The Higher Ground Crestone Movie (full length)

OK,

This is the full length video I made on the Crestone trip. Its almost 40 minutes long but I believe you will find it interesting to watch. It has parts of the interviews with Lorraine Fox Davis of Rediscovery Four Corners and World Peace and Prayer Day, Connie and Susan at the Nada Hermitage – A Carmelite Monastery, Chief Arvol Looking Horse, who is the 19th Generation holder of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe and a spiritual leader of the tribes that make up the Sioux Nation, and Samiji, the spiritual Master of the Temple of Consciousness Ashram. There is also a piece with Matthew at the Shumei International Temple where he explains a bit about the area geographically as well as how it was created as a meeting ground  for all spiritual disciplines by Hanna Strong. There were other interviews with William and Barbara of Sanctuary House, Ram Loti of the Haidakandi Universal Ashram where we stayed and Dave Davis, a specialist in advanced structural integration. I didn’t get to videotape them but we have audio.

This was in the course of three days. It was all consuming and I have to say everyone we met was wonderful. Opening their temples and in some cases their homes to us. It was amazing. The video is in a chronological order for the trip. We swith Lorraine and ended with Swamiji. It is such a close knit community. I have to tell this little story. We were with Lorraine and she was talking about the elements of wind fire and water and Liz asked a question about the wind. As if to answer her itself the wind kicked up an incredible whirl where it had been silent before. It took us all by surprise.

The next day at the Shumei Institute we brought it up and they had already heard the story. This place is a microcosm of what the world can and (I believe) will be. All of these traditions acknowledge and love each other in one small place. Native American, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, Japanese Shumei, and many we did not visit.

They are all getting along and better than that, thriving. It gave me new hope for mankind. You don’t get more devout than living in a Monastery or Ashram. If they can acknowledge the divinity in each others traditions why do we have to question it?

I hope you enjoy seeing this as much as I enjoyed making it.

Doug

 

Links

Liz Sterling Will have audio available with the entire interviws and a montage piece is planned as well.

www.AskLiz.com

Chief Arvol Looking Horse       http://www.rhythmsoftheglobe.com/mind/profiles_ChiefArvolLookingHorse.htm

The Nada Hermitage  http://www.spirituallifeinstitute.org/Nada.html

Haidakhandi Universal Ashram  http://www.babajiashram.org/hua/About_Ashram.html

Sanctuary House  http://www.sanctuaryhouse.org/

Shumei International Institute  http://www.shumeicrestone.org/

The Temple of Consciousness http://www.humanityinunity.org/HIU/Community/CrestoneAshram/index.cfm

An NPR Piece on the drilling  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17984537

More on the drilling  http://www.cozine.com/archive/cc2008/01700391.html

 Me    www.Higher-Ground.com

Crestone Video Short from Higher-Ground.com

Attached please find…

This is a short version of a (long awaited) video I made of a trip I took to Crestone, CO. Liz Sterling, a close friend, was supposed to come out to do some recording in my studio and compile some of her radio interviews. We began planning a side trip to Crestone because of an Ashram there run by a woman named Ramloti whom Liz had met at an event. The Crestone side trip grew until it took over the week Liz spent in Colorado. Between preparation and the studio work involved in editing the interviews when we got home it was the central focus rather than a side event.

We went with it and had a great trip. We stayed at the Ashram and Liz interviewed eight or nine of the spiritual leaders in the area. From Catholic Carmalite Nuns to a Native American Chief we got the same message. We are all the same, and we are all on the same journey. All religions lead to God, and Spirituality doesn’t have to be tied to a religion at all.

The other part of the story is that they are in a fight right now over the proposed drilling of exploratory wells for oil and natural gas on the Baca Wildlife Refuge. They sit on top of one of the largest aquifers in North America and had evidently won a fight over the water only to have it changed to oil drilling. The refuge is the issue but the mineral rights in the area don’t come along with land ownership. I don’t want to get too deep because I am not a reporter. Liz is digging and will have more on AskLiz.com

For this short version I didn’t leave much in the way of interviews. I just tried to let you get a taste of the trip. The other version will be up on Higher-Ground.com as soon as I can figure out how to post a 40 minute video. Youtube limits you to 11 min. 

Enjoy,

 Doug

I am now a full time Philosopher…

I like the sound of full time philosopher better than unemployed, don’t you? I had a job up until last Tuesday, which happened to also be my 47th birthday. That same day I found out we took a major hit in a law suit which could end it completely. It’s a bitter thing and maybe it’s better if it’s gone but there are big reasons we wanted to continue.

 

Any way I took a couple of major hits and I’m really not too bugged about it. I will be contracting independently and I already have some sources of work so, whatever. It’s weird because what I am studying says to be detached, and I hadn’t realized that I had accomplished a good deal of it… I believe in what I am learning and study the course work and do my assigned mediations and I have seen positive changes in myself. There have been only a few times when I really see that I have changed something so specific.

 

There are plenty of ways you can react to losing a job you had for over seven years but I turned to my wife and said, “it will be interesting to see how this all turns out”. It’s not like I don’t care what happens or if I lose my house. I know that whatever comes I’ll handle it. I’m good at what I do and I can find another way of making the money I was making. I’m just going to have to work harder. you live in the universe you create, and I’m not done.

 

The thing is that none of that matters. I have lost other jobs and in one case I had a new one before I got home to tell my wife I lost the old one. I have always been able to convince myself that I would be ok, but the panic was still there underneath. It’s gone.

 

I like it. It’s like being an informed observer in my own life. It is interactive and interested but detached from the outcome in some way at the same time. I’m a freaking’ video game playing myself! Without deep emotional investment and attachment you are very liberated.

 

I’m not talking about a flat affect. I literally cried when I wrote a thank you note to my friend and ex boss, now client, Dennis. He is still a friend and it was a sad moment when that era ended. I feel sad, but not sorry, angry, ripped off or righteously indignant at the economy that cost me the best job I ever had… I just have to do something else now, and It’s OK.

 

I was the luckiest SOB on earth there for a while. It was a hell of a run.

Now I’m a full time philosopher…