News from Jules | 04.25.2022 | Leap of Faith Part 2
How I get there and what happens once I’m there is all a leap of faith.
Even better than if it was planned. This is what happens when you take a leap of faith, not a leap of fear. The universe will provide.
I’m leaving Portland in about a week for Rhinebeck, NY, to live and work at the Omega Institute for the 2022 Retreat Season from June to October. I’ll be on the Guest Services team stationed by the cafe at the entrance to campus so that we can help faculty and participant guests easefully get oriented and stay connected while they’re on the 250-acre forested campus. Kind of like a concierge.
This is not my first leap across the country. Growing up, I bounced between the West and East Coasts. Raised in Portland, Ore. we spent summers with extended family on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
After high school, I started college in Boston. But I returned to Portland for a semester off and finished college in Salem, Ore. Then I moved back to Boston after graduation, for all of six months, before returning once again to Oregon for a dream job working as a Program Leader (PL) at Outdoor School in Molalla. I decided to stay in Portland ever since.
Most of those were actually leaps of fear. Driven by hurt and assumptions. Away from something I was scared of facing, and yet I was still looking backward over my shoulder while jumping off what felt like a cliff of uncertainty.
Except for the last one.
Coming back to Oregon in 2005 was a leap of faith.
What’s the difference?
I knew enough so my eyes were wide open and looking forward. I believed in what I was leaping toward and why.
Without specific expectations of an outcome beyond heading in the right direction. Driven less by uncertainty and more by curiosity, it was a challenging, yet attainable, jumping across—not off.
Worth attempting to see: what is possible.
Now, instead of a teacher, I get to be a student:
A student interacting with renowned teachers and committed practitioners of personal growth and spiritual development
A student of how a large, international retreat center works
And especially a student of sustainable living in harmony with nature
After getting laid off in July, paying off the rest of my debt in August, and letting go of my apartment lease in October, I am free to prototype all of my dreams at once.
More than anything, I’m packing questions about how my life might work—how to consistently earn income, meet my essential needs, stay prepared and feed the dream while honoring excellent self-care?
And staying true to myself.
Probably like most of the guests I’ll interact with or drive around in the golf cart—fellow seekers, artists, and lifelong learners.
Here’s what I know.
Omega is a nonprofit, mission-driven, and donor-supported educational organization, according to the website. For more than 40 years Omega has been at the forefront of holistic studies—helping people and organizations integrate personal growth into social change—with more than 23,000 people attending Omega’s 350+ in-person retreats, workshops, and more, plus close to two million people participating in online offerings each year.
Omega was conceived as a university for lifelong learning.
“We took our name from the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a 20th century Jesuit priest and evolutionary biologist who spoke of the ‘Omega Point,’ or the point of unity toward which all of life is evolving,” according to the website.
The campus is a former Yiddish cultural summer camp built in 1923, that now has over a 100-buildings, including lakefront staff housing at the intersections of The Way, Asana Avenue, Buddha Boulevard, and what appears to be a “Spiritual Path” leading back to the center of campus.
At least according to Wikipedia and what I’ve learned from the four former and current seasonal staff members that I’ve been introduced to so far via text message and Facebook by mutual friends.
And that’s about all I know.
Why I’m going, what I signed up for and how it looks from the Internet.
Because I’ve never been to the Hudson Valley or Rhinebeck, NY, or Omega.
Because I’ve never been to my future—yet.
So how I get there and what happens once I’m there is all a leap of faith.
May you trust what is unfolding this week.
Love,
Jules