Big Changes and Some New Classes

First, I want to assure everyone that things feel very much in tune and blessed — in fact, so heavily synchronized that even Stephen and I are shaking our heads: the big news is that Stephen and I have decided to file for divorce and actually did so on New Year’s Eve 2009. We’ve just been awaiting the right time to make a public announcement. Synchronicity upon synchronicity has said that today is that longed for “right time.”

Our relationship has always been primarily based on friendship and healing rather than the full spectrum of marriage. He helped me heal from my brain injury, and I helped him move through his horrendous ordeal with Lyme Disease. We both feel so grateful for each other’s help and support. Once he healed last year, though, we were forced to take a good look at our relationship and what we both wanted from a marriage. After nearly 12 months of discussion, we found that there is still a great deal of love between us, but we have not been in love for a very, very long time. Some key compatibilities are missing, and we both want more. We’ve compromised for years due to health, but we recognize that the degree and nature of these compromises results in neither of us being able to live fully as ourselves.

Our decision is mutual and we’re both excited about moving on with our lives. We will stay friends and will still cross refer to each other, but I will be relocating back to the Chicago area by our lease end on July 1, potentially much sooner.

With Stephen well and only a limited time of geographical proximity, he and I have decided to offer some classes together before I move. If you’ve ever wanted to experience the compatibilities we do have as teachers, along with the complementary bits of knowledge we offer, the next classes would be a really good chance to tap into that. Please see details below regarding the weekend of February 20th and 21st in the SF Bay Area.

Perhaps one of your last chances to take classes from both of us at the same time, same place! Before Stephen got sick, we used to co-teach all our Reiki classes, and in honor of that, we’re offering a combined Reiki Level 1 and 2 Class on February 20th from 10-6 in Santa Rosa. Class size is limited to 10 students, and because there are two teachers, cost is $400 if prepaid by January 31; $450 afterwards. Stephen taught me Reiki in 2002, and he brings his own slant from having studied with Buddhist monks in Vietnam. If you have already studied Reiki with me, but not with both of us, we will offer a $100 discount on this class for you. It’s sure to be different than any we teach individually.

More fun on Sunday, February 21st: Intuition and Essence Workshop, SF Bay Area location TBA: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Laura will teach how to awaken and enhance your own intuition with a focus on Medical Intuitive and Soul Messages; Stephen will teach on Essence and the Seven Qualities of Essence. Cost is $333 if prepaid by January 31st; $383 afterwards. To register for either class, please click here.
or email us at: stephenbruno@yahoo.com or brunoleaf@yahoo.com.

Hope to see you there!

* A little update: things have synchronized so fast since posting this that we will no longer be offering these classes. I am moving to Chicago by mid-February, possibly sooner.

Intuition, Animal Communication and Essence

Many clients and students express interest in deepening their intuition and awareness so that they can find ways of communicating with their own pets and/or animals in the wild.  The process I utilize during Animal Communication Sessions (and all intuitive sessions, for that matter!) involves embracing what my husband and I call “essence.” 

My husband, Stephen Bruno, created the following list in 2004.  Although he no longer teaches, he utlizes the same essence process in his photography, which is why so many people feel deeply affected by his work–especially portraits of animals and people.  He titled this list “The Nature of Essence”:

• You are created in your essence and not as a product of your “enculturation.”
• Essence is aware of its own existence without interference.
• Often experienced as love, truth, energy, compassion and peace.
• There is no intermediate substance necessary for the awareness of essence.
• It is not what exists.  It is the existence itself.
• Essence is the organ of perception and experience.  Essence transcends the human senses.
• Essence is when what perceives and what is perceived is the same object.
• Essence is the awareness of its own existence directly, intimately, and with certainty.
• Essence is the different quality of experiencing life.
• Essence is without judgment, self-importance, or conditioning.
• Independent of the nervous system and transcends physiological process.
• Essence can exist without the physical or human host organism.
• It exists whether there is action or not.
• Embracing essence creates wisdom, compassion, and healing.
• Essence is a subtle but exquisite sense of compassion for all life.
• Essence is a pleasurable quality with an unlimited source of energy.
• Essence has no identification with previous conscious experience.
• Your personality is changed in cooperation with embracing essence.
• There is no end to the development and unfolding of your essence.
• Will completely quench the heart, soul and offer peace of mind.
• Essence has no cultural or gender bias.
• Hidden within, yet it is not part of its nature to be concealed or secret.
• Essence embraces individual and universal preservation equally.
• All living things have a unique essence.
• Essence is within, just as space is within us.
• Essence is a different structure of existence from the body.
• Essence is the ultimate reality that empowers all outward manifestations and change.
• When in touch with essence we have substance.
• Essence is known best by remembering it.
• Essence is often not recognized even when it is present.
• When essence is recognized, it starts to move to a deeper sphere.
• To be a genuine human being, a complete human being, is to be essence.
• Essence is covered up as your personality develops.
• The power, resilience, and strength of essence are unlimited.
• Exposes personality emptiness, bares its hurts, and makes transparent its falsehood.
• Self-esteem, when it is authentic, is the value of essence.
• The rediscovery of essence is the beginning of the true nature of life.
• It is endless in its aspects, qualities, dimensions, capacities, and possibilities.
• Life becomes a process of creative discovery when essence is experienced as the true being.

In addition to specific techniques for enhancing intuition and telepathy, my classes often help people to embrace their natural essence. I thought I’d share some information here for those who cannot attend in person.

www.internationalrenaissancecoaching.com