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September 2016
My friends,
 By the time you receive this newsletter I will be the other side of my 73rd birthday. If you follow me on Facebook you will know that I recently
had eye lens replacement surgery – I got fed up with constantly putting my glasses on so I could see the people around me clearly, especially when sitting
in the circle in my workshops. The most startling effect on my vision is not the new clarity I enjoy, but seeing colours the way I saw them when I was
young. It had never occurred to me that over 7 decades my natural lenses, like the pages of an old book, might have aged. What a surprise, for the week
between the two operations, to see the world through one old and one new eye! My right eye saw everything rather yellowed until that lens was also
replaced. Many times during those days I covered one eye then the other, in fascination at something I would otherwise have never discovered. Now, through
both eyes, I see life in its true colours again.
There is more to this story than meets the eye. It speaks to me also of how beliefs so often distort our perception of reality. I don’t mean just religious
or political beliefs, make-believe though they so often are; I mean this thing called “personality” that we grow up believing is who we really are. It is
hardly surprising that it is so. Virtually all our global media – TV, radio, the press, movies and music lyrics too – all promote, with complete sincerity,
the belief that our personality is who we are. Our cultural heroes, stars, leaders and role-models are quite normally idolised not for the quality of their
being – magical though this is in every one of us – but for the performances in which they present themselves to the world; they too believe that they are
the costumes they wear.
To experience life free of belief is to remove the filters that distort. Belief channels everything through the mind. Experiencing perceives everything
directly, without distortion, and when our bodily senses, our inner feelings, our heart and soul awareness are all turned on and integrated in how we meet
existence as it happens, then the quality with which we experience life is truly awesome. We live with profound presence. Through these past 4 decades,
cultivating this within myself and enabling the same for countless others, has been and still is my inspiration, and yes, my guiding vision!
And, since I wish to go on presenting Art of Being workshops and courses for as long as possible, I have become mindful of the need to look after my body.
It is a blessing to feel still young and vibrant, and to be in good health. To keep it so, I am cutting back on the 14-hour day that has been my normal
workshop schedule all these years. I now have around me a few people who, having trained with me, have since assisted and worked alongside me in so many
workshops that they are able to guide processes, ceremonies, rituals and meditations that, while I still introduce, open and conclude them, really do not
require my constant presence. So from now on, the workshops are led by Alan Lowen and his
Art of Being team. Don’t worry! For all those parts where my
presence is what you come for, I’ll still be there.
The other way in which I’m respecting my age is by offering fewer workshops. Booking seminar houses means that events have to be scheduled long in advance,
so 2017 is going to be as busy for me as this and all the past years. But from 2018 I’m taking more time out. And in the years beyond that you can expect
to find some of my workshops being led by a new generation of Art of Being teachers – hopefully still with lots of support from me. For many years I have
been keeping records of all my workshop creations and their event-by-event enhancements, knowing that one day they will be needed by these teachers who
experienced them first-hand with me – and whose own magic will bring fresh innovations to the timeless
art of being.
It is one minute to midnight now, one minute from my birthday. So I bid you all goodnight!
Bon voyage! With love, alan
THE AUTUMN-WINTER PROGRAMME
There are just 3 open Art of Being workshops in the remaining 3 months of this year, other than the Czech workshops that are essentially for people living
in Czech Republic and Slovakia. If for any reason you wish to know more about those events, please contact our Czech organiser, Šárka Kmochová, sarka@artofbeing.com
The Universal Experience
Sep 23 - 25 (begins Fri 10.30am) Waldhaus Seminar Centre,
Switzerland
 People
are changed by touching death. If it happens in a good way,
the changes can be among the most valuable transforming
experiences of their lives. With no dogma, no investment in
belief systems, no theorising,
The Universal Experience guides you on a 3-day
journey to encounter death. The encounter is intimate
because it is your own death you are going to meet. If death
is one of those fears that you just try to live with by
avoiding it, this journey gives you the means to make
friends with your fear. Be assured, there is nothing morbid
about this workshop. On the contrary, it is as uplifting as
it is liberating. In beautiful ways it changes the way you
live.
Body, Heart & Soul One
Oct 28 - Nov 4 Parimal Seminar Centre, central Germany
 In a very different vein from The Universal Experience, Body, Heart & Soul One is no less important. Death and sex are both so mistreated
in our society that very few of us grow up allowing and indeed treasuring all that they have to offer us as integral aspects of our being and life. Our
cultural mistreatment of sex may be different from what it was a hundred years ago, or fifty or even twenty years ago. Sex may be more out in the open than
it once was, but sexuality is still more judged and exploited than it is honoured and appreciated. When our sexual nature is fully integrated with our
feelings, heart and soul, it brings a natural radiance and grace to the way we live as man or woman.
Goodbye! Hello!
Dec 29, 2016 - Jan 3, 2017 Schloss Glarisegg, Switzerland
 This 5-day Odyssey out of the old and into the new is a fabulous fusion of Alan’s workshop transformation experiences and beyond-words musical magic. At
the same time that Goodbye! Hello! cleans up your psyche, it gives you a clear-sighted
and open-hearted way to celebrate every new day of your life.
» Complete
calendar
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www.artofbeing.com