Norman, Premchit and Matthew moved to Phuket, Premchit’s ancestral home from Bangkok this month and now live in a new home within 15 minutes of four of Phuket’s best beaches. Together, they have established a base for her extraordinarily high quality Natural Wellness Retreats through EXPERIENCE | PREMCHIT.

As an Aromatic Alchemist, Aromatherapist, and gifted healer, Premchit’s once in a lifetime, 3-9 day healing retreats include juices, ambrosias, and body and facial elixers, as well as breath, movement, music, and scent therapies in luxury accommodations like Phuket’s Paresa.

Her therapies and exquisite products are grounded in a royal family history that dates back to the late 1500′s and is steeped in the intimate knowledge and wisdom of the rainforest and its treasures of herbs and foods.

In addition to offering her EXPERIENCE | PREMCHIT Natural Wellness Retreats, Premchit also offers Ancestral Siamese Cuisine through her “secret” restaurant NA THALANG where guests enjoy delicious Siamese gourmet meals in secret locations around Phuket. Each lunch and dinner is designed, prepared and presented by Premchit Prateap Na Thalang, using secret recipes inherited from her ancestors and fresh seasonal ingredients from her farm and the tropical rainforests, village markets, sandy beaches and blue seas of Phang-Nga and Phuket Provinces in southern Thailand.

In addition to offering her healing retreats and gourmet cuisine, Norman and Premchit provide free daily postcards on life in Phuket. You can receive these by sending Norman an e-mail (norman@experiencepremchit.com) with YES in the subject matter.

I have been purposely brief in this post because anything I could attempt to write about Premchit and her delicious offerings for the mind, body and soul would take away from the beauty and depth of a visit to her two websites. If you don’t get the opportunity to visit Thailand to experience Premchit’s wonderful offerings,  I know you will enjoy your journey through her amazing world.

This is a 6 week on-line course available from Catherine Ann Jones. We will email you when your new lesson is available and you will be able to login and read each lesson on-line or print as they become available. Your first lesson will be available immediately after you enroll.
Are you merely surviving or are you living creatively?

Survival has become a dominant theme in today’s world – both personally and collectively.

One of the down sides of being locked into survival mode is that surviving sometimes takes over altogether – and the quality of living lessens or even ends. In order to live, and not merely survive, a sense of creative living must return. Creativity tends the mind and soul while survival focuses only on the body. Both are necessary for a full life.

Can one expand and no longer live solely a linear existence yet also embrace a creative journey? If so, how to step back from literal life and its daily demands, and see beyond? Can one view relationships not as possessions, but as life markers on the journey, as opportunities for the growth of the soul?

Might we discover alternative ways of creating and sustaining new forms of community which nurture our essential humanity? What are some ways of connecting us to ourselves, to each other, to the earth, and to the greater mysterious reality that is the source of all we know?

Exercises are designed to serve as catalysts in re-discovering a creative life beyond survival. This course invites you to explore within and discover a creative solution for the often overpowering problems of today. Beyond Survival is a way to return home, an invitation to the muse, a bridge back to creativity and to Self. For more info www.wayofstory.com

TOPICS COVERED
• Survival versus Living
• Letting Go Conditioned Patterns – both inherited and learned
• Accepting Dharma: Your Inner Calling
• The Many Names of Wealth
• Life as Relationship
• Create Your Life at Each Moment

“Beyond Survival is a gem! You seemed really in the flow, and the flow carries us into effortless inspiration. You took the time to give us many fascinating exercises, each one a doorway for the soul”.
- Dianne Skafte, Ph.D, Listening to the Oracle

“Catherine showed me how to write my way out of the darkness and into the Light”.
- Beth T., Athens, GA

“A spiritual experience as well as practical.”
- Gard J., Boulder City, NV

ABOUT CATHERINE ANN JONES
Catherine Ann Jones holds a graduate degree in Depth Psychology and Archetypal Mythology from Pacifica Graduate Institute where she has also taught. After playing major roles in over fifty plays, she wrote a play about Virginia Woolf (On the Edge) about her struggle with madness in a world gone mad, i.e., WWII. The play won a National Endowment for the Arts Award. Ten of her plays, including Calamity Jane (both play and musical) and The Women of Cedar Creek, have won multiple awards and are produced both in and out of New York. Her films include The Christmas Wife (Jason Robards & Julie Harris), Unlikely Angel (Dolly Parton), and the popular TV series, Touched by an Angel.

A Fulbright Research Scholar to India studying shamanism, she has taught at The New School University, University of Southern California, Pacifica Graduate Institute, and the Esalen and the Omega Institutes. Her book, The Way of Story: the craft & soul of writing, is used in many schools, including New York University writing programs. Ms. Jones lives in Ojai, California, and leads The Way of Story and Heal Yourself with Writing workshops throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Beyond Survival is her third online course for www.dailyom.com. Or go to www.wayofstory.com

Catherine will be a speaker at GATE 2 this weekend.

It is said when the student is ready the teacher will appear. In this case, spiritually-aware people in entertainment and media have been waiting for a movement that will echo the awakening now happening around the world. And it has arrived, in the form of “GATE.”

John Raatz is the founder and Eckhart Tolle and Jim Carrey are honorary co-founders. The Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment (GATE) is shepherding the emerging and rapidly expanding transformational entertainment and media genre worldwide.

I interviewed John about the upcoming “GATE 2,” which is an event that cultivates, promotes and advances collaborations between transformational content creators and purveyors, and it is open for all those interested in being part of the expansion of the transformational genre that is currently happening around the world.

According to John, “Many have thought that religion, big business or government would save us … but, with most of these institutions in serious disarray today, the one remaining infrastructure through which wisdom and possible solutions can flow is the entertainment industry and all forms of media. Many people within the industry are already transformationally oriented. One of our missions is to bring together these individuals and assist them in creating and disseminating content of a transformational nature for the benefit of all humanity, of the world.”

Raatz feels that each person in the entertainment and media industry has a role and a responsibility to facilitate personal, social and global transformation. He explained his observation that “there is a schism between the business and creative sides of the entertainment industry. One that’s usually been there. Often, the creative side wants to develop meaningful, more transformationally oriented product, while the business side is focused on commercial value. Once in a while, they coincide.

“This also reflects a general split in our culture — an imbalance that favors commercial success over deeper, more personal success on a human level. Whatever is happening on a microcosmic level is also happening in the larger reality; it is all mirrored back. And now’s the time to try to find a healthier balance, when so much of our world is threatened in so many ways. That’s what GATE is seeking to do in the entertainment and media industries.”

Raatz continues, “Many Native American tribes would sit in council when they had an important decision to make. If it was determined that the decision would negatively impact any of the next seven generations, they simply would not do it. We need to bring more of that spirit to the decisions we make in all aspects of our lives.”

Eckhart Tolle, author and spiritual teacher, GATE honorary founder, notes, “The only actions that don’t cause opposing reactions are those aimed at the good of all. Inclusive, not exclusive. They join; they don’t separate. They are not for ‘my’ country, but for all of humanity, not for ‘my’ religion but for the emergence of consciousness in all human beings.” That spirit is also often embodied in transformational entertainment and media, according to Raatz. Tolle will be speaking at GATE 2.

Jim Carrey, actor/activist and GATE honorary founder, has said, “I am so lucky to be a part of this community, and to do something that is of value.” Carrey will also be speaking at GATE 2.

John identified the audience for transformational entertainment and media as one that is rarely paid attention to: what he calls the Cultural Creatives. In early 2000, two sociologists were commissioned to record Americans’ values and lifestyle preferences. Some of the 19 characteristics these Cultural Creatives relate to are: preservation of nature, a strong awareness of planet-wide issues, spirituality as an important aspect of life, maintaining loving relationships, intense interest in spiritual and psychological development, and wanting to be involved with creating a new and better way of life.

It was determined that 50 million Americans then fell into that category, with an additional 90 million Cultural Creatives in Europe. The numbers are even larger now, as this is the fastest growing segment of the U.S. and world population. The book that resulted from this research was The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World, by Paul H. Ray., Ph.D., and Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D.

Raatz notes: “At GATE, we want to be the supporting mechanism that assists those in the entertainment and media businesses who are transformationlly oriented to speak their truth through their work. And guess what! That’s monetizeable! The audience is ready!”

Raatz is not new to aligning his spiritual light with his creative expression. He is the founder and principal of the pioneering “transformational” marketing and PR firm, The Visioneering Group, whose mission is “Linking Spirit, Vision & Progressive Values with Compassionate Communication to Promote a Positive and Sustainable Future.”

Established in 1988, Visioneering exclusively serves the Cultural Creatives (body/mind/spirit) market, and was the first such firm to do so. He played a large part in putting the game-changing transformational film “What the Bleep Do We Know?” on the map, following with “Peaceful Warrior.” He worked with Madonna on her “Ray of Light” album and set up a private screening for her of “What the Bleep.” She was so moved by it that she introduced John to her teachers at The Kabbalah Center, which became a Visioneering client. Over the years, the company has worked with a wide array of authors, musicians, filmmakers and influential spiritual teachers, whom he calls the “Leading Lights of Consciousness.”

Raatz has been teaching Transcendental Meditation since 1976 and found, 30 years ago, when he started in the film business, that many well-known celebrities, such as Merv Griffin, Mike Love, Clint Eastwood and Ned Beatty, were also practicing TM. At the time, they formed an organization to teach it to people in the entertainment business.

The upcoming GATE events will be held Feb. 4, 2012, at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, Calif. For more information and discounted tickets, visit http://www.gatecommunity.org. Use Promo Code TRANSFORM for an additional 20 percent discount.

In his little treasure of a book. Allan Holender, the father of Zenpreneurism, shares his lessons on living a soulful and integrated business and personal life. There are many great business books, but few pack in as much wisdom in 45 pages.

Allan supports readers in redefining what real success means from the accumulation of more and more money to identifying and sharing our authentic soul’s calling as well as our love, compassion and gratitude, attracting and welcoming our experiences, and leaving an honorable footprint on the planet.

As Buddha said “Deeds done in harmony with one’s path of life are those which bring clarity, peace and harmony to the doer”.
He did not say to others. For in doing the work we came to do, we give our gift to the world and those who are waiting for them are deeply satisfied and encouraged to do the same thing and so authenticity can spread its wings through each act of being ourselves.

Allan proposes that a life well lived is one filled with purpose, passion and destiny.

“If you don’t access your gift, it will wither away. People actually die from not using their gifts – you can see the sadness, depression and constriction of life force energy from not using their gifts. But, if you are tapped into your gift(s) using and sharing it consistently with others, and, in fact, making it your life’s work, you will attract all the ‘right’ things that you want and need to keep sharing it and having a great life.”

How do you find your passion? What is right livelihood? What do Buddhism and the Buddha have to tell us about a fulfilling business life? What is a Life Map and how can you use one to move toward your passion? How do you live from your soul and what are the benefits? Can you create a business and a life? What does it take to wake up from the trance of business as struggle, competition, envy, anger, frustration and the pursuit of more. How did we become a generation of instant gratification junkies and what can you do to free yourself from this external focus to being guided by your soul’s inner compass? Is it really possible to exit the orbit of the twisted and distorted world of greed, power, ego, deceit embellishment, and manipulation that typifies capitalism today? Is it really possible to live a life of continued expansion of happiness and the realization of worthy goals with ease?

Thankfully the answer to all these questions is a resounding yes and Allan shares both his own and others experiences in living authentic lives every day. If you or anyone you know have ever felt trapped and drained by the dysfunctional world of business as usual, you’ll want to download Zenpreneurism 3.0 immediately and begin putting its ideas into practice.

Allan’s wise and empowering guide to a sane, elevated and spiritually guided way of doing business will leave you feeling more hopeful about your personal journey as well as leading the way to a business world that benefits all of life with purposeful alignment.

Zentrepreneurism 3.0 is now available on Amazon. You can download your copy at:
http://www.amazon.com/kindle/dp/B0071EPMDI
 
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com , spoke at Princeton University’s 2010 graduation and he asked some probing questions that reflect some of the core principles of Zentrepreneurism.

Speaking to his alma mater (having graduated from Princeton in 1986 with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering), Mr. Bezos made the case that our character is reflected not in the gifts we’re endowed with at birth, but by the choices we make over the course of a lifetime.
He shared some reflective questions about the choices we make, not only applied to recent graduation students, but also to us as Zentrepreneurs.

Consider what these questions bring forward for you as a message about your own life and business choices. 

1. Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passion? Will you follow dogma or will you be original?

2. Will you choose a life of ease or a life of service and adventure? Will you wilt under criticism or will you follow your convictions?

3. Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong or will you apologize? Will you guard your heart against refection or will you act when you fall in love?

4. Will you play it safe or will you be a little bit swashbuckling? When it’s tough, will you give up or will you be relentless?

5. Will you be a cynic or will you be a builder? Will you be clever at the expense of others or will you be kind?

6. Are you going to leave a legacy – a virtual dent in the Universe and make a real difference?

To read the research, click here.