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<DIV><B>
<P>DATE:</B> October 30, 2005<BR><B>LOCATION:</B> Rio Rancho, NM
USA<BR><B>T/R:</B> Gerdean</P><B>
<P>TEACHER MERIUM celebrates "The Wonders of Nature"<BR>AND A GUEST TEACHER
takes us for "A Walk in the Woods"</P></B><B>
<P>Discussion:<BR></B>Welcome to Carol<BR>Canossian Retreat<BR>Spiritual
Tutoring<BR>Roland has Translated</P><B>
<P>Game: </B>What kind of tree are you?</P>
<P><STRONG>Elena on Piano: </STRONG><BR>"The Lord, My Shepherd" (Brother James’
Air) w/a Shubert sonata</P><B>
<P>Esmeralda’s Prayer:</P></B>
<P><I>"Father, thank you for being with us today. We thank you for providing us
such a teacher as Merium. It is always good to have her. We look forward to
hearing her lesson. Thank you, also, and we are appreciative to have Carol join
us. It’s nice to have someone to join us. Be with us today and may our hearts be
open to the lesson and may we be helped through the week by the lesson today.
Amen."</P></I>
<P>Group: amen</P>
<P> </P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Hello, kiddies, how are you this afternoon? This is Merium, your
baby-sitter.</P><B>
<P>Paula:</B> How about that!</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> I am happy to come in and refer to you as babies, inasmuch as I
have overheard your talking about these senior moments and elder considerations
that are peculiar to your human condition, but in the perspective of our eternal
career, you have barely gotten off the floor. </P>
<P>Come up here into my lap, little ones. I will be today like the storyteller
in your Native American culture, the one that has all the babies hanging from
her many breasts. The place where I love the most to have you delightful
creatures clamoring over me and over each other in joy of contact and affection.
</P>
<P>The gift of touch is appropriate not only for you in the material realms but
for us in the morontia estate and beyond, although the idea of touch is
heightened somewhat by the enlarged appreciation for touch in that it is not
merely physical in the tactile sense, but is embracing and encompassing in the
sense of your being. </P>
<P>We embrace fully in the spirit, and the warm fuzzies you feel in your hugging
here is compatible to that which we feel even as we have left our (meow) mortal
estate behind. I see Cricket has something to say about it all, and this too is
one of the joys of the life you live. You have the advantage of the beasts of
the realm … and I mean this in the most favored sense. The animal kingdom, in
the main, is fairly docile and contained. You have put the fierce ones in the
zoo and have kept the companions for yourselves – not counting the birds, which
freely flock overhead and in your trees, (purring) and insects and other
creatures like butterflies and frogs that amuse you and bring you joy. You
forget these little wonders of creation as you become more sophisticated and
adult. (purring)</P>
<P>I want you to go back into your own childhood (meow) and recall the wonder of
seeing something for the first time, some four legged or many legged creature
that captured your imagination and your fancy, such that you had to call someone
to come look, come see what you had found. Remember lightening bugs? Remember
earth worms? Remember all the wonders of nature that we tend to forget as time
goes by. I call your attention to these joys today. (purring)</P>
<P>Also today in your consciousness is the beauty of the autumn season, another
splendiferous method of appreciating your mortal estate. The leaves turning and
the season advancing, ripe beyond belief, yet still taut and pluckable. Tomatoes
and cucumbers and pumpkins still on the vine. What a glorious world you live in.
And who enjoys it more than children? It therefore delights me to remind you of
these things which you will remember into infinity (purring) as having brought
you along from one architectural sphere to the other, for in the Father’s house
there are many mansions. (Meow!)</P>
<P>There is no reason why you cannot begin to perceive of the mansion worlds
now, today, in the environment (meow) you are in tune to in your consciousness,
with its many vibrant senses and offerings. (Pause) Don’t let me forget to add
such things as pumpkin pie and warm apple cider, for these, too, are part of the
delights of childhood and autumn that we celebrate and honor today. </P>
<P>I have a room full of elders who have come to observe my work with you and
your childlike reach into realms above and beyond your habitual range. We
welcome them and ask their guidance and counsel on our myriad attempts to
construe greater realities in the childlike mind of mortal living. I thought we
could bounce around on the bed for awhile and wear ourselves out but you seem to
have acquiesced at once to my storytelling method, and so I will invite someone
in to tell us a story. One moment.</P><B>
<P>VISITOR:</B> Yes, someone is here. You don’t know me. I’ve not visited you
before. (Welcome!) Thank you. (Howdy do.) Howdy do to you, too. I have come
today to talk about magic. I realize that you who are adult and serious have an
understanding that magic is a trick, such as you find in cards or when the man
saws the woman in half and pulls rabbits out of the hat. This kind of activity
delights children, for they are not established in their mental framework such
that they cannot imagine these things happening. The magic I talk of today is
not in terms of tricks. </P>
<P>Come with me, children, to the woods. We’re going to walk quietly down into
the woods where the brilliant autumn sky overhead peeks through the trees,
making mysterious marks on the forest floor. The many leaves, from those trees,
which have fallen cover the ground and crackle as we walk. Listen for the sounds
of Mother Nature. Hear the birds chirp overhead. Hear the ground as small forest
creatures scamper away from the sound of children encroaching. Look around and
see the many things growing, taking seed. Smell the woods – the deep dark brown
of soil, the crisp snap of the fallen leaves, the deep green of the moss and the
rich golden brown and umber of the fallen logs. Let all these colors, smells and
sounds intermingle and compel you to set yourself aside in the magic of the
moment. </P>
<P>See in the clearing, there with you in the woods, not 20 feet away, a young
deer … looking at you -- its spots, its tawny color, blended in completely with
the browns and golds of autumn; its long legs looking like the saplings; its
ears alert, not unlike the leaves themselves; its large brown eyes looking deep
into you as if they were the eyes of God smiling upon you, at peace in the quiet
natural state of your life experience. Look long and deep at this scene and tell
me it isn’t magic. If you can’t see it as magic, if you see it only as fact, you
have indeed lost the essence of childhood. If you don’t see the divine reflected
in this scene, you have become immune to childlike wonder. </P>
<P>Now that we are all here in the woods, let your hand -- your spirit hand –
reach out quietly to the boy or girl nearest you and let their spirit reach out
to touch the hand of yours, so that your invisible-ness, your own magic, makes
contact with each other, forming a circle of friends in the stillness of this
woods … with the deer, with the birds, with the frogs and with the magic of this
afternoon. </P>
<P>Naturally, you will want to play and feel the invigoration of your own
delight and the delight of those with whom you share this experience. And so I
invite you to romp and play laughingly with and among one another, knowing the
deer will meander off into the woods and the birds will fly away, even as
eventually the seasons will change. But in the heart of the child, forevermore
you can return to this place of trust and truth, for no matter where you are in
the universe, there is a place for you … appropriate for your stage of
development. All you need to do is remember how to be a child. </P>
<P>Let me give you back to Merium, who has been graciously spellbound by my
story. It is not the kind of story, perhaps, that you think of, but it is
diversion for your mind and we do live happily ever after. Bye-bye. (Bye! Thank
you!)</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> You have been treated to a vision, but I feel you have more in
you than to spend the afternoon with Bambi. I invite you to investigate your
mind and your imagination and wonder about those things which come into your
mind that you may wonder about but would never think to investigate because you
are supposed to be adult now and you are supposed to know better. Are there
things in your mind that you neglected to ask when you were a child that you
would like to ask today?</P><B>
<P>Gerdean:</B> Why does she have yellow hair and I have brown hair?</P><B>
<P>Reneau:</B> Why is the sky blue?</P><B>
<P>Paula: </B>You’re just born that way. </P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Such is the faith of the child. "That’s just the way it is!" But
the inquiring mind wants to know. And thus science is born and we step out of
magic into the mysterious. (Chimes) This is how you have stepped out of alchemy
into medicine and out of astrology into astronomy. This is an evolution of the
simple into the sophisticated (Chimes), always knowing that the simple is our
Source, alchemy is a part of our creative nature (Chimes) and magic is a part of
the childlike mind that enjoys not knowing, that doesn’t mind being tricked,
that knows that even though it may be "scary" it will all come out in the end.
</P><B>
<P>(Welcome to Carol) </B></P>
<P>There are a number of things that might be regarded as more grown up that I’d
like to touch upon while you’re all together here, one of which is to welcome
our guest, Carol, today, to our group. It is always wonderful to meet a new
friend. It is such a nice opportunity that we meet a new friend today, as we are
being so childlike and that she is accepting of our childishness and our
childlikeness at the same time -- without cynicism or sarcasm. She knows God
knows we have many moments behind each of us that conspire to constitute us as
mature and wizened people, but how refreshing to put all that aside for awhile
in the delight of feeling young, in giving yourself permission to be a child, to
think openly and to ponder in faith the possibilities ahead. </P><B>
<P>(Canossian Retreat)</P></B>
<P>We are going to have a party! We’re having a party in February, and so it
would behoove us, as a group, to ponder the party we are planning for our many
friends. This is something we can take up after our transmission, but I want to
be a part of your planning and so leave me some time on the Program -- lots of
time for play and storytelling. Perhaps you might want to add an option where
people can sit around and color pictures or play games, for this is good family
fun. It is not required that you be scholastic and mature all the time. The
whole point of a retreat is to give your systems a break. The mind grows weary,
and even the spirit needs time for renewal. </P><B>
<P>(Spiritual Tutoring)</P></B>
<P>There is another thing I’d like to address and then we can have questions,
and that is I would enjoy having some tutoring in this group, not that it should
overpower our play, but because it is a discipline and children enjoy
discipline. I am not going to limit you to the Urantia Papers, but I would like
for our studies to be on the nature of something spiritual so that we can give
appropriate credence to the distance we have come, in particular the distance
<I>you </I>have come in your consciousness of deity. </P>
<P>This certainly applies to the music you bring every time we gather, the hymns
you are familiar with, and the many possible sounds and sights of the divine
such as we heard about from our visitor when he talked about the architectural
sphere of the forest where all the colors blend, all the sights and sounds
merge, and we hold hands around the big brown eyes of a loving presence. Perhaps
you would like to play show and tell. Perhaps you would like to take turns.
Perhaps you would like to have a format and perhaps you would not. But I would
appreciate it if you would help me help you relate yourselves and thus your
friends with these opportunities to incorporate the spirit into the game plan of
your lives. </P>
<P>Is there anything I’ve forgotten that I’ve overlooked that you can think of
that we need to be mindful as we’ve come together here? </P><B>
<P>Men-o-Pah: </B>I especially enjoyed our little romp through the woods. I
lived in the woods most all my life as the poet who said, "Blessed land that
lies between the two great rivers in the heart of the Great Shawnee." The
Shawnee Forest has the great oat trees, the hickory, the beechnut, the walnut.
We gathered those nuts and salted them away for the winter and I’m remembering
now the words of a poem that I learned when I was a boy. I can’t remember who
the author is … Joyce Kilmer, I think.</P><I>
<P>"I think that I shall never see <BR>a poem as lovely as a tree </P>
<P>A tree that may in summer wear <BR>a nest of robins in her hair </P>
<P>A tree that looks at God all day <BR>and lifts her leafy arms to pray. </P>
<P>Poems are made by fools like me, <BR>but only God can make a tree."
</P></I><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Bravo!</P><B>
<P>Paula: </B>I remember that from when I was a little girl.</P><B>
<P>Men-O-Pah:</B> Who’s the author?</P><B>
<P>Paula:</B> It was Joyce Kilmer who wrote that.</P><B>
<P>Men-O-Pah:</B> I thought so, but I was not sure about that.</P><B>
<P>Paula:</B> Yep.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Let’s play a game, then! What kind of tree are you? Who goes
first?</P><B>
<P>Men-O-Pah: </B>I’m descended from the Wolf Clan, the land of the Cherokee,
and the clan tree is hickory. The old folks made their bows out of those
saplings. The hickory can stand a great deal of stress and not break.<B> </P>
<P>MERIUM: </B>Welcome.</P><B>
<P>Reneau:</B> Are you a hickory, then?</P><B>
<P>Men-O-Pah:</B> I am.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> -- who can bend, and not break. What an invaluable quality! Who
else?</P><B>
<P>Paula: </B>Well, I grew up with the horse chestnut tree right outside our
kitchen window, and that used to fascinate me. And, of course, it had those nuts
on it that had the sticky hard shell around it, and my dad used to take
something, some tool he had, and he’d break them and the chestnut was inside,
and we kids used to throw them at each other and we had a ball with those
things, and he said, "Well, I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make you a necklace,"
so he took – What kind of a think is it that goes like that, you make
holes.</P><B>
<P>Men-O-Pah:</B> A drill.</P><B>
<P>Paula:</B> A drill. Okay. I knew it had a name. But anyway, he took a whole
bunch of them and he put the drill through them, and then he used something … I
don’t know if they were shoelaces or what … and he made a necklace so I could
wear it to school and let the kids see it. And sure enough, the teacher wanted
to know if I wouldn’t get up and tell the class what the tree looked like and
all of this kind of stuff, and I was a little nervous, because I was there in
front of all these kids and they listened and they were fascinated and they all
came over and they all wanted to touch the necklace, and the other girls wanted
to try it on and I just never forgot that. I thought that was wonderful. I was
belle of the ball that day.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Everyone should be the "belle of the ball" everyday! What a
lovely adventure and what a great daddy.</P><B>
<P>Paula: </B>Oh, he was. He was terrific. All my little friends liked him and
he liked them and we’d go to each other’s houses and if it was after dark, he’d
get the car out and take us all and then come and pick us up and take us home.
He did that until I became a teenager and I belonged to a bridge club and he
didn’t want me waiting for the bus in the middle of the night so he’d take me
and pick up all my girlfriends and we’d go wherever we were going to play that
night, and then he’d come and get us.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> What kind of a tree do you think he was?</P><B>
<P>Paula: </B>Somebody strong! But he wasn’t built like my Men-O-Pah. He was a
small man. He wasn’t big. You know who he was built like? That … what’s his name
that teaches Sunday school.</P><B>
<P>Men-O-Pah:</B> Roy.</P><B>
<P>Paula:</B> Yeah! He was built just about like that, and all the kids just
loved him, and when he got killed in the accident, I never saw a funeral with so
many people. Every kid I ever grew up with was there, and their parents or their
kids -- just everybody was there, because they all loved Daddy. </P><B>
<P>(Roland has Translated)</P>
<P>MERIUM:</B> You reminded me of something I want to say to the Teaching
Mission at large, and that is to acknowledge the passing of Brother Roland, who
was a man among men and a son of God who has opted to advance into Mansonia. His
translation was made this past week and while many of you are mourning the loss
of his life on the material plane, be of good cheer and undying hope of the
resurrection and the life that you will see one another on high.</P>
<P>He was an oak. A great one. And it is always difficult to see the great ones
fall, but it happens. And so we have the tremendous need to know the love of the
Father and the mercy of the Son, which forgives us our trespasses and overlooks
our human failings to discover the heart of the divine within, the soul that
years to advance, to know the Father, to find the pearl of great price. We
welcome Roland to the mansion worlds and look forward to helping him pick up
here where he left off there. </P><B>
<P>Reneau:</B> What kind of a tree was he?</P><B>
<P>Paula: </B>Oak.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Yes, we give him oak stature. Not only because he was great, but
because he was hard. He was a hard wood, unlike the hickory. How about you
ladies?</P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> Well, you know, I grew up in West Texas and any tree – <I>any
tree</I> – was wonderful. (Chuckles)</P><B>
<P>Paula: </B>There were not very many?</P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> There were not <U>any</U> around where I lived. There were
some caster beans, which was the closest thing to a tree when I grew up, and I
think they’re supposed to be poisonous but ...</P><B>
<P>Elena: </B>You’re not a caster bean.</P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> No, I don’t think I’m a caster bean. I would be any kind of
tree. Any and all trees were glorious and I dreamed of trees when I was a little
girl. I just thought that would be wonderful to climb—I always had this picture
of me climbing up and sitting on a big strong branch of a tree. I must’ve seen a
picture of that. But I like all kinds of tree. I love the mulberry that’s in my
back yard. It gives lots of shade.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Is it a male mulberry or a female mulberry?</P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> You know, I don’t know. It’s not fruit bearing. It’s just a
huge tree. It covers a lot of space. It is – when it is raining, you can almost
stand under it and be dry. </P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> It sounds a lot like you, Esmeralda.</P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> Oh, thank you.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> I think you’d make a great mulberry tree.</P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> It has gorgeous big leaves and it has some strange
characteristics that are most interesting.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> You could sit on its branches.</P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> Yes. The strange part about it is that the leaves all stay
green in the fall until … usually after a pretty good hard freeze, and they all
fall in one day, and all at once. It’s just like – it’s fascinating to watch
them fall and by the time they all finish falling, my back hard is about knee
deep in these big leaves.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> This sounds like you as well, for you, too, are efficient.
(Laughter)</P><B>
<P>Paula:</B> She is! There’s <I>nothing</I> that girl doesn’t know, as far as
cooking and decorating, all of those things.</P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> Oh, but I have a lot of help. My daughters out-shine me on
that.</P><B>
<P>Elena: </B>Well, I have to say what comes to my mind about being – is one of
those trees on the … I envision a tree on the cliff of the ocean where the wind
kind of beats on it. And, you know, it’s bent, it’s kind of bare on one side but
yet has somewhat, I mean, still some life in it yet, and some bursts of
greenery. That’s what I feel I am now.</P><B>
<P>Reneau:</B> Perseverance.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> You will enjoy the transcript Gerdean has recently prepared for
distribution from when Teacher Daniel visited Teacher Tomas’ base of operations
in Pittsburgh and gave the lesson about the parable of the bent tree, which
describes that tree specifically. I believe it was initially delivered before
that by one of the elders in the movement. But the fact remains, the tree that
grows along the side of the cliff on the rocks, that is pummeled by the weather,
and which reaches deep into the earth for its nourishment, is a tree that will
endure. And to assume such a tree as your totem is a testimony to your strength,
Elena, and your faith.</P><B>
<P>Elena: </B>I don’t feel very strong.</P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> But you are.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> It’s okay for you to not be strong all the time. You are not a
tree. You are a child, and all children grow weary. All children whimper and
long for their mother to nurture them. All children appreciate sitting on their
daddy’s lap and being reassured [that] there is no bogeyman and [that] all
things will work out fine. In the face of the winds of time, the storms and the
summer heat, the strength you have grown is deep within you, in your sinews, and
not necessarily intended for your tender branches that bud anew each spring;
thus, be patient with yourself, understanding where you are gentle and where you
are strong; where you are tough and where you are weak; where you give up and
where you hold fast. Such is the way it is when you <I>know yourself.
</P></I><B>
<P>Gerdean</B> has always thought of herself as a Bonsai tree, (chuckles) even
though she is hardly Oriental. It was intended that she be a pine tree
(laughter), but she became warped and twisted (laughter) and rather than being
deformed, she has been made beautiful by the way she holds herself and the grace
that has allowed her to grow and become a work of art in spite of the trials and
tribulations of the mortal existence. </P>
<P>The problem with being a Bonsai tree is that they are so small, and I think
I’m going to urge her to become a Manzanita tree instead.</P><B>
<P>Paula: </B>What’s that?</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> They are bigger.</P><B>
<P>Paula:</B> Oh. That answered my question.</P><B>
<P>Reneau:</B> They are not held back and constrained like a Bonsai. Whenever a
Bonsai tries to grow a little branch, it’s cut back. When it puts out a feeler,
it’s dissuaded. </P><B>
<P>Esmeralda: </B>Nobody has mentioned the sycamore tree, like Zacchias climbed
up into and I think we need some sycamore trees around here.</P><B>
<P>Elena: </B>Pine trees.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Would you like to volunteer? </P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> When Jesus is passing by, yes.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> So you want to be a sycamore when Jesus is nearby and a mulberry
the rest of the time?</P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> I was just reminded of the little song that the girls sing, a
little about Zacchias climbing up the sycamore tree, and the sycamore is a
beautiful tree. </P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Then you must keep your eye out for one. It might be a good
compliment for you. What of our company from Santa Fe? Do they grow trees there?
</P><B>
<P>Reneau:</B> I wrote a story about a tree one time. It’s called "The Tree" and
it just sort of was me and then I just sort of turned into a tree and kind of
grew up on the spot by this little lake, and just sort of the feeling of what a
tree feels like to grow and like you said in the poem "to gaze at God all day"
and to feel the sun on his face and the raindrops and the drops make rainbows
and then the fruit. How all the fruit gets ripe and full and how it eases the
trees burdens to dispel its fruits, when they’re all filled and full and juicy,
and when they come along and pick the fruit it feels good because the branches
can lift up and take the extra weight off and then how the wind blows through
the trees and shakes the leaves and the dust off, and you know.</P>
<P>And then in my story, then, the tree is certainly enjoying herself being
there and man comes down below and says, "Hey, you up there in the tree. Stop
hiding in the tree. Come on down and join humanity down here. Move around and
frolic through the flowers," so it’s sort of – a tree is constrained in its
spot. It can never move. It sits there for an eternity, at the same spot, you
know. As the years go by and things change and it deals with the weather
…</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> You are becoming way too adult! Let’s go back to being a child.
(Laughter) What kind of fruit are you growing in your branches?</P><B>
<P>Reneau:</B> I don’t know, it was just big juicy fruit, heavily laden. </P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> You are a fruit tree, then.</P><B>
<P>Reneau:</B> Yeah, I’m a fruit tree.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Any fruit in particular you would like to identify with?</P><B>
<P>Reneau:</B> Sweet and juicy.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Peaches?</P><B>
<P>Reneau:</B> Peaches. Probably my favorite fruit is peaches.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Then we have a peach tree among us. Carol, what stories can you
tell us today?</P><B>
<P>Carol: </B>What came to my mind – I grew up on the east coast. I remember
making those chestnut necklaces, too!</P><B>
<P>Paula:</B> What part of the east coast? </P><B>
<P>Carol: </B>Um, the southern tier of New York State. South of Buffalo.</P><B>
<P>Paula: </B>Yeah, I was from Buffalo.</P><B>
<P>Carol: </B>Fruit and dairy farms. Fredonia.</P><B>
<P>Paula: </B>Oh! Of course!</P><B>
<P>Carol: </B>My father came to mind when we started talking about trees, and
the chestnuts. And he was a hunter, who provided for us from the woods; he was a
conservationist. But what– So he came very dearly into my mind when we talked
about trees. He gave me a respect for the woods. But what came to my mind was
the birch tree – the beautiful white birch tree from back east that does become
just as golden as the aspens do out here. And the birch tree that has so many
uses for mankind. I have recollections of the birch tree; the native peoples
back east use the birch trees to make canoes and to do many things with – to
write on. The bark is stripped to write on, and to make different vessels. And
it’s a very beautiful tree that is from my childhood. I tried to envision a tree
out here half my life, but the birch tree just kept coming in, and it was a … a
friend, I guess. It was very useful.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Yes, a useful, utilitarian tree, but not without dazzling beauty.
The white truck with its peeling, curling black designs are like a leopard with
spots or a Dalmatian and the yellow against the blue sky is enough to require
sunglasses. Such a pleasant recollection and personification of who you are,
Carol. They grow here as well, and you are welcome to grow with us in this odd
assortment of trees. </P>
<P>Is anyone having any concerns or growing pains that you would like to share
with your friends? Or ask of your teacher?</P><B>
<P>Elena:</B> Well, I’m really concerned about my friend Shelley, who just found
out that she has breast cancer so… Shelley has been my best friend since fourth
grade, and so …</P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> They have met her. Paula and Men-O-Pah.</P><B>
<P>Elena:</B> Oh, yeah, that’s right! </P><B>
<P>Esmeralda:</B> And Gerdean and Reneau!</P><B>
<P>Elena: </B>That's right. At the retreat. So I’m concerned about her, and if
there is any guidance about that, then I’m all ears. Well, I am anyway, but
…</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> There is nothing I can do to "fix" her, but I can certainly
counsel you on how to fix your worries, and that is to allow the soul of your
friend to be that breast that seeks to nurture. The soul of a woman is
nurturance, as it comes from the Mother Spirit. My remark is not intended to be
sexist, but to be expressive of the nature of the nurturer and to limit its
fruit to the symbol of nurturing (the breast) is to limit the effectiveness of
the whole being, which yearns to give love. </P>
<P>Allow this woman to love, freely and fully. Be tolerant of her love.
Encourage her expressions of love. Allow her to love in ways she has not allowed
herself to love before – freely, openly, without constraint, without
restriction, disallowing the mores to interfere or the restraints of convention
to enter in. Allow the woman to be all that she was meant to be. I am not saying
that a woman is a breast, but I am saying that both are born to nurture. It is
the way of the woman. Allow her to be everything she has ever hoped to be. </P>
<P>And I know that in this culture, this society "such a life on such a planet,"
it is very hard for people to be all that they can be, for it is hard to find
the time, the energy and the avenues in which to operate that garner you that
soul satisfaction that would feed your own need to nurture your own soul. This
is the twist of fate that the woman is undergoing in the cancer that invades
her. If she can see to learn to love and nurture others [at the same time] as
she loves and nurtures herself, she may be able to get control of the situation.
That is to say, her cells may be able to get control of the situation. But
regardless, do not mourn for her, but celebrate her, for she is love. </P><B>
<P>Elena:</B> Thank you.</P><B>
<P>MERIUM:</B> Encouraging humanity is somehow such a difficult thing for
Urantians to do. And yet encouragement is the balm that soothes all wounds. It
is the inner essence of survivors (such as you all are on this planet) to
develop that fierceness and that tenacity that will enable you to endure, but it
seems that to nurture to each other, to minister to each other, to encourage
each other is like accepting that you are weak and so you refuse to do it, you
refuse to accept it. And this is anathema to your wellbeing. </P>
<P>Surround yourself with that forest of love, with the dappled sights and
sounds of the perfect architectural sphere, and if there is something in your
eye that displeases you, pluck it out, rather than mar the perfection of that
which you hold dear and in which you reside. And above all, be merciful and
gracious to yourself, for the way is often set with traps and deception;
therefore be as wise as serpents and as peaceful as doves, holding your eyes
steady on the big brown eyes of a loving Deity – such as the deer, around whom
we gather in love and in companionability.</P>
<P>And now I release you children, to frolic and play in the woods, enjoying the
sights and sounds, smells and tastes of the mortal realm in which you reside,
with the loving brothers and sisters you know. Bye-bye!</P><B>
<P>Paula:</B> Well, does everybody want a piece of apple pie with some ice
cream?</P><B>
<P>Group:</B> You bet!</P></DIV></BODY></HTML>