2024 & ACIM
My mission for 2024 and I will be sharing my journey
The other day I posted on Facebook…anyone want to do ACIM with me in 2024? And I was amazed how many people had no clue what I was referring to. My first response was really?? How do you have no idea what ACIM stands for? I then took a step back and a breath too and reminded myself that I have had an interesting upbringing and subsequent journey throughout my life. Heck! I was doing yoga at 3 with my single mother in our apartment back in 1972! Why Am I surprised so many had no clue what it was? I shouldn’t be.
So what is ACIM? It’s an acronym for A Course in Miracles. It is a self-study course that changes how we see ourselves, the world, and God. There are 3 books in one in the course. A text, a workbook with 365 daily lessons to follow, and a manual for teachers. The Text presents the theory of the Course, laying out its central ideas in a holistic, symphonic-like progression. The Workbook for Students provides daily lessons that focus on integrating the Course’s ideas into your life. The Manual for Teachers (which is for everyone, because we are all students and teachers) is written in question-and-answer form to address many of the most important and practical Course topics.
One of the gifts of the course is a mind that is less prone to fear and increasingly calm and peaceful, no matter what else may be going on in your life. The last time I did this self-study course was in 2019 after an issue where my only daughter stopped talking to us for a time. (5 months to be exact. She has subsequently stopped talking to us completely after reconnecting with us for about a year). Since that time I completed a 100-hour Yoga Sutras course and about another 500 hours of yoga & Ayurvedic training and have facilitated four 300-hour yoga teacher trainings that include 50 hours of training on the Yoga Sutras. What I am discovering is that ACIM, the Sutras, and other philosophies are all saying the same thing! Just in a different way!
Why do I want to do this again? Why do people reread the Bible or other religious or philosophical texts? because there is a lesson there that was missed before and you are now ready for it! Life tends to circle back around again and again and you need to read and reread things to get the message.
2024 is significant for me. I am turning 55 in early January. My mother passed away at 55 in 2002, she missed 56 by 2 months. This year is, as I have put it a BIGGIE. And I need to get through it with everything I got. I’m anticipating an emotional year ahead simply because of the fact that I am now the same age she was. I am grateful that I am the yogi that I am today because I have many things in my toolbox to help me get through the next 12 months. These past few weeks I have felt like I have been dumping that toolbox out and examining everything in it and ACIM floated to the top.
I first learned about ACIM is back in 1992. I was 23 and found Marianne Williamson’s book A Return to Love Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles. Yes! I did say 23. Keep in mind, that my childhood and life have never been anything that resembles “normal”. Yoga at the age of 3 with my mother is just the beginning of the unusualness of things I have been exposed to since I was a child. It’s little wonder looking back that I am doing what I am now. Anyway, I was fascinated by what I read! So much so that my mother, heaven love her, went to the bookstore and ordered, yes ordered because it was not readily available in stores, A Course in Miracles for me. It is the book I have used each time I have done the course since then. the edition I have was also published in 1992.
As I decided to explore ACIM again in the coming year, I thought why not do it with someone? Have an accountability partner to keep me on track, especially doing the daily lessons. Hence my post on Facebook the other day. I posted it figuring I wouldn’t get anyone who would want to do it. To my surprise there were several! Especially after I explained what it was to some. So I have created a book club/study group that will begin to meet in January. The first day is the 10th at 6 pm and I said, we’ll figure out the rest then. If you’d like to join please visit my yoga studio’s website for details.
In the meantime, I will obviously begin the course on January 1st. And before that, probably later today actually, I will begin to reread Marianne Williamson’s book for the first time in many years to get prepped for the course. I plan to write about this journey and share it. I want to not only share my experience as I circle back around and revisit ACIM but I also want to give a perspective that previously I did not have. How what the course is saying in Christian terms directly correlates to what we find in Yoga and other philosophies. Yoga means union and one of the ways we create union with others is to find common ground on things. Just reviewing the books and other things I have been reading all of 2023, honestly, I am discovering that there are many voices all saying the same thing but in different forms. It reminds me of what my mom used to say to me all the time…we’re all just walking each other home. just because we’re not on the same exact path doesn’t mean we’re not walking together. My hope in sharing is that you who read what I write and share will be inspired too. Thanks for joining me.