Dear friends,

I have several maple trees in my yard. The three youngest, not really young, are almost 50 years old. Forty-five years ago, our 5-year-old son saw small seedlings growing in my garden. I was pulling them out to discard them. He asked permission to plant some in the yard. Now these 3 trees are 40 to 65 or more feet tall. They were planted in different places in the yard, with different sunlight conditions, different soil. No surprise that they’re very different. They were all healthy seedlings from the same parent tree. One was planted in the open, with lots of light; one was planted close to a large line of tall spruces that competed for sunlight. The third was planted in the front yard close to the road. The one in the open is tall and balanced, reaching its branches up to the heavens. The spruce tree line blocked the sun from tree two, so it didn’t get enough light. As years passed the branches reached outward, searching for sunshine. The weight of the branches that were extended so far out caused the tree to split down its center core. It had to be cabled to prevent it from breaking apart. The one closest to the road is smallest, perhaps as a result of road salt and other harsh conditions.

Remember that they were all perfect seedlings from the same parent tree. Keep in mind too, that each is beautiful, each perfect in its own way. I wouldn’t want them to be identical. Their variety is a gift.

We, humans, are all expressions of the same divine essence. We are each different. From before our conception we’ve experienced different conditions, so we express our humanness differently. Different DNA and genetic conditions mean some of us will be tall, others shorter. Some will have pale skin, some with darker skin; some with more tendency to certain health problems because we inherited those conditions.

Part of that inheritance will be karmic. We are, after all, here both to serve and to learn. I had the blessings to spend some time visiting with Ram Dass a decade after his major stroke, what he called his Stroke of Grace. How can such a major, life changing happening be considered grace? What Ram Dass shared was immensely helpful to me and Hal (my husband) many years later when Hal experienced a major stroke. It was so important to us that while we did everything we could to help Hal heal physically, we also could both acknowledge the grace that was there; that this event came as a teacher. Then we were able to shift from trying to fix Hal to finding that which was truly still whole in Hal and inviting it forth. Yes, he also did physical therapy, speech therapy; worked to heal on that level but what is truly healing? He learned more deeply to love himself and to accept love. I found equal healing: learning that I was strong and could carry us through those first years; learning how deep our love for each other was after 56 years; letting go of all the old stories or blame of selves or of each other, that did not matter. This was his Stroke of Grace!

For the past 15 days I’ve been graced by spirit support to heal distortions in my body, especially in my spine (spinal stenosis) that were causing much pain. With my permission, the Brothers and Sisters of Light did an intervention, some major energetic surgery on my back, and kept me asleep 22 hours a day for 7 days with their anesthetic so the physical spine could rest from their changes and could heal without any exertion, for which it was not ready! This rest was especially long and deep as the spine needed to be still. Doctors at UM had said I would be in a body cast for 6 months is they operated on the stenosis! In those days of sleep/ awake, there was much meditation so it wasn’t all sleep.

What is really healing if my spine, on the ultimate level, is perfect! The perfect template is there but, just like my shaded maple tree, conditions brought it away from the perfection and severe pain was the result. We cabled the tree. Fortunately, I don’t need to be cabled. They tell me the back is now returned to its healthy state.

In less than two weeks (Jan 21-28) we begin our annual “Healing and the Ever-healed” 1 week workshop. We’ll look together at similar questions, each person with their own areas–physical, mental, emotional, spiritual–where we have sensed distortion. Where is the ever-perfect? We’ll look outside ourselves too. In a world with environmental disasters, social disasters, hatred and war, how do we best support the emergence of the ever-perfect? How do we KNOW that ultimate perfection, penetrate the distortions that hide it, and co-create its emergence? We can practice in ourselves, then bring it out into the world.

The first 5 days will be talks with humans (myself, John Orr, Tavis Taylor, Dale Jensen (Feldenkrais), Lauren Jubelirer (Healing with Spiritual Light) and perhaps others) and spirit (Aaron, Father John, Dom Inaçio, Yeshua, Mary, The Mother, and others), with inspiration, instruction, and group sharing time. The 6th day, Thursday Jan. 26, will see us with the Brothers and Sisters of Light, each human optionally entering into what spirit calls an Intervention, offered to support us releasing on the relative plane, and opening to and holding the wholeness at ever deeper levels on the ultimate plane, for ourselves and the world. Any who choose not to participate in the intervention will help hold the space. The last two days will be for sharing and exploring how to stabilize this new level of opening.

I love this annual zoom workshop and hope to see many of you there.

With love, Barbara