There is a price to entering into the esoteric experience of the Inner Year - you begin to move away from the limitations, the perspectives, and the security of the small collective, the tribal, the sectarian, the institutional, the club. You enter into the great paradox where you belong to only you and you belong to all of humanity.  You lose yourself (the old identities) to find yourself.  You embrace all that is mysterious and undefinable and suddenly feel you know yourself.  You kiss your familiar self goodbye and see a new you unfolding wondrously within your soul.

Just this week, I received this from a participant:

Just wanted to report that between doing the work for your courses for about 9 months now, and working with Diamond Approach for only slightly longer, I'm really starting to have insights that are making a difference.   The work is "heavy lifting", but I can feel the burden lifting - see the sun at midnight - the meaning of all those metaphors is dawning on me (another metaphor).  I'm really seeing how my judge or inner critic is merciless with me.  I'm learning to feel the pain, and disengage rather than defend.
 
The biggest difference I notice is how the victim and perpetrator stories are fading.  Sometimes I don't feel the pain of either one - sometimes I feel the pain of one or both of them acutely - but I can work with pain more from a "meta- point of view" (I forgot the word).  I am truly finding some release from both the victim and perpetrator identity. I'm not pissed off at the world all the time anymore - just part time.   Because I've heard people describe this so many times before, these words almost sound hollow - but now that I'm experiencing this - it's anything BUT hollow.  It's huge.  It's like seeing a 50-year prison sentence coming to an end.
 
I still get super-ego attacks too.  I can go through 3 or 4 in a week - where I don't even want to live anymore.  But what's different about that is that I recognize these spells now because I have periods where I'm NOT in a super-ego attack.  I even get peace of mind periodically.  Then I wonder what's missing and realize that the existential angst and strife that's usually there is gone.
 
I've never done anything for any other reason than to cope, survive, and hold myself together.  I can see that other choices may be available to me on the horizon.  Linda J.

If you are curious, excited, or simply hungry to understand your humanity and your individuality, I urge you to begin with the Inner Lent program.  Inner Lent was the first course I developed for the Inner Year curriculum.  Somebody asked me if I would offer a program on Lent so I started to "see what I could see" in the story of the forty days in the wilderness, the fasting, the three temptations and their vanquishing.  I found so much that resonated so deeply in my sense of self and in my sense of all humanity - I did not find a sectarian and impersonal story about Jesus Christ and the Devil in the desert, I found an intimate and universal imagination rooted in our biology, our psychology and our spirituality.

The logistics about the Inner Lent program are below, but I first... 


I want to offer some esoteric Lenten observations.  As you can imagine, these are quite different from and challenging of the doctrine and dogma of institutionalized Christianity.

Organized Christianity thinks of Lent as a preparation for Easter where. to prove our worthiness, we must "fast" by giving up something we enjoy. We may know the story of the three temptations but we are not encouraged to understand them in a personal way.

Lent is about the beginning, not the ending. The forty days in the wilderness/desert occurred immediately following the Baptism in the River Jordan. It has to do with the beginning of Christ's Deed (the three years).  It is a confusion, a mistake, possibly a manipulation to define Lent as a personal preparation for the culmination of Christ's Deed  in the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Your yearly inner experience of the forty days is a preparation and a trial for your unique destiny as it will unfold throughout your year.

Spiritual fasting is not about giving up a material pleasure - a food, an enjoyment.  There is much more to fasting for the mature, creative, courageous and devoted soul. Of course, discipline is always strengthening to our sense of self as will(power), but giving up bread, watching movies, etc. while good for you, may totally distract you from the meaning and purpose of spiritual fasting.

Lenten questions for you...

If you feel like you are hardly in yourself or aware of yourself? Do you want a new understanding of how to reconnect with your real embodied self?

Do you want to know how to fast in the sense of creating a true and conscious inner emptiness so that you can be open to the divine impulse that wants to incarnate into your sense of self as a destiny to be fulfilled?

How attached are you to your addictions, your fantasies and your prejudices? We each have our personal and unique addictions that fail to truly satisfy and nourish us, our fantasies that keep us from being real and grounded, and our prejudices that keep us from seeing things and others as they are. Do you want to observe and embrace(objectively) your addictions, your fantasies and your prejudices so you can begin to transcend, transform and vanquish them with wisdom and self-compassion?


Inner Lent offers insight, support, guidance and encouragement for you to find your way into the wilderness and out of it.  The course is essential and very practical - if you don't recognize and overcome these constant temptations - they will continue to sabotage your work, your relationships, your presence in the world and your moral development - the four areas of life that require us to be fully incarnated full of spirit.

Register here