• Pens or pencils and journals
• Art supplies such as drawing paper, pastels, markers, and crayons
• Optional: CD player and background music for meditation
• Leader Resource 1: Spiritual Guides Meditation

• If you plan to lead the group in a meditation, make sure your meeting room is arranged so that participants can sit comfortably at some distance from one another. If you plan to play background music, obtain and set up a CD player and music.

Lead the 10-minute meditation provided in Leader Resource 1, Spiritual Guides Meditation.

At the close of the meditation, invite participants to document-by writing, drawing, or a combination of the two-the story that unfolded during their visualization. Allow at least seven minutes for this segment of the activity.

Invite participants to share their stories either verbally or by reading or showing their documentation to the group. While participants share their stories, use these questions to introduce a range of ways we think about teachers and guides:

• Does your guide represent or remind you of any real-life person?
• Do you think you would trust this guide on all matters or just on particular matters? What other guides or teachers would you like to supplement this guide?
• What adjectives describe the qualities of the guide or teacher you conjured?

If you did not do Activity 1, Life Lessons, lead a discussion to explore our relationship to our spiritual and lifetime teachers. Ask:

• In real life, what guides and teachers have you found? What did you learn from them?
• Is it possible to look around and decide from whom or from what we will take our guidance? Or do guides, teachers, and life lessons only find us?
• How do you know if you can trust a person or experience enough to accept him/her, or it as a teacher?
• Do you learn more from painful experiences or from pleasurable ones?