Rainbow Journey Books

During my teen years, I chose to follow the faith of the Protestant church, and as a young adult I chose Catholicism. These churches were meaningful to me along my spiritual path, as I learned about the fundamentals of Christianity.

One of the mainstays of the religion is the expectation of the End of Times, as is graphically depicted in the Book of Revelations. For half of my life I believed that a ferocious battle between good and evil would take place. And, as I was reminded on most Sundays, it would happen at an unexpected time, so it was imperative that I be ready because it would only be the good Christians who would ascend, while the rest of humanity suffered through plagues then death then an eternity in Hell.

Now, as a middle-aged woman, who has seriously studied religion and spirituality, I have come to believe that God is LOVE and as such he would neither judge his children to be unworthy of returning home nor inflict the slaughtering of his creation. Nevertheless, I respect that Armageddon is a belief held dear by many Christians. The only reason that I bring it up is that with the current state of world affairs—wars, cruel dictatorships, oppression, racism, inequality, famine, poverty, homelessness, financial collapse and the corruption that has infected our governments and institutions, I hear more and more discussion about how the End of Times is near. Coincidentally, this talk is blending with the buzz about the year 2012.

So, what’s the buzz about? Just enter the digits 2-0-1-2 into a computer search engine, and you will find no shortage of websites that postulate about the predictions and prophecies of that mysterious year, which is based on the Mayan calendar. On this calendar, time seems to end precisely on December 21, 2012. But what does that mean exactly—an apocalypse, a catastrophic Earth change, or an atomic war? Perhaps, the pre-eminent expert on the Mayan, Dr. Jose Arguelles, can shed some light on the question.

It was Arguelles, who launched the 2012 movement with the success of his book, The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology, which coincided with the Harmonic Convergence in August, 1987. According to Arguelles, this convergence marked the Earth’s initiation into a 25-year period of significant evolutionary change, which would climax in the year 2012.

But, who were the Mayans? What was their message for a civilization that would inhabit Earth 2,000 years in the future? Why did their calendar end on an exact date, and why do we care?

Well, the mysteries of the Mayan are vast and varied, but what is known for sure is that on their calendar they not only tracked local time and seasons, but they also tracked celestial alignment within our solar system. And, it is a rare alignment of the Earth with the center of our galaxy (which happens only once every 26,000 years) that heralds the dramatic evolutionary change.

It was while Arguelles was studying the mathematics of the calendar that it became clear by the quality of harmonic numbers that the calendar was measuring some type of harmonic wave—a beam, in other words, of which the Earth is passing through. Arguelles conjectures that this beam is 5,125 years wide and that it is being generated from the core of our galaxy.

From this beam, different types of radio waves (information) are being emanated. The question is what kind of information are we receiving? Well, we get a clue from Mayan science, which is based on the principles of resonance, which assumes that key factors in universal operations are in essence vibratory waves. (It is these waves that eventually become matter, such as atoms and subatomic particles, which then exist in harmony with each other.)

An interesting example of this is that the activity of the brain is measurable in different wave cycles and frequencies, and the alpha frequency of the brain has been determined to be 7.5 hertz megacycles, which, amazingly, is the same exact frequency of the Earth. Through matching our own resonance and frequencies with environmental resonance and frequencies, we harmonically draw energy from the environment through the medium of our bodies and vice versa. But, what happens when our resonances and frequencies are out of balance with our environment?

Well, it brings us to where we are today—living on a dying planet in a civilization that doesn’t reflect harmony at all. This is because for eons we have defined ourselves as being separate from everything—God, nature, animals and each other. And, in the process, we have sunk into a collective consciousness based on this belief in separation, which has left us feeling disempowered as individuals and only able to function in society by transferring authority to governments and institutions. Unfortunately, we are learning that these authority figureheads are abusing their power and no longer rule in the best interest of humanity or the planet. Arguelles believes that we have come to accept as a collective consciousness that living in the dark (familiar ignorance) is better than the light (truth), and inexplicably we fight to stay where we are. This leaves humanity in a complacent, hypnotic state thriving on negative energy as a norm, which serves as a comforting constant, but creates a terrible resonance imbalance.

So, where do we go from here? How do we get out of this mess we’ve created?

Well, according to futurist, Barbara Marx Hubbard, the imbalance reflected in our current environmental and social system breakdowns is a good sign because it will serve as an evolutionary driver that can lead to transformation. That is, if we let it inspire us to create new systems that will better serve ALL humanity.

Hubbard even believes that it’s possible that we can evolve into a new human species—the universal human (homo universalis), a theory of which doesn’t take a great leap to contemplate. After all, we gone from pre-life to life and from animal life to human life, so why should evolution stop with homo sapiens sapiens? Hubbard asks, “Is it possible that a new species has been gestating in the womb of self-consciousness through the great avatars, mystics and visionaries for thousands of years and that, now, due to the current global crisis, this new human is being born in millions of us?”

If so, what would life as a universal human be like?

Well, in the midst of watching many of our institutional systems break down, we can also see (if we look very closely) that innovations and creative solutions are also emerging. This mirrors the belief of Ilya Prigogine, the Nobel prize-winning chemist, who said that when systems become more dysfunctional, they tend to use even more energy to sustain themselves. But, that is precisely the point when social innovations will emerge because nature has a tendency to converge upon that which is creative in order to manifest whole, new systems that operate at a higher degree of order.

Exciting innovations that are believed to be on the horizon include quantum computing, nanotechnology materials engineering, artificial intelligence and genetic engineering. Advances are also being made in the energy arena. Scientists have already discovered that 96 percent of the universe is made up of an unknown dark energy and a mysterious dark matter. According to astrophysicists, if and when this infinite supply of energy (also called zero-point energy domain) can be accessed, we will never again have to depend on fossil fuels, radioactive nuclear energy or other polluting technologies. With new forms of atomic lattice nanotechnology engineering, we will be able to create novel materials from this supply of energy. The materials generated from this process will be hundreds of times in excess of the energy required to produce it, which will result in an endless supply of clean energy that will affect every aspect of modern life. But, energy is not the only field where breakthroughs will be revealed.

Light technologies will also advance, which will revolutionize human health. Modulated coherent light and lighted crystals have already been found to have a healing effect on cells and organs. Healing techniques of the future will utilize this light to affect cells, tissues and organs, as well as modulate the body’s subtle energetic field. Ultimately, it will be recognized that human thinking and emotions can affect disease manifestation. And, as this knowledge becomes accepted in the mainstream, new educational systems will arise to teach people how to monitor their thoughts and emotions and, therefore, control their health.

Changes in the human mind will naturally follow. There is already strong evidence that the holographic universe acts as an interconnected mind to which each human has access. This interconnected thought field will lead to mainstream remote viewing, telepathy, and clairvoyant vision, which will change the way in which we communicate, engage in relationships, do business and conduct global interactions, especially since this new sight will allow for complete transparency of our thoughts, intentions and actions. Also, by becoming aware of the interconnected thought field, we will recognize that we create our reality with our thoughts, feelings, emotions, words and deeds. No longer will we feel disempowered or held victim, when we realize that to change our experience/reality we need merely to change our thoughts, feelings, emotions, words and actions. It’s as simple as that, and many enlightened ones are doing this right now.

So, with this wisdom and knowledge slowly filtering into our reality, movements for social responsibility and spirituality are dramatically increasing. As a matter of fact, Business for Social Responsibility, a non-profit organization founded in the 1990s, has grown to encompass 400 organizations, including half of the Fortune 500 companies. These organizations commit to honor ethical values and respect people, communities and the natural environment. And, it’s paying off! Lifestyles of Health & Sustainability reports that there is now a $228.9 billion US marketplace for goods and services focused on holistic health, the environment, social justice, personal development and sustainable living.

This shift in conscientious business and its emphasis on work/life balance will continue to ripple out into humanity and will grow into a higher order of existence for all of us. But, it will take all of us to create and sustain the new reality. We can do that by following the model that Kevin Laslo lays out in the book, The Mystery of 2012: Predictions, Prophecies & Possibilities:

1. Live in ways that enable all other people to live as well, satisfying your needs without detracting from the chances of other people to satisfy theirs.

2. Live in ways that respect the right to life and to economic and cultural development of all people, wherever they live and whatever their ethnic origin, sex, citizenship, station in life, and belief system.

3. Live in ways that safeguard the intrinsic right to life and to an environment supportive of life for all things that live and grow on Earth.

4. Pursue happiness, freedom, and personal fulfillment in harmony with the integrity of nature and with consideration for the similar pursuits of others in society.

5. Require that your government relate to other nations and peoples peacefully and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing the legitimate aspirations for a better life and a healthy environment of all the people in the human family.

6. Require business enterprises to accept responsibility for all their stakeholders, as well as for the sustainability of their environment, demanding that they produce goods and offer services that satisfy legitimate demand without impairing nature and reducing the opportunities of smaller and less-privileged entrants to compete in the marketplace.

7. Require public media to provide a constant stream of reliable information on basic trends and crucial processes to enable you and other citizens and consumers to reach informed decisions on issues that affect your and their life and well-being.

8. Make room in your life to help those less privileged than you to live a life of dignity, free from the struggles and humiliations of abject poverty.

9. Encourage young people and open-minded people of all ages to evolve the spirit that could empower them to make ethical decisions of their own on issues that decide their future and the future of their children.

10. Work with like-minded people to preserve or restore the essential balances of the environment, with attention to your neighborhood, your country or region, and the whole of the biosphere.

With these guidelines in mind, we can actively co-create a higher collective consciousness, and from that higher consciousness, we can begin to disseminate the information being sent to us from the harmonic galactic beam, which requires a higher consciousness to understand.

Clearly, we have much work to do between now and 2012. James O’Dea says so eloquently in his essay, You Were Born For Such A Time As This:

I see evidence of vanishing forests, shrinking water tables, melting ice caps, disappearing species, growing deserts, degraded oceans, toxic pollution, and signs of climate imbalance. I see belief systems in their death throes, distracted masses, delusional leaders and incensed and humiliated peoples glorifying war and slaughter. I see the face of greed with its ever-expanding range of seductions, and I see the face of poverty with its multiple aspects of needless suffering and neglect.

I see all this without judgment—or without being judgmental, to be more precise. I see that I am a part of all this; it is my world. I am a part of the problem, and I am a part of the solution. It is because I choose not to live in denial, because I choose to be a witness to these times, with all their peril and promise, that I can see the implications of the swirling eddies of time itself as we move closer to 2012.

So, in closing, the question was, “Will 2012 herald a doomsday or an Age of Awakening?” Well, I believe the Mayan are right—it will be the end of life as we know it, but not the end of life on our beautiful blue planet. I believe that 2012 will mark a critical shift in the consciousness of our planet and humanity for which we cannot fathom in our current state of consciousness. I know this because I know lightworkers who have been laying the groundwork for this shift for many years, which is helping to raise humanity’s frequency to a tipping point that will make it possible for everyone to experience the positive effects of the shift. I feel an excitement in my soul fully knowing that something wonderfully out-of-this-world is going to happen, and I can hardly wait!

We live in the most profound time in human history, when we will experience a quantum leap in evolution and will be able create a world that, so far, we have only been able to pray for and imagine in our wildest dreams. I don’t think that anyone on this planet is here by accident. I believe we all decided to incarnate at this monumental time in order to fulfill our soul’s desire—to create heaven on earth.

Well, these are my thoughts about 2012. Tell me. . .what do you think?

(Some of the information contained in this article is attributed to The Mystery of 2012: Predictions, Prophecies and Possibilities, which a collection of essays from the world’s most renown and respected spiritualists, futurists, scientists, economists and ecologists.)

I recently saw the movie “Inception,” and it moved me in a profound way. To me, it wasn’t just a fictional movie about sleep and dreams and manipulating the subconscious, meant simply to entertain the mind for two hours at a movie theater on a hot summer night? This movie was much more than that. It was the visual representation of the spiritual journey that I’ve been on for the last 25 years.

The thought that I may be living in a dream world began when I became a student of A COURSE IN MIRACLES. You may have heard of this thought-provoking work, and, perhaps, you are aware that millions of people around the world have been students. But, did you know that it requires devotees to unlearn everything they’ve ever been taught during their entire lives? Yes, everything. Why would any curriculum demand this? And why would anyone even consider such an irrational notion?

Well, the Course asserts that what we think of as our reality—every human experience between our birth and death—is really an illusion, a dream that lasts our whole lives, unless we choose to wake-up. And, we can only awaken, if we realize that we are in a dream that has been perpetuated by certain untruths, which we must then unlearn, in order to wake-up and experience true reality.

Confused? I understand, hence 25 years of trying to wrap my mind around this possibility.

But, the funny thing is, it is the mind that creates the illusion, since our brain only allows us to compute and process perceptions and experiences within the confines of a third dimensional perspective. The paradox is that “what we think is what we create,” which produces a never-ending feedback loop that humanity has been trapped in, since the beginning of time as we know it.

The good news is that the soul is multi-dimensional and not controlled by the mind. This dichotomy creates a nagging question in the subconscious of every human—a seed of truth waiting to be discovered and through free-will choice nurtured into a new reality.

I discovered this seed when certain “truths” didn’t add up regarding God. For example, how could a God of infinite love, mercy and compassion be the same God that flooded the Earth and killed all living things except for those on an ark; turned people into salt pillars; chose one side over another in a “holy” war that sanctioned the killing of innocent people; and, without any mercy for aeons, cast his children into eternal hellfire for not living up to a standard of perfection. These contradictions made me question everything—a flood gate that once opened could never be closed again. And that’s when my soul led me to A Course in Miracles

What I liked about the Course was that it didn’t require me to quash my budding spiritual questions or relinquish my religion. As a matter of fact, in the preface it says, “Although Christian in statement, the Course deals with universal spiritual themes. It emphasizes that it is but one version of the universal curriculum. There are many others, this one differing from them only in form. They all lead to God in the end.”

And, as I mentioned in my book, Reunion on the Rainbow Bridge, I also like the way the authors explain how and why the multi-layered philosophy of perception (dreaming) and knowledge (awakening) is universal—how it can apply to me as a Christian and at the same time have profound meaning for a Hindu or Buddhist or Jew or any other spiritually-devoted person.

The Course’s premise is that knowledge is truth. Truth is the law of love, and it is unchangeable. It applies to everything God created. It is beyond learning. It has no opposite, no beginning, and no end.

Perception, on the other hand, is from the limited world of time and space. It is based only on interpretation of what is perceived with the mind and is founded in a deep, cellular belief of scarcity, loss, and separation. It is learned. And it is selective in its perceptual emphasis, unstable in its functioning, and inaccurate in its interpretations.

Therefore, two distinct thought systems arise out of knowledge and perception.

In the world of knowledge, no thoughts exist apart from God, which is love.

In the realm of perception, a belief in opposites, duality, and separation perpetuates continual conflict, especially with God. That is because what perception sees and hears is defined as real, and it permits into awareness only that which conforms to the desires of the perceiver. This world of illusion, however, needs constant defense precisely because it is not real. It is a dream.

When one is caught in a dream, assistance is needed to escape it because everything in one’s senses validates the reality of the dream. God has provided that escape. He is able to mediate between the two worlds because, although he knows the truth, he also recognizes the illusions without believing in them. His Holy Spirit helps us escape by teaching the process of reversing our thought and unlearning our misperceptions.

The world that we define as reality merely reflects our own internal frame of reference, which includes our dominant beliefs and emotions. We accomplish that by deciding what kind of world we want to see and projecting that world outside ourselves, making it the truth as we see it. We may ask why we would create a world where violence, war, hunger, homelessness, poverty, and disease exist. The answer to that question is that we don’t understand the omnipotent power of our own beliefs, fears, thoughts, feelings, and actions. For example, if we use perception to justify our anger, as a reason to attack or to withhold love, then we will see a world of evil, malice, destruction, and despair. We must, therefore, forgive ourselves of this mistake, not because we are being charitable, but because what we are seeing in the world is what we have created, which is not real. It is not God. It is not truth.

I particularly like what the Course says about forgiveness and sin. “Sin is defined as a ‘lack of love.’ Since love is all there is, sin in the sight of the Holy Spirit is a mistake to be corrected, rather than an evil to be punished. Our sense of inadequacy, weakness and incompletion comes from the strong investment in the ‘scarcity principle’ that governs the whole world of illusions. From that point of view, we seek in others what we feel is wanting in ourselves.

The Course explains, “We ‘love’ another in order to get something ourselves. [This] is what passes for love in the dream world. There can be no greater mistake than that, for love is incapable of asking for anything.” Furthermore, the Course continues, the perceived self “seeks to enhance itself by external approval, external possessions and external ‘love.’ The Self That God created needs nothing. It is forever complete, safe, loved, and loving. It seeks to share rather than to get; to extend rather than project. It has no needs and [only] wants to join with others out of their mutual awareness of abundance.”

To further illustrate the principle of living in an illusion, the Course explains that “Perception is a function of the body, and therefore represents a limit on awareness. Perception sees through the body’s eyes and hears through body’s ears.

The opposite of seeing through the body’s eyes is the vision of Christ, which reflects strength rather than weakness, unity rather than separation, and love rather than fear. The opposite of hearing through the body’s ears is communication through the Voice of God, the Holy Spirit, which abides in each of us. His Voice seems distant and difficult to hear because the ego, which speaks for the little, separated self, seems to be much louder. This is actually reversed. The Holy Spirit speaks with unmistakable clarity and overwhelming appeal.

Christ’s vision [therefore] is the Holy Spirit’s gift–God’s alternative to the illusion of separation and to the belief in the reality of sin, guilt and death. . .Its kindly light shows all things from another point of view, reflecting the thought system that arises from knowledge and making [a] return to God not only possible, but inevitable.”

You see, that’s why I want to awaken. The world I choose to live in is the biblical Promise Land that God lovingly offers to his children—an exodus from the shackles of oppressive non-truth and a journey to the metaphorical land of milk and honey, where there is no lack, only abundance—only love. And, although I currently have just one foot firmly planted in the real world, the other foot is already halfway there, as I continue my studies. In the meantime, I wanted to share this perspective and this good news with you.

And, one last thought, everything written in this blog post about the Course has come solely from the preface of the book. So, you can imagine the immense knowledge packed within its 500 pages. It simply takes that much time to explain the dream world—the illusion. I was enthralled with its chapters about the origins of separation, the message of the crucifixion, obstacles to peace and the meaning of atonement (at-one-ment). It truly opened my eyes, expanded my heart, silenced the mind and awakened me.

It’s a book of extraordinary wisdom that has taken me years to comprehend, and I still have a long way to go—it’s arduous to unlearn everything. But it’s a journey of joy, and I’m learning what I need to learn exactly when I am capable of learning it, especially when combined with other divine works that contain God’s truth. As it says in Chapter 1, “All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. His Voice will direct you very specifically. You will be told all you need to know.”

Amen to that!

Being a curious one, especially about human nature, I asked my Mom if she resented the man who was driving the car during the accident that left her paralyzed, especially because he was able to walk away and she would never walk again. And, her answer surprised me.

She said, “It was an accident. There is no one to blame or even forgive. And, no, I don’t harbor any resentment—not toward David and not toward God.” I asked how she was able to transcend being a victim. And that’s when she sat me right down and told me in no uncertain terms that she had NEVER been a victim.

I didn’t understand this. Someone else’s actions took away the life she dreamed of—she was just 17 years old. She would never walk again, or dance, or stroll hand in hand with her husband, or skip with her children or even be able to run out of harm’s way if need be. This didn’t seem fair at all. How could she not feel like a victim?

That is when my Mom taught me about sacred contracts. She hadn’t coined the phrase. That was done by Caroline Myss who wrote Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential. By Myss’ definition (and what my Mom knew before Myss), a sacred contract is an agreement that a soul makes with the Creator before incarnating into a human life, which applies whether one believes in reincarnation or not.

It is explained in Myss’ book, which refers to the philosophy of Plato in his work The Republic that a sacred contract is a wide range of agreements that cover the key components of what we will experience in our lives, such as the kind of work we’ll do, specific people with whom we will form relationships, what our spiritual path will look like, the lessons we will learn and the way we will learn them, as well as how we will burn negative karma created in previous lifetimes. The contract also allows for free-will choices that provide additional circumstances for growth. But, according to Myss, a soul doesn’t create a contract on their own.

God allows special angels to carefully advise souls about personal consciousness evolution—the path that will lead them closer to God. And in this celestial realm where a soul does not possess the physical and emotional attributes of a human, it is quite easy to select certain circumstances for achieving that spiritual development, even if involves illness, hardship, a broken heart, or injustice–choices that a human being probably would never have the courage to choose.

And, so it is, with the Creator’s blessing that the soul is allowed to incarnate into a newborn life forgetting in the process about the sacred contract that was made before birth. However, although the human won’t remember, the soul will not forget and will keep the human on the path that was agreed upon, as much as the human’s free will allows.

This is what my Mom wanted me to understand about never being a victim. She believed that everything that happened to her had happened for a divine reason. Maybe she would understand it completely in hindsight and maybe she wouldn’t. Understanding everything wasn’t the point. It was accepting that before birth she had selected what she wanted to experience both tragic and miraculous. Therefore, every circumstance was a special opportunity for her to learn something profound, as well as to express deep gratitude. And from that perspective, everything, even being paralyzed at 17 years old, was a way for her to be closer to God.

She explained further with this example. She said, perhaps, it was that when she was a soul preparing to incarnate into this life she chose being handicapped as a way to learn a valuable lesson in order to spiritually evolve or as a means to be in service to God by reflecting the courage one can possess when faced with adversity. In choosing this circumstance, she might require the assistance of others, and, perhaps, that was David’s role. Maybe as souls in heaven preparing their sacred contracts, they decided to collaborate. And, through this tragic circumstance they would be afforded individual opportunities to spiritually evolve. From this perspective, my Mom explained, David was not the terrible person who ruined her life, but the kind soul who chose to carry the burden of the accident, so she could keep her contract with God.

On the flip side of that drama was the role my Dad played. My parents always said that they knew they were meant to be together forever. They said it was a knowing beyond knowing and that they couldn’t put that otherworldly knowing into words so that others could understand the depths of their unity. But, I can easily imagine, especially knowing about their multiple past lives as soul mates, that my Dad agreed to accompany my Mom. He loved her so completely that he came into this life with her to serve as her helpmate—to love her unconditionally, to make sure she had everything she needed to navigate through life as a handicapped person, to be the legs that she would lose. Now that both of my parents have returned to heaven, I can only imagine the triumphant reunion they had with God, after brilliantly reaching the goals set in their sacred contracts.

It makes me wonder, what if we each looked at our lives as if everything that happened was part of a sacred contract that WE made for ourselves? It would absolutely change the way we experience everything and everybody. Just think about that for a minute. That “thorn in your side” wouldn’t merely be the annoying person you have to miserably put up with, but rather a teacher whose only wish is for you to learn what you came to learn. That job loss might not solely be the blame of an economic downturn caused by government and big business, but rather a way for your soul to keep you on the path of the kind of work you really came to do. And that illness might not be some random, cruel joke of fate, but rather an opportunity to show yourself or others where true courage, faith and trust come from.

Don’t get me wrong I am not trivializing the pain and sorrow caused by the challenges that humans face in the course of their lives. I’ve been there, too, the worst of which was watching my children suffer through circumstances that ripped away their carefree childhood much too soon. But what helped us traverse that hellish abyss of fear, sorrow, anger, and feeling of powerlessness was to remember what my parents taught me. They said, “Ask ourselves these questions: what am I supposed to learn from this situation, what higher purpose does it serve, and how can I honor God, myself and others by dealing with it from a perspective of pure love?

And that is what I wanted to share with you today because times are tough for everyone on the planet right now, some much more than others, and it’s easy to feel like a powerless victim. But that won’t help you or anyone else. As a matter of fact, feeling like a victim will only keep you in darkness; it will isolate you; and it will prevent you from moving backward or forward. You will just be stuck.

However, we can’t afford to be stuck right now. Our planet and the human race is going through an unprecedented shift in consciousness. Transformational energy is flooding the planet and shaking every human being to their very core. It is causing everything that doesn’t resonate with love to rise to the surface to be healed—individually and as a collective whole. That’s why things seem to be getting worse in the world right now instead of better. Just watch the daily news and you will see what’s coming to the surface to be transmuted back into love—racism, bigotry, intolerance, oppression, abuse of power, plundering the Earth’s resources, and on and on. These things affect all of us on some level. But we can get through this, if we will remember one thing.

We’re all working on fulfilling our individual sacred contracts—no more, no less. We are all on a divine mission that has been sanctioned by our Creator. We are, therefore, each other’s teachers and helpmates, especially in this time of great change. This is the time when we need to stick together, like we do in a crisis.

Remember after Hurricane Katrina or the tsunami in Indonesia or the earthquake in Haiti—we all came together as human beings. Our hearts demanded it. Race, gender, religion or economic status didn’t matter. We were instantly moved into action to help our brothers and sisters who were suffering. But we don’t need a natural disaster to prompt us into selfless service to one another. We need each other now—every day.

So, the time has come for us to work together in harmony, and we all have to participate—to choose what we wish to see in the world, to choose what kind of future our children and children’s children will experience, to stop blaming everyone else for our misfortunes, and to realize that we create with every thought, feeling, word and action. And, we can’t stand idly by while others do the hard work either. It will take all of us—no more, no less.

But, we can do it! It’s even hinted about in The Lord’s Prayer, “on Earth as it is in Heaven.” So, let’s awaken right now to be co-creators with our Creator and bring our planet and humanity back to paradise.

~Sherri Defesche

P. S. On a side note: after my mother died, I learned from her (from beyond the grave) why she had chosen to be a paraplegic in this life. The reason astounded me, and I wrote about it in Reunion on the Rainbow Bridge. It’s the reason that I believe in sacred contracts, karma, God’s unconditional love and forgiveness. I’d love for you to read about it and tell me what you think.

Many people who knew my parents and saw their beautiful love story unfold ask me why I didn’t just write about their current life—the one we all know existed. Why mix it up with possible past lives and the exploration of spiritual beliefs that are practically foreign to us in the West? And that’s a very good question. I pondered the same thing many, many times in the course of writing Reunion on the Rainbow Bridge. So, I would like to share with you what led me down this unorthodox path.

It was after my mother died that I began to chronicle the extraordinary love between my parents, who married as teens after the car accident that left my mother a paraplegic. At first, recording their love story was my way to honor my mother, to make sure that her inspirational legacy of love and courage wasn’t buried with her. But, in hindsight, it was more of a way for me to deal with the sorrow and shock of suddenly being motherless.

If you’ve ever lost a parent, you know what I mean—it’s like an emotional amputation. There’s no way to be prepared. And, there’s no one who can help you navigate the excruciating journey of grief. It’s very isolating. And, it’s discombobulating, like a spinning top that has lost its balance and is wobbling uncontrollably all over the place. You don’t know when it’s going to stop, but when it does, that’s when you realize that there’s a void so deep at the core of your being that you can’t even imagine how you will ever fill it. And, if you could, what would you fill it with—there’s nothing that can replace the love and bond you shared with your parent. It’s an unimaginable ache that can almost drive you mad. Writing about my Mom was a respite from that pain.

I would write for hours. Oh, how I loved being in that world of memories, like remembering when my Mom taught me to ride a two-wheeled bike, which is actually quite difficult when one is in a wheelchair. She had to hold the bike up with one hand, while rolling her wheelchair with the other hand to push me down the street until I had the courage for her to let go.

And, then, there was the time that she taught me how to swim. Do you know how hard it is to stay upright in the water if you don’t have your legs to anchor you? Try it—it’s nearly impossible. So, she would hold onto the side of the pool with one hand and teach me how to float by holding her other hand under my back. This was important to my Mom because she always had this fear that if her children were drowning she wouldn’t be able to save us. She thought, however, if she taught us to float, then we would have a chance of surviving until someone could rescue us. She was always thinking about these things from a paraplegic’s point of view. But, I was also worried about my Mom.

Like the time when I was in the second grade and a tornado passed right over my school shattering the windows and flinging roof shingles and hail inside our classroom. Our teacher had us get underneath the desks to protect us from falling debris, but it wasn’t my own safety that I feared. I was terrified for my mother, who could not quickly run and get under a desk like me. I imagined her being lifted into the air like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and carried away to place where I’d never find her.

As soon as the tornado passed, the teacher immediately began accounting for all her students. For the first time in my life I defied a beloved teacher’s orders and ran out of the classroom. I headed for the main road in front of the school and fell repeatedly on the hail-covered sidewalk, but nothing was going to keep me from getting home to make sure that my Mom was all right. I ran all the way home, which was about a quarter of a mile. There was mayhem everywhere in my neighborhood—tree limbs across the road, mothers getting in their cars to rush to the school, and people standing out in their yards looking dazed. The closer I got to our house, the more sure I was that my mother would be dead. At eight years old I was overcome with a depth of fear that I can’t even describe today. When I got home, I was relieved to find that my mother was alive. But, for the rest of my life, I carried that all-consuming childlike fear of losing my mother.

So, when she died thirty years later, it felt like an avalanche of accumulated fear had knocked me flat on my back and was choking the life out of me. Simultaneously, my Dad was feeling the same way.

At the time of my mother’s death, I lived in Austin, Texas, and my Dad lived in our hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana. And we were grieving in our own separate ways. However, when he came to live with me shortly thereafter, we began to talk about our pain.

I told him that my most pressing need was to know that everything that Christianity had taught me was true—that good people go to heaven. If that was the case, then I had no doubt that my mother was there, and I would see her again. However, I questioned, what if by some monumental misunderstanding the Church got it wrong, what if there really is no heaven. It seems illogical to question such a thing, until you find yourself in that place of utter non-knowing. I kept thinking, “What if heaven was an illusion we chose to believe in order to deal with our own mortality and, therefore, my mother is gone forever?” Suddenly, I needed proof that an afterlife existed.

So, as I had done all my life, I turned to the Bible for answers, as well as dozens and dozens of books on the subject. And that’s when my whole idea of heaven and the afterlife turned upside down. In my life, I had only known Christian beliefs about the afterlife and had never really pondered creeds from other cultures. But, I was quickly captivated by all the beautiful beliefs and possibilities that I never knew existed, which prompted an ardent search for answers and understanding.

I became versed in ancient afterlife beliefs such as the Egyptian underworld and Greek Elysium, as well as learned about religions that I had never even heard of like Baba’i and Zoroastrianism. This serious study of the world’s religions opened my mind and expanded my heart. And I was overwhelmed at the realization that the common thread in all these religions was that of One God and the love he possesses for his children. So, it was with a curious mind and open heart that I explored the possibility of reincarnation, an ancient belief held dear by many religions for thousands of years.

The theory of reincarnation resonates with me because it reflects a compassionate God, and that is what I believe my God-of-Love is all about. I’ve never believed that our omnipotent Father of infinite love would actually possess the human traits of judgment, revenge, and punishment. And, therefore, I’ve never believed that he would cast any of his children into an eternal hell because they couldn’t live up to Christ-like perfection. That is why reincarnation makes sense to me. It’s a loving God’s way of giving us chance after chance to rise to our Christ-consciousness potential. And, in between those chances, those lifetimes, I believe we all return home to our Father, where there are many levels of afterlife existence.

To what level we return depends upon how we lived each life and how spiritually evolved we became through our free-will choices. Even at the level most removed from where Jesus resides, I believe there is great love and compassion, where God and his angels help us understand our greatest missteps and the rippling effects of our grandest acts of love. And in that space of compassion, I believe we ache to return to Earth to have another chance to do better, to become more and more a reflection of God’s unconditional acceptance, mercy, and love.

So, while I was in the throes of exploring this possibility, I happened to meet a past-life regression therapist—you know what they say, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Well, I told her about my search for spiritual answers, especially related to my mother’s whereabouts in the afterlife, and she offered to share her wisdom with me. After getting my father’s blessing on exploring my parents’ past lives, I met with the therapist, not realizing how her revelations would impact my life, my spiritual beliefs and my purpose.

Listening to her recount life after extraordinary life, where my parents always found one another as soul mates, simply astounded me. They weren’t anyone famous, but hearing about their lives was like taking a magic carpet ride through all the greatest periods of history. They lived in Lemuria and were also ancient Anasazis. They were Celtic children and Greek philosophers. They witnessed the Crusades and also the Renaissance. And in their last life before this one, they found each other when my father was an injured World War I soldier, and my mother was his nurse.

As the therapist revealed each life, I began to see a common thread. I followed the thread of each life and was able to connect the dots. That is when I realized that their story wasn’t isolated to their present incarnation; but, rather, all their incarnations told a bigger story, a grand story. And that story revealed a message to humanity. It was sharing this message that was the purpose of all their 238 lifetimes together.

My parents’ message is about love. We think we know all about love, but do we really? If we knew about love then there would be no war, no hungry children, no homeless families, no hatred, no oppression and no rape and pillage of the Earth.

My parents’ message is also complex. It requires us to peel away the layers of everything we have ever believed about humanity, especially that we are separate from one another—separate people in separate communities in separate countries, where we must one-up each other just to survive.

And, my parents’ message is really good news—astounding news, actually! In reading the details in Reunion on the Rainbow Bridge you will see how very close we are to ushering in the Golden Age of Peace. However, it will take EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US to accomplish this, and this requires that we recognize our ONENESS—our divine connection to each other as God’s children. We are one family, interconnected, where what affects ONE affects ALL. This requires that every thought, feeling, word and action come from a place of love. Is this hard? You bet! Is it possible? No question about it. It’s about shifting our consciousness away from fear and toward love.

So, when we finally see the divinity in all others, we will honor and love all others. And when this love is reflected and radiated out into the world, we will know an existence that is beyond our current imagining. It will be a return to paradise—a new Eden. That is my parents’ message. And I am honored to be their scribe and to relay this message on their behalf.

I know. . .this is an odd question. After all, who could forget the colorful, cross-section charts used in elementary school illustrating the layers of the Earth, where the inner core was represented by a bright, reddish-orange sphere? I remember being told as a young, impressionable student that temperatures at the core were about a gazillion degrees and, therefore, the iron contained therein had converted to a liquid. What else did I need to know? What else was there to know?

But now, 40 years later, new theories have surfaced that have lit a fire under my wild imagination. And I am compelled to find out what truly is contained at the center of the Earth. The answer, I believe, could dramatically alter the way we see ourselves as Earth people in this vast, infinite universe in which we live; and it could even serve as an evolutionary driver catapulting the human race to a higher level of existence. But, I’m getting a little ahead of myself here—let me begin at the beginning of my search for an answer.

When doing research for my book, Reunion on the Rainbow Bridge, this question came up, and I was shocked at what I learned. Perhaps, that’s because I had always held the information gleaned from 1960s grade school as indisputable, scientific fact. After all, my science teachers, who I elevated to near god-like status, taught and tested us on facts not theories. And, following grade school, I don’t recall any breaking-news about the Earth’s core—surely, I would have read about it in my father’s National Geographic, or my science-buff Dad would have told me about it, along with all the other amazing things he taught me about the universe. So, up until about the age of 42, I continued to believe that the Earth’s core was this fiery sphere of molten alloy that sometimes seeped to the surface through volcanoes.

But, here is what I know today. . .

It was only three centuries ago that Issac Newton theorized from his studies of planets and gravity that the Earth’s interior must be composed of dense material. Then, in 1906 Richard Oldham discovered from his study of earthquake waves that Newton was right about the inner core being solid, but that an outer core of molten liquid also existed. Inge Lehmann came along in 1936 and confirmed Oldham’s research and further projected that the iron/nickel core acts as the source of Earth’s magnetic field. And in 1953 J. A. Jacobs presented his theory that the core is cooling, freezing actually, and that the inner core is permeating the outer core. Seems the more we know, the more we realize that we don’t know. Even in the 21st century, the main method for core research continues to be earthquake waves and computer model simulations.

So, in essence, no one knows for sure what’s at the center of the Earth.

And, this is what opens the door to some otherworldly possibilities, one of which is that the Earth is hollow and inhabited by a subterranean civilization, similar to that in J. R. R. Tolkien’s fictional Middle Earth or in Jules Verne’s novel, Journey to the Center of the Earth. This being an actual possibility in the 21st century sounds a little far-fetched, I know, until you learn that theories of a subterranean civilization have existed since the time of Plato.

Plato himself wrote about subterranean tunnels leading to the Earth’s hollow interior and so did Edmond Halley (of comet fame). They were joined in this belief by one of the 16th century’s founders of higher mathematics, Leonard Euler, who projected that, mathematically, the Earth has to be hollow with a central sun. It was these grand, unorthodox ideas that led 20th century explorers to search for the subterranean kingdom, known to Asian Buddhist lamas as Agharti. And, the most famous of all the explorers was Admiral Richard E. Byrd, United States Navy fighter pilot, who wasn’t even looking for Agharti, when he found it.

It was on February 19, 1947, when Byrd was flying over the North Pole on a naval expedition that his magnetic and gyro compasses began to wobble. Looking to the ground for visual confirmation of his location he saw something quite unexpected—a small, green mountain range. Byrd dropped to an altitude of 2,950 feet to get a better look, and both he and his radioman saw a forested mountainside with a small river running through a green valley. And, even more surprising was the mammoth-like creature they saw slowly strolling through the valley. With confusion about what they were seeing, Byrd checked the external temperature and found it was a balmy 74-degrees Fahrenheit—yes, a tropical temperature in the middle of winter at the North Pole.

Well, Byrd immediately tried reporting the strange findings to his base camp, but the radio was no longer functioning. Then, his aircraft suddenly became oddly buoyant, and Byrd found that the controls didn’t work either, especially as he tried to avoid a mid-air collision with two disc-shaped aircraft that were now flanking his plane. Over his non-functioning radio, Byrd heard, “Welcome, Admiral, to our domain. We shall land you in exactly seven minutes.”

Once on the ground, Byrd and his radioman were escorted into a city that they said shimmered like crystals and pulsated in prismatic hues. They traveled underground on a vehicle that didn’t have any wheels through a long hallway illuminated by rose-colored light that seemed to be generated by the earthen walls themselves. Then, Byrd and his radioman were separated, and Byrd was escorted into a room where he was to have an audience with the Master. And this is what the Master said to him:

“You are in the domain of the Arianni, the Inner World of the Earth. Our interest [in contact with the surface people] began just after your race exploded the first atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

You see, we have never interfered before in your race’s wars and barbarity, but now we must, for you have learned to tamper with a certain power that is not for man, namely, that of atomic energy. Your race has now reached the point of no return, for there are those among you who would destroy your very world than relinquish their power as they know it.

So, now, I say to you, there is a great storm gathering in your world, a black fury that will not spend itself for many years. There will be no answers in your arms, there will be no safety in your science. It may rage on until every flower of your culture is trampled, and all human things are leveled in vast chaos.

We see at a great distance a new world stirring from the ruins of your race, seeking its lost and legendary treasures, and they will be here safe in our keeping. When that time arrives, we shall come forward again to help revive your culture and your race. Perhaps, by then, you will have learned the futility of war and its strife.

You are to return to the Surface World with this message.”

At that, their meeting ended. Byrd and his radioman boarded their plane, which was escorted to an altitude of 2,700 feet by the same disc-shaped aircraft that brought them in; then, they were bade farewell. Twenty-seven minutes later, Byrd landed at the naval base camp.

Byrd had taken the meeting with the Master very seriously. Following his fantastic flight he went to the Pentagon where he stated in elaborate detail what had happened and shared the important message with his military superiors. Everything was recorded, and President Truman was advised. Then, for seven hours, Byrd was detained, intensely interrogated, and thoroughly examined by a medical team. Finally, in a state of exhaustion and confusion, he was ordered to remain absolutely silent about what had happened during the expedition and was threatened with a court martial and imprisonment if he didn’t.

As a loyal and obedient military man, Byrd kept silent. He never told another soul, not even his family. However, according to some sources, he kept a secret journal and recorded in rich detail everything that happened that day at the North Pole.

The last entry in his journal was made on December 30, 1956, and read: “I now make my final entry. . .I have faithfully kept this matter secret as directed all these years. It has been completely against my values of moral right. Now I seem to sense the long night coming on and this secret will not die with me.”

Could this revelation in Byrd’s “secret diary” be authentic? It certainly corroborates accounts from both ancient Greek manuscripts and those held dear by varied cultures around the world that a subterranean civilization exists.

If it is true, then what does it mean?

On the surface, it means that what we were taught in science class was wrong—very, very wrong. And it makes me wonder if they got this wrong, then what else has been taught to us in error—not purposely, just by mistake from a lack of information. But now, with the invention of computers and the internet, a whole wide world of information is available at the click of a button. I mean, how many times have you “googled” something and within minutes you possessed a library full of information about any subject under the sun. We are all benefiting from data that we never dreamed was out there. Or, from a more cynical point of view, we are benefiting from information that has been kept from us by those who desire the masses to stay uninformed and disempowered, which is a whole other issue that I’ll probably blog about soon, but, let me get back to the subject at hand.

The more profound meaning of the existence of a subterranean civilization would be that we are part of something monumentally bigger than ourselves, and what we do on the surface reverberates through the Earth and out into the universe. This would mean that all human beings, at least the surface ones, need to become consciously and acutely aware of the choices we are making as individuals and as a collective whole and understand how those decisions ripple out and affect the universe. In essence, we would have to accept that we have a greater responsibility within God’s infinite creation. And, speaking of God’s creation, we would also have to re-evaluate what that is. It would require us to leap beyond our third-dimensional brain capability, which only permits us to imagine Earth and its people as the only beings relevant in God’s universe. And, I don’t know about you, but that’s hard for me to wrap my mind around. It would require that I unlearn most everything I’ve learned about my existence.

So, what if there is an ancient, wise group of Middle Earth people who live in peace and harmony and are aware of our increasing propensity to destroy ourselves and the Earth? What if their warning of a “great storm gathering” is real? With everything going on in the world right now, I’d say without any doubt that we are certainly headed in that direction. What if we heed their message that war is futile? And, what if we began to question the powers that we allow others to possess, others who will hold onto that power at all costs, even if that means we all perish?

Read about all the “what ifs” in Reunion on the Rainbow Bridge and learn more about the underground people, where the openings are to their ancient home, and how they can help us return again to Eden.

u•to•pi•a (yo͞o-tōˈpē-ə) noun  1.  a. An ideally perfect place, especially in its social, political, and moral aspects

I don’t know about you, but with everything going on in the world right now—political corruption, social system upheaval, global economic collapse, religious scandals, and ecological disasters—I often fantasize about the possibility of living in a utopian society.

Of course, I’m in good company.   The utopian myth has been written about for ages—Plato’s Republic, Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, Thoreau’s Walden and Island by Aldous Huxley.  It seems to me that human beings innately yearn for a utopian existence.  Shouldn’t we give some thought to this primal urge to live in harmony with nature and exist peacefully with one another?

We can do it, you know.  It’s been done before.  Several successful utopian societies thrived during the 18th and 19th centuries, such as the Shakers, The Harmony Society, and the Amana and Oneida Colonies.  But, imagine my surprise when I learned that such an ideal society exists today—right now!

I learned about Damanhur, when I was doing research for my book, Reunion on the Rainbow Bridge.   I was so moved by the beauty and depth of compassionate wisdom of this community, that I included a whole chapter about it in my book.  You see, Reunion is about my parents’ past lives, and one of their lives was spent in the utopian paradise known as Lemuria.  In learning about this ancient civilization, I was prompted to study Atlantis, which led me to Damanhur—a real, working utopian community based on Atlantean wisdom.  This community of over one thousand residents is situated in the mountains of Italy.  I mean, literally, it’s located inside a mountain in the Piedmont Alps seventy meters below ground.

It was in 1975 that Oberto Airaudi broke ground for a subterranean cathedral that would be dedicated to the spiritual rebirth of the human race.  Twelve others joined him and with simple shovels they bore into the mountain.  They dug by hand for 13 years, never using machinery, and in 1988 their temple became a reality.

Six thousand cubic meters of tunnels led to cathedral-sized rooms adorned with Tuscan marble and frescoed walls.  Topping the magnificent rooms were eight-meter-wide, lighted stained glass domes that splashed colored light on the tile mosaics that featured motifs of Atlantis, a theme which is very important to them.

You see, the residents of Damanhur believe that by learning about Atlantis and the mythological past of humanity they could better understand the great cosmic plan.  The plan, they say, is simply to bring humanity to higher consciousness through harmonious living.  And, in their very own esoteric mystery school, they affirm that this enlightenment can be achieved through relationships with others, which serves as a mirror for the self.  Evidently, they put this to the test every day in many ways.

Not only do the residents live and work together dedicating their lives to reawakening the divine within the individual, as well as in the collective consciousness, but they do this while attending to the practical matters of daily life.  Within the boundaries of the compound, residents produce 50 percent of their food supply, which includes organic vegetables, olives, grains, fruit, wine, honey, milk and cheese.  Ninety percent of their fuel for heating comes from wood harvested from their own forest.  They generate 54 percent of their heated water from solar panels, and 25 percent of their electricity is created from photovoltaic installations and small turbines.  With these varied sources of energy they are able to run their own government, print their own currency, establish schools, and operate businesses, including a newspaper and fire department.  It is these sustainable developments that recently earned them distinguished recognition by the United Nations Global Human Settlements Forum.  And with this recognition many other groups are following suit.

Damanhur now has 20 affiliated centers in Italy and another 20 located in Europe, Japan and the United States.  They have also taken a leadership role in the Global Ecovillage Network and are currently building a 1,000-seat, underground amphitheater, which they plan to offer to the United Nations.

So, my question is, “Why can’t we all live like this?”  Well, we can, but not with the institutional systems we now have in place for government, global economy, education, health care, religion and social welfare.

However, many people (about 4 percent of the world’s population) are finally awakening to the truth that our systems are broken and need to be replaced with systems that serve ALL.  But it is the masses who are trying to hold onto the current systems.  They are either the 10 percent who desire to maintain their power and control over the world’s resources, or the other 86 percent who hold on with white knuckles out of fear that they will perish in poverty, homelessness, illness, joblessness or even eternal damnation if they don’t adhere to what they’ve always known, believed and trusted.

But, folks, we really need to let these systems fully breakdown because only out of that chaos will we be able to create new systems that better serve humanity.  Order is always created from chaos—it happens in nature all the time.  It is a universal law.  And, we need to see this chaos for the opportunity it is—an unprecedented moment in human history to return to Eden, that place of peace, love and harmony, the memory of which has been stored in our primeval, cellular memories since the beginning of time.

But, chaos is hard to navigate.  It’s downright scary and painful.  I liken this process of awakening and shifting in consciousness to that of childbirth, where contractions serve a vital purpose.  During labor, contractions slowly push the baby through the birth canal, so that the baby’s delicate bone structures, especially the skull, do not compress too fast, thereby, causing catastrophic injury.   That’s where we are as a human race, in the birth canal, experiencing the metaphorical contractions created by our failing systems.  We are slowly being pushed to make changes that will prevent catastrophic injury to the human race.

Simultaneously, Mother Earth is going through her own contractions.  We have left her no choice with our disregard for her health and well-being.  It’s only with the oil leak in the Gulf that many have awaken to the realization that we are destroying the one thing that we absolutely depend on for survival.  But Mother Earth will not let herself be destroyed.  So, she is being forced by humans to purify herself through earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, and fires.  You hear about it on the news every day.  These earth changes and weather-pattern anomalies occur with increasing regularity.  They are a sign for us that changes, albeit painful ones, are required and demands our personal and collective accountability.

Let’s take the Gulf oil tragedy as an example.  You might say, “Hey, I didn’t leak millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf”   But, in essence, we all had a hand in it because we participate in the dependence on oil by not demanding the exploration of other sources of clean energy—not from ourselves and not from our government.

Furthermore, we elect government officials who accept billions of dollars from oil companies in exchange for influencing energy policy in their favor.  And, we continue to stay in ignorance about these covert deals because we don’t look any deeper than what mainstream news tells us.  Mainstream media is just repeating what big government and big oil tell them to tell us.  And, it’s not because they don’t know the truth because they do.  Big media, or rather the heads of big media, have their own political and personal agendas and use their power of the media to achieve it.  They all sleep together in same big bed, and they want us to stay ignorant of what they are doing.

Sadly, our unawareness isn’t limited to politics and big oil.  In the paragraph above, instead of the Gulf tragedy, just substitute failures in our education, healthcare, financial, and social welfare systems.  Like I said, folks, these systems are breaking down right before our very eyes.  All you have to do is listen to the news every day, connect the dots, and see the big picture.

At this point, there needn’t be any negative judgment about what we have allowed to happen.  We just need to wake-up and pay attention NOW.  We need to re-claim our power—the power to critically think for ourselves, to challenge those we’ve put into positions of authority and control, and to listen to our innate wisdom, which tells us that we should never let a fellow human being suffer from homelessness, hunger, poverty, inaccessibility to medical care, discrimination, religious persecution or any of the other varied, unacceptable forms of suffering.

This is our golden opportunity to decide what we want to give birth to—what kind of systems do we want to create out of the current chaos.  This time of grand creation requires each of us to take responsibility for our personal and collective well-being.  And that is hard work.  We don’t have a point of reference for doing it.  But when we finally become authentically and fully accountable, we will create the Utopia that we all yearn for because we will have re-membered our connectedness, our oneness and our call to be good stewards of the earth, its resources and all its people.

The people of Damanhur have proved that it is possible.  We just have to make the same choice and join them in the quest to reawaken the divine within the individual and in the collective consciousness.

Read more about Damanhur and other amazing phenomenons in Reunion on the Rainbow Bridge.  Then, tell me what you think.

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Have you ever seen a ghost?

I don’t remember seeing ghosts as a child, although I suspect the invisible friend that my mother said I had was probably a spirit.  They usually are.  Children are so fresh from heaven at the beginning of their incarnation that they can see the universe in its multiple dimensions.  I believe it’s only when they are indoctrinated into society’s established beliefs about reality that it’s harder to see past their five senses.

So, it wasn’t unusual that I didn’t experience the paranormal in my formative years, which made it all the more surprising when unexplainable things began happening to me at the age of 37.  At that time in my life I was experiencing the dark night of the soul.  To process the deep pain of a broken heart, I turned inward because nothing outside myself could really help me cope with the anguish.  But, as I did this through meditation, stillness, and prayer, I began to notice some strange things happening.

For example, my alarm clock started going off in the middle of the night at exactly 4:44 a.m., volume blaring, blasting me out of peaceful sleep and causing an adrenaline rush that lasted for hours afterward.  Of course, I didn’t think this was paranormal; I thought it was a faulty alarm clock.  So, I unplugged the darn thing.  But, imagine my shock when it went off again the next night without being plugged into the electrical outlet.  Still, I explained it away, believing that the radio had some kind of internal battery back-up.  Well, I got a new alarm clock, and it didn’t happen again.  However, other odd things began to occur.

I had created a meditation space in my bedroom, in the center of the floor, underneath the ceiling fan, which had never worked since I moved into the house several years earlier.  Then, one day during meditation, when I couldn’t quiet my mind because of overwhelming fear and indecision, the fan started spinning.  I thought this was very strange, since several electricians had looked at the fan’s wiring, and no one could tell me why it wasn’t operable.  I had just given up on it ever working.  But, on that particular day, when I was so scattered in my energy and pleading for God’s guidance, the fan started working.  The coincidence wasn’t lost on me.   I immediately thought that this was a sign from God letting me know that I wasn’t as alone as I was feeling.  And, this calmed my out-of-control emotions.

However, several days later, when I felt someone sit on the end of my bed in the middle of the night, calmness wasn’t the feeling I experienced.

When I felt the sensation of someone sitting on my bed, I fully expected that it was one of my daughters.  So, I sat up to see if they had a bad dream or needed a glass of water.  But, much to my dismay, no one was there.  However, there was a depression on the bed as if someone WAS sitting there.  I was terrified!  I couldn’t imagine that God or an angel would do something that would scare me.  So, I concluded that it must be some kind of negative entity.  Perhaps, I had even attracted it because of my trepidation.

This scared me so much that the next day I called my friend Jennifer Baltz, who is a gifted psychic, and what she said eased my mind.

Jennifer said the fan spinning was my maternal grandmother, Anna, trying to get my attention.  She explained that my grandmother could see and feel my agony and just wanted to let me know that she was there to offer love and support—I could picture her loving eyes and gentle smile, and I swear I felt her hand on my shoulder.

Then, Jennifer explained the sensation of someone sitting on my bed.  She said it was my maternal great, great grandfather, who is one of my guardian angels.  He, too, had sensed my sadness and just wanted to “scoop me into his arms and tell me how much I was loved.”  This was a relief, and I told great, great Grandpa Friday that it was all right for him to sit on my bed.  For many months he did, and one night I thought I saw him dressed in overalls and a red flannel shirt, with kind eyes and the tanned skin of a farmer.

Jennifer also mentioned my alarm going off at 4:44am.  She said that repeatedly seeing a series of 4s means “the angels are surrounding you and reassuring you of their love and help.” How spot on, I thought, because I had been calling upon my spirit guides and guardian angels for assistance.

So, this was my first exposure to the paranormal, and it proved to be a very positive experience, once I understood that it was communication of support from loved ones.   I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that I asked for more communication.  But, I should have been more specific about what I asked.

It was some years after that experience that I went through a divorce, and my daughters and I moved into a new house.  Nothing was out of the ordinary for the first year, but after that, life in our house became much more interesting.

While trying to fall asleep, we would hear cats running up and down the stairs.  We knew what that sounded like, since we had two beautiful cats who loved doing that.  But, our cats only came into the house occasionally and always slept outdoors.  At first, I thought that one of my daughters let the cats in by accident, so I would get up to put them out, so their fur and dander wouldn’t provoke an asthma attack in my youngest daughter.  But, I would always find our cats outside.  So, what had we heard?  I couldn’t explain it and could only shrug away my bewilderment.

Then, one random evening, my oldest daughter was standing in the family room with her back toward the stairs. She was telling me a story, and I was laughing, when suddenly a white, misty shape of an old woman, whose face was wracked with pain, swooped down the stairs staring at me. Her face looked similar to the Scream mask worn at Halloween—really!  I didn’t want to alarm my daughter, so I acted like nothing happened; but, believe me, this took monumental effort, since the hair on the back of my neck was standing straight up, and I was scared out of my mind.

Jennifer was immediately able to identify the visitor.  It was Matthew’s sister, Kathy, who had died several years earlier.  Coincidentally, Kathy had been on Matthew’s mind, as he was preparing himself as much as possible to accept the imminent passing of his other sister, Karen.

Jennifer said that Kathy was checking in on her family, especially at this time.  She told Jennifer that she frequently hung out in my oldest daughter’s room, since it was empty now that she was in college and said that she had been in the house many times before, and no one had seen her.  So, she was surprised and saddened to know that she had scared my daughter.   She asked Jennifer to get the message to my daughter that she wouldn’t come into her room again.  And, she hasn’t, as far as we know.

I don’t know if my daughter has seen anything more—she hasn’t told me so.  But, I still see spirits from time to time.  Just the other night I awoke to a feeling that someone was in my bedroom.  I opened my eyes and saw the cutest boy.  He was probably about 12 years old and had red curly hair and freckles.  There was a girl with him, too, and I had the feeling she was an older sister.  He said to her, “Oh, let’s see who this is,” while he peered into my face.  The sister said, “No, let’s go.”  Then, I whispered, “You know I can you see you, right?”  At that, the sister pulled hard on his sleeve, and they just vanished..

I didn’t even feel afraid and found the encounter rather amusing.  I also found it pleasing when one leisurely Saturday afternoon, when I was taking a nap.  I felt a tap on my shoulder, opened my eyes and saw my brother, who had passed away a year earlier.  I said, “Hey, what are you doing here?!”  And, he said, “I just came to say hi.”  Then, he winked, waved and walked through the wall of my closet.  It made me very happy to see him, especially since his life leading up to his passing had been so sad.  I could see that he was at peace, as his face radiated the kind of innocence he possessed as a child.  He was beautiful!

In essence, because of the rise in frequency to the higher energies of unconditional love, compassion and brotherhood, we are beginning to leave the density of the third dimension and rising into the lightness of the fourth dimension.  And, people who are sensitives—those who have always known that there is something beyond what our five senses tell us—are experiencing contact with the fourth dimension sooner rather than later.

It sure is a mysterious world that we live in, and life sure is interesting.  I would really like to know if you have seen a ghost or had an experience with the paranormal. Have you?  Tell me what you think.

After my mother died, my father and I had many conversations about heaven. It’s the place that I believed my mother had gone after her death—a paradise befitting her courageous life—and a place that my father desperately wanted to believe existed for the sole purpose of being reunited with the love of his life.

In our dialogue about the afterlife, we often laughed at the depiction of heaven in the movie Defending Your Life, where the recently deceased would watch film footage of their lives at the Past Life Pavilion, moments that highlighted the hilarious and incredulous. Then, as if watching eons of one’s missteps and mistakes wasn’t torture enough, a bus would transport each soul to Judgment City, where he or she would learn whether or not they would progress to higher levels of existence. If a person had lived a fearless life, they could move to the next level of the heavenly realm. However, if a person had cautiously gone through life carefully guarding their heart, they would be sent back to Earth to learn the lesson of loving and living without fear. Such was the case for the movie’s main character, Daniel, who was struggling to understand what was happening to him in the afterlife.

While trying to figure out his fate, Daniel falls in love-at-first-sight with Julia. Julia had lived an earthly life full of grace and generosity and was destined for the next level of heaven, but Daniel wasn’t able to transcend fear during his lifetime and was, therefore, slated for reincarnation. It isn’t until the final moments of the movie, when Julia and Daniel are leaving on buses headed to different destinations, that Daniel finds his courage. He risks his life by jumping onto the outside of Julia’s bus, which convinces the celestial judges that he has finally learned the lesson of living fearlessly. They allow him inside the bus, where he and Julia are reunited and can be together forever. What a happy ending!

But, is that what heaven is like, or is it more like the biblical description with pearly gates, rivers of milk and honey, angels playing harps, and a white-bearded God granting eternal paradise only for those whose names appear in the Book of Life?

I wondered about this ever since I was a child, especially after being indoctrinated into the belief that God is a punishing God. I desperately wanted to understand how to live a good life, so I would be granted access to heaven after my death. I lived in constant fear that I would unknowingly do something that would irrevocably cast me into the depths of Hell.

Heaven and hell became an obsession, and I read dozens of books on the subject to find the answers to my questions. It was when I read the accounts of children who had near death experiences that I began to reformulate my belief about God and heaven. These innocent little children spoke of being wrapped in loving light and having illumined beings gently guide them back to their earthly lives, which had not yet been completed. I trusted what these children reported, and that is the vision of heaven that I kept in my mind for decades—one of a loving God that did not possess the human qualities of anger and revenge. Then, I had a dream that altered my belief.

It was after my children’s father died. My daughters desperately needed to know that their Dad was alive and well in heaven. I told them what I believed, and I saw them struggling to accept this with their critical-thinking minds. That is when their father came to me in a dream.

The dream began with me walking down a street lined with shops, which was reminiscent of a village out of a Dickens’ novel. The setting seemed like it was in Asia, which I find strange, since I’ve never been to that part of the world. Everything—the people, the sky, the buildings—was in sepia tones, and the energy was depressive and heavy. I walked into an herb shop, and no other customers were there. An old man was standing hunched over at the counter with his back to me, where he was mixing a concoction of herbs with a mortar and pestal. He seemed grumpy and didn’t even acknowledge my presence, so I began to look around the shop at all the herbs, imagining what medicinal powers they possessed.

I was lost in thought when the old man called out to me. “Come here. This is what you want,” he said gruffly. I walked over to the counter, and he pulled open a drape that concealed a tiny door in the wall. I opened it and was blinded by the brightest light I had ever seen. It was radiant, bright white light that had specks of blue sparkles in it. It’s beauty and the blissful feeling that I experienced in the light defies description in human language.

I managed to walk through the door without being able to see where I was going. Then, my eyes adjusted, and I realized that I was in the most splendid place imaginable. The color of everything was pulsating with prism-like radiance—every blade of grass, every ripple in the ocean and every cell in the bodies of people walking past me. And, the colors made the most exquisite sound. Yes, the colors of everything had a tone, like music. Even the boardwalk on which I was standing had a sing-song quality to it. Blended together it sounded like a celestial orchestra. The sound permeated by body, and I became one with it and one with every drop of water in the vast sparkling ocean, the air breezing past me, every leaf on every tree and even the rocks and other inanimate things that I had never considered to be living. I stood on the boardwalk allowing myself to swirl in the living colored light and be consumed with the love that was contained in it. Then, I saw my husband.

He was standing on a pier near the boardwalk. I ran over to him with joy, asking, “Where are we?” He said, “This is where I live.” We started walking and were soon on a street with beautiful mansions, each one unique in its structure. I saw a stunning glass house surrounded by the most alluring gardens. Again, try to imagine that the glass in the house had a soothing tone, and each flower in each garden sang out in love.

I knew it was my house, although I was aware that I wasn’t living there yet. My husband said to me, “Can I live here with you?” I said, “Well, I’ve just remarried, so that wouldn’t be appropriate. But, you are welcome to build your house next to mine. The children would love that, and so would I.” He seemed sad about my decision, and I felt his sadness as if it was my own. I also felt compassion and knew that what I had decided was what was best for everyone. He returned to a serene mood, and I could see in the future that he would build a lovely home next to mine. Feeling at peace with our interaction, I told him that I needed to go back, that the children would be wondering where I was. He said, “Tell them that I am with them always.” Then, the dream was over.

My eyes opened, but I was still in a dream-like state, like I was floating between the spirit world and the earthly realm. I wanted to stay in that loving space, but knew that I had to fully return to my three-dimensional existence. As my body awoke, I “knew” that I had visited heaven. I shed tears of gratitude to have glimpsed such love and beauty. I kept the dream to myself for a while, not wanting anyone to question its sacredness. Then, I shared it with my children, who were just as grateful to receive a loving message from their father.

This became my perspective of heaven, and it fit perfectly with my evolving belief of an unconditionally loving God. That is, until I read about the near death experience of Mellen-Thomas Benedict.

Benedict had been an information junkie in the 1970s, but became forlorn as he learned more and more about what the human race was doing to itself and the planet. He came to believe that humans were a cancerous organism and saw no way out of all the problems that resulted from our callous carelessness.

Then, out of the blue in 1982, Benedict was diagnosed with inoperable, untreatable cancer and was given six to eight months to live. While he was waiting to die, he came to an insightful conclusion. It wasn’t the cancer that was killing him, it was his view of the world that was taking his life.  He thought humans were cancerous organisms. He was a human. Therefore, his body manifested his own belief.

Sadly, this aha moment didn’t change his prognosis. So, as he approached death’s door, he began to read everything he could about life after death, as he didn’t want any surprises on the other side. Then, there came a day when Benedict knew it would be his last. He called a few friends to say good-bye and, before he knew it, his soul was standing outside of his body. He had the typical near death experience with the bright light beckoning him. He said it was magnificent, like running into your ideal mother’s or father’s arms.

As he was moving through the light he asked, “Please wait a minute. . .I want to think about this. . .I want to talk to you before I go.” At that point the experience grinded to an immediate halt, and he surprisingly realized that we have control over our afterlife experience. “What’s going on here? Please, Light, clarify yourself for me. . .” In a sort of telepathy, he understood that the light that he was seeing was the light of his higher self—that part of his existence that is directly connected to the Source, a connection that all human beings possess.

The light then continued to explain that there is a grid around the planet where all the higher selves are connected. Benedict saw this grid as a mandala of human souls, and in this elegant, exotic mandala he saw how perfect we all are in our essence. He said, “Oh, God, I did not know how beautiful we are.” Seeing that humankind was never as ugly as he had conjectured, he asked the light, “Does this mean that Mankind will be saved?”

The light responded like a trumpet blasting saying, “. . .you save, redeem and heal yourself. You always have. You always will. You were created with the power to do so from before the beginning of time.” Benedict realized that humankind was designed to self-correct, that this is what is meant by “the second coming”—it is re-membering that we are perfect, whole and complete and that we always have been and always will be directly connected to the love of our Creator. There is no separation. That is just a dream from which we were meant to awaken. The truth is that we are all connected—everything in the universe—we are one. Benedict was overcome with gratitude to understand this.

Then, the light said, “You have a desire.” Being an information seeker, Benedict acknowledged that he wanted to see the rest of the universe. Immediately upon his thought, he was carried through the light at the end of the tunnel, past the planets and past the center of the galaxy all the while gathering knowledge about the universe. Benedict said he saw many worlds abundant with a variety of life and that the good news is we are not alone.

The stream of consciousness on which he was riding was expanding in fractal waves of energy. Super clusters of galaxies with all their ancient wisdom flew by, while his own consciousness expanded to understand it all. Finally, he found himself in profound silence. He had arrived at the Void—pre-creation, before the Big Bang, and before the first word, first vibration of the Creator. He immediately understood that the biblical I AM is really a question—I AM—What am I? With his expanded consciousness, Benedict realized that creation is God experiencing God through an infinite exploration, including through each human being, which answers the question, “Why are we here?”

With that quintessential human question answered, Benedict asked to return to the life cycle. It didn’t occur to him to ask if he would be reincarnated into a baby’s body or return to his own. But, as he was traveling back, he asked the light to never let him forget the knowledge he had gained from the other side. The light answered with a yes, which felt like a kiss to Benedict’s soul. When he opened his eyes, he was back in his body.

The hospice caretaker who had tried for an hour and a half to revive his dead body was shocked at his sudden return to life. Benedict tried to get out of bed, but still being in a dream-like state, he fell right onto the floor. At first, the memory of his spiritual quest wasn’t there, and he seemed to slip back and forth from the earthly plane to the spirit realm. Within three days, though, he was feeling normal, and he remembered everything.

The greatest lesson he learned was that “For each and every one of us to be the human part of this experience is magnificent. . .Each and every one of us, no matter where we are, screwed up or not, is a blessing to the planet. . .” Benedict said that before his near death experience he was a judgmental person, believing that everyone was messed up except him. But, after the experience, he can only see human beings as the manifestation of God’s love and divinity.

After three months, Benedict told a friend about the experience, who encouraged him to see if the NDE had affected his cancer. Benedict felt fabulous, and even if the doctor said that the prognosis was the same, Benedict wouldn’t have been negatively affected. He watched the doctor repeatedly look at the before and after scans before finally announcing that the cancer was gone. Benedict said, “It must be a miracle,” to which the doctor answered, “No, these things happen; they are called spontaneous remissions.” The doctor acted very unimpressed, but Benedict knew that a miracle had, indeed, occurred. With his expanded consciousness and newfound joy at the realization that humanity is a beautiful creation of God, his previous belief that humans are cancerous organisms could not be maintained. Therefore, his dis-ease could not be maintained.

Since then, Benedict has experienced the light through meditation, and has learned much. Where he once feared toxic waste, nuclear missiles and destruction of the rain forest, he now understands that these things are part of the holiest mandala we have created to date, as it has brought us together as a humanity with a common cause—to save ourselves and our planet. This, more than any religion or philosophy, has been a driver for a shift in human consciousness. This shift, which is nearing a tipping point, will change life as we know it, and problems that we fret over now—corrupt government, inadequate health care, energy crisis, war, poverty, homelessness and hunger—will be resolved in ways that our current consciousness can’t even fathom.

There is so much more to heaven than I imagined. I simplified it in my mind to mean life, death, reincarnation and, finally, nirvana. But, it’s really about infinite life and infinite possibilities of one whole—human beings having individual experiences within the whole that is God. It’s hard to wrap my mind around this, yet I recognize it as truth. I don’t quite understand it in my 3-D brain, but I accept it at a superconscious level.

Tell me. . .what do you think heaven is like?

(Reference:  http://www.mellen-thomas.com/stories.htm)