Yearning for More and Awakening
I grew up on Native American reservations in the southwest United States, so as a child I experienced wild open spaces of land and black evening skies, unhindered by the lights of human civilization. I recall many nights looking up at the vastness of the star-studded heavens and experiencing fear and awe at the bigness and deepness of space. I felt very small and insignificant in the hugeness of what I sensed the heavens were, and, simultaneously, I felt lovingly enveloped by that same vast space.
Most of my family and friends could not quite understand what I was feeling and thinking when I tried to express the depth of my emotions and thoughts when I looked into the night sky. It was as if they did not sense the immensity of space to the extent that I did, nor did they understand the paradox of my feelings about space—fear, awe, and being loved. By the time I was ten or eleven, I was more at ease with my mixed emotions about space. Thus I relaxed and basked in the beauty and wonder of the night skies, and did so without needing to share my thoughts and feelings with other humans, for I sensed the presence of unseen family and friends and was “at home” with seeming solitude.
Often on long, sunny spring and fall days I would come home from school, have a snack, visit briefly with my cheerful and loving mother, and then leave to climb by myself the mesa behind our house. I would spend a couple of hours roaming the flat top, sometimes sitting on the edge of the east side, looking down on the village, observing the Apache children play outside while their mothers prepared supper over an open fire in their outdoor “summer” kitchens. As I heard the laughter of the children and smelled the smoke from the cooking fires, I would thank God for my own family and my own home that was filled with warmth, laughter, and safety. My love for my family extended to the Apache families that I watched and heard from my perch on the mesa. I personally knew many of those families. Many of the children were my classmates, and some were my close friends, who sometimes explored the surrounding desert with me.
However, though I grew up with a sense of extended human family, feeling protected and cherished, I yearned for something more. I was brought up in a Godly home, experiencing a dynamic religion of the best of Christianity and Native American spirituality, but I wanted more. I wanted to find unknown persons who I considered “missing” in my life. I wanted the potential that I sensed when I contemplated space. I wanted the promise of adventure, exploration, and freedom, which I saw when I sat on the western side of the mesa and looked out upon the miles and miles of land, untouched by human beings, except for a small dirt road that wound its way through the rolling desert hills.
Where did that road end? Did it end? What roads would I take as I grew up and composed a life on my own?
When I left home for college, I never looked back. I embarked on an adventure of meeting new people and exploring different ideologies, philosophies, and religions. I even traveled some. Of course, I still spent time with my family, visiting them often, bringing with me new friends who were missing their own families or who had never experienced the richness of a functional family. Always, no matter who I brought, regardless of their race, religion, or appearance, my friends were welcomed by my parents and siblings. Once my mother asked me if it was ever possible that I would visit them alone, without a retinue of friends, but I could not come home alone, for after leaving home I realized how blessed I was in having my particular family, and I wanted to share them with others. I wanted my friends to experience the fun and warmth and closeness of my family.
Periodically I got into arguments with my father and uncles over politics or religion, for as I expanded mentally and spiritually, I embraced other values, other ideas that were foreign to most of my family members. My mother once lovingly said to me, “You are always changing on us. We never know what you are going to come up with next.” And some of the things I came up with, oh boy! But I won’t get into that.
Often in college I would meet individuals who seemed so familiar to me, who I loved immediately or disliked instantly. Most I felt love for. I recall Kate, who reminded me of a carrot. (Have you ever known someone who resembled a vegetable or fruit? When I was in my early twenties I had a friend who was a perfect strawberry—round in body, red in her passions for artistic endeavors, and very sweet.) When I first saw Kate standing in a hallway talking with someone, I knew she was my sister. I decided that I needed to rekindle our relationship. Remember now that I had never met Kate before in this life, but she and I became almost inseparable for about three years, and then decisions we each had to make about our life paths sent us in different directions, and I have not seen or heard from her since. But I look forward to reuniting with her again some time in our future, whether on this world or another one.
Presently, with my expanded understanding of cosmic family1 and repersonalization2—due to Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (published in The Cosmic Family volumes)—I know that Kate is a cosmic sister of mine, a much younger one, but one I have lived and worked and grown with on another world in another universe. I think I also knew her in a Native American life here on this world (cosmically called Urantia3).
Kate is just one example. I have seen, briefly encountered, and become close with many cosmic family members and acquaintances during the years since I left home to go to college. Before having Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation, I did not completely understand the relationships, but I knew I had known them before in another life, and I knew that I was meant to have an encounter with them in this life.
From my college days and onward, I have had intense, very close relationships with numerous individuals—men and women of all ages, races, cultures, and religions. We initially felt a strong attraction and jumped quickly into meaningful friendships. I did not jump into bed with the men; they became my best friends, like brothers and family. We would have these intense relationships of sharing our deepest selves, being there for each other in our ups and downs, and then part, never seeing each other again, in this life any way . . . so far.
Before I had encountered Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (at around 39 years of age), I continued to yearn, to want something more. I wanted to know more about space, about God, about my unseen friends, about people on this world, about why this world seemed so messed up, about me, and why I felt that I had so many layers of experience within me (more than most people I knew). Why was my full and rich life not quite enough? Why did I sometimes feel so lonely, in spite of being surrounded by loyal and loving family and friends? Why did I get so restless? Why did I feel such frustration, and sometimes even rage, at the stupidity of human beings, including the frailty of my own humanness? Why was I dissatisfied with my work, even though I loved it and felt, to a certain extent, that I was fulfilled in it? Why, in spite of thinking that my life was full of purpose, did I strongly sense that I was just biding my time, that I had a bigger mission and purpose? Why did I experience feeling at home on this world, at home in the moment with my work and in relationships, at home with my personal relationship with God, and yet, paradoxically, not at home with any of it? Why did I feel as if I was still waiting for something to happen?
A Personal Change Point
1987 was a year of extreme transition for me. After doing battle with the “Hound of Heaven” and giving in to the strong leadings of the Threefold Spirit that I was hearing within, I had separated from my husband of ten years a few years before. In 1987 I resigned from continuing my teaching profession of fifteen years and made plans to move away from what had been home for some time. At that time, I was dating a variety of men, some interesting and some not so interesting (which, by the way, had nothing to do with the guidance of divine spirit within me). I was a mess!
My control issues were coming up big time, and so were my security addictions—security of being with friends and family, security of having a regular paycheck coming in, and so on. I felt as if my life and I were being turned inside out, and it was not comfortable. In fact, half of the time I was miserable and terrified—terrified that in leaving my comfort zone I would be alone and no one would love me, terrified that I would end up on the streets homeless and penniless, terrified that I was making a big mistake (which of course, everyone I knew thought I was). Some even thought I was having a nervous breakdown, and it certainly felt like that to me.
I had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do; I just knew that I had to go, that God was asking me to take a road into the unknown in order to meet those individuals I had been pining for, to do the work that I was sent to do, and to discover truth that I had been languishing to find. From the perspective of my reasonable self (and I can be quite reasonable), I was being very irresponsible and acting crazy. My parents, extended family, and friends agreed with the reasonable part of me. But that other searching-in-faith part was more real to me, and I acknowledged and embraced it.
I finally stopped inwardly arguing with my divine inner guidance and said to that spiritual pressure: “OK, OK. You win. What next?” I felt a tremendous burden lift. I felt relieved and freed. But I continued to briefly falter in my faith decisions and momentarily doubt my inner guidance. When I moved from that place of faith back into my so-called reasonable self, I panicked and became anxiety-ridden. So, at the time, psychologically I was on a see-saw. Today, after many leaps of faith, daily experiences in practical living, and increasing spiritual understanding of reality, I realize that higher reason and acts of faith actually do not create a mind of contradiction but a mind of clarity, focus, and expanded logic.
In July of 1987, I and my three children spent about four days at a spiritual retreat event on Mingus Mountain in Arizona. One of those days, I made the hour-long trip by myself to Sedona and was led to majestic Oak Creek at Red Rock Crossing to spend some quiet time. While sitting and trying to tune into what God wanted to say to me, I had an “awake vision” of a powerful divine being sitting on Crusader Rock, which I was looking at. I knew he was someone I had known before, an ancient ancestor and Elder of some kind. He seemed to be both divine and human. He looked at me with a piercing look that left me feeling both shriveled and blessed with fullness. I heard in my mind a message from him, which told me that he had been with me before as a guide and spiritual grandfather and that he would soon be with me again in a closer way. I was to rest and be at peace and look forward to events that unfold for me on my new path.
About half an hour later I had another vision where I was on the red rock plateau that was behind and above where I was sitting. In the vision I knew I was in the not-too-distant future. I was standing in a circle with a group of other people, holding hands. I had not met any of these people in this life, but they were familiar to me anyway, as if I knew them before and was going to be with them again soon. I felt comforted and more at ease.
After those two visions, I looked forward to my future in anticipation, with less fear and anxiety and with more peace and assurance. I knew that God was with me and that my destiny was unfolding before me. I knew that I was surrounded by my unseen friends whose presence I had sensed from the time I considered space as a child.
The following month, August (1987), I came again to Red Rock Crossing to experience what people in the New Age movement were referring to as the “Harmonic Convergence.” It was my birthday, and I spent the night sleeping by the creek by myself, but not really by myself. I could feel and almost hear many unseen personalities around me. Sometime in the early morning hours, I awakened and felt the earth shudder slightly and sensed some kind of shift. I looked up at the black silhouette of Cathedral Rock outlined against the silver, moonlit sky and was comforted in knowing that something “magical” and wonderful was happening on this earth, which most human residents were unaware of.
In December of that year I met Van of Urantia, and the great adventure really began in full throttle and has not slowed down one iota in the more than three decades since.
Tapping Into Astral (Past-Life) Experiences, Cosmic Family Connections, and Beneficial Energies and Circuitry
I share some of my personal experiences to show the realness of cosmic family and memory circuits opening up to the fact of repersonalization for some people on this world and to the fact that there indeed is a regathering of the “goodly company,” of the “wayshowers,” of the “bird tribes,” of the “renaissance makers,” of the “cosmic family,” of the “destiny4 and cosmic reservists5.”
As I grew and developed from childhood on, my memory circuits were gradually opened. Because I have known the cosmology of the Grand Universe6 as a mortal on other evolutionary worlds that are more progressed in their planetary mortal epochs, I sensed, as a child, the vastness and friendliness of space and the divine pattern that circulates throughout all of the universes. Because I knew and experienced a higher truth on these worlds, I also knew of the numerous celestial personalities who represent the Paradise Deities (of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit) in some manner. So, even as a child in my current life, I was aware of unseen celestial personalities and recognized them as family, cosmic family.
The yearning for so much more than I had (and I had a very wonderful and full life) was for a higher reality on all levels—material, mindal, social, and spiritual. I yearned for more beautiful and functional architecture, for silent and more efficient machinery, for more compassionate and ethical governments. I yearned for a broader understanding of the workings of nature, of societies, of human beings. I yearned for even more enriching experiences and relationships than I already had. I yearned for a greater understanding of and closeness to God.
The desire for knowing and experiencing reality within the beauty and goodness of divine pattern is innate within all humans on this world, regardless of soul age7, but unfortunately, most have not awakened to that higher desire that resides deep within them, for there are so many distractions to keep people preoccupied with lesser desires of a more selfish and materialistic nature. Those approximately one billion starseed presently on Urantia, who have had past-life experiences on higher worlds in other universes, may awaken more quickly to that innate higher desire, but all humans—including first-light (new) souls8—have that desire residing deep within them.
When I began to see and meet people that I had been acquainted with in other lives, they seemed familiar. Some I knew more clearly their relationship to me, like Kate of my college years. Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation (presented in The Cosmic Family volumes) describes and names the various energies and circuitries that helped draw me to locations where cosmic acquaintances and family were and to “recognize” strangers (who did not seem to be strangers) upon my initial contact. Most people are not “awake” enough to be able to benefit from these energies and circuitries that are available for those individuals who are sincerely looking for a higher reality and seeking to know God more intimately. But when they are searching, like me, they can have many very interesting serendipities that give a richer and more purposeful meaning to their lives—serendipities that are signs guiding them to the next step on their life path.
Why did I, a person who does not go around having visions and so-called mystical experiences, have two back-to-back visions at Red Rock Crossing at a certain time in my life? What did I see? A year after that experience, I realized the strong, spirit personality that I encountered was Paladin, the great grandfather finaliter9 of the First Cosmic Family10, one of the main celestial personalities to fuse with Van of Urantia and bring through Continuing Fifth Epochal Revelation.
Who and what did I see with the circle of people? I saw the regathering of the cosmic family at Planetary Sacred Home,11 which, for about twenty years, was the headquarters for Machiventa Melchizedek12 (our unseen celestial Planetary Prince13), gathered around Cathedral Rock in Sedona, Arizona.
What have we mortals to do with Paladin, Machiventa Melchizedek, and other celestials? In collaboration with Celestial Overcontrol,14 we are to create a higher reality in our sacred home that will eventually spread across the entire planet, bringing Urantia into the first stage of light and life.15 Are we doing it? Yes, in spite of many seeming setbacks and challenges, we are indeed doing it. The Planetary Headquarters16 is now in southern Arizona in Rio Rico, where united cosmic family members—first-light souls and starseed17—are creating a Divine-New-Order culture at Avalon Gardens & EcoVillage, the campus for The University of Ascension Science and The Physics of Rebellion. Why was the headquarters moved from Sedona? That is another story for another time.
So, here I am, with many of my family (seen and unseen). Some of us humans occasionally have temporary regressions into lower mindal patterns and behaviors when we hold back from making the moves of spiritual progress that God wants us to. Some of us still occasionally get frustrated and discouraged with how slow and ponderous everything seems to be. But all of us still plug away on outgrowing our imperfections and striving to become more Christ-like daily.
I personally am so grateful to be here in this very rich and full life that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I still look up in the night skies, feeling small and big at the same time. I still look off to the horizon, wondering what is on the other side. I still want to explore those earthly roads that I have not physically traveled on. I still want to roam the hills by myself, and sometimes with a couple of friends. I still want to bring newfound friends into my home and share my family with them, and now it is a bigger home with a much bigger family—a cosmic family.
1 cosmic family—Cosmically-connected, genetically-related souls; often from past lives on this planet and/or other worlds.
2 repersonalization—When an existing soul is born as a baby in a new body on an evolutionary planet.
3 Urantia—Cosmic name for our planet, “Earth.”
4 destiny—A calling originating from the Universal Father and Creator Son, respectively, of any one universe as to the sequence of the actualization of talents for any one individual throughout one’s life. Sometimes for years and decades intermediate destinies may happen within a major destiny. When one begins to walk into one’s calling, one begins to experience a feeling of peace, not so with just a career that is self-oriented or for material gain.
5 Cosmic Reservist—Starseed human mortals assigned and trained to aid in times of planetary emergency, particularly spiritual crises; a.k.a. change agents.
6 Grand Universe—The inhabited part of the master universe, which includes the eternal Central Universe of Havona of one billion unique and perfect worlds and the seven evolutionary superuniverses of time and space, which include 700,000 local universes, created by the Creator Sons and Creative Daughters.
7 soul age—Soul age refers to the accumulated years and quality of life experience a person (soul) has had, which includes his or her current life as well as any past lives.
8 first-light soul—New soul in his or her first mortal life.
9 finaliter—Highly ascended, old soul (once a mortal but now a celestial personality) who has attained “finality” in the ascension to Paradise.
10 First Cosmic Family—On Urantia, a family of ascending sons and daughters, mostly of origin in Avalon (of which the Pleiades is a part) but containing interrelated members from the other six cosmic families presently on Urantia and first- and second-time Urantians with interuniversal genetics. The First Cosmic Family is the most closely aligned with planetary administration and is responsible for gathering the other six cosmic families. The First Cosmic Family is headquartered at the First Planetary Sacred Home in Arizona, USA. The finaliter Paladin is the head of the First Cosmic Family.
11 Planetary Sacred Home—Administrative center of the celestial Divine Administration. The first planetary headquarters was Dalamatia at the time of Caligastia, 500,000 years ago. The second was the Garden of Eden at the time of Adam and Eve, 38,000 years ago. The third were the schools of Salem at the time of Machiventa Melchizedek, approximately 4,000 years ago. The fourth was wherever Jesus of Nazareth was, 2,000 years ago. At present Planetary Sacred Home is located where the Planetary Prince, Machiventa Melchizedek, resides, in Tubac/Tumacácori, Arizona, USA. All Destiny Reservists are called to the First Planetary Sacred Home to receive further training at The Extension Schools of Melchizedek on Urantia a.k.a. The University of Ascension Science and The Physics of Rebellion , under the Mandate of the Bright and Morning Star.
12 Machiventa Melchizedek—A celestial personality of the order of Melchizedek Sons. He initially visited Urantia approximately 4,000 years ago, living in Salem (present site of Jerusalem) during the times of Abraham, who was Machiventa’s pupil. He is the Melchizedek referred to in the Bible. Since December 1989, he has been serving as the Planetary Prince of Urantia, working in the spiritual administration of the planet in the fifth dimension and above.
13 Planetary Prince—A celestial personality or on rare occasion a human responsible for ruling a planet spiritually; the spiritual leader of the world.
14 Celestial Overcontrol—Celestial beings who help administer world affairs through a spiritual hierarchy in other dimensions.
15 light and life—Stages of planetary evolution, where consistently more and more stabilization of souls and the planet transpire into harmony and peace.
16 Planetary Headquarters—The administrative geographic center where a Planetary Prince administers and advances an evolutionary world. In Nebadon, the Planetary Princes are under the universe administrative jurisdiction of Gabriel of Salvington, while in immediate authority they are subject to the mandates of the System Sovereigns. Also referred to as Planetary Sacred Home.
17 starseed—Soul whose point of origin is another planet/universe and has lived at least one other life not on Urantia.