Two Wins. How Sweet It Is!

Here I am, a two-time book award winner! Yes, it is sweet. In 2006 my first book, Secrets of the Magdalene Scrolls was an Independent Publisher Book Awards Winner (IPPY Award) and in 2008 I was a winner of another Independent Publisher Books Awards for Mary Magdalene, Her Legacy. A blurb about the IPPY Award is as follows: The Independent Publisher Book Awards were conceived in 1996 as a broad-based, unaffiliated awards program open to all members of the independent publishing industry. The awards are intended to bring increased recognition to the thousands of exemplary independent, university, and self-published titles produced each year, and reward those who exhibit the courage, innovation, and creativity to bring about change in the world of publishing.

These awards are validations for my skill as a writer. I published my first book in 2004 and revised it in 2005. Secrets of the Magdalene Scrolls is in the genre of the Da Vinci Code and it has been said much better. Last November I received a Commentary Sheet from the Writer's Digest, which grades books on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 meaning excellent. The judge's commentary is as follows:

Secrets of the Magdalene Scrolls is a tantalizing story depicting the discovery of ancient scrolls about Mary Magdalene and Jesus. Though it covers ome of the same ground as the Da Vinci Code, the writing is infinitely better and far more believable. The heroines in the story are more realistic and the adventures described in a truer voice along with a possible time-line--something very much lacking in Dan Brown's tale. Whether the reader chooses to believe what is revealed in story form or not, the book is entertaining from beginning to end.

The author knows how to write and tell a compelling and convincing story. Hopefully the promotion for this book will be enough to make those who read the Da Vinci Code want to read the Secrets of the Magdalene Scrolls.

It's sequel was released in January 2008. Again, how sweet it is. Both books can be purchased from http://www.magdalenescrolls.com/, http://www.barnes&noble.com/, http://www.bookhitch.com/, http://www.amazon.com/, http://www.silverlife32.com/

It is in every woman to be creative. Not all of us have the same creativity, but it is up to each one to explore and pursue what interests them the most. My passion is writing and I did not allow it to come forth until I was in my early seventies. It is never too late to pursue one's passion.

WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH ~ Rose Wilder Lane

March has been declared Women's History Month and it can be a time to reflect on the legacy women over the ages have left us. I honor each of them and have been a champion of women's rights since the 1970's. In the last century women gained more recognition and rights than they had in previous centuries. For this article, I am choosing to honor Rose Wilder Lane.

Rose Wilder Lane lived from 1886-1968 and was born at DeSmet Dakota Territory to Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder and was an only child. Many will be familiar with the books by her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House On the Prairie fame. Some will say that Rose was the ghost writer for her mother's books.

I became acquainted with the writings of Rose Lane when a copy of her book The Discovery of Freedom came into my hands. This book was published in 1945 and it is her research going back six thousand years that is the basis for the book. Rose Wilder Lane traveled extensively and her book paints a picture of wars always being fought all over the world. She alleges that humankind has been ruled by Authority of one kind or another for these six thousand years when it is a human right to be free. Many will say that she was a founder of the Libertarian Party in the United States. The following excerpts from her book:

"...human rights are natural rights, born in every human being with his life, and inseparable from his life; not rights and freedoms that can be granted by any power on earth...Americans hold this truth. This knowledge attacks, and for a hundred and sixty years has been attacking, the very foundation of the Old World. This is the knowledge that the Old World's defenders are now determined to destroy utterly....American Government is not an Authority; it has no control over individeuals and no responsibility for their affairs..."

Her philosophy is that humankind was born with freedom as a right, but the Authority whether it be a king, queen, emperor, president or any government has usurped this god-given right from them.

Her biography indicates she was a prolific writer as well as office clerk, stenographer, telegrapher, newpaper reporter, features writer, advertising writers, farmland salesman, novelist, as well as a Red Cross publicist based in Washington D.C. During the Vietnam war she was a news correspondent for Women's Day in South Vietnam at the age of 78.

Lane traveled extensively throughout the U.S, parts of Canada and the Caribbean, most of Europe as well as countries in the Near East and parts of Russia. King Zog of Albania is said to have wanted to marry her. She affected and changed many lives. For a more in-depth history of Rose Wilder Lane go to www.cate.org/special/threewomen/wilder-lane.html.

Like the butterfly, we find
We can no longer stay behind
Self-made walls of protection.

We struggle to be free,
Breaking the bonds of the self we see,
To soar in a new dimension.
…Anonymous

A QUIET REVOLUTION

Reflections:
The week of July 10-14, 2007 I attended the Third International Women’s Peace Conference in Dallas, Texas. It was a gathering of over 1,000 women from 43 different countries and 32 U.S. states. The gathering focused on peace using non-violent and communicative skills. There was no talk of protests, flag-waving, marches or sit-ins. This was a peaceful gathering.

Chaired by the Hon. Leticia Shahani, Ph.D., former Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations and a former senator from the Philippines and Vivian Castleberry, former reporter and editor who founded Peacemakers, Inc. the conference was dynamic. Over 1,000 women from various ethnic and religious groups met together for a common cause to eradicate the atrocities committed against women and children worldwide and also for women’s voices to be heard. I heard horrendous stories of torture, rape, killing and maiming of children from Burma to Africa, the Middle East, and Bosnia. The army of Burma is known as the School of Rape. Most of us in the U.S. cannot comprehend the horrors perpetuated against children and women. It is inhumane. It was a quiet revolution of women meeting to share and learn about the art of using non-violent methods and to connect with other women world-wide.

I learned about the power of technology. We, here in the U.S. take cell phones for granted. In Africa a woman in a small village uses a cell phone to call other villages to find out what the current price for a goat is because she wants to take her got to market and sell it. By using this technology she becomes a wiser business woman. By using the technology of Internet, women can communicate and become educated.

I previously had a jaded view of the United Nations until I hear Gillian Sorensen, former UN Under-Secretary General, UN Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations and currently Senior Adviser of the UN Foundation, a non-profit organization (NGO). Sorensen told us that the UN is not perfect, but we can make it better. I learned that there are many NGOs working with the humanitarian part of the UN and who are making a difference. One such organization is the Rotary Club, which has been working with the UN to eradicate polio world-wide.

There were three Nobel Peace Prize Laureates giving keynote addresses. The first was Betty Williams who was awarded her Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 for contributing to the ending of the conflict in Northern Island. Today, Northern Ireland is vastly different from the time when she saws three small children killed on the streets of Belfast. Williams’ interests today are the children of the world. She has traveled the world to work for the cessation of murder, rape and atrocities committed against children. She is the founder of the World Center of Compassion for Children International, a non-profit organization.

The second Nobel Peace Laureate to speak was Rigoberta Manchu from Guatemala and a member of the Quiche-Maya ethnic group. She was awarded her Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for efforts to end the Guatemalan Civil War that began in 1960. Ms Manchu told us that “We can make a light. We can make a difference in the lives of people.” She is running for the office of President in Guatemala this year. She has traveled the world extensively working for peace and is the author of over 30 children’s’ books.
The third Nobel Peace Laureate was Jody Williams from Vermont. Williams was awarded her Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her organization’s effort to have landmines outlawed through the Ottawa Treaty. The three notable countries who failed to ratify the treaty are the U.S., China and Russia. Williams said that landmines and cluster bombs kill more civilians than those of the military. She has traveled to Dafur and the genocide there is abominable and she called it the Genocide Olympics.

As I listened to these peaceful warriors, I sensed the time is now for all people to look at their values pertaining to life. It is a time to put aside prejudices, discrimination and hatreds. Each of us on this planet is part of the great quilt called God. Each of us with our various colors, creeds and religious beliefs make up the colorful fabric of this quilt. It would be a dreary world if we were all the same. I found this conference, a quiet revolution, a call to look at values and to revere life.

A WOMAN'S PREROGATIVE TO CHANGE HER MIND

It has only been within the last 100 years since women have made inroads in the realization that a woman has a mind. History has not been kind to women or their intelligence. There are women in history who have left their mark, however they are few and far in between.

What is mind? One could say that mind is an accumulation of knowledge and experiences. Or, some would say it is the level of intelligence. Mind is all of this and how we use our mind determines our level of intelligence. What some may call intelligence could be categorized in levels of intelligence. I will return to this subject later. First, I will share how women have been programmed to think of themselves as lesser beings and how men have been programmed to think they are the superior beings.

Women have for eons been the beings who have been the objects of the most prejudiced of all. It seems as though there has always been prejudice whether it be color, creed, culture or religion. But the one class of the most prejudice has been against women regardless of her color, creed, culture or religion.

It is time now for women to use her prerogative to change her mind. The word prerogative is used without most of us really thinking about its meaning. I grew up saying perogative, however I have since learned that this is a misspelling and a mispronouncing. Somehow I prefer perogative – a personal choice. I have often said over the years when questioned as to why I made a decision to do something different other than what I had first said and my reply was “It’s a woman’s perogative to change her mind.”

According to Dictionary.com, the correct definition is An exclusive right or privilege held by a person or group, especially a hereditary or official right.
We do have the right to change your mind.

A REVOLUTION OF ATTITUDES

Bettye Johnson ©

** This is not a calling forth a revolution of violence or controversy. It is not promoting the bashing of men. Bashing of men is counter-productive to women’s evolution. There are men who respect and love women. Their numbers at this time are too small to truly change the bias against women.
** Working for equal rights is a long and arduous road. I have written about the plight of women all over the world because the attitudes of men toward women has not changed in many countries and is slowly changing in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and European countries. This isn’t about equal rights. This is about a change of attitudes of men towards women; women about themselves; women towards men; and men about themselves. It is a revolution of attitudes.
** Women need to recognize they have aided and abetted these attitudes the majority of men have towards women by believing they were less than and deferring to men. We have to change our attitudes about living as victims. We cannot expect change until we change our attitudes and our outlook on the world. Change must begin with a change of individual attitudes.
**A new religion appears to be replacing the standard religions. The new religion is Corporate America who controls all the advertising we are blitzed with in our newspapers, periodicals, television and radio. We are led to believe that being sexy will make us happy. Taking this drug or that drug will alleviate stress, bloated stomach and other aches and pains will make us well and happy. All it does is cover up the symptom but never cure the root cause. We think must have the best and most beautiful auto vehicle. We are a debt-enslaved nation.
**It appears younger women in the United States have more freedom than their mothers or their grandmothers had. The senior women have deferred to their husbands all their married life. Many still vote according to the way their husbands vote. Younger women and girls as well as the older women are distracted and enslaved by the media blitz, which includes television and the movies. These women must be thin, beautiful and alluring according to what the media dictates.
**Have you noticed that there is an over abundance of overweight women, children and men? In their subconscious they know thin, beautiful and sexy is not all it is cracked up to be. Frustration, doubt, fear sets in and the obesity gene are triggered. The advertisement world has a field day with a diet for this and a diet for that. Diets don’t work because the basic attitudes do not change. Diets are only a form of self-punishment.
**In the United States the medical and pharmaceutical professions enslave the majority of the populace. On week days usually beginning at 7 A.M. all over the country the parking lots of medical buildings are filled with autos and these are not hospitals. The United States has the largest concentration of sick people other than those in the third world countries where starvation, war and pestilence are killing them.
**There must be a change of consciousness in this world for humans to survive. The Earth will survive, as Mother Nature will see to that. We are on the cutting edge and to survive turbulent times we must rise above the issues of war and enslavement. Let this change begin with the women and those men who are open-minded. Change will come with a change of attitudes.

ENSLAVEMENT ATTITUDES:

~ I need a man to make me happy. Have you ever asked yourself why? Women have been programmed by attitudes, input from religions, books, movies, and television that every woman should have a man. Could it be a subconscious program that the only worth you will know is having a husband or a significant other in your life.
~ Men are more intelligent than women. Really? And who decided that? Women haven’t had a chance to develop their intelligence. However that is changing and more and more women are using their intelligence. In many cases, it is still an uphill climb for women. Sr. Francis Crick won a Nobel Prize for his discovery re the DNA when he actually stole it from a woman scientist. Albert Einstein has become a sacred icon and it is not known to many that he had the help of his first wife. He didn’t do it alone.
~ Since God created Adam first, then man is superior to women. If one were to reason this ancient attitude that has been carried down through the ages, one would realize that if Adam was created first, then the woman was the evolution of the first being. It is the woman who carries the seed of the child. Why did Eve tempt Adam? She was asking him to join with her in seeking the tree of knowledge. Was Adam a dummy? And who was the serpent? In ancient lore and wisdom, the serpent is wisdom. I grew up believing that woman was put on Earth to serve man. I have moved far away from that attitude/belief.
~ Man must be the breadwinner of the family. This attitude and belief goes back eons when in actuality, women were the ones who labored while the men hunted. Yes, the men ‘brought home the bacon’, but women labored to keep the household and family from falling apart. This is also changing. Today in the U.S. a marriage is usually a two-job family. Much of it is done to ‘keep up with the Jones. The population has been given through advertising that the family must have all the luxuries that their parents didn’t have. ’
~ I must be alluring and sexy to appeal to a man. This attitude has been fostered by Corporate America, which includes the garment designers, cosmetics, and entertainment world. If one were to really think about it, to follow the dictates of advertising, one is giving her power away. What is wrong with natural?
~ The man is the decision-maker. Again, this is programming. Society has been a patriarchal power for too many eons. It is time for women to take back their power and demand an equal say. Of course, in the marketplace it might not work. Women can change this by developing their intelligence and create businesses where they can be their own decision-makers.
~ Since my husband, partner, lover likes sports, and then I should too. Why? I have seen too many give away their power to their mate for the sake of togetherness and to have something in common.
~ The woman’s place is in the home. Again, why? If a woman chooses to be a stay-at-home mother/wife – then the only reason should be that it is her sincere choice. There are some women who abhor the thought of going out into the workplace. I have an idea that this goes back to women being in a harem perhaps in some past life. I ask, is this using their intelligence and expanding it?
~ It’s o.k. for women’s to teach Sunday school, and religious classes, however they are not qualified to be a priest, minister and in some cases a rabbi.
~ Father knows best. Really? Not if it means the woman's ideas and knowing are considered. I had two husbands who would argue with me that I was wrong on different issues and when I was proven right, each told me, "Even when you are wrong, you are right." Women, stick to your knowing! It is time to stop giving your power away. I have done it in the past and never more. It never pays to force a point of view just to be stubborn. That is not a productive attitude. It is to look at both sides of the coin and choose an intelligent reason.

**Attitudes are choices. None of us needs to be a bulldozer to have it our way. When we are wrong, we should admit it although no one likes to 'eat crow.' The Revolution of Attitudes is the journey within each of us. We have choices. We can be miserable, a whiner or we can be happy and productive – and powerful. The choice is ours.

Science and the Female

Books and articles that place women beneath men have subjugated women for eons and are tiresome. In writing my book. Secrets of the Magdalene Scrolls about Mary Magdalene, I found it a challenge to find any credible history of that era. The information available has been written by men and for the most part, men who were monks. That should tell us something. Some claim to have evidence of the genealogy of the bloodline of Mary Magdalene and Jesus and this is even more interesting. There is no documentation that I can find. Men put the so-called reputable charts together and only once in a great while a name was given for the mother. Thus, it became that the lineage was handed down from king to king. This in itself is suspect and I wonder if these kings and men of royalty were hatched in an incubator.

Science today is indicating that this is not so. There is scientific evidence from archaeology combined with the study of the DNA and genes that it is a possibility women and men came from one woman nicknamed Eve. The primary piece of evidence is called mitochondria

An article by Rebecca Cann of the University of Hawaii, together with her two male coworkers, stunned the scientific world when it was published in the British journal Nature on January 1, 1987. The article, Mitochondrial DNA and Human Evolution, alleges that all people living on Earth now can date their ancestry back to 200,000 years ago to a particular woman living at that time. Since that article was published, there have been other scientific studies and subsequent research alleges it could have been a group of women. What does this mean for women?

It means that the hereditary maternal DNA is carried by the mitochondria, which is passed from mother to daughter. Any mitochondria in the male sperm dies and is not passed to the daughters or the sons. Therefore, if a man and woman have only sons, the woman’s mitochondria carrying the lineage dies out. When a son with no female sibling marries a woman and they have a daughter, then the son's wife's mitochondria DNA is passed down. From my perspective, it would be quite onerous to trace the lineage unless one knew who the females were.

What is the mitochondrial? From the science reports I have researched, the general consensus is that it carries the power of the energy of a cell. It could also be called the power generator of the cell. The mitochondria also have other functions, but for the purpose of this article, I want to emphasize the importance it has in tracing a lineage because the mitochondria also has its own DNA.

I find it a tragedy that down through the ages and today in some cultures, it is the male child that is desired and in some cultures the female baby is killed. Because of the attitudes of the men of history, almost all knowledge of powerful and wonderful women has been either suppressed or eradicated. In some instances women such as Mary Magdalene, Lucretia Borgia, Marie Antoinette have been portrayed as either sinners or in unflattering terms. I chose to portray Mary Magdalene as a powerful woman in her own right and I used my research to write this story in novel form. She was the wife of Jesus and they had two children.

I find it interesting that I have three sons and therefore my mitochondria are not passed down. It stops with me. However my sister had three girls and they will carry on the line. My granddaughters now carry the maternal lineage through their mothers’ mitochondria. I primarily raised my sons alone, as their father was a career military man and away two-thirds of our married life. This arrangement gave me the opportunity to raise my sons as I wanted to and they have all grown into splendid men. They are loving, caring men and are not prejudice against women.

We, the women must take the responsibility of teaching our sons and daughters that each is an equal. It can begin in the womb. While carrying a child in the womb, the woman can speak to it and begin the teaching along with playing classical music. A fetus is aware in the womb. Now, that is another study in itself. To teach our children means we cannot use the old terms used by so many that only re-program.

This is a powerful time in history. On the one hand, women and children are being raped, maimed and killed in various parts of the world. And yet, there is an awakening and I don't think it will be possible to keep women suppressed for too many more years. Each of us must take responsibility to do what we can to end this prejudice and enslavement of women. We are powerful. We are the hope of the world.

For further research, I recommend reading Zechariah Sitchen’s book The Lost Book of Enki. An excellent website is from a NOVA documentary, Tracing Ancestry Through MTDNA, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/neanderthals/mtdna.html

FROM THE MUNDANE TO THE DIVINE

Bettye Johnson ©


The signs of awakening are often quite subtle. From my experience this was so for me. Before my awakening I was a wife and a mother of three growing sons and during this time I was what one would call a person with my mindset a W.A.S.P Republican housewife. (W.A.S.P. stands for White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant). I was married to a career military man who had served two tours of duty in Vietnam and having grown up in an era of patriotism during WWII, I could not understand the attitudes and protests of the sixties. It took the Watergate scandal involving President Nixon to crack my belief structure.

At the beginning of my forties, a thought would come into my head, By the time you are fifty, your life will be different. The first time it happened, I paused and thought Huh? Where did that come from? From that time on, this thought would pop into my brain off and on. It was also during this decade that I began to feel a disquiet. My life was boring and mundane. The relationship with my husband was one of no depth or understanding. We were like two strangers going through the motions of pretending to be like Ozzie and Harriet. My sons were in high school and about to begin the graduation process, thereby leaving the nest. I was ripe for change.

Sometimes we do not recognize the gift in what appears to be an adversity. Mine came in the form of an automobile accident where I sustained a whiplash neck injury. One year later the orthopedic surgeon told me that medically speaking, I should be well and suggested I see a psychologist. This shocked me and after one session with a man who thought I was a woman going through menopause, I knew there was no understanding or help there. This set me on a journey of self-discovery. My first step began with a twelve-step program, Overeaters Anonymous (O.A.). This brought out of me a buried desire to be free of my husband – my mundane marriage.

My sponsor in O.A. introduced me to metaphysics and my first book that began opening my mind. The name of the book was The World Before by Ruth Montgomery. The information given in her book resonated with me and my journey into the Divine and Enlightenment began.

It would be some years later when I realized that the thought coming into my head was a message from my soul. On my fiftieth birthday I had my coming-out party. I was newly divorced and well into my journey of self-discovery. I was an avid seminar, workshop junkie. I wanted to know and understand everything. I explored crystals, the tarot, metaphysics, astrology, the paranormal and various forms of healing. I had an inner knowing that they were all only stepping stones and not the end result. I studied New Thought, Religious Science, Divine Science, Unity and even received my Ph.D. (which I do not choose to use.)

Little did I realize that all of this was the journey of awakening to the Divine within me. A year or longer after my divorce, I was introduced to a ministerial school of Divine Science and went to one of their classes in a city located sixty miles from my home. What I heard resonated within me. The following session I enrolled as a student. It was here that I met my late husband and he was the magic of a relationship I had yearned for all my life. I call him my Mr. Magic. He passed from this plane in 2001 and with no regrets; I am onward in my journey.

In 1983 my husband and I chose to attend a Brugh Joy and David Spangler spiritual week at Asilomar, California. It was here that I awakened to my teacher. I was not into channeling and when it was announced one evening that three people would channel their entities to talk about peace, I was ho-hum and laid back on the floor. I barely heard the first two have their entities speak. Then the third one, a cute little blonde from Tacoma, Washington left her body and another entity took over. The moment this entity said “Indeed,” I sat up like a bolt of lightening. I was mesmerized because I knew that I knew him. I didn’t have any memory of where or when I knew him, but I knew he was a Master Teacher. When the session was over, I could not recall what Ramtha the Enlightened One said, and I pondered this for a long time.

It wasn’t until 1985 that I reconnected with him via a video and from that moment on, he has been my teacher. There is an ancient saying that when the student is ready the teacher appears. I attended events after seeing that early video and when the Ramtha School of Enlightenment was formed in 1987 in Yelm, Washington I became a student. My husband retired and we moved to Washington State. At the time of our move, I thought it was to be near friends and also a son in the Navy. That was the outward motive, however the inward motive was to be in this school.

My journey is my own unique journey just as the reader has her or his own unique journey. Not all of us are pulled to the same teacher. I can only share what I have learned from Ramtha. My understanding is that the Soul creates the map for each one’s incarnation. This is decided before we are born into this lifetime or any other lifetimes. Some come in with a knowing in certain areas that others do not have. An agenda is set by the Soul and our parents are selected for their genetics and DNA. What we have not owned as wisdom in previous lifetimes are the challenges we face in this lifetime. We have only to look back on our life to know what was to be resolved.

Ramtha has called Heaven the Plane of Bliss and it is on this plane that after the death of the body, the Spirit that we are rests and contemplates. The Soul is the recorder for the Spirit and it retains the experiences of every incarnation lifetime after lifetime and it sets the program for the next incarnation. We incarnate with an agenda to resolve any unfinished resolution of an attitude or the emotions of an experience. From my understanding I have learned to seek the gift of wisdom from each experience and the changing of an attitude or belief.

I have traveled through the experiences of being a victim of people and circumstances and now in reflection I can see where I was a participant and the experience came because I had something to learn from it. I can now understand that much of my earlier life was similar to the character in the movie Groundhog Day. We keep doing the same thing over and over hoping we will get different results. I have learned to take full responsibility for everything that occurred to me in my life and I can now understand that my attitudes and beliefs brought the experiences to me.

It has been similar to peeling away the layers of an onion one by one and laying to rest the attitudes of resentment, harboring anger, jealousy, prejudice, unworthiness and so many more. There are emotions attached to each of these attitudes. How have I done this? It’s been a journey over the past thirty years of being willing to look at my limited ideas and beliefs without a near-death experience. I have no qualms about changing an attitude that I recognize as limiting. I recognize that fear is one of our major obstacles and fear is not an attitude. I have been taught the biology of emotions, how the brain works, quantum physics and much more in my school, an academy of the mind.

Science is now backing up much of what I have been taught. From Psychology Today, Sept-Oct 2002 issue, Susan Fiske writes: “Emotions have a powerful effect on the mind, and fear—considered a strong survival instinct—is particularly potent.” The author interviewed Elizabeth Phelps, Ph.D., Director of the Phelps Lab at New York University’s Psychology Department and in regard to being asked about the role of the amygdala to fear, Phelps responds: “It has been called the seat of emotion.” Very few people know that there is a place in the brain where fear resides.

From my understanding, fear has been fed by our emotions and attitudes stemming from beliefs. As children we were given many programming beliefs and the amygdala has held all of them. Some of these fears we came in with and it is our job to put them to rest. From my own experience, I have learned to let go of expectations of others. This was a biggie for me. I have learned that when I have no expectations from others, then I am lifted from a burden and let go of the emotion of disappointment. When the amygdala is not fed the same emotions over and over, this aspect of fear dies on the vine so to speak.

Socrates said “Know Thyself” and many centuries later Shakespeare wrote “And this above all…to thine own self be true.” Awakening is a journey into enlightenment. It is an evolution. Ramtha has taught, “To evolve means to change and evolve means to learn, and to learn means to be in knowledge of.”

What is the Divine? It is the God or the Creator within. It doesn’t matter the name given, because we are each endowed with a direct connection and it surrounds us and is in us. We are inseparable. We can only shut off our awareness of its presence. I would say that everyone has a deep-rooted desire for union or reunion. We seek here and we seek there. There is an ancient story attributed to great sages. They were discussing where to hide God and one said, “Let’s hide God deep in the ocean.” The others said that woman/man would eventually conquer the oceans so that wouldn’t work. A second sage suggested that God be hidden in the sky and again after a consensus, it was agreed that woman/man would eventually conquer space. After much discussion whether it would be deep in the earth and other places, one brilliant sage suggested, “I know, we will hide God within woman/man because they will never think to look there.”

What is enlightenment? I can only share my perspective. Enlightenment is a never-ending journey. It is the conquering of our limitations and gaining the wisdom from each of our experiences. Ramtha calls these our pearls of wisdom. When the light goes on in our brain, this pearl is given to our Divine self. How else will it know itself unless we give it our own personal unique pearls of wisdom?

Ramtha taught a discipline of creating one’s day. In the movie, What the Bleep, Dr. Joe Dispenza, a student at that time, shared it. It is a powerful tool and I use it every day and also in the evening when I retire. JZ Knight is also progressing this discipline by sharing her experiences of using it. Women especially need to utilize this tool because women have been enslaved and suppressed by men for eons.

When I wake up in the morning, the first thought I bring up is “I am wonderful!” I repeat this three times. The next thought I have is “I am genius!” Again, I repeat this three times. The third thought is “I am powerful!” I repeat this three times. Then I get up, go to the bathroom and instead of getting involved in busy things. I go and sit quietly and think of what I want to experience during the day. It may be that when I am traveling in my car that I always go to and from my destinations safely and that I am kept out of harm’s way. Then I ask for genius ideas to come into my mind. It may be that I want the sales of my books to increase or receive a request to speak at some event. Perhaps I want to experience joy all day long. It can be whatever one wants to experience during the day. It may be that the body is healed and whole. Or, it may be that today I experience being thirty years younger.

The mind and the brain are not the same. The brain is the sender and the receiver of thoughts and words. Whatever we think and speak becomes mind. Russians scientists have scientifically proven and explained that our brain has the capacity to be programmed by our words, our language and our thoughts. Baerbel’s summarization of Gosar and Bludorf ‘s work states, “The human DNA is a biological Internet and superior in many aspects to the artificial one. The latest Russian scientific research directly or indirectly explains phenomena such as clairvoyance, intuition, spontaneous and remote acts of healing, self-healing, affirmation techniques, and much more.”

We are each Divine and we are each creators. When we change our beliefs, thoughts and the words we use, we change our mind and become enlightened.