This is Starlight Journal's 2008 Summer edition
An Interview with Author Sheranda Tay ~ An Honest Talk with Mary Magdalene:
Freedom Through Christ Consciousness
Peggy:
Sheranda, I enjoyed reading An Honest Talk with Mary Magdalene: Freedom Through Christ Consciousness. Are you the author?
Sheranda:
Yes, I am. I used the pen-name Sara Heartsong for the book. My twenty-two-year-old passion for researching the subject of Mary Magdalene, inspired me to write the book. It contains channeled information that I received through deep introspection.
Peggy:
How do you feel about other people’s perspectives about Mary Magdalene that differ from your own views?
Sheranda:
Mary Magdalene is a most powerful archetype of our times. I truly honor all perspectives about Mary Magdalene, because she is a mirror for the spiritual growth of many. To be a Mary Magdalene educator requires a completely non-judgmental attitude towards other people’s feeling about her. Mary Magdalene would like to stress that she is not wanting people to worship her. The Ascended Masters are quite tired of all the worship. They wish to foster each individual to love themselves enough to embark upon the path of Ascension in these fast changing times.
Peggy:
Is your new book doing that, through the messages of Mary Magdalene?
Sheranda:
I hope it will. I have many plans to promote the book. I can tell you a wonderful story about how two of my best friends are enjoying the book.
Peggy:
Please do tell.
Sheranda:
Well there is standing room only in Tom and Debbie’s bedroom at night!
Peggy:
Ok, could you enlighten me?
Sheranda:
I would love to. My dear friends are very spiritually connected to each other and they meditate and read to each other at night, before they go to bed. Since they started reading An Honest Talk with Mary Magdalene: Freedom Through Christ Consciousness, there is standing room only in their bedroom at night because the Spirits and Angels are so delighted and excited about this new book! They crowd around Tom and Debbie and look over their shoulders as they read from the book. They dance, laugh and play and then Tom and Debbie must ask them to simmer down and let them go to sleep afterwards!
Peggy:
That is delightful! What about the website Sheranda? Does the book have its own website? What about UTube? Does the book have any UTube video promotions?
Sheranda:
Yes, we are working on a UTube video. The book does not have its own website yet, but please do visit my website which is www.angelmatrix.info. The book’s blog is www.marymagdaleneunveiled.blogspot.com.
Peggy:
Have you thought about doing any workshops about healing through Mary Magdalene’s energy?
Sheranda:
Yes and I am developing a workshop right now that will be very affordable for people to attend. They will be in Weaverville, California and maybe I will have some in Arcata. The cost of the three-hour workshop will be $25.00 per person.
Peggy:
What does Mary Magdalene want us to know it these times?
Guides
by Shelley Wiseberg
I hear my name being called, through the whispers of the wind.
They are trying to tell me something, in a spiritual message.
I have heard them calling me in the background,
humming in meditative chant like a song from heaven.
They watch over me in a group of angels,
studying me from afar to see how I am doing, on the earth plane.
I feel them near me when I am awake, or when I am asleep.
Deep conversations of soul travel, through the astral plane,
reaching me with their wisdom.
Shortly before May of 2007, I had the following dream: I was in the Andes. The air was crystal clear. I was with two Paqo's (Paqo is the Q'ero/Quechua word for their shaman).
One of the Paqo's looked up into the sky and saw what they thought was a condor. I could see nothing. Then I could make out the speck in the high sky that I recognised as a condor.
We watched as it flew down closer, then saw, as it descended, a man in white, with a white beard and white hair, everything blowing the strong wind.
The Paqo said that it was a great shaman who could fly. The dream ended.
My associations to this dream are numerous and personal. Suffice it to say here that it came one year to the day after a first-time visit to Peru, although I did not come into direct contact with any shamans during that trip, so far as I knew.
The Rockies
~ Gayle Parker (copyright 2001)
How I envy your soul taking in the rich clear sunshine upon your days
I yearn to share in the glory of the mountainside
when alone becomes the goddess in all things
I see the stars at night falling gently upon my nose
oh yes they are that close
I am electrified by their motion
I fall upon my back to worship their magnificence I am as high as they
perhaps I am just high from the life here
My work is now play as I bask in the almightyness of this countryside
so colorful it explodes into eternity
sharing its positive plight with all who care to stop and see
I am the eternal goddess of the high
to drink in my pleasure you must be invited to stay
I can only join those who appreciate
There is a wonder about me that the chosen can see
It is the cause and effect of all nature
I am in tune to the very depths of this world and beyond Negativity
is no more in my arena of sharing with all
Love is eternal manifest and all deserve
if they can spare the time to look me in the eye
I am the star that winks at your inner beauty
I hold your beauty in the palm of my hand
I breathe for you the alpine air as we retreat from the race
and slow our mind which unites in pure resplendence
The dream of the colors emerging comes true
and the reality nears in this above-the-world-playground for you and me
I was told that I had to have an operation immediately, and that if I lived through the operation, I might come out of it a quadriplegic. When I asked if I had time for a second opinion, I was told that if I coughed or sneezed at that time, I might die. Naturally, I agreed to have the operation in a few hours.I realized that, according to what the doctors said, I might be dead in a few hours.
I went through the stages that many people go through when they know they are about to die. First, there was the sense that this was a movie set, and that these things were not really happening to me. I found myself negotiating with the circumstances, bargaining if I could for something different to happen. Slowly, the realization that it was real and happening to me came closer and closer, until I had to emotionally accept that I might very soon be dead.
When I accepted the unacceptable, my body shook violently as an intensity of energy moved through me. I opened more and more to it, and after one or two very long minutes it was complete. I felt a calm inside that I had not known before. All my senses were sharper. My vision was clearer. Colors were brighter. Hearing was clearer. Sensations were more alive.
I realized that I had released a perceptual filter that had been standing between me and the experience of life, and ironically, it had been the fear of death. Now that I had released that fear, I was experiencing more of life, more of being alive, even if just for a short while longer.
I thought about life I had lived, and the things I could have done but didn't, and I found myself saying to myself, "I wish I had." There were a lot of "I wish I hads." I thought to myself that it was, in fact, a sad way to end a life, and that if I had to do it again, there would be a lot of "I'm glad I dids."
I had to decide what I wanted to do with the short time I had left. If I spent my remaining time worrying or feeling bad about what was, in fact, inevitable, I would have just wasted the rest of my life, thrown it away, and it was too valuable for that. I decided to spend my remaining time feeling good, and just thinking of things that helped me to feel good - the color of the paint on the walls, the smell of flowers in the room, anything positive.I knew I could always find something.
Finally, the time came. I was taken to the operating room, and as I was being given the anesthetic, I thought that this might be the last experience I would ever have. I had no idea what might come afterwards. I had been agnostic, with no beliefs, believing in nothing that I had not experienced.
Perhaps the next step after death was just oblivion. I let go. I began to experience a vertigo, a sense of spinning, and it didn't feel good, so I stabilized myself in the center of it until I was still, and everything else was spinning around me. I was moving through spinning scenes which were memories from the life I had lived, memories which were calling for my attention.
If I put my attention on them, though, I felt myself "pulled," because I was moving through these spinning memories as if being pulled through a tunnel or falling down a well, but discovering that half-way down the well that reaching for the walls would not work. My only hope would be to aim for the water at the bottom.
Then I had to withdraw my attention from these memories and put my attention on the place to which I was being drawn, aiming for it. I was headed there anyway, but aiming for it gave me more of a sense of being in the driver's seat, and that was a lot more comfortable for me.
It was a bit like riding a roller coaster in the front car, and pretending that you're driving the thing along the tracks. It gives a totally different ride, I can assure you, than being swept out of control. The ride was long, but I had nothing else to do but go for it.
Finally, the end of the tunnel was in sight. I came out into a stillness where there was a glow of energy addressing me. It was like a spark of life, energy glowing with intelligence, not in a human form, just pure consciousness. It seemed that some distance away, there was another spark just observing the scene. I felt as though I were having an exit interview, something like, "Well, your trip is over now, so complete things in your consciousness about that, and we'll move on."
I looked back and saw my life as I had lived it, completed my thoughts about things that had happened, understood a lot of things differently, and then expressed that I was ready. The Being began to move away. I began to follow, and then I paused.
The Being quickly asked me what the thought was that had just entered my consciousness. I had thought that it would be a shame for my daughters to have grown up without their father in their life. I had spent a large part of my life without my father in it, and I would have liked my daughters to not have to have experienced that.
Anyway, I was ready to go. The Being said that, because my reason for wanting to return was for the sake others besides myself, I would be allowed to return. Before I had the chance to express that I didn't really want to return, there was a rapid, confused movement; something happened -- the other spark which had been "observing" was somehow a part of it -- and then I was waking up in this body in traumatic pain, with intense drama going on around me in the hospital.
I felt as if I had just jumped into a movie that had been underway, but I felt that I had not been the one in this body before this moment. Because of the trauma and the drama, my attention was directed to things happening in the physical world, and the memory of what had happened before was somehow obliterated. I had other things happening which were demanding my attention, and besides, I did not have the belief systems that would allow me to accept what had just happened.
Over the next year, I began to explore ideas and philosophies about which I had had no experience heretofore. I read books like "Life After Life," and "Life After Death," and other writings which described what people called, "Near Death Experiences," and I began to remember what had happened. I saw the similarities to what others had experienced, and I knew then what had happened to me.
I thought also of the similarities to what we consider the "normal" birth process, where babies are born into bright lights and loud sounds and being slapped, and perhaps, their attention is so much directed to outer things that they forget their inner experiences just before the process of being born.
From time to time, I meet others who have made the trip, and we compare notes. "What was it like for you?" One woman said that before, she was certain there would be a Being on the other side with a big book, looking at what she had and had not done, and making checks and crosses, good marks and bad marks.
When she got to the other side, there really was a Being there with a big book, just as she thought there would be. The only bad marks she got, though, were for the things that she hadn't done. Her only sin was self-denial.
My diagnosis on leaving the hospital was "Spinal Cord Tumor." There was no treatment possible. I was given one or two months to live, and I decided to do that living my new philosophy of "I'm glad I did." I decided to work on myself, working in my consciousness to release the tumor. Later, the doctors decided that they must have made a mistaken diagnosis. But that's another story.
© Martin Brofman 1988
Silence.
And then a sound.
Barely audible at first, the sound grew into a gentle humming, almost musical. It continued to build, filling the silent void until it felt as if time itself would burst from the beauty of its resonance. As attention was focused, the reverberations congealed into scattered words and partial sentences. “Can’t get a pulse…We’re losing her…”
It had been so long since she could recall not hurting, physically and emotionally. She’d forgotten how it felt for her mind to be free of rage and fear. Now those feelings had evaporated in an instant as if they’d never existed. Her mind was clear and alert, watchful and observant.
Time ceased to matter. She watched with fascination as nurses and technicians rushed around a motionless form on the gurney beneath her. There was something so familiar about it! As she directed her attention to the inert body, she immediately recognized the figure.
That’s me! Yet the person on the gurney was separate and inanimate, not really her at all. It was the oddest thing. She felt absolutely no fear. It was as if she were wholly herself for the first time, without attachment to any of the troubles that had plagued her miserable existence she’d so long inhabited.
A sense of peace filled her, a peace that she had longed for, a peace she had never before known in her life. She instinctively felt the light before she saw it. It filled the spaces within and around her, emanating from everywhere at once and nowhere in particular.
It filled every atom of her being with a bliss that was beyond words. Forgotten was the body laying below in the emergency room, barely hanging on to its life. An incredible sense of freedom overcame her, expanding her heart, breaking through the thick crust of pain.
She felt more alive than she’d ever felt before. Opening herself completely to the exquisite joy of it, her ravaged spirit was instantaneously healed and reborn, as her soul drank in the nectar of pure joy emanating from the Limitless Light. Oh, how magnificent, how exquisite-the perfection of it all!
Her spirit sang with wondrous jubilation. She became a heart so swollen with love that it enveloped the Universe. She WAS the Universe and she was pure unconditional love. I AM. That was all the truth there was to know. I AM That I AM. In every form and in all dimensions, One Truth expressed through infinite patterns of manifestation, reflecting back the absolute, unalterable fact… We are One.
It was so clear, so simple. It was a truth beyond question, beyond explanation. All that is or ever was I AM. And we are One. It’s so perfect, she marveled, as the feeling permeated every aspect of her awareness. All of it; pain, pleasure, good, bad. None of these have any genuine existence by themselves. Yet together, they become perfection rediscovered.
She saw it all so clearly in her mind’s eye. It amazed her how she hadn’t seen it before. They all combine together to make a life-stew, deliciously rich with flavor and texture. They harmonize to create the Greatest Symphony of all, the all-embracing song of life. She felt her heart laugh with the lightness of a feather. She finally got it-the greatest cosmic joke of all-- the notion that we are so small and vulnerable when actually we are unrealized perfection, without limit.
She became aware of a voice forming within the angelic sounds that swirled and danced around her. The voice spoke with the exquisite sweetness of undeniable love. “Dear One,” it sang... “I am filled with joy to see you. I know it has not been an easy life this time around. Yet there is much happiness still ahead for she whose role you chose to play. You are so dearly cherished, Beloved One, and we’ve never abandoned you. We are a part of you, and you are a part of us.”
The love that filled her heart was nearly unbearable. Who are you?, she wondered. “I am your Guardian Angel, Muriel. We have been together through many life journeys. Do you not know me?”
Eyes filled with liquid sadness. “How could I know you? You’ve never shown yourself to me before.”
“Angels are always present and on call, Beloved. We cherish our dear terrestrial brothers and sisters with a pure and fervent love. When asked for help, we respond instantly, though not always in the way one would expect. But you must make the effort to ask. And if you don’t make clear your requests we cannot take clear action.”
“As a child I prayed for help every night, crying until my eyes were swollen and red. Where were you then?”
A soft smile teased the corners of the angel’s rose-kissed lips. “Do you not recall the time I appeared to you at the foot of your bed?”
Suddenly she had a vision as vivid as any experience had ever been. The bedroom of her childhood appeared, dark and dreadful, the air stale with a mixture of urine and desperate fear. She saw a vision of herself as a small child, huddled under the sheets, shivering with terror. The small face that peeked out was wet with tears.
She’d awakened earlier that night from another horrible nightmare, screaming out in panic for her mother. Mother had responded, tired and angry, by slapping her daughter smartly across the cheek and yelling at her to shut up and go back to sleep, then left, slamming the bedroom door behind her. Unable to go back to sleep, she lay under a heap of bedding, barely breathing.
The child’s sea-blue eyes seemed to grow bigger in her tiny face as she peered out from beneath the covers. A light appeared at the foot of her bed, and as she watched, it brightened in intensity, and slowly condensed into the outline of a floating body. Panic overtook the little girl. Only the reminder of her stinging cheek kept her from calling out in hysteria for her mother.
Instead she spoke in a tremulous voice. “Please go away. You’re scaring me. Leave me alone and don’t come back!” As the child clenched shut her eyes and held her breath, afraid to make even the slightest of sounds, the light began to fade. And when she dared to look again, there was only darkness.
The bedroom scene faded away just as rapidly as it had appeared, leaving behind an understanding she’d not before realized. You’re right. I shut you out with my fear, Amanda admitted.
“I didn’t mean to scare you, dear one.” Muriel spoke with tenderness. “And I never reappeared to you again, just as you’d asked, though I continued to accompany you on your journey of life. You rarely spoke to me, and when you did your supplications were infused with mixed messages. They can be quite difficult for us simple angels to decipher! You ask for good while you expect the worst. You disparage yourself while praying to be appreciated by others. You search for love never thinking to begin with yourself. It doesn’t make much sense to us.”
The being, known in this life as Amanda, reached out with an open heart to her angel and felt the two of them merge into a supreme unity, one phenomena of light and love, and she knew that they had always been together, veiled behind names and masks, yet forever one. I am home!