Sunday, March 4, 2012.   I was thinking today about the astonishing contribution made by courageous women in the last century. Six women come to mind because they were part of my learning and my growth. Each of them was courageous, smart, and profoundly connected to all of Life on all levels. I want to describe them to you. And, specifically, I want to tell you about they have impacted my personal life story. These six women are Jane Roberts, Helen Schucman, Esther Hicks, Jean Houston, Jean Bolen, and Byron Katie.   The first three, Jane Roberts, Helen Schucman, and Esther Hicks, all channeled messages from the “other side.” Dr. Jean Houston and Dr. Jean Bolen have been my teachers through their writings and their work. Then along came Byron Katie with her profound enlightenment experience and the gift of what she calls, The Work. All six of these women have touched something in my mind, heart, and being that made a difference in my own expanding consciousness. I was drawn to learn what each of them had to offer.

Jean Houston has been the most influential in view of the fact that I have had so many experiences as her student. And now, her partner, Peggy Rubin is a guiding force with her new book, To Be and How To Be. That would make seven women of possibility, but for the purpose of this writing, I am telling you about six. There are many more women who have influenced my life and my growth. Some day I will describe them all, starting with my Mother but for now, I want to focus on six women of power and possibility.

First, it was in the 70’s that I read the Seth materials, channeled by Jane Roberts and transcribed by her husband. Each book seemed to hold psychological truth and philosophical ideas that appealed to me. The Seth messages were the first to challenge my thinking regarding the eternal “now” as well as the corroboration of my intuitive belief that life of the spirit exists before birth and continues after death. It all made sense to me and I was hungry for more.

Second, in the early 1980’s, Dr. Joe Castillo, a dentist in Corpus Christi heard me speak to the state dental convention. I was serving as a consultant to area dental offices, using Selection Research (now the Gallup Organization) material for hiring and developing  personnel in dentistry.  Their early material included a strengths interview of the dentist and his/her spouse, as well as all the people in the office. In those years,  I was a well-known consultant to dentists in South Texas. After making my speech, Joe came up to me with a large stack of mimeographed pages that were early copies of “A Course In Miracles.” He said that he thought I would like the ideas for they sounded a lot like what I was talking about in my speech. So I began my study of A Course in Miracles, which was a very long channeled book(s) by Dr. Helen Schucman. Her story was also gripping for me in that she was in my field as a professor of psychology, and she was Jewish. She was an atheistic Jewish professor, working with Bill Thetford, and she began hearing a voice. You can read her story on the internet. The essence of this story is that she was given these words by Jeshua Ben Josef, Jesus of Nazareth. I read all the mimeographed pages that Joe had given me and liked what I read. So I bought a copy of all three books in one, entitled A Course in Miracles. Later in 1987, the directors of the Foundation for A Course in Miracles, Kenneth and Gloria Wapnick, came to Corpus Christi. Inspired by Ken’s talks, Paul and I started our study of the workbook portion of ACIM. Over the years, we have gone through the Text, The Workbook, and The Teacher’s Manual, several times. Each time, we gain more insight and feel the stretch of consciousness to a more expanded edge. ACIM was one of the best methods of psychotherapy that I had found. Almost any problem could be better understood, if not solved, through the wisdom from these writings. Perhaps the most potent lesson for me comes in the first few lessons from the Workbook. I am in accord with the sentiment that mind creates meaning. Nothing means anything, except the meaning that I give it. So the three powerful M’s, Mind, Memory, and Meaning are the source of my spiral of growth. I helped with The Corpus Christi Attitudinal Healing Center and enjoyed the years of our early learning, applying the life principles from ACIM. Jerry Jampolski’s books were our text books and we had a lot of fun working with the people who came to the center.

Third,  the Law of Attraction has been revealed through ever so many avenues. Perhaps the clearest exposition of this Law, for me,  came from Esther Hicks, channeling the spiritual consortium, Abraham. Esther and Jerry Hicks have lived a wonderful life story and the incredible gift of Abraham, speaking through Esther with Jerry supporting and administering the whole thing (even now, after he has left the Earth Plane), in which we are given thought forms that are answers to earth problems. I especially relate to the concepts of emotions as guidance systems going toward our unfolding as the joyful spiritual beings that we are. These are described in two of their books, The Astonishing Power of Emotion and The Amazing Power of Intention. From these teachings, I devised my own spiral of growth, as a way of understanding our natural journey of expansion. The whole Universe is expanding and we are cells in the vastness of all life, with the same possibility for expansion. When cells are threatened, they go into protection mode and growth (expansion) stops. I have found the same to be true of me in my own spiral of growth. If some criticism-blame-judgment has harmed me, then I go into protection mode and all growth (expansion) stops.  It is the negative emotion that signals I am off my path.

These adept women who have channeled the world of spirit, brought to me the food for my hungry mind and my avid searching for the way of spiritual growth. The other two women, both named Jean, have given more of the practical behaviors that will forward that fulfillment. I respect the psychological viewpoint of each of these Jeans.  Jean Houston has been my teacher-mentor-guide since 1980 when she came to Kingsville, TX to work with our counselors in training. I have participated as a student in her Human Capacities Program (actually, she paid me to be a mentor to one of her South Texas students), in various week long workshops on myth and story and human possibility, in the national endeavor created during the Carter administration (The Possible Human), and in her Mystery Schools both East Coast and West Coast. Jean Houston’s many books have been sources of exercises, entertainment, and expansion. Our greatest time with Jean to date was a 17 day trip to Egypt, including a cruise up the Nile River. Jean is a world leader, a provocateur, and one of the most challenging minds I have ever been privileged to know. She encourages, inspires, and teaches how to become the Possible Human. I dedicated my book, The Possible Woman, to her.

Jean Shinoda Bolen has been another teacher, mostly from reading her books, although I had the privilege of hearing her in person at the Jung Center in Houston. Her work with women is part of my fascination and her courageous leadership in the face of women’s plight is impressive. I recommend all her books and especially do I recommend her world wide movement incorporating the feminine way. Her book, The Millionth Circle posits that when we have more than one million circles of women (in living room meetings), we will see a change in the world. That is beginning to happen now in this year, 2012.

Like a Tree is the latest book by Jean Shinoda Bolen and it is a manual for women everywhere, leading us into the next Age. I used Jean’s book, Goddesses in Everywoman, to fashion my workshops for The Possible Woman. These two Jeans, along with Jane, Helen, and Esther are five women who will be forever honored by me as inspirational mentors, and leaders toward our best nature as human beings.

Sixth, Byron Katie has helped me question my thoughts, own my projections, and reach a state of peace many times. Hers is the latest in cognitive work for me. I learned so much from the cognitive theorists of the last century. David Burns and Albert Ellis were two who helped me with my irrational thoughts and the realization that my thoughts were the progenitors of my feelings. I still use their methods for help in times of dark and depressing or angering feelings. Byron Katie brings it to a new level for me. Her four simple questions and the turn-around are the magical key to loving “what is.” Her best book for Paul and me has been A Thousand Names for Joy. My conclusion after these some 50 years of study and psychotherapy (my own as well as that which I did for my clients) has brought me to a different, and I must conclude better level of consciousness. No longer am I a helpless, hopeless, hapless Victim of my world. If I get caught in old patterns of thinking, I can fall off into those ruts, which are like ancient recordings in the neural pathways of my brain. This includes the recordings from the collective unconscious, which includes all of human history. I am more able to create my new day, my new sight, sounds, tastes, and experiences from a clear mind, uncontaminated by past memories and sensations. Free to be. And grateful for pioneers, especially female trail-blazers who brought us to this time in this space on this Planet.