Willa White's Blog

Thought I would share... A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Buddhist scholar, Anam Thubten Rinpoche.  The Jamestown Meditation Group sponsored his visit and there was a wonderful turnout for his talk - in fact several more chairs had to be added and the room was full of people. After a brief five minute meditation, he began speaking and he covered many topics, with a focus on Enlightenment.  One of the points he discussed was that Enlightenment is not a Celestial Awareness; Enlightenment is Being in the Now.  He went on to explain that animals are enlightened and they don't judge whether another animal is enlightened or not (reflecting on this statement now, I wish he had explained that point more). He encouraged everyone to not view Enlightenment to be a state of Consciousness but rather a permanent state of Being. Then he did a Q & A session.  I was especially interested in one woman's question... she explained that her husband died

On Sunday November 6th, I shall be the Guest Speaker at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Northern Chautauqua (UUCNC). Each month the church focuses on a discussion theme, and for November the theme is VISION.  Therefore, I am excited to announce that my lecture title for November 6th is "The Power of Vision".  I will be sharing my thoughts on the difference between Visualizing and Visioning when receiving and understanding Spiritual Inspiration. I will also explore how to hold a clear and powerful vision of your Divine Journey and your Perfect self-expression while maintaining harmony with the Universe. Hope to see you there! For more info, visit http://www.willawhite.com/  or http://www.uucnc.org/ .

Last week, I attended a Mother Blessingway for a friend.  A Mother Blessing is intended to nurture, nourish, prepare, support and encourage the mum-to-be and positively prepare her for labor. And my friend invited a select few as special women in each life to be present for this occasion. My friend asked me with offer the prayer blessing, so I composed an encouraging and positive affirmation prayer for the event. Then, I opened up the blessing to the other lades attending with a symbolic ceremonial sharing.  We passed around a glass of water (water has been well documented to carry the vibrations of our thoughts and feelings, and this is a lovely way to symbolically reach both mother and child in his/her watery womb) so that verbally, silently, or through intentional action, we could ceremonially call in Divine support and love for the mother and the baby. Each woman offered a supportive statement or brief prayer for the mother and child.  Then, the mom-to-be drank the Love ble

During the Sunday morning church service at the Church of the Living Spirit on Oct 9, Alpha Husted presented a historical lecture on Jeremiah Carter, an influential founder of this place we now call Lily Dale.  For without Jeremiah Carter, there would probably not be a Lily Dale! Alpha has had a long illustrious career as a newspaper journalist and she has lived the past 20 years in Lily Dale - this combination makes for a well-researched and loving look at the history of Lily Dale. The hours that Alpha spent researching were evident and her presentation was full of vivid detail.  She told the story of the Laona Free Thinkers, Dr Moran, Dr Hedges, William Alden, and the beginnings of Lily Dale.  Alpha also presented us with a remarkable ink drawing of Jeremiah Carter created by her son.  I have seen pictures of Jeremiah and it seems an accurate depiction. As a lover of Lily Dale history, I enjoyed it all immensely, especially Alpha's story about how she found the gravestone

"The difference between Divine Compassion and human sympathy is as great as that between Light and darkness.  Divine compassion holds the student's attention anchored to [God's Presence] calling It forth to produce perfection.  Human sympathy is a rushing forth of energy, qualified by a feeling of imperfection, and but intensifies the imperfection already manifesting." *** Here are two examples I shall use to demonstrate these concepts: 1) a child has a minor fall and the mother screams, rushes up, and says "oh you poor child" smothering him in sympathy - thereby reinforcing the scare, hurt, bump, or injury.  And the child (who wasn't crying before) starts to wail.  This first example is human sympathy, cementing the idea of imperfection. For human sympathy is an agreement with imperfection. 2) a child has a minor fall and the mother does not panic or express fear.  She waits for the child's reaction to the event before acting.  She assesses

As the parent of a preschooler, I find myself doing things that are very silly .  Perhaps it is all part of becoming a Master of Distraction ... but my latest silly activity was making up silly songs to entertain my *almost* 3 year old son in the car.  Yes, I am confessing to poor rhyming technique, poor pitch, nonsensical lyrics, and complete disregard for how the song is supposed to go.  Sprinkle in some giggling of my own and we have the perfect recipe for musical disaster. Oh, and did I mention that I'm singing at the top of my lungs? [Just be thankful that the car windows are up, people!] And my son LOVES it!  How do I know he loves it? I have one of the mirrors you attach to the rearview mirror, so I have a good view of his big smile and twinkling eyes.  And there is (of course) the laughing.  His wonderful glee flows all around me. And I realize in that special and imperfectly perfect moment that I am exactly where I need to be and where I want to be: making u