Teaching lessons about meditation, creativity and reaching our human potential, Michael Beckwith has touched a note in the American consciousness.

Now, after three years of planning, the Four Corners Center for Spiritual Living will host Beckwith at a Rhythm & Soul Festival on Tuesday.

"We wouldn't have chosen this date, but that's what they gave us," organizer Karen Lovelien said during an interview Wednesday. "Who does a festival on a Tuesday? But then we realized that the same date had come up in a visioning, and an astrologer did a reading and said it was a very powerful date."

Lovelien, a member of the Four Corners Center for Spiritual Living that is organizing the festival, has been following Beckwith for 20 years. The founder and spiritual director of the Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles, Beckwith has been featured on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Larry King Live" and "20/20." He teaches meditation and scientific prayer and is the creator of the Life Visioning Process. Beckwith has written several books, including Inspirations of the Heart, Forty Day Mind Fast Soul Feast and A Manifesto of Peace. His first PBS special, "The Answer is YOU," is currently airing on stations across the country.

"His message is so universal," Lovelien said. "You see everyone from Buddhists to people wearing yarmulkes at his services. He fills stadiums with thousands of people."

For the festival here, organizers are expecting from 1,000 to 1,500 attendees and have people coming from both coasts and throughout the Southwest.

"Those attending will experience one ah-ha moment after another," Lovelien wrote in a news release, "as Beckwith explores questions shared by people of all faiths.

Along with his wife, Rickie Byars Beckwith, on piano, this dynamic duo will weave together fresh insights, universal truth and practical spirituality in an evening of inspirational music and a powerful message."

The Four Corners group believes that the region for miles in every direction from Mancos has a special energy, and the Tuesday festival will be part of a global energetic experience.

"The people that need to be there will be there," Lovelien said. "It's about the shift that wants to happen and creating the environment for that to happen."

Beckwith's message focuses on how the personal and the global are connected.

"When we share our gifts ... when we activate our potential, then share who we are, the world will look a lot different than it does now," Beckwith has said. "The sense of scarcity will die out. People's basic needs will be met. Terrorism will dissolve. And we'll begin to live in a society in which creativity and beauty will flower, and the evolution of one's soul will be why we are here."

abutler@durangoherald.com