Do you have any idea how much money you have saved by going on retreat in your own home? You are going to be asked to stay home, so, why not turn part of your time into a spiritual retreat? You can create for yourself a private retreat replete with spiritual guidance, spiritual practice, journaling, creativity and reading. And add to it, you get to choose your own food. Do you want to fast on this retreat? Drink juice and tea only? Have a vegetarian retreat? Stop for a moment. With the Coronavirus pandemic unfolding and the outside world closing down around you; YOU are at the perfect place...
The following excerpt is taken from Dr. Holmes’ book This Thing Called You: You have discovered the spiritual universe. Many others have discovered the same world, but each must make the discovery for himself. You are going to have a lot of joy sailing around this world of yours. Don’t fight the opinions of others, or waste your time arguing over these things. Follow the inward gleam of your consciousness and you will arrive. Whatever you identify yourself with you will become like. Whatever you resist until you make it a reality, you will also become like. Therefore, “…resist not evil and it will flee from you.” Don’t...
How is your immune system’s health? This has become an important question with the Coronavirus in the news right now. Individuals who have a compromised immune system are at risk for the virus being dangerous; those with a healthy immune system may or may not get sick and will yet most likely fight it off. Throughout my ministry I have had a keen interest in the relationship between what we think about, our spiritual life and our physical health. With this interest, I have been a long time student of building immune health, body mind and spirit. I am not a medical doctor, but I continue to have conversations...
My devices were buzzing this morning with the news that the Harvey Weinstein verdict was in. I went to the Court TV website to find the outcome. Weinstein was convicted of two of the five charges and will serve somewhere between 10 and 25 years for his offenses — criminal sexual act and rape in the third degree. I then watched a few additional interviews and learned that the above results were just for New York and there will be another court case to follow in California. I learned that California has passed laws doing away with non-disclosure agreements linked to sexual assaults. This new law has gained attention...
HAPPY NEW YEAR AND NEW DECADE!! 2020. I spent my November in Bali. While there I watched a culture practice “ceremony” throughout each and every day. Ceremony is another word for engaging in a ritual to honor and recognize the Divine Presence. Each morning when I woke up and went outside there would be evidence of prayer remains at my front door. A palm basket filled with flowers and incense honoring the three-fold nature of The Divine. The physical, the Soul, and the Invisible. Each hotel, store, and place of business had a temple and in front of the altar would be evidence that someone had shown up to...
Merry Christmas. Yesterday I attended a United Church of Christ Christmas Eve service. My former next door, neighbor, Vern, is the pastor of the church and my beloved friend and minister colleague of ten years, Renee, sang. I sat in the front row standing witness to two friends who have dedicated their lives to serving God, as I have. Pastor Vern is a former Catholic priest and a scholar of all things Mediterranean so his sermon about the birth of Jesus wove in historic details. According to his studies, Jesus was born in a cave in Bethlehem, which he has visited several times. Father Joseph and Mother Mary traveled...
A few days ago, Nancy Pelosi was asked by a journalist if she was undertaking the impeachment process because she hated the President. Her response (paraphrased) was she has learned to not hate through the practice of her Catholic Faith. Impeachment, she said, was about holding the president accountable to keeping his oath of office (behavior). She went on to say that she prays for the president often. This comment brought me back to when I first learned that someone’s behavior and our affection for them, can be different. My career has focused around training adults in different environments, public, corporate and spiritual. In my first corporate job...
When my seven year old granddaughter is grateful, she jumps up and down, screeching inaudible noises while clapping her hands. Everyone around her knows she is grateful. Her auric field is on high alert of an energy akin to star twinkles mixed with chocolate candy Kisses. She is all in. And yet her gratitude, at age 7, is contingent on something tangible. Her grandmother is coming to town. The two of us are going on a date to see the latest kid movie while sharing popcorn in seats that recline. Or, she is getting a toy she REALLY, REALLY wants. And yet the spiritual journey invites us to...
In my last blog post I shared a bit about my journey into the Deep Silence of My Soul. I always thought I’d write a book about it, but knew I needed to be marinated more before I was ready to share my experience and maybe the experience was mine to hold without sharing. Yet out of the seeming nowhere, I am now compelled to speak of my experience with some level of objectivity and reverence. During my three year sabbatical I experienced many different dimensions which were revealed to and through me. One such dimension I refer to as the feeling tone of suicide or oblivion. For a...
Eleven years ago I went through a real rough patch. Real rough. I had a major medical procedure, an intimate relationship ended and my dad died. This is what was happening on the visible realm. On the inside of my being, the way I saw and interacted with the world was getting torn down, thought-by-thought, belief-by-belief, projection-by-projection, judgment-by-judgment and experience-by-experience. And it was rough and tough. The only thing I could do was enter into silence, meditation and prayer and listen to myself while feeling so much unprocessed old stuff and crying often. I had to close out the outside world and go deeper in order to hear the...
Joy is a medicine. Any quality of God is a medicine as it activates the Soul to flood our body with Energy Eternal. So, how in the midst of day of duality do I leave the realm of conflict and attention grabbing to experience Joy? First I begin looking for it. This can be done in the Present Now Moment as I feel it in my body. I acknowledge it to myself or those around me which then becomes a shared and more potent energy. Everyone can benefit from a hit of, “can you feel the Joy between us right now? Can you feel it in you?” It makes...
Many years ago Amy, Dr. Michael and I got together weekly for two years to vision a new spiritual community in Scottsdale. It would be called ImpulsUS. This community came together to “experiment in The Field.” We would meditate, listen to The Space around us and between us, paint, write poetry, receive transmissions from anointed beings of Divine Light. It was magical, fun, and different. When the three of us were receiving The Community Values from our visioning process, Spaciousness was one of them. Why would Spaciousness be a spiritual community’s value? Because when one has Space within oneself, there is perspective, non-attachment, and lots of Love present. When...
My life continues to be magical since I returned from Ireland. And, I appreciate the texture of this elongated magical experience. I lean more deeply into the awareness that All Dimensions of God — including this frolicking, light filled realm, is available to me (and each of us) at all moments in time. We enter into realms, though, through resonance or Grace. I have become more aware of how quickly and easily I have allowed myself to close my heart and remain out of this and other anointed realms due to my shallower self wanting to be in charge. I continue to practice aligning with my Soul, opening my...
I just returned from Ireland. Several of my upcoming posts will include revelations, insights, and spiritual practices from this trip. My intention is to take you along with me so you can have your own experience of this unique Holy land. Today we will engage in a ritual of release at the Cairn of Maeve. I apologize for the jerky video and the loud wind; trust me, your tenacity it is well worth it. Cairns are mounds of stones built as a memorial or a passage way from this physical world into the next, ethereal world. It is place that commemorates death and new birth. (This theme runs throughout...
Tonight at sundown is the beginning of Yom Kippur, which is part of the largest celebration of the Jewish calendar (like Christmas is to the Christians). The celebration of Rosh HaShana, or the welcoming in of the Jewish New Year. Yom Kippur closes out the old Year with a somber 24 hours of fasting, repentance and atonement. As you and I deepen into our spiritual journey, we come to realize that the stories which hold the different religions together are unique to the culture of the religion. However, the spirit underneath the story and the practices to connect with the spirit are similar. It is here where we can connect...
Summer is coming to an end and books are scattered throughout my home awaiting for me to pick up and continue reading. The content of these books are SO rich, I must share them with you. I have embedded active links to Amazon for your convenience, should you desire to explore them further. Boundaries, by Dr. Henry Cloud and John Townsend I watched a TED Talk on rejection where the speaker, Jia Jiang, consciously set himself up for 100 days to be rejected so that he could get over rejection as a driver for his behaviors. (to see the TED Talk, go to my Facebook page: Facebook.com/bonnieannebarnard). I was...
Happy Father’s Day. Today I speak in Flagstaff, Arizona. Since it is Father’s Day I wanted to speak about father’s in our lives and how they, just like everyone and everything, exist to develop our Soul. What do I mean by this? I mean that EVERYTHING gives us an opportunity to develop the capacity to become more loving and more grace-filled. My desire for myself is that I train my mind to look less to the past and more to the “Emergence” of what is birthing Itself on the leading edge of my consciousness and the expansion of my heart. In other words, I can look back at my...
What do you love? I am guessing if we compared lists you and I would have some things that overlap, AND, each of us would have loves that are unique to us. We might both LOVE Hawaiian sunsets after a rain and yet we might not both love kitten videos on YouTube (for the record, I don’t). You might love drinking iced flavored coffee with a bit of whip while I might love a sparkling water with a porporri of citrus fruit squeezed in it. What we love is unique to each of us. And, LOVE is the highest vibrating quality of God. So isn’t it interesting that our...
I am having the BEST time!! I have been teaching meditation practices for decades (and more importantly practicing them) and I have been invited to speak on Mindfulness at a workshop for employees. My two big loves — God and work. However, I am to present what I know from a secular and scientific perspective so I am diving into the new brain and heart research and I am swimming in Pure Heaven. Yep, a Tuesday in Pure Heaven. I want to share with you a practice I just ran across in a book on Mindfulness for athletes entitled, A Still Quiet Place for Athletes by Amy Salztman, MD....
“Judge not, lest ye be judged.” The Bible I have become SO aware of the hold judgment has taken in my mind, that I have been actively practicing replacing it — over and over again. This past Sunday I attended a church service and I couldn’t stop judging the minister. I wanted her to be different. I wanted to be “spiritually fed” by her. I wanted her revelations to align with mine and I was miserable. Halfway through the sermon the adult voice within said very loud within my mind, “Stop it!! Open your heart and love.” And, I did. One second misery had taken hold in my being...
Forget the meaning of Holy Week for a moment and just bask in the two words, “Holy Week.” Wouldn’t it be powerful to claim, every Monday morning as we awoke, that this week is Holy? Just the words raise my vibration before diving into the meaning… Now, let’s dive. Metaphysicians look at Holy week different than traditional believers. To the metaphysician, sacred scripture is valued not as a literal, historic text, but as a symbolic text for ripening and revealing the Soul. Rev. Ike, metaphysical Christian and the founder of Science of Living, said of the Bible it is “the greatest book of self-image psychology.” Again, referring not to...
My dad and I used to love sitting on the couch, lights low, drinking tea and watching politicians running for office. We relished the conversation of who the candidates saw themselves to be, and the vision they articulated for the country. We watched debates, like we watched basketball, and would recall highlights afterward. We watched everyone, and I still do. Democrats, Republicans, and Third Party candidates (Ross Perot being the only serious one I remember discussing). Last night I watched Pete Buttigieg aka Mayor Pete on The Rachel Maddow Show answer questions about coming out of the closet. Rachel begins by asking him why he waited until 33 years...
