Our Wish for All
May all the magic of this special season light up your world and may love, hope, joy and faith reign in your heart, mind and soul.
Happy Holidays!
Greetings to all!
At this special time of year, we have been thinking of all the beautiful people in our lives, including those we have met through our work.
Our lives have been, and continue to be, enriched by all those who have shown courage and love as they make their way through some of the challenges in life.
The holiday season has a way of opening up our hearts and allowing us to see more of the beauty and innocence in people. If it’s possible to see that side of others on some days and at some times of the year, isn’t it nice to know that we can see it anytime?
The holiday spirit is just the human spirit unanimously coming forth across the world; it is the heartbeat of humanity beckoning us towards peace on earth.
May that peace live in your heart this holiday season and throughout your life.
Love to all and sincerest wishes for a beautiful 2023.
Jan and Chip
The Promise of Spring
In our part of the world, we are enjoying springtime, which is always such a special time of year. It is always awe-inspiring to see new growth appear from the ground and from the trees, from out of nothing. Each year we take it for granted, but when we reflect on it, it is truly a wondrous occurrence.
The gift of our very existence is something we often take for granted as well. Those of us who have been learning from the teachings, books, and recordings of Sydney Banks, sometimes speak of a beautiful feeling that may come to us seemingly out of nowhere. It is a feeling of peace, tranquility and love. This is the gift of Universal Consciousness reminding us of who we really are; of that pure self within that was there before our physical reality existed.
Often people ask why that feeling doesn’t stay with us all the time, wondering why we sometimes fall back into mental discomfort. Syd himself would always tell us that there is no answer to that. It just happens. However, something beautiful happened to us when we started to accept that. The feeling of joy and peace that we were trying to hang on to became less elusive and we began to experience it more often. After 46 years of listening to Syd, at first directly and then through his materials, we can honestly say that our lives are more replete with beautiful, positive feelings than ever. While life still throws us a curve ball here and there, it has become less and less scary or threatening. Our true self will never change or weaken. It is always there to anchor and guide us even though we, at times may feel “lost at sea”.
In our presentations and private sessions, we have shared that we read or listen to Syd’s materials at the start of our day before jumping back into the daily activity of life. He is speaking from that very quiet, contented and neutral place that we all want to experience. We like to let people know that that we turn to Syd’s original materials because because when we first heard Syd talk, it woke up something inside us, something so familiar, it was as if we were hearing ourselves. It was as if we were realizing the words of the wise when they spoke of how you can only find truth from within.
So, when people come to us looking for relief from mental discomfort, we do our best to remind them that they too have that something inside, something familiar, something that will always be there to guide them. Over many years, the results have been astounding when we talk with people and see them get a glimmer of hope. It is a joy to see more and more people’s lives change for the better as they rediscover this beautiful part of them that has been hidden away.
This is the gift that Syd Banks brought to the world when he discovered that beautiful place within himself and then unselfishly began to share it. How wonderful that it is a gift that keeps on giving through the precious legacy of his books and recordings.
Greetings from Salt Spring Island
April 14, 2021
We send out our warmest wishes to all.
It has been quite a year. We feel very grateful that we have been able to stay safe and healthy at home. Like so many others, we have been separated from most of our family since early 2020, seeing them only on video calls. We are so grateful for those precious virtual visits!
Although we had to cancel travel plans for several speaking engagements in Europe, we were very fortunate to be able to continue our consulting work from home via Zoom. These virtual meetings with family, colleagues, various groups and individuals, have sustained us through these challenging times. Our hearts go out to everyone who has suffered loss, illness, loss of work as well as the stress of having to put themselves in harms way as they go about their work in public settings.
Thirteen years ago, we left a busy practice in Tampa, Florida to return to Salt Spring to be with Syd during his last ten months. Those ten months were so precious as a time of going deeper into our understanding of the Principles, while at the same time spending time with Syd as our dear friend. We will be forever grateful for that opportunity and we recognize more and more each day how it was a preparation for what was to come.
After Syd passed in 2009, our lives were very quiet at first, while we were in the transition from a busy life in Florida for 24 years, meeting in person with corporate leaders and teams, community groups, staff and residents in prisons, jails and drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers. When we look back over that period of our lives, we are amazed at how many people we met up with and whose lives were changed forever by Syd’s words, just as ours were when we met him in 1975. Being able to witness so many people move from unhappiness to hope, relief and mental health, was a privilege and an honor.
In the beginning of the new, quieter stage of our lives, we had to become accustomed to our new reality; a reality in which Syd was no longer physically present in our world to mentor us. This is when so much of the true meaning of what we had been learning through the years came home to us in a whole new way. It became even more apparent how living in a beautiful feeling, with a quieter mind, is how we really learn about life. We had to “shrink our world” as Syd used to say. It took faith to move into this new life, not knowing how everything would work out and trusting that we would be provided for.
Looking back, we can see how turning inward and trusting in the spiritual nature of life, led to us finding ways to continue serving the various entities we had so enjoyed working with in person over the years. Although we still travelled occasionally to present at conferences and retreats based on the Three Principles, we were working increasingly from our home base through video calls.
When the world began to change in early 2021, our lives changed along with it. However, underneath it all, it is the same life; a life which we are so grateful for. That is why we continue to serve in the best way we can, from our home base on Salt Spring Island, reaching out to make the world a better place through sharing our understanding of the Three Principles as taught by Sydney Banks.
We’re All In This Together
At this time when we’re all at home, we thought you might enjoy taking this musical trip around the world. There are over 50 beautiful songs in the playlist and they all include artists from all over the world. We hope you find it as heartwarming as we do!
Check out this Playing for Change:
Love Jan and Chip
Happy Holidays!
Dear Friends,
At this special time of year, we send to each and all, our warmest wishes that love and joy fill your heart and your world.
Much love,
Chip and Jan
Happy New Year!
We wish everyone all the best for 2019.
As we look back at last year, we are so grateful for all the opportunities we had to meet with such wonderful people through our work. Talking with and listening to others continues to help us gain a deeper understanding of the Principles Syd shared with us.
We feel honored and privileged to continue meeting and talking to even more of you in the coming year.
With much love,
Chip and Jan
Sydney Banks’ Books now available on I-tunes!
We have just found out that Sydney Banks books are now available on I-tunes.
Please follow this link to find out how to order these wonderful books:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/author/sydney-banks/id1141097963?mt=11
These are the original works of Sydney Banks, and the only books available that are written completely in Syd’s own words.
Reading these books brings one the unique experience of hearing profound wisdom from the source.
The source of wisdom that Syd experienced is the same source of wisdom inside every human being. However, it tends to go unnoticed and undiscovered until it is awakened by insights into our true nature.
Syd’s words have the ability to help us unlock those insights.
Happy New Year!
We send out our warmest wishes to all for a wonderful 2018!
We are so grateful for the good things that continue to happen in our lives as we continue to explore the principles that Syd shared with us.
May your journey be filled with love, happiness and peace of mind.
Lots of love,
Chip and Jan
What We Bring to Our Consulting Practice
Meeting Sydney Banks in 1975 brought about a complete turnaround in our marriage, our personal life in general, and our professional lives.
What we learned from Syd was that, despite of all the disfunction we were experiencing when we first met him, there was a completely new world available to us that we had been unaware of.
In the beginning, just hearing that this world existed was enough to create major, positive change in our experience of life. As time went on, and we kept listening to what Syd was trying to tell us about our true selves, our horizons expanded, and we began experiencing one new world after another; each new world bringing with it more peace of mind and joy. We began to experience ease in all our relationships. Opportunities in our work life began to appear, and brought us to our work with corporations, communities, not for profit organizations, and corrections facilities.
From the moment we met him, Sydney Banks saw something in us that we didn’t see. When we meet with our clients, we are able to draw from what we learned from Syd, and help them find something in themselves far beyond what they could have ever imagined; something that can change their lives in the same way our own lives were changed and are still changing.