Newsletter
June 2008
For me, this has been a month of babies (and, no, I am not pregnant!)
I had the extraordinary privilege of being present as a close friend
birthed her baby daughter last week, which felt as if it birthed a part
of me. And one of the new avenues that have been opening up to me
recently is also channelling (for) babies. There are amazing
conversations to be had with young children – both born and unborn –
that highlight some of their contracts, challenges and relationships
within and beyond their families. I’ve been told about a child’s
neckache in the womb, another’s strong focus on gender balance, whereas
another gave quiet encouragement to her mother to revive her dreams.
Some of these conversations have been initiated by miscarriages, and
others I have done as part of a Baby Blessing Ceremony either before or
after a child is born. These are shorter than regular readings and
rather revealing and emotional. There’s a Baby Blessing section on my
website
if you’re interested to find out more.
Garrick has felt strongly that there is value in offering personal
growth opportunities to groups of only men, in powerful natural
settings. He has partnered with Stuart Jensen, owner of the magnificent
Boondocks Mountain Lodge, to create a process-based weekend retreat for
men. There are details below of this event, and many more offered in
Johannesburg, Cape Town and White River. The June Bull’s Eye at the end
of this mail explores how we work with our bodies, and is an appetiser
for an incredible new workshop –
Embody – that I will introduce in detail in the July newsletter.
If you’d like to join a small, supportive group of people who are
dedicating one evening of their month to exploring and expanding who
they are, I invite you to sign up for one of my Spiritual Growth Clubs
before the end of June.
Welcome to all the new Bloemfontein subscribers! Lekker om julle te hê.
Much love to all of you
Angela
+27 (0) 83 743 0208
Johannesburg
Personal ReadingsBook now for appointments in July, select Saturdays are also available. Contact Garrick on 084 460 8667.
Group Reading
Group readings are affordable, un-intimidating and great for newcomers to channelling. They tend to bring out brand new information and will focus on what is relevant to the particular group, and humanity in general, at the time. Everyone who attends also gets the opportunity to raise their own question and we end the evening with a chat and some sharing about what the reading has raised.
Date: Saturday 19 July 2008 (NOT Sunday as usual) 4pm – 5pm
Venue: Northside Lodge, 31 Knox Street, Waverley
Cost: R100.00pp
Please contact Garrick to book on 084 460 8667.
New Spiritual Growth Club starting in July 2008
An increasing number of people are committing themselves to conscious, responsible and empowered living. The number and variety of spiritual workshops and therapies attest to this. Yet, more is required to manifest awareness in action than just a once-off intervention. Personal transformation is a dynamic and ongoing process and requires consistent integration and support, whether that is in the form of honest feedback, access to new knowledge or motivation. Often we attempt, or feel we are forced, to pursue our spiritual development in isolation. Besides the fact that this reinforces a consciousness of separation, it can also leave us blinkered to our own stumbling blocks or gifts or next steps.
I offer you the opportunity for continuous integration and expansion of your growth in the form of facilitated, spiritual growth clubs. Groups are kept small and meet monthly under my facilitation. Activities include games, visualisation, questionnaires, group sharing, book and film reviews….and surprises!
A new group will be starting in Johannesburg in July 2008 and is almost full – please contact me ASAP if you, or a friend, would like to join. Those who have expressed interest, please ensure that you have received and completed an application form, which will ensure your placement in a group.
If there are any past members of a spiritual support group who would be interested in an advanced club, please also let me know soon.
Accessing Your Inner Wisdom Workshop
If you have ever wondered how to read the signs in your life, how to make sense of patterns that you see and how to get in touch with your own internal guidance system, then this is a brilliant one-day workshop for you.
Accessing Your Inner Wisdom will incorporate the techniques from my previous channelling workshop, and I have added two completely new sections (Body Wisdom and Everyday Wisdom) that are based on what I learnt from the readings last year on this subject. The knowledge is brand-new, the exercises are fun and you’ll have the chance to investigate a real-life question that you want some insight on. I keep the numbers small, so please contact Garrick soon to book or for more information.
Date: Sunday 6 July 2008, 10am to 4pm
Cost: R450.00pp
Venue: Northside Lodge, 31 Knox Street, Waverley
To book contact Garrick 084 460 8667.
Mid-Year Vision Board Evening
The power of image and symbolism is well-known in uncovering unconscious desires and personal solutions. The Vision Board process will assist you to unlock your personal dreams, and reveal to you some unknown aspects of those dreams. Along with that it is a helpful, visual tool for focus and is a great deal of fun to make! I invite you to refresh and re-focus your goals for 2008 and tap into some of your forgotten creativity. Participants receive individual feedback on their boards from Angela.
Date: Tuesday 15 July 2008, 7.30pm to 10.30pm
Venue: Northside Lodge, 31 Knox Street, Waverley
Cost: R170pp, includes refreshments and all materials
To book contact Garrick.
Transformation Game
This month Garrick and I were reminded about the value and fun of the Transformation Game. We hosted an evening for 7 fabulous ladies who gained deep insights and took some big steps amidst lots of sharing and raucous laughter! The Transformation Game was designed at the renowned Findhorn Retreat and is a wonderful way to play out your life. You can find new perspectives, test out your intuition and receive divine feedback – all while playing a board game. Garrick and I offer facilitated Transformation Game Evenings, which you can join as an individual or as a group of 2, 3 or 4. We can also host Game Events at your home or office for groups of 6 to 8 people.
Date: Tuesday 22 July 2008, 7.30pm – 10.30pm
Venue: Northside Lodge, 31 Knox Street, Waverley
Cost: R120.00pp
To book contact Garrick 084 460 8667.
White River
Personal Readings
Date: Friday 27 – Monday 30 June 2008
If you would like a personal reading in this time, please contact
Garrick
or 084 460 8667.
New Spiritual Growth Club starting in June 2008!
An increasing number of people are committing themselves to conscious,
responsible and empowered living. The number and variety of spiritual
workshops and therapies attest to this. Yet, more is required to
manifest awareness in action than just a once-off intervention. Personal
transformation is a dynamic and ongoing process and requires consistent
integration and support, whether that is in the form of honest feedback,
access to new knowledge or motivation. Often we attempt, or feel we are
forced, to pursue our spiritual development in isolation. Besides the
fact that this reinforces a consciousness of separation, it can also
leave us blinkered to our own stumbling blocks or gifts or next steps.
I offer you the opportunity for continuous integration and expansion of
your growth in the form of facilitated, spiritual growth clubs. Groups
are kept small and meet monthly under the facilitation of me, Angela,
and Belinda Loudon. Activities include games, visualisation,
questionnaires, group sharing, book and film reviews….and surprises!
A new group will be starting in White River at the end of June 2008, please contact me ASAP if you, or a friend, would like to join. Those who have expressed interest, please ensure that you have received and completed an application form, which will ensure your placement in a group.
Cape Town
Personal Readings
Date: Thursday 7 August – Monday 11 August 2008
If you would like a personal reading in this time, please contact
Garrick
immediately at 084 460 8667.
Group Reading
Group readings are affordable, un-intimidating and great for
newcomers to channelling. They tend to bring out brand new information
and will focus on what is relevant to the particular group, and humanity
in general, at the time. Everyone who attends also gets the opportunity
to raise their own question and we end the evening with a chat and some
sharing about what the reading has raised.
Date: Sunday 10 August 2008, 4pm – 5pm
Venue: To be announced
Cost: R100.00pp
Please contact
Garrick to book on 084 460 8667.
New Spiritual Growth Club starting in July 2008!
An increasing number of people are committing themselves to conscious,
responsible and empowered living. The number and variety of spiritual
workshops and therapies attest to this. Yet, more is required to
manifest awareness in action than just a once-off intervention. Personal
transformation is a dynamic and ongoing process and requires consistent
integration and support, whether that is in the form of honest feedback,
access to new knowledge or motivation. Often we attempt, or feel we are
forced, to pursue our spiritual development in isolation. Besides the
fact that this reinforces a consciousness of separation, it can also
leave us blinkered to our own stumbling blocks or gifts or next steps.
I offer you the opportunity for continuous integration and expansion of
your growth in the form of facilitated, spiritual growth clubs. Groups
are kept small and meet monthly under the facilitation of me, Angela,
and Fiona Mills. Activities include games, visualisation,
questionnaires, group sharing, book and film reviews….and surprises!
A new group will be starting in Cape Town in July 2008, please contact
me ASAP if you, or a friend, would like to join. Those who have
expressed interest, please ensure that you have received and completed
an application form, which will ensure your placement in a group.
What Does it Mean to be a Man?
Garrick, in his capacity as life coach, will be co-facilitating a
unique, empowerment experience for men in the Lowveld Bush from the 26th
to the 28th of September 2008. The other facilitator will be Stuart
Jensen, owner of Boondocks Mountain Lodge in Mpumalanga, also the venue
for the process.
This dynamic process-based weekend will make use of the surrounding
environment to elicit the maximum amount of learning for each
participant. The workshop will create opportunities for the men
attending to become more comfortable with themselves in terms of their
emotions, levels of trust, communication and will clarify for each
participant what it means for them, individually, to be a man.
If you, or the man in your life, would like to move towards
completeness, this is a powerful opportunity.
Date: 26 – 28 September
2008
Venue: Boondocks Mountain Lodge,
between Nelspruit and Barberton
Cost: R 2 500.00
includes full accommodation and all meals
To book: Contact
Garrick at 0844608667.
Bull's Eye
June 2008
A New Way of Working with our Bodies
Amongst people of a spiritual leaning, there seem to be three common
approaches to the body. I’ve noticed these from hundreds of
consultations with clients and, most of all, from watching my own inner
conversations with my body.
1. Disgust
Although not so prevalent anymore, there does still exist a
consciousness of hatred or disgust towards the body. This belief system
suggests that the body and its impulses hinder spiritual growth; that
physical urges such as hunger or lust are temptations, leading astray
the purity of the soul. In these traditions, the body and its impulses
need to be overcome - by abstinence (of food, sex, sleep), discomfort
(meditation, asceticism) or punishment (fasting, flagellation). This may
sound medieval to you - the kind of beliefs
that belong only in a conservative monastery or catholic convent - but
it’s highly likely that some of this consciousness remains in our
psyche. If you feel ashamed of masturbation, find yourself calling
chocolate cake ‘evil’ or force your body to endure discomfort for the
sake of spiritual growth, those are some of the indicators that you feel
some disgust for your physicality and its natural needs.
2. Disinterest
This attitude is most often found in people who are cerebral, more
interested in intellectual and metaphysical concepts than in practical,
concrete life. The contribution that such people make to society can be
wonderful, although it often happens at the expense of a life lived
deeply in touch with the wonders of their physical body. The belief
system of disinterest suggests that bodies are a necessary, though
inconvenient vehicle for thought, or consciousness. They are messy,
unpredictable, uncontrollable and slow down consciousness development.
People who have this consciousness dominantly, can seem as if
they are an active mind reluctantly dragging around a dense body. Signs
of disinterest in your physical body include not knowing whether you are
hot or cold until someone asks, forgetting to go to the dentist,
neglecting your clothing and thinking that spending money on a haircut
(as opposed to a book) is frivolous (do I sound like I know about
this?). From this tradition, the body and its desires need to be
tolerated.
3. Disguise
What I call the approach of disguise is a more recent belief system,
commonly adhered to by ‘new age’ folk. It is an approach that suggests
that the body is a disguise for messages from the soul. Up to this
point, I’m excited and resonant with the possibilities that this
approach opens up. Yet, what seems to often creep into this philosophy
(probably a hangover from our Calvinistic roots) is that the message
from the body is necessarily punitive, or at the very least corrective.
If your throat is sore it is because you haven’t been saying your truth,
if you develop diabetes it is because you are being too sweet, if you
are having problems with your teeth, then you are struggling to own or
express your wisdom. In this approach, the body (and its emotional
counterpart) always needs to be healed. From readings I have learnt to
deconstruct this approach a little and expand it to include the
possibility that your body may not be interested in punishing you at
all, merely opening up the next step.
In that vein, so to speak, I’d like to suggest a new approach to the
body:
4. Delight
Imagine that you wake up in the morning, having slept consciously and
restfully. You lie in bed for a few moments easing into your body and
feeling it out. Your neck has a crick and you notice that, wondering if
there is a way you could enhance your sleeping environment. Also, you
become aware of how amazing it is to have legs, arms, a tummy! And that
same tummy is calling for something. You listen quietly and find
yourself amused at its
request…grapefruit, sardines and a few sips of excellent coffee…ok then.
After breakfast your mind is chatty, and your body is quiet, so you
spend some time working on your computer until your back aches and you
realise that your time for sitting is over. Outside, in the company of
some trees and gentle sun you breathe deeply and simply take up all the
positions that make you feel nice and stretchy. Your body is active now
and wants to move.
A few Michael Jackson songs later your blood, enthusiasm and energy are
flowing. The phone rings and you are called to an impromptu meeting.
Only once you are in the meeting, do you realise that you haven’t had
lunch. But when you feel out your tummy, it actually isn’t hungry yet,
just thirsty, which you take care of. During the meeting you’re aware
that your whole posture is different and knees feel strange. With
surprise, and amusement, you realise that you’re attracted to the
speaker who you’ve actually known for years! You can feel your whole
body soften and you enjoy the delicious sensuality that it is offering
you. By now you’re truly hungry and excuse
yourself from the last 5 minutes of the meeting to eat. The crick in
your neck is still there and you take a few moments of your lunch break
to connect with it. It’s not a searing, hot, pain just a persistent
ache. It feels muscular and reminds you of something.
You’ve had this before…oh yes, that Christmas holiday when your
mother-in-law was bothering you about having kids, such a pain in the
neck. Pain in the neck! Of course. You can’t think of anyone at the
moment though that’s having that effect on you. But you deepen your
breathing there in the toilet cubicle and feel out the pain once more.
Your mind wanders and suddenly you’re thinking about your son’s school
project again. Shit, he still hasn’t
done it and it’s due on Friday. You’ve reminded him about this dozens of
times, you even cut short a play date on the weekend to take him to the
science museum, which he didn’t appreciate and…the crick in your neck is
throbbing now and then you get it. You’re being the pain in the neck!
It’s not your project, not your academic career and not your life.
The thought of letting this go, and giving the responsibility of this
project fully to your son brings such relief that you’re tearful.
Delighted at the messaging system from your body, you wipe your eyes and
look proudly in the mirror at the red and slightly puffy face of someone
who knows how to cry.
At dinner that evening you are anxious about how to tell your son what
came up for you today. You’re anticipating another fight, and the
anxiety sits in your stomach. You know that if you eat anything while
being so constricted, you won’t digest it well at all. So you leave your
plate of food alone and when he asks why you’re not eating, you take a
deep breath and tell him. You talk only from your reality, not his, but
even so he is angry that you’re withdrawing from the position of chief
nag. Only an hour later, once he has calmed down and your anxiety
dissipates a bit, do you return to your plate of food, enjoy every
morsel and have seconds.
That night in bed, you thank the crick in your neck that has allowed you
to go to sleep this evening with far less anxiety about your son’s
science project than before. You give your neck a slow, warm rub in
appreciation. That feels so good that you do it for your shoulders and
head as well, letting them become softer and softer until you slide down
onto your pillow, deeply relaxed and ready for the magic of sleep.
This is how it feels when your approach to your body is Delight.
© Angela Deutschmann 2008
This is part of the Introduction to a new workshop that I have created
called Embody – a workshop for those whose hearts are big enough to fall
in love with their bodies. Keep an eye on the July newsletter for full
details of this pioneering process.
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