Aldea Spiritual Community

Guided Meditation: Grounding & Connection | Kathleen Roberts

Enjoy this guided meditation for grounding & connection led by Kathleen Roberts.

The Hero’s Journey (Part 2): Walking The Path | Jake Haber

Check out Part 2 of our Hero's Journey series as we explore the steps of Joseph Campbell's framework in more detail, seeing ourselves in the various stages of the path. 
 
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Quotes: 
 
Carlos Castaneda:
“Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path”
Thomas Moore: 
"We are on the hero's journey when we submit to the deep processes of life and allow them to affect us and bore their necessities into us. We are the hero when we take on the challenges and go through our initiations and transformations, enduring loss and gain, feeling happy and sad, making progress and falling back. The hero is engaged in life… The hero may not look heroic from the outside but may go through powerful developments in a quiet way. The difference is that the real hero engages life and reflects on it. She becomes more and more what he or she is destined to be"
 
Thomas Lloyd Qualls:
“At one time or another we are all called to leave the safety of our homes, the certainty of what we know, the illusions of who we are. Not everyone will heed this call, of course. And those who do will risk losing themselves completely. But if we choose to ignore the invitation, we risk never knowing who we might have become. We risk dying without knowing what it is to live” 
Joseph Campbell:
“Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; and where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world”
 
Joseph Campbell:
"What I think is that a good life is one hero journey after another. Over and over again, you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons. Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare? And then if you do dare, the dangers are there, and the help also, and the fulfillment or the fiasco. There's always the possibility of fiasco. But there's also the possibility of bliss"
 
Discussion Questions: 
At the current moment, is there a specific stage of the Hero’s Journey that you are most resonating with? 
Share a memory or past experience that was a crucial part of your Hero’s Journey, and what stage you think it might have been. 
 

Guided Meditation: Mindfulness & Relaxation | Kathleen Roberts

Enjoy this guided meditation for mindfulness & relaxation led by Kathleen Roberts. 

The Hero’s Journey (Part 1): Full Circle | Jake Haber

Join us for Part 1 of our Hero's Journey series as we look at Joseph Campbell's "monomyth" structure, the process of leaving & returning, and the gifts that we discover in the unknown. 
 
Quotes:
 
“Meaning is not an idea to be agreed with. It is a feeling you get when you live as a hero on a mission. And it cannot be experienced without taking action and living into a story.” - Donald Miller
 
“What each must seek in (their) life never was on land or sea. It is something out of (their) own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else” - Joseph Campbell
 
"Whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth" - Paolo Coelho (The Alchemist)
 
”Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” - Howard Thurman
 
“The most beautiful people I’ve known are those who have known trials, have known struggles, have known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.” - Elizabeth Kübler-Ross 
 
Discussion Questions:
1. Can you recognize the hero’s journey structure in your favorite stories? 
(Film / TV / Books) 
 
2. What are some things you learned from leaving the “known” 

After/Life | Jake Haber

Check out the finale of "The Great Beyond" with a message addressing the question, "is there life after death?"
 
Quotes from this message ---------------
 
Gladiator (Film): “What we do in life echoes in eternity”
 
Alan Cohen: “The most important thing to know about the afterlife is that there is no afterlife. There is only life. Nothing can come after what always is. The forms through which life expresses change, but the energy that expresses through them is unchangeable and eternal”
 
Ram Dass: “In our Western culture, although death has come out of the closet, it is still not openly experienced or discussed. Allowing dying to be so intensely present enriches both the preciousness of each moment and our detachment from it.”
 
Carlos Castaneda: “When you need an answer, look over your left shoulder and ask your death.”
 
Buddha: “The trouble is, you think you have time.”
 
Inscription on St. Paul's Monastery on Mt. Athos: “If you die before you die, you won't die when you die.”
 
John 12:24: “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.”

Our Cosmic Neighborhood | Jake Haber

Check out the second message in our "The Great Beyond" series as we ask the question: "are we alone in the universe?" 
 
Quotes from this message---------------------------------------------
 
World Economic Forum 2020:
“We humans view ourselves as separate, dominant and superior to nature. We see nature as a commodity to buy, sell, extract and exploit for our own interests. For well over a century, academics, thought leaders and indigenous leaders have warned against the commodification and exploitation of nature, and yet this attitude persists. We have developed a dualistic view of our existence on this planet – one that blinds us to our interdependence and interconnectedness with nature, and which has also created enormous divides in our society and across humanity… shift to ecocentric ..
The environmental crisis is in fact a deeper spiritual crisis. We must shift the way we view and relate to nature, and understand that it is a single living organism which is inextricably interconnected. We must adopt an ecocentric mindset whereby we are grateful to and revere nature, rather than consider ourselves superior to it”  
 
Genesis 22:17-18:
"I will make sure your descendants are as many as the stars of the heavens and the grains of sand on the shores. I reaffirm My earlier promises that your descendants will possess the lands and sit in the gates of their enemies, and from your descendants all the peoples of the earth will discover true blessing." 
 
Matthew 5:43-44:
"You have been taught to love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you this: love your enemies."
 
Rainn Wilson: 
“What may be most important about Star Trek is that the human race has worked out its problems on planet Earth through both science and an emotional wisdom comprised of restraint, reason, and maturity. This spiritually and intellectually awakened humanity then seeks to spread and share its evolved nature while exploring the galaxy in a peaceful manner” 

The Great Beyond | Jake Haber

Check out the first part of our new series "The Great Beyond" as we explore the mystics, the power of myth, and the relationship between science & spirituality. 
 
Quotes from this message -------------------------------------------
 
Zen Proverb: “Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.” 
 
Richard Rohr: "Mystery is not that which is unknowable but that which is endlessly knowable” 
 
Parashara: “In the leaf, there are innumerable components. It has a boundary, a colouring matter, a sap inside and they are not visible to the naked eye.”
 
Joseph Campbell: “Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words.”
 
Attributed to the Buddha:  “Imagine someone is trying to show you the moon by pointing at it…don’t mistake the finger for the moon” 
 
Rumi: “You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop”.
 
Richard Rohr: “When God is no longer out there or over there, we have begun the mystical journey”
 
Joseph Campbell: “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” 
 
Alan Watts: “The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” 
 
Frederick Nietzsche: ”Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.” 
 
Matthew 10:39: “To find your life, you must lose your life”

What’s On Your Mind (Q & R) | Jake Haber, Kathleen Roberts, and Dennis Pepe

Check out our question & response message where our panel tackles various topics such as mental health, the ego, grief & the state of the world. 

Generational Healing | Jake Haber

Listen to this Father's Day message on healing across generations + reuniting the masculine & feminine within.

The Art of The Table | Jake Haber

For the finale of "The Art Of...." we look at the literal and symbolic "tables" in our lives and how they can be a tool for inclusion and self-acceptance.