How We Create a Beautiful World

Anne Mason and Thea Mason

Thea shares a Spacial Dynamics exercise:

TRANSCRIPT:

Anne (00:01):

Okay. Hi Thea.

Thea (00:02):

Hi Anne.

Anne (00:04):

Hi everyone. It’s been another wild week after a wild year. Wild several weeks. Who knows what wild weeks we’ll see ahead of us, but we want to do a very brief chat here and talk about what we can do about that, what to do about that and how do we navigate? And you and I were sharing, Thea, a few quotes that were resonating with us recently. So why don’t you start with one you’ve got.

Thea (00:43):

Yep. So you know “Lord of the Rings” being one of my favorite stories ever, through our conversations, I was reminded of when Gandalf says, I believe it’s to Frodo when Frodo sort of can’t believe that he can make a difference. How can someone so small make a difference? And Gandalf said, “Some believe that it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I’ve found. I have found it is the small things every day deeds by ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay.”

Anne (01:29):

And following on that, at least the way I see––so I’m a member of the Association for Research and Enlightenment, which is the Edgar Casey Institute, Edgar Casey having been what they call “The Sleeping Prophet.” One of the quotes I love in the recent magazine that was sent to me is, “Peace must begin within self before there can come action or self-application in a way to bring peace––even in thy own household, in thine own vicinity, in thine own state or nation.”

Anne (02:23):

And there’s one other quote, “Embedded in the tiny everyday choices that beckon toward kindness and love is the essence of the Casey work: our oneness with God, our highest self, our oneness with each other.” This is from an article written by Leslie and Corinne Casey. And “We souls have a sacred charge to turn toward others, to serve, to cultivate loving compassion.”

Anne (02:54):

And following on all of that, I want to advise and reassure folks that it really works. It really works to meditate, to pray, to cultivate in our individual spheres a harmony. And that harmony rays out, like you say, Thea. It rays out. And I find that when I do that, even in these tumultuous times and these tumultuous weeks, as I’ve been putting my intention toward that just a few minutes a day, it is flowing. My reality and life experience is flowing beautifully. Harmoniously, abundantly, positively. And connections are being made with others in beautiful and wondrous ways. And I do believe that this is a message that we’re getting from many angles from people who are more tapped in than I am, in terms of having been practicing this for a long time and even more tapped into these universal truths. What I see is that there is a lot of––I see it all as kind of fakery when we watch all that’s going on in the large, macro scale. And that can be anxiety producing if we really get caught up in it. We have control over ourselves and this sphere. We have control over what we focus on. We have control over our thoughts and our energies, where we are putting our energy. That’s what we have control over. We have control over how we choose to respond to the world.

Thea (05:16):

Well, and with that, I would just simply add, a teacher of mine––I believe I may not quote him precisely––but says, “Where we put our attention is where we are.” And so, that simplified is this opportunity where we’re out in the world, in the media world, in actions, in the world, there is so much that is disturbing and we must guard our own spaces in such a way that we do not become disturbed as we see and hear in the broader sphere. Because we have to do the work to shine clear and bright in order to help to transform outward throughout the world.

Anne (06:14):

Right. It’s almost more important than ever when it seems very chaotic out there for us to be even more grounded and centered and stay the course in order to bring it back into balance. Not be led by that, but we will lead it in each of our individual ways. And I don’t know if I said this on camera already, or we talked about it beforehand, but I kind of visualize it as if it’s, you know, billions of spheres of light all over the earth surface. Of each of us harmonizing in this beautiful light. If we’re all doing that, how can that not be transformative? How can that not be incredibly powerful? That will transform, that will create the world that we’re being ushered into and ushering in.

Thea (07:19):

I think just those two places of it––ushering in and being ushered into––so they are going along with one another and there’s a relationship there. And so there is responsibility, a lot of self responsibility to take steps and choose the movements we want to bring into the world with intention, and with a state of being that is not a victim to the world.

Anne (07:57):

And it seems as if we have this opportunity now to consciously choose what aspects of our being and managing and existing we want to carry in with us to this new world and what we may want to leave behind too. And almost everyone I’ve spoken with, including myself, have been finding the need to be doing a lot of deep inner work, to recognize patterns that have not served us, that don’t serve us and pave the way and create new patterns that will serve us. And as they serve us, they will serve all of us. So that’s another focusI think right now to have. To identify what’s negative in our coping mechanisms and transform them into positive mechanisms of being and ways of being and interacting.

Thea (09:08):

Well and the sort of a visual that comes to my mind, as you say, that is, as you talk about spheres, these spheres of light, those habits that are grooved into place that don’t serve us or others are sort of shadowy, right? The grooves are shadowy. So there’s some space that doesn’t have the light shining so clearly. And so in the midst of that conscientious, thoughtful work of recognizing patterns and shifting them, even filling them with light is helpful. Even if we can’t quite name the pattern, or we can’t quite say where it comes from, sometimes just filling it up with the light will be helpful and effective.

Anne (10:12):

Because when we shine light on something, we can bring more consciousness to it. And then it becomes clearer to us to identify

Thea (10:19):

And it can change. You know, those are the parts. Even if we’re not able to yet be exactly what we wish to be, if we can make a choice to change something, that enables us to have a sense of freedom to be able to enact a shift. And that’s part of what we’re in right now in time in the world, it seems as well.

Anne (10:46):

I agree. And so with that, do you want to do it on this one or shall we stop this recording and set up?

Thea (10:56):

I think I have to move, and I don’t quite have a space yet, but there is a brief exercise that is a Spatial Dynamics exercise. And it’s one that can be helpful to recognizing the light that shines from within us and the light that shines outside of us as well, and the way in which we can connect with the broader world through our own individual work and gesture.

Anne (11:30):

Okay. And so I love this idea that Thea and I have been talking about, her putting some movements together for me, maybe a few other folks that we know that we can use as,, I was calling it an anchor Thea, but you would call it

Thea (11:46):

Oh what did I say? It was really good. I can’t remember.

Anne (11:53):

It’s a tangible…so in my recommendation that everyone take five minutes when they get up in the morning and don’t get on the phone, don’t get on the computer. Sit with your cup of coffee or tea or whatever it is. Look out the window, look at the wall, look at a beautiful plant.

Thea (12:13):

A candle, if it’s very dark where you are when you awake.

Anne (12:19):

Exactly, a candle. And take five minutes in some form of meditation and stillness and quiet with oneself, with some positive energy focused. And whether that’s in prayer, affirmation, simply meditation…

Thea (12:43):

And movement can be a meditation as well. The way in which we move with intention.

Anne (12:51):

And so she is going to record this movement for me and for all of you to use, to accompany that and to incorporate as part of your very quick, nice, powerful, and positive way to start the day.

Thea (13:08):

And I would add that in the evening before bed is also as powerful a time as the morning. Both, if you can swing it. I think before bed is very powerful because you then take whatever that is that you have stepped into or created in those couple minutes, you take that into your sleep, which is hours of sleep. So a lot can be done in that space. If you go into it with a mindfulness or an intentional something. So, you know, having good habits in the evening are also a really nice place to make a shift.

Anne (13:56):

Thanks for that reminder. Okay. Well, so again, we’ll post this, we’ll end this recording, and then I will post the link to this short movement video that Thea is going to provide us in the same post on the Sacred Osiris page post. Okay. I love you. Love you all.

Thea (14:28):

Thank you.

Choose Love

How do we navigate such division and opposing realities?

Anne Mason and Thea Mason

TRANSCRIPT:

Anne (00:00):

Okay. Hi Thea.

Thea (00:03):

Hi, Anne.

Anne (00:07):

Today we want to talk about an approach to the problem that many people are facing right now.

Anne (00:24):

There’s a struggle that we’re all in. And part of that has to do with the fact that it seems more than ever before––in my lifetime––apparent that there are two distinct realities that people seem to be existing in, two distinct consciousnesses, really. And of course we all vary in our beliefs, in our perceptions, in our philosophies, in our values and more, and we’ve always known that. But I think it’s never been so stark for us, at least of our generation and younger generations, that there is a group of people who truly, earnestly are in terrible fear of a virus and are willing to allow any mandate, it seems, to be issued and to follow and comply with that mandate, no matter how destructive it is, no matter how inhuman it is. And by inhuman, I think objectively, I can say it is inhuman to not hug. It’s inhuman to stifle our breath. No matter how extreme that is, for one reason or another–– and these are good people, these are people I love––they are so desperately afraid that they, will––and I don’t know, maybe in perpetuity––remain isolated and cut off from their fellow human beings in order to hide or think they’re avoiding this virus.

Anne (02:19):

They also seem to be content to allow at least other folks’ businesses to be demolished, their livelihoods to be demolished, and perhaps their own. I don’t know, I haven’t met anyone yet whose business has not been allowed to be run or whose job has been cut, who are in full support of these lockdowns. You know, so there’s that. Then there’s this other side that I belong to, that you belong to who are not afraid of any virus in isolation, who certainly, you know––I find this, madness. I find this insane that we are allowing such destruction of our lives out of fear of a virus. Viruses have existed since we’ve existed, probably before, and are always around and we get sick and we get better. And it is impossible to control a virus in this manner. The only thing we can do is control ourselves, our own health, what we put into our bodies, boosting our immune system, taking our own measures, perhaps avoid someone who is sick. Or not.

Anne (04:00):

So, we’re getting close to a year of this and we’re all cracking in different ways. And I guess I speak to the folks who are frightened of this virus as well, because these folks don’t understand us and we don’t understand them. And it’s been near a year of trying to convince the other side of their misperceptions. And I think we have come to the realization that there’s at this point, at least I think, I think the two camps are firmly entrenched. I do not think a lot of folks who are desperately afraid of this virus are going to shift their perceptions or believe that all of these measures have been in vain. And I don’t think anyone in my camp who has not been afraid of this is going to suddenly be terrified of it and believe that these lockdowns and destruction of lives––suicides––and human life are valid. So where do we go from here?

Thea (05:26):

So can I chime in just a little bit, I think, um, in terms of the picture that you’ve painted, what we can recognize is, I would say on both sides, there are these spaces of experiencing fear. Fear at what’s happening, fear at what’s being done, fear of a virus or, you know, one way or another. And I think what we’re coming to is that it’s really no matter, because each of us are finding ourselves where we’re finding ourselves and what we’re interested in is how to create spaces of peace. And so when there are two streams, so deeply grooved into their own spaces, we may not quite find ways of merging streams, but there may be at least a shared space of what makes that triangle. I guess I’m coming to the form of it.

Thea (06:42):

So we were talking earlier about the different elements of evil and how evil has worked in regards to humanity’s journey through all of the time that we can recollect. And that there are different ways in which that has come to be. And that one of the main things that has happened and tried to happen several times over history is this solidifying or cutting off the human being from that which unites all––which is spirit. I was reading in this very interesting book I’ve been reading that during the time of Constantinople, it had been decreed that man was simply body and soul. And so they had eliminated officially, in some regard, spirit. But luckily that was not held for too long and different thinkers and feelers in communicating with humanity realigned us to spirit. And so in our conversation, it was a little bit––coming to this division of this camp, or this camp is––is a bit that depiction of body/soul. Forgetting that there is that which unites us all. And so I think that’s kind of what our conversation was gearing towards today. While we may not see eye to eye, we can in some way unite in something greater than ourselves. And stop feeding those elements that fear feeds because that’s not getting us anywhere. If we’re here on earth to develop our own humanity, compassion, love, and therefore through that development develop the earth itself towards this transcendence through love.

Anne (09:29):

And let me clarify for myself and for everyone else, so what we were talking about without getting too metaphysical is this idea of some attempt back then to diminish or almost eliminate our awareness of the Trinity and move us into a dualistic consciousness. And you talk about different thinkers having been responsible for helping us reawaken to that Trinity in, in different ways of framing our understandings of our existence and consciousness. And you mentioned Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.

Anne (10:28):

What I’ve been getting very in touch with––and interestingly, I’ve connected to others who seem to be coming at it from different angles, but the same thing––is yes, compassion and love. And for me, getting very in touch with and a greater understanding of the Christ consciousness. And, and I kind of see it as, the Christ consciousness is that spirit of love that runs through us all. And if we are not connected to that, then we do, like you said, we forget that we’re actually all in, can we say swimming in the same ocean, even if we’re swimming, as you had put it, in two very separate currents. There is something that does unite us and something much larger than ourselves and something worth living for. And it reminds me of the inscription that mom had written in that Autobiography of a Yogi that I didn’t find until after her death, for some reason, or I hadn’t seen the inscription or something when she had given me the book. And she said, “Love is the only reality that lasts. It’s the foundation of the atoms of the universe.” And when I am in touch with that, and when I’m in touch with what I feel when I feel the Christ consciousness and the spirit of Christ flowing through me, I am aware so much of this temporal experience. I am aware, I feel this truth, that our struggles and our fears and our challenges are here for us to move through and learn from. And that moves us forward when we can learn from our challenges and overcome our obstacles. But it feels to me that the fear is really of a temporal nature. And we really are in control of it if we choose to be, but that what we’re also here to do is to create love, joy, and that that is eternal.

Thea (13:48):

So with that, a couple of thoughts just came in terms of this division that we are witnessing in different ways. We can be okay with the different ways in which we all live our lives and we can still allow for, and we must still allow for, I shouldn’t say we must, I’ll say, I think it would be good if we allow for each individual to make their choices. You know, it’s important to have the freedom to choose and where things become so challenging is when there are those that are trying to eliminate choice and freedom of, of any people. And this is through time. And when that happens, when that overreach is happening, that’s when resistance is created. And so how do we live through that moment, but to become bigger than ourselves and to tap into love and that which is greater than the one part or the other part? I don’t have any conclusion there, but I think there’s something in that, that we can make our connections with others and still be separate in our individual life, person, body––because somewhere we are united through it all. But we don’t have to give ourselves over to otherness, if that makes sense. I’m not quite full there. And I apologize. It’s not clear.

Anne (16:05):

It’s so tricky. It’s not clear and that’s why we’re talking. I guess one thing I would say is that love and acceptance of the other does not negate the need for us to act purposefully and to manifest what we want to see happen. It doesn’t mean that we don’t work to expand and cast off these limitations of freedom, right?

Thea (16:59):

It’s still necessary to walk our own path. And how else can we exist without allowing for others to have their own existence and flow, and that doesn’t eliminate the need to create the path that we are creating one way or another. So I don’t know.

Anne (17:33):

No, I mean, who knows what’s going to happen, right? I mean, there’s such a division. We don’t know how it’s going to play out on a practical level. Sometimes I think that, I mean, putting it bluntly, whatever your politics are, it’s pretty clear that there’s a division between the way the red States versus the blue States are dealing with this, you know, “this crisis.” And people’s consciousness even about politics is kind of expanding. This dualistic red, blue, so many people who thought they were in the blue are like, “Whoa, I’m aligning way more with people in the red in terms of this aspect of things. But I don’t agree with this aspect of things.” And so a lot is changing and moving for people. People are re-examining so much, but more than anything, people are connecting to those who are sharing their perceptions, and I’m doing it all the time. I’m connecting so much to so many people who I wouldn’t have connected to before, or have these conversations with who are––I mean, it’s wonderful––and who see what I’m seeing. And I think the key is to keep gravitating to those folks in whatever way you can, whether it’s online, whether it’s in-person. And we’ll see what comes of that. If people are going to be forming their own communities, if people are going to be gravitating to certain States who share one reality and the others in the other States. But to not feed the beast that we were talking about.

Thea (19:37):

Yeah. To not feed that dish of fear to anything. And I think another part that we can maybe kind of close with is, how I hold myself to meet another informs very much the meeting itself. So even if, and these are challenges, even if I know that there is a different reality being held, can I hold a space within myself in that meeting for the possibility and the hope that that a light can emerge through these meetings? Not that there’s changing anybody, because none of us respond well to someone trying to change us from the outside. But if we can, if I can hold a space of love, and openness and acceptance, then something new might be born out of that. You know, maybe we get a purple going on with our red and blue.

Anne (20:58):

That’s the key––is that we really must allow a space for possibility of a third path, a third way. Than one or the other, right now.

Thea (21:18):

Because we could stay––and as we’ve seen through history, when the one or the other is, if heels are dug in, then that simply continues on and on. When I’m able to open my eyes and my senses to the wonder of nature that is there around us all the time, it starts to illuminate the spaces that are more muddy as well.

Anne (21:54):

Yeah. And also open and see the glory of each human beings’ capacity for love and friendship, even if they’re holed up in their house for the last nine months, even thinking that I am misguided and selfish or whatever it is. If we can focus on that spark of light and love in folks, then…

Thea (22:30):

Then that’s what grows.

Anne (22:33):

Yeah. Right. So, I know it’s been said in many methodologies and practices not to focus on what it is we don’t want, but to focus on what we do want. So let’s not focus on the fear or really even the insanity that we perceive, but on, and let’s not focus on what divides us, but let’s focus on what unites us each of us. And if we can focus on that, I think that will flesh out another stream that we can’t conceive of right now. And it will certainly also help each one of us to find a peace. And then what I’ll also say as advice––you know I’ve been doing some practice, Louise Hay work, working on a lot of this, acceptance and forgiveness.

Anne (23:43):

And I can’t remember exactly how she puts it in the book, but she describes forgiveness, not as, of course, any kind of condoning someone else’s behavior, or what has happened, what’s transpired between you in the past or transgressions or anything. But forgiveness is letting go. And so I’ve been doing that a lot, almost daily, with so many folks in my life. I don’t really hang on to grudges or anything like that, but as I started this process, I started just thinking of so many people in my life now, and in the past, that I’m I’m just practicing this forgiveness. So that my advice is to forgive everyone that you come into contact with for everything, let go of anything that impedes the flow and accept them, forgive them.

Anne (24:55):

And then finally, I’d like to suggest––again, this is something that’s been said forever––but I remember in one of the Carlos Casteneda books, Don Juan his teacher, Don Juan the shaman is teaching him to essentially wear death right there on your shoulder, so that you are always aware at every moment that you will die. And when we are close to death, when we are connected to that reality, always, it helps us to live this moment fully. So consider it, cause you might die tomorrow. You might die in an hour. If that’s the reality, how do you want to live your life? What do you want to focus on? I want to focus on the love. I want to focus on the love that connects me to my children, to my husband, to all of my loved ones. I want to focus on that. I want to experience that joy and that love, that peace. I want to make things and create things. I want to learn. You want to make, create, cook. Do that. Right?

Thea (26:36):

Yeah. And I would like to add just to close with that picture of forgiveness, acceptance, the more I do that with myself, the more it comes for me with others. The more I see my spaces of balance or tendency, the more I’m able to release it. And, so it’s that inside, outside mirror work I think is pretty profound. And there was something else, but I don’t remember what it was.

Anne (27:11):

Well, it’s a flow, it’s a flow.

Thea (27:14):

The picture I had, if one is wearing death on the shoulder, that allows us to live our life more fully, it’s like living into the edges fully. It’s the picture of raying out into all directions and not leaving shadow spaces. So, you know, those reminders are very helpful. And fear is the opposite, right? Fear is that which contracts us into a smaller, less raying gesture.

Anne (27:53):

So when we were talking yesterday, you referenced, you said it was reminding you of a convocation speech that Jim Carrey had given where he basically just said, “it comes down to a choice between fear and love.” And that’s it, it’s a choice between fear and love. So let’s choose love.

Thea (28:12):

Choose love and ray out. Ray out. Thank you.

Anne (28:21):

Thank you. Okay. ‘Til next time. Love you.

Thea (28:23):

Love you.

Anne (28:24):

Love you all.

Californi-caution

Learn from California veterans.

Anne Mason and Thea Mason

TRANSCRIPT:

Anne (00:00):

Hi, Thea.

Thea (00:06):

Hi, Anne.

Anne (00:06):

So today let’s, let’s talk briefly about some of our experience that we think might be worth sharing with folks. And the perspective it’s provided us having just moved from California. And I want to, first of all, make clear, as you pointed out is important, that we each were planning to move from California for awhile.

Anne (00:40):

These plans were already in place before all this happened this year. And I want to also point out that we were raising our families there. Both my kids were born in California. I was there for 15 years. Thea?

Thea (00:58):

I was there for 20 and all but one of my children were born there, though they were all raised there.

Anne (01:06):

And my husband and I planned certainly to raise our kids to adulthood there in our family home. We did not want to leave the apparent paradise of California, but felt we needed to. I got involved several years ago––what I should also point out is that I think that our perspective is unique to those who have gotten involved in some legislative issues there, and maybe gotten a little bit closer view and perspective on some of what’s been going on there, than folks who have not. Maybe––I mean, of course there are many people who’ve left California and become disenchanted with California for a variety of reasons. There are too many to list. You can take your pick. But I got involved in the mandatory vaccine legislation. In 2012, a law was passed that required parents get a doctor’s signature, a sanctioned health practitioner’s signature, in order to exempt their child from one or two or more, or all vaccines on the schedule, in order…

Thea (02:47):

Which in essence removed the authority of the parent to make health decisions for their children.

Anne (02:58):

Undoubtedly…and be allowed to send their child to school, public, or private or daycare. And then in 2015, I got very actively involved in opposing and trying to prevent another bill that was introduced and did subsequently pass, which eliminated the choice entirely. So parents could no longer exempt their child from one, two, many or all vaccines on the schedule, for personal belief or religious reasons.

Thea (03:49):

Can I ask a question? As far as I understand at that point, and I could be wrong was that it was simply philosophical choice. It seems that California had eliminated the religious choice.

Anne (04:06):

That’s all been kind of under debate. It was not, it was not listed, but religious belief fell under personal belief. Right?

Thea (04:22):

Okay.

Anne (04:25):

But it was under debate and it was scrutinized and it was looked at from many different angles because of the fact that they did not eliminate, technically eliminate the religious exemption in that, you know, we looked at whether or not that could actually be put forth as a legal exemption. Anyway, that’s for another conversation. But bottom line is that after SB277 passed in 2015, you only have the option for a medical exemption in order to send your child to school, public or private or daycare, and that meant that even a two week old infant would not be allowed to attend daycare if they hadn’t been vaccinated with Hep B, which is a sexually transmitted disease, a vaccine ostensibly designed to prevent this, this sexually transmitted disease. I could go on. So we got very involved in that, and that was a real eye opener.

Anne (05:35):

And I’ve written about that. So I won’t go into all of the details in terms of the eye-opening experience that was, and then in 2019, another law was passed SB 276 that I will say for the record, so no one can say I’m speaking falsely––the medical exemption was not eliminated, but it was very restricted so that medical exemptions virtually exist in California in name only now in order for a child to attend school, public or private or daycare. Anyway, we, I also was involved in opposing legislation that was attempting to restrict my rights, as a homeschooling parent, to homeschool my children as I saw fit. And more and more and more. It almost seemed exponentially accelerating, this suppression of our sovereign rights as parents there in California. And I definitely did not want to keep raising my children there.

Thea (07:01):

And can I just throw one just time, space holder? When all of this was happening was in the midst of the big “Me Too boom” in the country. And it somehow never seemed to be able to become congruent with people who shout out “my body, my choice.” That only applies to something that externally is taken from you rather than something that is forcibly put upon you––and that is such a divide of understanding. So that was simultaneously happening. I think it just gives a picture of something ludicrous.

Anne (07:59):

That’s a good point to make, and on so many levels and on so many issues, there was so much that was incongruent. And so many of us that were actually working, petitioning––I wrote about this recently, after SB277 was passed in 2015, there was an effort to get a referendum to get that repealed, to get that on the ballot, but you need a certain number of signatures. And so many of us all over the state were you know, standing out front our markets, going to farmer’s markets, going to all sorts of public places to petition and talk to people about this law that most didn’t know about and try to get their signature to get this on the ballot so that the people decide this. And in that, that experience I’ve written about was the most eyeopening of them all.

Anne (09:02):

I realized that people were not very capable of having an actual critical discussion about the issue, but were parroting soundbites that they were reading in the mainstream press about this particular issue. And I started realizing that there was a very high level of indoctrination here at work. I call it brainwashing. Folks that I had previously considered thinking, critical thinkers, intelligent people––and what I’ll point out is we both lived in very educated, concentrated centers of California. And I mean, California itself was very known for being progressive and forward-thinking about health and alternative health and natural health and healthy living. And many of us were rudely awakened to the fact that that mentality was no longer part of the consciousness really. Only in surface, kind of name only––people still went to the organic food stores, but…

Thea (10:43):

It was living in the feel-good way. I think there’s something to that.

Anne (10:52):

It’s just all superficial. People wear it on their sleeve and they––you just brought up the Me Too thing, or basically identity politics. What I saw in California was that people were wearing an identity, an external identity that they did not live, believe, understand, or had even critically examined at all. So, yeah. And I mean, of course we can talk about just the politics of California. We can talk about the politics and, you know, the environmental, the environmentalism, the wokeness, the radical leftist, almost Marxist ideology that seems to be rapidly overtaking it. So that’s enough of a reason, alone. But what we want to talk about, and the reason I talk a little bit about my experience, our experience being actively involved in these legislative issues is because they were very specifically centered around infectious disease, at least a lot of it, and “medicine,” and the authority of the health departments of the state. And we saw what they were doing. Back then, it was horrifying.

Thea (12:32):

Terrifying.

Anne (12:32):

And so we are seeing many folks now, friends of ours, peers who are just having that experience for the first time, realizing that the state is using medical fascism as their means of taking more and more control over our lives. And a lot of people don’t know what’s hit them. I mean, they’re just reeling from it. We were reeling from it, but we had some time to ramp up to that and to start looking around and seeing what is, and seeing how it was happening and seeing the propaganda.

I wasn’t going to go into any of this, but briefly, a friend, a dear one, family friend, friend, family member had posted an article. And I just saw the headline. It was on my Facebook feed a week or two ago. And I don’t remember what the title was. It was in the Atlantic and it was something about empathizing essentially––it was about empathizing or understanding the anti maskers. And I scrolled on by, I knew what it was. I’ve seen a million of these pieces, these hit pieces masquerading as something that they’re not, but it came up in a discussion involving this person. And I just brought it up again. And I said, “I saw this headline and just go with me on this and let me test this out. I didn’t open it. And I promise I didn’t read it.” And I predicted what it was. I predicted that it was a pretense of attempting to understand the anti masker and you know, with this pretense of benign purpose to empathize, to understand these “strange phenomenons of nature,” these anti maskers. And I said, “I bet it went into the demographics of the anti masker. I bet it was subtle and not overt, but painted them, as misinformed, as misguided, as politically motivated and above all incapable of understanding data and science. And then I predicted further, I just kind of, I predicted this whole layout. And what I pointed out was that what these articles do, if I was correct, is they remove the reader from the core argument. The core argument is “mask or no mask?” Or more importantly, “mask mandate,or no mask mandate?”

Anne (16:17):

But in its clever PSYOP propaganda way, it establishes mask wearers as good, non-mask wearers as “not good” as its premise. It’s already the foundation. It’s already the premise. That’s not even discussed. It’s implicit in this pseudo highbrow analysis of the non-mask wearer and the psychology of that anti mask wearer. Or that anti masker, that non mask wearer. And so it it’s insidious and it’s clever. And so I really just digressed, but I’ve seen this for years with the anti-vax…

Thea (16:57):

It’s the propaganda. It is the method and way it is laid out, and it is clever. And so being able to identify it and see it before you even have to go through it is huge because that means you are not then in the loop of it. You’re able to have some objectivity to see clearly with.

Anne (17:27):

And so what I’d like to just throw out there for folks who may not know––I mean, you and I’ve talked about this to varying degrees over the last several months, but so many folks cannot even imagine, even if they’re reading all of the restrictions that Newsom has imposed, all the tiers and all of the craziness––even if they’re reading that, they cannot conceive of what it’s like to live there in California, especially in those areas in the Bay area, the San Francisco Bay area, in Los Angeles,

Thea (18:09):

The coastal areas…

Anne (18:09):

In coastal California, in the urban and gentrified, heavy, concentrated areas of coastal California. That’s what it is. And there are pockets of more conservative, and resistance, counties, but by and large, it’s insanity. You can hardly walk down the street––and I’m saying this because I haven’t been there for a few months––it was already whacked by the time I left, but my whole community is still there. You can’t walk down the street and see more than one or two unmasked faces if you’re lucky! Outside! On hiking trails! Right?

Thea (19:00):

Yes. I mean, not only California.

Anne (19:03):

I know. The West Coast, and those areas in all of the Western States.

Thea (19:10):

Outside. Alone.

Anne (19:12):

And, I mean, you can’t go into a store in Marin County wearing a neck Gator, you can’t wear a face shield. That’s not acceptable unless you put a mask on underneath it. It has to be CDC approved.

Thea (19:34):

Can I ask you, I recall, when did the mask, I mean, it’s all such a blur. When things shut down last spring and I was coastal, they closed the beaches so people couldn’t walk on the sand, masks were not mandated yet, right? That, that came later.

Anne (20:00):

Mmmhmm. But not much later. Certainly in Marin, they were encouraged and recommended. By the time we left, it was already moving toward the mandate. They did it in increments. And I knew the moment the health department started encouraging them, they would be a mandate.

Thea (20:25):

Yep. And then this was the thing that I think we wanted to touch upon. The rest of the country, world, whoever thinks California’s been doing something, right, have a look again. Because they’ve had the strictest measures since the get-go, and here they are, again, completely shut down. Completely.

Anne (20:49):

So I just want to run through this a little bit more though. They removed all of the basketball, the nets from the hoops or completely barricaded it all off. All the playgrounds were closed.

Thea (21:14):

All the caution tape surrounding them, shutting them down. This is what was happening. These were “smart health measures.”

Anne (21:20):

This was from March. I mean, I lived in the county that was one of the six that Newsom ordered the first shelter in place in the whole country. And we were, that day that it happened, camping locally. And the Rangers came and told us we had to leave. So we’re there out in this gorgeous Redwood campground very far away from another, we had to leave because it was “safer for us to be in our homes right, than out there in nature.” There was no one on the streets, right? t was like a ghost town. It was crazy.

Thea (22:03):

Post apocalyptic is what it was.

Anne (22:06):

Quickly people were reporting even families. A family was out at the baseball field, not far from where we lived in our neighborhood, playing baseball just with each other. They were reported to the authorities for being out there mingling. Marin County and many other counties have a snitch line. They have their own dedicated snitch line to report all of these violations. Different towns have had social distancing ambassadors outside in the streets, making sure people stay sufficiently apart. One of my friends in Marin still, who was sitting with her friend out at the park––and this was in the spring––sitting outside in the park, the city park, certainly not knee to knee, were approached by a cop to put masks on. And she knew what the orders were. And she said, “Well, I’ll just move back so I’m six feet apart.” And she talked to him a little bit more and he said, “If you were walking, it would be okay. But when you’re sitting, you have to be masked. Like that makes sense.

Thea (23:21):

None of these measures make sense, whatever they are, the back and forth of every part of it. You know, being somewhere where you can’t use paper and pen, but then you can use the electronic pen to sign your signature.

Anne (23:48):

So, you know it’s my suspicion that it’s actually designed to screw with people. I think that in of itself is a PSYOP. I don’t think it’s by mistake. I think it’s designed to just put people in such a state of dissonance that they can’t even think straight, and it will make them more compliant. But, the schools were closed. Virtual learning has been in place since the spring––since March, right?––in California. The playgrounds in Marin only just opened up like a month ago with these crazy restrictions––half an hour limit, mandatory masks, no food and drink, kids had to practice social distancing. So you couldn’t interact or mingle with someone who’s not from your family unit at the, at the outdoor playgrounds in Marin, just recently. Yet they still just now had “a surge,” and had to shut down.

Anne (24:52):

So definitely, Folks, understand that for what––nine months?––California has been the most restricted, restrictive, crazy place to live in terms of these “COVID control measures.” And it now has “a surge” that requires complete shutdown. So first of all, recognize that these measures are obviously not working to “control the surge” or “control the spread,” right? That’s the first thing. But also recognize that compliance with these measures brings more measures. It brings more and more restrictions. I’m not sure what people think the end game is here––those who are happily complying, and I know there are many. And the other thing I’d like to point out that was the biggest eye-opener for me over the last several years in California, was how compliant the educated folk were. And despite knowing how compliant they were and how bought in to the Pharma propaganda, it’s knocked me off my feet to see how compliant they’ve been with allowing so many people’s lives to be destroyed and their own to be completely restricted and inhuman. So having said that, it is again, more important than ever that we do not comply anymore.

Thea (26:30):

That we stand up and create a boundary, a protection, a moment to say, “This will not happen. No. Stop.” Because until we do it continues to go on and on and on.

Anne (27:09):

I know. And we talked about this––you thought about Gandalf in this, right? That the time has come, where we all need to put our staves down.

Thea (27:23):

To gather up our strength in that staff, right? Just to really be clear, you must gather your power and stand it, to ward off that which is trying to breach your safe, sovereign space. That is what’s happening over and over in our life right now. And if we don’t stand up and take it, we are staying asleep. We are being unconsciously sacrificed into these rituals that are taking power for those that are in power, taking more power. The more one is compliant and submissive, they’re giving it away, giving it away. And we have to have the courage to stand up and be willing to sacrifice what is necessary for our sacrifice in order to maintain a freedom of the individual, of the human being. Not to sacrifice ourselves mindlessly blindly into the machine of power.

Anne (28:45):

Yes, we have to consciously sacrifice. We talked about sacrifice last week. We have to consciously be prepared to sacrifice, to take action and to sacrifice, and put our staff down and say, “You shall not pass.” “No more.” Rather than be sacrificed. I think that’s the distinction that we’re getting at. If you comply with this insanity, and again, look at California, which has been absolutely restricted from March on, and they are now totally shutting down again. You have to ask yourself what sense any of that makes. You have to really look at that. And I’m saying, if you have any care to retain your sovereignty, because I can see that a lot of people don’t. And I don’t know where that’s going to lead and where it’s going to lead them, but I know a lot of people do. So time to stop clinging to this cheap morality that the corporate media is handing you, and comforting you with. It’s time for you to take a real hard look at what is happening and realize that you’ve got no time. You’ve got to stop complying, now, if you don’t want it to turn into California. And more and more. It’s endless, what’s going to happen, if we don’t stop complying.

Thea (30:38):

That machine is never satisfied. I was having a conversation with one of my children today about the void that an intellectualism or materialism––that which is without spirit or God. And it will incessantly feed, but it will never be satisfied. And that is why we have to stand our ground and say, “No.”

Anne (31:15):

And claim our divine right.

Thea (31:17):

Yep.

Anne (31:21):

So let’s cut it here. I know, again, I don’t know how rambling or interesting this was to anyone, but it was important to get it off of our chests and just get that conversation moving forward. We know. I predicted so much once the moment that first shelter in place was announced, I knew where things would go.

Thea (31:46):

Yep.

Anne (31:47):

Based on my experience over the last few years. So I’m not coming out of nowhere and saying that. I say that with experience, and there are so many who share my experience and share that wisdom and some who did much more than me and saw it even more closely. So please trust me when I say to stop complying and to claim our divine right.

Thea (32:19):

And shine the light and keep shining the light. We have to shine it into those dark spaces. It’s the time for us to be doing that with, with conviction.

Anne (32:33):

Yeah. Conviction and clarity.

Thea (32:36):

Yep.

Anne (32:37):

All right. Well, let’s cut this and, I’ll see you later. Love you.

Thea (32:44):

Love you.

All for One and One for All

Anne Mason and Thea Mason

Support is available and ready to assist each and every one of us, but it first requires sacrifice which is born out of courage into what is true.

TRANSCRIPT:

Anne (00:01):

Okay, we are recording. Hi Thea.

Thea (00:06):

Hi Anne.

Anne (00:09):

So I’m going to just introduce this very briefly and hand off to you. We spoke a little bit before we started recording, trying to pinpoint what it is exactly we are getting at in the conversations you and I have had, of course, in the last couple of weeks, leading up to this. And sacrifice, the theme of sacrifice, is what we’re going to discuss today, and the role of sacrifice in creation, and the nature of sacrifice and the nature of creation and transformation. And so I’m going to hand off to you here.

Thea (01:00):

Well, in our preliminary conversation, we were talking about a lot of different things. So some of the ideas that sacrifice was born out of was, “what are we here for in this life on this Earth?” We had talked a little bit about the idea of reincarnation and how does that inform our understanding of our purpose in this life.

Anne (01:29):

And I also let me interrupt just to insert this, because I have a kind of compartmentalized view of maybe three categories, and there’s a spectrum that ties those together as well. We were talking about reincarnation and how, if you perceive the world and life, your life experience through a lens of a belief in reincarnation that will give you a different approach to the significance of each of our actions here on Earth, or can. There is also a belief that may or may not include reincarnation, but at least is a belief in a world, realms beyond this material Earth plane, which may inform in the same way or differently. And my third category that I break it down into is the materialists who––and I know there’s this impulse of a humanist, humanistic belief that this is it. This is the only life. It often seems to go hand in hand with an atheism where this is it, this is what we’ve got, but still an impulse toward contributing to the stream of goodness. I don’t go for that. I think that that is myopic and limiting, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t preclude having a larger sense of purpose in the creation here. So, sorry for the digression.

Thea (03:20):

Not at all. I think it’s good. And with all of that, you know, this time and this moment right now, which we are all living in, with our eyes open to varying degrees to what part we play. And as we are now in December, this darkest of months in the Northern hemisphere, we’re now coming to this darkest night where we protect and honor the light that grows within as our external light fades. And it’s the turning moment we have once we hit that solstice until Christmas, that’s that slow turning of the light is dark until it starts to grow again. And there’s something in our mirroring of our external world and our inner world of what we’re able to see and develop and get clear on as our light, our inner light must grow to meet the outer darkness. So I think that’s where we’re at mostly––that this moment is big. And if we can open our eyes to our inner light and our purpose for being here, having courage to meet this moment, and with that courage, a willingness to sacrifice what we have thought we have in order to give the nourishment to the transformative forces that are wanting to support us in this change, changing time, this wakening time. So if we can walk with courage, those supportive forces can step in and help to carry us, but it requires the sacrifice which is born out of courage into what is true, I think.

Anne (05:27):

Yes. I want to give some context to it too, and to anyone listening. One of the things that is most challenging to me at this moment in time is how everyone, even us right now, we’re here sitting here talking as if some things are normal. We’re behaving as if there’s normalcy here, that there’s there’s okayness here in all that’s going on in the world. And of course there is some okayness, but by and large, it’s insane and it’s not okay. And I know that many of us are walking around with this external facade, in a way, of normalcy––and inside are horrified by what’s going on.

Anne (06:44):

And we all have, many of us at least, have experienced this to varying degrees in our lives from the time we’re young. You know, something really bad happens at school and we’re having to walk through the halls as if it’s all okay. Or our parents die within two weeks of each other. And the rug is pulled out from under us and we’re walking around and people are saying hello as if things are normal, but we know that something is completely…

Thea (07:15):

Altered.

Anne (07:15):

Completely altered existentially. And we’re trying to get our bearings. I believe that on a very large scale that’s happening now. And so it’s important to me to give voice to that. It’s horrifying. It is horrifying every day. It’s horrifying to wake up to this reality, and I’m going to say it again––to this, to the tyranny, to the lockdowns, to the masked, the masked assault on our humanity, on the social distancing on children, not being able to play together, on teachers not being able to teach their kids in person, on limitations on Thanksgiving and family gatherings. It’s a nightmare. It’s a horror show. And I’m saying this for those who see it, and for those who don’t… (waves them away.) So back to that, what we’re talking about in terms of this moment, you are providing context of this time of year that is parallel to what seems to be also this time of millennia, this absolutely critical point in time that we are all here to bear witness to, and to participate in.

Thea (09:02):

Just in that picture, like of time and human development. Of our abilities to perceive, think, and engage in our world, it’s like we’re sliding down. And if we don’t make a turn in a particular direction at a certain point, it’s like the stream goes farther and farther down into the dark abyss rather than the waking up of the capacity of what it means to be a divine human being.

Anne (09:40):

And so following on what you’re talking about with sacrifice, and you talked about the Christ consciousness and the Christ impulse before we started recording. And that’s why it’s so important to consider, Folks, why we are here. Life can be fun and joyful. Thank God. But we’re not here just for a fun ride. And so it requires every era, every generation, really every person, and every moment, to continue meeting the challenges and to take action. I believe, you know, we could talk about the Christ consciousness all day, but that sacrifice is an acknowledgement, a recognition, and a courageous beyond courageous statement, an undeniable statement that we are acting on behalf of something larger than ourselves.

Thea (11:45):

And then I would want to add to that the something beyond or larger than ourselves is the whole that we are, but, a mirror or a window into that largeness of being, of consciousness. And I wanted to add that courage, I am thinking is born out of love, born out of love for that which is ourselves and greater than ourselves, and is ourselves again, right? So that’s the largeness, when we talk about being one, you know, when we talk about community, it’s just, it’s everything.

Anne (12:51):

That’s exactly it. That’s all of it. So it’s very, very critical right now in this time of this BS identity politics, diversity, awareness, all of this stuff that totally confuses. And that’s false, that’s a false interpretation of our oneness and our community.

Thea (13:20):

Those gestures, while it has the tagline to be unifying is actually separating. Because we are bigger than our appearance.

Anne (13:34):

Well, just go back to just the basics of Anthroposophy. When we were talking about that. Anthroposophy at its core doesn’t need any of that from the outside, because––or that curriculum, the Waldorf curriculum––because it’s simply about understanding, reading stories and understanding another’s perspective, similar experiences that you have had and an identification with everyone and all. That we, I am you, you are me, and we are all, and, and all is one.

Thea (14:17):

And we’re all having different perspectives out the window while we’re here. We’re all having different perspectives. And I think that our goal is not to create more division, “diversity.” While what story is with that––is, you know, bringing equality to all people. We are! I don’t have the words yet because it’s not that we don’t recognize we all have different walks in our lives. We all have different challenges. Some are atrocious, some appear to be gentler and more bountiful. And yet it’s not about creating more separation. And that takes courage for me right now to even to be able to say that, because it’s about, we’re all in the same house, looking out different windows. So we see the sun rising at a different time. We have more light. (Thea’s frame cuts out a second and they pause.)

Anne (15:25):

The reason I brought up the identity politics or the diversity training and all that––I want to go back to sacrifice. There is a real imbalance in terms of what that understanding is and what sacrifice and why. We should not sacrifice, we should not subordinate ourselves to another. That’s not a productive or constructive sacrifice. And I guess we could get into a discussion and I’m sure some folks would say, “Oh, well, that is for the greater good, because some people are oppressed, and so the only way to fix that is essentially to oppress the oppressors.” That’s not how it works, and that’s really taking it down to a reductivist, atomistic, separate…it’s false, it’s false. And so I want to go back to what that sacrifice is. You were talking about the mystery of Golgotha and what it is to you.

Thea (17:18):

My understanding is that the sacrifice and therefore the resurrection. And so the way I’m thinking about it is this, this moment in time where what we can sacrifice with clarity is that substance that allows for the resurrection. You know, we each know this in ourselves through our own personal lives, right? When we’re willing to jump into the unknown, which is scary, and leave that which we have known behind us, that’s when something has a force to grow anew. But until we do that, we stay in the same groove, and to varying degrees. I think was it Carlos Castaneda who says, the great mystery is in, or the great alchemy that the initiates know is that you jump and you find that the universe supports you with a feather bed. You know, it’s through that. That’s the sacrifice–– facing the fear and jumping still.

Anne (18:48):

It’s faith. It’s the dark night of the soul in the initiation rituals throughout the hermetic tradition, it is practicing and demonstrating that faith. And we are rewarded with that faith.

Thea (19:13):

And with that, I mean, the thing that I’ve been holding and sensing more strongly is the more I do that, the more I step, I find I’m supported. It’s just like a muscle.The more we do it, the more we know it, the more we can step into greater and greater spaces of sacrifice and work, because then the more we do it, the more we can do it. One of my very favorite teachers says, “look, you know, the better we learn how to do this, the more we can work and the more we can do to keep on doing it,” you know? That’s why we’re here. To just keep on doing it.

Anne (19:59):

Yes! And so that’s the reminder and a little bit of the takeaway. In this time that is scary for so many of us, it is critical for each one of us to take a step, even if it’s a very small step, even if the step seems insignificant a step into that abyss with courage.

Thea (20:32):

And conviction. Because we have to be awake. I think that that’s a key in here––an awakeness to the step we’re taking, to not be sleepy in it. That’s what it is to have the faith as a child in a certain way. We don’t have to know what security we’re leaving in the steps sometimes. And I think that there is a necessary ingredient of being awake to what fear we’re facing.

Anne (21:04):

Do you mean that when we’re a child and have that faith and innocence of a child, that’s not the same as it is now.

Thea (21:14):

Yes. Because we haven’t come away from it yet, we’re still held to some degree. I mean, it varies, I don’t mean to say an absolute, but I notice it in myself as I’ve gotten older, the awareness of what I step into makes a difference.

Anne (21:31):

Of course. I mean the older we get, the more inhibited we get because of life’s experience, of all the dangers that face us, we are wiser. We are “wiser” in that respect, and it’s more challenging to be brave in that wisdom, but being brave in that wisdom and taking action in that, taking action bravely, is even more and more important. And I think probably even more effective because of that.

Anne (22:09):

SoI I don’t know how much more to say about it, and I know this seems a little ethereal or abstract. I’m going to say this, I’m going to bring in something from various conversations that we’ve had, but I’ll say now that my hope in this world at this moment rests with the conventionally uneducated, especially of Western civilization. I would say right now, because I’m blunt like this, the educated members of our society––of certainly the United States and the rest of the Western world––I think are the stupidest human beings on the planet right now. They are very out of touch with their instincts, with their sense. And I say this being an educated, a conventionally educated person. So I feel like I can say that. I just moved from one of the most educated counties in the country, in the world. And I’ve never been surrounded by morons, who are asleep, brainwashed. They are so indoctrinated and brainwashed. And the trick has been that they’ve been taught that this brainwashing is education. So not only are they brainwashed and indoctrinated, they are so proud of this brainwashed indoctrination that masquerades as education and critical thinking that you can’t penetrate them.

Thea (24:17):

It’s interesting what I was going to say,if I can articulate it is it’s this idea that––I saw something making fun of it recently––but that what you see before you is not what you see before you. What you see before you isn’t rea––is that training that you are thinking bigger than what is actually in front of you. Help me out. I mean, my youngest was reading “A Wrinkle in Time,” and there was so much in there too, the it, the thing that takes the feeling of people, which is like their sense, right? Our feelings are that which, if we have trained ourselves to listen and follow those senses, to distinguish between emotions that are fluctuating, but the sense feeling that we are perceiving rawly with, and to be able to bring those in and reflect upon them to understanding––that’s what I think people have been being trained out of. Instead of taking our information through our perceiving capacities and then understanding them.

Anne (25:49):

Hey, I mean, it’s very simple. From birth on, we are, traumatized first off. So, whether it’s the birth practice that is now––conventional birth practices and hospitals are, it’s another horror show. And we say that having had all of our children at home, thank God. But we both had a great deal of experience in the medical, industrial complex and in that whole paradigm. But that whole paradigm is set up to make people go against their instincts. “Here, take this shot. It’s good for you. It hurts. Here. Let me draw blood from you. It’s all for your own good.” Making us all against our instinct. And then, you know, conventional schooling is another one. It’s the opposite of what learning and discovery and curiosity and creativity is about, but kids are made to do it, you know? And, and so when I say the most educated are the dumbest ones, or the most stupid, I don’t say that without compassion. I know that we have been systematically brainwashed to detach from ourselves and our knowingness. But I’m just simply saying, there’s no surprise in it.

Anne (27:34):

And it goes far beyond that and you add media to it and then add the technology. And I would say from 2008 on really, it’s exponentially ramped up because that’s when the iPhone was introduced. And I’m not saying that there isn’t, you know, there’s two sides to the sword. But it has been used to separate ourselves from ourselves. And I won’t go deeply into this. Maybe we can talk about this more in detail next time, but we talked a little bit about Steiner’s lecture on Lucifer and Ahriman and how they work together, hand in hand. And Ahriman, a being, from another realm, incarnating around now, who we’ve seen throughout myths of the Middle East––you can read more about who Ahriman is there––myths or history––but the Ahrimanic method of using “preserving jars” as Steiner puts it, preserving jars. And, and so, whereas Lucifer is concerned with man’s stomachs, and that sensational aspect of this––those are his tools, right––off this existence. Ahriman uses preserving jars. And by preserving jars, it’s explained that, you know, books are preserving jars, libraries are preserving jars. When we take our knowing out of––and I come all the way down (gesture with hand)––out of ourselves and put it in books, and then take those books and put those into libraries, in computers, that takes it away from ourselves. it separates it from us. And when our world is full of experts, who take someone else’s knowing in a book and then take that in and then go through the training and the schooling and the testing, and then writing their own thesis of preserving jar and put that in something else, our knowing keeps getting more and more abstract. And so we’re living in a world full of experts where people go to experts for everything.

Anne (30:37):

We’ve touched on this in other talks. parents go to parenting experts. People go to doctor, medical experts. People go to experts for everything. And his is like the culmination of all of it. Experts are telling people to cover their––smother their breath and cover their faces and walk six feet apart from each other and not be human and not hug and not touch and not kiss and not play together. Experts are telling them all this and far too many people are doing it, because they don’t trust their own knowing and their own instinct. Even though the stats show no evidence to prove any of this, they will believe it because the experts are telling them that. So I sure digressed, but I’m just going to go back to the fact that the hope of humanity is in all people who are in touch with their own knowing.

Anne (31:53):

And I don’t mean that the educated––many educated folks have been able to hold onto that. And I would say that people who work with the land get that reinforcement of knowing. I think people who work with their hands, I think people who work with people––you have much more of an opportunity to stay in touch with your own knowing when it’s reinforced all the time. But people, trust your instincts. Don’t listen to these experts and don’t listen to these educated folk because they’re not where it’s at.

Thea (32:39):

Yeah. It’s it that courage to trust yourself, have courage for what is true. And now’s the time. And the support is there. We don’t know what we’ll have to sacrifice, but we have to be willing to sacrifice to be able to support the evolution of this world.

Anne (33:07):

Of humanity. It rests on every one of us in every step, in every deed now. So don’t wait, don’t wait for anything to change. Do it. Sacrifice and become part of that Christ consciousness, get merged with the Christ consciousness. It’s a good company.

Thea (33:26):

But what you said is no matter how small those steps. And some days, they’re very small. Even if it’s simply to decide to have faith and find the good in the day, right? that takes courage. To meet what is before us.

Anne (33:49):

Yes.

Thea (33:49):

Thanks. I went all over, but…

Anne (33:52):

I really went all over, but so it goes.

Thea (33:55):

So it goes, all right. Love you. Bye.

Anne (33:59):

Love you. Bye.

Courage, Love, Faith

And let us each play our part…

Anne Mason and Thea Mason


TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Anne (00:01):

Hi, Thea.

Thea (00:04):

Hi, Anne.

Anne (00:04):

All right. So it’s been a very long time. We’ve both been in transition. I haven’t had a decent enough internet to do this in the new location I’m in, in a very rural area. So here we are, after a lot of time and a lot of stuff happening in the world, that’s, uh, insane. And to cut to the chase, I think most people who know me or have listened to anything that I’ve said or written know that I believe tyranny is descending upon us or attempting to. I mean, it’s descending and it’s not here yet in a real way. We are still at a crossroads and we can shift this. And I can also just speak briefly to the fact that I am in opposition to all restrictions that have been imposed on us. My approach to health is holistic. I have a fairly deep understanding of transmission of infectious disease. I also am aware of the importance of what we put in our bodies and how we support our immune systems in terms of how we handle and navigate anything that comes our way health wise.

Anne (01:35):

So, having said that, I think that what you and I have been processing together as we always do––and again, this is a dialogue. It’s just a pretty rambling dialogue. We have these conversations all the time, sisters and friends that we are, and for whatever it’s worth, if it’s of any benefit to anyone to, you know, kind of participate in the dialogue or hear a little of this, it may trigger something in our examinations and in our quest to continue on a right path as it relates to the large and the center, I guess, our, our lives, our small lives, our individual lives, I should say.

Thea (02:30):

And the purpose and goal of humanity at large. What are we here to be and do, and work with the cosmic forces that imbue life in the universe.

Anne (02:49):

Right. What role do we play in all of this, in this very critical time, in this incredibly intense time? And I’ll share that I spoke with an elderly friend of mine, 75 plus years old. And I’d asked her if she was reminded of any other time in her life in history, now. Does this time seem like any other time she’s lived in? And she said, no. I had hoped she would tell me that, “yes, it seemed bad this time, it seemed by this time and we got through it.” No, she said she’s never felt so afraid for her freedom as she does now. And so, yes, it’s a critical time. And so one of the things that I think that is frightening, or alarming let’s say, for her––and for me––is not that the government is trying, or not that people in power are trying to take more power and trying to exert more control. That is just the way it always is throughout history.

Thea (04:05):

When people that are in power are seeking more power for power’s sake.

Anne (04:16):

Yes. That’s why we have the constitution that’s pretty remarkable.

Thea (04:21):

To keep that power in check, and allow the human being to pursue its own development and purpose.

Anne (04:31):

Yes. And to move humanity forward in so being free to do so, right? In being free to contribute our individual efforts to the world, to move the whole of humanity forward.

Anne (04:51):

So, they’ve done quite a number on it. As I’ve talked about, written about, I’ve been involved in activism for years, that alerted me more than it may have other people that medical fascism was the way they were going to try to do this. And they sure have. So, what do we do? And for those who resonate with where we’re at and what we’re seeing, how do we play a part in this to move things in the right direction? I would say that, let’s also acknowledge that there’s quite a spectrum of our capacity for each one of us. One of the wonderful numbers, or I shouldn’t say wonderful. One of the brilliant numbers they’ve done on us is really make our livelihoods contingent on compliance with these tyrannical measures

Thea (06:04):

And these measures also being inherently dehumanizing of the other. So, so many ways that we gather our strength and inspiration and purpose to live our lives fully is through the relationships and connections we have with others that bring meaning and purpose to our lives. And so when you remove the opportunities for real and frequent relationship and relating to others––the isolation that occurs and the lack, the purposelessness that can descend on people, which then eliminates health, mental health, emotional health, social health, wellbeing, and makes for a weaker people, and less full of fight.

Anne (07:12):

And, it’s so obvious why these curfews now are being put into effect. And of course, it’s so obvious why the lockdowns were put into effect. To stop people from coming together, sharing their ideas about what’s going on, sharing their feelings about what’s going on, coming together in solidarity and affirmation and reinforcement and connection. This is all by design, but especially this new nonsense of these curfews, of stopping people from being together after 10 o’clock out and about, when we let down, when the rhythm of the day moves into those late hours of relaxation and…

Thea (08:12):

…Contemplation.

Anne (08:12):

Yeah. And quiet connection. You know, those are the dangerous times for the tyrannical forces, because that is when we are most open to each other. That is when we can share and we can strategize, and we can…

Thea (08:38):

Be inspired and spark each other to let that light travel and grow. You know, it’s through connection that we grow. And if we are limiting that, it makes that connection that much more difficult and that much more necessary and vital for those of us that are seeing this to pursue it and to shine it out to one another––to be beacons, to be lighthouses in a way, to share and stand up where we see fit so that others are heartened and strengthened by that.

Anne (09:27):

Yes. So to continue connecting with each other, in whatever capacity and way we have. And there are many different forms of communication. I mean, certainly one is facial expression face. Which is also why they are pushing these masks on us.

Thea (09:56):

What’s also interesting about that––because I’m somewhere where I do have to comply to be able to live…

Anne (10:05):

And to do your work, your very important work.

Thea (10:08):

Yes, to connect, to be a teacher and to connect with young people. Though you know, I abhorred the idea of even purchasing a mask, and I don’t want to make an official mask, but I found these clear ones because as a teacher, I wanted my students to be able to see me. And those are no longer acceptable. Not because I don’t think it’s…I think it’s really because there is a gesture to not see the face. People that are wearing these––I mean, you don’t get to see all this––but face shields, right? To keep the droplets from being exposed. But it’s not sufficient any longer. You can’t go into certain grocery stores. Not all. Certain grocery stores you can’t go in if you have a clear mask. Because it’s about the humanity of the face. It’s, it’s not, I mean, I can’t. Anyway, I digress.

Anne (11:13):

I know, I know. And, yeah, we could go down a rabbit hole right now, but to keep it short––I was also speaking with this woman, the same woman I was talking about, who will in certain situations wear a mask to make people feel comfortable and other times not wear a mask. And I explained to her that for me, what’s important to do is demonstrate where I stand. I think politeness is overrated at this moment in time, provided we are not harming anyone else. And I feel certain I am not by not wearing a mask. I want to let others know––others who suspect that this is nonsense or wrong, or certainly should not be mandated. I mean, that’s of course my main issue. My main issue is any mandate like that. If somebody wants to walk around breathing through a mask, more power to them, whatever.

Anne (12:39):

But I want to demonstrate that I do not abide by these mandates, and I also don’t even abide by wearing them. And I want to let others know who suspect the same that there are more of us out here than they may realize. So I think that it is important right now that we––in whatever way we can––demonstrate what we believe, what our convictions are and where we stand. In every single way that we can. Because if we do not do that, now, if we take steps to, “Hmm, let’s just do this because it’s makes things a little easier,” or “I don’t want to make people uncomfortable” or, you know, in my case, “Uh, I want my daughter to have this opportunity and maybe it’s not so much to ask me to do this or that.” Uh uh uh. I feel it’s a black and white issue right now, and that it’s such a slippery slope. For anyone with any critical observation powers, we can see the slippery slope already this year. Let’s look where we were in March…

Thea (14:04):

It’s been very, very slippery and very quick.

Anne (14:10):

It’s now like a steep ice hill, right? So it’s now or never, folks. Take tiny steps, take larger steps, take whatever step you can to exercise your freedom to be who you are and to do what you know is right. That’s it. That’s what we can do right now because we still can. We still can.

Thea (14:45):

To shine that courage for truth. Because we each can shine that light the world at large and to one another to grow it. I mean, that’s how we have to do it. We have to grow it.

Anne (15:04):

Yes. Yes. And I can promise that every step we take with courage helps us be more and more courageous for the larger and larger challenges we face that require more and more courage. If right now we don’t take courageous steps where we think that it doesn’t matter that much, then if and when a time comes that we need some heavy duty courage, it won’t have been stored there.

Thea (15:48):

Well, it won’t have been exercised and won’t be accessible. So courage, and you know, when I say that, I want to say love because with love, love gives courage to us when we don’t think we have it. So I’ll preach love and courage today.

Anne (16:11):

Yeah. I, I agree with that. I believe that what I am doing is certainly for the greater good. I certainly believe that the steps I’m taking to exercise my freedoms is for the benefit of all. Right?

Thea (16:36):

Yep. Love, love for humanity and humanity’s potential, my own potential, my children’s potential of what we’re here on earth to do and be.

Anne (16:52):

Our grandhildren’s potential and our great grandchildren’s potential and so on and so forth. And you know, I would say along with the love and courage, faith. Faith in whatever way you’ve developed it, whatever way it resonates to you, whatever way you find it. Faith that there is something deep inside and connecting to all that cannot be taken away. Recognize that. It is our humanity. If we insist on holding onto that, it cannot be taken away, no matter what one is put through you, you always have that. Because I believe that that humanity also contains that divine spark and that connection. So we always have that, provided, we claim it. And even if it is for our great, great, great grandchildren. Even if we live through greater darkness and challenge, let’s hold on to that. Let’s exercise that humanity. So, okay.

Thea (18:23):

Oh, okay! That’s good. Have a good one!

Anne (18:31):

Okay. (Laughter)You too. I love you. Bye.

Thea (18:35):

(Laughter) Bye.

The Big Reveal of 2020

by Anne Mason

Photo by Seth Doyle on Unsplash

While this year has brought us all unforeseen challenges, what hasn’t been discussed enough is how unable we are to relate to the way others are perceiving and managing their concerns. It’s not a clear cut divide, but there are two general camps. One group’s paramount concern is about transmission of a virus, and they subscribe to the notion that we––and the government––must do everything possible to prevent it, control it, avoid it, apparently no matter the cost. The other group’s paramount concern is the level of restriction the government has imposed on us to control the virus.

All these folks express themselves and their beliefs in more or less extreme ways. Some demonstrate by example and conduct, and others shout loudly. And while differences in approach to all of life’s concerns are to be expected, most of us are startled by the difference between reactions to the COVID situation.

There’s no point in beating around the bush––in this piece or otherwise. I have been opposed to all the restrictions various governments have imposed to ostensibly control this virus since the beginning. I have already had plenty of experience with the government justifying measures and mandates under cover of the threat of infectious disease. The pharmaceutical industry has been funding legislative efforts in many US states and beyond to remove religious and personal belief exemptions from vaccine mandates for years, and I have been actively involved in opposing such measures. I am very familiar with their tactics and strategies.

I am also probably more knowledgeable than the average person about the history of infectious disease in the developed world, our immune system, the human microbiome, and human health in general. I am not afraid of germs in isolation, and I know that mask wearing, lack of human physical contact and not being allowed to earn a living are diametrically opposed to health and wellness. I also know that hiding from a virus is nonsense––as is much of the prevailing “medical” paradigm and approach to health and wellness. Just check out most of the crap food being served to sick patients in hospitals or children in schools––or all the remarkably fat, unhealthy “health practitioners” and “public health officials” telling the public how to stay “safe.” It would be laughable if it weren’t the reality.

That being said, and my position clearly established, I am writing this piece to and for the folks who see or suspect what I see. I am writing for the folks who thought these lockdowns and masks would be temporary, but who now realize it’s gone on for far too long. I am writing for the folks who understand that putting a mask on to enter a restaurant and walk to the table then removing it to eat is the purview of idiots. And I am writing it for folks who understand that we can’t stop living to prevent dying.

I recently came across this article: What it takes to preserve friendship amid deep divisions over politics and COVID-19. While I appreciate and respect its emphasis on unity and spirit of compassion and “affability” it describes, the piece minimizes the significance of the difference between such fundamental perspectives. Author Brandon McGinley writes, “But when friendship can only withstand the barest of differences, like favorite colors and pizza toppings, then something is wrong. Community isn’t possible when we only tolerate unanimity, when we only want to be friends with slightly altered versions of ourselves.”

When we subscribe to an entirely different model of health than another person––when one person regards another person’s very breath or touch as a bioweapon, while the other person would welcome a hug or maskless conversation with their friend––this is a significantly greater challenge to any sort of relationship between the two people than favoring different colors or pizza toppings. Moreover, when one person supports a government’s authority to shut the other person’s business down and criminalize them for not wearing a mask or getting “too close” to others, how––or why––would they consider themselves “friends?”

Anyone who would support restrictions which would destroy my family’s livelihood is no friend of mine. And anyone who subscribes to this paradigm that legally requires me and my children to perpetually breathe through a piece of cloth and stay 6 feet away from them or their playmates is no one I have any interest in spending time with.

These issues are fundamental, existential and core to who we are. Differences in our approach to health notwithstanding, anyone who would physically and materially impose their beliefs on me and my children has crossed a line. Everyone and anyone should have the freedom to restrict their own breathing and limit their ability to make a living or have their kids attend school––but the advocates of government lockdowns, mask mandates and legally enforced social distancing have demonstrated support for a form of government that the Constitution of the United States seems to have been written to prevent. Support for such broad and sweeping governmental authority offends much more than my political sensibilities. It threatens my and my family’s basic freedoms––and therefore our lives.

How can such fundamental differences co-exist in a friendship, much less a community or country?

In times of ease, differences in politics, spirituality and religious belief, existential understandings, even fundamental principles can be navigated much more easily. Our relationships can go very deep or stay light and superficial, depending on what’s required to maintain the status quo. The old adage, “Never discuss politics or religion in polite company” only applies to times of ease in order to avoid conflict at the dinner table/in social gatherings in order that you don’t alienate your kids’ best friend’s mom, so that you and your drinking buddies can have a laugh without it getting heavy, so that your sister-in-law’s sensibilities aren’t so offended that every Thanksgiving dinner going forward is super awkward.

But a world in crisis is not the time to just make polite small talk. When the cities are shuttered, when people’s livelihoods have been taken away from them, when everyone is waking up to each day in one crisis mode or another (many still terrified of a virus), polite small talk no longer gets us through. And that’s when the way we’ve operated all our lives becomes more starkly revealed.

Moreover, these differences in philosophy of government, principles of basic freedom and understanding of human rights have not recently developed. Nor have folks’ limits changed in terms of what they will and won’t comply with––and what they will and won’t compromise. Your friends and family who suddenly seem to have transformed into residents of Stepford are not different than they were last year. And folks you suddenly find yourselves more aligned with aren’t either.

They have just been revealed.

The Road from Left to Right

by Anne Mason

Photo by Jared S. on Unsplash

An old friend of mine and I recently reconnected. She expressed fascination and curiosity about my shift in politics, my support for President Trump and more. Like many Trump supporters these days, I used to be a Democrat. I told her I’d try to put some of my thoughts and experiences down on paper to shed some light on my shift from Left to Right.

I grew up in Democratic campaign headquarters in the Chicago area. My father ran campaigns for local politicians in the area, as well as regional campaigns for national Democratic candidates. Our family photo albums show my dad with Teddy Kennedy, Birch Bayh and other politicians on the campaign trail. My dad was a fierce and loyal supporter of the party and particularly the Kennedy family whom he felt embodied the ideals of the party with Arthurian nobility.

I grew up without question that the Democrats were the good guys, and that the Republicans were bad. I also grew up in a Democratic county RFK called the most corrupt county in the US, and my father worked in East Chicago, IN, which ran on nepotism, political favors and corruption. To this day, whenever I read about the latest indictments in the news, I see names of my father’s associates and family friends. It was and apparently still is the culture there. It is how things work.

I grew up with the implicit understanding that the ends justified the means. That every politician had to get their hands dirty to stay in power. And that staying in power was critical to making sure the good guys won.

I voted Democrat in every election for every office all my life. The only debate I’d have with friends or family was over which Democrat to choose––until I got involved in the California state legislative process a few years ago to campaign against a series of medical mandates, as well as to protect educational choice.

I first got very actively involved in the fight against California’s bill SB277, which removed religious and personal belief exemptions from any vaccine in 2015. I won’t get into the details of vaccination here, as it’s too large a topic to cover, but you can get a sense of my perspective from articles I’ve written on the subject: Measles Scare Tactics Hurt Us All and Inside the Mind of the Vaccine Hesitant, as well as A Voice for Choice podcast series I participated in.

The experience opened my eyes, as did subsequent Spring Legislative sessions. The Democrat legislators paid lip service to their constituents, then voted against their concerns as if they didn’t exist. This was the case from the local level all the way up to the state, and crony nepotism loyalty was the unwritten code. When it looked like Dem sponsored bills would die in committee, they would postpone the votes, reshuffle the committees to their favor, then reconvene and pass it through.

The more we looked into it, the more we discovered the industry sponsorship behind the legislation––in our state as well as across the US. While most of us know both parties are sponsored by corporate interests, the most powerful industry by far––the Pharmaceutical Industry––sponsors the Dems. One of the ways Big Pharma increases revenue and profits is through state medical mandates, and the Democrat’s platform of Big Government and the Greater Good is the mechanism by which this is achieved.

Big Pharma writes the legislation and finds the state congresspeople to put their names on it. In turn, they fund their re-election campaigns. This has been happening rapidly all over the country. If you want to blow your mind, go to the National Vaccine Information Center advocacy page and scroll down to the “Action Needed Now” section and select “Expired” view on the right. It will display a staggeringly long list of bills Pharma has managed to pass through over the last several years in many states, as well as the bills they’ve got in now. Coupled with the release from liability for vaccine injury or death Pharma managed to push through in 1986, it’s a golden goose that keeps laying eggs.

My experience in California with Republican/Conservative legislators and elected officials was the exact opposite of my experience with the Dems. And pretty much all the activists I worked with reported the same. The Republicans engaged in actual discourse and reasonable debate, asking logical questions and listening to the concerns of their constituents. They called out the lack of justification for the various mandates and legislation in committee and floor hearings and they cited actual facts and numbers to back up their arguments. This was in stark contrast to the Dems who would play purely to emotion by holding press conferences with 7 year old cancer patients, bring in polio survivors in wheelchairs to testify before the committees, and present “epidemic modeling projections” to scare folks into believing a measles pandemic––the likes of which we’ve never seen––would suddenly hit if they didn’t pass this bill NOW! (Remind anyone of good old Professor Ferguson’s wildly inaccurate COVID-19 modeling predictions which has been used as justification for all the lockdowns and economic ruin throughout the developed world?)

I have always worked in business in the private sector, and I had always been a fiscal conservative. But like many of my generation, I thought the more meaningful social issues important to me were best represented by the Dems. I was wrong. When I took a closer look and examined what each party stood for, I realized that I was far more aligned with the Republicans. To me, self reliance, self responsibility and sovereignty of the individual are the cornerstones of a functioning and sustainable person, family, society.

The righteous sanctimony of the Left had actually begun to wear on me in 2008. Even though it would be years before I left the Left, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and the rest of MSNBC––at the time my standard go-to for news––started sounding more and more over the top in their sermonizing, virtue signaling, identity politics and celebration of victim culture.

I left the Democratic party before 2016, but it was the 2016 election and all that it revealed about the Left that sent me all the way over to the Right. I’ve liked Donald Trump since I saw him on the Ali G show before America really knew Sacha Baron Cohen’s shtick––when I was living in London in the 90s. Trump saw through it quickly and cut the interview short.


Trump had been publicly critical of the vaccine program for years before entering the race. For anyone who doesn’t know this yet, the vaccine schedule exploded since vaccine manufacturers were released from liability in 1986, and the CDC schedule now recommends 72 doses of vaccines by the time a child is 18 years old.

Auto immune disorders, cancer and autism rates have coincidentally exploded along the same timeline. Despite the relentless propaganda to depict vaccine critics as nutjobs, it doesn’t take a genius to wonder whether there is a connection. Trump has posed such questions, and when Jake Tapper asked about it in the Republican primary debates, Trump confirmed that he had concerns about the schedule and whether it’s connected to the autism epidemic.

His stance on trade, the economy, Common Core, educational choice, the Paris Accord, immigration and more all seemed to make sense to me. Having lived in hyper-regulated Marin County, California for years, I had grown weary of the priority of ENVIRONMENT over business (and I write that as someone who gardens biodynamically and has always been very conscious about living in harmony with the environment as much as reasonably possible.) I find the whole immigration controversy contrived. We’re a country. We have borders. Like any other country’s borders, they need to be crossed legally.

The media and the Left’s demonization of Trump leading up to the election spun way out of control, and in the process, identity politics and victim culture took over the extreme Left like some kind of syndrome. The intolerance of the supposedly tolerant group of Liberal friends I had was off the charts. I’ve lost long time friends and been on the receiving end of a lot of hate and shaming attempts simply because I supported Trump.

Trump Derangement Syndrome appears to be a real thing. The media has done a remarkable job at convincing many folks that Trump is the Devil incarnate, and it’s astounding to me. The guy is a former Democrat from New York who has managed a number of successful businesses over the course of his life in a few different industries. The notion that he was suddenly going to turn into Hitler at 70 years old is absurd. And the last 3 1/2 years of his presidency are proof of that, if anyone needs it. Yet the derangement is still in full swing, and remarkably to me, the media and those left on the Left are blaming the COVID lockdown economic ruin, the BLM riots and every bad thing that ever happens on the guy.

Following the 2016 election, I got more involved in Conservative groups and the Republican party on a local level. I campaigned for Travis Allen, a former Republican CA Assemblyman turned gubernatorial candidate running against Gavin Newsom. (He was also a former Democrat.) Through that, I met more and more lifelong Conservatives in California––some of the most politically literate, sensible and kind people I’ve ever known, and more and more younger Conservatives who had recently left the Left.

There is a growing movement in the SF Bay Area of folks my age and younger from companies like Google and other Silicon Valley companies who have rejected the extreme policies of the Left––along with the rapidly increasing tech company and platform censorship of Conservative figures and ideas––and until the COVID lockdown world, had been formally organizing and meeting up. The WalkAway movement, founded by gay New Yorker and former liberal Brandon Straka, was growing rapidly before the COVID lockdowns/BLM riots and has now grown exponentially since the business districts in the Democrat run cities/states have been transformed into ghost towns––many businesses already closed permanently, some continuing to be fined or their utilities shut off for non compliance with the shut down orders, and residents being criminalized for not adhering to the mask mandates.

Because of my involvement fighting against medical mandates in California, it became clear to me that the Globalist/Democrat agenda would attempt to use medical fascism on a broader and broader scale to achieve its goals––across the US and beyond. I didn’t anticipate the rapid ease with which they could implement it––as illustrated by the gobsmacking compliance with the egregious COVID lockdowns and mandates in the Democrat strongholds, but we had still been making preparations to move our family out of California before COVID.

The new Stasi citizenry brigade.

We are now terribly grateful to have moved to a particularly Republican stronghold of a Republican state. USA flags wave proudly at almost every house. Veterans like my husband are appreciated and honored with reserved parking spaces and military discounts everywhere we go. Kindness, respect, regard, tolerance, inclusivity and generosity are what we have found in our new community. There is a common sense I find here that is largely missing in the SF Bay Area, and it is the same common sense I found in the minority Conservatives I’d meet back there.

I believe one of the most insidious threats to freedom is political correctness. When folks are afraid to say the wrong thing, they become increasingly afraid to call out absurdity and nonsense––and illogical policies, regulations, and intrusive violations on our basic freedoms can be ushered in and transform our world irreparably. I see this happening on a grand scale in places like the SF Bay Area. And since he entered the race before becoming president, I’ve regarded President Trump’s very politically incorrect manner of speaking and tweeting the necessary antidote.

The folks in my new community are not afraid to speak their truth for fear of being politically incorrect. That doesn’t result in racist, sexist, homophobic epithets, contrary to what the social justice brigade preaches. It results in people calling a spade a spade, speaking up for what they feel to be right, applying their common sense to what they will and won’t accept––and above all, judging a person by their character, and not the color of their skin or the way they look.

That’s probably why Conservatives/Republicans voted for and will vote again for Donald Trump, even though many didn’t and still don’t like his style, his manner, his trappings. In this day and age, I find folks who vote Republican much more accepting of folks’ differences and appearances. I find the Republicans able to get past the superficial aspects and hone in on the core of a person in assessing their character, while the Democrats seem unable to see anything BUT race, gender, sexual orientation and the trappings––or lack thereof––of material wealth.

Which of those groups would you rather spend your time with?

We Can’t Stop Living to Prevent Dying

Anne Mason and Thea Mason

Life is full of risks. And reasonable folks aim to strike a balance by taking prudent measures to reduce the risks without sacrificing life’s rewards.

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Anne (00:00):

Hi Thea.

Thea (00:02):

Hi, Anne.

Anne (00:02):

It’s been a while. Our lives, like everyone else’s have been pretty up ended and we have had some challenge finding the space and focus to connect in this way that we did pre lockdown time, but we realized how important it is to move forward and move this dialogue forward as well and move our thinking and progress along. So we’ve got to get on with it. And we’ve talked at length off camera about all of this and we’ve each got our own opinion about it as does everyone out there. But the time has come I think to move out of this grand experiment, if we want to call it that. As I was mentioning, ABC7 News a couple of days ago you know, said “Suicides on the rise, amid mid stay at home order, Bay area medical professionals say.” So the doctors at John Muir medical center in Walnut Creek, they’ve seen more deaths by suicide during this quarantine period than deaths from the virus itself. And they’re calling to end the shelter in place order because it’s doing more damage on, really, infinite levels of our lives than any virus really, in my estimation, ever could. But he said the numbers are unprecedented. We’ve never seen numbers like this in such a short period of time. We’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks. Which is so heartbreaking, when you just sit with the implications of that and just try to connect to folks, especially, you know, we were talking––the younger folks in the world who don’t have the anchor of their family, their kids, a life that has been somewhat established, an identity, a trajectory that has been somewhat established in life as we, as older folks have.

Anne (02:42):

It breaks my heart to even try to put myself in their shoes. Kids in college who are facing the prospect of not going back to campus and having some virtual reality world where they can’t meet people, you know, folks who aren’t dating, who can’t go date and can’t go just connect to their friends, which is such a part of their own discovery and emerging identity right now.

Thea (03:18):

To connect to their teachers, for their teachers to connect to them. My son who ended up having to do the remaining of his college year online, he said, “even if we had a pretty decent class,”––which was challenging in itself just to have dialogue and discourse over zoom––he said, but then even if that, there wasn’t ever the feeling of completion that you have when you finish a class and you walk out and you’re chatting with the classmate or you’re chatting with the teacher to kind of wrap up those threads that have been inspired. Here it’s just, poof! Now you’re back in your room and you, you know, how does that get harnessed? You know, those threads of creation, not to get too abstract in it, but they’re lost. They just go and they’re done. And people are left sitting still in their place by themselves going, “Where am I? What is my purpose?”

Anne (04:29):

And “What just happened? What is this experience?” And I won’t get too much into it either, but some of the dialogue circulating around on social media right now regarding the CDC’s recommendations for reopening schools––it sounds like beyond a dystopian nightmare, right? Social distancing? Staying apart? Being put in this isolation chair, essentially? As a child? I mean, don’t even get me started. And so, you know, we won’t make this a real long one, and I’m sure it’s going to provoke outrage in many folks who will say, But…”

Thea (05:14):

“People are dying.”

Anne (05:18):

People are dying. People ARE dying. People have always been dying. You know, 600,000 plus annual deaths from heart disease in the U.S. Alone, 500,000 plus deaths from cancer each year in the U.S. Alone, 250,000 plus deaths attributed to medical errors alone in the U.S. People die.

Thea (05:48):

And those are the ones that are caught. Those are the ones that are noticed and documented.

Anne (05:53):

Right. And you know, death is a part of life, Folks, first off.

Thea (06:00):

And saying that doesn’t minimize the suffering and the hardship and the pain that everyone goes through when there is loss and tragedy that comes to your family. It is terrible. It’s suffering. It hurts. It’s painful.

Anne (06:17):

It’s inconceivable. It’s inconceivable pain of course, when, when people die, when we lose people. And yeah, it sounds like I’m saying it flippantly, but I’m simply stating the fact of life that death is a part of it. This absurd notion now, you know, after we first start out with “flattening the curveand making sure that we’ve got the resources to care for people”––down to “We must prevent…”

Thea (06:50):

Death.

Anne (06:53):

“…All Death.” We’ve gone off the deep end here, Folks, and lost sight of any measured and reasonable approach to life’s risk benefit analysis. Right?

Thea (07:08):

And just to chime in and flesh that out just a little bit. So with that flattening the curve, I mean the understanding that was given with, with these orders was to flatten the curve. Meaning everyone still needs to come in contact with this, but we don’t want to overwhelm our systems of care. So right there we are now creating some, there’s some other dialogue happening. There’s some other directive coming. It’s not about flattening the curve. It’s just “stay in your house forever? Don’t come in contact with it because we don’t want to contract it when what we do need to do is contract it and probably way more people have come in contact with it. There was an article that said that it’s beennow there’s cases from September in the US, right?

Anne (08:10):

Right now we think it may have started in September. Yes. I am sure that much of the population has already gone through it. But just like anything, the healthy members of a population of course should let it circulate, develop some resistance, immunity, and then let it move on out. Let’s protect the vulnerable members of our society. Reasonably though, right? It doesn’t mean that we should destroy our businesses, lives families and become destitute so that none of us can take care of anything in order to prevent that. Anyway.

Anne (08:51):

So we obviously know how I feel about this as I have felt about it the whole time. But as it’s gone on and become far more extreme and destructive, it is time to end this madness. And as someone brilliant just said to me not long ago, we’ve talked about this, we cannot stop living in order to prevent dying. We must be measured and balanced in everything that we do here and this virtual reality world isn’t cutting it. And I do not consent to this bizarre, abstract, disconnected world that some folks seem to be wanting to create. I absolutely support anyone who wants to walk around with a mask on for the rest of their lives even or with some six foot bubble in each direction. I support anyone who wants to stay home as long as they want.

Anne (10:08):

I do not want to do that. That is not the world that I am bringing my children into. And that is not a future world really, I think that most people want to be living in.

Thea (10:19):

And it’s not sustainable because we are social beings, right? And we need to be making connection and our children need to be making connection to find their way in the world. And the world. What world is that we’re making? I mean that’s really the thing that has been hitting me intensely is that this world that we’re making right now for our young people, these moments are huge. And to normalize the separation of humanity is wrong. It’s a wrong thing for them to be experiencing and living in. Yeah. And I, we need contact, real contact––and these gestures of pushing in to create more distance in a world that’s already so distant and isolated––which is why we have people making suicide attempts at such a rate because there’s no, the connection is what keeps us human. Connection and purpose, right? Having meaning in our life and, and caring for others, being cared for by others is one of the main things that gives us meaning in this world.

Anne (11:51):

Yes. So end the lockdown and do not reverse course. Let’s open all this up. Let’s start living our lives again. Fully. Let’s start hugging. Let’s start hanging out. And many people are. I’m seeing it everywhere. People are starting to disregard this because it makes no sense. So we cannot stop living in order to prevent dying, otherwise, there’s no point in being alive in the first place. Let’s all remember that.

Eradicate Fear and Move Forward

Anne Mason and Thea Mason

We can meet each moment with courage and hope.

A Verse for Our Time

We must eradicate from the soul
All fear and terror of what comes towards man out of the future.

We must acquire serenity
In all feelings and sensations about the future.

We must look forward with absolute equanimity
To everything that may come.

And we must think only that whatever comes
Is given to us by a world-directive full of wisdom.

It is part of what we must learn in this age,
namely, to live out of pure trust,
Without any security in existence.

Trust in the ever present help
Of the spiritual world.

Truly, nothing else will do
If our courage is not to fail us.

And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves
Every morning and every evening.

                  -Rudolf Steiner

TRANSCRIPT:

Anne (00:01):

Hi, Thea and folks who are connecting with us. We wanted to just say a couple of things in a short one today. First off, everyone is impacted by what’s going on in the world, and what I want to make clear is that Thea and I are dramatically impacted by what’s going on in the world. And I’m not saying that for sympathy, but to just make it clear that these recordings are not coming out of a place of comfort and ease, but in spite of some lack of that. In order to also demonstrate that we can meet each moment and each day with courage and hope, no matter how you know, how insecure one may feel given one’s situation. And I won’t go into all the details about that right now. But that being said, I want to also talk about something that is becoming clear to me. Carlos Castaneda wrote of what his teacher taught him were called the flying fish in this world. Rudolph Steiner also speaks of these beings as do many other seers and, and wise folk throughout humanity, and the ancient religions and texts and cultures. And essentially these beings are, for want of a better description, psychic parasites.

Anne (02:00):

And what is clear to me right now is that––whether one’s fear is of a virus, or one’s fear is of economic instability, or one’s fear is of descending totalitarianism––or all three, these fears must not be fed if we are to move things in the right direction. And in order to help with that, I’m going to ask that you read or recite a Steiner verse, a very short Steiner verse addressing this.

Thea (02:45):

Okayj. We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what comes toward us out of the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future. We must look forward with absolute equanimity to everything that may come. And we must think that whatever comes is given to us by a world directive full of wisdom. It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely to live out of pure trust, trust in the ever present help of the spiritual world. Truly nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us. Let us develop our will and let us seek the awakening within ourselves every morning and every evening.

Anne (03:48):

Thank you. And finally, I’d like to conclude with the fact that Thea sent me a couple minute video of her yesterday dancing in the rain. Moving and dancing in the rain. And I was so struck by it and struck by its demonstration and inhabitation and celebration of our humanity. And it inspired me. And I want to tag this on the end of this in hopes that it inspires you. In the face of adversity, in the face of insecurity, in the face of anxiety––we must embrace our humanity, exercise our humanity, and celebrate our humanity. It’s important now more than ever, I assure you. Okay. All right. Thanks so much. Until next time, Folks. I love you.

Thea (04:48):

Love you.

Our Humanity

Anne Mason and Thea Mason

We are infinite, expansive, powerful, creative, connected human beings. Remember! This is a critical moment.

About The Great Invocation

TRANSCRIPT:

Anne (00:00):

Okay, well we’ll try this. We’ve got some funky signal going on, but…So we’ve been talking about the situation here and the mindfulness we want to bring to our humanity, to remember how critical our humanity is at this time in the face of measures that might falsely lead us to believe that we are smaller than we are.

Thea (00:46):

And that that came out of different conversations you and I have been having and observations that I’ve been having with regards to working and doing things online whereas normally in my life, I have to do very little online. And I’ve been blessed in that way to have real human interaction in my work. But having meetings and such online has given me the experience of what it’s like to be in that world. And people I know are using this all over the place. And the experience of being online, my kids are having it now for the first time, really. And it’s very different, very different than having real exchange, you know, so we’re all struggling a little bit. And I had been observing that coming to this, this frame that we are in right now in this virtual world in a certain way-–though it echoes an aspect of our relationship or the way we would engage normally––it’s like on one plane of that rather than the rainbow color of all of those nuances that we can perceive and send out to one another in real face time, physically together. So on line, it brings our attention to this small point which I’m experiencing right now and you are, we’re here in our realm but focusing in this one little space. And that’s not a bad thing, but it can be something that encourages or supports the idea that we are smaller than we are rather than the vast beings that we are.

Thea (02:38):

I have been now playing with this idea and the practice of when I’m out and getting groceries or doing something that I’m able to go do, rather than looking at this six feet of physical distancing from people as the separation, I’m looking at it now as a draw to fill my six feet of space around me and that others can fill their six feet in that––I think of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man and expand that farther out into the distance, because as human beings we are much bigger than we often give ourselves credit to be. And one more thing to add to that is that when I am experiencing a fullness of my full space all around me, there is no space for fear. That is the other part that had come in our conversation that when we come into a small point and we’re existing in a small field, there’s a lot of room for fear to fill up those realms around us. And if we, I had the thought in our last conversation, but a little bit of like the ripples in the water that we are those and we send those out from ourselves, those ripples. And if we’re filling up that space, there’s no rippling of fear from me to you, from you to me, from you to anyone, me to anyone. That instead we’re filling it with this whatever we picture right? What do we see in that? Is it fear or is it love? And in that is love. And so if we can, as people, fill our individual spaces with love in a bigger way than we’ve ever thought to do before, and we picture that in the entire world around our Earth and into the whole universe, I mean, it’s pretty powerful. And it reminds me of how powerful we are because we actually get to do that right now. We can be asked to fill up the space with love, with what it is to be a human being with light, with love, and with power.

Anne (05:06):

Yes. Thank you. And with that in mind, I’m going to ask people to be a bit quiet while I’m recording.

Thea (05:19):

But in a loving way. It’s a lot warmer there than it is here today. I’m in wool socks and a sweater…

Anne (05:26):

It’s so sunny and beautiful and warm. But as we know, the signal’s a little bit funkier outside there. But yeah, and we should remind ourselves that sunlight is the path to health, right?

Thea (05:46):

The right amount of sunlight, I will say, I have some rain right now too.

Anne (05:56):

I get you. So I love all that. And also with that in mind, I feel as if the work that we’re doing here right now is so critical. How we respond. How we meet our challenges right now is so critical. Our humanity is critical to the All and as above, so below. And so it is ever, ever critical for us to bring that mindfulness to every moment, every gesture, every day we wake up with the situation as it is. And then also following on that, we discovered we were going to try to say The Great invocation together. And we discovered that another limitation of this type of communication is that you cannot speak at the same time.

Thea (07:08):

Which means you can’t sing or harmonize together either.

Anne (07:13):

Right. Which is something we need to really look at as there might be a tendency to rely so much on this kind of communication as if it can serve us instead of our human communication and connection. This must be temporary. This must be a temporary measure. So with that also comes the conversation we were having about the work that people do with The Great Invocation and it’s called Triangles. And there’s a network, a worldwide network of people who have been saying The Great Invocation daily for many, many, many years since it came into existence. And the interesting thing about it is that you don’t have to, you form a triangle with two other people. They might be across the world even. You don’t need to say it at the same time, you don’t even have to be in the same place because time and space are transcended. And so you can say it and then I’ll say it, but we’re still saying it all together and it still brings that same power to this plane.

Thea (08:33):

And it sure is applicable, you know. I mean, I am so grateful to have had this in our lives. And as we’re in these moments together, it just expands. That’s what it feels like.

Anne (08:49):

Dimensionally. Yes.

Thea (08:50):

So I’ll start and then you will as well. Well, add a layer every day maybe. Hopefully.

Thea (09:04):

From the point of light within the mind of God, let light stream forth into the minds of men. Let light descend on Earth. From the point of love within the heart of God, let love stream forth into the hearts of men. May Christ return to Earth. From the center where the will of God is known, let purpose guide the little wills of men, the purpose which the masters know and serve. From the center which we call the race of men, let the plan of love and light work out and may it seal the door where evil dwells. Let love and light and power restore the plan on Earth.

Anne (09:53):

Amen. From the point of light within the mind of God, let light stream forth into the minds of men. Let light descend on Earth. From the point of love within the heart of God, let love stream forth into the hearts of men. May Christ return to Earth. From the center where the will of God is known, let purpose guide the little wills of men, the purpose which the masters know and serve. From the center which we call the race of men, let the plan of love and light work out and may it seal the door where evil dwells. Let light and love and power restore the plan on Earth. Amen. All right. Right on. Let’s keep this going. And please, anyone who would like to join in, the more we say this, the more opportunity we have to bring it all forth, to manifest the world that we want to create.

Thea (10:59):

I love you.

Thea (11:00):

I love you.

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