Can a personality love?

Joy writes to a participant about the fear of love -

In a Joyful Loving circle, where we are exploring in an area (sex, relationship, love) where our culture is most wounded, most judgemental and mixed up, most permissive (in the incorrect use of the word), misinformed, greedy and licentious, it is important to know and accept that true freedom (the opposite of licentiousness) is dangerous yet wholly innocent and life-enhancing and make allowances and clear, careful boundaries for this, so that all aspects of being are looked after in this circle, received and ultimately released – the traumatised child, the religious brainwash, the unintegrated adolescent, the harsh, ‘right’ judge, the tender heart etc etc.

So that awakening, healing and re-membering happens organically and as ‘safely’ and carefully as we can hope for, with respect for the stories and beings outside of our circle and respect for the lives you choose to lead outside of it. Only you all, separately, in your own carefully considered choices, moment by moment, can do this. Knowing of course that ‘you’ don’t exist.  Those true choices are respected and supported ALWAYS here.

Honour your choices and as healing happens, you will open to the love that is, anyway, alone or with a loved one.

When ‘you’ is around, love isn’t possible.  The surrender of the known and the controllable that love requires is feared. this is true in love relationships, in parenting, in caring for animals or land, in circles of transformation, in business-any arena where we drop the personal pretences and give ourselves to something bigger than the personal. You are all learning to love. Learning to let in the wholly terrifying nature of love. Where you see that another’s choices made in consciousness are wholly innocent and have to drop your desire to label and judge. In love you see that your monsters are harmless and energising rocket fuel for your knowing of life’s bitter yet oh so sweet and freeing truths. In love you see that any worldly achievement is ashes. Loving being betrayal is a gift you choose to give yourself. Loving being, you give up wanting what you thought was most desired.

Love is the stuff of which life is made. Yet so often love is missed or avoided because it is a threat to the status quo, to the conditioned self, the personality.

A personality (however socially skilled or conditioned to be ‘good’ or ‘giving’) cannot love. A personality never experiences intimacy. Personalities judge -Does life judge? Personalities do deals -Does life do deals? Personalities blame and shame – Does life ever blame? Personalities hold back to keep safe – Does life hold back? Personalities accommodate to keep safe – Does life accommodate? A personality can make deals that ‘work’ to some extent. But those deals don’t reach into -in fact they veil and hide – the core, the vast empty beingness – where, there is no moral code, simply aliveness, nature. There our animal, woman, man lives present and alive and awake. Your nature is innocent. Nothing can hurt, all is well. Nothing is known. Even boundaries and agreements are irrelevant (though they might be still maintained) in that spaciousness. This is love, this is compassion. It is raw and it is truthful and it is uncompromising. It is not for the faint hearted. It is dangerous. It is life. It is death. It is sex. It is love. It is destructive. It is creative. It is where nothing is needed, nothing needs to be done or had or looked for, no one is considered.

So it is whole and innocent.

And it may contain total activity, actions, business, personality, feeling….

 

 

 

All love to you all, Joy xxx

The next Joyful Loving explorations you can book a place on are

a 1 day course at Hawkwood http://www.secretgarden.eu.com/page70.html

an Easter weekend http://www.secretgarden.eu.com/summeroflove.html

and a 6 module ongoing training http://www.secretgarden.eu.com/joyfulloving.html

 

Posted in Being With All That Is, Joyful Loving, Secret Garden | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

right or wrong

Let us meet beyond any thoughts of what is right or wrong, feeling what is felt, knowing the awe-ful aloneness in it, we choose to connect, to discover what is here, to celebrate being together.

Posted in Being With All That Is, Huna, Joyful Loving | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wishing you all a heart and soul filled Christmas season and 2012

Dear participants and those who may participate in Secret Garden in future

I write in deep gratitude for the love and friendship shared between us and offered to those I write to whom I haven’t yet met. Thank you all for valuing what cannot be measured. It is such a testament to your care and love, courage and honesty that so much healing, friendship, breakthrough and celebration happens in this Secret Garden. A community that isn’t held together by belief systems or rules or expectations, just by shared valuing of that which cannot be spoken, the nothing that is everything. And shared respect and care of and sensitivity to the fragile extraordinariness of being these humans we are.

At this Christmas time, if we open to it, we can feel, if we listen, the world slowing, even stopping very soon. We can feel soul in the whole western world’s population. For once in the year, our culture en masse is invited into gratitude for home, family, friends – and also invited into celebration of spirit. The form doesn’t matter. The belief systems dont matter. The trappings of material madness and the trivia certainly dont matter.

Deep down at this time, and despite every one of those human challenges – genocide, rape, war, credit crunch, divorce, illness, loss, conflict – that tragically haunt so many, so much of the time, and yet are perhaps increasing collective awareness of reality creation, most are engaged at Christmas, at some level, in shared celebration of the mystery of what it is to be alive, what it is to open to something bigger than personal preference. The love at the silent heart of creation.

It’s beautiful to gather, whether with family and or friends or alone in a church congregation where noone knows us….to gather and mark and acknowledge the power we have EVERY single day to step back and

………listen, with every sense we are blessed with, to life and its mysterious prompting towards what is bigger than the personality. A sacred mystery, the biggest gift.

In whatever Christmas you choose to play at, find a little space to just listen with every ounce of being. Wake up. Wake up into all that you really are.

Gratitude and celebration can open into being. Its a wonderful’present’. And if you just aren’t in touch at all with even that possibility, love who you are now!

There is nowhere to go, nothing to achieve, nothing to become in this endless play of nothing being everything. This is it! Now and now, this heaven calls.

Just being, this silence and stillness, this Christmas joy.

I wish you some of the sweet, silent space of Christmas in your heart and being.

Aloha, with every breath there is love, here, now.

All love

Joy Hicklin-Bailey


 

Posted in Secret Garden | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A response to ….Am I self-indulgent to want to go on a retreat again?

There are times in life when it is right, natural, appropriate and wonderful for you to focus almost primarily on spiritual ‘growth’ and transformation into the nothing and everything of being. Once you taste awakening of course you love to be in spaces and with those who love awakeness too! (tether your worldly camel too of course in whatever way you need)

There are ‘windows’ over the course of a life (a life which belongs to no one) when everything calls out for this work and for a sense of comradeship and community along what is an arduous and sometimes painful ‘journey’ (to nowhere) and when it is time to be dedicated and focused, held by others’ friendship and given reflection as you experience, break through, share, heal and celebrate the unique things we need to at a soul level.

There is no need to apologise for or keep in check this pull to beingness! If you need a reason beyond being, then think of the problems created on your planet because most human beings don’t value beingness but instead place their focus on what they can ‘get’ from ‘’out there’. Our mainstream culture does not support love, truth and presence. It is actively encouraging you to lose the truth of being, to reach out ‘there’ to ‘get something’. This sabotages relationships, family happiness, our wildernesses…….

Give yourself what you value. Know your tribe. Surrender to what is good, innocent, intelligent.

You might even go so far as to say (I would) that the whole way throughout life there is nothing of more value, beauty and joy and nothing more likely to be for you an excellent investment of time, money and energy, that always delivers huge returns, than this work. That is because inner reflects outer and in your wholeness you are so vast and such a creative force! So self –realisation is very practical!

If your practical circumstances and life priorities allow, go for it and allow yourself as often as you can the spaces that support you to create opening, vulnerable honesty, the inner realm, deep and true connection with others, total uncompromised aliveness, full self-responsibility and most of all the realization of that which cannot be measured.

aloha, Joy xxx

Joy is running a Huna Retreat from 30 Nov to 4 Dec 2011. Click here for details.

Posted in Being With All That Is, Huna, Secret Garden | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dare you trust the creativity and infinite possibility of the simple?

How would it be to ask yourself ‘what can I do to make my day or week or year simpler?’ How can I rearrange my current life experience so that it brings me more joy and less stress? Have the courage to trust simplicity and let it enrich the joy in your life.

Hawaiian Huna healing and esoteric truth is totally aligned with nature. Being in harmony with natural  rhythms is  a real challenge in your fast moving world.  Simple presence can prove to be difficult to experience when our lives become overwhelming or chaotic, where events are not fully digested.

Nature is a beautiful mirror, invites us to let go, heal, fall into being. So, squelch through autumn mud, sit by a river….   kālelemuku (relax, chill). and join us Nov 30-Dec 4 for a residential retreat, an initiation into oneness, an opportunity, without distraction and with the beautiful support of spiritual community , to wake up out of the subtle trances of who you think you are, into being. From that boundary-less infinite consciousness, extraordinary creativity and possibilities emerge and can be empowered consciously.

At a Huna retreat you are far away – emotionally and physically – from many daily decisions and demands that are considered part of your ‘modern life’.

Where cooking and cleaning are done for you, where you can completely disconnect from the speed and urgency of computers and mobiles if you so choose, life is vastly more simple.

I love to witness the transformation that occurs for participants in that simplicity,

where there is space and happiness arises for no reason.

How would it be to ask yourself ‘what can I do to make my day or week or year simpler?’ How can I rearrange my current life experience so that it brings me more joy and less stress? Have the courage to trust simplicity and let it enrich the joy in your life.

Posted in Huna | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Do you truly have Self – Love?

This apparent world which is both real and unreal, both something and nothing, is simply love, aloha, unfolding.

So to ‘love oneself’ and to always celebrate the precious life you are, is the first massive step towards being.

There is no one, there is no separation, all there is is this, here now which is beyond time and place (the words cannot speak it).

You all love this truth, that is why you are drawn to this secret garden.

The truth becomes corrupted by even well meaning parents or educators or politicians and through language, because in various ways you are told and might take in (it would be extremely hard not to) that love is conditional and has to be earned.

This isn’t true.

The FIRST most important step in Huna (it means the hidden knowledge that brings enlightenment) or Hawaiian healing is self-love. Without this you are not aligned with life.

To say ‘I love myself’ is not the deepest truth but it is a MASSIVE transformation. To say I love the dark, the light, the frailty, the physical limits, the raw wildness, etc etc!!! This is so huge and so fundamental. And who feels better to be around? Someone who knows their dark and is tenderly ok with it, or someone who either denies it or fights it or has no choice but to express it?

It is deep soul work down the aeons, through the galaxies of consciousness. For most it is life’s work if they DARE!!!

Then there is so much more! Falling off the cliff into no-thing……

But to love oneself really means to discover that all there is is love. To chip away chip chip chip at the pretence of being anyone or having problems. This requires great compassion from friends, the spiritual community you create for yourself, in the circles, and great authenticity and self-honesty. It is much safer to be ‘together’ ‘sorted’ and to know who one is, even though it is all made up!

You ask about whether to energise the goal of being with a man…..Self-love is so much more essential in being happy than the love of man (or woman)

You can choose to energise a goal of being with a man. But there are some good questions to ask oneself about that first. Simply energising with out clearing first is a good way to manifest all your limitations in the mirror of a partner –but that is exquisitely perfect learning of course. (first noa then noho) What a  beautiful way to learn that all there is, is love! Or you can keep peeling away the layers of resistance to being with a beloved and just see if life brings someone.

Either way is fine. Either way the doorway to truly Joyful Loving begins with using the first key of self –love.

with great aloha

 

Posted in Huna | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Who are you?

‘You’ –and your challenges – are vast, boundless, empty fullness, unconditional love unfolding. What is, is perfection. Including suffering and challenge and delight. When oneness is seen, the ordinary is a miracle. The most mundane thing we can ever do is truly extraordinary.

Love is what you are. You are light. You are life. You are intelligence. This radiant and absolute joy is immediate and quietly underpins and embraces all pain and separate self. On top of this joy is ‘you’ in existence, the world, all your circumstances, challenges, mistakes, self-doubts and achievements. The world cannot give us freedom. Your roles are not what you are, your self-judgement is not what you are. This is an unavoidably human journey and all the choices are ours. Life accepts them  unconditionally whether you do or not!

For those who wish it, here at Secret Garden is the art of living happily, whatever one’s apparent personal circumstances.  This work is natural and profoundly humane. As a by product, the rewards are greater freedom, ease, effectiveness, joy and happiness in relationship, work, life. However the message is that there is nowhere to go, nothing to get, nothing to become. And to love what is, love yourself like your own best lover. Love what you feel right now. Let what is, be. Rest in the silence beyond stories and time and discover that you are endless joy without reason.

Give up the fight with yourself, with your responses, with your nature. Working on yourself doesn’t work!

Every experience, every feeling, every circumstance, is an invitation  to let go, and be the love, the aliveness now. This realisation is always new. Dogma and belief are nothing to do with this. You are not required to give anything up, though things may fall away.

For 19 years I have been sharing with others the joy of being, beyond the separate sense of self, and beyond the mind’s ideas of identification with world and cause and effect, in residential retreats, day gatherings, evening meetings, and, most richly, in ongoing groups. Join us and discover the truth of being or deepen that Self-realisation.

Let the circles give you space to explore how to live a spiritually awake life that is also an embodied happy, authentic, earthly, natural one. Enjoy! There is a Wild Wolf Woman day on Sept 23 and that is followed by Be An Ordinary Mystic Sept 24 and 25.

I would be delighted to meet and work with you if you are new to these explorations, and to see you again soon if you are an old friend. It’s my privilege and profound pleasure to walk with those who love and value beingness.

In endless gratitude to all my teachers and guides and to all those friends who bring their own particular beauty to our circles and with all love to you.

 

Posted in Secret Garden | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

What is your number 1 way into being with all that is, into meditation and freedom?

Today I was deeply moved by someone who shared -in a closed ongoing group forum in the Secret Garden community – ‘I am less scared by the mystery of not knowing, so much is changing, like my cells are changing polarity. I’m giving up the fight…yet..I have had a lifetime of distractions in the form of pain, suffering, joking, noise, dance, food, sex….the quiet seems to be making the noise that shapes my life louder than ever. It was easier when the noise came from the outside… I am finding this consciousness journey particularly hard at the moment and it is good to feel you out there”

It is beautiful to witness this intimate sharing of the riches of this unfolding and the challenges too. It takes self-honesty and courage to show up with them.

Are you confused about what meditation is? or not making space for silence? Many are. Comments that might happen in gatherings about resistance to spiritual life are -’Meditation is difficult – I can’t find the time -It seems like another ‘to do’ – It doesn’t give me anything – I read so many techniques, whats the right one?’

Meditation is simply a BEING WITH WHAT IS. And – as the ultimate truth of what is, is One, beyond apparent form, the One from which all duality comes – in deep meditation the physical and emotional and thought life are still and silent and then there is simply This, Oneness. No separation. No distinction between inner and outer. Complete, perfect, at rest, alive intelligence. and the secret, available to all, is that ultimately all life is available to be lived this way, whatever you are doing, cooking, eating, making love…

Meditation is simple, natural. It can open the door -perhaps permanently- to a being with, resting in Source. It recharges your batteries and brings practical benefits. It is also very beautiful. Of course when you stop doing and pay attention to your inner life, some of what you encounter may be exactly what you would like to run from – fast! such as memories, feelings that aren’t so comfortable,old stories you dont want to know about anymore. And so resistance builds -and that resistance is simply another beautiful aspect of WHAT IS. You can choose to embrace all this life like a beloved friend rather than fight it or give up being quiet. Sadness, anger, hurt, fear are the open door to freedom if you simply meet them full on with love.The old stories, memories, held body responses, patterns of reaction, isolation, habits you judge, yearn for sweet embrace.

Tenderness with what is, infinite tenderness, dissolves all until you rest as your true nature. As you sit without worldly distraction, bless what arises, over and over. It is its own healing. It is simple, natural, innocent. You cannot help but fall in love with what is. When you dare to do this deeper and deeper you will see that all is One. And if you don’t it simply is anyway. Always. All love.

Joy is sharing about and responding to questions about your true nature at several gatherings and retreats this year where Silence is honoured and celebrated and where you can retreat amidst great company from the worldly for a while. Please click on the links for further details about the Silent Retreat, the Ordinary Mystic retreat and the Huna Retreat events.

Posted in Being With All That Is, Joyful Loving, Secret Garden | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

What would be the point of you having a daily meditation practice?

Recently, I was drawn to remind the participants of the current Being With All That Is ongoing group, how important a regular practice is, however simple. The beginning of the day is a good time and if not, the end of the day is also potent. At these times the world is a little less fast paced and a little more still and silent.

Catch those moments as ‘you’ move from sleep into awakeness. Begin to notice how ‘you’ might begin to re-construct an identity and remember what ‘you’ ‘have’ to do today. Seeing through all this is a good start to dissolving your sense of limited choice.

This first waking time is a time of day when you might be more open to seeing through your everyday roles, and your assumptions about ‘what kind of person’ you are. These remembered identities and assumptions are not true!

Perhaps experiment with not putting the radio or tv on when you make breakfast. Perhaps ask your family to share being in silent time for a few minutes while you go about practical jobs.

Scientific research shows that a regular meditation session is a powerful way to release stress and anxiety and to improve your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well being. There are so many simple methods -commit to at least one every day for say two weeks and see how things change for the better (your mind will resist so your committment matters)
This is how a 15 minute session might look
1. Shake for 2 minutes as vigorously as you can – become the shaking
2. Sit with a straight back and relaxed,closed eyes and relaxed jaw, for 10 minutes where you wont be disturbed. Simply listen to the life inside or if there is simply space to life’s vastness. If strong feelings or memories arise, simply allow and love what is here -breathe in love and ease, breathe out disturbance. Just sitting in silence allows the mind to quiet, which helps your body release stress and helps you connect to love that simply is.
If you know ho’oponopono you can use that at least once a week during this time. Or choose hiolani, the meditation on the light.
Both of these I share in the Huna retreat, Lomi retreat and in introductory Huna weekends. They are simple but profound in their effects. You could instead choose to work with releasing, another very profound clearing meditation I share in releasing weekends and all retreats (The Ordinary Mystic is the next opportunity to explore this)
3. To close your quiet meditation time, breathe into the heart. Focus on what in your life you are grateful for. Then what you are grateful for that awaits you in this new as yet untouched day

These approaches are simple but they are all you need to start peeling away layers of illusion about who you are and freeing you from mind’s grip on your true nature!

Cleaning up the past is an important spiritual hygiene. Make it a habit like brushing your teeth! and then you might re-member, realise, a sense of oneness, of connectedness to all other things and beings, a love for all creation. if you are serious about expanding consciousness, about being free, then this is the first requirement. Only you can do it.

Increased presence will make all aspects of your day alive, sweet, a gift. Dont miss this life!

Posted in Being With All That Is | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

How does Hawaiian lomilomi massage benefit you?

Hawaiian massage or LomiLomi massage can bring very significant shifts in your life experience, allowing you freedom from old patterns of limitation and more of the natural happiness and freedom of being.

Lomilomi will do all this for you -

. Cleanse and detoxify, enhancing all homeostatic systems and organs of your body.

· Invites deep relaxation of your body and mind.

· Opens your muscles and joints.

· Encourages harmony, your sense of well being and balance.

· Increases awareness of the pleasure of being in your body.

· Energises and revitalises your life force.

· Enhances your circulation, improving skin and hair and muscle tone and improves posture.

·  Induces inner calm and clarity in you, and new direction and insight for your life.

· Builds your confidence, vitality and self-esteem.

· Opens you to deep levels of accepting who you are and what you can contribute to life.

· Enhances your self knowledge and brings focus and alignment

· Your unconscious brings into the light what needs healing in your spiralling journey into total freedom of being.

· Encourages abundance as you tune in more and more to your nature and that of this planet.

· Inspires self-love so that you shine!

· There may be openings in your being to realisations of the deepest levels of Truth.

You will work in this lomi retreat with the physical, emotional and energetic levels of being to encourage through loving, vibrant touch, the wholeness that is your birthright. The aloha of our circle, the unconditional love and acceptance of all that you are, invites a deep let-go on physical, emotional and energetic levels. Your long, flowing, endless infinity movements with their oceanic rhythm  embrace and nurture you and allow a cellular realisation of oneness and the wonder of aliveness.

Lomilomi is a profound rite of passage, an initiation. It is a spiritual healing which leads to physical and emotional healing. Deep, flowing, luxurious Lomi cleanses the body and allows increased light to enter the bones, organs and tissues. In Lohe lima, we sense elemental imbalances, soreness, held energy and any trauma in the body. Lomi is prayer, poetry in motion. The heart allows the flow of unconditional love. Lomi is life loving life. Grace heals through us. It is the aloha, the love, that heals, not technique.

And every benefit the receiver gains is always given back to the giver! The more lomi we receive, the looser and more open the body and being. Moreover, each initiation we undergo can carry a deep intention for our lives. Huna and Lomi, the teachings of ancient Hawaii, are a direct path to revealing the Truth of life, the essence of the love that we are, the aloha in all manifestation. You are all that is, the source and appearance of all that rises and falls in awareness, nothing else is ever happening. The Kahuna knows that life’s dream is the expression of wholeness, not a search for it. What is, is perfection. A paradox that runs through all my work and my life!

The leaders and kings of ancient Hawaii received many massages over many days as a rite of passage, before taking up their worldly roles.

Lomi can bring very significant shifts in your life experience, allowing you freedom from old patterns of limitation and more of the natural happiness and freedom of being. We work with the physical, emotional and energetic levels of being to encourage through loving, vibrant touch, the wholeness that is your birthright. The aloha of our circle, the unconditional love and acceptance of all that you are, invites a deep let-go on physical, emotional and energetic levels. Our long, flowing, endless infinity movements with their oceanic rhythm  embrace and nurture you and allow a cellular realisation of oneness and the wonder of aliveness.

Lomilomi massage is an opportunity for all who wish to invite more of the intimacy and healing of touch into their lives, a way of creating sacred ground within and without. Hawaiian Kahi Loa and Lomilomi Nui healing touch is gentle and profound and gorgeous. These were used in ancient healing initiations to fully integrate physical and spiritual energy and promote the free flow of life energy and joyous fulfillment. This energetic healing and deep tissue massage quietens the mind, cleanses the emotional body, opens energy channels and can release toxins and relieve many old layers of tension, pain and conditioning in the physical body. It can be combined with powerful yet simple Huna rituals, shamanic journeys and profound meditations,. A deeper realization that all is one and that there is no separation can result.

This retreat is for YOU (experienced or novice) if you wish to create sacred space to work shamanically on issues and visions of your choice and explore lomi deeply, I urge you to join the lomilomi retreat Thursday July 21, 2.00 pm to Sunday July 24, 4.00 pm.

Waves of Aloha – Touching Presence Sacred Hawaiian LomiLomi Massage – Come experience a nourishing retreat and the delicious openings that 4 days of profound massage in a powerful energetic field can give you.

You will receive several luxurious and deeply transformative massages during this retreat. You will benefit from the healing power of aloha in many ways, on all levels, physical, emotional and spiritual, when giving and receiving lomi.

Experienced professional masseurs who wish to reconnect with the spirit and power of lomi and aloha and those new to healing practices and massage are totally able to work well together as the learning of lomi is an osmotic and energetic process. The field gives everyone exactly what they need. The novice and expert are one once the shamanic portals are opened.

This is an experiential retreat (with some background principles, diagrams and handouts) that can bring deep self-healing through forgiveness work and shamanic journeying and will certainly give you some insights, shifts and new approaches you can take away and benefit from in your everyday life afterwards. These groups are also a joyful opportunity to meet like-minded people.

Powerful transformational healing, belly laughter, tribal heart bonding. Live your authentic being, your natural aliveness, your truth, your love

For your unique blog discount for those who respond -add your response to the Leave a reply comment box below -to this blog only £269 if booked and paid by July 14, (and not only this – you also receive a great discount for 2 people £30 extra discount if you bring a friend new to Secret Garden, . Full price is £309 so potentially you receive a £70 discount!

Price includes course tuition, morning coffee and afternoon tea, please bring lunch to share.

Click on the link below for more information.

http://www.secretgarden.eu.com/LomiRetreat11.html

 

 

Posted in LomiLomi Hawaiian Massage and Ritual | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments