I recently became a PPS teacher! I completed the course with Claudia Booth at Dev Aura at the end of May. We were a small group - seven altogether - but there was a lot of experience in the room: five of us had been with Aura-Soma since the mid 1990‘s so it was good to reconnect with old friends - as well as make new ones. Spending time together is an important part of this course. As i write this now I remember that the feeling of (Aura-Soma) family was always very important to Vicky and Margaret and I believe that encouraging family is also an important part of Claudia’s gift to Aura-Soma.

Claudia and Dominic on Shire Farm

As the TPPS is a 6 day course (the PPS is only 3 days) the course had lots of time to explore different things. At times it felt more like a holiday! I particularly enjoyed the times we spent outside in the garden; the making of artwork / mind maps to explore and organise ideas in a more feminine and creative way. I also enjoyed very much our visit to the Aura-Soma land. (I include several pictures from that trip at the end of this post.)

The big discovery for me on the course was that it is our gifts and being centered which are at the heart of this course. I had joined the course thinking that presentation and consultation skills were the most important. The great thing about gifts and centering is that they bring us to the magic of Aura-Soma - a system specifically to develop our gifts, to become more centered in consciousness.

There are a lot of activities and information packed into the PPS course but I feel I now have the line, the measure with which to create a joyful and nourishing learning experience for students. And so I look forward to sharing this course with students. I love to be creative and this course has many opportunities to explore both ourselves and what is important in Aura-Soma. I shall be presenting PPS courses in Japan and Europe in the future. Let me know if you would like to join one.

TPPS class at the red chakra - Shire Farm

Dominic at red chakra - Shire Farm

Walking the chakras on Shire Farm

Reflections at the heart chakra

Previously I wrote about the synchronicity of the release of the movie Avatar with the release of B107 - Aura-Soma’s most recent bottle. Recently I saw Avatar for the second time and once again I found some very exciting Aura-Soma connections. This time through the numbers that appear in the movie.

When Jake Sully - the lead character - records his video diaries there are two significant numbers that appear on the screen. One is his ID number and the other is the date. When these numbers are associated with their corresponding Aura-Soma Equilibrium bottles some amazing coincidences of message and meaning can be found.

Jake’s ID number

It is 0256 **** 0004. (**** - there were some letters in the middle i ignored).

We can interpret these numbers as follows:
02 = B2 is the blue/blue combination, and blue represents a yes to something
56 = B56 is the pale violet/pale violet combination, and pale violet represents transmutation - a deep level of change.

00 = B0 royal blue / deep magenta, 0 represents mystery and the potential for the new. In the Tarot this is the Fool, the one at the start of the journey. To return to zero is in fact the only way to make a new beginning.
04 = B4 the yellow / gold combination. These are the colours that underpin our separate self consciousness. It is on this separateness that our sense of identity is built.

Yes to change

Taken together his ID number, seen through Aura-Soma bottles, could be read as “yes (02) to change (56) … returning to zero (0) a new identity (4) can emerge.

This is exactly the process Jake Sully goes through in the movie. He starts as a human in an alien body, yet by the end of the film his inner identity has also chnaged - he now considers himself Navi. He has changed not only his form abut also his identity!

2154 - the context of time

The other significant number appearing in Jake’s video diary is the date. Avatar is set in the year 2154. Here we should also consider the Aura-Soma / Tarot perspective.

21 = is the green / pink combination, but perhaps more importantly here it is the path of The World in the Tarot, it represents consciousness entering or awakening in matter. When i think about the Navi’s relationship with their world - one of conscious interaction where they talk to the planet and vice versa this makes sense. Furthermore
54 = is clear / clear, and from the Tarot perspective, it is the Page of Swords. The Pages are situated in Malkuth - the sphere of inanimate matter which is connected to consciousness through the path of The World. The clear / clear combination is paradoxical in Aura-Soma. It represents both consciousness and unconsciousness. Taken together 2154 concerns itself with bringing an impulse of consciousness into the material world.

One of the main messages of the movie is to change our consciousness with regard to the planet we live on. In the movie the humans are in the Navi world for mining. I have long thought that mining is a telling word. To mine is to extract from the earth and so take possession of - “Its mine now.” At another level of course the Earth could regard humans in the same way - that we belong to her since our body is made entirely out of her elements. What belongs to who is hard to say!

A final note - 08.24.2154

The date of the final video diary entry was 08 24 2154
that is (if i change around to english way of writing) -

24 - violet turquoise - the bottle’s name is New Message
08 - yellow / blue represents a return to balance (the Tarot card is Justice). The question B8 poses is
“Are you living in harmony with your heart? With life around you?”
This is the question that the movie leaves us with. Remember it was released the same week as the Copenhagen Climate Conference reached its climax!

To summarise:

Jake’s ID number shows Jake Sully’s process - a transformation of not only form but also identity. The date shows the bigger story in which his process is set. It is a message to find a new balance and harmony with nature, a new beginning for our conscious relationship with the material world.

One of the abilities I encourage in consultation skills is that of accepting whatever the client says without judgement or excessive reaction. I like the flow of information to be smooth. Recently though my surprise just had to show through.

I was giving an example consultation to a student. In fact she had already surprised me the previous day when she told me the reason she was a little late for class was that she had taken sunday lunch over to her mother before coming to class. She told me her mother was 97 years old. I could hardly believe it - i would never have said this student was old enough to have a 97 year old mother … (but of course i was too much of a gentleman to ask …)

During the consultation she spoke about wanting to inspire her daughter to be more free. “What does she do? Whats her situation?” I asked. “Oh she still lives at home with me” she replied. “She is 16 years old.” I couldn’t believe my ears! Yesterday a 97 year old mother and now a 16 year old daughter! For once my jaw dropped.

I wrote these words recently as i was waiting to have my hair cut in Budapest. I speak no hungarian and my hair dresser no english. I showed her approximately what i wanted. Imagine my surprise when she got the shaver and immediately shaved the front of my head! I had to laugh when she asked me if i liked it. Whatever i felt made no difference. I let her continue. The good news with haircuts though is, even if i don’t like them, they always seem to grow on me!

Timothy’s birth, a broken computer, and what seems like almost 3 months full-time travelling since April has seen my blog writing slow down hugely. I hope that this is the beginning of regular posts again …

The big news of the last three months is that three new courses have been added to my portfolio.

Secrets of the Colour Rose

I taught this in Japan this May for only the second time. It is such an exciting course full of fascinating ideas. The course has become so much more than I expected and has opened a whole new dimension of understanding to this key symbol within the Aura-Soma system. I have written a series of articles about my evolutionary journey with the Colour Rose since 1985 and they will soon be available. Watch this space …

Alchemy of Creativity

In June in St Petersburg, Russia came a totally new course - the Alchemy of Creativity. It is a 5 day course designed to awaken our creative potential. The number 5 is central to the course. Each day an Equilibrium bottle provides the focus for the process and each of these bottles is part of the 5 sequence: B5, B10, B15, B20, B25. B5 starts the process with an awakening energy and it finishes on Day 5 with a ritual designed to initiate students into their creative potential, empowering them to create and live the life they dream of in the way that Florence Nightingale - the B25’s namesake managed to do.

The course was a great adventure and i learnt so much from doing it - especially about alchemy, the tree of life and the inner star. So exciting - I shall soon be writing more about this course too.

The PPS course

In addition to these two courses I have also (finally) qualified as an Aura-Soma PPS course teacher. I attended Claudia Booth’s TPPS course at Dev Aura at the end of May. We had a good time together as a group and I look forward to sharing this valuable course with students in the future. There will be a post about the experience of this course soon too.

Well those are some of the professional news items. For the rest we can say that Tetford is sunny and warm and that here today in the village we could hear the sound of excited children cheering as they enjoyed their school sports day.

All best wishes

Dom

Aura-Soma keep bees on their land. Last week 50,000 bees left the Aura-Soma hive and flew onto a nearby tree. It means that it is time for a new bee colony to be formed. I was told this by Paul Dicker, the excited and very happy General Manager at Aura-Soma Products. He had helped bring the bees off the tree and into their new home, a second hive on the land.  It means there will now be two bee colonies on Shire Farm.

Paul was clearly excited I asked him what this event meant to him. He said this event made his day-to-day problems seem very small. This move was a miracle of life. Especially so since in recent years bee colonies have been disappearing at alarming rates. This disappearance is called Colony Collapse Disorder and you can read about it on the web.

So it is great news that on Shire Farm bees are moving in the right direction.

A month since my last post! That’s what a new baby can do for your life. Timothy is well, but feeds a lot so Elena is pretty tired. Thank you to all those who wished us well on the birth.

Meanwhile since the birth I have taught two courses at Dev Aura, the second being a Teacher Level 1. I so enjoy teaching teachers. All week I was singing to myself as I walked around Dev Aura. We had 9 students, plus a translator for the two Italians, so including myself we were 11 in the room … more on that in a minute.

Teacher level 1 students at Dev Aura

Growing as teachers

What I love about Teachers courses is getting the students to think as teachers. Being a teacher is so much more than simply knowing the content. Being an artful teacher also includes  considering the sequence and flow of information, how to engage students in the learning process, and when and how to change the pace or focus of the class. Most importantly when giving a Teachers course I want to get the students to “own” the course. That means that they come to have an overview of the course structure. They know the key elements within it, how these elements fit together, how they can use presentations to build on, reinforce and revise what came earlier. In sum as teachers they understand the goals, content and structure of the Level 1 course. For this course I have created a whole series of exercises to develop this thinking and I believe the students really grew in this way through the 6 days.

Initiation

A highlight from the course came at the end of day 4. Each student got to be the teacher for 10 – 15 minutes during the course, selecting and presenting a topic from the Level 1 material. The last session on Day 4 was on the Quintessences and Masters. The teacher placed the Master bottles, quintessneces and New Aeon Tarot images in a circle in the centre of the room and spoke. A peaceful and powerful energy was created, so much so that when it was time for me to end the class for the day, it was clear the students wished to remain in the circle. So I left them there with my good wishes.

I arrived the next morning to find students very excited because during their sitting after I left there had been the sound of a crack and they discovered that B81 - Pink/Pink - had burst on the display. I was very pleased too because I consider a vital part of the teacher level 1 course is for the students to receive some kind of initiation. It is not something that comes from me, but from the system itself. This pink bottle with its energy of fire, spirit and unconditional love releasing its energy as it did seemed a perfect initiation. It was noticeable that the final two student presentations on the morning of Day 5 were full of love.

love and light at dev aura

11 A gateway for Love and Light

And so back to the theme of 11 for a moment. There were 11 of us in the circle, and there were also two B11 bottles in the circle. This was because on day 1 I had asked each student to choose one bottle (in addition to their 4 bottle selection) which represented their potential for growing as a teacher through the week. Both myself and Monai – one of the students chose B11. As I sat on the left of the display and he sat on the right, these B11s created a kind of gateway between the Equilibrium bottles and the teachers. B11 is not only a gateway – simply by the number itself, it is also I believe one of the key bottles in the system, love and light, pink and clear, the energy (pink) that supports consciousness (clear) to grow. It all made sense in the final session. When it was Monai’s time to say his final words he announced he had a present for each person – a pink pomander. This was the perfect balance to my final idea which was for each student to apply some of the contents of the exploded B81 - now placed in a bowl in the centre of the room.

So it was that in finishing the course the students – now teachers - received pink on their body and also a pink for their aura as they stepped back out into the world as teachers.  It was a perfect ending.

graduating as teachers

This post is different to my usual posts as it is not about colour or Aura-Soma – it is about the latest arrival into my family. On Saturday (27/2/2010) Elena gave birth to a boy! They are both doing really well and came home from the hospital that evening. He is very big, 4.6kg (10lb 6oz) strong and healthy.

Baby boy

The birth process

It was a great birth process. As with Daniel his older brother I was with Elena throughout the birth process – in this case from 5.30am through to 12.30 when he (we have not found his name yet) emerged. It is a privilege for me to be part of the birth process. It is such an intense and “being present” process where minutes seem like hours, but then every so often you realise another hour has passed and you wonder how much longer there can be to go …

Handling the pain

What I especially want to write about is how Elena handled the pain. Firstly we had no idea the baby was that big so we entered the process without fear. Early in the process I massaged the B20 Equilibrium bottle into Elena’s back. As the process went on, along with simply being there, holding, breathing etc., I also did many Reiki attunements to Elena and the process. However each contraction was still quite something to endure for Elena and the nurse did offer us (drug) pain relief. Some thing Elena and I did not want to use if we could possibly avoid it.

Help was at hand

After a few hours Elena went to her suitcase and pulled out a small cloth covered in prickly plastic discs (see the picture) which she had brought to the hospital on an intuition. It came from her uncle – an osteopath in Russia who had given it to her some time ago to help with her back pain (not connected to the pregnancy or birth). She asked me to hold it to her lower back as she knelt over the bed. As the contractions came she asked me to press the cloth into her lower back. This process went on for more than an hour. It was amazing. It was very deep and meditative. We were not talking much. With each contraction she was able to move her pelvis and she later told me that she was feeling the baby’s process. The relief provided by these discs enabled her to be with and support the birthing process.

the plastic discs that helped

There did come a point though where she felt she had no more energy and the discs became less relevant. For the last 45 minutes Elena was pushing and getting tired but the baby though we could see the head, was not coming out. It was a difficult time. Finally the baby came, first the head and then with a couple more pushes the whole body. Throughout his heart beat had been stable. And now that he emerged we could see he was a big healthy baby who immediately went pink and looked fantastic.

In retrospect those last 45 minutes though very difficult at the time were probably very helpful, because not only did Elena have no pain relief, she also had no need for stitches.

Elena after the birth

Home together

It was a great birth process and now we have a great baby.  And now as I write this in our garden it seems Spring too has come. The sun is shining and the birds are singing. It is a good beginning.

baby and older brother Daniel

Our baby is due to be born any day now.

The other night Elena had a dream. In it a girl was standing at our gate. Waiting. As the dream had affected Elena I thought to explore further the meaning and message of the dream. “What was the girl wearing?” “A red coat and a magenta hat,” she replied.

The closest Equilibrium combination would be B89 Red / Deep Magenta. And it struck me “How interesting!” That is the return journey of B11 the Clear / Pink which is the energy vital at the start of the pregnancy. Now as the pregnancy period is coming to a close and the baby is, literally, about to come to earth we find the B89.

This red and B89 also precipitated a process for Elena and I. After sharing a pink pomander we drew a picture together to represent the space or energy that the baby is stepping into. It needs to be welcomed by us and invited in so that it can take its place. This is also part of the red. The energy to step into a family, to find ones place in the family and on the earth. It seems that while green is the colour we first think of for space, red which is the colour opposite to green also plays a vital role in taking one’s place. See my previous post on Red : Finding your place for more.

A few days ago Elena told me “Today is a public holiday in Russia.” My impression is that Russia has quite a few national holidays so I asked what this holiday was for. She told me it was Dyen Zashitnika Otechestva - translated as “Defender of the Motherland” - basically for all those who are or have been in the armed forces. This sparked something inside me. It reminded me of the way the Russians like to make toasts, everything is honoured, everything is celebrated, everything has its place. In Russia it is as if there is a day for everyone. This strikes me as a very red aspect of Russia. Red is to do with blood, the family and the tribe, in which everyone has their place.

I remember watching a TV documentary a few years ago about children who, for one reason or another, had been neglected by their parents to the extent that these children started living with dogs rather than human beings. Yes incredible but true. (If you want know more, or even understand exactly what i am saying here, follow the link at the end of this post).

Though the subject was sensationalist the documentary itself was made with sensitively. One of the strongest impressions for me came towards the end of the programme. One of the girls they had been following – now back in human society was staying in a small farm community. She had a job. Her job was to collect the milk each morning. As she told the camera this fact, she smiled. It was a real smile. This simple fact that she had a place seemed the most healing of all, she belonged. It seemed as important as any psychological therapy looking back at the past.

Perhaps orange and coral are the feeling of togetherness, but red is even more basic. In red we have our place.

If you would like to see the girl in question here is a link

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/the-girl-who-ran-with-the-pack/2006/07/18/1153166383022.html

B23 Rose Pink / Pink

Appearing only in one bottle, B23, Rose Pink is a unique colour. How does it differ from the regular pink? Is it a touch of yellow or a spot of blue that has been added to the pink? Neither! Rose Pink has neither blue nor yellow added - what it has is extra pink! Rose Pink is a more active pink. Perfect timing for Valentine’ Day and the New Moon born tonight with a very special  energy.

First the colour. My best understanding for this colour came while teaching a course at Dev Aura some years ago. As always I was working to create an atmosphere of love and acceptance in the class, an atmosphere to support the learning growing process that Aura-Soma offers. On this rare occasion however one of the students was creating a barrier to this loving energy, remaining hostile towards me and my efforts at inclusion. In the face of her rejection I noticed a reaction in me. I wanted to reject her too. Now pushing away, rejecting, is a red energy, and in that moment I understood the truth that it takes a stronger love to remain open and loving when the other person remains rejecting and hostile to you.

I also knew in this moment that this truth was the gift of the Rose Pink. With its extra added pink it has the energy to continue loving, even when the object of love is resisting and pushing away. Rose pink is an active love.

Though softer than the red of passion and less overwhelming than the desire that flows towards another, it remains stronger than the regular and pale pinks which offer unconditional love but do not attempt to overcome barriers.

Rose Pink is pink enough to approach the unconditional, but red enough to be active and outgoing. It is a unique colour perfectly suited to its corresponding Tarot card - the King of Wands - which represents the highest development of the fire energy – the mastery of love.

Rose Pink - light and shadow

New Moon of Spiritual Love

Valentine’s Day (Eve) New Moon.
13th February 2010  at 9 minutes before midnight GMT

This New Moon is very special because it is born right next to Chiron joining Neptune in the sky for an exact kiss. Just one tenth of a degree between Chiron and Neptune, and both less than a degree away from the New Moon itself. It is a conjunction to access the eternal flowering of cosmic consciousness in the heart and in the mind of humanity.

Neptune with Chiron speaks to the healing capacity we all have hidden away deep inside us. It expands to become infinitely potent when we face our inner world with courage. If  we can overcome hesitation then we can fully connect with our spiritual wisdom just a step away – a step we have to be willing to make.

So this is a very exceptional Valentine’s Day weekend. We are encouraged to reach deep inside ourselves and simultaneously out to others in both romance and friendship. This weekend is all about heart-strength in a softer and more healing mode than our culture normally allows for. If you give in to the magic and let the love inside you flow out to family, friends and loved ones, you will paradoxically find yourself blessed with riches returning to you.