Raven meeting room at Cold Mountain Institute
My account of my last lunch at Cold Mountain yesterday was only a piece of the experience I had the other night, which lasted into afternoon of the next day. (1)
Another piece was getting a kind of triangulation on what a remarkable time we’re in at the moment. And it’s going to get more, remarkable, I’m sure.
I couldn’t explain triangulation to you if I tried. But I arrived at two separate viewpoints on our times and saw how much alike they are, and that was another piece of the puzzle.
Now is a time of accelerated growth. I’m sure we’d all agree on that. Whether you attribute that growth to the Tsunami of Love, an astrological alignment, or whatever else may prove to be a factor, it matters not to me. Growth seems greatly accelerated right now – and it was then (1976) as well.
Regarding that extended encounter group at Cold Mountain Institute (CMI), it took three months of hard work for us to reach the place of unconditional group love.
What I realized the other night was that the peak of experiencing that I was at in 1976, I’m also in that now as a result of the rising energies and the clearing that we’ve all done.
To put it another way, where we’re at at the moment, in my eyes, could be favorably compared to where our 1976 encounter group was at after three intensive months of hard work together (when to be sure the energies we were immersed in were much more dense than they are now).
I’m encountering such a delicate balance of issues disappearing and well-being arising these days, at so gradual a pace, that I could only be aware of it if I knew what I was looking for. And I know what I’m looking for because experiences like CMI offer me a measuring stick.
The resident fellowship was organized on a weekly rotation. Each week a different “circuit rider” would offer a different workshop – meditation, art therapy, journaling, sexuality, enlightenment intensive, etc. Then in the evenings and on the weekends our core encounter group would meet and work out together, including bodywork, bioenergetics, rebirthing, etc.
At CMI, growth was so accelerated, so compacted, so tangible that it became visible, so to speak. I knew I was growing. I could see the evidence of it just as I can see the evidence of it now.
In ’76, we brought ourselves out of hiding, abandoned positions, entertained new possibilities.
Experimentation was the order of the day, within safe limits. Everyone pushed the limits and the one who was the most transparent, honest, and revealing was the most admired.
By the end of it, there was little of importance that we didn’t know about each other. Nothing could be hidden and after a while it became no big deal to share anything.
So when I say that, on the last day, we just sat there quietly in each other’s presence, no one having a single thing more to say, I think you can see why.
We grew and expanded in every direction possible in real time and we knew that we did. That’s much like it is now.
Under the influence of the energies being beamed to the planet and under the care of the Company of Heaven, we’re being raised as a globe to a vibratory level from which we can ascend.
After that extended workshop, I declared that my life was a workshop from that moment on. And I could say that about my life now.
The remembrance also brings back skills to me. I reclaim a part of myself that’s been missing in action, lo, these many years. And as a communicator, it’s my great joy to convey it.
Tomorrow I’d like to look at the notion of “personal sovereignty,” which lay at the heart of the Growth Movement, of which Cold Mountain was a part. The acknowledgment of that state of pristine beingness, as far as I’m concerned, is what’s missing in our world, from which all else flows.
Footnotes
(1) “Last Lunch at Cold Mountain,” Aug. 10, 2014, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2014/08/10/last-lunch-at-cold-mountain/.