Dear Reader,

Lately I’ve had a plethora of ideas rising within me. I’ve begun to understand how I may have exasperated the adults during my childhood:) When the information arrives slowly as imagery it seems to be more streamlined. Today’s message arrived in words that came knocking loudly on my heart while reading The Book Thief. They match the theme of identity, so let’s see if I can keep it in a steady thread for you because I can feel it and want the words to flow along nicely so you receive them too. Perhaps you could try listening with your heart.

Last week I attended a local writers’ conference – my first! The speaker, Dr. Tilar Mazzeo, writes story-based non-fiction, often on difficult topics. She’s the kind of person who arrives home bruised after interviewing Holocaust survivors–bruised from pinching herself to keep from crying at the dinner table while listening to people share their personal stories. She was clear that she doesn’t have the right to cry while witnessing someone else’s pain especially when their reason for sharing was to prevent further Holocaust denial.

Tilar was also fairly adamant that in conveying difficult stories, authors are only ever allowed to make their readers cry once. If the story becomes too difficult, readers simply won’t finish. If they don’t finish the book, then the writer has not done her job which is to tell stories that change community.

I’ll add that there is more than one way to tell a story and we are all constantly doing it every day, in every moment. I’ll explain that by first highlighting some things from the book I was reading this morning.

The Book Thief is about many things including love, death, community, and questions about humanity. The main character is a young girl who learns to read as an older child but discovers the power of words in the process. She begins developing enormous love for her foster father while he teaches her to read, creates a profound bond with the Jewish man who writes stories for her while hiding in their basement, and helps hold the community together while reading to her neighbours during air raids. From her innocence and purity, courage and wisdom grow while questioning the words that brought her to life. She recognizes that it is also the power of words bringing such hate and destruction in Nazi Germany.

If we look at this from a Ren Xue perspective, I’d say words themselves are neutral (words–not how they are put together to form a message, how they are received, or the sources for all of that) and the example I just gave you on sources of words (the young girl and the Fürher) is polarized. There are, of course, many in-betweens.

But I want to draw your attention to the source of the words. Where do the words come from? For most of us, words we speak come from our patterns.* As we work on life, we can source them more from our hearts and as we work on the patterns of the heart, the words themselves and their Qifield begin to change. They become more aligned with the qualities of the heart. As we work on patterns of the consciousness, we can slowly begin aligning more with Dao–with wisdom–from a place of totality for the true betterment of all, not just our self-centered versions of what we think might be a good course to follow.

As much as I love words (and for now, we do still need them for human communications), the essence conveyed within them and their intent is more powerful. The Qi and information which create their Qifield and the essence of their speaker profoundly change their impact.

The source is each of us, in every moment.

Even without words we constantly convey messages. Our Qifields do that all the time. The more we cultivate our hearts and align with our True Self, their strength and purity grow and those messages without sound have greater effect. Consider the Law of Cause and Effect. Are the Qifield and associated words, emotions, and unspoken information coming from a place of love, purity, and wisdom as the cause? Or are they from a stir of irritation, a misunderstood idea not truly from wisdom, or from an intention hidden even from the speaker herself? The cause will always determine the effect. The effect will create a new cause. How would we like that progression to go?

If we are identifying with our patterns, then we are emitting from our patterns.

If we are coming from our True Selves, then we are emitting from unconditional love and total wisdom.

Those are very different causes creating very different effects even if the same words are attached to the messages.

Most of us on the Ren Xue path are somewhere in between. We strive to do better and create a brighter world. We work on Qi, heart, and patterns to uplift life for everyone.

The foundation of that work rests on the responsibility of identifying with our True Self. It is only from this pure place within each of us, that we can truly uplift life for all. The power of wisdom and love radiating from a realized person outweighs the information from closed hearts and negative patterns a million times over (if it were possible to actually put a number on it. I’m just trying to put into words what can’t really be put into words and hoping you get the idea).

We are witnessing enormous pain within humanity, nature, and Earth. Yes, we can and must notice our grief and sadness. But as Tilar pointed out at the writers’ conference, dwelling in that space needs to be limited. Our responsibility does not end there. As co-authors of this shared human story, we have the responsibility to change community and we can’t do that in an uplifting way if we’ve caused people to give up and put the book down. We also can’t do that if we’ve stopped consciously writing the story because we’ve given up the work of aligning our source with Dao.

I feel the changes and heart resonance coming from our teachers who’ve reached a higher level of realization. They began in this Qifield just like all of us in our patterns and have shown us that this level of change IS possible.

We have Ren Xue’s teachings and practices, we have the immense love and wisdom pouring from Yuan Tze, we have a family of community supporting us in this collective Qifield, and many of us have individual relationships helping us stay on course.

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But to make effective progress, we need to face ourselves, our patterns, and our source from which we radiate. We can’t avoid, hide or deny. We need to share our story freely within ourselves so we can see what is actually happening inside our hearts and patterns. Sometimes that feels painful. The discomfort ranges from a pinch to greater challenges but it’s our own level of determination, our own decision to do the work, and our devotion towards cultivating our True Self that will make the difference.

We need to observe (or witness) from our Shen to get things out into the open in order to see and create clearly.

I want my words, heart, Qifield and everything about me to convey information that is truly uplifting and beneficial for our collective story. We may never know how even the smallest change within creates larger changes in our world in this life and the next and the next... I find that inspiring. My inner desire and inner knowing that we can create a very different kind of world keeps me going.

I hope you’ve found something here to help you keep going.

With gratitude for your courage and life cultivation efforts,​
Stephanie​
​https://www.stephanierossauthor.com/​

Below you’ll find:

a) the information on my next set of online classes Free Verse from Your Heart. It will begin with exploring where your inner voice comes from; and

b) Creating Together, a poem I wrote last fall in a writing circle.

Yuan Tze’s upcoming workshop on Identity and Identification takes place February 24 & 25th NZST (23 & 24th for the northern hemisphere). If you haven’t yet joined and would like the info, please reply to this email.

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*patterns in this article refer to patterns of the consciousness that are not uplifting life and are not aligned with Dao.

What’s inside you that wishes to be expressed?

Free verse is freeform poetry but ‘Free’ is also a verb - allow the verse, story and messages to arise from your heart and spill onto paper/keyboard.

Free Verse from the Heart is an 8-week online generative poetry circle.

This circle focuses on generating poetry by exploring where your poetic voice comes from, connecting deep within, using a variety prompts to spark your writing, sharing with each other, and providing feedback.

The discussions will be strength-based and grow into more structural components for those who wish to receive that level of feedback. We will hold the heart of your poems tenderly and with respect.

You’ll learn specific ways of listening and looking at poetry so that these cognitive components naturally begin manifesting in your writing.

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During our time together, we’ll explore these questions:

❤Where does your inner muse come from?

❤What is poetry and how do you connect with deeper layers of self-expression?

❤How do you inspire fresh and evocative writing?

❤How can writing poetry and participating in a generative writing circle be healing, informative, and a gift from your heart?

❤How do you give feedback in an uplifting way to yourself and to others?

❤What can you look and listen for when revisiting poetry you’ve written and when helping others?

❤How do you develop a personal writing process?

❤In the last class, we’ll celebrate and share polished poems you’ve developed over the 8 weeks.

This circle is suitable for beginners, seasoned poets, and the curious.

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Your Facilitator:

Stephanie Ross is a Ren Xue Yuan Qigong teacher and Vancouver Island poet. She's spent over a decade helping people grow from within and learn what it means to walk along an inner path towards True Self.

Stephanie’s poetry began with practicing Yuan Qigong and since then she’s studied storytelling, writing, expressive arts and poetry formally, informally, in community and as a personal practise.

She was a contributing writer for Ren Xue America’s Qiblog and her work has appeared in global journals and forthcoming anthologies.

Her life cultivation process is her inspiration.

Feel free to reply to this email with any questions you have about this poetry circle.

It's the first time I'm offering this class. Please feel free to share with others if you feel it may be beneficial for them.

Creating Together

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we are together

alone and together

together and never alone

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living apart but always together

on our little blue planet

life together sharing air,

water, love, and wisdom

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feeling your anger and depression

even when you think you are alone

even when you think you have no effect

you do. here on Earth together

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what you emit, whether compassion or hate,

a small ripple or a blasting rage,

it is here, created between us, around us, within us

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noticed or unnoticed it is always present,

touching another

sparking inspiration, annoyance or whatever it was you gave this world

under the sun’s light and moon’s rays we share

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creating from within

in each moment

bring awareness to your creations

we are together

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~by Stephanie Ross

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113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205
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