The Old New Age

My friend Anja is organized. It’s one of the things she does well. It comes natural to her. It’s deliberate and doesn’t seem to be an effort. She’s a writer and has kept journals for decades. Newly retired, she’s continuing a process started a few years back to transcribe and organize her journals. Inspired by her, I took out a few of my own journals and leafed through the pages. Interesting. I found a journal this morning that I started two days after my spiritual awakening (which occurred on November 15, 1975).

Yesterday I stumbled upon the “Chrystalized Ahava528 Water” video (see 8-7-10 post). Throughout the day, I thought about my journey as an awakened being. In the beginning, in 1975, I thought the New Age was bursting through into reality instantly. Every day was like a lotus flower blooming in my heart, revealing greater spiritual understanding, and revealing the mysteries of the ages to me.

Gradually, as ten years passed, I came to think the New Age would manifest within individual people and not en masse. I lived my life with consciousness and continued my inner unfoldment, but I gradually dropped out of the New Age scene. I moved away from active outward communion with awakening beings, believing all beings awakening, conscious or not. I focused instead on my emerging art business. In 1999, while living the artist’s life in Ashland, Oregon, I attended a weekend festival and camped out with the other artists and festival goers and was amazed to experience the New Age was alive and well in the hearts and minds of the young people. A year later I moved to the SF Bay Area and opened my Heartful Art Gallery in Sausalito which felt, for the six years of its existence, that it was the perfect blend of the outward manifestation of my inner spiritual awakening.

Now, another decade has passed, and the mysteries continue to unfold, both within myself and in the outer world. I am pleasantly surprised to notice the attention to frequency and sound in the mainstream society. I think about how it was for me to live as the essence of the blooming lotus flower in those early days in the late 70s when I lived at Aurora Ashram with 18 like-minded souls on a spiritual journey. I’d like to recreate the freshness of thought and enthusiasm for possibility I had then. Sometimes it is easy for me to slip into the cliché of “been there, done that” when I hear about people discovering things we were doing thirty years ago as if it were new today. However, rather than stand in separation, I’d like to join in the celebration and participate again – on more than an inner plane. I’d like to, once again, embrace wonder and joy as a constant state of being. As I approach the coming days, I open my heart and mind to a fresh, new experience of the New Age now manifesting.

-Raphaella Vaisseau

Crystalized Ahava528 Water - raising the frequency through the 528 hz played on crystal bowls in water

Filmed in Israel, lake Kinneret, in the Sea of Galilee ...

For more videos, visit ahava528 on youtube.

Kelly Light's Ripple Project - Artists and Donors Help the Animal Victims of the Deep Water Horizon Gulf Oil Spill

So far Kelly Light has facilitated over $9,000 in donations to help animal victims of the Deep Water Horizon Gulf Oil Spill. "We don't have to feel helpless. We can help. Our small actions together will ripple outward," Kelly says.

Artists (me included) donate sketches which Kelly posts on the Ripples blog. People buy the art by making a donation to one of the four nonprofits listed below the instructions for making the donation. Read the whole blog to see how it works. Some of the art requires a $50 donation and some a $10 donation.

Two of my ACEO paintings sold yesterday and two more are still available .Click HERE to see the post and buy one for the cause. I plan to donate more ACEO originals in September if the project still continues. Every penny goes to the animals.

To read more about how it all began, read the School Library Journal's July 20, 2010 article by Debra Lau Whelan, "Children's Illustrators Help Save Gulf Oil Spill Wildlife Victims."

I'm honored to play a small part in this important rescue project. I appreciate Kelly Light's vision (and her time) to make a difference in our world. Bless the art, the artists and the donors who are in turn blessing the animals of the Gulf. Thanks, Kelly!

Happiness Flow Chart - Are you happy? by Alex Koplin of H/34

This simple happiness flow chart says it all. It's the creative work of Alex Koplin. Enjoy!

Lily Pond at the Jacaranda Library in Venice, Florida

I've been driving by this beautiful lily pond for months and finally had my camera in the car and took a few moments to contemplate the splendor of the place.

Lilies, beautiful lilies. I was in Giverny and walked around the pond where Claude Monet painted his beautiful art: Water Lilies in 1906, and Bridge Over a Pond of Lilies in 1899. A much quieter place than this. Yet, I can touch calmness here.

It's something I love about living in Florida: that anywhere, at any moment, even in my back yard, I am touched by awesome beauty. The storm clouds last night looked like the sky in my painting, Lavender Clouds garden.

Today, I was updating my website with all my magnets in FRENCH!!! While files were uploading, I gazed out my studio window and feasted on the lush, green scene in front of my eyes. Even the weathered privacy fence behind the shrubbery looked like a piece of art to me. The banana tree has recovered from the freezing cold of last winter, and the landscape crew keeps the grass and bushes nicely trimmed. Ahhh! I am blessed.

A Prayer for Us by Raphaella included in a New Book by Susanne M. Alexander: All-in-One Marriage Prep: 75 Experts Share Tips & Wisdom to Help You Get Ready Now

Susanne M. Alexander is a Relationship and Marriage Coach, and President of Marriage Transformation, LLC, based in Cleveland, Ohio (marriagetransformation.com). Her newest book, All-in-One Marriage Prep: 75 Experts Share Tips and Wisdom to Help You Get Ready Now, is 430 pages of thought-provoking discourse offered by experts "passionate about creating excellent marriages."

In the chapter, Becoming Parents and Rearing Children, and in the essay, "Find and Discuss Your Hidden Parenting Beliefs" by Sandra Dye, couples are encouraged to uncover hidden parenting beliefs as a preparatory step to marriage. She offers a survey of parental thinking and beliefs for couples to use as self-discovery and then as a catalyst for determining the parenting style both are most comfortable with.Of course, couples are encouraged to continue examining and discussing parenting beliefs over time as "new life experiences and new stressors tend to open up your belief systems, making room for meaningful changes."

In the chapter, Growing in Love, and in the essay, "The Journey of Love and Marriage: Know the Stages and Set Your Priorities," Rita DeMaria, Ph.D. offers a wealth of information about the journey of relationship, not just the initial love stage. In her writing, she identifies seven stages she uses in her work with couples as a senior staff member and Director of Relationship Education at Council for Relationships in Philadelphia. She offers tips, recommendations, topics for consideration, and helpful practices such as encouraging couples to nurture romance between them through every stage of their building relationship.

In the chapter, Creating a Partnership, and in the essay, "Gender Equality in Marriage" Susanne M. Alexander coaches couples to consider new perspectives and choices when discussing what roles and responsibilities each will have in their future home. "It may take time for a man to accept that sharing housework does not diminish his masculinity," she writes, "and doing housework is not a 'favor' he is doing for his wife. A woman may also take time to understand that repairing an appliance does not make her less feminine, nor is it a 'favor' she is doing for her husband.You are both simply doing the acts of service that move your family forward."

In the chapter, Preparing As Individuals, and in the essay, "Creating an Intimate, Loving Relationship," Margaret Paul, Ph.D. writes about, "When we are loving to ourselves, we are loving to others" and "When we are loving to others, we are loving to ourselves." So true. One of my little magnetic creations, Loving you is blessing me, can help us all remember that.

I'm honored to have my song blessing, "A Prayer For Us," included in the final chapter of this important book. Written years ago as a relationship blessing, the song has been included in many marriage ceremonies. In the third-person form, "A Wedding Prayer," it was read by the father-of-the-bride at the wedding of Jimmy Carter's grandson in 2001. They found it as a framed artwork on the walls of my Heartful Art Gallery in Sausalito, California. For permission to include it in your ceremony, contact Raphaella at 941-993-7001 or by e-mail at raphaella@heartfulart.com. In Heartful Art's online store, it's available for purchase in either form, A Prayer For Us, and A Wedding Prayer. As a mailable poster in three sizes (5x7, 8-1/2x11, and 11x14) or as framed art for the wall (8x8 and 8x10), it's a nice engagement or wedding gift to accompany Susanne M. Alexander's book, All-in-One Marriage Prep: 75 Experts Share Tips and Wisdom to Help You Get Ready Now.

Another of my blessings (again, in two versions) that makes for a treasured wedding gift for your family or each other is, "It's who you are that I love" and "It's who you are that we love." Originally written as a baby blessing, people started buying it for their older children and then for each other, thus the many versions. I dubbed it the "Parent's Blessing for Grown-Up Kids" because I believe it's what we all want to hear from our parents no matter how old we are. And, as a spouse-to-spouse and partner-to-partner blessing, it affirms unconditional support and loving for each other.

I hope you'll buy and give this important book to couples considering marriage. Although, as Susanne herself states in the chapter, Appreciating Diversity, "The selections do not even come close to covering the full range of diversity and religious or cultural complexity in the world," the book is packed with valuable tips and advice for individuals and couples to apply to their own situation. When I was privileged to be in the room with the Dali Lama one afternoon in Minneapolis, the question was asked of him, "Why are there so many religions?" His answer, as I recall, was simply, "Because there are so many people. One religion could not possibly fit every person." So too, the prospect of creating a lasting and fulfilling relationship that produces a marriage worth having must be tailor fit to each situation. Each couple can use the wisdom of the experts in this book to contemplate, discuss, and build on, and create the marriage of their dreams.

Susanne M. Alexander is the author or co-author of All-in-One Marriage Prep: 75 Experts Share Tips and Wisdom To Help You Get Ready Now; Can We Dance? Learning the Steps for a Fulfilling Relationship; Marriage Can Be Forever—Preparation Counts!; Pure Gold: Encouraging Character Qualities in Marriage; Happy at Home, Happy at Work; and A Perfectly Funny Marriage cartoon book. She has conducted workshops for individuals and couples in the United States, Canada, and China. You may contact her at 800-501-6682 or Susanne@marriagetransformation.com.