Training to Become the Woman on the Mountain

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REMINDER from Mano:

You are not alone 
Nature spirits bless you each time you step outside

REMARKS from Barbara:

Honor your promptings and see where they lead

REMEMBERING Mary Jane:

Blog #2 opens the door to today’s musing where Mary Jane says:

How does one become “The Woman on the Mountain?”  I think the important thing to know is that it is a “becoming,” a learning and growing that has brought Barbara over her 91 years to this clear and culminating time in her life.

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TRAINING TO BECOME THE WOMAN ON THE MOUNTAIN

Blog #74

Mano wants to continue sharing what he and the Council had orchestrated to prepare me for the role of Woman on the Mountain. He started preparing me 25 years before we ever met. Mary Jane named it clearly when she named it a ‘Becoming,’ which started 25 years before I ever moved to the Mountain.

Mano’s first job was to open my consciousness to the reality of life beyond the physical outer world. He did this by introducing me to a woman who became a friend and teacher. Our family was attending our annual week-long journey to the Santa Cruz mountains to attend a Interdenominational Christian Family Camp.  The children excitedly shared with me the things their teacher Patricia was telling them about how to feel the presence of the angels and nature spirits that joined with them when they were singing and in their prayer group. This was beyond my knowing; I was intrigued and curious. 

So Mano prompted me to talk with Patricia. I liked her immediately and we set up a time to meet, which led to regular weekly connections that went on for years. Later she told me when she first looked at my aura she saw a huge spiritual consciousness totally disconnected from my mind by something that looked like a black cloud. At that time Mano asked her to work with me to clear the black cloud and help me to become open to the non-physical world. Each week she led me on an inner healing journey, often touching into experiences in other times and places that were limiting my freedom in this life.

At this same time Mano encouraged Gene Dorsey to accept the job of Janitor at our church. When he arrived he asked if there were any prayer groups in the church. They said, “no, but there is one woman interested in prayer, Barbara Thomas.” Gene became a good friend and spiritual companion. We met in the classrooms while he cleaned, praying for the church and the children. Each week he brought me a stack of metaphysical books covering subjects from healing, to angels, and space beings, books by Rudolph Steiner and Madam Blavatsky, biographies and autobiographies of people living within the expanded consciousness of non-physical worlds.

I read over 100 books in that first year. As soon as Donna left for kindergarten I sat down and read until she came home for lunch.  I learned to read as I knitted and as I did dishes and even as I ironed.

In this period of time I started painting with a larger than life bohemian woman, Minerva Hertzog. Painting with Minerva was such fun to simply open my inner consciousness and splash color on the canvas. Then to adjust the colors in a pleasing manner awakened my inner artist for free expression rather than the images and still life paintings I had done before. Often Minerva’s husband would come to class and sing opera while we painted. 

Here again Mano used this tool to open my vision, my mind, and my heart by showing me images in the midst of colors and free-form shapes on the canvas. I was intrigued, charmed and beginning to be aware that something really big is going on beyond my knowing.

Mano’s next focus for me was to find a tool for communication to receive guidance.  I learned to use the pendulum for yes and no answers. My first attempt was a total failure and I claimed the pendulum lied to me and I didn’t return to it for a number of years. When I returned to the pendulum I set up some ground rules. First to establish a yes and no answer. Second to ask if I am in tune with my higher self. Third to ask very clear and simple questions one at a time. Fourth if the answers get strange and feel off to stop right then and come back another day.

One of my most trusty tools has been to create conversations on the computer. I adapted this from my experience at the CFO Family camp we attended each year. On the last day of camp time was set aside to write a letter to God, then we were instructed to turn the page over and let God write a letter to us. I did this for years into notebooks writing by hand; now I do the conversations on the computer. I might write the question or idea into the computer, then I write the answer as the thoughts form in my mind. Sometimes words come three or four at a time, it is almost like taking dictation. I have learned to write with my energy focused in my heart rather than my head.

Years earlier in the sweet innocence of children, my 5 year old daughter named my process of letting spirit guide my writing. She was pondering how does God speak to her. She came up with such a simple and beautiful truth. “Oh I get it, he puts his thoughts in my mind and I think them.”

I now claim Spirit puts the thoughts in my mind and I write them. After writing a page or so I stop and go back with the pendulum to ask ‘is this accurate’? I would then put a plus mark for yes and a minus mark for no.

Two months after Jim died in 2004, Mano led me to the most wonderful means of communication and deep teaching by guiding me to study the Tarot with Pamela Eakins who wrote the book, Tarot of the Spirit. I attended monthly classes with her for 7 years. This was such an amazingly wonderful way to fill my time with study as I was adjusting to living without Jim’s sweet presence.

Each month I drove from Santa Cruz up Highway 1 to Half Moon Bay for the class. It was such a blessing to drive for over an hour by that wild and wonderful California coast. Each month my friend Diana Hobson and I engaged in a delightful lively conversation all the way up to class and all the way back home.

Now 15 years later I am dedicated to a daily conversation with Mano and the Council through the images on the Tarot Cards. I have become so familiar with the cards they can be used as a means for personal conversation and guidance.

I have a strong inner knowing that everyone comes to the planet with a group of guiding spirits to watch over us and help us to fulfill the Divine Plan we set for our lives before returning to the planet at this time. We each have a guardian angel, an elemental spirit, and a variety of others who have volunteered to watch over us. Rama is my guardian angel. Mano is my elemental teacher. Mara is my body elemental and Joseph is the Father of the Faerie Family that live within the earth under the Amphitheater. He is in charge of the Council and the happenings in the Amphitheater. His focus is to prepare for the transformation that is to happen as we move farther into the seventh Golden Age of Aquarius.