‘Grafting’ is a word used to describe the process of taking a branch from one tree and connecting it with another tree to duplicate its future growth. What a perfect metaphor of our intention as we move from the campus SWIHA has enjoyed for almost 15 years to a new location in Tempe, Arizona. We want to take the ‘positive light’ from the halls of the campus and the hearts of all the staff, instructors and students to our new location just a few miles away. We’ve decided to coin the term ‘spiritual grafting’ to affirm our intention to take what SWIHA has been and done over the last 26 years —transferring and re-growing our ‘Light’!
We fully embody the belief that ‘Home is where the Heart is’. We will be ‘spiritually grafting’ the heart of our physical location to the new building that is being retrofitted to meet our needs.
The leadership team and staff of SWIHA have been dreaming, planning and visualizing our new location for well over a year. We must admit we had a few false starts – thinking we were moving one place, only to discover our plans didn’t come to fruition. We began to say often: “We plan and the Divine laughs!” What finally became true was that “When we prayed as a community, the Divine participated!”
Out of our moving experience, we’ve discovered five important lessons,
which can easily be applied to any decision or move made in life:
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Don’t become attached to what you think it will be! We have certainly had a chance to practice non-attachment during this moving experience; we’ve pursued several lease options over the course of the last year or two, all of which were dead ends. Just when we thought we had located our perfect new home, something was revealed that lead us in a new direction. We’ll spare you the details – yet the lesson has definitely been one of practicing non-attachment.
Breathe and flow! One of our oldest programs is yoga; one of the main precepts of yoga is breath. Many of the great yoga masters teach that when the breath is calmed, the mind too will be still, and the yogi achieves a long and peaceful life. We have been doing a fair amount of deep breathing! We have come to understand the yogic promise: When you own your breath, nobody can steal your peace.-
When the time is right, what’s right will be revealed! For the longest time through this process, as the founder and executive leader, I would say: “The Divine knows where and when we will move; I am ready to know! And, what I know is . . . that when it’s our time to know . . .we will know!” While this may sound like an ancient kōan of sorts, it became a spiritual truism. What we now know is the location we are moving to only became available a few weeks before our move. We couldn’t have signed a lease a day earlier than we did. The divine timing of things were only right – or even available to do so –when the time was right! What a perfect confirmation: All that happens is in divine timing!
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Don’t wait for all the lights to be green to move forward! In our case, there have been many delays in moving forward; even now many of the details were not finalized – and yet we absolutely had to make the decisions to move forward. We have come to call our process ‘faith-walking’! As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: “Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase.” The key is to moving forward is one step at a time, fully believing that what you need to know at the time will be revealed – and that taking a certain amount of risk is part of your faith-walk!
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Learn to ‘live in the question’ with grace and gratitude! Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist, teaches us that when you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. However, we must accept the grace of the universe’s timing with gratitude. Quoting this infamous author, he shares our sentiments exactly . . . “It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” We can say the process of relocating to a new campus has been interesting, spiritually affirming, and a demonstration of
We offer that our lessons are your lessons! Embrace these five awarenesses as you consider what you might be drawn to at SWIHA…or in your life!
We look forward to seeing you on our new campus at one of our Grand Opening events – or connecting on-line through our expanding webinars and LIVE Facebook broadcasts.
View Friday August 4, 2018 Final Gifts ad Graces presentation at the 1100 E Apache Blvd location.
Grand Opening Celebration
Friday, October 5, 2018 Gifts & Graces @ 6 pm
Holistic Gathering
Sunday, October 21, 2018 @
