Whistler Advance, Sunday, July 25, 2004

Jeshua: Beloved and holy and only Child of our heavenly Father, Child of the one Source, Child of Light, divine. That is who you are. You are beginning to realize that. Take it deeply

within the consciousness and contemplate what that means. I am the one known as Jeshua ben Joseph, Jesus you have called me, and it is in great joy that I come to abide with you once again, as you have desired to call me forth. Always great joy to behold you, to reach out and to touch, to connect in the physical way, eye to eye, toe to toe. Fantastic, as you say in your world. It is most wonderful.

I wanted to speak with you in this morning about experience of the silence. (Group was to hold the silence from the end of the previous night's talks until this morning's gathering.) How did it feel? It felt good? Did any of you have a bit of a problem with it? You found creative ways to express what you needed to express? You were able to hear the mind speaking to you. You did not have to put it into the words to speak to another one, but you were aware that because of the silence, the mind chatter, that goes on. And to attend to the mind, and then to allow even it to become still.

There is power in the silence as you will allow yourself, even when you are in a group of people, to take that deep breath and to be silent, to listen to what the others are saying, what they are truly saying; not just what the words say, but what their heart is saying. And you can listen in the silence to your mind and to your feeling about what they are saying, and be aware of your feelings, your reactions. It was most wonderful to watch you, for there were times when you wanted, there was such energy within you that you wanted to speak. And then there was the feeling of no, not yet. And yet when you came back to this room, there was an explosion! For you had held so much seemingly within yourself, and you were so happy to see each other, there was this great radiance–always there was radiance–but a great intensity of radiance that came forth, and you said, "How good it is to speak once again!"

Truly what you were doing has been an initiation. Many of you have read about initiations in various cultures and traditions, and you have thought them to be most mysterious and probably something that you could not do. And you have said, "Well, hopefully it is something I have done in a past life, or will do in a future life. I don't know what an initiation would be, and I'm sure it must be very difficult to do." For the word "initiation" means beginning, which comes after an ending. So last evening–yes, beloved brother, already the revelation came to you of the initiation. Of course.

As you left here last evening, you completed. You went into the silence. That was your initiation. It was as a test, but a small one, and a beginning of being able to be in the presence of your Self–capital "S"–being in the presence of others, yes, as aspects of the one Self. And so when you have come in here this morning, all of you from the youngest to the oldest have passed what you would see to be the trial, test–wasn't too difficult, was it?–into a new understanding. Well done.

Barbara and Aaron and also Hal have known this initiation over and over and over again to the place where there is expression in the silence, as you found ways to express the being of you to other ones in the silence. The world is a noisy place. The world often is a distraction, and yet in the midst of the noise and the distraction you can find your peace in your own silence. You take that deep breath, you step back as the beholder, you listen to what others are saying or feeling, and you listen to yourself. And there is great power in the silence, because you connect with the inner self of you and of the others.

I would invite you once in awhile to practice the silence, even if you are in the midst of a crowd. Be aware that you do not have to speak. Be aware that the greatest of teachers often would teach in silence. The students, disciples, would come with their questions and oftentimes the greatest of teachers would sit with them. No words. And the students at first would become quite agitated. Why does he/she not attend to me? Does he not know that I am really wanting to know? Does he not care?

And they would tug perhaps on the master's robe, like little children do. "I want an answer!" And after awhile they would sit in silence, having done everything they could to distract, to get the attention, as the small ones often do, as you know so well. They will want you to supply the answer or to solve the problem. But after awhile the students would come to a place of quietness. After all, they tried everything else; why not try just sitting. And in the sitting, in the silence, there would come the answer, an answer that the teacher did not give to them; would share with them, yes, in the innermost plane, but an answer that they truly knew for themselves because it had come from within; an answer that the world could not shape.

For if you get an answer from someone else, even if you believe them to be the greatest authority, and you have a friend come and they will say, "Well that's not true, how can you believe that?" There is evidence, and they give you books that say differently. And if you have received the answer from an authority or someone you think has all the answers, you begin, even though you don't want to, to doubt. But if you have received your own answer and you know it to be true, it will not matter what others say to you, for you will know your own truth. It has come to you, it has been revealed to you, and it is your truth–unshakeable. There is power in the silence.

I drink to you!

Now, yes. I know that many of you were expecting my mother to speak this morning. She is here, of course. She has been waiting patiently in the wings. In a moment I will allow her to speak. Know you the feeling of going places with your mother with you all the time? (laughter) There is no getting away when you're all one. Therefore, allow me to give over to her the stage, as it would be.

Mary: Gentle ones, blessed ones, children of the Most High. I am the one you have known as Mary, mother of Christ, and I am and so are you, mother of the Christ, as you are bringing forth the Christ of your own self, birthing the Christ of your own self in awareness. Children of the Most High–attaining that realization of what it means to be a child of the Most High; to be teachable as a small child is, questioning, looking at everything with new eyes; asking always, what is this? what is this for?; discovering, coming to that place of understanding. You are children of the Most High, the highest, consciousness and even beyond consciousness. For you are the Christ–that you are–having now experienced the realization. You are now birthing the Christ in your realization of, "I knew that already." The revelations that come from within birthed the remembrance of the Christ within you. So as I have said, I am Mary, mother of Christ, but so are you.

In that lifetime I came through many initiations, as you have just done in the past evening. At first, as a small child, I was brought up with parents who believed in the oneness of all living presence, no matter if it be the human form or if it be the plants, flowers, the rocks, the dust, the clouds in the sky. There was a knowing of oneness. There is a remembrance even now with the small ones when they are first birthed, before they take on the molding and the shaping of the world; they remember the innocence. Yes, they bring with them certain memories that are going to be helpful in a lifetime. Every memory that you bring with you, even though you would judge it sometimes to be hurtful or as heavy, serves the purpose of coming up over it; serves purpose of realizing I am not that problem, I am not that memory. I have brought it forth; therefore, I am more powerful than that memory, even though at times it might seem to be overwhelming.

If you create a problem, if you create old memories that seem to be heavy on the shoulders, stop for a moment and realize you are the one who has created it, for truly you are masters; you are the Christ, coming to that realization. So if you have created it, you can uncreate it. You can transform it. So this was the atmosphere in which I was brought up, even before I went to the Essene community for the, I will say, teaching. But again, as my son has said so many times, it is not teaching; it is always catalyst for remembrance.

At the age of eight, I was allowed to leave my parents and go to the Essene community to receive the more advanced catalyst for remembrance. I entered at the age of eight with a group of others. There were 12 of us. We were new students. We did not know each other, somewhat the same as when you came together in this group. But within a few days, because we were experiencing the same, I will call them, classes–but they were not exactly that, they were more the coming together in meditation–we began to share experiences with each other. And we began to know that we were equal. For as I was chosen, and not every little girl was chosen to go to the community, I felt that I was special. And I was. And I am. And so are you.

But I also felt a bit of trepidation. What is it going to be like to be with advanced masters? Am I going to be able to measure up, to learn, to be able to recite back the ancient teachings? And I found after a couple of days with the other girls that they also felt that way. And so there was an ease that happened, for we felt that we were equal in our beginning. Now, truly we had already begun before we arrived at the Essene community. But there was a oneness of the12 of us, as you have felt a oneness in the past few days, sharing equal experiences. We studied with ones whom we had thought to be advanced masters, and we found that instead of being separate from us, they were friends; friends who wanted to share what had been revealed to them and to bring forth from us our own inner knowing. We became great friends, no matter if we were at the age of 8 or 80 or more, for there were many in the community who had gained over 100 years.

This was to me and to other girls something miraculous. We had heard in our village of ones who lived to be what you now call the old age, and they were great in their wisdom, for they could remember the history of the village. But the ones we met in the Essene community were ones who had traveled far. They had studied with masters in far lands, and they had learned or remembered the essence of life. And that life, even in the physical, does not have to be released in order to go on in the understanding of All That Is. So they just kept going on.

Many of these ones, even though they be 300, 400, 600 years old, kept themselves in appearance as in the prime of life. Why not? They realized the Christ, which is undying, unending. So they kept themselves in the prime of life. The old men were still able to do all of the labor of the community. They did not just sit back and watch, but they were involved in the everyday tasks, and the same with the women. They were very much into sharing their wisdom, for they had time with us as the weekly schedule, as you call it, was set. Much of the teaching was done with our questioning; not so much of them filling our empty cup, but of our questioning to the place where we knew from ourselves the answer. And then it was affirmed, but by that time we already felt it; we already knew it, the same as is happening with you. You are having various words said to you as catalyst, and there is an Aha. You say, "Yes, I have known that to be true. I have felt that."

It was the same for us at the age of 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. At the age of 12, there was a certain ritual that was held each year as the girls and also the boys would reach the age of 12 and had attained some mastery of themselves. The ritual, and it was held every year, was to ascend the steps of the temple, and with each step, there was a, you will call it now, an affirmation, a piece of the Psalms, you know Psalms, that we said as the ascension was made of the steps to the temple. And the sayings would also be themselves in ascension, going from the simplest to the highest. And as we did this ritual, there was a knowing that we had come through initiations, and this was a certain point outwardly that we had attained a certain mastery.

Now, on the inner we reached that point even before the ritual, but as we ascended the steps one by one, there was a radiance around all of us where we knew ourselves to be one in heart, in soul, in body, with each other. After all, we had spent four years with each other; we had spent four years with the older ones as well, for there were other ones a year ahead of us, two years, three years ahead of us; there was much sharing.

As we reached the top step, before entering temple, which is where we would give great ceremony, there was a radiance about all of us. But there was a special increase in radiance around me. Now, I was not aware of it. I felt at one with all of the other girls. I felt quite lifted up. And the saying that came to me, that was part of the ritual, was, "My soul doth magnify the Lord."

Now, we had been studying what that meant. And the meaning of it goes far deeper than the words. "My soul," including all the experiences that ever I have had, whether incarnate or discarnate, whether consciously bringing it into form or not form, "does magnify," increase in the awareness of, "the Lord," the one Mind; not just Lord as you would understand an entity to be, but the Allness, the oneness of the one Mind.

And there was on that top step for me a realization at a certain level of consciousness that I was agreeing to what my soul had agreed to before the incarnation. Now, I did not know what it was; the same as you; you ask, "What is my purpose?" That question gets asked very often of me, of my son, of Joseph, of any master that you seem to put above you. What is my purpose? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? What should I do? None of us can answer that for you. You have your own purpose, and part of your purpose is to discover your purpose.

I knew that I had come to a point where there was realization at some level that I was accepting what I had agreed to do. Now, I did not know in fullness what that was, and I did not see the radiance around me because I was within it; the same as often you do not see your own radiance, yet someone will come up to you and they will say, "You are so radiant today!" And you will say, "But I'm just myself." But with yourself, you are radiant. Ah, look at the radiance, look at the smile. And all of you have a radiance, that because you are within it, you don't see, quite often. You can look in a mirror, and if you try, allow, you can see your own radiance, at least part of it, around you. But others see this radiance far extending. But as I have said, because you are in the middle of it, you often do not behold your own radiance. And it was the same for me in that group of the 12 initiates in the ritual.

Shortly after that time, there was an announcement made that I would be betrothed to Joseph. Now, I had known Joseph from the time that I came to the Essene community, and I had admired him because he was much older than I. And I admired the work that he had done in the carving of the temple doors and the other simple carving that he did of making the tables, the chairs. They were not just of form, practical, but he would always add a special touch to whatever he was working with. He would, as he said to you the other evening, ask of the wood, "What do you want to be?" And if it was to be a table, then he would put together the wood in a certain way to make a table. But he would ask of the wood, "What more beauty do you want to show forth?" And then there would be carvings even upon the table, and of the legs of the table; most beautiful work that he was doing.

And I saw this as a small one, growing taller in wisdom and in stature. I admired Joseph very much. He also had healing properties, qualities, and ones could come to him for healing. Because he knew the silence, because he had also had training coming through the Essene community with masters, he knew how to facilitate for others, as you know, their own inner healing which then was outpictured in the body. For all healing has to come from within. All healing that is pictured in the body, in the outer, comes from a realization within; first, a realization of the wholeness, the holiness, of the inner being. Then it comes to the outer.

So I admired Joseph for his carving. I admired him for his healing qualities. I admired him for his gentleness, for he was a good friend. And when it was announced that I would be betrothed to him, I rejoiced, for I felt as many of you have felt when you have worshiped someone from afar and then you find out that they like you too. Ah! Greatest gift!

So we were at that age betrothed. We did not consummate the marriage right at that point. There were yet some initiations for me. There were yet some times of coming together to share as friends. There was much of the walking hand in hand, as you do with each other, where we would walk along the stream, the flowing water, holding hands, being one with the water of the stream, being one with the plants, the rushes that would grow alongside the stream, deepening our own realization of the divinity of ourselves; just being with each other. You have known that feeling; just being with each other. What joy!

Then there was the marriage ceremony, which was most joyful. Everyone celebrated our coming together because they had known us from the time I was eight. And Joseph also came to the community when he was eight. So everyone knew us as we had come through the growing-up process. And they were also very appreciative of Joseph's qualities. He was great friend to everyone, as you have felt when he spoke with you.

So when the marriage ceremony took place, it was a time of great festivity. It is not recorded in your usual scriptures, your writings, but it was a time that as the culture then would celebrate an event, and it went on for several days. My parents were invited to come because they did not live in the Essene community but nearby. So they came along with all of my relatives and all his friends and relatives who did not abide, reside, in the community as a whole, but in the extended community, because the Essene community had a place where there was the community itself, but there was an extension, very wide, of ones who had been trained in the Essene thinking, who did not reside within the community itself but had their own enclaves, groups, in various parts; an extension, if you will. So that later on when we would travel, we would go as you do in this day and time to a friend's house, and we would know that we would be welcome there, because they were as the Essene thinking, belief, as well. So there were these places that we knew of that were held in relative secrecy, but we knew each other.

So these ones would come when there would be a celebration, and it was a great celebration. And then after Joseph knew me as woman, there was a time, and it is recorded in your scriptures, when the angel Gabriel came to me and announced that I would be most favored among women, because there would be a child born of this union that would be messiah to all people. And I, like you, wondered, what does this mean? Those of you who in this lifetime who have birthed a small one, when you have the realization that the small one is being conceived, growing within you, there is such an awareness of miracle. You wonder, how can this be? Well, you know the physicality of it, but the miracle of life, how can this be?

Now the angel Gabriel, as a separate entity, did he appear to me as a separate entity? You have a clue. No. Not as a separate entity, but as the most wonderful radiance of light that I was filled with. Again, no separation. But there was a knowing of personality that continues. When I use the word "personality," that defines it in most limited terms. And this was much more expansive. There was a radiance, a great light, a revelation as you have felt it in this lifetime, and of course other lifetimes; you have birthed the small one, and before this one was actually held in the arms, you felt a great revelation. Questioning, yes, because I questioned the revelation. I questioned, as it has been written in your scriptures, the angel, and said, "How can this be?" The child, Yeshua, was born through me, and I loved him as the small one, as you do with the small ones; each one is a gift.

There were other children that Joseph and I had through the years that were birthed through me, and each one, as I held them in my arms, I loved each one. And each one was unique, as you have seen the siblings. You say that the second and the third and the fourth child, they will be copies of each other. No, it does not come that way. So Yeshua's brothers and sisters had their own personalities, their own abilities, their own traits; most wonderful to see, as my son has spoken to you, as the facets of the gemstone; they were facets of the one, facets of our family, expressing as themselves.

You have read that his brother James was of different personality. James was very much into studying, very much wanted to know the scripture and to be, I will use the word, "monkish", in that he wanted to be very much alone. He wanted to study; he was very strict in his studies. When he was called upon to take over some of the duties of the household after Joseph had made his physical transition, James was not too happy about it, but he took this upon himself. For Yeshua as the oldest son was by tradition to be the head of the family after Joseph made his transition. And Yeshua did this for a short time until he was called by an inner knowing to go out and to be amongst the people, to share what he knew with others who wanted to receive it. And so in that time, James was called upon to be head of the family, and as I have said, James was not too happy about this, but he was a good son unto me.

Now, the one known as Aaron had a different name in that lifetime, a most sacred name that he had been given. He was older than Yeshua, and yet younger than I, and there was a closeness of friendship, as with all of the family in the Essene community. You have exampled here what has been called the Heart Family, ones who have resonance of the heart with each other, and you come together remembering the family that you are. It was the same in the Essene community. Ones would come from great distances, and they were not, of course, of same biological family. But they were family; we were family. And Aaron was part of that family.

He came from time to time to study, and when he did, I knew him as friend; took him under my wing a bit. But he was not always wanting to be under the wing, for he had his own personality. And as he would be 10, 11, 12, even into teenage years, there was, as you see with your teenagers in this day and time, a wanting to be independent, and yet at the same time a wanting to be in the loving family as well. But there was within him the certain times when he would come to me and we would be friends, or I would be as mother with the wing for him, and other times when he would go (reaches out arms). I pause now for Aaron.

Aaron: My blessings and love to you. I am Aaron. I greet you in love and in light and with enormous joy to share the platform this morning, as it were, with my dear sister, mother, friend, Mary, and my brother Jeshua as well.

Such joy in hearing these stories from Mary, these reminiscences. I would like to add a few memories of my own. First, while I offer these memories, please recognize they are accessible to me because I am not limited by that veil of forgetting that you have as humans. But many of you, if you could break through that veil, would find similar memories of the Essene community, because so many of you were there.

So often I've been asked, who was Aaron? I've simply answered, he was a teacher who at some time in his life struggled with many of the issues,... (pauses to remove glasses) Barbara thinks she needs them, but I find them a nuisance. (laughing) We compromise by laying them aside when I speak.

This human, Aaron, in his early life struggled with some of the issues that Barbara had when she first consciously met me, especially the issue of finding peace with things as they were rather than grasping in fear, wanting things to be different than they were. The human Aaron had to learn that through his own personal struggle. He lived many hundreds of years and went on to, as Mary put it, awaken the remembrance of love in many other beings. He was trained in the Essene traditions, and of course at 400 years he was an elder, though few knew him to be that age.

There was, if I might put it this way, a younger man, a beloved friend, who was also deeply trained in this tradition, whose primary commitment was to help raise the consciousness of Earth and those who dwelled thereon, to make the world receptive for Jeshua's birth.

There was much fear and–Barbara is bringing forth the word depravity; that is perhaps too harsh a word. Nobody is essentially depraved, but fear may lead them to actions of meanness and hatred–fear-based hatred and greed in the cities, so much darkness. This beloved friend felt that people who lived simply, the shepherds who lived in nature on the hillsides, farmers, simple people who had the deeper connection with the earth, that these people could more easily open to these teachings of love. Most of them were not formally brought into the Essene community, although a few were. We offer the teachings where they can be received. Among some of these people there would have even been some discomfort with the idea of the Essene community as something separate or unknown, but they were very open to teachings of love.

My beloved friend felt that it would be valuable to have a son deeply trained to help him carry on this work, and it felt like time for me to let go of this body and life as Aaron. It was a conscious release and transition, a rebirth into this new life. My beloved friend became my father, as had been planned.

I was given a sacred name, as Mary mentioned, my spiritual name amongst my Essene brethren, but was more commonly known by the name that you might translate as Nathaniel. The boy Nathaniel was first trained by his father and his mother, both of whom had deep Essene training and had lived within the Essene community. At a young age Nathaniel was also sent to Mt. Carmel to receive formal Essene training, although I–when I say I, I mean the being that I was in that lifetime as Nathaniel–traveled back and forth more than most, spending half the year within the community and half the year with my father. For my father felt it very important that I spend a lot of time just being a shepherd, living with the other shepherd boys, getting to know who they were, how they thought and how they understood the world, and that I spend that time also in the silence of the hills, often full days spent in silence, with no one around me but my sheep. It was there at the very early age of six and seven and eight that I learned to love silence.

At eight–for that was the age that many of us were first formally sent to the Essene community for training, at eight as Mary has told in her story–I also came there, not knowing what to expect. It is as Mary has told, that the elders were teachers, but more importantly, friends. Little distinction was made in the ages of people, except to respect that young people did go through different phases of growth. But the divine in each being is not young or old. Because of the wisdom and loving presence of the elders, that divinity is invited forth.

I offer one of my earliest memories of that invitation. Several of us young boys had been throwing rocks at a target, a post, seeing who could hit it, who could knock a rock off the top, in the way of boys forever. It seemed a harmless pursuit, but we did not take care to check around the vicinity of our target before we threw. I threw a rock with much force; it missed the post by an inch, and went beyond it into the brush. We heard a small sound, a screech. I went running up and found that my rock had struck a small bird perched in her grassy nest. She was bleeding, clearly injured.

Mary was one of my first teachers, so I brought the bird to her in fear, shame, and confusion. She said to me, "Hold the bird in your hands." I wanted to give it to her. She said, "No; you hold it." I cried out, "Take it! Heal it. I did not intend to hurt it." I was sobbing. "Hold it in your hands," she insisted, "and envision it perfect. Let it know of your intention that it be well, that it manifest its perfection, which you so clearly hold in your heart and mind." And behold, the bird healed right there before my eyes.

Of course, I had known how to do such healing as Aaron, but Nathaniel the boy did not know how to do such healing, did not believe himself capable of such healing if he had thought about it at all. So Mary took this as a teaching opportunity to reawaken in me the power of holding our innate perfection and the perfection of others, and how that deep seeing of what is, invites it forth. Of course, it was clear to me that "I" had not healed the bird. Then she said to me the words she just said to you, "The soul magnifies the Lord." When you allow the radiance and the clarity of the soul to come forth deeply, then the divine can move through that soul and express itself into the world.

She took the bird into her care then to keep it overnight and be sure it was well before releasing it the next morning. I asked her, "How did I do this?" She said, "Of course, you did not do it." And I understood what she meant. And that was when she said to me, "The soul magnifies the Lord."

"What does this phrase mean, Mary?" I asked.

She understood my training in silence and that while I was only nine years old, I had spent many days and nights alone on a mountain. So she asked me to go to a place of solitude. I was not to bring anything with me: no food, no water, only my thin robe. "Your needs will be met." Now this was new for me because as a shepherd boy, I always had food prepared by my mother and fresh water and warm garments. So nine-year-old Nathaniel, still in wonder about the healing of this bird, went off into the designated place of solitude to ponder these words. She could not have told me the answer; I had to find it within myself.

The first day, the mind was whirring around, trying to conceptually understand. The mind is like this; the nature of the mind is to give rise to thoughts. My body that first day wouldn't settle down but writhed in agitation. There were also worries: what will I eat, what will I drink? But there was a good stream of fresh water, and I found a tree laden with fruit and another with nuts. There was plenty to eat. I found tall grass to wrap around me for warmth when I slept.

It took two days for the surface layers of the self to resolve enough that, while the mind still gave rise to thoughts, I was no longer so deeply identified with the thoughts. This, of course, is one of the first Essene trainings and initiations, to move beyond self-identification with the thoughts of the mind and the tensions or contractions of the body. This is like the sea, which is not the waves that it expresses, but is simply water.

Water is a very direct expression of Essence. You may have noticed a brief pause when Barbara first moves into a channeling space and takes a sip of water. Water is such a deep symbol of your oneness. Water is in everything. It is in the sky, the sea, the earth, even in the element of fire, and of course in the human body. Often as Barbara begins to channel, for which work she must release the personality self, I ask her to focus on the water element in the body. This is one of the reasons why we often take a sip of water when we start to work.

So the boy Nathaniel, who had already been trained to release the superficial elements of the self, needed two days in his agitated state to release those elements and come into this place of knowing, the space of the divine essence of being. The stream helped him to remember, playing to him its song of oneness. And from that space he fully understood–he remembered, yes, but even without the memories of Aaron whom he had been before, he understood–how the clarity of his love and intention for that bird had brought forth the clearest expression of the soul through which the divine could work to support the healing that the bird also sought. And he understood that this force is in everything.

Mary had told him, "When you see it, come back and tell me." I stayed there for several more days simply rejoicing in the silence, resting in my true home as it were. Jeshua spoke of certain aspects of your experience of silence, how you could communicate with one another without the use of words. This is one form of silence, but eventually we wish to go even deeper into the silence, literally to cease to communicate on any conceptual level; not by pointing, not by signs. Again, it is like the sea, each wave expressing itself in foam or froth or as a giant swell in the sea, but there's nothing there but water. The expressions are magnificent, unique, loving expressions of the One. We cherish the expressions, but we must remember that where the expressions are, there is also the essence. Deeper silence allows you to move further into the direct experience of that essence and to rest there.

In that resting you begin to know the divine core of your being without any doubt and to see personality, intellect, the body, as cherished expressions of this core. This leads you to more lovingly attend to these expressions in the outer world, to attend to the body, to train the mind. But you do not do so for an ego-based attainment; you do so because each expression is the outer form of divinity.

In those days, periods of silence were very common, even for young children. I can remember as a two- or three-year-old the father telling me, "Tonight is a silent night." Often on the Sabbath we would have the Sabbath prayers and then no speaking through the whole next day. My father would take young Nathaniel's hand and lead him up the hillside in silence. Often at sunrise he would hold me on his lap, arms around me, sharing the beauty of the meadows, the hills, the morning sun. Again, many of you will find similar memories of silence if you would look. So Nathaniel rested in the silence and rejoiced, and then returned to the Community to tell Mary, "I have found it." "And was it ever really lost, to be thusly found?" she inquired. "No, nothing is ever lost," responded the boy.

The boy Nathaniel grew, watched from a hillside with his father, through the radiance of that night when Jeshua was born, and had the joy to know Jeshua through his early years; not the earliest years because they were far away, but when they returned to the community, Nathaniel had the joy then to continue in association with Mary and Joseph and many of you.

The trainings, the initiations, were challenging, but the intention was always to awaken deeper truth in us. You cannot awaken the truth of one's divinity by creating a situation in which one will be overcome by difficulty. So care was always taken that before initiations were undergone, the person was ready; ready to remember, ready to bring forth this yet deeper expression of divinity, clarity, and wisdom. This is no less true for you today, and that is why you come together in these ways.

My dearest sister, mother, friend, I again pass the microphone back to you with my thanks and love.

Mary: It is as Aaron/Nathaniel has described to you, that after Yeshua was born, there was a dream that appeared to Joseph, for Joseph was most intuitive. He had the training but also natural ability honed throughout many lifetimes of being intuitive and receiving messages through dreams, as many of you now in this day and time are finding, to your great amazement. You have dreams that are explanatory, you have dreams that foretell what is going to happen, even though you may not want to have those dreams.

But Joseph had a dream in which there was revelation that came to him that it was not safe to keep his family in the Essene community or in the village of Nazareth. The angel said to him to take up his family and move to another Essene grouping; not a formal Essene grouping, but one of the ones I had mentioned earlier, where there were the friends who had been trained in the Essene community, may not have ever visited the community of Mt. Carmel, but were Essene in training and belief and nature. So we traveled to what is now known as your Egypt and stayed there until it was safe to return to Nazareth.

Joseph took up, because it was necessary to have the golden coins for the family, he took up his love of carpentry in Nazareth, in the village that he knew so well. And we would make the trek, the journey, to Mt. Carmel from time to time to be with our family, the extended family, as you do this in this day and time to be with the Heart Family.

So there was a period of time where I had experienced once again being in Egypt. I had been there earlier in some of my training. I returned there later for some of my training and for some of my service in the, what are understood now to be, the underground dwellings, underground passageways. I will share with you just a wee bit about that, because it was most miraculous even to me to go underground, as you see some of your tunnels to be, and yet it was most cavernous, because there would be more than just the small tunnel then coming out into light again. It was a great underground city, if you want to call it that, or village, underground through passageways. And the lighting, there were some of what you know to be the torches of light that were kept burning by igniting one to another from time to time. And there was a committee, you will call it in this day and time, a committee who was entrusted with this duty to always keep some torches lit.

But main light was supplied by us. And that was most miraculous to come into it and to understand that our own radiance, which even now you have but you do not especially attend to, our own radiance would light up the room; as daylight; not just as a dim nightlight, but as daylight, so there could be the copying of ancient manuscripts. For there were many manuscripts, writings, that had been secreted away, treasured through generations and hidden from the world because the world did not deem them valuable. But we of the mystic leaning understood their value and wanted to preserve them. And so part of what was done was to copy them so that if the original manuscript was somehow destroyed, we would have the copies. Also, the copies were sent to various other locations so ones could share in this ancient knowledge and be revived in this knowledge.

So in my time in Egypt it was...first of all, I was not happy in leaving Nazareth. We had friends there, we had roots there. It felt, as you have felt many times, that we were settled there. And yet there was a deep knowing that for a time we had to leave and go somewhere else. So after I overcame the small resistance to moving–you have all felt this–I looked forward joyously to a reunion with friends.

The edict had come out that all boy children under the age of two were to be gotten rid of, because Herod had heard there was a prophecy from ones that he trusted, a prophecy that there had been born one who would lead his people into a new kingdom. Herod felt threatened; therefore, he sent out a proclamation far and wide that all boy children under the age of two should be killed, because this was his reckoning as to what the prophets, his wise men, had told him. Imagine you the sorrow that the other mothers felt who were not able to flee the country. There was much of grief. There was also much opportunity for the understanding that nothing is ever lost, although it may appear that way. And many who held babes in arms and had them snatched away out of their arms had opportunity at first to feel great sorrow, great burden of vulnerability that such a thing could happen. You can all relate to how that would be.

But as with any experience, there is a gift, and the gift was the opportunity to know that nothing is ever lost. To each of those women was born, at a later time, a boy child who incarnated as the small one had been previously. Nothing is ever lost. "I will restore unto you the years that the locust hath eaten. I will restore unto you the Lord God of your being. The divinity of you will manifest once again that which you felt to be lost." So there was a great miracle for those who had the eyes to see, for they looked upon the small one and they said, "You look like the son I used to have." Great miracle.

I leave with you this day the gift of the miracle of understanding life, the miracle to remember that truly nothing is ever lost. The soul memories always are with you: the soul memories of the whole soul group, which as we have shared with you, as my son has spoken often, the soul group as you see your own small group to be is joined with other soul groups until you understand the vastness of the one Mind, the realization of Oneness.

Go in peace, gentle ones.