MEDITATION IN ACTION

Finding the Will to Transform

21-24 October, Hawke’s Bay

Our intention for this conference is to explore and discuss the power of Meditation, fostering a discussion between the tension of inner and outer work. How do we find the right balance to live in the 21st century and to respond to the needs of the world and of our time? Meditation as a deed or as an inner soothing need? How can Meditation empower change, transformation and social justice?

Meditation is commonly used for relaxation, inner peace, healing and personal empowerment, to strengthen and enhance ones personal and professional life. It has become a part of daily work-life in many leading global corporations and workplaces to improve workplace wellbeing and performance. However, as a path of self-knowledge, meditation can open the human soul to the deep spiritual foundations of its own existence. Meditation also offers insight into the forces and effects that lie behind material phenomena, and those that shape and influence the social, cultural and political environment in which we live. These forces can be both beneficent and malign. Knowing the nature and depth of what we are experiencing gives us the opportunity of making right decisions and actions, and in this sense meditation can become an active and positive force in the world. Self-development, self-awareness and self-mastery are the fruits of a true meditative practice.

The biggest challenge we meet in meditation is finding our will to do it, the will to make it a practice, the will to sustain the meditation process when we are in it, and the will to integrate its transformative fruits back into the world.

The Anthroposophical approach to meditation requires Will forces, otherwise it simply won’t happen. It takes firm will forces to hold thinking and feeling together so that the meditation progresses. This is why I like calling Anthroposophical meditation ‘Threefold meditation.’ Thinking, feeling and willing are flowing one into the other during a meditation, however, the will is such a key component in holding it all together – and it is the will which is being undermined so powerfully and tragically in today’s world.
– Mark Geard of Alamandria: Art of Meditation & Mindfulness

 

SPEAKERS:

Taherama Hollis Tahe will be the opening speaker For the conference Meditation in Action. She will also be offering a workshop on working with plants together with Nic Parkes of Weleda.

Tahe Hollis is a Rongoa Māori Specialist, her practice is founded on the knowledge and wisdom of traditional and contemporary Māori healing. This foundation of traditional Māori healing is ‘Taha Wairua’– the ‘World of Connections’ – which is a holistic approach of bringing all ‘Mauri’ (life force) together, into ‘a harmonic vibrational state’ of wellness.

As well as being a Tohunga – a Māori Spiritual Practitioner – Tahe offers a variety of healing opportunities through her work including but not limited to; Wairua Whakawhitiwhiti Korero (Spiritual Counselling, which includes parapsychology), Meditation, Usui Reiki and is a spiritual facilitator and advisor for transition of the death and dying process for an individual and the whole whanau.

Tahe is also a mentor, and a teacher of Māori tikanga, and provides cultural supervision and consultancy to promote Māori culture & values to organisations.

Tahe has weaved Taha Wairua and Mauri healing into everything she has done throughout her life, however, she wanted to be able to use Wairākau to compliment her practice and enable her to provide Wairākau medicines in a dried form for tea making. Wairākau is the Māori term for medicines that are produced from native flora and fauna in New Zealand. These medicines are used for dis-ease that people are experiencing and are used to help ease the dis-harmony within the body to a state of wellness for each persons requirements. Tahe believes that one person’s healing experience helps to heal and strengthen their ‘whole whakapapa (genealogy)’.

Ron Dunselman will be our guest international keynote speaker from the Netherlands. Ron is a co-founder of the Goetheanum Meditation Initiative Worldwide and wrote the book In Place of the Self: How Drugs Work. He is a psychologist specialising in health care, and an art therapist. He worked for nearly 30 years in ARTA, the National Anthroposophical Centre for treatment of drug and alcohol addicts in the Netherlands and was one of its founders. Ron has been chairman of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society and until recently was the General Secretary. Ron has also been a class holder since 1991. Ron and his wife Milou will be running an afternoon workshop entitled ‘Questions about anthroposophical meditation and its practice’

Emily Fletcher is co-founder and facilitator of Alamandria: Art of Meditation & Mindfulness, a designer, artist and storyteller. Her talk Finding the Inner Hero will speak to the courage and nobility that is intimately connected with spiritual tasks. She says: ‘The task of every human being is one of continual ennoblement through a path of self-knowledge. Interestingly, the root word meaning of ‘noble’ is ‘to know’. To ‘know’ ourselves requires courage – inner courage to face, acknowledge and transform what and who we are, in all our failings and shortcomings. For thousands of years human communities have had heroes, both real and mythic, to inspire and support the will to overcome and transcend lower tendencies in groups and individuals. Heroes speak to something in us that we admire and aspire to. They can represent an archetype of higher, more universal values, and can also be seen as the countenance of the ‘Higher Self’ that overarches our persona – our everyday self. Regardless of what ones destiny situation is, the path of meditation, which is the ultimate path of self-development, can be the path of (or ‘to’) the hero; a path that is available to every human being. By cultivating and drawing on courage and our forces of will we can ennoble ourselves and our deeds in the world.’

 

Afternoon Creative Workshops

Meditation in Action will expand into the afternoons offering workshops on the theme of meditation as well as a wide variety of artistic workshops. In his book How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, Rudolf Steiner writes:

It should be remarked that artistic feeling, coupled with a quiet, introspective nature, is the best preliminary condition for the development of spiritual faculties. Artistic feeling pierces through the surface of things, and by so doing reaches their secrets.

We will be inviting therapists and artists to run these workshops. As in the past, we will maintain an open space with the possibility for spontaneous meetings, the sharing of various initiatives or simply taking a quiet space.

Evenings

This year we have two wonderful evenings planned. On the Saturday we will feature inspiring artistic performances and on the Sunday night we have made a whole evening available to hear from various initiatives from around the country and possibly overseas. We look forward to not only seeing and hearing what is afoot but also to allow time for conversations and sharing. If you have an initiative that you would like to present during this evening please contact Silke Carter: silke@auck.hohepa.org.nz