2405 Member

The Landscape Committee is excited to invite you to join us for a community landscaping workday on Saturday, May 25th!

Our landscaping contractor will be reseeding the weedy lawn area with an improved variant of buffalo grass. This variant greens up earlier, stays green longer than other buffalo variants. It requires less water and needs less frequent mowing than other types of turf grass. Their work will be finished about 2 weeks before our workday.

We will be planting approximately 60 drought-resistant perennials across three locations. These plants, most of which are Colorado Natives, come in 4" containers and are particularly friendly to our local bees and butterflies.

In addition to planting the new perennials, we'll be relocating some existing plants in the front strip and installing some of the new ones in that area as well. To prepare for this, we'll need to remove weed barriers, lightly amend the soil for improved drainage, plant, water in, and apply a mulch of a crusher fine-chip stone mix.

For those planning to join us, we recommend bringing your own gloves and perhaps a shovel if you have them available. Your tools will greatly assist in our efforts to beautify the property.

Please sign up here LINK to let us know you are coming. Please BYOL and hang around after to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

This is a wonderful opportunity for us to come together as a community and make a positive impact on our surroundings. We hope to see you there!

Land Team: Pam Shillam, Laurie Albright, co-chairs; members: Rolli Oden, Joy Lanzano, Seth Watson, Roberta Vogel-Leutung.

The Art of Compassionate Inquiry

MAY 19, 2024
10AM -5:30 PM MDT

FUNDRAISER FOR THE COLORADO RIDHWAN CENTER

6783 BASELINE ROAD

This one-day teaching is a fund raiser with the proceeds benefiting the beautiful new Colorado Ridhwan Center. This teaching is open to both current students and the public. All are welcome! It will be in person and on Zoom if you can’t be there in person. There will be meditation, evocative talks, and personal inquiry exercises.

What is the relationship between Inquiry and Compassion? Inquiry, the central practice of the Diamond Approach, offers a doorway to our true home. The Loving-Kindness and attunement of True Compassion artfully allows our inquiry to address exactly where our heart is.

The Green aspect’s expression as warmth and Compassion are inseparable from the precise understanding that is the hallmark of inquiry. In this way, our open-ended inquiry can become an attuned entry way into our depth.

TEACHER: Ilene Buchalter, a Diamond Approach teacher since 2002, lives and teaches in Colorado, is the lead teacher for Diamond Approach Florida, and also works with groups and individuals living throughout the U.S.

For questions about the content of this one-day teaching itself contact Ilene Buchalter.

FUNDRAISER AMOUNT: $75

To Register click REGISTRATION. After registering you will be sent a link to Pay the Fundraiser Amount. Once you have paid, you’ll receive a Zoom link to use if you can’t attend in person. For questions regarding registration or payment please contact Marie Dotts at marie@ridhwan.org.

“Speak to Me”

A series of 2 classes

Explore your relationship with your own voice.
Does your voice connect to the depth of you? Do you value your voice, and its expression? We will play with inviting our voices to open more fully.

Sunday June 16th 3pm-5pm and June 23rd 10am-12pm.

Commit to one or both classes ($30 per class or $50 for both) registration is limited to 20 people.

Diane Anderson has been a teacher with the Diamond Approach since 2005. She studied for 15 years with Ethelyn Friend, who taught voice at Naropa University for 23 years. Diane will be assisted by Stephanie Ehret and Laurie Albright,
teacher, and teacher-in-training in Diamond Approach for many years.

This series is open to all students in the Colorado school and will be at our new center located at 6783 Baseline Road Boulder, CO

To register contact Laurie Albright at lauriealbright66@gmail.com

Art by Anita

Your Personal Invitation to Sunday Meditations

Dear Friends,

We have been very busy at the new school, as many of you know. It is wonderful to have a new home with such holding and beauty. I know I feel so blessed that we have this school. We want to use all the rich and welcoming energy to deepen our own experience and journey, as well as open up to having new people join us.

Many of us found the work through someone in the school. We are starting weekly meditations April 7th from 6:30 to 7:30. It will be every Sunday. We will sit, and then depending on who is there, maybe have a short inquiry, or a chat about why we meditate, or if new people have questions, talk a bit about what is the Diamond Approach. This will be short, simple and inviting. Not a big deal where anyone has to commit or even talk to people unless they want to hang for a few minutes after. Everyone is welcome to stay after the half hour meditation or leave. Either is fine. It will be like coming to something that feels like hands open and lots of fresh air.

We are letting you know because we want all of your sweet energy to come and fill up the school. Also please invite friends, neighbors, family ..,.anyone who is interested in the Diamond Approach or in meditation.

We have been given a fresh start with this new school. Let’s hold it with love and appreciation. I look forward to seeing each of you whenever you wish to show up.

Bev Alexander

“You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the health of life?”

The owl whose night bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one. For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?” ~Khalil Gibran

____________________________

CLSG Co-chairs:
Jeff Truesdall and Bev Alexander.
Members: Barb Schintz, Gary Haraldsen, Ilene Buchalter, Jayne Satter, Marilyn Giglio, and Stephanie Ehret

The library for CLSG can be found HERE. The CLSG website is HERE.

This newsletter is a great way to let people know if you need support or holding in your life. Please contact Bev Alexander if that is something you would like or need. We are a community and even just holding someone during meditation can alter a life.

End-of-Life-Planning Workshops

In support of the premise that part of living a good life is preparing well for its end, the Colorado Life Service Group is offering three workshops to introduce information, decisions and forms to ease the end-of-life transition for ourselves and our loved ones.

These workshops will be helpful for everyone: those who have completed advance directives, those who are part way through the process and those who haven’t even started. We guarantee you will learn something new and useful! Workshops will be in-person as well as on Zoom. Workshop 1 will be Sunday morning, June 16 and Workshops 2 & 3 will be morning and afternoon on Sunday June 30. More details can be found HERE.

Monthly Meditation

with the
Colorado Life Service Group

The Colorado Life Service Group invites you to join us as we gather on Zoom to chant the Medicine Buddha Chant in support of those in our Colorado Ridhwan Community who might be experiencing challenging life situations. Our next gathering will be Sunday, May 12th, from 9-9:30am.

Coming together as a group is of benefit to us all as a Community, to each of us personally and to those we love and care about. We will join together on Sunday with the option to mention the name of a loved one or yourself. We will then do the Medicine Buddha Chant for a short period of time and then sit quietly in meditation.

All are welcome whether or not you want to offer a name. Once a month we are all invited to join together, bringing our hearts and presence to support ourselves, our community and the world we are alive in. The zoom link is sent out the morning of the meditation.

Meditation Offerings to all Diamond Approach Students

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 10am Mountain Time, we have been gathering for the past several years on Zoom for a 30-minute meditation, a short reading and optional time for inquiry in breakout rooms. The entire session lasts for one hour but if people wish to leave right after the meditation and reading, that is fine. A small group of U.S. and European teachers takes turns leading these sessions which are attended by students from the U.S. and around the world. You are welcome to join us for these free offerings.

With appreciation,
Jeff Truesdall

Here is the link for the Tuesday Meditations

And the link for the Thursday Meditations

Imagine approaching your own experiences as a true friend would - with kindness, love, curiosity, and a deep commitment to your well-being. Often, our personal struggles are intensified by the attitudes we adopt towards ourselves. This webinar invites you to explore the transformative possibility of becoming a true friend to yourself. We will delve into uncovering the unconscious attitudes that hinder our self-love and self-understanding, both essential for our spiritual growth and maturation.

Join us as we embark on a journey to foster a more compassionate and supportive relationship with ourselves.

Join Diamond Approach teacher Julia Dengel for an insightful webinar on June 8, 2024, from 10 AM to 12:30 PM Mountain Time on Zoom.

Please register HERE.

Art by Peggy Braun

On the evening of April 13th the many (25+) volunteers who participated in the remodel of our new center were treated to the tastiest thank you imaginable. Seth Watson lovingly and single handedly prepared a 6 course Indian meal in our new kitchen, a kitchen that he himself fully outfitted with everything from dishware to pots and pans to an array of cooking gadgets.

The celebration included delightful entertainment between courses: a poetry reading by Jim Crawford and acoustic guitar by Michael Reshetnik.

A huge thank you to Seth and the entertainers for this magnificent evening as well as to those who supported it as servers and dish washers.

Word on the street is that there’s more to come from Chef Watson! Stay tuned.

(Photos provided by Anne V Hanks and copy by Stephanie Ehret)

We'd love to publish your poetry, articles, personal experiences, jokes, art, photographs and or cartoons/drawings in our newsletter. It only goes out to members of the school, and, with your approval, to those who have expressed interest in the Diamond Approach. Please send your submissions or questions to Bev for more information. If you have more ideas for our Community Newsletter please advise Bev of that too. We're also looking for photographs to be used in the graphics so don't forget to submit them too.