The following members have been nominated for the Member Board of Trustees. Ballots will be sent to all members via email on Monday, July 23. To help you make a decision as to which candidate(s) to support, a list of nominees with a short biography for each appears below. In addition, please join us for our Member Meeting on Sunday, July 22 at 7pm ET in the Awakening Together Sanctuary Home, where each candidate will be given an opportunity to address the membership.
Nominees
Anne Blanchard
Anne grew up in a family where EST training was a part of daily life. Later in life, she began attending the Center for Conscious Living in Moorestown, New Jersey, where she began to refamiliarize herself with various New Thought and nondual teachings. Anne jumped into sincere and dedicated full time spiritual practice with both feet when she joined Awakening Together on an India Pilgrimage. Anne teaches regularly in the Awakening Together Sanctuary. In her weekly Wednesday program, Unfiltered, Anne shares her experience of purification and awakening, unfiltered and as it happens. Raw, reflective, brave, and infused with clarity, Anne’s open honesty inspires us all to dive deep into the spiritual journey instead of simply skimming the surface.
Carrie Christiansen
Carrie found Awakening Together online through direct guidance arising from a powerful desire to find the next stage in her spiritual development/awakening in the summer of ’13 when AT was in the early stages of becoming officially organized. She immediately recognized the beauty and clarity of the wisdom and intention the organization is based in and has been a devoted and grateful member since then. She began the MPP training as soon as it was offered and was ordained as an AT minister in Feb. of ’16. She is currently a member of the AT Board of Trustees, first elected in July of ’15, and has also taught in the sanctuary and facilitated the AT prayer circle since that time. She leads the Sunday Gathering in the AT Sanctuary on 5th Sundays.
Horses have been her lifelong passion, profession and profoundly rich ground for both self and Self awareness. Her other great passion is teaching, both through horsemanship and spiritual classes. The MPP curriculum is very dear to her and there is really nothing she finds more delightful than spending time supporting and observing others in their awakening process. She teaches MPP online for AT, also in her equally beloved brick and mortar community The Center for Conscious living in Moorestown, NJ (suburban Philadelphia), and in prison at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia through the combined effort of AT and a wonderful prison ministry, Heart 2 Heart. And, as of this summer is now offering selected MPP classes to her Youth Horsemanship Intensive Program Students (HIPsters 😉 at their request! She understands her role in this lifetime as a “cross-pollinator”, combining many approaches to spirituality/Life, thereby contributing to the process of bringing different organizations, systems and individuals together for the growth and benefit of all.
Carrie’s initial awakening experience was facilitated via a “dark night” experience that led her to a solitary study of ACIM for some length of time in the early ’90s. It was a magnificent time of discovering clarity and learning to deeply rely upon inner wisdom for which she is profoundly grateful. Her subsequent spiritual journey has led her to many studies, and in addition to being an AT minister she is also a Religious Science Practitioner, and an ordained interfaith minister through One Spirit Interfaith Seminary in NYC. Besides being mindful in her life in general and keeping up with what she’s teaching, her current spiritual practice has been AT’s Gentle Healing Group since it’s inception.
Carrie is absolutely devoted and committed to being in service to the AT principles and membership, and to the continued growth and expansion of Awakening Together as an organization, which she feels strongly is high service to all.
Kathy Smith
Despite being raised Catholic, and trusting God was loving and real to at least some degree, He still seemed separate from me then. Our relationship was partially guilt-driven, rote, sometimes fear-filled, and mostly uninspiring, and ultimately stale.
I was introduced to ACIM in the late 80’s in Las Vegas. It threw me for a loop. I recognized truth within its pages in a way that was undeniable. Out went the Catholic Church and ACIM became my everyday singular focus, my Love, and its lessons my practice for over 25 years.
About six to nine months prior to A-T’s inception, a strong feeling or intuition came to put ACIM aside. I had been a little antsy with it. The prompt was like a ‘militant’ suggestion, an order, if you will, to put it aside. I wasn’t sure why. Later, I could see more clearly how my singular focus had slid into a fundamentalist ditch without my noticing so much. When I followed the prompt to lay it down, I felt a bit uncertain about what to do now. But I rested there anyway, just kind of patiently waiting. Nothing seems to move quickly on my spiritual path so far. I am a plodder it seems.
Months later, I attended a retreat in Santa Barbara that Regina was hosting. She announced the formation of A-T at this gathering. Instinctively I knew this was my answer. I love our core values. I love our MPP curriculum. I love our inclusivity, cooperation, companionship, caring, and commitment. Our values resonate of an openness that has helped me see beyond my own formerly closed borders. I am more open to everything now, intertwined with He as Me to Be free. Grateful for the shift and for all of us joined in common purpose. ❤️
Meg Reinhart
Meg has been inspired by the beyond-ness of this physical realm since she was a kid. From age 3 til 22, she was submerged in all things creative and expressive; from dance to painting, to Watts and Campbell and Jung, from writing studies to university, but she grew tired and wanted to find the IT that made those things TICK. And so the great curiosity of WHO AM I began! But after several years of an addictive fast decline to destroy the body, she found WHO AM I-NOT and was greeted with the potential of a physical death. She turned around to another voice, only to hear about a new kind of death: the one of the mind. Since 2013, she has been living a life that can be described as devotional: intentionally committed to transcend that which is unreal. Meg became an AT minister in 2018 and falls deeply in love with all teachings that come from truth a little more every day. She feels like she is just beginning this beautiful life of service and higher purpose. You can find her “things” @meg__ly on Instagram.
