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Layers of Reality
April 17, 2024 We grow up thinking that this physical world is all there is. Oh yeah, maybe there’s those places called Heaven and Hell that some of those religions talk about, but those domains are not typically experienced in our everyday life. Though some would claim that Hell is a 9-to5 job desk job…
Surprising Grace
Sharon and I spend our winters in a small Mexican town along the Pacific ocean. The town is an amalgam of contrasts. Snow birds from Canada, America and Europe live along the ocean in well appointed small condos or RV parks. Sunbathing and pickle ball are two popular diversions and the only thing you hear…
Challenge and Opportunity
I tremble like a flower in a storm.The strong winds push methis way and that-but around my rootsthe solid ground sustains meAnd tomorrow, when the new sun rises,my petals will liftlike tattered flags,and welcome the open sky.– Sharon Gilbert – My Poet Laureate (since 1972) Nothing like a pandemic to surface, deepen, and widens he…
As Vast as God
As Vast as GodWhat God is, no-one knows.God is neither light, nor spiritGod is not bliss, not unity,Not what we call “deity.”God is not wisdom, nor reason,Nor love, nor will, nor goodness.God is not a thing, nor a nothing,Nor is God essence.God is what neither I nor youNor any creature can understandWithout becoming what God…
Greenlighting with Cynthia
A short succinct, easy to relate to presentation on the Trillium disposition of ‘Greenlighting’.
Purpose
What do I want to do with my life? What’s my purpose? Am I missing something? Is there some larger purpose to my existence? Is my life going to end without my realizing my purpose?
Being Becoming
Beyond enjoying the freedom and fullness of existence, do we need to be more?
What’s in a Name
Eight years ago Trillium Awakening was chosen as the new name for our organization, formerly known as Waking Down in Mutuality. After an intensive search, the name Trillium Awakening was brought forth at the last moment and carried the day by a close vote over Core Emergence. Not everybody was in love with the name…
Leaning into Aging
Using collage as an integrative tool of self-discovery. About ten years ago, I noticed increased worry connected to aging. Part of me was not willing to accept that it is a natural cycle in life. That part wanted to engage in actions and protocols that would stop aging. Of course, at the same time, I…
TRAUMA, MUTUALITY, AND TRILLIUM
Many of us have experienced trauma. I would venture to say, all of us have experienced it. We see it in the world every day. It often pains us. As Trillium teachers and mentors, we often are working with others who have been traumatized. How does trauma look, sound, and feel? Here is a Trauma…
Nothing to Redeem
At its source, the holiday season is a celebration of giving and forgiving, an honoring of the heart’s qualities of love, compassion, understanding, connection, appreciation, and light. The season can also energize a keener awareness of life’s sharp edges and amplify feelings of separation, brokenheartedness, alienation, disillusionment, frustration, and darkness. These are not the feelings…
The Heart of Radiant Sacred Love – Talk and Meditation
This talk and guided meditation was shared on November 20, 2021 at the Awakening to the Divine Retreat.
Core Identity Inquiry Meditation with Fax Gilbert
In this meditation you will be led through a simple self-inquiry process toward a deepening recognition of your fundamental nature. A powerful way to connect as the Being that registers and embodies everything else.we are.
Love, Feeling, Adoration, and Our Glowing Sacred Heart – Talk and Meditation on Heart Soul Nature
This talk and guided meditation happened on June 25, 2022 at the Whole Being Soul Evolution Retreat.
Love-Bliss of the Supreme Heart – Video Music Album
These are 10 tracks of my flute compositions and improvisations, played on 7-hole shakuhachis, which are Japanese end-blown bamboo flutes. I recorded these pieces at my home in 2011 through 2012, during an especially grace-filled creative period, when a lot of divine inspiration and Love-Bliss intoxication was happening. Initially, I was going to put out…
Heart & Soul
In this video series, Steve delves into the unexpected and sometimes challenging changes that accompany the later stages of Trillium’s process of embodiment and Whole Being Realization and explains how the process eventually leads to the fulfillment of your unique purpose in this life.
The Joy of Receiving
In this video introduction from a sitting by the same name, Fax explores how the Trillium work createscontexts for connection that deepen our universal, personal, and interpersonal identity.
A Brief Genealogy of Being Divinely Human
My morning ritual includes drawing a card from the Trillium Self-Inquiry Deck. This morning, I woke with a return of pain associated with healing from hip replacement over 3 months ago. I could feel the way my being was responding to this pain with disappointment and a slight tinge of bitterness. That’s okay, of course….
The Well of Onlyness
In the Trillium Dharma, Onlyness is defined as the quality of seamlessness of consciousness with phenomena; the recognition that all phenomena, objects, and others are of the “same essence” as your conscious embodied, non-separate nature. For many of us, myself included, Onlyness is easiest to experience with phenomena and objects, and not so easy with…
Divination as Dharma Practice
Recently, after a long period of infirmity, I was called to resume my morning practice of prayer and contemplation. It’s not that I had stopped these practices but that I was unable to do them in the same way. I was unable to sit on the floor which is where my altar resides, tucked into…
TA Newsletter October 2021 Issue 42
Welcome to the October edition of the Trillium Awakening Newsletter! This month, we offer two gems from September’s annual Teachers Retreat, video talks by Rod Taylor and Ralf Humphries about the transformative and transforming nature of Mutuality. Mutuality in Whole-Being Realization During this year’s annual Teacher Retreat in September, there were two dynamic cutting-edge presentations on…
The Amrita Factor of Radiant Whole Being
The Amrita Factor of Radiant Whole Being Part 1 – Introduction The Amrita Factor of Radiant Whole Being Part 2 – Dharma Talk The Amrita Factor of Radiant Whole Being Part 3 – Guided Meditation Divine Love Bliss aids the Embodiment Process – Excerpt from the “The Amrita Factor” Van’s Theory of Existence – Excerpt…
TA Newsletter August 2021 Issue 41 – As Vast as God
Welcome to the August edition of the Trillium Awakening Newsletter! This month, we offer a beautifully contemplative essay by our editor, Fax Gilbert, on the ways Whole Being Realization opens the door for us to be “as vast as God.” You’ll also find our usual listing of upcoming events to enrich your path, wherever you may…
Wake Up My Little One
Wake up My Little One; you were having a bad dream.” “Oh, we were kicked out! They said we have to leave the garden.” “Ahh, Sweetheart, we still have the garden; it is always our home.” “But our Father was angry with our Mother. He said we must leave; he said she must not climb…
Wake Up My Little One
Wake up My Little One; you were having a bad dream.” “Oh, we were kicked out! They said we have to leave the garden.” “Ahh, Sweetheart, we still have the garden; it is always our home.” “But our Father was angry with our Mother. He said we must leave; he said she must not climb…
It Does Matter What Delights You
Not long ago I had the pleasure of sitting with a small group of folks in our work. Each shared current challenges … and noticed that these were instances of ongoing themes in their lives’ journeys. And each also gave voice to experiences that were deeply moving, enriching, and uplifting, that opened them to joy,…
Who Knows?
It seems to be getting harder to count on established sources of truth, justice, and knowledge necessary to deliver the clarity, confidence, and safety needed to navigate life. Parental wisdom drops off when we reach adolescence, organized religion at about the same time, the court system fell away after O.J., pollsters after 2016, some friends…
TA Newsletter April 2021 Issue 40 – Who Knows?
This month, the last Saturday came a bit early, so we’re bringing out our April edition on May 1, as both an ending and a beginning! We offer a contemplative editorial from Fax Gilbert, a painting and poem in response to the Trillium Self-Inquiry Deck from practitioner Kendra Kehde, and a list of upcoming events to meet you in…
TA Newsletter March 2021 Issue 39 – Remembering Sanji Dione Hills
In this month’s issue of our redesigned newsletter, we remember our beloved Interning Teacher, Sanji Dione Hills, who passed away suddenly on March 14. We’ve included a recorded meditation Sanji led called “Embodied Consciousness” as well as her essay, “Grasping the Means of Our Own Awakening.” Remembering Sanji Dione Hills Our friend and fellow Trillium…
The Core Paradox/Conscious Paradox: the Ultimate Truth of Existence and of Our Being – 3 Part Series
The Core Paradox/Conscious Paradox presentation is available on my website http://divinelovebliss.com/audio-video/#paradox
Liminal Time
February and March have always been important times for me as harbingers of change. Here in the northern hemisphere, we’re moving toward a change of season from winter to spring. Something about this transition is profoundly moving to me. The earth is changing, gaining light and temperature and losing ice and snow. Trees and bushes…
Van’s Path to Awakening – Spiritual Autobiography
Timestamps:00:00:00 – Deborah and Van greeting00:03:50 – Intro and overview00:10:00 – Second birth/Whole Being Realization00:12:00 – Grace on the path00:15:00 – Psychedelic drugs as an opening factor00:22:00 – Looking to get “high” without psychoactive drugs00:30:00 – Spiritual banquet – discovering dharmic paths & holy people00:35:00 – Introduction to Adi Da’s teachings00:42:00 – Van’s “Rot” period…
Interview December 2016
Fax: What was it you were seeking that eventually led you to this work? Tatini: When I was around 26 or 27 and living and working in Munich, my boss at the time gave me a book titled “Who Am I?” This book was written by a woman who was trying to find herself outside…
Trillium Awakening mit Tatini auf Deutsch
Trillium Awakening ist ein aus den USA stammender, demokratisch organisierter, spiritueller Prozess. Dieser Weg ist ein sehr organischer und individueller Prozess, der von Teilnehmer zu Teilnehmer variiert. Er bietet auf den jeweiligen Teilnehmer abgestimmte Unterstützung um das nicht-duale, verkörperte Erwachen zu unterstützen. Dieses Erwachen (das “Whole Being Realization”), stellt eine grundlegende Heilung der Geist/Materie-Trennung dar…
Coping and Resilience
This is an 18.5 minute clip about coping and resilience taken from a closed sitting I gave in September 2020. In it I talk about the qualities, characteristics and ways to build resilience.
The Unraveling of Fixing and Seeking Strategies
Unraveling of fixing and seeking strategies is one of the first phases we are likely to encounter on our path of whole being awakening. This includes the realization that your previous strategies to either 1) fix, control, or figure out or 2) escape or transcend – pull away from your fundamental feeling of “I’m not okay”…
Timeless Transmission
We’ve all had the experience of returning to a spiritual book and understanding the words in a new way. We’ve also had the experience of reading a passage that directly speaks to something in our Being. These connections are especially validating when they come from ancient traditions .You can find passages from any scripture that…
The Only Gift You Have to Give
Our unveiled gaze receives and reflects the brightness of God until we are gradually turned into the image that we reflect -2 Corinthians 3:18 One of our country’s most insightful social commentators once remarked that as a society we’ve all gotten away from the “true meaning of Christmas—”the birth of Santa.” Homer Simpson, in his…
Mutuality and Politics
I see politics as a black cauldron where the brightness of our collective hopes and dreams gets churned with the darkness of fear and paranoia from our collective shadow resulting in an acrid stew of opinion, allegiance, reactivity and drama. So it was with some consternation that Sharon and I recently attended two political meetings…
The Wisdom of Not Knowing
When thinking drops off as a touchstone – then speaks Clarity, and I worship it” from “The Radiant Dark Before Dawn” By Sharon Gilbert To me, holding a possibility of “not knowing” is fundamental to our whole-being realization path. As we move into living from the core of our being, from the awareness of who we…
Tumultuous Times
The New Year has brought to the forefront more clearly than ever before the limitations of perceiving with just the mind, of interpreting reality primarily through a default system of belief and opinion. As we are bombarded with data bolstering ideological positions from all sides, the need to transcend the digital world and integrate a more…
The “Other”: Social Undercurrents in Mutuality
It is often said in Trillium Awakening circles that our individual shadow work serves both personal and collective healing. This is because the conditioning (and trauma) that caused us to protect and hide our authenticity came through our primary caregivers who, in turn, were deeply conditioned by their families and culture. This conditioning goes back…
Deep Surrender: Going Beyond Greenlighting
In the Trillium Awakening path, greenlighting is the practice of allowing ourselves to be exactly as we are in the moment. Another way of saying it is “being with what is.” This practice sounds so simple – and it is – and yet we generally spend much of our waking hours resisting what is, both…
Manifesting Embodiment: Integrating Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Ability, and Sexual Orientation into Awakening
The current socio-political climate in the US, and much of the world, is such that we all have work to do to understand our relationship to differences in personal identity. Doing awakening work today requires us to lean in to how we embody our lived experience. In the Trillium Path, we awaken as embodied consciousness,…
White Woman Witnessing
It’s been a deep journey of grief for me since George Floyd was murdered by police officers in Minneapolis on May 25. You might wonder why this is newsworthy, the feelings of a white woman of late life, product of privilege, in the face of global unrest about the systemic anti-Black culture of the US….
Body of Love: Awakened Embodiment in Action
What does it take to embody and express love in our actions? Many spiritual paths talk about acting in a loving and kind way, and it’s a worthy ideal…but how do we make it real? Especially in these challenging times! Industrialized culture, deeply disconnected from body and soul, values reason and believes in control. But…
Interview w/ Dr Leticia Nieto and Kirstin Eventyr
Awakened activism is a natural outcome of maturation and involves a deepening and widening beyond self and group identifications into something broader. It goes hand-in-hand with coming to know the self as much larger than a single identity, and acting accordingly.” ~~ Dr Leticia Nieto, author of Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment Would you like to…
Growing Up Beyond Inclusion
“If only we could just get along. If only we could just be one happy, human family.” It’s a good dream, a valid dream, and one worth investing heart and soul into. And us White people want to believe that including people of color will get us there. But it won’t. Inclusion isn’t enough. Let’s…
Hidden Agendas: The Shadow Side of Activism
WHAT IS THE SHADOW?Shadow is a term psychologist Carl Jung used to describe the unconscious dimension of our psyche which our conscious self – our ego – denies or is unable to access. Hidden in our shadow are aspects of ourselves that were unacceptable as a child, and which we dissociated from in order to survive and…
Ecology of Mutuality
In the Trillium Awakening path, we tend to talk about mutuality in terms of an exchange between two people – an exchange of deep authenticity. “Being in mutuality” generally implies a willingness to encounter each other vulnerably, with presence and respect, even when things get rough (or perhaps especially then). We can, however, widen the…
Racism is Alive in Me
As we say in Trillium Awakening: the good news is that perfection is not required in order to have a spiritual awakening. And, we are quick to add: the bad news is that perfection is not bestowed upon spiritual awakening! This is a humbling fact, to say the least. It means that after realizing our…
My Story
I’m delighted and a little surprised to find myself writing this “teacher bio” — who’d a thunk? Here’s why: once upon a time, when I was little, science was my family’s religion. My parents were “fundamentalist atheists” meaning that they were as vehemently convinced that they had the right view of reality (pro-science, anti-spirituality, and…
The Simplified Short Version of Van’s Evolved Dharma
There is only Ultimate Radiant Divine Being, or the Ultimate Divine Self. Paradoxically, Ultimate Radiant Divine Being is simultaneously both unmanifested and manifested. There is nothing/no thing, no one, no where, and no place that is not Ultimate Divine Being. Ultimate Divine Being is an indivisible singular Supreme Unity. The complete totality of Ultimate Divine…
The Simplified Short Version of Van’s Evolved Dharma – Video
This is a reading of Van’s essay during the Trillium Awakening Teacher’s Circle Mutual Support Forum on March 22, 2020. The full presentation was titled “Exploring the Further Evolution, Elaboration, and Refinement of the Trillium Awakening Dharma – Evolving a dharma that best serves the fullest realization and enjoyment of Radiant Divine Being” by Van…
Trust in God and Tie Your Camel
As a lover of acronyms (they help me learn and remember), I offer up a new one for this time of global pandemic and widespread fear. FEARR (Feeling, Experience, Acceptance, Reality/Revelation) Many of us are feeling fear as we hear about what’s happening in the world, in our country and in our immediate communities. Many…
Living with Uncertainty
A good deal of our work in Trillium Awakening is about “greenlighting,” saying yes to what is arising. It’s tied deeply into our way to Trust in Being, to radically embrace who and how and what we are in any given moment. The path to realizing consciousness leads us to live in uncertainty, to embody…
Mutuality: Awareness in Words
Something that stays constant for me is awareness. Whatever is happening inside of me in some response or reaction to pleasure or pain, I am aware of it in a full sense. It hasn’t always been this way. For most of my life, awareness was filtered through thinking and confusion. I often didn’t know what…
Awakening (to Our Senses)
A talk from an online sitting, January, 2019 Winter time is, in Chinese medicine terms, a period of maximum Yin. Yin is coldness, darkness, stillness, quietness, transformation and potential. It contrasts with Yang – fire, light, action, noise, movement. This is reflected in how nature and our bodies respond in winter (well – in the…
Grasping the Means of Our Own Realization
A talk from and on line sitting, March 3rd “Grasping the means of our own realization” is an important part of the Trillium approach to awakening. It means that we are encouraged – and supported – to find our own unique route to awakening, rather than following a standardized path. I love this aspect of…
Paradox and the Core Wound
A talk from an online sitting, March 2018 One definition of a paradox is that it is something which seems contradictory, unbelievable or absurd but that may be true in fact, particularly when looked at from a different level. One thing I’ve always loved about the Trillium Awakening is the fact that it takes the…
Daring and Perseverance
A talk from an online sitting, January 2018 Daring and Perseverance is one of the “Four Alchemical Ingredients” described in the Trillium awakening orientation course. The other three are Transmission, Greenlighting and Radical Embrace. I started exploring this in the dark days of mid December, when tiredness and the cold, wet weather left me wanting…
Radical Embrace and being in the ‘here and now’
A talk from an online sitting, November 2017 “The paradox of the here and now” was the title of a talk I gave recently with a colleague who works in the field of experiential learning. The paradox referred to was this. To be truly present to our immediate experience, we have to move aside, a…
Occupy This: Reflections on Embodiment
This sacred vessel of our Being, this flesh and bones and heart and mind, is the grace through which we can touch, and be touched by, life. What does it take to land inside ourselves fully, to truly incarnate our messy, fleshy, tender selves? In the Trillium path, we begin by radically embracing our experience,…
Our Personal Trillium Lineage: Teaching You Can Trust
The summer after my father died, between jobs and unsure what I could, should, or would make of myself, I attended a recruitment meeting for management positions with United Parcel Service. What I learned that day was, at least in 1984, that everyone who worked for UPS in any capacity started their careers unloading the…
Exploration: Consciousness / Absolute
An Exploration: Resting as That, you are Infinity. Consciousness and The Absolute, Atman and Brahman, Anatman and Sunyata. Recognizing The Self that is Consciousness (Atman) Student: What is the formless light of consciousness? Krishna: You are, your own subjective nature is. S: Okay, what is that then? K: Only you can discover that. It is…
Van’s Conscious Awareness Guided Exercise, 9/17/15
This audio recording is of an improvised guided exercise (with some explanation) that Van offered his small group one afternoon at the Northeast Deep Dive Retreat, to assist one of the students with clarifying Consciousness.
Transmission and Resting in the Wholeness of Radiant Divine Being
Spiritual transmission is an invitation to rest in the wholeness of Radiant Divine Being. Transmission is (human) being to (human) being communion in the One Being, the One Divine Self, that we already are. I would recommend thinking of spiritual transmission as more of a resonant field, rather than as an energy beam sent from…
Van’s Flute Improvisation, 2019 Teacher Retreat
Van shared this beautiful flute piece at the at the end of the first night of the teacher retreat, Wednesday, August 14, 2019. Enjoy its transporting beauty.
Mini-essay: “The Paradox of Ultimate Whole Being”
Whole Being equals Ultimate Being or the Ultimate Divine Self. Ultimate Whole Being is paradoxically simultaneously both unmanifested and manifested, transcendental and mundane, spirit and matter, divine and human, the formless and the form, the Emptiness and the Fullness, etc. Ultimate Being is the ineffable all-inclusive Totality. Therefore, Ultimate Being is indescribable and can’t be…
Tantra: A Teaching for Tough Times
No matter what your political bent, most of us can agree that we are going through some tough times. Ideology can’t fix global warming, drought, rising seas, poverty, alienation, isolation, or a bevy of other social ills that cause many of us pain. What it does do, all too well, is create riffs between ourselves…