On Wednesday July 21st at 7pm at Harbour House, Richard Meech will be on hand to introduce his just-released one-hour documentary. As part of his West coast tour (the film is also being screened in Gabriola and at the Okanagan Film Festival) the producer/director will also host a Q&A after the show.

“Just think: there is a humble jungle plant that has the ability to affect the consciousness of the one species that can determine the fate of all species – just when that need is greater than ever.”
– Richard Meech, Producer/Director “Vine of the Soul”

Can a sacred plant from the Amazon heal our minds and spirits? For centuries, indigenous people of South America have used ayahuasca, a psychoactive plant medicine, to cure all manner of psycho-spiritual ills.

Today, thousands of Westerners, seeking healing and spiritual awakening, attend ayahuasca ceremonies around the world to drink the vision-inducing tea and experience dramatic transformations in their lives.

“Vine of the Soul” is a documentary that explores this brave new world, offering insights into the nature of faith, mystical experience and self-healing through a heightened state of consciousness. Filmmaker Richard Meech follows key protagonists as they journey to Peru – and back home to Canada – capturing in verité style both the life-altering epiphanies and nights of terror encountered after drinking the sacred brew.

Throughout the film, in-depth interviews with Peruvian and Canadian shamans, ethnobotanist Dennis McKenna, addiction expert Dr. Gabor Maté and scholar Kenneth Tupper speak to the increasing use of ayahuasca outside the Amazon and the potential benefits for Western medicine, personal spiritual growth and a new understanding of nature.

“In the mid 1990’s I started hearing about Westerners going to the Amazon to participate in traditional ayahuasca ceremonies,” recalls Meech in a recent interview. “These people were not the usual collection of anthropologists and enthobotanists doing fieldwork, but ordinary folks looking for emotional healing and spiritual awakening. And a few of them were apprenticing with the master shamans to lead their own ceremonies back home.

“I decided to meet some of the Westerners who drink ayahuasca and find out how it has affected their lives. I could never have anticipated nor imagined the emotional depths and spiritual journeys I would be privileged to witness.

“In learning about ayahuasca both through the filming process and my own ceremonial work, I have come to appreciate that there is a wide gulf in our popular understanding about the nature of healing. Living with a profoundly material worldview leaves very little, if any, space for what can be called the ‘spiritual’. Spirituality and healing? What does spirituality have to do with healing? A lot more than I had thought, it turns out. With ayahuasca one can have a direct connection with the divine or source of all creation, something one actually experiences, viscerally, in the depths of one’s own being. It can be healing on the most profound levels.

“How extraordinary then, at the turn of our twenty first century that we should be rediscovering the power of the sacred medicine, ayahuasca, that has been around for thousands of years. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, a measure of good timing.”

Dear Friend of Children,

You are invited to become a Signatory in a campaign of global importance.
We have become increasingly alarmed by the prevalence of violence against children worldwide.

We believe the times provide an opportunity for a new religious moment, in which the public and the world’s spiritual leaders act in concert in honour of the world’s young. This could profoundly impact human behaviour for generations.

The Centre for Child Honouring’s Children & Nonviolence Initiative—supported by the Dalai Lama, and by Honorary Patron HRH Prince El Hassan of Jordan—provides a focal point for faith leaders to express their commitment to honouring the dignity of children.
• We invite all citizens to sign the PLEA TO FAITH LEADERS and send it to their community faith leader and to the leader of your religion or faith tradition. The PLEA calls on faith leaders to sign a PROCLAMATION in a show of unity.
•  We invite all faith leaders to sign the PROCLAMATION.

We trust that a massive outpouring of public and religious support for respecting the
personhood of children would:

a) have significantly beneficial impacts on behaviour in families, communities,

schools and institutions worldwide, and

b) bring renewed awareness and support for implementing the articles of the
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Such an outpouring could also spark a historic multi-faith decree upholding the sanctity of the child, and urging the elimination of physical, mental and emotional violence against children.

Such a new religious moment would be a vital step forward towards a new era of peace with and for our young.

Please sign the Plea, or the Proclamation
at www.childhonouring.org/plea

In gratitude,
CENTRE FOR CHILD HONOURING

Raffi Cavoukian, C.M., O.B.C., founder and chair
Advisory Council members:
The Very Reverend Bill Phipps, former moderator, United Church of Canada
Carolyn Pogue, author, peace activist

June 13, 2010 – You are invited to attend this most auspicious event as Her Holiness Mother Mayatitananda comes to Salt Spring as part of her Living Ahimsa World Tour.

Dedicated to humanity, Mother Maya’s teachings and practice of Peace are made accessible through her workshops, books and compassionate meditations. (Many may know her under her pseudonym as Maya Tiwara.)

Mother is also known for her work in Ayurveda and for originating the Wise Earth School of Ayurveda, a school for young women to study the Art of Earth Science. She has committed her life to the betterment of humanity through the practice of peaceful means.

You are invited to join with the thousands of people world wide, who under her guidance, have taken this vow of peace, for the greater good of this planet and our relationship to all sentient beings.

Sunday, June 13, 2010
Afternoon Workshop: 1:30–4:30 pm, $75.00
Satsanga: 7:30–9:30 pm, $25.00
Location: Ganges Yoga Studio154 Kings Lane
Registration : Jennifer Gillis 778-893-1859
Email: mangalam.mandiram ( at) gmail.com
www.mangalam-mandiram.ca (Kirtana will take place before and after Satsanga)

Please Phone Ganges Yoga Studio 250-537-2444 for additional details.

The Living Ahimsa World Tour 2009-2012 embodies the deepest value of peace for every person who strives for harmony in thought, speech and action. Through Ahimsa, Mother Maya teaches us to transform violence, disease and despair into harmony, wellness and joy. Our collective Vow of Ahimsa has a profound impact on the cosmic psyche of peace, and the actualization of a world at peace. Since its inauguration, Living Ahimsa – The Power of Peace World Tour 2009-2012 has attracted more than 145,000 participants worldwide who have taken The Vow of Ahimsa. The Living Ahimsa World Tour officially began at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, Melbourne Australia in December 2009, where Mother’s Address inspired thousands to take the Vow of Ahimsa. The 108th Living Alimsa Peace Mandala was created at this event.

Mother Maya is living proof that a life of inner harmony is the greatest invest-ment we can achieve in our lives. Formally known as Her Holiness, Sri Swami Mayatitananda, Mother Maya is an extraordinary spiritual mother, nurturer, and healer. Belonging to India’s prestigious Vedic lineage, Veda Vyasa, she is the founder of Wise Earth School of Ayurveda, the Mother Om Mission (MOM) and the Living Ahimsa Foundation. As a world-class spiritual teacher, she has been a Keynote Speaker at numerous health, wellness and inter-faith confer-ences. She is a best-selling author (under nom-de-plume, Maya Tiwari) of many books on health and spirituality. From the past 27 years of her devout healing work in the US and around the world, Mother Maya has been serving humanity by awakening the spirit of wellness, peace and harmony in every person whose life she touches.

Om, Celeste.

Article by guest author Ken Lee

Dear Neighbours:

Ashley Hilliard and I are working on an initiative to have an area of southern Salt Spring Island included in the map of unserved broadband internet areas being prepared by Industry Canada. This would potentially qualify the area for up to 50% matching funds, as announced in the federal Budget 2009. We are pursuing this through Saanich-Gulf Islands MP Gary Lunn and this unique online petition. Hopefully, success with this will trigger other ongoing efforts to bring broadband internet access to all of Salt Spring.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION NOW!

Here is the background to this initiative:

Two years ago my Association representing south Salt Spring residents and property owners (SSSIPORA) , approached the CEO’s of Telus and Shaw with a petition signed by dial up users from the south end of our Island. The Petition appealed to them for broadband internet access services.

The good news was that Shaw Cablesystems responded by mapping the existing poles and cabling available along Beaver Point Road and all its connecting roads south of Stewart Road. The bad news was that Shaw then informed us that bringing broadband to the Beaver Point area would require a $700,000 investment and that the return on their investment (ROI) would be insufficient. Happily that picture may well have changed this year with the economic “downturn” and the federal government’s recent creation of Industry Canada to provide significant infrastructure funding to both public and private enterprises.

On June 10 2009, with new reason for hope on the horizon, Ashley and I met with Cecil Saele, the Manager of Planning and Technical Projects,  at the Shaw Cablesystems office in Victoria.

As stated, in MP Gary Lunn’s letter (attached), the federal government is preparing to spend $225million over three years, through Industry Canada, to develop and implement a strategy on extending broadband coverage to all currently unserved communities beginning in 2009. Ashley has been in contact with Gary Lunn’s executive assistant who has urged us to explore this new “window of opportunity.”

Shaw planners told us that the push for this could not come from them but would have to come from the Island residents in the form of petitions and letters to our federal MP.  If we are successful, it is not inconceivable that we could get enough government funding to trigger a partnership with Shaw.

On behalf of the residents in the South Salt Spring, I urge you to unite and sign our online petition and, in your own words, e-mail our MP Gary Lunn at lunnea@garylunn.com or write to him at his Constituency Office at 9843 2nd Street, Sidney BC V8L 3C7.  Since entire families use the internet these days please invite each family member at your address sign this Petition. (Please note that the petition accepts only one name from each email address, so family members will have to have different email addresses in order to sign their names.)

Salt Spring Community Website has most generously assisted us in this huge effort.

“Let us band together to help bring Broadband Access to every home on Salt Spring Island – thank you!”

Sincerely,

Ken Lee, President SSSIPORA South Salt Spring Island Property Owners and Residents Association.
250-537-4551 kennethivorlee@hotmail.com

About the Author: Ken Lee came to Salt Spring in 1991 after retiring from a career in education in Ontario. He is known for his community work as a Trustee with the School Board, the Fire Protection District, as well as serving for 5 years as a Salt Spring Ferry Stakeholder. A keen singer, he also sang for many years with the Salt Spring Singers and Tuned Air.

Ken is a “total admirer” of Michael Moore and his approach to problem solving. This approach worked well at the “Fulford Tea Party” in 1998 which resulted in an increase in ferry fares being frozen for two years. He also successfully intervened, disguised as a shareholder, at a Manulife Corporation AGM in Toronto during the “Battle for Salt Spring.”   Photo submitted by Ken Lee.

Here are additional background documents:

• Letter from Gary Lunn’s Office March 2009, click the blue text to open the letter
• Letter to Gary Lunn June 2009
• Letter to Shaw June 2009

CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION NOW!