 Solstice greetings!
May it be a happy one for you and your loved ones. At this moment, a quality of time ripe for going inwards and appreciating the deep and permeating silence of winter landscapes, we can remember Nura faculty James O'Dea's Soul Awakening Prayer as a contemplative practice to take with us. Take a few, deep and relaxing breaths and... Heart Opening Light Shining Love Flowing Wounds Dissolving Peace Radiating James recently shared an uplifting note entitled, "The Hour of the Bully -- The Century of the Visionary." You can read the full text here. "The Bully," James writes, "is quintessentially short-sighted, will punish if not appeased...threats are the foundation of [their] dominance." "The Visionary," to the contrary, "looks ahead to the highest goal that will serve the greatest number and do the greatest good... knows how to inspire the best in people," and "stimulate a culture of idealism." Even now, especially now, in the Hour of the Bully we must get "mobilized" for the "longed for future." In moments between the darkness and the "longed for future", we can usethis tension as a contemplative exercise. A creative act of bringing forth some small portion of that future in the present tense through our immediate lives and actions. This is the pull of Omega that Teilhard de Chardin identified, or the notion of latency in the philosophy of Jean Gebser. Still more, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother (Mirra Alfassa) recognized this concretizing urge to divinize reality and work as a kind of alchemy -- the "living laboratory" -- in which the future, that longed-for future, is the realization of the spiritual present and divine reality. The key to all this, perhaps, is to be present, equanimous, and compassionate. These inspirational ideas have been planted at the heart of Nura's 2017 vision and 2018 programming — as you'll see in a moment! Going into 2018, we're asking each of our teachers: how do we embody this? How do we create a better future? What does that future look like and how do we embody it ourselves? What's next for Nura? Here's a taste of what we have coming up next year...
More announcements coming as we near the spring of 2018. Gifts October's class with Alexandre Tannous, "Meditating with Sound: Transformational Practices" was an example of the kind of integral praxis that we whole-heartedly endorse at Nura. It's now available as a pre-recorded seminar, with 2 hours of lecture, 40 minutes of Q&A, the full transcript, and the recommended reading PDF. Our holiday sale has it at $17.99. This is the perfect gift for a loved one! We hope you'll agree. Register for Meditating with Sound: Transformational Practices Archan Nair's artistic workshop class is perfect for those seeking creative inspiration. Especially if they align more with a contemplative or mystical practice (or simply want to start one). This is on sale for $12.99! Register for Creativity and Consciousness with Archan Nair Support Lastly, we wish to thank everyone who has registered for both the paid and free classes at Nura! You're helping us realize our dream of creating accessible, in-depth and transformational courses exploring the edges of consciousness and culture. You can further support us by checking out our donation page, where you can donate to Nura directly, or support us by purchasing t-shirts and mugs sporting our leaf logo as a band of noospheric pride. :-) Our goal for 2018 is to make as many of our classes as accessible as possible, by either making some of them free (such as Richard Doyle's 7 week seminar) or donation based wherever we can. Donating to Nura or grabbing some of our "swag" helps towards this goal. Thank you! See you in 2018! Jeremy & the Nura Team Featured image by Grace Hollow Doll |