Lotus and Lily 2024

Description

The Lotus and The Lily
Harvest 2024 & Seed 2025

“The Buddha said…
when conditions are sufficient, there is a manifestation”
You Are Here, Thich Nhat Hanh

“Here Jesus says…
when we pursue a right relationship with the Universal One and allow that relationship to realign our lives, we produce a condition of receptivity in which anything we need to help us complete our purpose in life will be supplied by the universe.”

Blessings of the Cosmos, Neil Douglas-Klotz

Before we begin: 2025 is a 9 year!

In this annual year-ending/year-creating prayer intensive, we pay close attention to the numeric vibration of the year we are creating. 2025 is a 9 year (2 + 0 + 2 + 5 = 9). Nine is the completion of the circle, the culmination of all numbers. It holds the energy and possibility of creation. Nine is the foundational number of the divine feminine. Nine is the seed of 18—the life force in the Jewish tradition, it builds to 27—our sacred witch number, doubles to 54—the number of beads in the ancient Goddess rosary, doubles again to 108—the sacred number of the mala, and arrives at 216—the highest and holiest number in Buddhist and Taoist traditions. Nine is the ending and beginning. 

So, 2025 holds great meaning and powerful potential. There couldn’t be a more powerful moment to gather to create the life that wants to be lived in and through and as each one of us. Our depth numerologist, Emma Kupu Mitchell, is our guide into the mysteries of the nine. Do not miss her bonus video on the profound call to integrate and release the entire cycle since 2016.

What is The Lotus and The Lily: Harvest 2024—Seed 2025 prayer intensive?

Let’s begin with the bizarre back story

When Writing Down Your Soul came out January 1, 2009, churches and bookstores across the country from San Francisco to New York City invited me to visit. I accepted every invitation, thrilled to introduce deep soul writing to thousands. But as a new writer published by a small press, it was all at my expense and by November I had to face the reality that I was bankrupt. I needed to do something—and fast. 

At the time, all the manifestation teachers and books preached the law of attraction with instructions to focus relentlessly on what you want. And if that didn’t work, and most of the time it didn’t, they suggested it was probably because you weren’t focusing hard enough. I knew lots of people, myself included, for whom the law of attraction wasn’t working. And I didn’t have time for another failure. 

So I put down all those books, picked up my deep soul writing journal, asked my beloved divine Voice what to do, and received startling and strict guidance:

• Soul write at the deepest level every single day for the entire month of December
• In the first week, prepare for radical possibility by expanding and strengthening your mystic abilities 
• In the second, look back at the life you’ve already created, uncovering all you have ignored, neglected, misunderstood
• In the third, recognize that all your crusty old stories are preventing a beautiful new future from reaching you, so let them go, forgive at a level you have never experienced 
• In the fourth week, you will finally be ready to begin to imagine a beautiful abundant life—but what you want will surprise you

None of this was in any standard-issue prosperity book, but I had nothing to lose. So I plunged into thirty days of the most intense, surprising, and wildly healing deep soul writing of my life. On January 1, I felt ready to call in a beautiful 2010. But something odd happened. Instead of picking up my journal, I picked up Thich Nhat Hanh’s You Are Here and stayed glued to my chair until 3 pm, when I stumbled upon the sentence that changed my life, upended our understanding of manifestation, and birthed this prayer intensive you love so much: 

“The Buddha said when conditions are sufficient there is a manifestation.” 

I shot out of my chair screaming: “It’s not about the manifestation! It’s about the conditions!” With that, the law of attraction flew out the window and a radical and far more beautiful truth flew in. I finally knew what I needed. In deep soul writing, I asked for my conditions. Because I had spent a month preparing to ask this question, my conditions came quickly. I recognized immediately that these six sentences describe perfectly how I want to live—how I consciously choose to live. To make sure my conditions stayed front of mind, I made a simple mandala and wrote them in the center. Then starting the next day, I stood in front of my mandala every morning, stared at it, and spoke my six conditions aloud. 

On February 6 I met with the bankruptcy attorney. He explained the process, then asked one last question: “How much money did you make in January?” I answered. He got up, escorted me to the door, opened it, and said, “You’re not bankrupt. Call me when you’re bankrupt.” 

I didn’t understand how my mandala worked, but I knew it had. So I set out to learn about mandalas. It’s a profound mystical education that continues to this day. The more I learned, the more astonished I became by the power of this ancient, yet incredibly simple, sacred geometric form. 

I needed to share this magical process, so I wrote about what had happened in my Notes from the Field Sunday newsletter and a invited a few subscribers to join me in the first intensive of what eventually became The Lotus and the Lily. 

The Lotus and the Lily becomes a book and ever-evolving intensive

The Lotus and the Lily became my 2nd book. It was published October 2012 and is now in thousands of hands. I continued to teach the process every fall, always incorporating expansive new ideas. When we gathered in November of 2020 to look back at that astonishing year of covid and quarantine, we realized we needed much more time to look back. Luckily Emma Kupu Mitchell had just completed her labyrinth facilitation certification and she introduced a truly radical and magical way to look back at the past 11 months of the year on a medieval 11-circuit labyrinth. After walking the labyrinth to look at the past, we got the wild idea to walk the labyrinth a second time, to see if we could hear whispers from the future. Surprise, we did! 

In short, The Lotus and the Lily process is alive. It is constantly showing us new and even more magical ways to integrate the life we’ve lived and prepare us to welcome the life that wants to be lived in the year to come. 

Here we are 15 years later

Mystics around the world now gather from mid-November to mid-December to identify and integrate all that has happened in the year ending, identify the hidden treasures it has held for us, and create space for the new by untying the old. Then, as we approach Solstice, we listen for whispers from the seed that wants to be planted and nourished in the coming year. With that tender seed in our hands, we create a Mystic Mandala infused with images of our conditions—how we will nourish that seed in the next solar year. 

Without fail, we are stunned by how the mandala we make with our hands—the mandala we think we understand—sings a song all her own, delivering insights, surprises, and synchronicities throughout the coming year, guiding us gently but firmly into a far more beautiful version of who we came here to be than we thought possible. 

The Lotus and the Lily is not a standard issue manifestation process 

Indeed, it is the diametric opposite of both the patriarchal drumbeat to set goals and work hard to achieve them and the new age “law of attraction” command to focus on what you want. It is not a treasure map, vision board, or any other materialistic process packaged as spirituality. The Lotus and the Lily is a radical mystical exploration based on the eerily similar teachings of Buddha and Yeshua on what actually creates a beautiful and abundant life coupled with the eerie power of the mandala to gather all we need to live the life that wants to be lived. 

This miraculous process comes to life without any attempts to manage, control, or predict the outcome. It is a powerful and delight-filled vehicle for alchemical transformation. And a vibrant example of the shared magic that happens in the Theatre of the Miraculous. 

What will we explore together?

Gathering 1—Why and How We Look Back
We will initiate our intensive listening to the teachings of Buddha on the primacy of creating the conditions that create a fertile environment for the life that wants to be lived. This truth is radical, thrilling, and ignored in the mainstream. 

We will look back at the 11 months of 2024, listening for each month to sing its song, and noticing how each month formed and fed and changed us in ways we didn’t recognize at the time. To help us get started, Cathy Stevens Pratt will teach us how to make a simple 3-circuit labyrinth. Then, in community, we will walk that labyrinth, capturing January’s harvest song in colors or words, or perhaps a phrase, image, or symbol.

During the following week, each of us will make 3-circuit labyrinths and listen for the harvest songs of February through November. 

Gathering 2—Listen for the Harvest Song of 2024
We will record the words or symbols of the 11 songs of January through November on a medieval 11-circuit labyrinth, and then, in a Theatre of the Miraculous community experience, we will walk that labyrinth together, listening for 2024 to reveal her overall harvest song. This experience is always a revelation and often a complete surprise. This is the moment each of us realizes what the year coming to a close has really been about.

With clarity about the meaning of 2024, we will then look back further through all that has happened since the last 9 year in 2016. This will be the richest looking back experience of our lives.

Gathering 3—Create Space for 2025
A foundational teaching in The Lotus and the Lily is that if you want to create something new, you must first untie the knots of the stories and wounds held deep in your body and psyche. Forgive is a far richer word than we realize. In Greek it means “untie the knot.” In Hebrew it means “to make empty.” In Latin, “to give away without reservation.” In a community deep soul writing experience, 2024 will ask us 9 sacred questions. Then 2024 will invite us to identify and shed all that is too small for us and return it to the earth in a ceremonial and sacred way, cleansing and clearing our bodies to prepare to create the year to come. This week of release and forgiveness is the secret to the magic that is The Lotus and the Lily.

Special Guest: Before we can create 2025, we must release and forgive the entire cycle since 2016, so Kahu Lāhela Johnson will guide us through a special experience of the Hawaiian practice of Hana I Ka Pono. 

Gathering 4—Listen for the Seed  
Having untied old knots and shed what has constricted us, we are ready to begin the process of creating 2025 by tuning into what we really want. We ask our hearts to reveal our most precious values, and the sacred medicines we long to embody, embrace, and share. To hear our hearts speak, we will share a Theatre of the Miraculous journey experience led by Cathy Stevens Pratt. We will step into the center of the 11-circuit labyrinth aware that we have dropped into the Divine Womb where all creation begins. At the center, the seed of the life that wants to be lived in and through and as you in 2025 will whisper something just for you—perhaps a color, word, symbol, image, or phrase. It is always a mystery. 

Gathering 5—Create Your 2025 Mandala and Prayers
We will talk about how to create a Soul Day—a personal retreat to tune into the conditions that will nourish the seed of the life that wants to be lived—and how to create a Mystic Mandala that holds your seed and the conditions that will generate an abundant and beautiful life. As we make and name our mandalas, we acknowledge that we are not making the mandala, our soul is. The mandala is the physical expression of the core principle: you are not praying, you are being prayed. You think your hands are making the mandala, but in truth, it is making you. 

You won’t really know what your soul has put into form until next November, when we gather once more to look back at the year ending. That’s when you will discover the inner meaning of your 2025 mandala. And it will be a surprise. A holy and sweet surprise. 

Gathering 6—NEW: A Wild Array of Possibilities
There is no end to the variety of mandalas: size, color, material, content, shape…every mandala is unique. People have made mandalas out of paint, clay, canvas, cardboard, cloth, weaving, even quilting. In this fun gathering, the community will share various mandalas they have made in the past or imagine they’d like to make. It’s a creative explosion. 

Gathering 7—Celebrate and Bless our Mandalas
We have no gatherings for several weeks so that everyone can enjoy the Solstice and holiday season. During our hiatus there will be plenty of time to revisit your looking back and release experiences, and hold your Soul Day and create your 2025 mandala. 

We gather on Sunday, January 5, 2025 to share, bless, and celebrate our 2025 mandalas. In this final gathering, we will listen deeply to how Neil Douglas Klotz translates the short and cryptic “seek first the kingdom” into a 17-line ecstatic mystical poem from Yeshua’s Aramaic. 

And we will talk about how to keep our mandala and conditions alive all year long with prayer. 

Then, we will watch in awe as the life that wants to be lived in 2025 emerges in ways more magical and exciting than anything we could have planned.

You will leave The Lotus and the Lily with an array of prayers including:

• A Magician’s Anointing Spell 
• Prayer of a Strong Container
• Your Harvest Song of 2025
• Hana I Ka Pono 
• Your Seed for 2025
• The Name of Your 2025 year
• Your 2025 Mystic Mandala
• Personal Conditions and Chant 
• Solar Vow—received on the first day of 2025 and repeated all year in your deep soul writing

What will you receive?

Seven 2 ¼ hour live sessions with prayer artist and mystic witch Janet Conner, and guests: depth numerologist, elemental astrologer, and labyrinth facilitator, Emma Kupu Mitchell, and Her Sacred Image artist, oracle, and journey guide, Cathy Stevens Pratt. And special guest Kahu Lāhela Johnson. 

Access to a password-protected resource page with recordings of all sessions in both video and audio formats, a special Getting Started PDF section with Welcome and Prayer Handbooks, two-piece large 11-circuit labyrinth, 3-circuit seed pattern, plus bonus videos:

• Numerology of 2025/9 with Emma Kupu Mitchell and Janet Conner
• How to Make a 3-Circuit Labyrinth with Cathy Pratt 
• How to Use a Labyrinth to Look Back with Emma Kupu Mitchell  
• How to Make a Mystic Mandala with Janet Conner
• Seven Steps to Get Into Theta with Janet Conner 
• Theta Music to support your soul writing and labyrinth walking 

Membership in a private Facebook discussion group (optional) 

Our Schedule

We meet on TUESDAYS at 6pm Eastern Standard Time.
7p Atlantic, 6p Eastern, 5p Central, 4p Mountain, 3p Pacific 1p Hawaii,
Wednesday morning daylight savings time in the Pacific Rim, 11a in New Zealand

• All sessions are recorded and available within 2 days on our Resource Page 
• To support our friends in Europe, Janet will host a UK/EU watch party on Thursdays at 2p Eastern which is 7p UK/8p EU/9p Eastern Europe. Everyone is welcome, no matter where you live
• To ensure everyone can come to our mandala celebration, it is held on Sunday January 5 at 2pm Eastern
  

1. Tuesday November 12, 6:00-8:15 pm Eastern
2. Tuesday, November 19, 6:00-8:15 pm Eastern
3. Tuesday, November 26, 6:00-8:15 pm Eastern
4. Tuesday, December 3, 6:00-8:15 pm Eastern
5. Tuesday, December 10, 6:00-8:15 pm Eastern
6. Tuesday, December 17, 6:00-8:15 pm Eastern
7. Sunday, January 5, 2025, 2:00-4:00 pm Eastern—Mandala Blessing and Celebration 

If you are an international student, use this tool to convert time zones (Sarah, insert active link)

Registration

If you require financial assistance, Janet invites you to choose the self-selected scholarship option.

If you wish to support this initiative, which has made it possible for hundreds to join intensives at a significant savings, please consider adding a donation of $50 or more to your registration. Note: The $50 is not a registration option, it is an additional gift to support others. 

$ 225 if this is your first intensive in 2024
$ 180 if you were in ART 3 or ART 4 in 2024
$ 126 self-selected scholarship
$ 50 additional donation to support scholarships