My friends, this is the long version of the letter I wrote and shortened for the July Art of Being e-letter
I’m writing this e-letter in the garden of a dear friend’s country villa in the hills of Umbria, north of Rome, catching my breath and enjoying with Martina a very Italian holiday after an epic Spring season of workshops. Sitting here under the shade of a persimmon tree in the fragrant morning air, nature teasing all my senses, how could I wish to be less than present in every cell of my being? Next week we return to Maui for our summer break. En route, in the busy streets of Prague and London, on trams and trains, and amidst all the flurry and bustle of airports and plane-travel, it will good to be just as present.
I am deeply aware of how much has been touched in me during this 4 months on the road. I am alive with all that is moving in me from the 69 days I have spent in Art of Being circles since we left Hawaii in late February. I wish I could convey in a short e-letter what it is that sustains me through such a schedule, and indeed inspires me to create it in the first place. People do ask me, including other seminar leaders, and all I can ever say is, “It’s the art of being.” Meditation to me means BEING WITH WHAT IS, and this is what I have been practising now for nearly 4 decades. My work and my life are one. The simple principle at the core of The Art of Being applies to me as much as to the people who come to my workshops, and of course to all beings everywhere always: the more I open, befriend and awaken in myself, the richer is my presence in the life I am living.
It is this quality of BEING HERE NOW that determines how fully we can celebrate life. Everyone is somewhat present, but the whole kaleidoscope of our nature, feelings, heart, self and soul is available only to the degree that we have opened our personal inner space. This happens through dissolving the stuff of our psyches – healing our wounds, letting go of our attitudes and fixations, and making friends with the fears that fuel them. It is all this stuff that keeps us too preoccupied to be more than functionally present. Art of Being workshops are alchemical crucibles where we turn our stuff into the gold of heart-and-soul awareness.
I am about to write an article for Connection magazine on what it means to be a teacher. Writing this e-letter is an apt prelude; to me, a good teacher is a learning adept – someone who is skilled in the art of learning and who understands that what enriches and liberates people is not BEING TAUGHT, but LEARNING! At dinner a couple of days ago my host, Mario, was telling me that one of his sailing friends has kept his child out of school throughout his childhood because, “I won’t let school disrupt his education”. Yes, most teaching is only schooling.
The Art of Being is very real education. Every time I am in the workshop circle, like everyone else there I am learning. My way of giving my gifts to the people who come to be in the circle with me is every moment a deep learning experience for me. I learn from everyone there and from THIS THAT IS HAPPENING HERE AND NOW. Existence is my teacher. If there is more soul and more spirit moving in the workshops nowadays it reflects the learning that continues to open my own heart and soul. The greatest gift I receive from my work is that like everyone there I keep opening more deeply into the mystery of my own being.
So to all of you who sat and danced and laughed and cried and loved and opened with me in some of these 69 days, a great Thank you! – for all that I learn in being with you. And thank you too that you care as I do to bring more love and awareness into this lost world through becoming ever more of your real being in it, and in your soul more free of it too. My wish and prayer is that you may keep celebrating your own magical being, and let every day be an Art of Being meditation bringing you many golden moments where “All that I am is one with all that is”.
With love and aloha, alan
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