Journey Into Being

Reminder from Mano: When you see a face in the bark or leaves of a tree, open your heart and say “hello”. Ask if it wants to speak to you. Ask what you can do for it.

The book Barbara is just completing is autobiographical, but specifically it’s a spiritual autobiography. She has a view, now, from her year-90 perch, that unveils for her the adventures and serendipity of how family, friends, teachers, books, travel, moving—all the small and large pieces of her life—fit together like puzzle pieces to show a destiny field of deep dedication. Her devotion to Spirit, to participation in the angelic and elemental realms, reveals a trusted human (a get-things-done kind of person) doing her part to edge us toward future reconciliation among these realms.

Reading in Dorothy Maclean’s, To Hear the Angels Sing, I pick up the hum of a kindred Barbara-spirit. Dorothy’s ability to speak with the angels and plant devas blossomed in Findhorn during the time that Barbara’s awareness of these levels of communication was growing in California, and their paths crossed in Scotland. They both see themselves as very organized and practical, which may be at least part of the qualification for the very particular bridge-building service they both have given.

Dorothy writes in her introduction: “Yes, I talk with angels, great Beings whose lives infuse and create all of Nature. In another time and culture I might have been cloistered in a convent or a temple, or, less pleasantly, burnt at the stake as a witch. In our skeptical time and culture, such a claim is more likely to be met with scoffing disbelief or as the ramblings of a dreamy female. Being a practical, down-to-earth person, I had never set out to learn to talk with angels, nor had I ever imagined that such contact would be possible or useful. Yet, when this communication began to occur, it did so in a way that I could not dispute.”

“To learn to talk with angels is really learning to talk with ourselves and with each other in new and profoundly deeper ways. It is learning how to communicate with our universe more openly and how to be more in tune with our role as co-creators and participate in its evolution. Modern communication has developed marvelously and very quickly in a physical, technological mode, but other deeper and more subtle forms of communication remain untapped. For the future of our world and ourselves, we must now begin to use those deeper forms.”

“To do this is not a matter of technique. I have no easy methods which can teach you to talk with angels or with your deeper self in ten lessons or in two weekends. People in industrial cultures seem to expect and desire instant gratification, but true communication rises out of our own being and from the wholeness of our lives. It is more something that we become over the course of our existence and less something that we learn. What we really communicate is what we are, not so much what we can say in words. To communicate with angels really requires a particular attitude of wholeness towards life, towards others and towards ourselves.”

Years ago when I first read Barbara’s book Burned Woman I was intrigued by a couple of lines on the back cover: “Barbara lives a colorful life. She bicycled through Europe the first year the countryside was re-opened after World War Two.” I wanted to know the details, and now in her new book she has provided them. I can see how in her 20s, with all her energy and unconscious knowing, she was becoming the elder she is—she was listening inwardly to her god-self, her elemental-self. The following excerpt is from the first section of her book.

Cycling in Post-War Europe, 1948

An important young-adult experience of expanding my consciousness occurred in 1948 when I was 21. My neighbor Dorothy’s father came to us with the news that post-war Europe was opening its doors to tourists. American Youth Hostel was creating tours for Americans to bicycle for two months with a European leader, staying in youth hostels each night. Dot and I were ready for the adventure of experiencing life beyond our Los Angeles home base and of observing firsthand the other-worldliness of war devastation.

We crossed the Atlantic on a student ship that was actually a troop transport with bunk beds three deep. Side by side, we were packed like sardines in a can. Of the many groups on the boat one was the Marshall Plan in Action—youth going to clean up rubbish from bombed churches and public buildings and to help rebuild destroyed schools. The leaders offered classes on European history and French, which Dot and I attended—when we weren’t simply hanging out with the other students.

Some hostels were bombed manor houses, some were buildings at the edge of a town, and others were in people’s farmhouses with the owners acting as house parents. We met hostellers from other countries, spent our nights exploring the local area, and then rode off again in the morning. Our official tour went through Holland into Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and I don’t know where else because our group staged a mutiny and separated from our leader. We were tired of the daily push to get from hostel to hostel and wanted freedom to follow our noses and truly explore. Dot and I hitchhiked through Switzerland, catching rides in big trucks that could take our bicycles. We took a train to Paris for a week, then the train and ferry to London. We then sold our bikes to two Englishmen who toured us through London for another week. We were in Amsterdam for the big jubilee celebrating the canal lights being turned on for the first time after the war, and the change in monarchy from Queen Wilhelmina to her daughter Juliana. We joined some other students and went partying together all night until we ended up at the home of Hans, a local student, to sleep the little of the night that was left.

Dot and I each had a three-speed Raleigh bicycle, sleeping bag and saddle bags on the back with our clothes: one pair of slacks, one shirt, one long-sleeved shirt, bathing suit, pjs, a skirt, saddle shoes, and bobby socks. I thought I was a strong stable bike rider, but I found I really was quite wimpy and wanted to stop for lots of resting. When we were waiting for the border guard to go through all of the papers for our group to enter Luxembourg, I saw a little church and went inside to lie down on a bench to rest. I suddenly felt an amazing inflowing of love move through my whole body and said to myself, “OH, God is in this church.” I thought about the war and how people must have prayed. Then I jumped up, realizing that my group would be leaving and no one knew where I was. This heavenly visitation in my twenties was fleeting, but later I marveled at the experience and at my casual, almost ho hum acceptance of it. And I also knew absolutely that God had filled me with His love. It was a life-changing experience and the memory stays with me to this very day.