Brazil's "Chico Xavier"

Chico Xavier
a film by Daniel Filho
(Brazil, 2010; 125 min.)

from Chico Xavier
Photo courtesy of Lereby Produções

Daniel Filho's film--making its U.S. premiere this week at the Museum of Modern Art's Premiere Brazil! festival--traces the life and work of Spiritist medium Chico Xavier (1910-2002). From childhood, Xavier ("Chico" is the diminutive for Francisco) just knew things about people, and his touch could center and calm them. The youngster's abilities unnerved his abusive godmother and ran counter to the teachings of the Catholic Church. But Chico drew widespread support as he grew into a gentle, unassuming young man who dedicated his life to serving the needs of the people, refusing to profit from what he says he had been given by the spirit world. Bringing individual messages and numerous books by way of automatic writing, he toiled--through personal suffering and sacrifice, through family dissension and turmoil--to offer comfort to others. Xavier became an important figure in Brazilian culture where Spiritism--introduced by the writings of the Frenchman Allan Kardec--accounts for a wide swath of spiritual practice, even among people who are, ostensibly, Roman Catholic.

How will non-Brazilian film-goers--especially skeptics or those with little interest in metaphysical practices--take to Filho's moody and languid narrative? The film has a muted, even dark, palette and can often be lulling over its two hours. But it benefits greatly from the presence of sweet-faced Ângelo Antônio who plays Xavier in his young adulthood (1931-1959). Antônio first appears on screen, and we grab him like an anchor. Few things can throw this guy--the character or the actor playing him--off course.

Visit the Chico Xavier movie site.

MoMA screening schedule:

Friday, July 15 (5pm)
Thursday, July 21 (4:30pm)
Friday, July 22 (4pm)

For a complete program information and schedule of Premiere Brazil! screenings (July 14-27), click here.

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters
The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

A Pilgrimage to Sorte Mountain

Rites in Venezuela
Devotees of the María Lionza religion, a mix of Catholic, West African and other customs, make a pilgrimage each October to Sorte Mountain in Yaracuy State, Venezuela, home of the high altar to the religion's central figure.

Posted via email from Eva Yaa Asantewaa's posterous

Channeler requests questions for her next book

Shirley Humphreys Battie, author of the excellent guide book, Channeling, announces that she is preparing a new book based on questions and answers and would like your help.

She will accept questions related to spirit connections, our world, our future--but not personal questions best addressed in private sessions. A selection of these will be posed to her spirit guides and answered in her book.

You may remain anonymous or give her permission to use your name.

She writes: "Many grateful thanks. Now I will stand back and brace myself--ha ha!"

Contact Shirley through her Web site here.

Happy Samhain!

The veil between the worlds is thin today. I'm wishing you a wonderful, heart-spirited Samhain!

Eva :-)

A creative journey

clipped from www2.warwick.ac.uk The Painless Headache 10:02 Mon 15 Oct 2007 The role of consciousness in writing and the creative process. Download (MP3 format, 10:18, 9.9 MB)

In this podcast, British writer David Morley--whose fascinating series, Writing Challenges, is available through iTunes--offers a visualization process to open your creativity. Although intended for writers and writing students, this visualization can also be used by anyone who wants to enhance psychic development and spiritual communion and is very similar to what I have practiced and taught for decades. Enjoy!

While the solar self sleeps

Sleep learning, sleep healing, sleep divination, sleep creativity, sleep spells for manifestation. They are all possible. Try asking your guide(s) to speak to you, instruct you and work with you while you sleep. And I mean it: that's all you have to do. Sleep, and your guide(s) and your lunar self will team up and go into action.

I often wake up overnight or in the morning with wonderful bits of new information, creative ideas and solutions to current concerns. That's fairly normal, I think, but you can fine-tune and boost this process by taking a few moments as you're about to drift to sleep to specifically ask for what you need and declare your receptivity to whatever Spirit intends for you.

Always ask in the name of the highest good for all and harm to none, in gratitude for Spirit's past and present graces in your life, and with a recognition that Spirit ultimately expresses wisdom and intention in ways that you--or at least your little local self--might not anticipate, even ways that you might find highly amusing!

Keep a notebook and pen nearby so that you can quickly jot down the information you receive before it fades into the aether or before your usual morning busy-ness distracts you.

The information you receive can take many different forms, some of them very subtle; so, pay close attention. You might get very clear, direct words; some relevant song lyrics or lines from poetry; a passage of music; a visual image; a vague but persistent undertone of feeling; a burst of energy. You might be reminded of something that you had forgotten. You might get a warning or be saved from making an error, or you might suddenly know where to find something you had lost. You might feel a calling to go somewhere without knowing that you'll encounter someone who has the answer to your question.

Try this tonight. Sincerely ask for the spirits who work with you to help you take care of something that's been on your mind. Commit yourself to at least carefully considering the wisdom of what you learn and, accordingly, following through with action on your end.

Have a restful night and sweet dreams!

You're soaking in it!

Remember that old commercial with Madge the Manicurist, touting the gentleness of Palmolive dishwashing liquid while her client dips her hands in a bowl that turns out to contain the very same Palmolive? A laugh riot, right? Okay, those were simpler times, but that's the way I think about the spirit world: we're soaking in it. In fact, we're an integral part of it. Some people turn themselves inside out trying to figure out how to contact and work with it. But engagement with the spirit realm is kind of a duh thing.

Many spiritual and metaphysical teachers emphasize the teaching that we really are spirits, first and foremost, as well as incarnate humans. This philosophy makes matters way easier. Connection with the spirit world involves affirming and realizing your spirit self. Why should it be a hassle (or even scary or dangerous) to commune and communicate with the spirit world, when you yourself are part and parcel of it?

View your day-to-day existence from the perspective of your knowledge and wisdom as a spiritual being who, for a precious stretch of time, has chosen to be localized in a body, and you will more readily discover amazing resources of energy, healing, information, creativity and wisdom applicable to the challenges of your daily life.

This post is dedicated to the memory of actress Jan Miner--Palmolive's Madge--who passed away in 2004 at 86.