Last month Michael returned to de Voorde in the Netherlands to facilitate an LLFP workshop put together by Victoria Annegarn and Maria Bosman, who are organizing a number of events for the Love, Loss, and Forgiveness Project NL. He will be returning there for another workshop on November 23. Here is an update from Michael about his experience there:
“What a delight to back in the Netherlands with a group of people eager to explore love, and how we can live more loving lives! At a time when politicians compete violently and greedily for the prize of power, we often find we are consuming ourselves to death and loving our planet, ourselves, and each other less and less. In the workshop we gazed at ourselves and each other and discovered once again that it is so easy to gaze at a child and be "in" love with her as she is "in" love with us. Yet it seems impossibly difficult to gaze with love at the child/adolescent/adult/old person within ourselves.
I believe that this self-hatred is THE major barrier to living more peaceful and loving lives individually and collectively. We witnessed this self-neglect in ourselves and each other in the workshop. We also discovered that it is NEVER too late to change this hateful attitude (it took me sixty years or more!) Many in the group decided to continue on a more loving path by joining a nine-member, 9-month group close to home, and a number of others decided to come to Dzogchen Beara in Ireland next May for further inspiration.
I am so looking forward to another group on November 23rd because I KNOW that it will be different from the earlier group but essentially the same. I know that these future participants, (like everyone else in the Netherlands, the US, and everywhere) have within them an inexhaustible supply of love that is often covered over by hatred, judgments, and neglect, and if we ALL practice how to uncover this power supply, we could change the world for the better! “
With love, Michael
