by Suzanne Core and Larry Krantz
Suzanne Core: Good Morning, Glories!
We gather together once again in one of what Martin Exeter called “configurations of angels.” We gather for a specific creative purpose; we do not come to get anything or improve ourselves. We come to share what we each bring so that we have something to give as a collective. I think it was Sanford Baran, a couple of weeks ago, who said, “We’re here to create the world.” And John Gray noted at one point that “the spiritual regeneration of humanity is under way.” Clearly, we have a part to play in that.
As I’ve been thinking about speaking today—and I’ve been thinking about it off and on for quite some time; the closer it got to the time the more I thought about it—I thought about themes. The latest theme was Heart and Home and Holy Days. I’d like to touch on this. By the way, one of the things that happened consistently when I did Little Theatre in the past, one of the things that would happen every performance, just before I went on stage my mind would go completely blank. I would stand there with my heart in my throat hoping that tonight would not be the night when nothing would come out of my mouth. And then I would get my cue to walk on stage and the lines were there every time, I’m very happy to say. We are not speechless. In this setting, the blessing of this configuration of angels is that we know something about these themes and we are prepared to consider them together. And what we have to give to the world, whoever is speaking, is what spirit would have us give in these moments.
For us, all days are holy days. But this time of year much of the world also considers that. It is often said that hearts turn towards home during the holidays. So if hearts are turning towards home for the holidays, what is our heart saying to the home that is our earth and the world and all that in it dwells? What is our heart saying? During this time of the winter solstice, time of conception, what cycles are moving that we might know about or sense or maybe not know at all? Spiritual regeneration is under way and we are here to create the world.
A few weeks back, Kate Isaacs mentioned the “Biggest Little Farm” documentary and the people who had walked away from their lives and undertaken to do something that looked impossible. They created a garden spot. I had seen the program recently and it reminded me of another documentary, called “I Am,” which I had watched several years ago. I was fascinated with the name and I wanted to find out who would name something “I Am”—was it some strange evangelical cult that was going to give us a religious lesson? What would it be? It
turned out it was done by the Hollywood director who directed all the Jim Carrey movies, like “Liar, Liar.” He was apparently pretty famous, well known; he owned several mansions and drove fast cars and had this great life, and then he had an epiphany. He started searching for the answer to the question, “Who is responsible for the way things are?” And the answer was “I am.” It’s an interesting documentary, probably done ten years or so ago. At the time, he sold all his mansions and lived in a trailer park for years, though I recently read that last year he bought a house again.
For the documentary, he went around the world interviewing people he thought might answer the “Who’s responsible?” question in different ways. One of the places he went was called the HeartMath Institute. I found it really fascinating. I don’t know how long they had been working then but they are still working today. They have books and publications and trainings and seminars and such. But back then what they were talking about was pretty revolutionary.
In the ’60s and ’70s a couple named Lacey were doing research that concluded that the heart sends more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart. Not only that, they found that the heart seemed to have its own logic that often just ignored the directions from the brain. Furthermore, the heart seemed to be sending meaningful messages to the brain that the brain not only understood but obeyed. Even more intriguing was that it looked like this affected people’s behavior and performance. And then French researchers in 1974 confirmed this and suggested that the heart and the nervous system had their own type of logic and acted independently of the signals sent from the brain. So they called that the heart-brain. They found that the heart-brain has its own intricate network that allows it to act independently from the cranial brain, and “to learn, remember, make decisions, and even feel and sense.” Imagine that. “Even feel” is their wording, not mine. Now they’re not telling us anything that we don’t know, right? But this is pretty revolutionary. All I could think was, “Oh, poor brain; now even science is telling you you’re not the boss of me.”
I think we see, and have long known, how important the heart is; how at the center of our being, heart is. And what opportunity we have when hearts are open, what opportunity in these holy days, in this holiday season, when hearts may be more open, softer, turning towards what they perceive of as home.
“Home is where the heart is” is a familiar quote. It is usually attributed to a Roman naval commander from the time of Christ, known as Pliny the Elder. “Home is where the heart is” was taken to mean that home is the place we trust the most. Home is where our emotional connections are strongest, where our deepest memories lie. Home is not a house. Home is not
our parents’ house. But Home does exist. We know that; we live from that place. And we offer that place to those who would reach out as we reach out. We say, “Welcome home,” and we do it more through the heart than through the head. We know all that. We know what it feels like.
One of the things one of the French researchers said about the heart-brain function was that “the brain thinks, but the heart knows.” Home is surely where our heart is. This is the work and the value of configurations of angels—including we who are gathered here in this moment today. We know other configurations of angels too. There are many. They overlap sometimes and sometimes not. Each has a specific purpose, a specific creative purpose. All come from Home. All center in true home, real home, where love lives.
When I read a service by Martin where he talked about configurations of angels, the need for them, the value of them, the purpose of them, in my head I kept thinking “conflagration of angels.” When I realized that, I thought “maybe that’s what I mean; we are a conflagration of angels.” We bring the fire, the fire of love. We reach out into our worlds and extend that fire. Love includes. Love is inclusive.
Last night I attended a Zoom service given by Yujin Pak in South Korea. He introduced Uranda’s booklet, “Talks Beside the Sun-Dial,” to his audience and he quoted from it at some length. One of the things he said was that Uranda spoke about the heat of the furnace into which humanity has been brought by Love, so that humanity might go through the process of ascension into true being. Yujin said, “So it is that there must be some who go through the process first. Before many can go through it, there must be some who go through it.” Martin and Uranda both said it would be a few. Well, we’re a few; we’re some. And I know that individually we have each gone through some part of that process so that we bring a purity of heart to this gathering, today. We are here because there must be some before there can be many. And we are here so that there can be many. And we do it from right here in this generating chamber, in our home among the stars.
Larry Krantz: Indeed, most people long to know their true home. They may not say it that way, but it is felt as a hole in the heart, a sense of emptiness that cannot be filled by even the most sumptuous surroundings or beguiling distractions. Our true home can only be known when we awaken spiritually. It requires rising up in consciousness, a transcendent awareness.
We recently spoke about William Shatner’s profound experience riding a rocket into space. It is worth noting that the other passengers did not have the kind of transformative experience he had. Apparently, they were too full of their earth-bound identities to be touched by something greater. Many of those who have gone into space have had personal illuminations and life-changing experiences, so much so that this change in perspective has been coined, “The Overview Effect.”
For example, Alan Shepard said, “If somebody said before the flight: Are you going to get carried away looking at the earth from the moon, I would have said no way but when I first looked back at the earth standing on the moon I cried.”
Another astronaut, Muhammad Ahmad Faris said, “From space I saw earth indescribably beautiful with the scars of national boundaries gone.” That’s a common theme among astronauts. It challenges our mindset of a world divided up into hundreds of countries, envisioning dotted lines between countries, and are amazed that no lines exist, that it is one planet.
This is from Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut: “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty.”
Neil Armstrong said, “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye and my thumb blotted out the planet earth but I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very small.”
From astronaut Ron Garan: “When we look down at the earth from space, we see this amazing, indescribably beautiful planet. It looks like a living organism.”
Edward Gibson, also an astronaut, said, “You see how diminutive your life and concerns are compared to other things in the universe…. The result is that you enjoy the life that is before you…. It allows you to have inner peace.”
Finally, a space tourist named Anousheh Ansari said, “The actual experience exceeds all expectations and is something that’s hard to put into words. It sort of reduces things to a size that you think everything is manageable. All these things that may seem big and impossible, we can do this. Peace on earth, no problem. It gives people that kind of energy that kind of power.”
One does not have to go into space to have an Overview Effect, a transcendent experience. Some may use a mandala or gaze at a flower, or just have a spiritual awakening while walking down a road. William Blake wrote about seeing the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower. There may be an obvious trigger that lifts a person out of the ordinary, or it may not be apparent at all. Even near-death experiences can give a person a transcendent experience, which many report as feeling more real and solid than anything else in their life, which indicates touching into a higher dimension than our more flimsy outer world.
A sense of awe and wonder, like seeing the earth from above, can open the door to a change in consciousness—the experience of amazement, astonishment, veneration, respect, and worship. It enables a sensing that there is more going on than one considered before, a touching of the divine, of something more real and significant. The natural state for us is one of worship and wonder at the ever-new creation before us, which lifts us out of our earthbound, limited human identity. It may at first be but a flash of remembrance, the dawning awareness of higher dimensions. Sometimes, just touching the hem of the garment is thought to be enough. Paul, the early Christian leader, had such an experience but took it no further and mistakenly presumed he knew enough to impose his beliefs on others, which have confined human understanding ever since.
What is needed now are those who look up and continue to ascend in understanding. Repeated cycles of purification are necessary to come to a clear and complete understanding of what is at first only glimpsed. Humility is essential in this process, along with patience. If a person is consistent and lets the mind and heart clarify, then there will be the generation of connecting substance with the inner realms, which allows for the atmosphere of our true home to be known. We may come to the point where we do not see heaven as separate but as our own true essence, which lifts the outer human self into higher understanding and function, for we are Truth and Love and Life; this is our true identity.
Maintaining a sacred atmosphere takes diligence, especially in this chaotic world. Here in Colorado, I have a little garden where I grow vegetables. I put a two-foot fence around it to protect it from the critters that live in our area who would be happy to nibble at the produce. I water it and remove the weeds. So it is with the garden state of consciousness. We may generate that atmosphere with right living but we need to tend and protect it, keep away the critters that can spoil it and defile the sacred space that is the true home in which we live. We may still see the ill spirits that could defile, and we are wise to leave them there, outside our sacred space—all the doom and gloom and divisiveness, and so on. We keep holy our home atmosphere, for it is precious and must be maintained. In the story of the Garden of Eden there were cherubim with flaming swords turning every which way to keep out what would spoil the garden within. This is not just a story about long ago but should be our experience now. We protect the fine atmosphere generated, the golden garden substance that connects us with what is higher.
We humans have made a mess of things on earth, using our minds to scheme and manipulate the world and our hearts may hold all sorts of confused feelings. But the mind and heart are merely vessels meant to be filled with truth and love; they are the means of bringing the heavenly state into the earth. Some of us have been proud of our intellects only to realize they amount to nothing of themselves. All humanly-derived thoughts and feelings, no matter how clever or well meant, are false. It is only when the mind and heart are filled by the winds of spirit that they have value and may be used effectively. In this way, life becomes easy. We don’t have to work hard to figure things out, only to be open to what naturally comes to us.
I find that the less I try to do, the more I can do. The world comes to me in manifold ways. If I do not try to steer things; it all works out, and factors line up in ways I could never have figured out. People are amazed when things fall into place; they speak of the wonder of synchronicity when things come together in a remarkable way. Why shouldn’t it be like that all the time? We are one body of humanity. In a sense, we breathe in and out together. There is one source and the natural pulsations of spirit impact us at the same time. Of course, many people are out of rhythm with these pulsations, yet spirit does the best it can with what is available. This is especially true if someone is aligned with the movement of spirit and holds steady. That person extends a magnetic force of radiation that draws to oneself what is needed. No big deal.
A transcendent experience happens when there is remembrance of the truth, of who one is as a divine being; such an understanding is higher than the usual mental framework. As things are now, we have virtually no memory as a species of what came before. We have our individual memories but not much beyond that, so philosophies and mythologies and religions have imagined various stories of our origin and purpose—and some of them are pretty wild! The Spirit of Truth brings all things to remembrance. This may bring into awareness our true history as a species, what has been called the race memory. If that happens, there will no longer be the need for substitute imaginings, for we will remember who we are and remember our cosmic destiny. Much of that memory is not easily accessible, walled off by the trauma of previous cataclysmic events, which were horrific, and layers of guilt and shame over our fall from grace. But the memories are there and may be touched if there is sufficient connecting substance and no judgment, at first as just a feeling, a vague remembrance, but perhaps more fully revealed in time.
We may recall our true home and experience it when we reside in the atmosphere of heaven. It is a place of peace and ease, our divine abode. Home is where we are ourselves, our true Selves. Let us keep that home holy and safe and unspoiled, for it is where we are meant to live.
After comments
Suzanne: I was reminded of an old Zen koan:
Sitting quietly, doing nothing
Spring comes
And the green grass grows.
So it’s been wonderful to share these considerations: all things made new in this hour today and every hour to come, together.