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SPIRITUALITY Marianne Williamson draws overflow crowd Charismatic speaker, New Age icon finds receptive Ashland audience Comment By John Darling For the Tidings DailyTidings.com By John Darling For the Tidings Posted Feb. 12, 2016 at 8:58 PM By John Darling For the Tidings Posted Feb. 12, 2016 at 8:58 PM » Social News We live in crazy and scary times, but, said spiritual author Marianne Williamson to an overflow Ashland audience Thursday, love is the “all-encompassing reality” that will help humanity evolve through this shift to a better world. Quoting often from Helen Schucman's 1960s spiritual classic, “A Course in Miracles,” Williamson reminded the audience of 400 at an event sponsored by Havurah Shir Hadash that "we may appear separate, like waves on the ocean, thus creating a widespread depression and powerlessness, but in fact, we’re all one — and this should be the center of a spiritual practice. “There is no place where I stop and you start,” said the dynamic and often humorous Williamson, author of 10 books and seller of 3 million. “God is not outside us and we are not outside each other.” "The advent of amazing technologies has separated us from nature and each other" and, said Williamson, 63, “the way humanity has organized itself now is suicidal. It is disastrous.” Williamson said people have to stop struggling to be enlightened masters, get out of their ego drama and ask God what your role is in saving the planet. Quoting her friend, spiritual author Caroline Myss, she said people also need to stop identifying, she said, with their problems and traumas — a practice Myss called “woundology.” When Williamson opened the mic to questions, many jumped into their therapeutic issues, with one complaining her mother wouldn’t accept her divorce. Instead of greeting this with empathy, as would be expected from a noted spiritual teacher, Williamson retorted, “This is nothing! We have a planet to save! We’re not living for our parents! This is not a tragedy! You’re going to love the next husband — or wife or whatever it is. (laughter) Seen in the context of our greater misery, it’s a good thing! God is in everything!” Williamson emphasized the importance of acknowledging mistakes and asking forgiveness, personally and as a nation, as Germany did after World War II, with good results — but which America has not done for the sins of slavery, the genocide against Indians and the Vietnam War. “Atonement is very important. The universe is self-organizing and self-correcting … If you don’t apologize, you keep repeating the sin. The Emancipation Proclamation abolished slavery, but it couldn’t abolish racist thinking, so it continues. We don’t burn witches anymore, but we still have suspicion about powerful women. We just changed the 'W' in witch to a 'B.' (Defense Secretary Robert) McNamara said Vietnam was a terrible mistake, but we didn’t allow ourselves to fully realize the suffering it brought, so we did it again in Iraq.” The personal and global spiritual journey is deeply tied to the socio-political realm and, said Williamson, accounts for “our country becoming an oligarchy, a plutocracy, a legalized bribery system now.” In an interview, Williamson said “humanity is standing at a crossroads, where we have a choice between the ways of fear or love, the understanding of what that means in our personal and collective lives.” Noting, in the presidential race, the appeals to racism and xenophobia operating beside a “genuine restoration of democracy, a true return to government of, by and for the people, we see some of the worst passions of humanity aroused.” She is supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders, she notes, because he’s the only one embracing that vision of democracy, thus avoiding the danger of “incrementalism,” which is to be avoided because small, gradual steps are “too easily co-opted by the status quo.” Williamson dismissed the oft-heard charge that millennials (Americans who came of age starting about 2000) are disengaged, noting the Sanders fervor is “almost entirely a product of the passion of millennials. Remember that America has this pattern, to do brilliant things, then go to sleep for a couple generations, then a new generation comes along and says ‘what’s going on here?’ Then we emerge from the selfishness. America has too much genius and civic engagement to allow it to continue.” John Darling is an Ashland freelance writer. Reach him at [email protected]. By John Darling For the Tidings DailyTidings.com By John Darling For the Tidings Posted Feb. 12, 2016 at 8:58 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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