How Our Listening Circles Came to Be by Savitri

“My parents are at a Power of Eight gathering tonight.” My friend Meredith told me over oolong tea.
 
“What is the Power of Eight?  I asked, looking curiously over the rim of my tea cup.
 
“It’s a powerful healing circle that yields amazing results that I’ve personally witnessed, which have been scientifically proven.” Meredith told me with shining eyes.
 
I knew right away this was something special! That night, I googled “Power of Eight” and found a book by that name by Lynne Taggart and I ordered it immediately. Lynne has been conducting Power of Eight circles for decades and presents her scientific evidence very convincingly. So, so many amazing testimonies of miraculous healings, including seedlings in a lab half way around the world that received focused healing intentions, and grew many times faster and stronger than those in the control group. Whether groups gathered in person or online with Skype, the stories and evidence Lynne presents are very strong and self-evident and this body of evidence grows as people all over the world gather together in these healing circles.
 
Of course there is a whole plethora of evidence from the Transcendental Meditation research and experiments with group meditations that show amazing healings, lowered disease and violent crime rates and other factors directly attributable to these collective intentions. Andy Teg Avtar can tell you all about this body of evidence in his meditation classes.
 
I have personally seen amazing results from the many prayer and healing circles I’ve organized, in which we select a certain time of day to collectively focus on a family member or close friend in need of great healing: For example my sister-in-law with advanced cancer suddenly got up from bed to go dancing on New Year’s Eve, something we all thought was impossible.
 
Each year, I attend a week long silent meditation retreat, led by the great Advaita teacher Adyashanti at Omega institute – what a blessing! Adyashanti always talks about how the members of his non-profit organization bring their concerns into the group’s circle for discussion and listening, as they mine for the best solutions. He explained that if the members of the circle don’t try to divert the natural energy flow, if the ego mind stays out of this natural flow, “solutions bubble up to the surface like precious jewels. You can almost see them shining”. What a poet!

MKY has had several workshops, and is actually engaged in one right now, in which participants share and as each person is earnestly listened to by the others, deep emotional healings become apparent as each person feels seen, heard, understood and supported.

So last summer, Cate and I decided to start our own healing/prayer circles, as we continued to study the work of Lynne Taggart’s ‘Power of Eight’ and other similar works and experiments with directed intention, like that of Joe Dispenza. The Zen Heart Circle Sangha and other Sanghas of which I am a member also emphasize this kind of listening and sharing, often utilizing a talking stick in the middle of the circle.
 
Then, like the cherry on a mountain of ice cream, I was able to attend this year’s elder gathering at the beautiful Sunray Peace Village in Vermont. There, I met David Lonebear Sanipass, Native American Elder and Leader of Mi’kmaq nation, along with his beautiful wife. They regularly hold “teas” with nine to twelve people in attendance, to just listen as each person talks in turn, and everyone else just listens with one-pointed attention. Listeners, he explained, just listen! They do not think about what they want to say or about advice they want to give, they just listen, bringing all their attention to the one who is speaking. Lonebear mirrors the wisdom of so many sages and teachers who have urged us to do just that.
 
As Lonebear spoke, we were all sitting on the Mother Earth in a circle, about twelve of us, with a quietly crackling fire nearby. A very special feeling came over us that is hard to describe. Lonebear went on to tell us about the blue orbs that regularly appear in the middle of the room when he and his wife hold their ‘teas’, as the group members listen intently to each other. The appearance of these other-worldy blue orbs actually inspired Lonebear to call these listening type of gatherings and teachings ‘Blue Star Teachings’ and he encouraged us all to gather in circles of our own.
 
I excitedly told Lonebear about how my yoga partner and I had also formulated this idea, I told him about Lynne Taggart’s work, and related that we were about to start regular listening circles of our own.
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So, we look forward to monthly gathering together -- the first Saturday of the month from 1:30-2:30pm -- with you to just listen to each other from the heart, allowing equal ‘air-time’ for each participant, as the rest of us just listen and bathe the one speaking in light and awareness as the speaker finds their own interpretations, understandings and solutions. And yes, we will be serving hot tea and cookies.
 
Miracles happen ALL THE TIME at MKY, so who knows what Divine presence might appear in our midst to assist at a soul level - the jewel of truth that bubbles up to the surface, as Adyashanti so poetically relates. We look forward to listening, seeing and understanding together.

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