The Shift; the birth of a new era; the global awakening of consciousness. It’s what everybody’s talking about! Especially at the recent L. A. Conscious Life Expo! Some of you were there, no doubt inspired and uplifted by the dozens of workshops and lectures. I felt honored to speak alongside international names such as Gregg Braden and Barbara Marx Hubbard.

The Shift; the birth of a new era; the global awakening of consciousness. It’s what everybody’s talking about! Especially at the recent L. A. Conscious Life Expo! Some of you were there, no doubt inspired and uplifted by the dozens of workshops and lectures. I felt honored to speak alongside international names such as Gregg Braden and Barbara Marx Hubbard.

I took the opportunity at the Expo of hearing Barbara speak. What an amazing woman! 82 years old and she has a vision for the future of humanity that is utterly compelling. I was so encouraged that she and I are talking the same language, of moving from breakdown to breakthrough. Whether that’s personal breakdown or the breakdown of old values and institutions that are no longer working for us, the principles are the same. We need healing and growth at the individual and global levels. And of course the two mirror each other, are part of this same process of huge evolutionary shift.

My new book, ‘In Case of Spiritual Emergency’, deals mainly with the personal level, with the awakening of consciousness and how to cope with the challenges of that speeding up and tipping over into crisis. I draw parallels between that individual, micro level and the global, macro level that Barbara is talking about. We have, in fact, entered a period of global spiritual emergency. When spiritual awakening or emergence speeds up, as it is now, it can tip over into spiritual emergency, presenting us with many challenges.

Fortunately, we can learn so much and draw so much hope and inspiration from understanding how that works at the personal level. One thing to know is that not a single person I have come across in all my work and research regrets going through spiritual emergency. Humanity will not regret these challenging times we are going through.

Barbara focuses very much on the positive, on what is working, encouraging the principle of ‘co-creation’, of working creatively and collaboratively to take our evolution forward. Where our messages dovetail is in seeing the vast potential of these times, in seeing our vast potential, collectively, to move through spiritual emergency. Each and every one of us can contribute to that!

Sitting outside a teashop in the glorious sunshine, sporting sunglasses in early February... Yes, I like Portland! Amid reports of snow back home, we’re heading down to even sunnier Los Angeles in a few days time. No doubt I was a sun-worshipper in ancient pagan times!

Given Swithin’s (my partner) involvement with local community radio, Stroud FM, in England, it was fun to check out the Portland equivalent. Kboo Community Radio is on a much bigger scale than Stroud FM, but then everything here is on a much bigger scale. From the trucks to the fridges, to the cartons of milk and fruit juice to go in them!

Kboo Radio is mainly run by volunteers. Tom Parkor who interviewed me for his ‘Pathways’ show has been hosting it for 30 years. ‘I was a boy when I started!’, he laughed. It turns out his metaphysical show is not only well established but also widely respected. He’s had international names like Louise Hay and Byron Katie on the program, so I felt I was in pretty illustrious company. The show is going out on 90.7FM on Sunday 26 Feb at 8.30am local Portland time (PST) and the podcast will be available at www.kboo.com mid-March for anyone anywhere else in the world!

Our address in Portland is NW Lovejoy Avenue. Lovejoy was one of the original founders of Portland. The story goes he and a mate who between them owned the whole area were sat around the campfire one evening. ‘What shall we call this new town?’, they wondered. One of them was from Boston, the other from Portland, Maine. They tossed a coin and Portland it was. So the legend goes!

As well as radio, I’ve also done a television interview with the lovely Vicky Thompson for New Connexion TV, while here in Portland. I stressed how in these times of global spiritual emergency not a single one of us can afford to be ignorant of the process of spiritual emergence and emergency, of the relationship between the two; of crisis leading to transformation, the seeming breakdown being a breakthrough. We also need to all be aware of the relationship between individual awakening and the collective awakening of consciousness, of humanity as a whole. As each of us move through our own struggles and challenges each and every one of us is contributing to the huge global shift that is currently underway.

The music streaming out of the teashop is Billie Holiday singing ‘Nice work if you can get it and you can get it if you try’. And here I am, writing my blog post in the sunshine, feeling totally nurtured! And we’ve had such a lovely welcome from everybody we’ve met, including the wonderful people at the New Thought Center for Spiritual Living and the folk at the Diamond Way Buddhist Center.

I was particularly pleased with how my talk at New Thought went. We had an interesting time deciding which bit of clothing the mike needed to be fed up through! Such a tiny, discreet mike and I loved the headset – it was more like wearing an invisible hearing aid than a mike and headset. After the talk I was able to speak with quite a few people, some of whom were obviously relieved to come across, for the first time, the language for what they’ve been struggling with. Being able to offer some comfort and support at such a personal level makes all the gruelling bits of the tour worthwhile!

Every spiritual faith and practice under this glorious sun seems to be represented here in Portland. It’s a Stroud equivalent, but on a much broader scale. There was some lovely synchronicity around our visit to the Diamond Way Buddhist Center. First of all, back at home, before we left, I felt guided to look into Mahamudra practice. For my next book, I want to explore the whole issue of conscious relationship, including sacred sexuality. Mahamudra comes within the Tibetan school of Buddhism and is essentially a Tantric path to enlightmentment, Tantra being much broader than simply the sacred sexuality that many think of. Then, a few days ago, on our way to Kboo Radio, which is completely the other side of town from where we’re staying, we stumbled by chance (I don’t think!) upon the Diamond Way Buddhist Center, of the Karma Kagyu Tibetan lineage. I’d be planning to check it out and here it was! The teaching that evening, about how to work with emotions, especially disturbing ones, was just the reminder I needed. I know I create my own suffering by being too attached to always having things go the way I want them to. But I need reminding!

Well, I’m starting to lose the sun sitting here, as it goes down behind the block. I’m off to check out Powell’s, the most enormous bookstore in town! New Renaissance bookstore on 23rd Avenue is still my favourite though – I’ve never seen (or smelt!) such a wonderful Mind, Body, Spirit bookshop in all my life!

P.S. Our stay in Portland ended with a truly awesome live, one-hour radio interview with Pat of the Dr Pat Show. Download or listen here  You’ll need to select Arhives Feb 2012 and scroll down to Wed Feb 8. And I’ll let you know when the television interview is available... Stay tuned!

With love & light to you all, Catherine

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