Hello Everyone,
Spring is coming! We can see the earliest stirrings here in Arizona already. Little sprouts of green, the first butterflies, and temperatures reaching 70 degrees!
Our newsletter offering this month is by Sheryl. We've also added half length sessions to our website and have lots of new photos and artwork to share. See the links below.
Love,
Sheryl and Paul
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WHEN WORLDVIEWS COLLIDE
When people heard we were moving to Snowflake, Arizona some of them wanted us to tell them about it and we didn’t know how to respond. You see, we didn’t intentionally pick Snowflake as a place to live. Paul’s family lives in the country near there and they offered us safe haven while we’re coming up with our next steps. Otherwise, we never would have come... and never would have experienced things I’ve started to think may have been crucial for our development as spiritual counselors and healers at the present time.
One thing that’s occurred to me in recent months, especially since arriving in Arizona, is how easy it is to be among people who share your political, religious and cultural beliefs, how very easy it is to believe that people who think or feel differently than you must be bigoted, and how hard it is for us to bridge those gaps in our perception when we remain in the cozy little worlds of our own creation. Our cozy little traps.
But what happens when worlds collide?
When I lived in Santa Cruz I frequently came across attitudes which outside of that community might be considered bigotry. The commonly held opinion that a truly spiritual person ought to be vegetarian, for example, particularly used to rub us the wrong way. But for the most part we enjoyed Santa Cruz for its alternative point of views. The vast majority of people celebrate modes of expression and freedoms unheard of in most parts of the world.
Enclaves of commonality are a solace for people who have found themselves out of step with the greater society for all kinds of reasons. You feel safe, respected, supported and loved. They can be great places to grow. But they can also become insular-- little islands deliberately cutting themselves off from the rest of the world.
Paul and I currently live, inadvertently, in a Mormon pioneer town where chastity before marriage and modesty in dress is a societal norm. In Santa Cruz we lived where the norm was the opposite. The typical goings on at a Gay Pride parade in Santa Cruz were seen as healthy self-expression. But mostly undressed men with dog collars and lesbian women in black leather on motorcycles in the town of Snowflake would seem like an assault to everything this community holds dear. Akin, I would suspect, to a Muslim extremist group having a parade to celebrate women wearing burqas in a place like Santa Cruz, Berkeley or Northhampton. People in all places might think it was a civic responsibility to allow such a parade to happen (maybe)..but it would be a spiritual challenge to deal with the feelings that would surely come up as a result.
I’m still struggling with the impact of coming to live here. We’re still pretty convinced that staying isn’t the best choice for us to make. BUT the experience has opened my heart to a way of living I never would have expected to think was healthy or healing. The kind and loving people here are as happy to be in a community where they feel accepted as Santa Cruzans do in their own. Both people refer to their hometowns as “paradise.”
Some of the people we’ve met here feel very hurt to be labeled bigots . From their perspective, nothing could be more untrue! Snowflake and Santa Cruz have attempted to create very different communities. And yet, especially when we’re talking about the LGBT community, the different worldviews are so similar in their origins. Mormons were a hated and severely persecuted group who were once attacked for their alternative definition of marriage. The two communities are so similar, so different, and so mutually misunderstood.
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FLOWER ESSENCE FOR HOLDING YOUR OWN IN THIS CHALLENGING ECONOMIC CLIMATE
Red Clover! Read a blog about this useful flower essence and a Mama Love Flower Essence Aromatherapy formula that contains it.
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WE'VE ADDED 30 MINUTE SESSIONS
1/2 length sessions cost half the price and they're still long enough to get some significant work done.
Visit our "Make an Appointment" page to make your appointment now.
Or send us an email or give us a call at (831) 325-4076.
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MORE WRITING AND PHOTOGRAPHY THIS MONTH
Paul's Blog... http://paulhood.blogspot.com/
Sheryl's Blog... http://healingcommunication.blogspot.com/
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THANKS FOR ALL YOUR REFERRALS!
Simplest way to tell people about us? Forward this email with a note saying you like us. It's easy!
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