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Carla’s Niche
Camelot Journal
Copyright © 2006 Carla L. Rueckert
Friday, August 19, 2005
Law of One Seminar at Wooded Glen, IN: Day 1
I rose early to pack before the day got away from me. Jim had a full day’s mowing and so we were both up a bit early. The packing was eventually done. I got a manicure, my personal treat to myself for the conference. I had a different color on each nail so that I could point to the nails to show where I was in talking about the chakras—I had decided to get into the LOO material from the entry point of the chakra or electrical system that is the “form-maker” for our physical bodies in my three scheduled talks.
When I was finished it was lunchtime and I got back home to find some excitement as JW, Vara and GLB talked about who was going to drive what car where. People needing to be picked up at the airport, equipment needing to go to Wooded Glen and all the different schedules just did not seem to be manageable. Finally we worked out a solution that satisfied us all, got all the participants fetched from the airport and delivered me and the needed supplies to WG. I ended up in Vara’s vintage Mustang (1988) with Jeremy driving. Vara and Trenton were in Stanley (my Subaru Outback) doing two back-to-back airport runs and Gary and Jim were driving their own cars, both loaded with items. Jeremy and I followed Gary, who was carrying Paul J., since we had never been to WG and Gary knew the way.
Our problem was two-fold on the trip up to Henryville, Indiana, where Wooded Glen was. Firstly, Jeremy had not driven the Mustang previously and the shifting and clutch were a far different feel than his own car. The car was balky under his hand while he learned it and we could not keep up with Gary the jack rabbit! Finally Jeremy called GLB on his cell phone and asked him to wait and watch out for us. Things went more smoothly after that. Secondly, I had decided to brave the non-air-conditioned Mustang so JW and I could talk about web site issues, as Jeremy is working hard at rebuilding www.bring4th.org. Ironically, with the heat in the 90s, we needed to leave the windows down and with the windows down we could not make ourselves heard. Nevertheless, I think we got the basics covered well on the way up there. It was a lovely drive once we cleared the city.
Wooded Glen was a beautiful, idyllic place, full of trees and possessing a lake and gentle slopes of grassland. The driveway wound around and part of it was a picturesque covered bridge. There were two buildings, in one of which we were to have our seminar. The other building was our sleeping quarters. Vara, Trenton and Ed A. were on hand as we drove up and shepherded me to Jim’s and my room. The hospital bed had been delivered but sheets were not provided, so a quick call was put in to Jim, mowing away, to please bring bed linen. Vara spread the motel spread over the bed so I could rest on it without sticking to the mattress plastic and I spent the time until the seminar by unpacking and settling in to the room. It was a lovely, large, well-appointed room, well above the standard hotel fare. The bath was large as well and the closet space ample. When my space was full of peace and my doll, Annsy P., was perched contentedly on the spare bed—the facility had chosen to put the hospital bed in the room without taking out the bed that matched Jim’s—I actually had a bit of time to take a shower and change clothes. The ride up in the heat had made me feel distinctly unwashed! Right when I was finishing up, at ten of six, in came Jim. He made it! We shared a quick embrace and went to meet the participants.
There were 33 of us at the conference and the excitement was palpable. We met in a large room with one side being almost all windows. Light and airy, the room was a delight. It looked out over pasture and woods and at various times we could watch deer and wild turkey strolling by and see up to four hummingbirds at a time feeding from the feeders the managers provided. There were many tables which could seat up to six people and we had arranged them in a semi-circle. Halfway through the evening we worked to adjust the seating. Some people found the tables useless, and for them we removed the table and just set chairs up. Others found that staggering the tables allowed us to have a smaller and more intimate-feeling circle. Water, pads and pens had been provided for each of us. JW was hard at work videotaping the event and Trenton fiddled ceaselessly with the sound system.
Gary started the proceedings off with a welcoming orientation speech. I was expecting the stock information about where the bathrooms were and what time meals were served, but Gary surprised me with a well-thought-out philosophical discourse that seemed very much to please everyone. It was quite impressive. He did not know where the bathrooms were, but Tom F. knew and passed that information on and so we got that covered!
I came up to the front to lead the opening meditation with a heart overflowing with sheer glee. Much preparation had gone into the days before this event started and things had seemed a bit chaotic, but here we were, gathered and ready. The group felt full of energy! We settled down for the meditation and afterwards, broke for dinner.
The refectory was at the lowest level of this same building, with ample room for all and delicious food. We could choose our own drinks among the choices of various colas, plus tea and coffee and iced water. It was so good to hook up with Ed A., whom we had not seen for a couple of years and with whom we sat for this first meal. He and his partner, Michele, are expecting a new soul in just a few months. Michele’s daughter, Raven, was also with us for the weekend.
We started going around the circle, each person talking about who they were, where they had come from and what brought them to the Law of One. At least half of the group had first learned about our work through the Wilcock/Free book on The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce. Others had found the material at a friend’s house or by surfing the web. We paused briefly to observe the Gaia meditation and then went back to our round-robin around the circle. It took us almost the entire allotted two hours, one hour of which was to have been my first talk, to proceed until all had shared their stories. Already the best-laid plans were ganging agley! This was just fine! But we did spend the rest of the weekend catching up with the material I had prepared. I held up my first little finger, painted with black enamel to represent the mystery of the one infinite Creator, and used the ten remaining minutes before bedtime dismissal to talk about the Creator. It was a great start to the conference and a great end to the day.
We all drifted back to the dorm building and our rooms, tickled to find warm cookies and ice cream available for a bedtime snack. Chocolate chip oatmeal cookies went down well! WG always seemed to have things available to munch on and to drink, amenities that were much appreciated.
Jim and I got back to our room to find that we were just in time to catch the late-night reruns of the two new Stargate episodes and we watched them as we got sleepy and said good-night at the end of Stargate Atlantis.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Law of One Seminar at Wooded Glen, IN: Day 2
Jim and I both slept amazingly well! We woke with just enough time to have breakfast before the time set aside for silent meditation. I always have a morning offering to start the day and brought that habit with me to the conference. At home our offerings consist not only of a silent meditation but also a hymn, prayers and readings from the Bible, from the Law of One and from other books. However with others joining in I felt it better to stick to a silent meditation only. Nothing beats that wonderful jump-start to the day that you get from a beginning time of spiritual reflection.
Gary covered a few housekeeping details before Tobey and Elijah Wheelock began the presentations for the day. Elijah is Tobey’s 9-year-old son. Tobey and his wife have raised their children with a mixture of Christian formation in the Episcopalian tradition and the Law of One philosophy. Tobey gave a very thoughtful talk and Elijah added much!
After a break Vara offered an equally thoughtful and insightful speech on seeing the self. There was lots of audience participation as Vara spoke and it felt like a very good conversation.
Tobey and Elijah, Vara and I offered ourselves for some Q and A and suddenly it was lunchtime.
We had a nice long lunch break and many took the opportunity to walk around the beautiful grounds of Wooded Glen. Jim and I just enjoyed the delicious food and had rambling conversations with many of the participants. It was great to be able to share with so many of those who had come. I took a few minutes back in our room to rest up a bit and also asked Gary to fix me up a chaise lounge type of lawn chair for me so I could rest my back and shoulders a bit while listening to the speakers, as I was beginning to be wearied by the sitting up. I have found for the last month or so that I seem to have a glass ceiling at the two-hours-vertical mark and this workshop was greatly exceeding that! The chaise lounge helped immeasurably and I was most grateful to Gary, who cleaned and set up the lawn chair for me on very short notice.
Paul Jacob talked after lunch on a number of topics ranging from personal experiences to political activism and many points in between. He apologized later for the rambling and somewhat disjointed nature of his speech, citing personal crises. However he was very well received and was a great part of this gathering.
After a break, Jim and Maxine Pfefferkorn offered a memoir of their experiences together over many years of service and learning. Jim opened with an old folk song, “He was a Grand Old Man,” which he taught us so we could join in. Jim and Maxine took us through many experiences including twenty years at Taliesin West, the group that grew up around Frank Lloyd Wright. Jim and Maxine had brought their two children up in this environment before deciding to strike out on their own. They spoke about founding their own center in Spring Green, WI, Literra. It was a most enjoyable talk and the group embraced them warmly.
Jim McCarty spoke before the dinner bell rang of his thoughts on pioneering fourth density. He shared his experiences learning survivalism and spiritual or brain self-control from a mountain man of Colorado, T. D. Lingo. Lingo was Jim’s first spiritually oriented teacher and offered much food for thought concerning ways to use nature’s wonderful environment as a backdrop for doing spiritual work, especially in small groups. Jim’s well-organized and concise presentation was provocative and most enjoyable and sent us off to the dinner hour with much about which to talk.
After a nice, relaxed dinner and many people strolling the beautiful grounds of Wooded Glen we reconvened for one more talk, by me, on the first three chakras. My hope was to give the kind of overview to all the chakras, in the course of the weekend, that an owner’s manual might give to, say, the carburetor of an engine in a car. The goal was to have a good way to look at our situation on planet earth during incarnation. Living the Law of One is a clearer goal to pursue when you know just what manner of being you are. This is dense material so I handed out outlines for the participants to have in referring back to what I covered. It was a delight to share with everyone. After the Gaia meditation, Jim and I retired to our beds, as Jim was still exhausted from a full week of mowing and I was in great need of restorative sleep. I understand that hardy souls stayed up and watched a video of Don Elkins and my interview from 1978 on Ted Turner’s Atlanta station!
The warm cookies, milk and ice cream were again in evidence as we went to bed, and we left several groups of people chatting away together, processing the many things we had heard and discussed this day.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Law of One Seminar at Wooded Glen, IN: Day 3
We began the morning, after breakfasting and conversing around the tables on the porch area of the capacious refectory, with a silent morning offering that seemed especially sweet to me for being the last one of the weekend.
I spoke again, moving up the chakra system into the heart. The challenge of bringing the integrated self into the open heart was the “heart” of this part of my discussion. The group was tremendously welcoming and asked great questions.
We had a meditation to activate the fourth-density grid, reassuring and calming Gaia concerning this great passage she is making, and then it was time for Steve Tyman’s talk.
Steve worked with the system of archetypes laid out by the Ra group in Book IV of the Law of One. His material was also dense. Fortunately, he, too, had an outline for people to follow, which he had written down on the big notepad facing the group. It was a wonderful and challenging talk.
We went directly from that to a Q and A session for all participants to ask questions of all speakers. However, most of the questions were to Steve, as he had really given the group lots of great ideas and thoughts and they were working hard to seat the material. After grid activation we broke for lunch.
We had originally intended for there to be a three-hour break in this afternoon for Sabbath time alone, chatting with new friends or taking advantage of the rural beauty of our site. However the group elected to come back together instead to hear me talk on the higher chakras, material to which I had not gotten earlier and which people wanted to hear. We did just that and it was a wonderful chance for me to talk about meditation and other ways to do work in consciousness.
Gary used a bit of time after my talk to get details organized for the pilgrimage to Avalon which will take place tomorrow. Everyone’s food choices were noted down, people were assigned to caravan cars who did not have rides and all was prepared for the tour of Avalon, which many will stay to enjoy.
Vara then offered her second presentation, which was on opening a dialogue with the unconscious. Again it was a guided conversation with much participation and everyone enjoyed the range of thoughts which were presented.
Jim and Maxine Pfefferkorn were the last presenters of the conference, speaking of channeling and other work they have accomplished at Literra, their own center for spiritual work. I missed the last part of this very good presentation due to health problems, sadly. I believe there was a final Q and A session, involving all the speakers except Jim and me—Jim had left to take care of me, as I was in some distress—and then we broke for supper.
I rested in my room until the Gaia Meditation in order to recruit my strength for acting as a channel for the final Meditation of the conference. All seemed to go very well and the conference ended on a strong note of inspiration and joy.
Jim and I came home right after the Meditation was done. It was grand to be able to sleep in my own bed and greet my pussy cats again after the weekend away.
Jeremy has created links to all the speeches that are transcribed, and links to notes he made on each speech as an embedded part of this journal, and as transcriptions come in we will add more.
We agreed to put out a request to all participants to add their own journal entries, thoughts and suggestions to Jeremy’s and my thoughts. If you were a participant you should have gotten such a request by now. Please do share with us on this experience! We are eager to get your feedback.
On reflection, I can see ways to improve things for our next seminar together. We shall be more careful to require outlines from all speakers, and the give speakers more direction on aligning their thoughts with the flow and themes of the weekend in general. We shall attempt to ascertain what people who were here this time would like to tackle next time in the way of subjects and themes. And we shall investigate other venues for holding the conference, since Wooded Glen, for all of its delightful beauty, was expensive and it kept several people from attending. We shall try to find a place that has both beauty and the quality of being far less expensive. Lastly, we realized that due to the limitations of our video camera, which took a 58-minute tape and which could only be reloaded when it was off its tripod, we were not able to collect anyone’s whole speech. We had not thought to secure an audio version of the proceedings, which would have captured the speeches independently of the video camera’s audio component. Such an audiocassette record would also have allowed for direct transcribing of the speeches. As it is we shall have to find a way to capture these speeches from the video record. I remember that Tiffani did the transcription from video at the Huntsville Time of Global Shift gathering in 2002 and I shall write and ask her for help.
I was intensely grateful for the hard work of Gary, Jeremy, Vara, Trent and Ed, whose production help throughout the weekend was outstanding! Jeremy outdid himself in not only filming the proceedings but making notes on the talks as they proceeded. The participants were also outstanding, and the heart-opening energy of this conference was just a delight to my soul. Thanks to all!
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