loss just can't be ignored any longer, we try anti-depressants, affirmations, power yoga, a new diet; we make a renewed commitment to our responsibilities. ...This helps for a while, but it doesn't do the job either! In fact now we add shame to the list of worried, confused, and depleted, because of a new experience: "The old ways of handling it are not working here!."

So in one last flurry of self-marshaled zeal, we may try abrupt and radical change: new job, new lover, new home, new face lift....hoping against hope that these changes will somehow prove that there is still life to draw out from this empty shell of existence.

Enter despair. We give up; we give in; we fall into a cycle of anxiety and depression... and we start dying inside...old age issues slip in as well and that seals it. We tell ourselves we simply must get over it: "we're becoming old". Fear and horror crawl up beside us for the long haul and is staved off only by our numbing depression and deadening distraction.Depressing picture isn't it?

Now I know this isn't everybody's story! But many aspects of it (if you really look into and track your own areas of fear, discomfort, angst) are true for all who must pass through this midlife threshold of change.

For me, personally, midlife has been one of the most difficult trails of my life journey to date. As one who has been called down the path of shaman teacher/guide, it seems I am called to directly live, experience - and thereby best study and understand (IF I make it through!) the depths of human suffering and self-limiting blocks... As one who has suffered and "stucked myself" right alongside many of you, I am here to say that there truly is a meaning to this madness!

Midlife has its own special kind of growing pains. We're meant to know this and to learn how to use the crisis as the change-agent for a whole new freedom of being!

At midlife we're actually meant to make quantum leap to a brand new depth of perception, wisdom, artistry ...and peace! It's a cocoon to butterfly process ...and most of us miss it entirely, and give up...becoming old worn out worms (ugh!) ...or alternatively, we put on a really hefty mask and pretend youth beyond our stature (ugh"er"!)

What is continually amazing to me is that the farther I consciously go into my own vulnerable depth process through this midlife cauldron of change (and the awkward biochemical/hormonal shifts and the bizarrely confusing moods that come with it), the more powerful my work and my vision becomes.

This is true of each one of us! Every time you enter into that which causes you fear or shame or woundedness, and learn how to meet it consciously and with creative curiosity rather than with constricting resistance, you begin the self-healing journey of the inner wisdom way ...to your freedom.

Said another way: Every time another mask of your wounded self-protective hiding is recognized in the light of curious soulful attention, it very naturally and simply loses its power ....and a genuine power that is your genius, is released and reclaimed.

It's awesome to experience this! If you've not YET experienced this, you can't imagine the relief and the restored vitality that comes with it! When this clarity of true Seeing occurs, the healing innocence of your heart is automatically reclaimed and restored. You become magnificent! You become simultaneously more genuine, more empowered, more creative, and more fully alive.

This is what our life journey is all about: dismantling the limitations and false security of fear (the real meaning of the word "sin") and becoming one who knows and aims to live by his or her true divine nature and unique "spectrum of God-consciousness". When we "give up the ghosts" of our past and learn the soul artistry of honoring our life, we very naturally step into the realization that we are, by nature, already (holy) whole.

Want to honor Truth (call it what you will: God/Life/Creation)? You can only do so by having the courage to stop dishonoring and denying and struggling against the ALL of your life!

Once you can love yourself (warts and all) only then is it truly possible to love and serve others and to live your fullest birthright and genius. This is the powerful hand that is held out and offered to you through the seeming Midlife Crisis!

Want to honor God? Stop praying "to get more of this or less of that" ...and instead discover this:

Discover what it is to so honor life itself, and YOUR LIFE ITSELF that you say "YES" to each moment -- by really being here for it!

Learn what it means to actually stand up to your life, and allow life to change you through an evolutionary process of remembering who you really are! Get intentional. Read and discover ...trouble shoot from a stance of being the "curious scientist and artist of your life"...Discover for yourself how to claim self-healing, holy wholeness and inner peace. It is actually very simple ...and yet we'll do anything but the inner responsibility required to claim our true joy.

Why? We're afraid of what we have to let drop from our hands without any assurance of what (if anything) will replace it. We do the common "faux security trick of the mind": We say: Better a lousy but known situation than a totally unknown one. I'll just hold on to this until something better comes along."

Something better cannot and will not come along from that stagnant stance! It can't. "Something better" requires a letting go (dropping) of an old way of responding, thinking, and learning to realize how to perceive and see from another whole light of being. It's a quantum leap of perception (like it is when a baby first realizes (s)he is not it's mother) There's a natural transition time for such change (just like the awkward change of power between administrations during a presidential election year). This is often a dark night of soul period in the metamorphosis cycle of a person’s life.

I have just recently undergone another personal transformational depth cycle. This is one of the most profound inner seeing changes I've yet experienced. And like all radical or quantum leaps of conscious seeing, another façade has been shed ...And in its place, a deeper creative vitality and power than I could ever have imagined possible, is infusing my life and my work in ways of genius that I as a mental function alone could never produce.

This renewed creative power is also what is awaiting you behind these very (and I mean VERY!) challenging times. And what's really great is this: Once you first glimpse (or capture even the smallest hint of the fragrance of) your own creative metamorphosis, your life begins to heal and reconfigure in beautiful and powerful ways you could never have imagined possible. We just need to get out of our own way!

Becoming conscious that midlife is a unique developmental phase of life and a potent healing/awakening process, is an essential first step.

Midlife transition is not another problem to solve or hurtle to get over. It is offering you a whole new light of Seeing and Being that re-claims and re-births you into your own special holy wholeness. A great miracle is at play ...if you will invest yourself into its artful and playful unfolding.

As many of you know, I have made a very deep inquiry and study of midlife including: the changes to our brain chemistry; mood swings and mood foods; depression and grief; body change and dietary needs, as well as startling spiritual call of soul that we are finally developmentally prepared to understand and to embrace. ...Like a good wine: Inner wisdom cannot be served before it's time.

I tell you this: if you, or someone you know, is hurting at midlife with feelings of loss, emptiness, depression, lack of purpose or meaningful direction, it signals a life-renewing opportunity waiting to be ushered in!

It also signals that something must change if you are to ever really live. It's rarely "the place" or "the spouse" or "the job" or any of "the things" of life that need changing for the most part (though sometimes these are true too). It is your orientation to YOU and to life itself that must change!

In a sentence,
You have become too small for the Whole Truth of You! ...And it's time to grow...

At midlife, our "labor pains" (especially fear, insecurity, and awkward vulnerability) are the precursors that often bring us to our knees and wake us up to the need of a new way.

If you want to begin the miraculous journey of renewed life force rather than the repeated practice of slow dying, you will have to uncover what it means to dedicate your life to the love-making journey of soul.

In the journey of soul, you will discover something truly astonishing: you will discover the secret of true unconditional self-love, gentle acceptance (which is peace) and depth of purpose (which is your genius given its full expression).

THIS IS AN AWESOME TIME, MIDLIFE! We are called to reclaim our inner wisdom; a wisdom that we are only, just now, ready to hear and claim in our world.

I too have hurt and struggled and suffered. I know (truly) what it means to despair and to feel you can never break free. I know what it is to remain trapped and to not be able to get past depression, anger, fatigue, addictive behaviors, a noisy mind...fear.

AND I have learned and discovered a unique process I call Unmasking. I have learned how to take the wounds and fears of life that are right here and right now, and listen to them in such a profoundly creative way, that they literally reveal what has been hidden behind them all along, which is: your amazingly unique and brilliant innocence of heart now tempered with the counsel of your own wise inner guidance, and genius!

I mean it! We each have God-given genius that is literally lying in wait, masked behind our fears and our wounds...Your wisdom is indeed closer than you realize!

So whew... so much for my "short email", on this day of our newly elected President of the United States! In honor of this momentous day and a brilliant call to responsible action on the part of each one of us during this time of difficulty and fear, I will pose President Obama's call to each of us in this way:

By what character will you step into your own life struggles and those around you? How will you invest yourself this year? Rather than weaken yourself further by cowing into a fearful cycle of desperate grasping and self-protective hording or holding on to what is no longer even serving you, how will you instead learn to use these struggles as a means of endowing you with greater courage and strength, deeper love and vision, truer wisdom and power, greater service and love?

Put another way:
What do you stand for in your life? What do you vest yourself in....really? By what focus do you live and make your living worthwhile? Will fear dictate your life until you eventually grow old and die...or will you dare to enter into the bold adventure of actually seeking and knowing what it is to be truly alive?

I invite you to take time and really wrestle with these questions. In fact, live these questions every day of your life ..for the rest of your life!

In these questions, real aliveness resides. It is the actions that you take as you engage these questions in your daily living that you will find what you seek. Don't manufacture some ideal of a spiritual life that is separate from your everyday life. Your everyday life - and how you live it - is the only place you will ever know your true spiritual and artful nature!

I thank you for engaging this engthy contemplative writing as your own inner quest to discover that which you seek. ...May you step into this opportunity of a lifetime and realize the power of your soul. May you be here, awake, vibrant, and creatively engaged in this magnificent love affair with life! What a dance!

Namaste,
ronda larue, January 20, 2009

MIDLIFE AND PRIVATE RETREAT CALL TO ACTION!

Come experience the truth of YOU that is ready to be lived!

MIDLIFE SMALL GROUP RETREAT - A deeply integrated small retreat in-residence with spiritual teacher/author Ronda LaRue including 60 days of free advance home preparation and e-forum dialogue, integrative health at midlife resources, and her own radical process of Soul Arts for inner self realization and living artistry More info here...

PRIVATE RETREATS - Ronda LaRue's novel apprenticeships and private retreat intensives at her Ojai Soul Arts Salon - rated one of the top spiritual retreats in the world by Asia Spa Magazine (2007) for her radical transformational artistry of approach More info here..

I invite you to pass this contemplative post on to anyone you know who is suffering with despair or loss of hope at midlife, or simply seeking a much more vibrant wholeness and creative life!

Here's the Yoga of Being Wholly YOU!

ronda larue