 We are live from Maji Australia and here's Pip and Sam is giving Pip some strokes and cuddles and Pip is so happy and we are going to hand the camera over to Sam and then she can show you a bit of this amazing property here and come inside and we'll be gathered to do a little periscope live. Pip wants to come in but we need to let Sam in and you get it, did you get this view of all this amazing? This is like a courtyard area and we're going to go in live here at Maji and I'll just let you go in the door here. Can you come over here get a nice seat for you to be able to pivot around this group here? So we're live from Maji Australia and people are starting to join in here and I'm David and next to me is Colin, Jackie, Sue, and Peter. And we're very excited this is an amazing place here we've got to see just a little bit of it but we're here to talk about the community that's here we're here to talk about what's going on here and also we're planning an event for November 4th through the 10th. That's Friday, November 4th through Thursday, November 10th. Coming up this year will be part of the Francis and I are doing a round-the-world tour and coming back to Australia and so we're very excited about that and maybe Jackie you want to talk a little bit about what we've got so far? Oh I'd love to, I'd love to. We've been here since midwinter last year and things have just been developing unfolding. We've had a new year retreat and a silent retreat, we've got silent retreats all lined up. We have several of those a year but this one is exciting. It's beautiful to have David and Francis coming down and joining us so we're going to be accommodating people in the Heritage Homestead here which as you can see is very glorious in the grounds, camping and locally at motels so we are not short of space. We've got beautiful rooms, wonderful spacious grounds to be able to have lots of fun, garden parties, sessions, movies. We're getting very excited already about it. It's great. And Sue, oh do I talk about the horse? There might be a horse. To play. Then apart from the horse there's lots of sheep and there's lots of nooks and crannies in the garden where you can sit and just rest and look at the sunset or out across the fields. It's very, very peaceful. It's kangaroos and parrots, king parrots, cookaburras, lots of nature. It's beautiful. We're on a thousand acre farm so it's very quiet, peaceful. And a working farm too. I've just been down helping a plumber pull a pump out of the well and there's big round bales that are very picturesque and rolling paddocks of loose and it's lovely. Feels very alive. I'm feeling too that it's interesting the timing with November because when you get to November in Australia you're rolling into summer aren't you? That's when summer's coming. So if there are those of you that are tuning in from from Japan, China, Philippines, Hawaii, Bali, anything over the near the South Pacific or if you're just one of those that are tuning in from the northern hemisphere and you know how cold it gets and November it's not decided to get cold. Maybe there's occasionally some snow creeping in there then that could be a fun trip. Now this particular seven day retreat is coming on the heels of the first Course in Miracles conference that they've ever had here that our friend Kate Greaves is planning down in Melbourne. So when we decided to do this week long retreat we thought well there may be people that come from different parts of Australia to join in that conference maybe from Perth and Darwin or up north anywhere the Gold Coast area whatever come down to Melbourne but then it could be part of giving yourself maybe a couple weeks to come to a Friday, Saturday, Sunday conference. I think that's the 28th, 29th and 30th of October and then I think I might be part of a wedding or something down in this beautiful place down south of Melbourne in Mornington Peninsula somewhere in that area but but I have a nice trek you could even rent a car and drive up the coast up towards Sydney and then out to Mudgee. It's very majestic out here we're just out in the this was a farm that goes back to the 1800s and so it's just gorgeous it's spread out with these big rooms here where we'll have sessions. We have beautiful lounges at Sam and I and just Jackie was showing us that could be for breakout groups and some days when it's particularly nice I see some here we are in late afternoon and there's some shade coming across the courtyard but we could even hit some chairs and maybe do some outdoor sessions and I'm sure heading into summer would be just gorgeous here and so it really feels like it's giving yourself a chance to come out into the more like into the outback of going out away. This is the first time I've actually come into Australia. I know I had I went down south of Sydney to Kangaroo Valley which was a beautiful drive and our friend Frank Barker and his and the big tent that he had there and we did a huge like 11-day gathering back then but this is the first time I've really come inland so if you come you probably would have for sure drive or take fly pelican airlines this is a cute little sunset it's like having those little toy airplanes that little boy flies around it was a cute cute little airline very tiny though so you'd either have to fly into Sydney and fly up with fly pelican or you could come and rent a car and if you really wanted to do it up with the big Aussie course of miracles weekend followed by a full retreat you could do the whole two weeks. It's a very beautiful drive from Sydney through the Blue Mountains over here too. We're in the central New South Wales so you actually come through the mountains from Sydney so to rent a car from Sydney and drive this up there. It's no long trip either it's about three and a half hours or 50 minutes on the plane so it's really accessible yeah or the train. There's a train and a coach that will come here as well so which is a nice ride too. Yeah it's not too far. So there's a lot of options and then also this is the home of the living miracles Australia community so maybe you can all share a little bit about how it's been living here they have personal retreats they have silent retreats and then this will be a quite an active retreat with sessions coming up the full week retreat we're talking about but as the year goes on I think already there's there's a silent retreat coming up in a little while and and then and everyone here lives here so it's practicing I mean if you went through these halls you see Jesus around who's inspired us with his his living and his teachings and of course the miracles and calling us to wake up to the kingdom of heaven within and so we had quite a quite a beautiful community going here maybe you could share a little bit about how that's going and maybe also about the the retreats the personal retreats and the silent retreats that are coming up for sure the the silent retreats are not totally silent but they are mostly silent so that they there are very few sessions involved and we do have one-on-one meetings each morning personal meetings with each with each participant and they are very very deep very still and for anybody who really wants to leave the world behind and allow all the thoughts and feelings to arise in a very safe place and where they can actually share those feelings to let them go that's a really concentrated time and in deep stillness very lovely and very much appreciated by those who've done that the other thing that we do offer are those personal stays which is come just live with us in community with no special arrangements just joining what we do so we have a meditation each morning we have an expression session following that and then just go move into all our functions and we have three meals a week together in silence mostly sometimes they're not but most of the time those are in silence and then spontaneously other things happen we have movies deep teaching sessions what else do we do oh we do beautiful movement music to music yes in the morning we do two dance sessions a week or just a mystical morning movement as we've called it gentle music which has been a lovely way to start the day so yeah the personal retreat is this sort of a new thing that it feels a lovely way just to to merge and get a feel of the community and what it's actually offering and getting touches Jackie said with feelings and and uncovering things that want to be released so yeah it's lovely to have people stay here and just be gently a part of the community yeah I might say too that it's and it's kind of as far as our community goes it's it's amazing to have this community going on down here because all four of these to my right are all very long-term experienced community members and that's not always the case in our communities you can have quite a mix going on and then Mel who's actually down in Sydney preparing for when Sam and I come down there on Saturday I'll be down anybody's tuned in from Sydney I think to be able to plug on these live streams anybody's in Sydney it's a big city or you have anybody in the area the Sydney greater Sydney area there's going to be a gathering at our friend Pam's house who's here for one of the retreats from what I've heard is the retreat that the gathering this Saturday two days from now is going to be 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. a three-hour gathering but Mel also lives with these four so there's five and then Michael Karawana from what I understand is is heading down may pop perhaps around August so that will be like six long-term community so actually this is even though this is more new on the map it's got a lot of of depth and stability because if you have six people that have been living for years in community and and practicing together and going through the motion there's a lot of you could say resources available to come and and it's when you look at it take a personal retreat with six people who've been living in community for a long period of time there's lots of nurturing and and those of you witnesses I'm getting back Sam and I just stayed with Maribel and she came up here with her friend Marie Claire from this France and had a wonderful time it was just her first silent retreat ever she was a little nervous coming up but she had such a wonderful time and she felt such a depth and presence and it was the perfect welcoming for her to kind of go on her first silent retreat and feel loved and welcomed and you know it was a very very warm experience for her so there's lots of reasons to come and there's lots of different avenues and also the website that we use here is it is it acim-australia.info that's it yeah that's it yeah and that's got all our upcoming retreats on it we're doing a midwinter not quite midwinter but a warm winter retreat too which will be more interactive with sessions and movies music and so that's on the on the website too for details there's a taster for November yeah that would be nice to come yeah and of course where anyone coming and living with us is going to just naturally fall into how we do things it's not difficult it's it's a natural way of being it's much more natural than than the way that we generally live in the world and so everyone who comes does feel that and and drops very gently into it it's a way of just following intuition a very deep knowing that's there already that everyone has it's just allowing that to be felt and it really is just glorious to be alongside there we're all so grateful when people come yeah for some of you that that even haven't been in spirituality that much you know when you go to a country and you you start to go out to the rural areas it's almost like it turns the clock back you know when you're in buildings that have been here for many many decades and and just the drives can be very meditative and the feel of of coming out here sam was noticing too when we came and we mentioned something about the news of the the Brussels attacks and oh oh that there was no awareness of the Brussels attacks and and Sam was delighted to see that in the sense that it's a real devotional practice you're giving your mind over to God you know you're not caught up in the pace of oftentimes the cities and Sam was noticing the airport we were in Sydney airport the people and the movement and there's a there's a certain frenetic kind of energy and then when you come out and it's so quiet and still it's just a symbol of of giving your mind permission to just sink and relax and come back to that very natural rhythm you know there was a famous course of miracles teacher years ago who's passed away called Tara Singh and he loves doing retreats and he did a 40 day in the wilderness retreat down an angel fire in New Mexico and he would say get in touch with the dawn and get in touch with the dusk and he was from India it was a Sikh but he was very devoted to the course and and the rhythm of the silence and nurturing your soul and so you know a lot of times when people think about going to course conferences or whatever it's what city what attractions and all those kind of things this this has a rhythm and stillness that is very conducive to nurturing your soul so that could be another consideration if you if you feel like you have a very fast paced life and you feel like it's sometimes it spins out of control and you you need a little more spaciousness to to sink down in a natural way then I can't think of a better way than being with friends and as I said this is these are very long-term residents in communities so this is not like a new thing for them they had to face a lot of darkness that's a lot of it's come up and that's the journey of the authentic spiritual journeys you have to go through the darkness to the light but it helps to have mighty maids it helps and support when you're going through that I know I went through a lot of it in a very solitary way and I really wouldn't wish that on anyone that's more the old style and this this is more the mighty maids are the the new style of Jesus saying yeah you have mighty companions and you can go through it you can feel the support that's with that so we're kind of in this room here it's very lit up and we have a big screen tv and a beautiful stove but we thought we would all get up and walk down the corridor and since there's good wi-fi and we can do this with periscope we'll lead you down the corridor one of our corridors and out onto the veranda and then Sam can get a shot of the farm which we would love to show you as well because we could describe it but there's a picture is worth a thousand words so we'll just get up and invite you to come along with this to see for all out here we'll do this on my screen just beautiful here's the veranda some chairs film us from right there I'll just come out here and see if you want to come out we'll just this and this this is the farm and the back of the seeper there we're welcoming canady we welcome you we invite you wow we always have the best shot for less we love you we love you thank you see you in a while see you just push the button