Gathering - The Need for Deeper Connection

This gathering, we will be trying something new - a coffeehouse format. After our initial check-in and a bit of talk about the subject, we will break up and talk or cluster as we choose. The hope is that the opening subject will spur several smaller groups who want to explore the subject further, but the groups will be casual, with people free to join or leave, and no required subject or format - what I think of as a coffeehouse atmosphere, but with a theme.

The subject will be the need for deeper connection. Most of us have a desire for an emotionally deeper connection with others - our mate, our family, our community, with the divine, with ourselves. What is it that we seek for in those deeper connections? What prevents us from having them? How do we deepen connection with those we already know? How do we open up new connections that have the potential to go deep?

For this format, I ask that everyone PLEASE BRING A SNACK OR DRINK to share - having good food and drink seems important to a warm, open, casual atmosphere. I'd also love it if a few volunteers could take over arranging the food in the kitchen, and cleaning up at the end of the evening. Let me know if you would be willing to do one of these tasks.

Gathering - Advita Gathering

This Sunday we will have open and informal Advaita gathering, led by
Advait (Tom Childers), from 7-9 pm. His description of the evening:

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We'll do some meditation, listen & read from modern Advaita texts,
share and discuss. My intention is to create a space where those who
are passionate about waking up to their true nature as "That" can
share with others. For those new to Advaita, this is a place to learn
more.

("That" is a common way of referring to "everpresent awareness",
"spacious presence", "pure beingness", etc.)

If you're unfamiliar with Advaita, you can google it to find lots of
info. In a nutshell, Advaita is the path and teaching of non-duality;
i.e. everything (without exception) is an expression of "That" and is
"That". The purpose of Advaita is to awaken this realization as a
tangible knowing that permeates ones being.

Friends are welcome. Please RSVP so I know how many to expect. If you
forget to RSVP, don't worry; just show up. Please bring a simple
vegetarian snack or drink to share.

Annual Leaf Pile Jumping Party

Dear friends, instead of our usual gathering, this Sunday we will have:

The Annual Autumn Leaf Pile Jumping Party
Sunday, November 12th, 2005, 3:00 PM - 12:00 PM

You are enthusiastically invited to the Annual Autumn Leaf Pile
Jumping Party, taking place at my home in Vienna, Virginia. This
is an open invitation - you are welcome to invite your friends.
Kids are especially welcome!

When is the last time you jumped into a large pile of leaves?
Has it been years? Well, here's your chance. I am collecting
leaves from the entire neighborhood, and you are invited to come
and jump, roll, play and frolic. We might even allow the kids to
play too! We will also have hot spiced cider, hot chocolate, and
some other traditional fall things.

Very approximate schedule:

3:00 leaf pile jumping, hot cider
5:00 potluck dinner
7:00 autumn ritual
8:00 chatting, hot tub

You are welcome to come to part or all of the event.

LEAF PILE
A chance for everyone to get loose and silly, and have a lot of
fun. A note from the experienced: sweaters can gather a lot of
leaf fragments that are hard to get out. You may want to wear
something less porous.

POT LUCK
Bring a dish to feed 5 people - main/side dishes especially
welcome. Please email/call me with what you want to bring, so
we don't wind up with 30 pumpkin pies!

AUTUMN RITUAL
This time of year is traditionally the final harvest celebration
of the agricultural year. As the plants began to die and the
weather turned colder it was natural to become introspective. It
is also the first holiday of the Celts, who believed that the
veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead
was thinnest at this time of year.

We will have a simple ceremony where we reflect on the necessity
to let go of things in our lives that have passed on, and to
look at our own impermanence, preparing us to let go of the old
before we welcome the new at the turning of the year. You are
welcome to join us for this moment of introspection.

HOT TUB
After the ritual will be a time of socializing, and we will open
the hot tub, which is clothing-optional. You are welcome to wear
what you want - most people don't use swimsuits. Towels are
provided.

PLEASE RSVP TO gene@freeheart.net, or phone 703-255-1009.
In case of bad weather, please call before you come.

Hope to see you there!

Gene

The Next Step in Your Life

This gathering will be a bit different in focus. Many in our community are thinking about major life changes: where we want to live, what kind of community we want to live with, what kinds of relationships we want, what lifestyle we want, what we want to do with our life, what we will do after retirement, how we will support ourselves, do we have the finances we need. Often we think about these things in isolation or with little support. This is a chance to express your feelings about where your life is going, hear what others are thinking about, do some brainstorming, learn from what others have tried or heard about, and possibly come away with new support for facing the next step of our lives.

We will spend some time in groups of mutual interest - finances, communities, dealing with emotional issues, general brainstorming, as well as general sharing. Come and join us to look at a very practical side of life in our age.

Gathering - Group Share

This coming Sunday we gather for dance, group sharing, and hanging out. We did the group share once before with good results - we will break up into small groups of 4 - 5 people, based on interest - some may want to get support for personal issues, others get to know each other, others discuss a topic, or others may want to share massages. Each group gets to decide how to spend their time.

We will start with our usual dance time, and have time after the
meeting to talk and connect more.

Gathering - Awareness and Body Sensation

This coming Sunday we will have another gathering, lead by Tom Childers. The focus will be "to bring awareness to our actual bodily sensations and then see the ways we interpret those sensations. The take-away is having the skill to separate bodily sensations from our interpretations about them." The evening will include a short meditation and some movement exercise.

Gathering - Anger and Forgiveness

Come and join us this coming Sunday for another gathering. The focus will be on anger and forgiveness. Several of us have been discussing this online lately, in particular, anger and resentment at our mothers, and how to let it go. We will focus on sharing from our own experience instead of discussing theories and ideas.

We will start with our usual dance time, and have time after the meeting to talk and connect more.

We will meet at 7 PM. I hope you will join us.

Gene

Gathering - Sharing and Connecting

This coming Sunday, we will have another casual gathering, focused on sharing and connecting. We will take some time in small groups to share and connect, get to know each other better, give emotional support where it's needed, give hugs or cuddles or a shoulder rub, or simply casual conversation. Each group can choose how to spend their time as it best fits their needs.

We will meet at 7 PM. I hope you will join us.

Re-gathering Sunday, 6/11

Dear friends:

We will have a re-gathering on Sunday, June 11, to bring us together again and share where we are on our paths.

The evening will be part sharing, where we each will have an opportunity to talk about what we have learned since we last met, and where our lives are going - and part informal, a chance to chat individually and catch up with each other.

We will meet at 7 PM, and have some sharing around 7:30.

It will be good to see you all again!

Taking a Break

Dear friends:

As I wrote before, I'm taking a break from the Sunday gatherings. This Sunday will be our last one for a while. It will be a fairly casual evening - pot luck, chatting, maybe some singing or dancing, hot tub. I'll also set aside a bit of time for sharing what's been happening in our lives, and where our path is leading us at this time. It's a chance to meet once again and renew our friendships.

The house will be open at 6 PM; we will aim to start the pot luck around 7, and go as late as people want to stay.

I am still looking at what I want to do next. Several ideas have come up, but right now, the break feels good to me, and I'm just going to relax and enjoy myself. I am concerned about losing connections with many of you - please feel free to call to chat or get together, and I will do the same.

See you all Sunday evening!

Gathering - Heart of Now Introduction

This Sunday we will have an introduction to a set of practices called the Heart of Now, presented by Debby Sugarman. The essence of The Heart of Now is the practice of being present with your whole self: your emotions, your thoughts, your body, and the place in yourself that is connected to everyone and everything. When you are present with yourself, you can be experience the people, situations and circumstances of your life with greater honesty and clarity. It is from this place that you can free yourself from the limitations that have held you back, and all possibilities are available to you--you are free to create your life as you want it to be. We will experience some of the practices that make up The Heart of Now weekend.

The Heart of Now is a weekend-long experiential weekend that is
taught monthly at Lost Valley Educational Center in Oregon. The
facilitator of this evening, Debby Sugarman, is an assistant for the
course and is working to bring the course to the DC area this
year. For more information ahead of time, you can email Debby at dsugarm@efn.org or go to www.lostvalley.org .

Shalom Retreat - March 24-26

A Shalom Retreat is a powerful transformative weekend experience, helping people become aware of blocks and move past them through breathwork, imagery, and community. Eight people go through a process together of opening up and looking at the parts of themselves that block them from being fully free and loving. A Shalom retreat is not therapy - it is growth along our individual journeys towards more connection with ourselves, those around us, and the universe.

Shalom Retreats come from Shalom Mountain, a retreat and study center in the Catskill Mountains in upper state New York, and now we are bringing the Shalom retreat to the Washington DC area. You can read more about the retreat here.

I am holding the retreat at The Land Celebration just west of Winchester, at a cost of $300 per person, $250 if you pay by 3/18. The retreat runs from Friday night through Sunday afternoon. All accomodations and meals included. Since space is limited to eight people, it is best to register early.

See the comments under the previous Shalom retreat to get a feel of what participants got out of it.

Gathering - Journeying to Music

This Sunday we will be using music and breathwork to allow ourselves to enter a different world. For those of you familiar with holotropic breathwork, this will be a lighter and shorter version of that. Lying down in a safe atmosphere, we will let music guide us on a journey into inner realms of feeling and imagery.

Gathering - A Taste of Shalom

This Sunday we will have a taste of the process used at Shalom Mountain for bringing us healing and new awareness. The process centers on the wisdom of the body rather than the mind to tell us where we are blocked, and on the loving support of a community to create the space for movement and growth in our lives.

Gathering - Goalbuddies

GoalBuddies - This is a practical meeting focusing on accomplishing our goals, moving towards our dreams, and getting the mundane done. If you need encouragement and company on your path towards your goals, this may be a good place to start. Each person who desires will get time talking about what they are trying to do in their life, and the group will brainstorm and share resources that could be of use. We will also buddy up, for those who choose to, so we can have someone to periodically remind and encourage us towards our goals. Please join us.

Gathering - Religion and Spirituality

Most of us, at some time in our lives, make major changes in our outlook on things religious. Many of us abandon our childhood religion to start on a long journey for spirit; others of us grew up with no particularly strong religion and may or may not embrace something along the way. All of us seem to seek for something.

What has been your religious journey - what religions and doctrines have you navigated through? And what has been your spiritual journey - how have you dealt with the basic experiences and questions of our existence? Has religion helped or hurt your spiritual journey? Shalom Mountain says that those of us who have abandoned our religion must eventually go back to face what we have rejected in ourselves. Is this true for you?

Come join us in a sharing of our spiritual journeys through the world of religions, beliefs, and experiences.

Gathering - A Taste of TLC

Many of us occassionally go to an eclectic newage chapel in Winchester
called The Lord's Chapel, or TLC. This Sunday, we will again take
some of the typical elements of the Chapel and bring them to the
gathering. We will start off with some silent meditation, sing some
songs, have a period of communing with each other, have a healing
circle and have a time of sharing. Music for meditation will be
playing when you enter - please join us silently.

CSL - Body Acceptance

I will be presenting the workshop Body Acceptance at Community for Spiritual Living (CSL) in Falls Church, Virginia. CSL meets the first Saturday of every month - contact Roger Telschow for more info at Telschow@erols.com.

How accepting are you of your body, just the way it is? Sometimes we see our bodies as vehicles that carry our head around, rather than a home in which we live.

When we were first born, we were fully accepting of our bodies, without inhibition, without embarrassment. For most of us, something happened at some point in our lives that changed that state to be less than fully accepting of our bodies. Please join us as we look more deeply at how we feel about the "soft animal" that is our body.

Gathering - Inquiry Into Physical Intimacy

This Sunday we will be continuing our discussion on intimacy, focusing on sexuality. This is an opportunity to learn and share things about our experience in a safe environment. We will also do the "fishbowl" exercise, where we can anonymously ask questions of the other gender.

Gathering - Inquiry into Intimacy

This Sunday, back at our usual location in Vienna, we will be sharing our experience and thoughts about emotional intimacy - what have we found that has lead to greater emotional depth between us and others? What do we crave when we seek intimacy with others? What blocks us? What is the balance between intimacy and alone time? Come join us.

Gathering - Bach Flower Essences

This Sunday we will be using a DIFFERENT LOCATION. Randy Goldberg will be hosting and leading a presentation on Bach flower remedies. The Bach Flower Essences is an energy medicine system of 38 Flower Essences that corrects emotional imbalances. We will get to see which one are best indicated for each person there. See www.bachcentre.com for more info.

Randy: My address is 2347 Ashmead pl nw, DC 20009, Lower unit. It's 1/2 a block off of Connecticut Ave. by the Chinese Embassy, up the hill from Dupont Circle past the Hilton, one block pass Kalarama rd (stop light), just before the lion bridge to Woodley Park. Red door with stain glass window is upstairs, come down the stairs to the left, to my basement apt. If lost call 202-518-0442 Parking is a challenge. I'm 4 blocks from the Woodley Park metro. Walk downhill (south) over the lion bridge, and turn left on Ashmead pl.

Gathering - Contact Improv

I will again be giving an introduction to Contact Improv, a wonderful form of gentle movement to music while in contact with another person. No experience necessary - dress for movement and flexibility. Space is limited, so RSVP's are appreciated for this event.

Gathering - The Pursuit of Happiness

This Sunday, the first day of the new year, we will have an open discussion on what makes us happy - are there specific techniques that bring happiness? Certain beliefs? A sense of purpose? A spiritual experience? Being in the present moment? Join us to look at how we can live with more happiness in our lives.