Hello readers,

If you’re wondering how often we’ll add blogs, why not consider writing one for here.  Any Southwest region member can write an article relevant to the other members and submit it for publication on the blog.  So, feel free to write.  Why not today?  or maybe tonight?

And yes, to the person thinking about this, I am meaning you.  No, not someone else.  You. 

Jodie Senkyrik

While Edgar Cayce himself participated in drilling for oil in the 1920′s, and the readings tried to help him, he didn’t succeed at that particular time.  The readings considered the venture worth pursuing, though. However, what he did succeed in at that time, and during his life, was help people to learn the power and influence of meditation and prayer.

We can see this now as being a powerful force to help in facing disasters here on Earth.  In my own work, I was able to psychically see that after Hurricane Katrina, the outpouring of prayers for the entire Gulf Region – the outpouring of prayers coming from across the country – brought forth the Christ Spirit to protect the Gulf during the entire 2006 hurricane season and 1/2 of the 2007 hurricane season.  While meteorologists were baffled, expecting a great many hurricanes, it was a quiet season and they didn’t know why.  I did.

Skeptics could have a field day with this vision I describe.  But, it brings us face to face with the challenge.  Do we believe in prayer and meditation or not?  Do we believe prayer can change things in this world?  Do we believe the power of thousands and even millions praying and meditating can change the future, change the Earth, and change situations for the better?

What about the questions, “What are we thinking that will happen that will let us know that our prayers have been answered?How will it appear?  Will there be signs in the sky telling us, ‘Your prayer has been answered from XYZ happening to ABC happening’?”

I don’t think so.  Who else saw or even considered that it was the prayers of the many that resolved the 2006 hurricane season?  But, if we believe that prayer and meditation can change things, then we are going to have to expect things to not happen as they may be expected.  And we may not fully be aware that we did in fact change the future with our prayers and meditations.

Edgar Cayce and the readings spoke often of the power of God.  The readings speak of Christ and His current involvement in our lives.  Books abound about personal contact with Jesus Christ and other spiritual beings.  All of these describe a very active involvement by the Divine with our personal and collective lives.  And so, we have to decide if we believe in prayer and meditation or not, because prayer and meditation are practices that can make direct contact with the Divine.   The readings are clear about this over and over again.

Many believe it is important to pray and meditate but yet expect nothing to come from it.   That’s like playing the lottery, but throwing  the ticket away in the trash, the same moment we buy it.  Putting effort forth, but expecting nothing from that effort.

I think I remember the readings saying, (someone may have to help me with the reading number)  “Expect much, you’ll gain much.  Expect little and you won’t be disappointed.”

I think this is telling us that God is eager to be an active participant in creating this world that we live in, and affecting our lives in a healing and supportive way.  But, God won’t take away our freewill to choose to bolt and lock the door before He enters, when we’ve just finished inviting Him in.

What I tell people is something that I’ve come to realized for myself from being a student of the Edgar Cayce readings.  I don’t know if it’s specifically in the  readings, but the readings have helped me to be aware of this.

Don’t trust the doubt we have in God.  Don’t trust the doubt we have in ourselves, our prayers, or our meditations.  This doubt is not the truth.  We may have it but it’s not true and need not be trusted.  God’s readiness to be active in our lives is the truth.

In praying for the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, right now, let’s not tell God what He is capable of or not capable of.   Let’s ask Him to show us.  Studying the readings have helped me to believe that God rejoices in the opportunities to show us what He can do.  A new paradigm is being created on this planet – by God – through us and with us.  Through our prayers and meditations, we can participate in this new paradigm in ways we could never have come up with by ourselves.  But, God won’t do it without us if we decide to not participate.

Jodie Senkyrik

“As to the changes that are coming, as in the fulfilling of time and space (which has been referred to), these will, as indicated, depend upon what individuals and groups do about that they know respecting His will, His purpose with man.” [Edgar Cayce Reading 1602-6]

On April 11 and May 16, 2010, Jodie Senkyrik will be presenting a 2-part workshop series sponsored by the Southwest Region of the Association for Research and Enlightenment, and held at the Red Corral Ranch B & B outside Wimberley, Texas.

We have many expectations and much wonder about what 2012 will bring, and as to what effects we will experience from the influence of this planetary  time. Yet, the consciousness shift associated with this historical time doesn’t so much happen to us, as it does from us and through us.  In this series, we will exam our spiritual, mental and physical evolution, as well as our role in bringing these forth. We will also examine the paradox of realizing that we cannot evolve ourselves, bringing the question “then how do we do it?”

Part 1- April 11,  2010, 1pm – 5:30pm. Einstein said that we cannot solve our problems at the level they were created.  In the same way, we cannot build a new paradigm from our own understanding.  We cannot evolve ourselves.  We grow, build and evolve through that which is new that comes into our awareness and consciousness.   The beginning of our evolution of our understanding of the Spiritual aspect of ourselves is the development of an ongoing relationship to the spiritual aspect of ourselves.  It is the recognition that the world we live in now is two worlds – a physical world where we find our body existing, and a spiritual world that we are growing to believe in and touch, and  discovering coexists together “alongside” the physical, though only recognized through spiritual means.

Part 2 – May 16, 2010, 1pm-5:30pm. In this session, we will explore our mental and physical paradigms, looking for ways to expand our own understanding of what we already “think we know.”  We will explore the role of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chakras, with their relationship to the mind and body.  We will address our current paradigms regarding the physical body and physical world.

We’ll also expand on the importance of what Edgar Cayce calls, “the imaginative forces” and the impact  imagination has on our own transformative evolution.  We will discuss the beliefs regarding the statement, “If we can think it, we can do it.”
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Whether working with spiritual, mental or physical paradigms, building new paradigms never destroys the previous paradigms, but expands beyond it when the parameters – the mind – is open and permeable, with the previous paradigm serving only as a beginning for our ever  growing understanding.

Jodie Senkyrik has been a regular presenter for the A.R.E. Southwest Region, since returning in 2001 from California where he got an M.A. in Transpersonal Psychology.  His first A.R.E. presentation was just one month after Sept. 11, 2001 with “The Karmic Connection to the 9-11 Attack” outlining the karmic connection of souls’ involvement with this event – on both sides – with the soul and national connections leading back to Atlantis, Rome, the ancient Middle East and more.  He speaks on such subjects as Psychic Ability in Human Beings, Cleaning up Fear, A Psychic View of Love and Death, the Atlantean Hall of Records, the Evolution of the Soul, and more.  For more information, go to senkyrik.homestead.com and jodie1.wordpress.com.

Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993-2005
by the Edgar Cayce Foundation

To register:  Visa/MC Credit card holders may register by calling the Region Office @ 512-327-7355.  To register by mail, download the form here, make check payable to A.R.E. Program and mail to: A.R.E. Southwest Region, P.O. Box 27001, Austin, TX 78755-1001.

Tuition:                                       by 4/08/10    after 4/08/10
April 11 only                                     $25                $30
April 11 & May 16                              $40                $45
May 16 only, by 5/13                         $25                $30
Partial scholarships available-call 512-327-7355.

Overnight accommodations are available at Red Corral Ranch.  Mention the workshop for a special workshop price.  Call 830-833-4801.

The A.R.E. Southwest Region has another retreat/conference in Palestine, TX from March 18th-21st, 2010, that is promising to be quite an event this year.  John Van Auken will be speaking on “2012 and Prophecy: Understanding This Time of Transformation”.  With less than 2 years before we enter into the 2012 time period, this topic brings hope, wonder, questions, more questions, and even more questions.  It will be interesting to hear what John brings to the subject.

As a student of the Edgar Cayce Readings, I’m always amazed at the constant transformation of my own life.  It occurs not only in my life – my heart and my mind – but also in my understanding of the world around and the world within me.  This transformation even reaches into my understanding of the Edgar Cayce readings and related material.  I’ve been reading and studying the readings for over 25 years and I’ve become aware that I can approach what I think of as the “same” material but upon entering into it, I find I discover deeper insights, new insights and a greater understanding of the material, and in ways I’m not sure I would have thought of without going through it again.  My paradigm transforms because my understanding has transformed, too.

I’ve experienced this with studying the Search for God books, as well as rereading writings that I originally read years ago.  Whether I’m studying a deeper layer of the material or whether I’ve changed to the point of holding a greater paradigm while I explore the “same” material anew, transformation has occurred and with it came new insights that I didn’t conceive of before.

So, to anyone who thinks they might have heard all that John Van Auken has to say, or to anyone who thinks they’ve heard all about 2012 and can’t think of anything else to seek about it, I offer this.  Transformation doesn’t come from what we’ve already gained or what we already know.  If this were true, everyone would be transforming continuously at our own volition.

Transformation and evolution come from being open to a “something new” that may come into our consciousness that we don’t have already and that we cannot conceive of on our own.  This is a “new something” that we don’t know yet exists.  We must be willing to be open to this new input.  If we think about it, we cannot evolve ourselves.  We cannot transform ourselves, because we don’t have the paradigm in our consciousness into which we’re evolving and transforming.  We don’t have in our paradigm what we’re gaining to create our greater paradigm.  But, God does.

In the same way that we can’t direct our own birth when we’re babies inside the womb, we can’t give birth to our own transformation and evolution.  All we can do is be willing and let God do the rest – guiding us through whatever process we would go through to grow more than we are.  We cannot perceive our next evolutionary existence, because our paradigm of what is possible is too small.  For transformation to occur, we must be willing and open.  Are these steps scary? Sometimes.  Are they confusing? Sometimes.  Do they have us questioning what the heck is going on, what the heck is real, here?  Sometimes.  Still, at the same time, probably the question that may help us to go through transformation is “Do we believe in a God that has something better in mind for us, than we do for ourselves?”

Einstein is quoted as saying, “We cannot solve any problem on the level at which it was created.”  We need a greater paradigm than the one we had created the problems with, in order to solve problems.  We also need a greater paradigm than previous in order to transform and evolve.

I believe there really is something to the impact of 2012.  I believe God does have something better in mind for us than we do for ourselves.  I also believe that we aren’t going to have in our minds and our paradigms what God has in His mind and paradigm.  I don’t think we’re going to know what 2012 can fully have to offer until we go through it with minds wide open.  Either way, I’m getting ready, and I think attending the Spring, 2010 retreat is a good step for me in getting ready.  I’m taking an open mind, an open heart and willingness to learn something new with me when I go.

Jodie Senkyrik

For more information about the retreat, go to the ARE Southwest Region’s website.

So, the Pope, a penguin, and a talking ladder walk into a bar and sit down at the bar.  The bartender looks up and says, “What is this, a bar joke?”

A guy once told me that the secret to creating humor was to bump two paradigms together.  The fact that he was wearing a giant duck costume at the time he told me, didn’t really phase me.  The fact that he was from outer space did.  I’ve heard that aliens from other planets just don’t get our human sense of humor.  This alien was a paradox.  That happens sometimes in space.  Obviously, he misunderstood, thinking he was a pair o’ ducks.  So, I put on the other giant duck costume to help him feel better.

I could have started this whole article off with a synopsis of articles and books referring to the healing effects of laughter.  I could have offered a philosophical treatise on the effect humor has on the psyche of humankind.  I also could have quoted the many medical journals stating that laughter and joy have very real physical effects on the synapses of the brain.  I could have put you to sleep long before I even got to introduce any point to this and have the sound of snoring reverberating in the ethers.  (Someone bet me that I couldn’t use the word ‘reverberating’ in an article.)

The best point I can come up with at the moment is that it’s better to have laughed and lost than never to have laughed at all.  Imagine a life with no laughter at all in it.  Go ahead, imagine a life with no laughter in it.  They exist.  No matter what the circumstances, no laughter.  Whether the circumstances are dire or whether they are beneficial.  No laughter.  Lives like these do exist.  Sad, isn’t it.  And in imagining this, we find we have no laughter for these lives, only sadness.  We look upon ‘life with no laughter’ and feel something similar for these lives.

Now imagine a life filled with laughter and joy.  No matter what the circumstances, laughter and joy.  Whether the circumstances are dire, or whether they are beneficial.  Laughter, laughter and more laughter.  Which life would you want?  More laughter?  Or none?

Sadness has its place in our lives.  Grief, pain and suffering have their place in our lives.  Running away from these doesn’t heal them.  Repressing these feelings doesn’t heal them.  So, what do we do with them if we’re wanting a life of laughter and joy?

Perhaps the secret is to bump two paradigms together – the paradigm we have in our heads and a paradigm that is so far greater than our own.

The question really isn’t “Does sorrow, grief and suffering exist”?  Anyone who says they can be avoided is selling something.  The question isn’t “Do we get rid of sorrow, and grief and suffering?”  Good luck with that.  The real question is  “Is that all that exists?” In asking this question, we are looking for the answer, at the same time knowing that these are not all that exist.  Even in the ‘Life with no laughter’, we know that there is more yet available even for this life.

So often, we have determined inside our own “cardboard box” paradigm that there is an established measured out amount of joy and laughter we have all opted to have in our lives and so we know that joy, laughter and humor exist.  We’ve been taking our “best medicine” and been very dutiful following the prescription to the letter.  In fact, let’s not over do it.  Not too much joy, now.  Not too much laughter.  We do it when it’s written in the script, when it’s the right thing, prescribed by the authorities, and when it’s supposed to happen according to the appropriate doctor’s rules, … but not a penny more!!

Let’s take a tally of how many times in one day we laugh… or snicker… or are amused.  No?  Too much trouble?  Not important enough to do?  Too busy with life to try some unimportant tally?  Is anyone thinking “He’s just writing a rhetorical question to his audience”?  “He’s not really expecting me to take a tally of how many times I feel joy, or laughter, or humor in one day, is he?  I don’t have to.  I’m not going to bother.”

There’s the issue.  When humor, joy and laughter become unimportant, we take steps to forget about them in our lives.  We shunt them aside and wait until the few times that we may stumble across them in the parking lot.  Instead of focusing on joy and laughter, during times that it would be good if not even wonderful to include them, we instead think that is not an important enough quality to try to have more of in our lives.  We don’t go looking for it.  And we begin to get bogged down more and more and more in the sad, the pain, the sorrow, the joyless, and all without realizing it.

The Bible says, “Seek and ye shall find.”  This includes joy and humor.  Who goes looking for joy and humor?  People who want more joy and laughter in their lives, that’s who.  People who want to know if there is more inside life than just what we get without ‘the wanting of more’.  That’s who.

If we want more joy, if we want a sense of humor, if we want laughter in our lives, we must look for the joy, look for the ridiculous, look for when two paradigms bump together.  The Course in Miracles says, all we have to do is be willing, God will do the rest.  This goes for laughing, too.  If we’re willing to find more joy, more laughter, and strengthen our sense of humor, God is willing to help it to happen.  Just be careful for what you’re willing, God really does help things like this.   If we pray, “God help me have a better sense of humor”  what do you think is going to happen?

Will God take away the sorrow and grief and pain and suffering and chaos and pain and sorrow and doom and despair and agony on me and deep dark depression and excessive misery, and cancer and war and grief and suffering and funerals and grief and crucifixions and divorce and chaos?  No, probably not.  We’re just going to have to accept that Congress exists.  Will He take away death and taxes and bad puns and hives and hurricanes and tornadoes and political commercials and earthquakes and volcanoes and tsunamis and Donald Trump’s hair.  No, probably not.  We’re just going to have to live with Donald Trump’s hair.

Sadness, grief, despair, sorrow, doom – these are easy.  We can have them anytime we want.  But, it just might take some effort to build something better.  Laughter doesn’t always come easy.  Just ask any comedian on stage.  But, if we look for more joy in our lives, if we look for more laughter in our lives, and believe that Jesus was really telling the truth when He said, “Seek and ye shall find.  Ask and it shall be given you.”  Then watch out, joy will come.  A sense of humor will show up – probably dressed in a giant duck costume… or two.  (Don’t shoot us.)

So, what do you get when you put two paradigms together?  40 cents, of course.

Think about it.

Jodie S.

In the years that we’ve been affiliated or involved with the A.R.E., many of us can readily say that we’ve been enriched, enthralled, amazed, astounded, overwhelmed, overjoyed, ecstatic, and enjoined through the experiences we’ve had as members of one of the most amazing organizations around.  The Edgar Cayce Readings and the organization that sprang from them, and the people that brought all this to us have helped us to change ourselves, our relationship to God, our relationship to the world and each other, and helped to give us hope for the progression and evolution of life in this universe of ours.

Now, some of us would like to further this work and create a venue where we can share what we’ve gained in written form.  Whether we write 10 words or 500, if any of us have something we’d like to share that demonstrates what we’ve gained from our affiliation, then let’s share.   For this reason, it is the morning of a new venture.

God bless,
Jodie Senkyrik

Welcome to the world of blogging with the SW-ARE.