Dear Friends,

My good friend and colleague Dea Lisk and I are driving home to Eugene after a most amazing experience of shared love as well as a preview of the reality of harmony that we are co-creating on this planet. The Gaia Festival, presented for the second time at Black Oak Ranch in Laytonville, CA, provided the environment for this weekend of beauty, growth, great music, and community. This was my fourth gathering in as many weeks, with one more, the Beloved Festival, coming up this weekend in Oregon and my yearly Alchemical Healing Retreat taking place the end of this month. This latest run of summer fun and inspiration started with the Oregon Country Fair. OCF is my yearly tribal family reunion, and it never disappoints. The following weekend I went with my daughter and 13-month-old granddaughter to Horning's Hideout for String Cheese Incident, which was a solid reminder of the power of music as a way of raising consciousness.

Next was the Women's Visionary Congress at IONS in Petaluma CA, one of the few gatherings where I can truly let my hair feathers fly and tell my most intimate stories. After four years of speaking there, I was finally convinced to talk instead of teach, and it was a real learning experience and inspiration for me. I look forward to doing more of that in the future. Also, Copperwoman and I presented a transformation ritual that gave me new insight into the nature of ritual and how to make it work within a more intellectual context, but with enthusiastic participants.

In a few days I will be off to the Beloved Festival. Beautifully nestled in the Coast Range near Tidewater OR, this intimate gathering offers a highly conscious mix of music and opportunity for enlightenment. I will be speaking on their Beloved Metaforum on Saturday at 2pm along with luminaries such as Amit Goswami (Physicist, University of Oregon) and Michael Meade, noted author on creativity and inspiration.

It seems as though the universe is providing ample opportunities for expanding consciousness and building larger and larger community as we approach the potential shift coming fast as we move through this prophetic year. Wherever I go, people are asking me what this shift is all about, or at least, what it means to me. I am a spiritual opportunist, and delight in the grand scale of the potential “meeting of minds” that is happening around the world as the quickening becomes more obvious with each day, and each gathering of like minds and open hearts.

It was 25 years ago this month when the Harmonic Convergence taught many of us the power of collective focus. Since then, science has corroborated what those of us who were paying attention had discovered, and there are many scientific studies now that confirm and validate our experience. (See HeartMath.org for some of the latest research).

The year 2012 is a pivotal one, regardless of what is happening on the physical plane, although there is no denying that life on planet Earth is a reflection of what is in our hearts and the collective mind of our species. As we look at the way 2012 has been presented to us, we have heard foretelling of everything from dire apocalypse to total transcendence (whatever that means) to the end of the world as we know it, to the rapture, and my favorite (seriously) a quantum leap in consciousness.

For me, 2012 and the vast amounts of thoughtful energy being poured into it, regardless of whether it is fear-based or love and harmony driven, provides us the fuel with which to transform our selves and our world in ways we need to be imagining now, with all the clarity and focus we can muster. We are the co-creators of our future, and those of us who are awakening to that awesome responsibility need to take up our tools and practices with greater resolve and commitment than ever. With the masses caught up in TV, sports and their everyday survival, most are asleep at the wheel or constricted by fear, disempowerment, and desperation, not realizing that every thought, word, deed and desire are converging in the chaotic collective intention of billions of people.

As Einstein said (and I am paraphrasing) ,“We cannot solve problems with the same mindset that created them.” The great potential for us here and now is to meet our challenge with the knowledge of the world we want to create. What would it look like and feel like to live in a world that is five times more harmonious? How about 200 times more harmonious? Ponder that as you consider what it would take to make it so. What would it look and feel like if everyone truly lived by the Golden Rule, and cared for each other and our blessed planet with loving kindness?

If these thoughts Dea and I have been sharing as we drive up the I-5 corridor resonate with you and inspire you to seek new tools and strengthen your focus, please join us Tuesday, August 14 at 6pm Pacific as we offer the next free Planetary Healing Call to Action. We will be using the exponential power of our numbers as folks from around the world join us in our efforts. When you register, please add your comments and suggestions about what you think we could be focusing on, especially if you are already part of our tele/web/skype community and are familiar with the journeys and rites in Planetary Healing, Spirit Medicine for Global Transformation. To learn more about our Calls to Action, go to PlanetaryHealingBook.com where you can hear podcasts of past calls.

On Thursday, August 16th, also at 6pm Pacific, I will be offering a free tele/web conference to introduce my thoughts on 2012, and the related work I will be doing on the NewLife Caribbean Cruise taking place October 6 - 13. Register for the call here. Join me on this week-long cruise to the Mayan Riviera and various Caribbean ports of call where a number of inspiring teachers and I will be sharing our knowledge and expertise on this subject, and providing ceremony at sacred sites along the way. I encourage you to be part of this gathering and am looking forward to this special opportunity to learn while we sail, play, relax and spend intimate time together. Check out this link for more information about the cruise, http://shamanicjourneys.com/cruise

Nicki's Garden, July, 2012  photo: Martha LeeI'm trying to make the most of this time leading up to the potential moment of transformation by showing up as much as possible between now and then. I will be holding my yearly eight-day Alchemical and Planetary Healing Intensive Retreat at my home in Eugene from August 22 – 29. It is open to all levels of students and will result in a certificate of completion of 90 hours of Alchemical and Planetary Healing training. I will be packing in as many alchemical tools as I can fit into eight days to prepare people for what we're in the middle of, what is coming and what follows. This might be the most important intensive retreat I will have held. There are still a couple of spots open—click here for more information and to register.

Please call our office at 541-484-1099 with any questions or comments. We look forward to “meeting” you on our upcoming phone/web conferences or in person at the upcoming retreat.

Blessings and Love,
Nicki Scully