by Aaron Malin, Suzanne Core and Larry Krantz
Aaron Malin: Well hello everyone. Larry approached me a few months ago about presenting with him on Father’s Day. This is a pretty special day for me personally but also for many men around the world. This is the day that we honor fatherhood in all its forms and for those of you who may not have children, you may also express the qualities of fatherhood. Mentorship is something that is very powerful in my life and is one aspect of fatherhood. This morning I want to share a bit of my journey as a father. I was born in 1971 in British Columbia, Canada. My parents were a part of a spiritual community that had a center in the Kamloops area. From there my family moved to a small family farm in Wisconsin that was also affiliated with the same spiritual community.
I have never been drawn to children. I wouldn’t say that I’m child repellent but I just never had the strong desire to be a dad. My wife, Rosa, told me very early on that she wanted kids. It’s a part of her culture and as a part of her life, she wanted the experience of being a mom. I thought, “Okay, I’m open to it so we’ll see what happens.” From the beginning of our relationship up until the actual decision to have a child, Rosa inspired me to be a dad. Her many fine qualities—the way that she is as a person, her kindness and sweet, gentle nature. I knew all those things would make for an amazing mother and I wanted to share that experience with her. We made a conscious, deliberate decision to start a family. It was pretty neat too because we were married for two years. Just the two of us learning about each other and our expectations of each other. We nurtured our relationship as husband and wife before adding the new challenge, the stress and joy of a child. We were very deliberate during the process and then when we made the decision to start a family, BOOM! It happened. Two months later, Rosa was pregnant. Nine months later, on September 18, 2017, we welcomed Vanessa Claire Malin into the world. Immediately, Vanessa started teaching Rosa how to be a mom, me how to be a dad and us on how to be a family.
I now want to share three things Vanessa has taught me about being a dad. The first is about nurturing. My dad passed away a few years ago. He was a bit challenging for me. He was loved by many but lived primarily a life of solitude. The best word I’ve heard to describe my dad is a curmudgeon. He was not capable of nurturing me so I had to learn how to nurture from other sources. It took me a long time to realize but I’m an incredibly nurturing person. Rosa knew this about me long before Vanessa came along. Rosa’s father passed away when she was very young and her mother passed away shortly before we met. Rosa was drawn to me in part because of this latent, nurturing capability. She gave me the opportunity to develop it and now Vanessa has really brought it to the forefront on a daily basis. An aspect of nurturing is protection; physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Nothing great can happen until someone feels safe. Helping Vanessa feel safe allows her to express herself as a person and an angelic being.
The second thing I want to bring up is patience. I’m very patient in some areas of my life but not so much in others. Of the many things I’ve read about parenting, patience is a biggie. One method to help parents and children learn patience together is to give children the expectation of timing. Vanessa is a little over two-and-a-half years old. She doesn’t think about time or feel the need to care about anything that is not happening right now. As an adult we think about time constantly. What’s happening now, then, and in the future? It can be a real challenge to bring these two very different worldviews together. One example where Vanessa taught me patience was at a playground close to our home. We’ll often walk there after work and before dinner. On one occasion, I told Vanessa it was time for dinner so we needed to go. This was NOT what she wanted to hear so she got upset and continued to play. In her world, we’re here to play and that is that. I searched my memory for some helpful parenting book anecdotes and remembered to set up Vanessa’s expectations with blocks of time. I told her we had another ten minutes to play and then we would go home for dinner. I followed that up with telling her we had another eight minutes of play. Another five minutes of play. Another three minutes of play. Another minute and then it was time to go home for dinner. In the final minute, she climbed into the stroller and was ready to go home. All I needed to do was be patient with her process.
The third but never final thing Vanessa is teaching me is to be present. I never realized how often I think about things in the past or the future until I met Vanessa. Vanessa’s only concern is what’s happening right now. She is so focused in the present. To be with her in the present is an amazing gift to both of us. When I come home from work, I put the phone down, change my clothes, get down on the floor and give her my undivided attention. She loves “horse daddy.” I get on all fours and she climbs on to ride around the house. We will read books. She can read the same book again and again and again and each time she enjoys the characters, the stories, or the activities. She feels as though she knows the characters in the book. They are her friends. I have read the book 48 times this week but in order to be present with her, I just have to be a part of that experience as if it was the first time. She is teaching me these things. Nurturing, patience and being present. These are such powerful lessons as a dad and a man.
I want to wrap up with a poem. I wrote this poem back in December,1995, at 11:15 PM. What’s weird about this is that I’m not a poet. I don’t write poetry. I’ve never written a poem before or since. At the time, I just felt compelled to write. This poem is very appropriate as a dad but also as a husband. The title is, “Send Me An Angel.”
Send me an angel my Lord
An angel to share with you
An angel to love, as I love you
Send me an angel my King
An angel to make love to
An angel to make love, as you do
Send me an angel my Heavenly Father
An angel to dwell in my garden
An angel to dwell in your garden, as I do
Send me an angel my Love
An angel to be with me
An angel to be with me, as I am with you
Send us an angel
My angel
Our angel
Suzanne Core: Aaron, thank you for your presentation. I’m a bit choked up myself now. What a wonderful representation of Fatherhood with a capital “F”; thank you for sharing your beautiful story, your beautiful family, your beautiful pictures, your beautiful words. Surely we were sent an Angel in you today.
Last November Joyce and Larry gave a Tone of Life teleconference that was subsequently entitled, “The Breath of Life.” I carried a couple of mental images away from that talk, from some of Joyce’s words, including, “Humans can’t hold their breath forever.” I carried them for weeks, and over the next few months they became a poem, which I’d like to share with you now. It’s been entitled, The Source Whisperer:
The Source Whisper whispers her breathless cry,
A still small voice first heard within,
The sound of a Trumpet above the din.
Source speaks in the silence of the Hurricane’s Eye.
“Breathe to my rhythms.” Quietly. “Try.”
Source waits and listens for some reply.
The Whisperer whispers again and again.
Not answering is the only sin.
I exhale my breath on the Whisperer’s sigh.
Larry Krantz: On this Father’s Day, Aaron touched on true manhood and the enfoldment of one’s family. Parenthood is a sure way to learn about being selfless, especially when you need to tend to a fussy baby in the middle of the night!
Suzanne’s poem spoke of Source. It said, “Breathe with my rhythms.” A lovely image. But, why do we breathe? Have you ever thought about that? The Creator could have, theoretically, made us so that breathing was not necessary, which would be useful if we wanted to swim underwater for an extended period or not wake a spouse by our snoring. But God is bound by cosmic principles and the design of humankind follows these guidelines, so we breathe the breath of life, in rhythm with an inner pulsation. What is true in the smallest part is true in the whole. The cosmos is like a hologram, so the secrets of the universe are close at hand, and there is no need to poke through moon rocks to try to solve the mysteries of the universe. We need look no further than our own human forms, made in the image of God; they align with universal principles and reveal how the cosmos functions.
So, why do we breathe? The answer may surprise you. It is because of divine sexuality. The sex principle is one of the basic mechanisms that propels the cosmos; to function wisely we need to understand how it works. The universe is composed of masculine and feminine parts. There is an endless interplay between these complementing essences. We know from our own experience that there is a powerful attractive force that draws together the masculine and feminine. We see it in all the kingdoms of this world, including human behavior. It is also evident in the ongoing great romance between the earth and the sun—the father of our solar system and the mother of our planetary home. The sun extends radiation and the earth gladly receives it, part of which is light and warmth. That radiation blends with the earth to bring forth an abundance of life forms. It is a love story on a large scale. The sun’s gravity holds his children in place—a family of planets and celestial objects, bathed in the radiant influence of the sun.
It is challenging to consider sexuality because human experience has made it distorted and ugly. The merging of male and female factors brings forth new life, sometimes in physical form, mostly at other levels; it is a sacred dance, spinning out new combination of essences and external factors, just as the universe constantly refreshes itself. There are natural distances to relationships—some not close, others to varying degrees of intimacy. When there is merging, it is a fiery experience, with intense feelings. In ignorant human experience, it is like a child playing with explosives, which has led to misinterpretation and reaction, to fear and jealousy and betrayal and revenge and deep wounds. Men, often do not understand the power of female emotions and women’s valuable insights, so they keep females subjugated, sometimes abused, to control what they do not understand and fear. This is not true manhood, which welcomes female partnership and enjoys the creative balance brought on by sharing, and by respecting, feminine essences. When spiritually mature people merge, considerable creative radiation is released. This power of fusion is not unlike the tremendous energy generated when atoms fuse, as in the stars. If ill spirits are brought into this joining, the radiation released is disastrous and dangerous, and causes many of the ills known by humankind.
Not everyone has this opportunity of intimate sharing in a direct sense, but there are always associations that can be fulfilling. Each of us can find a balance of female and male factors within, as is natural to our unique situation. Additionally, we should be receptive to the positive currents of the Source within, an internal love affair between the outer person and the Eternal Being within. The fire from above and the fire from below, the meeting place in us, as with the earth below and the sun above.
Back to breathing. Each inhalation is a receptive phase—taking air in. The air is changed by the lungs, then thrust out in an exhalation. In and out. A negative phase and a positive phase. A pulsation. The same principle is true in the heart. Blood is received, oxygenated, and pumped forcefully back to the body, charged with oxygen. It is an ongoing pulsation; we can even take our pulse! When that rhythmic pulsation ceases, life stops in that form. Our internal rhythms are representative of the pulsations of the cosmos. Spirit is not static or stagnant, but alive. Spiritual things are said to be vibrational. That implies movement, oscillation, perhaps—a current vibrating at a certain rate or frequency—evidences of the balanced interplay of male and female factors. Both are needed and the attraction, merging, and radiation is the engine of the cosmos, the energy that propels stars. Sex is sacred and is an essential part of God’s expression, beautiful and wonderful. If we understand this, even at a rudimentary level, we may more wisely act in accord with divine intelligence.
Eternal truths such as these become clear as the fog in consciousness lifts. And that happens when the heart and mind are purified and the clutter in the subconscious realm is sorted out by spirit. Trust in Source brings about clarity and understanding.
We are no doubt aware of the turmoil in the world these days. People speak about how unprecedented things are, including the Covid-19 pandemic and racial protests—both of which have spread around the world. There have been many epidemics and pandemics before, and numerous marches and protests for social justice. Yet, what is happening now seems more urgent and is not so easily dismissed. It is a stimulus for change.
Various factors contribute to the unique opportunity for change before us. We may recognize that the gross overpopulation in the world is unsustainable, as is the widespread abuse of the environment. There are also cosmic cycles that have brought us to a time of spiritual awakening. Add to this the accumulated generation of fine spiritual substance over millennia. Doors have been opened in heaven, particularly by the great spiritual lights that have incarnated, some known, many unknown, their words often unheeded, but the substance of understanding generated has persisted at a level where it cannot be sullied by humankind. This is especially true of the Master Jesus who, two thousand years ago, opened all remaining doors, so we could experience divine understanding and oneness. His rejection has led to many centuries of suffering and ignorance. Actions have consequences. Now, the way is open and it is apparent that the status quo cannot persist. There is a call to awaken, and many hear this inner voice from Source. In these unprecedented times, the edifice of the false human state is showing cracks. Pressure pushes on the false state, which strains to hold it together. If we are identified with what is real, we are content to let what is false crumble, no matter how it affects us personally. What is untrue will dissipate, one way or another.
This phony world is a dream state; some may find it pleasant on occasion; other see it as a nightmare. It is a bizarre place, filled with things that make no sense, that do not jive with our inner sensing of divine character. The beginning of awakening is when a person senses they are in the wrong dream, that so-called reality is somehow warped. They may not know how to shake awake, but are beginning to separate from the unreal, knowing there must be another state, one that makes sense. A precious few are becoming increasingly conscious of who they are, divinely speaking, and strive to live a life of integrity and selflessness, while seeking greater understanding.
The Master spoke of a time of tribulation. What is going on in the world now certainly qualifies. He said that for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened (Matthew 24:22). Who are the elect? Who decides who is on the list?—a conclave of religious leaders? Or perhaps some imagined group of heavenly host picking out names from a hat. I don’t think so. To elect is to choose, as we do among candidates in an election. The Source Whisper sounds a call to awaken. Those who hear that call elect to listen to the voice of spirit, which may grow louder and more distinct as the distractions fade into the background. Many people are so distracted by the tribulations in the earthly realm, and in their individual lives, they do not hear the call to awaken and thus elect themselves out. Yet, these days, more and more are electing in, and that creates more spiritual substance, which makes it easier for others to stir from the dream state. This is how the days are shortened.
Those of us with a greater understanding of spiritual things have a particular responsibility to allow our hearts and minds to be further cleansed, that we may be beacons of light for those looking for direction. It is a great privilege to share this with friends; together we may amplify the call to awaken, that all may come back to the divine state where nothing is hidden and all is understood.