Awakeners

By Audrey Aanestad

http://www.awakenersthemovie.com

As we struggle through the turmoil of political, environmental, and social challenges, the need for drastic change is becoming more and more vital. But the responsibilities that accompany change often seem too overwhelming to bear, so many of us choose the life of complacent comfort. Fortunately, this complacency is becoming increasingly infringed upon, as ecofriendly, spiritually conscious, and socially responsible messages have begun infiltrating the mainstream media. Although this wave of conscious media has begun to chip away at the state of depression brought about by negative news, coma-inducing commercials, and mindless movies, the colorless life of mainstream media continues to dominate our culture.

Consequently, conscious film producers, directors, and screenwriters are beginning to take action, declaring their mission to awaken humanity from its slumber by harnessing the power and attention invoked by media. One such visionary filmmaker is Audra Kelly, CEO of Cowboy’s Sweetheart Films LLC. Audra has devoted her life to serving humanity by creating films that inspire, expand consciousness, and awaken people to greater realities. Audra’s current film project is designed to provide humanity with such a wake-up call … and she has appropriately named this film Awakeners.

Awakeners is an independent film designed to break down the barriers between “conscious seekers” and “the mainstream” by delivering a powerful message of finding one’s true self amid the common human experience. In the storyline of Awakeners, Kelly Forrester is shocked out of her complacent lifestyle when she gains the ability to see beyond normal perception. She moves into a spiritual “halfway house” shared with others who are experiencing similar phenomena and embarks upon a journey of profound transformation. Together, they are assisted by “the other side” in awakening their latent powers. To some, they appear to be lunatics, and to others, wise sages. But through their journeys, they all discover their awakened purpose in assisting humanity through the emerging paradigm shift.

Audra has chosen to deliver her message through a story of the awakening process because she believes that many people are unaware of the signs of awakening. Audra says, “If film viewers can relate to the Awakeners characters, identifying with their struggles to discover a greater purpose, then they too will be inspired to search for their own purpose. I also hope to inspire viewers to take responsibility for changing themselves … and their world. When a film reaches out to an audience … moving them to laugh and cry while inspiring them to awaken to a greater reality … people will have no choice but to leave transformed!”

Audra Kelly, Awakeners executive producer, exudes a profound and rare commitment to the success of Awakeners in local, national, and international markets. She believes that much is at stake in divisive media and expresses the urgency of delivering a unification of humanity through inspiring films. Audra is not alone in this belief, as 19 percent of adults in the United States have been identified as belonging to the lifestyle of health and sustainability (LOHAS) market, members of which value the mind-body-spirit connection and carry the ultimate purpose of reaching their full human potential. The success of Spiritual Cinema Circle also indicates the increasing popularity of inspirational films. This growing population longs for films such as Awakeners to hit the movie theaters. People are asking for a shift toward conscious filmmaking, which indicates that consciousness-raising films may soon dominate the industry. Audra’s vision is that Awakeners will kick-start this trend, reaching blockbuster status by resonating in the hearts of its viewers.

The Awakeners film project is in development, with the projected production date set at early 2009.

References: http://www.lohas.com/about.html,,www.awakenersthemovie.com, www.cowboyssweetheartfilms.com

The Celestine Prophecy Movie

By James Redfield

We wanted to know how James Redfield felt about his book becoming a movie and why it's so important at this time in our history. We will be bringing The Celestine Prophecy to our community in the same spirit the book was first distributed, which is at the grassroots level first. The Nine Insights that were in the book could not be more relevant than they are today. They are as follows:

The Nine Insights

1. We are discovering again that we live in a deeply mysterious world, full of sudden coincidences and synchronistic encounters that seem destined.
2. As more of us awaken to this mystery, we will create a completely new worldview - redefining the universe as energetic and sacred.
3. We will discover that everything around us, all matter, consists of and stems from a divine energy that we are beginning to see and understand.
4. From this perspective, we can see that humans have always felt insecure and disconnected from this sacred source, and have tried to take energy by dominating each other. This struggle is responsible for all human conflict.
5. The only solution is to cultivate a personal reconnection with the divine, a mystical transformation that fills us with unlimited energy and love, extends our perception of beauty, and lifts us into a Higher-Self Awareness.
6. In this awareness, we can release our own pattern of controlling, and discover a specific truth, a mission, we are here to share that helps evolve humanity toward this new level of reality.
7. In pursuit of this mission, we can discover an inner intuition that shows us where to go and what to do, and if we make only positive interpretations, brings a flow of coincidences that opens the doors for our mission to unfold.
8. When enough of us enter this evolutionary flow, always giving energy to the higher-self of everyone we meet, we will build a new culture where our bodies evolve to ever higher levels of energy and perception.
   
9. In this way, we participate in the long journey of evolution from the Big Bang to life's ultimate goal: to energize our bodies, generation by generation, until we walk into a heaven we can finally see.

Q: Your book stayed on The New York Times best-seller list for more than three years and was published in more than 40 languages, with more than 14 million copies in print, and it's still selling everywhere now. Why is it so popular?

A: I think because it puts into words what so many of us are experiencing. We all want a deeper sense of spiritual meaning and the book speaks to that.

Q: What motivated you to make this movie?

A: Our foremost intent as we created this film was to make an entertaining movie that stayed true to the book - or more accurately, that stayed true to the essence of the book. After all, a film is a different medium. Intended meanings, messages, have to be shown in the flow of human action. Not merely discussed. There was no way to get all the conversations of the book into the cinematic version. So we opted for making sure that our project captured the more holistic "feeling" that most people reported from the novel - one of being "awakened to the magic of life" and made aware of those mysterious coincidences that bring forth messages and opportunities that seem "beyond chance" and "just what we need" to expand ourselves and live the lives we really want. The book reflected a new spiritual inclination of our time - to explore the deeper spiritual dimensions of this life. And we wanted the movie to reflect no less than that.

Q: And now that the movie is coming to our community, do you think it will also speak to this sense that there's a deeper spirituality that we can find?

A: Absolutely. We couldn't put all of the book into a film, but the movie carries the essence of what the book expressed - a sense that there's a greater mystery about our lives and why we're here. It's a mystery that we can directly experience, regardless of which religious tradition we have grown up with.

Q: What are some of these experiences?

A: For one, learning to slow down and perceive the mysterious events and opportunities that happen in life. We call them coincidences, but if we look closely we see they are meaningful. They bring us just the right information at just the right time to extend our careers, relationships, and growth. These events feel destined in some way, as though the world is set up to help us make a better life, work through our problems, and reach our dreams - if we just pay attention. This is a phenomenon that the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung called synchronicity, and every religion has a name for it. These coincidences are here to help wake us up, so we can cultivate more of this flow in our lives.

Q: Does The Celestine Prophecy movie deal with how to do this?

A: Like the book, it shows John, our main character, beginning to sense this force in his life moving him somewhere. He learns he can find a deeper connection with the divine and open up to a greater sense of energy, inspiration, beauty, and what we call a "guiding intuition," so that he can discover why he's in Peru. He has to learn to give energy and to stay connected to help unlock the secrets of his destiny. That's what we all want to do.

Q: What do you hope will happen with the movie?

A: I hope that it will be viewed as a kind of model for the deeper spirituality that we all sense we can reach - a spirituality where we connect with the divine, not just mentally but as a real experience of an outpouring of love and energy. It is a spirituality in which we find our destined path to making the world better and in which we begin to expect and cultivate this intuitive flow in life that we sense is possible. If we al! l focus on the direct experience of God, then we can lessen the conflict and tension in the world.

Q: Do you have any suggestions or guidelines for watching this movie?

A: Surrender to the "film" as soon as the room darkens and the first quote appears on the screen. Let the entire movie activate your soul and immerse yourself in it. Float downstream in its energy and synchronicities. Flow with it, and don't box it in with conventional movie-making logic. Though it doesn't have the big-budget special effects, it has what really matters and is most familiar and necessary to all of us. Suspend your moviegoing conventions, immerse yourself into the essence of the movie, these archetypal invisibles glistening as music, landscape, and people - that is how you will "get" the movie. It is a world-important message and energy that have never made it to the big screen before, that have never been transmitted through the big screen before. Because here is a striking case in which the medium is not the message. Here the message is more important than the medium. And somewhere in the movie you have another realization - that you are the medium, and you can remember the message.

Q: Who could benefit from watching The Celestine Prophecy?

A: We hope millions will experience it. Not just to study it, which they probably will. Not just to appreciate it and savor it, which they will. But more important, to be continuously activated and initiated by it. Perhaps even transformed by it. This movie and phenomenon are here for a reason, and each time you engage with it, you'll know more and more clearly what that special reason is for your being here. You'll gain a clearer sense of how to uniquely proceed and how to skillfully take action for the sake of a more positive evolution - for the good of the whole.

Q: How is The Celestine Prophecy different from other movies?

A: Turning the book into a movie posed a certain problem - the book contained numerous conversations about experiences the characters were having, too many to be in a film. Hollywood was adamant. Adaptation of this book couldn't be done. It had too many ideas, too many connections that existed at ever-deeper levels of the subtext, too many long, winding dialogues that roamed here and there, only making sense in the last moments as the many drawstrings were pulled together. We had to face the fact that the film had to be a different kind of parable from the book, with a complicated but more global meaning, a kind of snapshot of the Celestine worldview that had ever more impact with each subsequent viewing - but all laced within a story line that had a beginning, a middle, and an end and moved along at a rate that moviegoers expect.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to say about this film or its making?

A: All that's left now is for the real test to happen as this movie is released into the world. I would only ask that people remember one thing. The real impact is one you'll sense more fully without thinking. It will be something you feel - not so much with your emotions, but with your body, your soul - as a distantly familiar world begins to emerge. We can only hope that those same images - call them archetypes, insights into a higher awareness - will do their thing again. And perhaps we'll now actually embrace a reality that before we could only intuit. Q: I know we are showing the movie here in Chico and other small communities but when is the official release?