by Reverend Michael “Aranathanara” Hayden
This is a tale of the things one does not see in their life, a story of the elements that lie hidden from view until they are allowed to be seen. It recounts my 15 year journey from awakening fully to the spiritual path of serving the Will of God and stepping into Divine Power.
Many speak of Divinity as being allocated only to the God force. But in truth, each of us is the Hand of God and we have the capability ourselves. Divinity for humanity is nothing more, nor less, than actively fulfilling your Highest Soul’s Purpose in a Living Body.
When one has a Soul Purpose to take on the Mantel of Divinity and forgo the trappings of the secular world, it is not always something that they have knowledge about within their current physical life. It may not even be something they have ever thought about due to the illusions and distractions of pursing an everyday life.
As of January 15, 2014 I now add the above titles to my name. It was on that day that I officially took on the role and responsibility of being a Priest in the Order of Melchizedek thus acknowledging a pathway I had not previously realized I was journeying upon.
Just two weeks before, I was gifted to be in an otherworldly sacred ring ceremony with my beloved Reverend Christine Meleriessee. That was an event I felt was indeed the highlight of the New Year. 2014 has the keyword energetics of being the year of Grounding Unity but I had no way of knowing how the connection between us of expressing our Twin Flame bond in an earthly manner would lead to my going much deeper upon this pathway than I ever had imagined.
As Meleriessee and I had stepped together into a divine mission two years before on the eventful day of 11/11/11, being given a special blessing by Mother Father God as the Cosmic Great Central Sun, we knew our pathway was one of rare circumstances. What we did not know back then was how much more knowledge and gifts would unfold for us. A secret to be yet revealed was our deep love for one another, a love that could not exist within our previous 3rd Dimensional ways of being.
The act of doing ceremony to Ground that union proved to be more powerful than even we had realized as just a fortnight later on January 14, we had no clue that the next day would once again profoundly change our life.
And this is pretty much how the pathway to Mastery unfolds. One just never knows what will happen. There are clues along the way but so often we are clueless as to seeing the clues. Such is the Hidden Path of Mastery.
Awakening to More
I first awakened to the concept that life could be more than I understood it to be in 1999. I was in a great job, had a very typical and predictable married life with my wife of 4 years, a new baby, a dog, even a cat. Up until my then wife took maternity leave, our days were spent working for corporate America. Once the child arrived our weekends shifted from us going running or playing tennis as a couple to taking the babe to the park or friends, but the house and yard work, barbecuing and watching TV, movies or sports when a moment of calm arrived, were still the same.
Was I happy? I certainly figured that is what happiness is all about. Sure my wife could get upset over my forgetting to stop at the store or not hanging up my jacket. And sure, she and I would be very anxious and exhausted as the baby had colic every day around 4 PM, and she was often a wreck when I got home…but is that not all part of life?
Yet, deep inside I felt something missing. Couldn’t put a finger on it but with the advent of the year 2000 on the near horizon, the new Millennium, and after watching Joseph Campbell on PBS telling us to “Follow our Bliss”, I had this overwhelming sense that the moving into the 21st century actually should mean something. So to cover all bases, I insisted in my prayers that I too be giving all that I wanted out of life. I wanted the best career, the best relationships. I wanted Bliss in my life.
Campbell was such a gentle, unassuming non-ego driven man. When he spoke, he touched me deeply. It connected me not just to the myths and legends of the past, but to the truth within the stories. It made me realize that there were many deceptions in life. Not only that, it spoke to my heart that there was indeed hope for a better humankind, for a better world. Sometimes when he spoke moisture gathered in my eyes and I was not exactly sure why. As mostly day to day I, like everyone else, pretended we could not do anything much for humanity other than taking our marching orders and doing our part.
Other than that deep, hidden voice telling me there was more to be had, the truth is, I was in 3D heaven as far as I thought. I was doing my part. Meaning I had everything a typical third dimensional middle class working professional could want. Now there was always the societal programming of keeping up with the Jones and getting better cars, bigger TV’s and bigger homes. But for the most part my then wife and I knew that game could lead to trouble and while we watched her co-workers buy McMansion’s, we stayed in our small townhouse with our not new cars, no garage and a not so big screen TV.
Starting the Journey
Turns out, I may have been the only one of us keeping that overall perspective of buying into the deceptions of believing I had it all, or at least enough of it.
Amongst those studying the pathway of personal development there are key steps that must be taken even if the one walking the path has no concept of how it all works. This process of taking one step after another never ceases as the personal development pathway leads to the personal mastery pathway and that path leads to the Ascension Mastery pathway. Each builds upon the other but not always in a linear fashion as one may be able to incorporate pieces along the way that will assist in progressing forward.
In the Shamanic tradition there is a concept of breaking the mirrors that hold the illusions of our lives so that what we thought we were perceiving is revealed as a false reality.
The Master’s Journey often begins with an abrupt series of breaking mirrors that cannot be seen beforehand. It is the exact traits that have made one successful in creating the mirrors that prevent one from being able to see what they have so carefully hidden.
By 2001 just months before 9/11 I found myself suddenly unemployed. After 9/11, my profession of management consulting was devastated with some of the biggest most successful firms laying off thousands. Finding and securing work was, for me at least, proving impossible.
We had birthed another child in mid-2000 and now my wife showed signs of wanting more. She was back at work and could support the family just on her salary, but it would mean staying at status quo with no extras, just to get by until the economy picked up. I guess she felt similar Millennial vibes and she wanted a better life now.
As I continued to seek professional work in my chosen career including volunteering to get exposure and access to key decision makers, and doing part-time labor work, by the fall of 2002 she had concluded I was an unfit husband and informed me she wanted a divorce. By January of 2003 I was out.
Perhaps my version of happiness was not so happy after all.
My ‘it’s a wonderful life’ illusion of the perfect ‘white picket fence around the yard’ family was shattered.
Dreaming the Dream
I chose to invest more of myself into securing the professional consulting ideal and if few were hiring I would start my own business with strategic partners. I had found the perfect match in another colleague who felt the same. He was a former GE (General Electric) superstar under C.E.O. Jack Welch and had some great ideas.
My business partners aggressive marketing vision was inspiring so I followed him and discovered after almost 2 years that, unfortunately, he also had some very poor, or at least some very profoundly mis-timed, ideas of how to be successful. Our association ended with him losing his McMansion home to foreclosure.
I still could not quit on my dreams of professional, financial and relationship success because that is what I had learned was what personal and professional development was all about, not giving up on your dreams. I spent another year or so going it alone in various ventures only to find myself penniless and sometimes almost homeless by 2006.
Now my interest involved cutting edge consulting that broke through the individual and group barriers that the normal business world faced every day. Blockages that prevented them from acting in full community with the potential to deliver a degree of efficiency and productivity only dreamed of in movies…and yet I had seen it performed and accomplished, and I knew it was indeed possible to reshape individuals by showing them the truth of who they were being in relationship to each other.
The breakthrough’s fell squarely on the individual being the key, the individual being able to recognize and acknowledge, and then leverage their personal true gifts and potential, and aligning that unique quality within an organization. Little did I know, I was still mirroring within myself everything I sought to instill within others.
I clearly was on some kind of journey, much like Dan Millman’s epic tale in The Peaceful Warrior, of discovering my inner self. Even if I thought I knew myself, it seemed as if I was now destined to find that the “Joseph Campbell Bliss” was more elusive than ever, as one by one everything I held dear in my life was being steadily and persistently removed. He so often spoke of the metaphor of the hero’s journey as being the road less travelled. It was harsh, dangerous and fraught with peril. It had been feeling like I was personally experiencing the metaphors for real and I was determined to not allow those mythical antagonists to get to me.
Subtle Clues
Forging ever onward to find a way to restore my life with the income and the housing to have my children visit me in the appropriately successful manner that my ex and I both envisioned, I became deeply steeped in all things regarding mastering your life and your business from many of the 3D gurus of the day including Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, the stars of the Secret, and many, many others including professional associates and mentors.
It was during that time that a friend gave me some channeled material by a guy named Lee Carrol and a Being named Kryon. A few years before I had read Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch and the first 50 pages blew me away. I had also read some of Abraham-Hicks. I had already experienced channeled material and my friend said this was very good material. I read The Journey Home book by Lee Carroll and was delighted with the message.
I had done much research on the internet into it, reading a great deal of material.
Channeled material, in my initial view, was actually no different than humans working to their best capacity. As a management consultant well versed in human potential and the concept of peak performance, I did not see channeling as any different than Steven Spielberg creating a tale the likes of Star Wars, something that undeniably hit a spot of recognition somewhere deep in the soul of mankind, or a top sports athlete being in the zone and performing almost magical feats as compared to their team mates or opponents.
I ended up seeing Lee Carroll with this same friend in Manhattan, New York in 2006, and by this time in my life I knew that the spiritual realm was not only real, but that I could communicate with it and, more importantly, it could hear me. Not only did I boldly go, but I went with a mission that even my friend knew nothing about.
For in those prior years as my quest into myself went deeper, I had journeyed into realms of the mind, and one could even say, realms of the soul, that I had only read about or seen in fictional movies. I had traversed the ancient Peruvian Shaman’s hidden realms through Carlos Castenada and Don Miguel Ruiz awaking myself to an even more profound level of the illusionary capacity of our perceptions. I felt the power of the visions as I read modern day mystic Stuart Wilde’s wild tales, revisiting his writings after a decade of having set them aside.
Resonance
In 2004 I had seen the most jarring and unsettling movie and it haunted me still. It was Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Though I knew the story well as a catholic, I was not prepared for the portrayal he presented, for the impact of the life and the pain and suffering that Mary Magdalene and Mother Mary incurred, let alone the depictions of what the man known as Jesus had to go through.
This movie placed me in an altered state where my current life and it’s pursuits seemed trivial and meaningless. I returned from the movie and quietly went to my room and sobbed as my chest heaved deeply as if not being able to get any air. It affected me in profound ways. Something about it held a deep resonance in my soul.
One of the clues to the Mastery pathway is resonance. If we can be aware enough to follow it, much the way James Redfield depicts the journey in The Celestine Prophecy, we can uncover the hidden path more easily. I knew this was a clue but it seemed to fantastical.
By now in my life I could meditate and connect with the spiritual realm only if I was in a half dream state, like the shaman and medicine men I had read about. I needed answers as to why this movie should be so painful. Just as if I myself had had such an experience, and certainly I was not Jesus. This I knew.
But I had to ask myself, why the profound connection? Had I been there?
As any well versed New Ager, I had long ago come to terms with the fact that reincarnation is as real as the air we breathe. Still I could not believe that I was that close to the man they once called Jesus. And yet, part of me felt I was. But how?
So I went into as deep a meditative state as I could that next morning. I connected with that energy of the endless void and asked for answers. In the language of fleeting impressions that never quite form into visions I connected with another story of a different man. A man who never knew the man they called Jesus.
There was sporadic narration in my almost visionary state that would only be heard after I had anchored what the impressions were giving me.
In those days, 2000 years ago, there was a man who set out to learn about the one they called The Christ. He was not necessarily interested in the teachings as much as debunking the myth and exposing the fraudulent heretic methods the man used to convey unauthorized materials to the people. This other man’s name was Saul.
Those who follow Christian teachings know the story well. On the road to the city of Damascus, Saul was stricken blind for 3 days in an episode much like the burning bush of Moses. He was not only blind but went through the most severe life changing, death and rebirth type experience. I know because it was shown to me just as it was shown to Saul.
For three days, Saul personally experienced the persecution and hanging up on the cross of the physical body of Christ. This is not taught by any religion, but I personally believe it to be accurate. From my direct experience in the meditative state, I understood that Saul actually relived the death of Jesus within his own reality; he was there as Christ, lived as Christ, saw and felt each moment. This is why he was stricken blind. He was forced to sit in darkness and have the same experience for the same 3 day duration.
And three days later he was a man utterly devoted to the one who was once called Jeshua by his family and friends.
A Soul’s Road Revealed
In my own altered state of reality, the narrator of my story, asked me if I knew why such a vision was being show to me? Did I comprehend its significance? I did not want to accept the answer that instantly revealed itself to me. I was a catholic and that part of me knew about sacrilege and blasphemy. It did not believe in reincarnation, and even if it did, saints certainly do not reincarnate as mere mortals.
And yet, this radical incomprehensible thought would not disperse itself from my being.
A year later I ended up in a situation where I would tell this story to a new friend. It was one of those “airplane traveler’ like encounters where you tell things to a stranger that you would never tell anyone else. I barely knew this person and yet I felt compelled to share it with her. We were in the famously busy Philadelphia Melrose diner, and as I told my tale, I watched her face for any signs that she was thinking I was totally nuts.
Her face gave no signs, even as I had to pause to voice my secret unacknowledged belief into words.
As I finished, she excused herself to the restroom and I felt for sure that this was the end of this not yet formalized friendship.
When she returned she asked if we could leave the place. No dessert, just get the check.
My new friend wanted to speak to me in private about what just happened to her away from the table. She had to get out of there she said, as she had met someone in the restroom, an older woman.
When we got back to my car in the lot, we sat in it. My friend asked me if she could now tell me this amazing thing, something unbelievable.
She was at the mirror in the restroom and this older woman told her she had the most amazing eyes. This engaged her with the woman but what happened next was unthinkable. The woman proceeded to, without a beat, without preamble, ask her if she knew the biblical story of Paul the Apostle.
My friend was almost speechless and could not reply. Apparently all the older woman said was “you remind me of that story and it is a wonderful story, isn’t it?” That was all she said as she told my friend good day.
A skeptical person would obviously think this old woman overheard me speaking or that my new friend felt compelled to make up tales. I assure you, I was almost whispering my tale and, I even frequently looked about to see if anyone in the noisy overcrowded eatery was eavesdropping. No one was and I am a pretty perceptive person. And as for my friend, my initial read on her personality was correct as we are still friends to this day. While she may now live 3000 miles away, telling false tales is not part of her makeup.
What could we make of this? It seemed at first like a homeless crazy person had run into her in the restroom. If this was some kind of confirmation of my tale, why would the person not say “your friend speaks the truth”. Why so cryptic an encounter?
Again, may I remind you of the term clueless. I was not ready to have this be confirmation of my illusions during half-awake visions.
And yet, the force of this vision would still persisted within me whenever I had a break in my life. Over the following months, I tried many more times to seek answers in my infrequent meditations. The answer was always the same. “It is true”.
And so as I headed to see Kryon in mid 2006, I took with me a plan. I had done a meditation to connect with the entity known as Kryon on my own, the one who communicated through Lee Carroll. I wanted to get verbal communication in the real world from spirit that what was being told to me was true.
What is a Confirmation?
Lee Carroll gave his own presentation before he began the channeling session. Later as Kryon spoke, he said that there were many in the room who came today out of curiosity, some would be changed this very day by what they experience, others would leave having thought what a wonderful show by that man in the front of the room, but think nothing more than “it is of no matter to me and my life” as they left. He then went on to speak about those in the room who would read the words of history, written 2000 years before. And they would not realize they were the one who wrote them down.
Did I mention clues and clueless?
I sat in that room and felt the energetic shift as I entered it. I felt the energies increase and change as Kryon came through Lee Carroll, and I heard the words he spoke. I sensed he was speaking them for me in my quest for confirmation. But I also was also disappointed within my mental mind that it was not definitive enough.
As my journey progressed for the next few years, I sought out a very limited number of other channel’s and even a psychic or two. Having been well read in the Peruvian shamanic ways, and a true skeptic in many ways, I knew the dangers of false Prophets. Perhaps that is what also kept me from accepting what I was being shown by spirit.
It was not until 2009 that I once again got the opportunity to go see Kryon in person. I traveled to Sedona Arizona in the summer and, naturally, once again, in my meditations implored him to give me a more definitive answer. I mean obviously he could not speak my name and say something about me specifically, but could he not give me something more tangible that confirmed I had once lived a lifetime as the man that was reborn on the road to Damascus?
The conference was all weekend and Kryon spoke through Lee on Friday evening and Saturday. Wonderful messages but for me? Nothing.
Still I was enjoying the atmosphere and the event, got to personally speak with Gregg Braden during a break, and by the final day, I had pretty much put my rather presumptuous and personal request out of my mind. After all, I was no more important nor insignificant than every other attendee. I was finally starting to see the experience as a lesson in being more humble.
Entering the lecture hall on Sunday I was more concerned with arranging a last minute session with one of the healers than I was in the days channeling. I also had scheduled a post conference course with Robert Coxan, Lee’s musician, a man who I was personally convinced was the reincarnation of Mozart himself.
In Kryon’s final channeling of the event, not even 2 minutes into it, he starts speaking about what Love of God truly means. He speaks of a man in a stinking prison cell not knowing if he will ever get out, who sits and can only write to his friends about the profound Love he has for God and his need to share it with them.
I am electrified in my seat. I look around and can’t help thinking, does anyone realize what he is about to say? And if they do, can they comprehend why?
Sure enough Kryon continues, saying something like “This man is Saul of Tarsus, the one now known as Paul the Apostle. He was showing the Love of God.”
I knew that Saint Paul was not the only example Kryon could have spoken of. I knew it was him granting my request. I am sure there are those who would say I am delusional but I have learned, this is how spirit speaks. Direct answers are very rare. Why speak of Paul then? Why there when I was in the room?
I do not know if Kryon ever spoke of Paul again but I suspect he did not.
The Journey not the Destination
How did it change my life? Drastically?
No. While it gave me an answer of sorts, it made my questions even stronger. What did it mean? How could it assist me? How could it fit into this lifetime? What purpose did having knowledge that I was a reincarnated soul have?
I was not exactly content to discover on my own what this confirmation meant but I knew such answers had to unfold. Certainly it had me feeling very off centered as if I was no longer on firm ground. But I could not connect the dots as to how such a past life could be important in this one. I knew my faith in God, and my kinship with Jesus was very strong even if I was no longer a practicing catholic and not at all into the “born again movement of Jesus”. I figured that foremost it must just explain the reason why my kinship with Jesus was so deep.
Not a year passed before I found myself seeking answers to my life once again. I was still struggling with not having attained the level of professional income I required to move near my children and see them more than two or three times a week. I was living with and taking care of my elderly mother, dealing with her increasing bouts of dementia and declining health. My livelihood, now as a marketing consultant, was a puzzlement as I did it well and yet the client frequently seemed to be distrusting me. This was problematic as the owner of the company had been a very good friend prior to these feelings arising.
Looking at the pages of the calendar stripping by, it had been over 6 years of traveling an hour to pick up and drop off my kids when I brought them to my residence. The accumulation of the years of trying to care for my mother, who was often cantankerous and sometimes downright mean, the grief my ex would frequently feel compelled to share with me, the stress of working with individuals who were controlling and only occasionally satisfied…my life was most certainly not ‘bliss” except for some of the times spent with my children. But even then, as they got older and were lured into the materialistic pursuits, those times were fleeting.
A deep longing for change still existed within me but I wanted it to be what I felt was change for the better, not a journey that had no foreseeable destination, not a life that raised more questions than it answered. Any student of success can tell you that a life without a solid foundation is a life that feels very unsettled. While my life was stable and consistent in its scheduling and duties, it did not seem to be level in its energies and circumstance.
More Confirmation Missed
What happened next is something you will see as a clear signpost for my pathway, but it was not for me to see so clearly at the time. After weeks of trying, in mid-2009 I finally was able to connect with a busy friend of mine who channels the Elohim. She is known as The Little One and she is a pure channel. It was infrequent that I sought out her abilities as I knew that getting direct answers was rare. By now I had learned that “the pathway to enlightenment” was not ever very clear but was one that must be allowed to reveal itself.
As we began, she was guided to teach me a very important lesson I would later rely upon in the years to come. I was distraught and distressed and because of my energies, she could not get a clear connection to spirit. She asked me to clear myself and raise my vibration by centering and ridding myself of the anxiety and disharmony I was feeling. I was able to do so and the energies of the splendor that is the Elohim came through.
It was not their task to tell me what was wrong with my life and what I should fix. Instead they simply reminded me of who I was without all the trappings of the physical world and body. They did ask me a question though; they said to me, “Do you know who you are from our eyes?”. Naturally I did not and they continued, “You are a Pastor of Humanity Michael, did you know that? You are one who loves humanity with such great passion.”
What may seem obvious to you was not so to me. Not only was I very much entrenched in the trappings of the 3D material world, I was also in no shape or form that I could see, ‘A pastor’. I had been writing articles for Lightworker Spectrum since 2007 but I did not see those writings as a pastoral calling. My life was pretty much one of just trying to stay aloft, enjoying the moments you could while juggling the rest, just like most of the folks I knew.
My mental mind could certainly not envision a pathway toward living such a role from the perspective of my life, and so, while accepting that the Elohim must know what they are speaking about, I still categorized the words they spoke to being allegorical…definitely not even considering for a moment they were not only being prophetic…but literal.
Still, my conversation with the Elohim brought me to a place of renewed strength and cleared away many layers of dense energies that I was living under. It was not the words they shared, as my experience with how spirit speaks is that, without a human translator, they can only see our energies, not our exact thoughts. Instead it was more that they knew a different side of me than I knew myself, and they were able to share that energy with me sort of like a lifesaving medical device can restart our heart. They gave me back a part of me I had missed. I felt better without really knowing why.
Over the next month’s I began to feel my life did have real purpose, that the principles I had learned and shared about a better way of existence in the workplace really did matter. That I would find my way back to a life where I was respected as a professional and also could carve out a cohesive lifestyle with my children and be able to once more see bringing a lady into my life.
My comfort zone was finally returning. And perhaps you know what that means. As being in your comfort zone is one place that the mastery pathway does not want you to be.
Life is, as the cliché goes, unpredictable even if it is already not very pristine to begin with.
Shattering Not Only Mirrors
It would be only a half year later that while driving home from being with my ex’s family so I could see the kids for Thanksgiving that I received an urgent text message from the home health aid taking care of my mother. The young woman was frantic and very upset. My mother’s breathing was very erratic and her skin was getting gray.
That would be the night my mom would transition after having spent months lying in a bed on morphine with a broken hip that could not be fixed.
Barley two months later I myself would be without the air to breathe lying motionless as well, only I would be on the side of a mountain on top of the ice and snow. One could say there were eerie similarities between her death and my own accident that left me later learning that my rib was broken and my shoulder would never look, or function, quite the same again.
Some things were certain. Spirit has a way of getting your attention.
Perhaps had I been able to stop the merry-go-round of living in a society that emphasized material pursuits over spiritual ones, perhaps if I had been able to take some long moments to ponder clearly just what contributions to the world I was making, if I was leaving a legacy that reflected my inner values or just giving them lip service, then I would not have had to receive a drastic wake up that totally rattled my life.
The pain of a broken rib and an almost dislocated shoulder is intense but the disruptions of not being able to move, use your arm and hand, is even more psychologically painful.
It forced me to step away from my daily routine and seek healing and healers as my first priority. Working with a computer was slow and tedious, and I did not have the mental or physical stamina to do it for very long.
If I had thought my life had crumbled apart before, and that I could not go deeper, I was now going through a stage where every covering I had would start to be taken off my reality; a stage where I would have the remaining mirrors that kept me clinging to a the world’s illusions finally shattered completely.
In the duration of just under six month, I went through a roller coaster of emotional upheavals. Thinking I was finally able to create a stable living and working arrangement near my children, I had rented an apt near them and advised my client I would be seeing them less often.
Just two days prior to the move, the rental fell through. While driving the rental truck the client called and insisted my plans change, that I would be with them more often, not less.
After two weeks of commuting 2 hours, not being able to secure a rental, and not even knowing were to rent or live, I found myself more confused than ever.
That was the moment I truly experienced what can only be called the reverse of the ah-ah moment. Instead of having it all figured out, I realized the way I was planning and living my life was a pretty firm disaster. Every illusion I held was now broken open. All my 3D dreams were not working.
It was a pivotal event. I knew that my way of attempting to do things was most assuredly not working, that I was clearly not the master of my life.
Preamble to the Light
So, they say it is darkest before the dawn. Just how dark does one have to experience it is the question.
I contacted my friend again to seek advice from the Elohim. I knew I did not have any answers, but my meditations always left me with a sense that everything I had been trying to create simply bumped up against a closed door. A finality that did not have any description. It was a beyond frustrating and all I could do was surrender. Give up.
And that was something I had never done.
The Elohim really only had one essential question for me, and it was very clear, “Did you get the message?” What they were saying was that it was time to do something completely different for myself, step away from my world and take time to breathe.
They told me that perhaps it was time for me to rediscover who I was. And I knew they were right. I knew that their suggestion that I embark on an actual journey to a destination far away was exactly what I needed to do.
It still took me almost two more months to sort out my work and tidy up my affairs. I then left it all behind, got in my car and set out on a 3000 plus mile journey across the U.S. With a destination in mind, a place I had never been, to see a woman friend I really did not know that well at all, I departed my old life and meandered along the highways to a place called Mount Shasta.
I planned on not planning. I figured I needed about 6 weeks to lose the dross of my life, gain renewed clarity that I had not experienced in years, and then head back.
Entering the Light
Nothing could prepare me for arriving in the place they say heaven meets earth. It was three weeks since I departed the east coast and I did feel that I had finally been able to let go of some bonds that had been with me since birth. It was as if this time the act of physically driving out of the state I was born in had some kind of alchemical reaction. It was as if I was actually pulling up roots. That was not my plan but that was how it felt.
Mount Shasta, CA is a magical place for those that believe in magic. I had forgotten that life could be magical. The mountain, and especially the woman I went to visit, showed me that. It was not a Hollywood love story at all, but it was something I had never realized was possible between a man and a woman.
Trust and true companionship where each person refuses to hide behind their own mirrors any longer. I could not have gotten to a place where I could do that within myself without traversing the journey I took. It was not the drive across the country but the journey of the Self.
I had to see how it could not be done in order to surrender to how it could.
Life changed for me to say the least. Afterwards when I drove back across the country to see my kids, I could viscerally feel the density and disharmony of the east coast; and how many people lived lives where not only did they have mirrors they shined regularly, but they thought they were just cleaning the glass to get a better view of the outside world. And when my boys came out to see me, they could not grasp the power and majesty of the part of the country I now called home. They missed their density.
A loving father misses his sons profoundly when they are apart but I have learned by now to understand that each soul must break their own mirrors. If one is as stubborn and persistent at polishing them as I was, it will take a very large hammer indeed to shatter them. My hope is that I was the last of the more stubborn ones.
In setting forth into the Universe a very clear intention in 1999 I unknowing unleased my Highest Path.
It was a tumultuous journey on a road I would never have picked in my normal consciousness for at that time, and for more than a decade later, I thought I was choosing a life of betterment for myself and my children. A life where I could have a balance in my home and work life; a way to live in harmony with those I worked with and with those in my personal life, including my ex. In short, I thought that would be the “Bliss’ that Campbell was speaking about.
What ideals and visions you set forth with your lower ego based consciousness can never be the path. Or more accurately, it can and will be the path…but it will not be the path you think you are taking or the one that involves the ease and grace of God.
What changed everything for me was the moment when I surrendered to specifically not setting out my pathway, the moment I realized I could not know Divinity by planning it out and setting 3D goals. I came to know my path only by stepping into the unknown and allowing Divinity to find me.
Being the Light
Now two years later, my life has continued to leap forward spiritually, emotionally and mentally in ways that cannot be explained to those who have not traveled the same path.
In Native and religious traditions, when one takes on a new name, they are signifying their old self has died, that they are reborn anew and that they now only carry the banner of that new name signifying not just who they are now, but the journey they took to arrive at that new space and time.
Such is it with my name. I have traversed the crucible and come out on the other side. The journey certainly does not end here, and in many ways it now is just beginning.
I have learned that in order to carry more Light, you must first remove the darkness within. Darkness is not bad, it is simply masquerading as the lower ego, the one in charge, the one who believes it knows the answers and the right pathway of getting what it wants. I had to remove many layers masquerading as truth in my life before I was even ready to surrender to something larger and more magnificent.
Learning to surrender all you think you know, all you think you are, is crucial to the pathway of Mastery. Learning that you are your own illusion is what finally sets you free.
What creates the Master within is seeing everything for what it is and leaving no stone unturned until all is seen. It can be no other way. Balance. Wholeness. Oneness. All these elements require the walls of illusion to come crashing down. Until they do, the Truth of You will remain Hidden.
I was able to see that I was chasing my own dreams but not the Dream of the creator. That Dream is not able to be seen from within the confines of the human mind.
You cannot get there from here if here is your lower mental mind. It requires you to first allow the mind to find your heart, and then both of them together to surrender those false beliefs and ways of being that are not your Divinity. Is it hard? Oh yes, it often seems impossible.
You will need help in seeing those mirrors and even more help in shattering them. But those mirrors are actually reflecting light away from you the true Light of who you are, so they must go.
Reverend Christine Meleriessee was my helper. It was she who walked the path before me. She worked a lifetime on breaking the spells that held her within the illusions, and by doing so, I was able to see her for who she was. And that in turn enabled me to see who I was.
It is not an instant event at all. It is a Journey. Yet it is a journey that leads you to the You that you have always, somewhere deep and fleeting within your essence, felt yourself to be. In 1999, this pathway was hidden to me, yet it was always the only path to my Divinity. I am just grateful I allowed myself to find it, and accept it, as it allowed all the pieces of myself from this lifetime, and others, to be discovered and blended into be the One Soul that I AM.
I am now proud to be a Pastor for Humanity, shinning my own Light alongside Rev. Meleriessee’s Light. It is true that together we shine brighter. Without her own work and heritage with Lord Melchizedek through Dr. Joshua David Stone, I could not carry the mantel from her that creates the Light that We Are Together to do our part in bringing this Light to Humanity through Walking Terra Christa. She has Ordained me with that Authority and I have accepted that Ordination fully.
If you can come to the knowing that your Pathway to Mastery is a gift unknown, that the brightest and best parts are simply hidden along the way, it will enable you to find the courage and fortitude to keep to the path.
Many Blessings on your Journey fellow traveler.