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It gives me great pleasure to introduce to all of you my dear friend and a CMED graduate, Sue Stevens. Sue is the Founder and President of Stevens Wealth Management LLC and Financial Happiness LLC, is frequently named as one of the top advisors in the country by Worth, Forbes, Bloomberg, Reuters and one of 50 Distinguished Women in Wealth Management 2008. Sue was Director of Financial Planning at Morningstar for nine years and headed up Research and Development for Participant Education at The Vanguard Group for three years. Sue has an MBA from University of Chicago, Masters of Science in Wealth Management and is a CPA/PFS, CFA and CFP®. Sue was an award-winning professional cellist before she made the change to wealth manager. I am so honored to offer Sue's wonderful insights to all of you. I know you will not only enjoy her insights but you will benefit from them as well.

Caroline

Radiant Wealth pdf

"Transforming Trauma" looks at the contemplative or spiritual approach to healing trauma. Caroline Myss and James Finley will offer a spiritual map for the healing of trauma and look specifically at what is required to heal from such traumatic events as sexual abuse, addiction, bouts of depression and a trauma we have all experienced which is birth/incarnation. Topics covered will include: distinguishing between depression and the dark night of the soul; how contemplative experience heals us; the stages of healing trauma; and more.

When I sent out the first newsletter I did not think it would take this long before I would be writing to you again. But several deadlines in a row have prevented me from writing until now. The first of these deadlines consisted of writing a book on contemplative living, which I am giving the title Little Things that Fill the Whole World. I will share with you here a brief excerpt from that book. This excerpt is a poetic passage intended to evoke a sense of the conscious oneness with God, others and all things that we seek in attempting to live a contemplative way of life.

A magician fans out a deck of cards face down on a table and says, “Go ahead; pick a card, any card.” It does not matter which card you choose, and then bury facedown, back into the deck. The magician will unexplainably bring it forth from your shirt pocket or perhaps from behind your ear.

Now imagine you are out walking on the beach and God says, “Go ahead, pick a grain a sand, any grain.” No matter what grain of sand you choose, God is present in it. Since God is not subject to division or diminishment of any kind, God is completely present in that one little grain of sand. And since the whole universe flows from God, is sustained by God and subsists in God, you are holding in your hand a grain of sand in which you, along with the whole universe and everyone and everything in it is wholly present.

Surprised by such an all-encompassing oneness, you begin to get a little weak in the knees. Then God moves in to finish you off by suddenly expanding this awareness of realized oneness in all directions. “Go ahead,” God says, “Pick a place, a situation, a circumstance in which you might find yourself.” If you choose a wooded area, you see yourself in your mind’s eye surrounded by trees. God is there, inviting you to reach out and pick a leaf off one of the low-lying branches. As you do so, you realize you are holding a leaf in which the totality of reality is wholly present. If you choose your own home, God is there, inviting you to choose something, anything at all: The teakettle on the stove or perhaps a chair in a corner of the living room. No matter what you might choose, you realize you are choosing something in which God is wholly present, loving you and all people and all things into being.

Then God invites you to reflect on any aspect of yourself. No matter what aspect of yourself you focus on, God is there, wholly present in each breath, each thought and feeling, each turn of your head. You realize as you sit, God is present as the ungraspable immediacy of your sitting. As you stand, God is there as the ungraspable immediacy of your standing. As you laugh, God is there as your laughter. As you cry, God is wholly present in each tear that falls from your eyes.

It does not matter what little thing you might choose within or around you. It might just be the thing that awakens you from your fitful dream of being separate from God, who is the reality of yourself and all that is real. May each of us be so fortunate as to be overtaken by God in the midst of little things. May we each be so blessed as to be finished off by God, swooping down from above, welling up from beneath, to extinguish the illusion of separateness that perpetuates our fears. And may we, in having our illusory, separate self slain by God, be born into a new and true awareness of who we really are one with God forever. May we continue on in this true awareness, seeing in each and every little thing we see, the fullness of God’s presence in our lives. And may we be someone in whose presence others are better able to recognize God’s presence in their lives, so that they, too, might know the freedom of the children of God.

There is no ready-made method by which we might learn to live in habitual awareness of God’s oneness with us in all things. But in this book I try to clarify how our daily life, our faith, our meditation, prayer and the teachings of the mystics help us find our way. I will announce in a future newsletter when this book will be published. It may be a while before this book is released, because just as I was starting the final chapter, two other projects have caused me to set aside Little Things for now.

One of these projects is yet another book presently titled Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate. I will be presenting this material in several upcoming retreats that are listed on my website. One, next week in Bath, England. Then, in Palace Verdes, California in December and then at a major weekend retreat in January of 2010 with Richard Rohr in Albuquerque New Mexico in January.

The other project is a new audio set on the spirituality of healing that I recorded last month with Caroline Myss. This audio series, to be published by Sounds True, is titled Transforming Trauma: A Seven Step Process for Spiritual Healing. I will be sharing more about these projects in these newsletters of my website www.contemplativeway.org

Blessings
Jim Finley

June 2009

Healing Through Mystical Wisdom and Common Sense.»
June 20 – 10:00am – 5:00pm
The Westin Hotel & Resort
555 Fellowship Road,
Mt. Laurel, NJ 08054
(856) 778-7300

July 2009

I Can Do It! At Sea - Alaska.»
Hay House
July 11-18, 2009
1-888-259-9191, ext. 1262

Religious Science International .»
Entering The Castle
July 27, 2009
San Diego Cal.

September 2009

You Can Heal Your Life Conference ~ .»
Date: September 12, 2009
Sponsored by: Hay House
Location: Center for The Performing Arts, San Jose, CA

Defy Gravity / Beyond Reason.»
Omega Institute
Sept. 18-20, 2009

Watch or listen to Caroline speak live at her workshops, plus many other audio titles. Available as downloads to your PC or as CDs/DVDs.

Hours of video and audio highlights from CMED workshops and events. All content is high quality production.

Personal Nutrition Provider and Checklist of Health Issues and Illness are online interactive tests that allow you to quickly build a personal profile and get on the road to better health.

An on-going resource for personal growth, the purpose in creating this on-line program is to share with you thoughts, ideas, feedback from you to others, inspiration, and direction to help enrich your life.

The Calendar of Archetypal Influences, written by popular CMED Teacher/ faculty: Richard Tarnas, author of the acclaimed Cosmos and Psyche, offers a beautifully designed personal calendar to facilitate even greater insight into your archetypal cycles.

The Cosmic Window, written and designed by Philip Levine, and the Calendar of Archetypal Influences, co-created by Richard Tarnas and Philip Levine, are each made for you personally, based on your own time and place of birth.