Merium; Athena - The Sorority of Sisters - Artistic Endeavors - Nov 06, 2013 - Gerdean, Central New Mexico
LOCATION:  Rio Rancho, NM
TEACHER:  Merium and Athena
TOPICS: The Sorority of Sisters; Artistic Endeavors
T/R:  Gerdean O’Dell
DATE:  November 6, 2013
 
MERIUM:  Good afternoon, precious friends. It is good to be back with you so soon. And yet it seems we have so long been away from one another. There is much to catch up on. But we are here today and now and this is what we deal with, and so let’s enjoy this sacred space in which we find ourselves, this configuration of noble daughters seeking to serve in the arena of your lives.

Indeed, it is probably the most compelling area for women to gravitate. First to the children, the helpless, the most vulnerable, but they also gravitate to their own kind – other women – if only because they understand each other and truly the bonds of sisterhood provide a tremendous font of comfort, strength and wisdom, even wit. Through the association those associations are to be cultivated every chance you get. There is no excuse for women to be competitive in the kingdom. There is no need to have sibling rivalry in terms of who is serving more or less. And there is no excuse to demean anyone’s service because it is seen as insufficient, irrelevant, or unreal, for that is a value judgment that only can be determined by the one who is doing the serving and not the one who is doing the observing.

The sorority that exists between daughters of divinity is as precious and priceless as the fraternity between sons of god. There are natural differences based on the fact that men and women cannot fully understand each other, but they are compatible, sufficiently compatible that they should not be distrusted, nor should either gender be put on a pedestal for their unique perspective or approach. It is what it is and you know where you are drawn to serve better and where you are finding the field vacant, barren and unlovely.

Some of this comes from the maternal instinct, but not all.  There are other instincts at play here. The spirit of intuition is alive and well in the ministry involved in social situations that deal with relationship problems and what relationship does not have occasional problems to be drawn together as like minds is a gift and to stay together as compatible friends and associates, while still a gift, also requires the work that any relationship would require so as not to take undue advantage of the other’s or to assume privileges which are not yours to take. The qualities of empathy and compassion are always uppermost in your dealings with troubled waters, be they relationships with your long-term adult friends, your young, or the young of your associates, and indeed of your associates themselves. If you cannot approach a relationship glitch with empathy and compassion, then stay out of it. If you can find no real sympathy with the individual, it is probably best for you to pass.

Many times people will prevail upon you either directly or indirectly (passively or aggressively) and so you are left with a sense of responsibility or duty which may well not be yours but one which has been thrust upon you by those who would see you make a choice, ideally you would make a choice which was in support of their concern.  This is really politics, not friendship, and here I will say that both are viable forms of association but it helps you to know which is which because you may well answer differently depending upon whether you feel it is political or personal, which draws you, which compels you, which instigates more emotional response in you, which do you feel compelled to act upon and which do you feel you need to detach from?

Detachment is a marvelous key in Human Associations, in relationships. The value of detachment provides an automatic time out. You have cut the ties to the emotionality of the situation, be it personal or political. Entering stillness from a detached perspective will more likely render you a judgment of non-involvement, such as ‘Don’t worry about it,” “It’s none of your business,” “His will be done,” “Move along,” -- those kinds of responses from your Mentor (or your superconscious or subconscious or whatever it is that is impressing you with a response to your concerns).

When, on the other hand, you find there is a duty involved in the situation, you need to ascertain the clear boundaries of that duty. Is it to take over the entire situation? Is it to take over one individual? Is it to take control of one attitude or issue? Once you have determined what your business is and what it isn’t, then you have a lot of peace and a lot of latitude and can allow Human Associations to go on at great length without losing energy investing in one aspect of it or another.

Someone coming along without conscientious time spent in meditations like these, coming in off the street as it were, outraged or indignant, sickened or depressed about something they encountered ‘out there,’ which may or may not have a personal connection such as a neighbor, a fender, or any number of other connect-the-dots that would add to the distress, without the ability to sit down and determine what their problem is about it, are actually inclined to think it is ALL their problem to deal with and so they throw themselves into it wholly and fully.

They lose everything, including their wisdom, in order to tackle this job that they now feel righteously duty-bound to finish. Naturally, many of these scenarios end in violence or closed doors, some of which may stay closed for generations. Witness the Hatfields and the McCoys or certain neighbors who never speak to each other but never miss an opportunity to observe what the other is up to. They can’t embrace them, and they can’t let them go. There is no love, there is no real loathing, it’s just an impasse and the planet is filled with those kinds of impasses that are going nowhere, truly holding up the house of cards that has been built by that kind of mentality.  So what do we do with you people who have set out to build a better bird’s nest, a better bread box, a better scenario for your relationships with humanity? One that you may participate in and contributed to, appropriate to yourself at this time in your life, with its many mitigating circumstances and ramifications, not to eliminate costs. What are you to do when blood is thicker than water, so thick it is like glue that gloms onto you, as it were, in such a way that you can’t lift your feet from the floor, you can’t take your hands from the wall. Everything is so sticky and cloying. There is nothing you can do in such an environment, under such circumstances, it is entirely too enmeshed. Better you detach completely and move to a distant city and communicate by letters or emails.

People will determine their own availability to be involved in healthy relationships. Only you can determine what a healthy relationship is for you. We look around and see some very unfortunate liaisons. Many of them are involved in drug users and uneducated types who develop techniques of stealing from other people that becomes their profession, be it fraud or outright thievery, they teach their children how to live this way because their parents taught them this way. Some of those situations involve sex trade and so children are introduced to that life style by their parents who perhaps cannot afford to raise them and so they sell them.  These anecdotes that we see here in your midst are trouble enough. We don’t need to go too far to find such dysfunction as racism, sexism, and a number of other very unfortunate behaviors that degrade the human condition, such that even being around them is enough to make you feel sullied and sordid by simply knowing they exist. And though you detach, you wonder how can you serve?

Well, my dears, there are those who have the constitution for it and there are those who don’t. There are many who start out not believing they are going to get involved in such bleak circumstances but life takes them down that street and the choices they make allow them to pursue their course, be it to destruction or to justice. I point this out to say that your concerns are the simple concerns of family and friends. They are not the concerns of agencies and governments, in the interest of war or sex trade, and so to that extent you are most fortunate.

Even as these situations you encounter are less than fun and far from wholesome, anyone who is depressed, thinking of suicide, anyone who is frustrated, thinking of a fix, anyone who is poor, thinking for a way out, are all scenarios which you are completely free to get close to and render your opinion, your advice, and you may occasionally be successful. You may also occasionally get snookered or scammed in the process but you will learn either how to do it better next time or not to ever do that again. And this same things that I am telling you here at this table today are the same things I could tell the people in the lives that you care about, that act in these ways, that cause you to pray and meditate and look for divine guidance insofar as how to be of service, what to say, when to get involved, and when not to.

You are developing wisdom in the process; you are allowing yourself to raise yourself as a child of faith to an adult spirit. It is the work of character building; it is the work of the field. I am very proud of you. I am very pleased to be invited into your company. You surely realize that your concerns are our concerns and as we work together for our mutual concerns for the uplifting of humanity, we are unified, and our harmony is heard on Havona.

Let’s take a break while this large insect [leaf blower] passes by.  [Laughter]  

[RECESS]

Gerdean:  We know you have been listening to this, Merium, and we thought we would like to have Athena come in and talk to us about our creative ways and means and so we don’t want you to go away; we’d like you to stay so that we can have even a bigger tea party, and before that, we want to thank you for your words today. It’s all good counsel. You are a good friend. Thank you.

I asked to have you come in, Athena, because I am working again on the continuance of the series that I’ve started, with your help, the one on the Advent of the Supernals.  What do you think of it so far?

ATHENA:  Well, there is not much to say about it so far. You have much further to go so I will just say, it’s looking good, coming out of the gate, but you haven’t even gone around the track once, so let’s not get bogged down in how it goes today, at least not before you’ve gone a little father, but I am quite excited about it. I think you’re getting the hang of it. You are out of practice. This T/R’ing has made you soft. You just let us do the teaching and you have no part to play in it, but in writing you have a serious part to play; you have to make it look like a novel.

I know.  I have heard that Timothy Wyllie’s technique is to allow his Mentor to tell the story, to virtually tell the story, and that is definitely a means by which the work can be accomplished but even so he has to have it in his head before it can come out on the page. You can’t transmit what you haven’t got. If you are not going to transmit something direct from the Spirit, you have to embellish it with your mortal consciousness. This is a lot what has to do with co-creation, the co-creative aspect of mortals and invisibles working together, the spirit and the flesh. If it’s all Spirit, that’s one thing; if it’s all mortal, that’s another, but when you attempt to bridge the gap, when you attempt to have one foot in heaven and one on earth and convey it in such a way that other earthlings can make sense of it, then you are riding high.  And catching their interest is not difficult, providing they don’t get vertigo from riding so high.

I think you are doing good to set up the framework as it is, and I appreciate your allowing me to help direct the paradigm we’ve chosen.  Your work station seems to be your greatest obstacle. Writing a book on a computer is a different exercise for you. You basically wrote the Zooid Mission on a typewriter and you had free pages, free-floating pages such that you could cut and paste, move them around, add to, take from, and have them in your hands, whereas in the computer when you cut and paste and move things around they are not so evident and you tend to get lost.  Such is the way of your brain.

It is another drawback that you feel you need to work in such a tight format as the finished product. That is entirely unnecessary.  It puts you in a position of being -- I will use the phrase ‘creatively constipated’.  Everything being that tight, you really do need to get loose, even if it means writing four or five pages and calling it quits. Printing those 4 or 5 pages and setting them aside, you have those 4 or 5 pages then that are the full size (8 ½ by 11, double spaced), which will enable you to go back and edit it manually, which is your preferred way, and there is nothing then imprisoning you in the format. If you have a chapter or a segment you want to write about, you can do that without it having to be the next scheduled sector. As long as in the end they are all in the right place. It doesn’t matter as you are writing the book if they are in the right place or not.

As you know, there will be materials added as you go along and there will be materials, no doubt that will end up on the cutting room floor but all that aside, I think you are doing fine. The fact is, you are doing it, and it is beginning to look like a book. It is beginning to look like something I can take pride in. I am eager to direct the next increment but I can’t do that until you finish this one. You are on Chapter 4; let’s get moving on Chapter 5. I have some things I want to say.  And I will dedicate myself to helping you as often as you can find time to spend on this worthy project. Let’s make it a goal that you finish it and that you publish it before you leave for Mansonia. That would work out well for me.  

Gerdean:  Me too

Friends:  Me, too! Me too!

ATHENA:  Well, what else do we have going on here, my lovely friends? You are all creative and eager to play so what do you enjoy playing with. Of course, Elena plays the piano and plays it well!  She doesn’t just play it, she experiences it and so does everyone who watches her play and enjoys her music. She’s a one man band, a full-bodied performer.

Elena:  I’m doing a lot more accompanying right here in Rio Rancho and I feel that is a spirit led thing, giving me an opportunity to work with kids, and I’m just having a lot of fun with them. I think that’s a really good thing and I’m also excited about the two solos that I am playing in the Christmas concerts: “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”  I feel strongly about the selection of that piece.  I feel strongly that I was guided to that piece.  And “Toyland” is equally compatible with me. Everyone I’ve mentioned it to, takes it back to their childhood as a magic time.  I looked up the words on that and it’s a kind of a melancholy thing, about childhood passing, and looking backward, so that’s kind of an interesting thing.  And I am kind of concerned about arthritis that is popping up, so anything you would like to say or feedback about that would be just great.

ATHENA:  You are obviously one of Santa’s helpers [Laughter] bringing tremendous gifts to the children. The fact that you are working with children is a calling in itself. These young minds are in need of encouragement and uplifting. You, of course, are a natural, and so this can do nothing but serve the conservative community of Rio Rancho the idea of Toyland speaking to children of young and old is a way to bond parent and child in the magic of Christmas. It should make for a musical cornucopia.

Elena:  Any suggestions as to what I might be doing, or if I am on the right tract?

ATHENA:  Oh, you are definitely on the right track, but just stay open to all the opportunities you can find. Avail yourself.  If you avail your attitude and people can approach you, you may find that you can extend and expand your giving to other events like birthday parties and reunions.

Elena:  I put out a feeler to the hospital to play for people in pain and I didn’t get a follow up on that so ….

ATHENA:  You may want to talk to Phyllis after I hang up. She has some experience with that.

Music is a wonderful gift, and to spread such a gift has an impact on everyone. Sad music, happy music, dancing music, crying music, hugging music, or cheerful music, music is a language and you serve well by having many words in your musical vocabulary.  Surround yourself with music-makers and those who like to sing so that you can impromptu at the drop of a hat, take advantage of an occasion, call up 4 or 5 of these with their kazoo or fife and drums and descend upon a Saturday afternoon soiree or a Sunday evening candlelight communion. It is always appropriate to be musical. Angels sing. They blow the trumpets.

Elena:  Anything about my hands?

ATHENA:  Ah, my dear, your hands will likely go the way of all flesh. This world is so brief and it takes a toll no matter what. Consider yourself fortunate to be in a dry climate; it could be much worse where the humidity and dampness soak into the bones early on in life, twisting and distorting your tree and its limbs such that you would hardly recognize yourself by this time.  There are drugs you can take to alleviate the pain and distress. There are other ways and means of using minerals and supplements to extend the elasticity in your wrists and strengthening your bones.  Massage your muscles lovingly.  Keep your hands warm so that they don’t become brittle from the inside out. Keep the marrow of your bones warm and happy.

Elena:  I appreciate that.  I appreciate your words.

ATHENA:  Before we leave that topic, I would like to see you also continue in some of your artistic electives—your paperwork, the idea of accessories or scarves or placemats or nativity scenes or any of a number of things that would charm you for a while that you would be able to share with others. One of the things about art is that it has such variety. And since your main thrust is music, give yourself encouragement and a holiday from your mainstay by dabbling in some of these other venues. In this way you always have something creative on your front or back burner around which you can bounce and keep lively.

Elena:  Well, thanks.  I appreciate that.  I will!  It’s nice to be exposed to you.  Thank you.  Nice to meet you, in other words.

ATHENA: I am always glad to meet those who are dedicated to art one way or another. What have we got for you today, Phyllis?

Phyllis:  I have no idea.  I love beauty of all kinds, especially nature, and that is being presented to me constantly, so I like to spend a lot of time on that.  I’m also aware – music is my thing.  I couldn’t live without it.  So I need to participate in singing to heal my soul, and play with others. But one that doesn’t usually get included as an art is listening.  People can converse together and I am absolutely astounded by what they have to tell me. It’s often people that are disconnected; there are also people from other countries, people that might believe something that nobody else does.  It might be a serious thing where they have been afraid to speak.  That’s what shows up when I walk out the door.

ATHENA:  That is tapping into a very serious need in people. They need to be heard. Many people are not paid attention to. They are disregarded and their words or ideas have been dissed as well.  That is a very discouraging thing to a creative person, to have their artistic bent decried, disdained, or ignored.  Creativity does not necessarily come in the painting of pictures or the making of music. It comes in many ways.  Cake decorating, gardening, flower arranging. Many, many fields of ministry are in fact artistry.  Not only is the making of dolls artistry, so is the idea of dressing up a baby as if s/he were a doll and taking their picture. That presents artistry. They are only that little for a very short time. Why not have them look like a character instead of just a pretty blob of babyhood? I encourage the introduction of their ego, their personality, as soon as possible.  And find out what it is they like to do, what they gravitate toward, and when you find that, encourage that, as compared to discouraging it by saying, “Oh, no, no; don’t put that in your mouth, it will poison you.” “Oh, no, no; don’t pick that off the floor, it’s got germs on it.” Oh, no, no; don’t pick that off the lady’s dress, she needs it.”  Babies do things -- and I’m speaking here not just of infants but babes, newbies, innocents.  They investigate things from a naïve sense of wonder. Encourage that sense of wonder. It opens up places in their mind that gives them somewhere to go, that exercises the mind that reaches for the spirit. It tells a child what has allure for it and what it finds totally dull and interesting.

Cultivate the creative nature in the children, not just to act by rote but to manifest spontaneity and commend them for what they do that is right and good, even if in the next breath, you must say ‘that was wonderful!’ but you cannot do that now. Now, we must do this” so that the child is informed and educated that that is a good thing but that disciplines are also necessary. Disciplines, in fact, lead to good things. Disciplines are not just a bore. There is always a reward for discipline. Effort does not always produce joy, but there is no real happiness without intelligent effort, and so seeing the eager young minds, wanting to be creative, and helping them invest themselves intelligently in the process of creativity will give them happiness and teach them how to do it better, and sometimes, as you know with creativity, if it’s a dud, do something different with it and maybe you will have created something altogether genius.  Necessity is the mother of invention.

Not all children are so gifted. They may have creativity but their creativity may be in mechanics; it may be in farming; it may be in rudimentary work like sewing, but even these humble acts are artistic in that they augment and enhance life. What they do, matters.  And oh how little creative types love to be acknowledged for what they have discovered or demonstrated or performed or given, which is their act of service.

I am winding down my words for you this afternoon. I have certainly enjoyed myself. Thank you for inviting me. I hope I have not bored you and thank you, Merium, for sharing your platform with me.

Elena: Well, I enjoyed hearing from both you of you. It’s just been great. Thank you, Merium and thank you Athena. It’s just been wonderful.

MERIUM:  Are there any other questions before we sign off for the day?  This is Merium, your hostess.

Group:  Thank you.

MERIUM:  It has been our pleasure. Thank you for pursuing the path of our natural philosophy involving divinity and mortality.  Such a fun sphere we enjoy! Our best to all those with whom you work and play.  And we’ll see you another time.  Bye-bye!
END