July/August 2000
Articles on the theme "Exploring and Adventure"
The Way of the Adventurer
by Bob Gonzalez
The inspiration of the classical Greek
adventurer, Odysseus -- whom the Romans called Ulysses -- as portrayed in
Tennyson's poem "Ulysses."
Exploring with Wonder
by Kathy Houston
The adventure of life. Exploring it
with the wonder and imaginings of a child.
A Spiritual Adventure
by Rev. Pat Cross
Making a new start at any age -- an
exploration and adventure in consciousness... the ultimate eternal adventure.
Exploring the Adventure Within
by Ron Graham
The adventure of becoming One with
the universal mind of God.
Life's Adventures
by Linda Bothwell
From birth to falling in love, to Self-realization
Exploring Body/Mind Healing
by Ernesto J. Fernandez
An approach to healing that helps define
the best 'road map' and the best forms of treatment.
Exploring God as Process
by Rev. Pat Palmer
God as not only the source of everything
that is but also as the unfolding of every event that occurs.
Why Explore?
by Patrick Plaskett
How exploration helps us see the world
and ourselves differently -- and get more out of life.
Exploring the Self
by Edwina H. Holloway
The greatest adventure of all, the
excavation of our true Self.
A Learning Adventure
by Rev. Cydné Battreall
The story of a mother and daughter
in the adventure of a lifetime.
The Lure of Adventure
by Charles Larsen
What exploration and adventure consist
of. Achieving a state of mind to experience them.
Other Feature Articles
Natural Health Q & A
by Kim Gillespie
Concerning cocaine and drug abuse.
2000 & Beyond!
by David Findlay
What is... Sustainable/Organic Agriculture?
by Robert Roman
What sustainable/organic agriculture
is and why it is superior to commercial agriculture.
Minerals from Mother Earth
by Judy Power
Features stones for July and August:
jade and charoite.
Life's Adventures
Linda Bothwell
As his hats flies off his head, Indiana Jones grits his teeth while trying to outrun the deadly, thunderously rolling boulder that is closing in on him. His eyes are aglow with fear and every muscle in his body is throbbing with this intense effort to stay alive. What an adventuresome guy, this Indiana Jones! He was born to experience thrill, to go to the edge of life, to dangle off a precipice and find eleventh hour salvation.
Yet, I believe that you and I also were born for such excitement. I would like to explain some thrilling adventures, perhaps taken for granted, that we all experience. Each of these adventures symbolizes our own personal journey to the edge - the phenomena of self-awareness - that incredible safari that seeks as its goal self-actualization.
There are three really pulse-raising events we all share that I will use as examples of the thrill we engage in during our life experience.
The first is birth, the introduction of our bodies, minds and souls into the particular set of circumstances that we know as incarnation. Our first experience of the journey is the seemingly headfirst squeeze, then thrust from a rather calm environment into a world of sounds, increasing mobility and change. We gasp for the first heated breath. This experience of birth sets for us some of the rules that we will follow as pathfinders throughout our lives.
As Walt Whitman has alluded, when we are born we bring trailing clouds of glory with us, suggesting that even in those beginning hours we have an agenda for our life. Those looking at us moments after our birth also remember on an unconsciously deep level that we are born for glory and shared destiny. Each participant in the birthplace responds to our birth with a learned sense of relief and that indescribable awareness of the transformation that a new life brings to our planet. We are born examples of the life force. We are pathfinders in tiny bodies. We are ready to perceive.
What incredible excitement we experience at birth.
The second adventure that we all seemingly experience, providing us with a variety of heart-pounding situations, is that of falling in love; a totally definitive exploration of self that we encounter during this physical journey. Even the descriptive wording of 'head over heels' in love explains this type of thrilling adventure.
M. Scott Peck says in The Road Less Traveled that the experience of falling in love is subjective, genetic, and temporary. He further states that romantic love is based on the evolutionary predisposition that gets us to procreate our species. As this occurs in time, ego boundaries come crashing down.
Each of us can write his own story of the falling in love adventure. It is the phenomena of, "when a man loves a woman he will do most anything . . . sleep out in pouring the rain . . . spend his very last dime." It is an adventure of ourselves, full of discovery; an epitome of seeking a spiritual experience in the human body.
It is during the collapse of ego boundaries that we become able to access our power. Released from the limits of the ego, we are capable of being heroes, winning in hand-to-hand combat, climbing and jumping over mountainous obstacles, finding the holy treasure. It is a glimpse at our true nature.
I love the story of The English Patient. Deeply in love with Katherine, the Count could not stop until he was reunited with her. He did whatever bargaining was necessary to return to her after she was seriously injured in a plane crash. His power was so great that he was able to influence a war.
The third adventure that is common to all human beings is the moment of Self-discovery.
Unlike the struggles of birth and romantic love, this adventure is more of a surrender. It can happen at the time of our deaths, during a near-death experience or at the moment that A Course In Miracles calls "the holy instant."
My co-host on the Public Access presentation of A Course In Miracles, Diana Gray states that during her near-death experience she became aware of many spiritual truths. These included the separation from the dense physical body and the realization that our life does not end when we leave that body. It brought about the astonishing remembrance that she had lived other lives and the understanding that this existence is illusion, a grand adventure, and not the 'reality' we think it is. Exploring the 'other side,' she experienced the truth of our unity and oneness with all of mankind, all of existence, and God Himself, realizing the equality, power, and immortality of our being. She came to understand that there are no accidents and that the Creator wants us to enjoy our existence and to live as the masters we truly are.
A Course In Miracles, referring to the experience of Self says: "Time stands still in his holiness, and changes not. And so it is no longer time at all. For caught in the single instant of eternal sanctity of God's Creation, it is transformed into forever. Give the eternal instant, that eternity may be remembered for you, in that shining instant of perfect release. Offer the miracle of the holy instant through the Holy Spirit and leave His giving it to you to Him." (Chapter 15)
I offer these examples of the life adventure that each of us experiences: birth, romantic love, and the return to Self. These are three of the many intense dramatic scripts, in which we are the heroes, born for adventure.
Linda Bothwell, MBA, co-hosts a weekly public access program in Florida
on "A Course In Miracles". Consult www.yellowray.com
for times, channels and dates, or email darnette@aol.com.
(See also "What's Newz?")
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