Monday, January 9, 2006

My Ordination Speech

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Hi Friends,

Yesterday I enjoyed another ordination day at CDM. I couldn't believe it has been 6 months since I was up there on stage. Last Spring, I was chosen to speak for my class on Ordination day (after 2 year Clairvoyant training program) and I did it kicking and screaming - but in the end it was a healing and a blessing. I had wanted to share my speech, as a way to give a glimpse of why I am out here in Seattle and how I am investing my life these days. But, my life has been pretty intense since May, mostly for personal/relational reasons, so I didn't get a round tuit.

But, I feel inspired to share it now. The speech is below, if you are interested. I use a lot of lingo, because most everyone I was speaking to uses it - but most of what I say is generally understandable, I think. It was more animated, fun and interesting in person and in context of the whole ceremony - but, hey it is what it is ; )

Since I finished Seminary, I had several weeks off from official training at CDM, then I started the Teaching program in mid-August - where I am continuing my growth and healing, learning to present spiritual information and energetic techniques with neutrality, compassion and amusement, and assistant teaching our basic mediation and healing classes. I expect to be certified to teach our 4 basic classes this June or next January - depending on my work schedule and such - it is usually a 14 month program ; )

Enjoyable blessings in the New Year!
In life, Wendy


Wendy's Ordination Speech for June 26, 2005



Spiritual Freedom

I have been asked to say a few words about being a CDM minister.

Now, defining what it is to be a CDM minister doesn't seem to be a simple thing, so let me start with what it is not. A teacher (Dr Bruce Morgan) who influenced me a lot before coming to CDM, used to say that "Most churches want to make us into cookie-cutter-Christians, who all look alike, talk alike, act alike, and if they have to cut off your arms and legs to fit in the mold - so be it"

Well, thank Gd, here at CDM we are committed to spiritual freedom - I've kind of become attached to my arms and legs, thank you very much. We don't always do it perfectly, but spiritual freedom is our stated goal and direction as a community and individually. This is a huge and wonderful, and usually challenging goal. But the rewards are sweet.

But this made it a challenge for me when asked to say a few words about what it is to be a CDM minister. We are all so different, unique - and that IS the point. So what is it to be a CDM minister?

This was annoying for my analyzer, I will tell you. But, eventually I had to look at the question as spirit - foreign concept, I know. And this is what I noticed about CDM ministers.

We are Spirit

We have a profound experience of ourselves as spirit and others as spirit over an extended period of time. An experience of being responsible for owning and managing our own energy systems, an experience of our connection with the Gd of our heart, an experience of consciously co-creating in our own lives - and watching others do the same.

We actively participate in a process - over an extended period of time - in which we receive all kinds of information and support and modeling and then the opportunity to practice, practice, practice.

Reading

One of the main practices is doing psychic readings.

Now, I did not come to CDM to become a psychic reader - I came to heal.
But, I knew the CDM Clairvoyant program was where I needed to do that - so, I did readings.

I will tell you plainly that I hated it - I really hated it.
I had so much invalidation and doubt and self-judgment and perfect pictures, etc in my space that it was a real drag. I couldn't stand attention - any attention - I was not ok, how I looked was not ok, what I did was not ok. Reading felt like being put in the spotlight - I had to start saying what I saw. How could what I had to say have any value for people? Not fun for Wendy, I'll tell you.

And although, over time, I cleared (and continue to clear) the pain and programming, the invalidation and doubt, the competition and lack of seniority in my own space, the resistance and many other things that made reading so challenging for me, it remained a challenge until almost the end
of the program. People would say, oh you are a great reader, and believe me it helped - but I really didn't believe it. And over time, the joy and energy and healing, the giving and receiving I experienced in readings started to slowly become larger than all the discomfort.

It was sometime the beginning of this year that I started looking forward to reading. For other people I understand this happens A LOT sooner, but it wasn't until my final quarter - almost 2 years into the program - that I really WANTED to read. NOW I understand why people come here to read WHEN THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE TO.

Reading is magic. I walk in an ordinary person and get to participate in a sacred dance - in which everyone there is validated and healed - everyone walks out changed. It is an incredible experience - some readings are more exciting or mundane, confronting or fun than others - but it is an incredible gift to be a part of them now.

And now I love doing student readings, I especially love being a center chair. This is funny because I was so afraid to be center chair - I felt like it was too much responsibility, I wasn't powerful enough or good enough to do it. Every step along the way I fought and resisted - I assumed everything would keep getting harder - who needed that aggravation?

But, now I can tell you it is an honor and a blessing to be center chair. I really enjoy having seniority in the room, making sure it is safe and high energy for everyone. Knowing more and more what is going on in that room and with everyone in it, and increasingly owning my power in a way that makes a positive difference there. I love playing and learning and healing with my side chairs, and enjoying their process and progress along with my own. I won't say I never get nervous or self-conscious anymore, but it is no longer my primary experience - in readings, or in my life.
That's huge.

Practice

So, as CDM ministers, we have the incredible opportunity to look at hundreds of different people over an extended period of time, to validate them as spirit, validate their co-creations and assist them change. We get to see the uniqueness of each spirit and the journey we are each choosing. We also get to see how many things we have in common as humans together on this planet.

As CDM ministers we have the experience of owning healing and change for ourselves and assisting many, many others in their healing journeys, over an extended period of time. We get to practice having our own space while we assist others healing.

When people become black belts or pilots or massage therapists, they have a lot of information and a lot of experience - this is a great accomplishment and some see them as having arrived. But the masters know, they are being validated for mastering the basics and they are getting a license to
continue learning - an opportunity to go out and practice.

Becoming a CDM minister seems similar. We receive an over-abundance of information, support, modeling and a whole lot of opportunity to practice.  We do this over an extended period of time - until it changes our habits, our abilities, our way of seeing and interacting with the world. For
myself, I can say "I am Spirit - a part of Gd, I have a body and I have co-creations in the world" and believe it and act in accordance with that, more and more.

So, as CDM ministers we have been changed over time. We become ministers and enter the next phase of our spiritual journey, like so many before us.  And, every day, every moment we have the choice whether or not to consciously manifest as spirit in the world - as does everyone. That is the whole game. We manifest as spirit in the world. By doing this, we change, the world changes. That is what it means to me to be a CDM minister. Maybe it is simple after all.

Personal Healing


To be more personal, there was some personal healing I absolutely needed in my life. I looked high and low, all over the country for a place to heal myself. When I finally found CDM, it felt like home.  There were 5 things I consciously wanted out of my Seminary experience. There isn't enough time to tell you about these things in depth, but I did want to validate - and I got them and so much more:
* I wanted personal healing, on all levels;
* I wanted to become a healer with good boundaries;
* I wanted to learn to own my own power in a positive way;
* I wanted to receive validation and learn to self-validate;
* and I wanted to increase my havingness and learn to consciously co-create good things in my life.

I have received these things and, of course it is a P word - a process, but the process is in motion and I am proud of the progress.

Being an Adult

Besides the 5 things I consciously wanted out of my seminary experience, I have received so many other gifts and insights and growth and change - I can't begin to tell you.

I can say that for me, going through this program has been about becoming an adult:
* Being able to stand on my own two feet,
* To own my own space and my own reality,
* To appreciate this great body I have and this amazing opportunity for life on this planet,
* to own the life I have co-created and know that I have the opportunity to co-create my future as spirit.

I now have a way of seeing and understanding my life and the world that works for me. This is huge. I have a useful place to stand, to know who I am and what is important in this world is something I always wanted and needed - but never found for any significant period of time. I made myself
miserable in my early life yearning for and searching for the meaning of life and how best to live it. I lived with this lack of useful, cogent world-view for a long time and then learned to live without it. But now, my life makes sense, the world makes sense, my experiences make sense. I have a very firm rock on which to build my life, this is a great comfort and joy.

I wish similar gifts for anyone who wants them, I highly recommend CDM as a path to Center.

Thanks for all the Fish

And so it is with profound gratefulness that I stand before you today as a member of the Church of Divine Man.

On behalf of myself and all the seminary students I would like to thank the board, the staff, the members, and everyone who walks through the door, for everything we have had the opportunity to give and receive here.

I would like to thank my fellow students, past and present, for who you are, and who you are to me, and who you let me be for you.

I would like to thank my partner, my friends and my family for who you are and your love and support of me above and beyond the call of duty.

I would like to thank Gd, as well as myself, for showing up and playing the game.
Blessed Be.

3 comments:

  1. I just happened to run across the file I kept stuff that I cut from this speech. Hmm, good to remember, here is the first part:

    It is an incredible blessing to be in a system where everyone is growing and changing and learning and healing. When I fall and get up, when I am stuck it helps to have the encouragement and the modeling that others provide.


    One of the things I like best about this church is that everyone is up against their own stuff. The ministers & teachers & staff aren’t sitting on their laurels, saying ‘we have arrived, isn’t it funny to watch you struggle…’ - well, if we are lucky, we’re all amused together.


    To be more personal, before I came to CDM, there was some personal healing I absolutely needed in my life. I looked high and low, all over the country for a place to heal myself. When I finally found CDM, it felt like home.

    There were 5 things I consciously wanted out of my Seminary experience. I did want to validate – and I got them and so much more.
    I wanted personal healing, on all levels;
    I wanted to become a healer with good boundaries;
    I wanted to learn to own my own power;
    I wanted to receive validation and learn to self-validate;
    and I wanted to increase my havingness and learn to consciously create good things in my life.

    I have received these things and, of course it is a P word – a process, but the process is in motion and I am proud of the progress.

    Healing

    The primary thing I came to CDM for was my own healing. When I arrived here, I was very ill for very long – basically bedridden for years with a list of symptoms as long as my arm and more emotional and physical pain than I could be with. I was really slowly dying – and sometimes tempted to expedite the process. Now I am getting healthier and more energetic by the month. I just turned 40 and I feel like I am getting younger, not older. I have lost 45 lbs, WITHOUT EFFORT. Now, I have been varying levels of overweight since I was a teenager, and I have never lost even 5 lbs without crying and starving and working very hard at it – but now the weight is slowly but surely melting off with no effort. This is just a nice secondary benefit, but it helps to measurably validate all the other changes that are also happening in my own healing.

    Becoming a healer with good boundaries

    One of the things that led to my illness was my work as a massage therapist. I wanted to be a good healer and I didn’t have tremendously good boundaries, therefore, I took on all my clients negative energies and in return, gave them all my positive energies - then wondered why I felt so terrible and drained. I managed to get every single illness and injury that my clients had (and a few extra) before I just couldn’t work anymore.

    Needless to say, my support of other’s healing looks very different now – although I am still tempted to my old ways and sometimes do succumb to that temptation, I now have other commitments. I enjoy assisting others to heal without so much personal investment, I look for others validation less, I trust they are creating what they need more, and I am often energized and healed myself through assisting others to heal.

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  2. stuff that I cut from this speech, second part:

    Owning my Power

    I am still coming along on the next one – owning my own power. People tell me about how powerful I am, which is validating. But, I still sometimes can only see the shadows of my power, usually in negative ways – but I am coming along. For example, about 6 weeks ago, as I was transitioning from my position as a Naturopathic Assistant, I was showing someone how to back up the two computers. But one computer, SAM, kept acting very strangely and uncooperatively and the other computer, PAM, would do nothing but freeze up. I would have to manually shut PAM down over and over (which is expressly against the rules in that office) until finally the off button wouldn’t even work and I had to take things apart to climb behind it to shut the whole thing down by pulling the plug.

    Meanwhile, I had been having a ridiculously challenging day, professionally, personally, financially, relationally, etc – it was crazy. When the doctor came in to find quite a mess and two computers that wouldn’t work – with PAM seemingly catastrophically dead, I had to be honest in a way that is unusual in the workplace. I said, it may be that both of these computers are all-of-a-sudden broken, but I have to tell you that my energy is all over the place today and I am having trouble grounding. How about we shut all these down and let them rest. Meanwhile, I will get my act together and come in tomorrow and maybe everything will be fine. She said ok – I mean, what’s she gonna say?

    So by the time I got to church that night, I had continued to create all kinds of ridiculous chaos all around my life. I told everyone I felt like the Tasmanian Devil, stirring up all kinds of craziness around myself. It was a funny image and helped me laugh. I worked through some stuff – praise Gd for CDM, and, of course I went into work the next day and both computers were perfectly fine. This was an especially important warning experience for me. My personal power is continuing to increase and ignoring it is irresponsible. I might still have trouble manifesting my positive power to consciously create in my life sometimes. But, I have felt the effects to myself and others of my more destructive, unconscious power, and owning that is a necessity.

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  3. stuff that I cut from this speech, third part:

    Validation

    I was very interested in receiving enough validation and healing that I could validate myself and my abilities. It is hard to choose between so many great things, but it could be the best part of this program is the deep and consistent validation. Validation of who I am and who I am not from neutral, with amusement may be the best gift I have ever received. Also, I have HAD to practice self-validation to do readings. It is my opinion that regarding readings especially, it is self-validate or suffer. And as much as I enjoy suffering, it did get old eventually. Very recently I have learned to run validation in my space and receive it in a tremendously healing way. This is a very yummy experience – throw in a little self-affinity and it is hard to beat.

    This has seemed to lead to some very interesting and unexpected results though. As soon as I really learned to self-validate, I need other’s approval less. I have become more free in my relationships and communication – leading to some uncharacteristic and generally unsocially acceptable behavior. More importantly, I don’t NEED relationships in the ways I have always needed them before. Most especially with my partner.

    It is interesting to note that my breakthrough in self-validation is strangely coincident with a very intense and unparalleled challenge in my relationship with my partner. We recently turned 10, and have been up against if we want to be partners and what we want it to look like. I believe and prefer that we make it through together, going both deeper in relationship as well as more energetically individuated. Although I have a whole lot of emotionality, and a necessity to stop trying to control around this, I also am appreciating the freedom from self-validation of not NEEDING for this relationship to continue – although I certainly would like it to.

    Havingness

    The last thing I consciously wanted out of Seminary was havingness. I wanted to be able to not resist the things I had created and to be able to create good things in my life without my old limits. My havingness has come up tremendously, especially as I have slowly but surely moved out so much pain, fear, programming, etc. I have the most havingness around relationships – I have been blessed with some of the best friends a person could ever want and my loved-ones add such a sweetness to my life. You might find this paradoxical considering the current peril of my primary partnership. But, you know, one thing that is clear in my relationship with Michael, regardless of the consequences, is I will not settle. I will not settle for second best, I will not settle for not giving and receiving the very best we can between us – no matter what it takes.

    I will tell you this as well, in the last couple months, I had been right up against my core issues - deep pain, unworthiness, undesirable-ness, victim energy, abandonment issues – that kind of fun stuff. The ridiculousness I have created in my relationship with Michael has been the final push into my core issues - in the last month I have been absolutely swimming in them. It is ugly and I have been ugly. But I am glad to have the chance to see these things clearly and I am in the process of letting them go.

    As I let go of the old things that have tripped me for so long, I will continue to be more free. I believe my havingness and ability to consciously create in many parts of my life will soon manifest in new ways, so stay tuned...

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