Dear Friends,
Autumn is the time of harvest, and we’re given a great plenty: food, shelter, a community of friends, and time to reflect upon our horizons when we incarnate—an abundance of grace was given us in order to succeed in our mission here.
We have been given a mission and a purpose which we can engage in each day, and despite the misunderstandings that are constantly cropping up in front of us, we can still see opportunity and joy in all of it.
Thinking of the story of Jesus healing the blind man at the pool of Siloam—he was asked whether the blind man or his parents sinned, to bring him to the state of blindness. This indicates that these learned men accepted the fact of reincarnation, and Jesus did not consider the question unusual, but he did set them straight, that neither of their suppositions were true, but that it was to show the glory of God that he was healed.
What to think of this? As it says in The Golden Force: “A tide of circumstances first met you, though incidents of many lives…”
The Pharisees were perhaps not wrong in assuming that a karmic condition existed, causing blindness, but they erred in thinking of it as punishment for sin (or, missing the mark) in a past life. Jesus knew it was an opportunity for this man and his parents, and if they seized this opportunity as a blessing rather than a curse, it would show the glory of God.
A door of opportunity opened up in the world as we were growing up; many of us stepped through that door and it’s true that once the Light poured in, and many received it, and the earth is receiving it—the door is left open and we and the earth are being healed—just in time for the harvest!
I’m so darn glad He let me try it again
‘Cause my last time on earth, I lived a whole world of sin
I’m so glad that I know more than I knew then
Gonna keep on tryin’
‘Til I reach my highest ground –Stevie Wonder
From Father Paul:
You are in an organization that you cannot find another one like it. I’m sure of that because nowhere on earth would they be foolish enough to take you into a seminary without paying the price for something or other. I don’t think that’s existent anywhere. But—you see, there are many things about this order that you do not know and do not appreciate. How do you expect to know the organization that you’re in if you don’t pay any attention to the reports of the Council and the Board of that Council?
The whole thing is, we do not expect for the next fifty years to run this order. I hope not anyway. We are expecting you to train and to get yourself in place where you can run this order. This is your Order and it’s going to be your job to run it. And anybody that doesn’t line up into a framework where they are acceptable in this order to run this order as it should be run, then we watch ’em. Because this is your Order. Every full-vowed brother and sister in this Order is a part of it and it belongs to them, all the way down the line. Now if you don’t want to take care of your property, why, that’s alright with me. And take care of Jesus’ property — that’s his. So what are you going to do? Expect somebody to take care of it all the rest of your life? Well, I’ve got news for you. I don’t think there’s a lot of us older fellows here that are going to stick around that long, and I don’t think there’s many of us want to stick around that long, to tell you the truth. I’ve got other places to go.
Do you get what I’m talking to you about? You’ve got to know this Order, just as well as you’ve got to know the Bible, because otherwise you are missing entirely what you’re here for. How can you strive for that which you don’t know? We need men, we need sisters here, not only here but I mean in the field, and we need them badly right now.
I told you four years ago, in 1968, that the day was coming when you would be found short and wanting, because you hadn’t used your time to study. And that day has arrived. You are short and wanting, because there’s many of you that have been here three years, anyway two years and a half, and you have done nothing except what you do in class. You have made no effort whatsoever except what you’ve done in class or been directed to do, that you had to do or disobey. And now the demand is starting
to open up and come. What are you going to do about it?
That’s your question to answer. It is not my responsibility because I have disposed of my responsibility. I have done what I was told to do. I have warned you of it. I have told you what was going to happen. And it is happening. … I’m just waiting to see, after these three weeks of study of the Book of Order and By-laws and so forth, see how many can sit down and fritter away their time with things that don’t have to do with your training, until you get it.
One thing that will be done. He will be served. This I guarantee you. He will be served, and there isn’t much time left—take it from me, on that score. It’s drawing very short. So what are you going to do about it? (Oct. 23, 1972)
* * *
This is the Day of Judgment. The New Earth is forming rapidly, and we see evidences of it every day. And I appeal to you, brothers: let us get into the field and reach those others who are in need, who need help and who cannot find teachers, nor sometimes even a pastor, to give them a hand in their life.
AWAKENING II (from Tree of Life lessons)
“AWAKE, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.”
Before one may go forth and serve as a man, his fellow man, the spiritual part of him must be born. It has lain for centuries dormant as a fetus within – alive, and developing, but not delivered. First the child, and then he grows to manhood to serve with Christ.
As Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock”, one may think of the Lord, coming with a flashlight to the door of someone’s individual temple, and knocking to awaken him, and saying, “Turn on your light within the temple, so you may see to rise. Then, when you are fully prepared, I shall return to pick you up to come and help me.”
As Peter said, “You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”
The divine Child, the Son of God, is born within man in one of his rounds of incarnation, when his consciousness has lifted and he has become amenable to, and capable of, functioning as a superman in righteousness and selfless love, for the good of all, when he arrives at the capacity to serve God with utter devotion.
The more single his eye is, in this respect, the less he looks at the physical life he has stepped out from, the more pure his motives are, the more will he develop the light of the Sun within.
God becomes the universe, the blue sky, in which the golden sun-son swims and functions. He is immersed in god, and dwells in Him. Collected together in him are innumerable particles of Light which are invisible as the Father, being all pervading.
But when they gather together in one strong focal point of Force and Energy, they become the warm strong light around which the lesser beings gather, to whom they look for strength and guidance, the true Son of God.
The Child is born in the very Bethlehem are of our bodies, in the approximate area ruled by Cancer (plus Gemini and Leo), and in the zodiacal sign of Cancer is a configuration called the “manger.”
That is to say, the Self is located near the heart area, or behind it, near the spine. It is as though, speaking imaginatively, the twins or Adam and Eve of Gemini, in their home nest of Cancer, become parents as they give birth to the divine Child, the Sun, corresponding to the sign of Leo, which both rules children, and is ruled by the Sun, astrologically.
Paul Case said, “Spiritual consciousness is an awakening to the meaning of what material consciousness supposes to be nothing but physical existence. It is a recognition of the spiritual substance of this world, which ignorance calls matter.
The wisdom which results from new birth shows us that we are truly Children of the Sun, even now. When this knowledge comes, it wells up in our hearts as a song of Joy, and we turn from the limitations of the senses to the freedom of spiritual knowing.” [cont. next issue]
This cabbage displays the sacred math of the universe
The Fibonacci sequence is a sequence of numbers made by adding the previous two together to get the next number in the sequence.
eg: 1 + 2 = 3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8, 5+8=13
and so on, resulting in a sequence (that starts with zero)
0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34……
Fibonacci sequences appear in biological settings, such as branching in trees, arrangement of leaves on a stem, the fruitlets of a pineapple, the flowering of artichoke, an uncurling fern, the arrangement of a pine cone and the family tree of honeybees. Kepler pointed out the presence of the Fibonacci sequence in nature, using it to explain the (golden ratio-related) pentagonal form of some flowers. Field daisies most often have petals in counts of Fibonacci numbers.
If we use the Fibonacci numbers to make a spiral we can see it growing and see how the cabbage got to where it is and how all plant growth relates to it.
At 40, Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who never married and had no children, was walking through a park one day in Berlin when he met a girl who was crying because she had lost her favourite doll. She and Kafka searched for the doll unsuccessfully.
Kafka told her to meet him there the next day and they would come back to look for her.
The next day, when they had not yet found the doll, Kafka gave the girl a letter “written” by the doll saying “please don’t cry. I took a trip to see the world. I will write to you about my adventures.”
Thus began a story which continued until the end of Kafka’s life.
During their meetings, Kafka read the letters of the doll carefully written with adventures and conversations that the girl found adorable.
Finally, Kafka brought back the doll (he bought one) that had returned to Berlin.
“It doesn’t look like my doll at all,” said the girl.
Kafka handed her another letter in which the doll wrote: “my travels have changed me.” The little girl hugged the new doll and brought the doll with her to her happy home.
A year later Kafka died.
Many years later, the now-adult girl found a letter inside the doll. In the tiny letter signed by Kafka it was written:
“Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way.”
Embrace change. It’s inevitable for growth. Together we can shift pain into wonder and love, but it is up to us to consciously and intentionally create that connection. –from Rumi Heals
From Mother Ruth
LETTING GO
Feeling the weight of past sorrows, present problems and future duties all in one bundle, you think, “I can’t carry it all”, and then you just let go of it. There is no other choice.
~~
Things happen only once. Nor can you hold something as it was without stifling it. If you held onto a single note, the song could not continue; so you let it go, and as succeeding notes pour forth, the melody is achieved. Nor can you exactly recapture that one note, only the echo of it.
“There are two ways to be rich: One is by acquiring much, and the other is by desiring little.”― Jackie French Koller
Dr. Frank Mayfield was touring Tewksbury Institute when, on his way out, he accidentally collided with an elderly floor maid. To cover the awkward moment Dr. Mayfield started asking questions.
“How long have you worked here?”
“I’ve worked here almost since the place opened,” the maid replied.
“What can you tell me about the history of this place?” he asked.
“I don’t think I can tell you anything, but I could show you something.”
With that, she took his hand and led him down to the basement under the oldest section of the building. She pointed to one of what looked like small prison cells, their iron bars rusted with age, and said, “That’s the cage where they used to keep Annie Sullivan.”
“Who’s Annie?” the doctor asked.
Annie was a young girl who was brought in here because she was incorrigible—nobody could do anything with her. She’d bite and scream and throw her food at people. The doctors and nurses couldn’t even examine her or anything. I’d see them trying with her spitting and scratching at them.
“I was only a few years younger than her myself and I used to think, ‘I sure would hate to be locked up in a cage like that.’ I wanted to help her, but I didn’t have any idea what I could do. I mean, if the doctors and nurses couldn’t help her, what could someone like me do?
“I didn’t know what else to do, so I just baked her some brownies one night after work. The next day I brought them in. I walked carefully to her cage and said, ‘Annie, I baked these brownies just for you. I’ll put them right here on the floor and you can come and get them if you want.’
“Then I got out of there just as fast as I could because I was afraid she might throw them at me. But she didn’t. She actually took the brownies and ate them. After that, she was just a little bit nicer to me when I was around. And sometimes I’d talk to her. Once, I even got her laughing.
One of the nurses noticed this and she told the doctor. They asked me if I’d help them with Annie. I said I would if I could. So that’s how it came about that. Every time they wanted to see Annie or examine her, I went into the cage first and explained and calmed her down, and held her hand.
This is how they discovered that Annie was almost blind.”
After they’d been working with her for about a year—and it was tough sledding with Annie—the Perkins Institute for the Blind opened its doors. They were able to help her and she went on to study and she became a teacher herself.
Annie came back to the Tewksbury Institute to visit, and to see what she could do to help out. At first, the Director didn’t say anything and then he thought about a letter he’d just received. A man had written to him about his daughter. She was absolutely unruly—almost like an animal. She was blind and deaf as well as ‘deranged.’
He was at his wit’s end, but he didn’t want to put her in an asylum. So he wrote the Institute to ask if they knew of anyone who would come to his house and work with his daughter.
And that is how Annie Sullivan became the lifelong companion of Helen Keller.
When Helen Keller received the Nobel Prize, she was asked who had the greatest impact on her life and she said, “Annie Sullivan.”
But Annie said, “No Helen. The woman who had the greatest influence on both our lives was a floor maid at the Tewksbury Institute.”
It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a ‘higher standard of living than any have ever known.’ It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival… It is a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry. –Buckminster Fuller
♀ Venus weaves her cosmic dance around our Sun with every 13 Venusian years equating to approximately 8 Earthly years. Every 8 years, in relationship to the Earth, she articulates a 5-petalled pentagram, often called the Rose of Venus, through our skies. She is dancing a cosmic feminine blessing of the rose around the Earth.
The rose is a symbol sacred to Venus, Mother Mary and her Rosary, and the Goddess Isis. I feel that these three beings are expressions of the one divine feminine The rose is a symbol of love as the great power of our Universe, a treasure beyond compare. Venus has a spiritually golden quality about her – she offers abundance, beauty, protection and upliftment. –Alana Fairchild
From The Stars of Heaven: Venus:
Metals: Copper, Brass and Bronze – Color: Green
“Love one another, even as I have loved you…”
Moving inside of Earth’s path around the sun is our nearest neighbor, Venus, sometimes called the twin of earth. Her brilliance in our eyes is second only to that of the sun and moon, and about ten times that of the brightest star, Sirius. This brightness is due to increased reflection of sunlight from its denser atmosphere and the clouds which surround it. This cloud-veil of mystery symbolizes the eternal feminine aspect, and the veil of Isis, and should aid the planet in keeping out excess heat by day and blanket in the solar heat at night.
Venus is never more than 47 degrees east or west of the sun, and is “evening star” or “morning star,” depending on whether it is west of and rising before the sun, or east of and setting after the sun.
Azrael is said to be the archangel of the planet Venus; the name means “Grace of God.”
Venus was the mythical goddess of Love and Beauty, also called Aphrodite and her sweet laughter beguiled all who saw her, whether gods or men. ..[the text lists associations with the cypress tree, beauty and joy, myrtle tree, dove, sparrow, swan, rose and apple.] Attributes of Venus are artistic refinement, harmony, grace, charm, beauty and love, material plenty. Those with Venus negatively emphasized may be self-indulgent, wasteful, and slovenly; displaying misapplied love or self-gratification without regard for others…
֎⸎♦
“…Thus are human souls prepared for life on Earth. Through the influence of the Moon — and when we speak of these heavenly bodies, it is always the spiritual in them that we have in mind — through the influence of the Moon, preparation is made for the soul to become man or woman; through the influence of Venus, for the soul to belong to some family; through the influence of Mercury, to belong to some folk or people.
The whole life of man on Earth depends, as you see, on the relationship he establishes with the spheres in the course of his descent from the spiritual world. The knowledge of this has been lost. We must regain it. We are accustomed to think of ourselves as composed of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, sulphur, etc. But we must come also to feel — quite simply and naturally — that we are composed and are created out of the world of the stars. For we are not just physical human beings made up of protein and a few other substances. All the forces of the universe have combined to form us. These forces of the universe work upon us while we are descending. When we come to Earth, we have them within us, — and something of a memory of this remains to us in sleep…” –Rudolph Steiner
“The old that is strong does not wither / Deep roots are not reached by the frost”
– Lord of the Rings / The Fellowship of the Ring
Lahaina’s beloved giant banyan tree (badly scorched, but hopeful survivor of Maui’s deadly wildfires) is showing new signs of recovery by sprouting a batch of fresh green leaves.
THRESHOLD
Thank you, God—not only for times past
Whose fruits we now enjoy,
But for the moment entering
On whose threshold we stand.
As for the moment passing now,
We’re glad for aught it held,
Yet stand not looking back at it,
But with welcome reach ahead.
Especially look not back at pain,
Though only now it came.
Neither dwell on glories dead,
Nor brag of old accomplishments.
The past is but a stepping stone,
No matter what it wrought.
Renew the good, forget the rest;
Travel light, carrying the minimum.
Escaped from Babylon’s shambles, leave it there.
Hoard neither thoughts nor things.
Brood not on ugliness, lest you become as that.
Pick not at mental trash. Unload your wings.
This moment is as grand as you say it is,
As are all the rest to come.
Thank you, dear Lord, for teaching us
This through Thy dear Son.
–Mother Ruth