by Suzanne Core and Laura Fisher
Suzanne Core: Good morning, angels. What a cast of the heavenly host is present together this morning! Special greetings to the group gathered in Texas. It’s good to be together, to let the tone of life resound through us into our world and our earth—from the earth of our bodies to the earth of our planetary home.
Two weeks ago, we looked at the world through current events, some of the “surface evidence of the action of the Spirit of God.” Laura and I thought today we would start by looking at our planetary home from high above it, as we consider our Home. This musical video is called “This Island Earth.”
Two things in particular strike me in this song: we are an “island in a starry ocean” and we live on a beautiful home. As we were connecting to Zoom, we heard a men’s chorus singing “Going Home.” I’ve always heard those words as “coming home.” There is a longing for home in all of us. And there is an aspect of “being home” which we share. Uranda called it “our home among the stars.”
There was a young Ukrainian refugee who told a reporter, “We just want to be safe. We just want to go home.” I think everyone wants to go home, wants to be home. The desire to know home springs from a deep, primal memory of a sense that home has been lost. But the home fires are burning, lighting the way home. We see the surface evidence all around us in world events and closer to home—evidence of the home fires burning. We know the home fires are a call to come home. And we are among those who keep the home fires burning, extending the invitation in our living to come home, as we enfold this island earth and all the worlds therein.
My book club read a somewhat strange sci-fi novel this year. It was called “Project Hail Mary.” I don’t much care for science fiction but the plot of this one sounded familiar. The anti-hero woke up on a spaceship somewhere in space, he knew not where. Everybody else on the spaceship was dead. He had amnesia. He didn’t know why he was there or where he was or where he was going or why everybody else was dead or what the mission was, or what his job on the spaceship was. Somehow that plot sounded vaguely familiar.
Alan Hammond, in Volume Four of his books, “Our Divine and Cosmic Identity,” has a chapter on spaceship Earth: “Project Earth in Jeopardy.” I thought I’d read a quote. “The situation on spaceship Earth is critical. Deterioration of life support systems is accelerating…. Earth was designed to carry with it the atmosphere, forms and beauty of home. It was a delightful experience for all parts, before the planet’s central control mechanism, called Man, deviated from the plan. This piece of equipment is extremely delicate. It is designed to be the connecting link with True Home. But it lost direction and control…. The crew members continue to try to rectify the malfunction. The crux of the problem is in finding a way to reestablish the communication with Home, and with the peace, joy and love of Home.”
Well, we are among those Alan called crew members. We call the ongoing repair work we do in our lives, love. Let love radiate. We call the control mechanism Man to come home. When people think of home, they often think of childhood memories. Sometimes it has to do with scent. For me the scent of freshly brewed coffee or freshly baked bread evokes early memories of childhood, of home. The home fires are burning. They light the path.
Laura Fisher: Thank you, Suzanne. Thank you, Sanford, for that magnificent music.
An element of home I noticed during our check-in was that we are genuinely happy to be together. Being together means being at home. Everyone is invited to be home.
We have learned that our body is a temple. It is the mechanism in which we do the work that brings us home, so that we may provide service. It’s our job to make holy all that we do. We start with our own bodies, where our minds and our hearts live. What we express through our bodies, minds and hearts sets the tone for how we function.
I’d like to talk about cooking food. I’m bringing this topic to you now because of the sorry state of our food, particularly in the western world. That state is slowly leaking out to the rest of the world. Food is becoming a problem instead of nourishment for the preservation of life! An author on this topic, Michael Pollan, wrote a book called Cooked in which he maintains that the answers to all the world’s problems are solved by eating home-cooked food at a table with your family, your tribe, your friends. That sounds wonderful!
Michael put forth some interesting instruction: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. I’m sorry to say that his statement is mostly translated as: Eat Industrial food. Lots of it. Mostly chemicals. Michael has written the “Seven Rules of Eating.” They are both amusing and sad. They make sense if we are interested in developing healthier eating habits:
- Food delivered to your car is not food.
- Never eat anything you can’t pronounce.
- Never eat anything that doesn’t rot.
- Always eat at a table.
- Eat only when you’re hungry.
- Don’t eat when you’re bored or frustrated.
- Stop eating before you’re full.
You can see how this would begin to answer the problem of the increase of many illnesses and the obesity epidemic in our Western world. A study from Harvard supports Michael’s thinking. It has been clearly proven in this study that the more people eat home-cooked food, the healthier they are.
Secondary eating has become a problem in our busy worlds, as well. Secondary eating is eating while you watch television, talk on the phone, check your Facebook account, check your bank balance. Eating is supposed to be just eating, not catch-up time! It should be relaxed, calm and on purpose. It can only nourish your body when it is done right. I am sure you get the picture. We have been well-educated on this topic.
Nutritious food has always been an important concern in the Emissary body, starting with Uranda’s Steps to Mastership in 1936. He said, among many strong comments about food, “If you want to live, you have to eat living food.” That makes sense! Lillian Cecil taught nutrition classes in the 1970s and Martin Cecil gave services about our attitudes regarding the kitchen and food. I’d like to read you a quote from a service by Uranda in 1946. He offered this after the first kitchen was established at Sunrise Ranch.
In Uranda’s words, “You cannot dissociate the food from the person who prepares it. And we are all concerned that the food we eat should contribute to health and well-being so that we can more effectively play our parts in the fulfillment of divine purpose. And in the kitchen, we have two primary functions, preparing food and eating it. You might say there’s a third one, cleaning up after you’ve eaten. All kitchen work needs to be done in a relaxed vibration. Now we need to come to the realization that until the kitchen work is right, the ladies work in connection with the food, we can never accomplish what we’re here for. From the standpoint of the ladies, there is not anything on Sunrise Ranch, or on the face of the earth, more important than right function in the kitchen. Without right function in the kitchen, our whole program will collapse. To whatever degree your function and relationship with the kitchen has helped promote the right pattern, you have been rendering a real service to God and to man. To whatever degree you have resisted correct function in the kitchen, to whatever degree you may have complicated it, you are hindering the accomplishment of that for which we are all here. I don’t know how to put it in words to convey more effectively the fact that the kitchen work is the most important work on the place, bar none, with the possible exception, if you want to make an exception, of my own personal work. But my personal work is impossible without the kitchen. The kitchen work is the most important work.”
Uranda makes it very clear: cooking the food and eating it in a relaxed thankful manner is vitally important. It’s not just what we cook, it’s how we cook it. It’s also clear that feminine agreement, a body of women in agreement, is essential to make our path home again clear. I say to my female friends that what we do is very important; we know that.
While I was at Sunrise, I taught many interested young women how to cook. My main message to them was always, “Cuddle up to your food, hold your knife close and learn to relax while you cook. Become intimate with what you are touching, what you are cutting, what you are stirring, so that you can pour your whole self into the food. Use your energy to nourish others. You are preparing an inner attunement for those who eat your food.
Our team always started cooking a meal by pausing, being quiet, joining hands and bowing our heads in prayer—a moment of silent appreciation for the holy task ahead of us! Then we donned our white kitchen clothes, sharpened our knives, and entered the workspace. Together we made the kitchen holy by allowing our consciousness to be pure and available. The food we cooked in that atmosphere was safe and nutritious for our family. This form of nourishment comes in the form of food that has been infused with substance during the planting, harvesting and cooking of it. Nutrient-dense food imbued with love spiritualizes the cells of our bodies. It heals, activates and ensures greater movement of life force. We are very blessed to eat that food!
In former times, only the priests grew, harvested and cooked the food. Those who lived in constant daily worship were the ones allowed to touch the food. After it was served, the diners had the responsibility of saying grace. The act of being thankful and taking the time to say so changes how the food is received into our body. It opens up our digestive system and lets our digestive juices flow easily. We begin the digestive process as we’re saying grace. This could be called a miracle!
Nutrient-dense food is a term used to describe food that nourishes and infuses the body and the mind with clarity. If the mind isn’t nourished completely, if it isn’t fed in a calm, thankful manner, it won’t function properly. Our minds are often in a state of constant thinking, solving problems, making things better. The mind needs peace to receive inspiration. It needs nurturing with healthy food and clean water. It needs our surround of gratitude. Natural food, properly cooked, allows a lightness to the body and clear thinking in the mind. A sense of order appears because it’s natural to be nourished. A well-fed body relaxes and the mind becomes stable. A stable mind becomes an ordered mind. It thinks and expands in an orderly way. When it can rest in peace, creative thinking appears. If you bring peace to your body, to your mind, your heart will overflow in gratitude. Deep rest comes easily. Creation appears naturally, softly.
I was born in the wilds of British Columbia, in the mountains. My father was a prospector. Prospectors didn’t earn a living wage so when I was a child we lived in tents or in abandoned prospectors’ cabins. We lived in the wild bush. We depended on my father’s skill as a hunter and a fisherman to provide most of our food. I grew up eating venison, moose and grouse. We even ate bear meat! In the summer, we had trout and we gathered fiddle head ferns and watercress in the spring. Our family outings in the summer were to gather berries for a treat. I am very grateful for my time in the forest, running through the trees in my bare feet and being part of the freshness all around me. As a very young child I learned to be at home and feel safe in the wilderness. It gave me an understanding of the pure essence of nature, of freedom. I miss that level of freedom. I think at some level we all want to be more free, to be wild. We want to be fully released, to let our minds fly free, to let ourselves breathe deeply again. We long to be at one with the natural world.
Why do we love nature so much? There is design and great control in nature. You can depend on it. The daffodils always bloom in the spring, and the leaves always color up in the fall. It never fails. We can grow and expand in this dependable state. But more importantly, our natural self, in our wild state, has a connection with everyone on the planet. In that natural connection, there is extraordinary respect for one another, deep passionate care for one another. Our basic essences come together. We are hard-wired for connection. We are meant to interlock, like the roots and fungi in the forest floor. Everything there works together. Everything has something for something else, and everything is included, nothing and no one is left out. Nothing is isolated. It all has a life-giving purpose. Within that system, it’s safe to share ourselves.
No one is going home until we all go together. Home is a blend of our natural essences, full and free. We can naturally become one when we come home. When we are one, we are home.
Where firm control and awful power eternally abide.
And cruel chaos of mind’s spawning
Is called again to order and to beauty.
We are called once again, at this very important juncture on our earth, where it seems everything is separated, to “Come Home. And go no more forth.”
Following Comments:
Suzanne Core: Thank you each one—as we often say, thank you each one who spoke, and each one who did not speak out loud. What a beautiful hour together. There was a naturalist named Henry Beston who lived about 100 years ago. He wrote a book called, The Outermost House. It was about a year of living on Cape Cod. On the last page of the book, he speaks of our planetary home, earth. He says, “Hold your hands out over the earth as a flame.” And I thought he was describing an earth attunement. The last page of his book, which was written in 1917, I thought remarkable. I’d like to share it with you because it speaks of home.
“Creation is here and now. So near is man to the creative pageant, he is part of the endless and incredible experiment…. The ancient values of dignity, beauty and poetry which sustain us, are of nature’s inspiration, born of the mystery and the beauty of the world. Do no dishonor to the earth. Hold your hands out over the earth as a flame. To all who love her she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless life. Touch the earth. Love the earth. Honor the earth. Her planes, her valleys, her hills, her seas. Rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s. And they are given to all. “
“The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; the world and all that is therein.” [Ps. 24:1]
Welcome to the Lord’s home. What a blessing. What a privileged few we are, to share in this consciously.
Laura Fisher: We are beginning to heal the gulf between an intellectual idea about oneness and the actual functional application. We are coming together—the attunement groups, the service groupings—are all coming together. We are beginning to heal the differences. It’s not just an idea. We’re doing it.
I’ve been thinking about a songbird in the spring. This tiny little bit of feather and flesh sings its heart out at just the right time. That vibration causes the spring leaves to unfurl. What a miracle! It is as simple as that. When all the noise, all the buts and all the maybes are gone, life appears in full force.
Here is a final quote from Martin, “Let us be vividly reminded of the reason for our presence on the earth. Is it not to establish the heavenly authority of the King in his earthly realm of habitation? Then let it be so.”
Suzanne Core: I was thinking of birds too. Last night during Yujin Pak’s service with the South Korean family, he spoke of “the collective light singing together the collective song.” I remembered this quote, “A bird does not sing because he has an answer. He sings because he has a song.” Our song is of infinite variety. And we have enjoyed a taste of that variety this morning together. Ukrainians, when they say goodbye, say “peaceful sky.” Peaceful sky to each of you—and through each of us, to our world and our earth.
We thought we would close by letter you hear again the song, “This Island Earth.” This version is Laura’s favorite. It’s by a group called Cool Shooz.