Christening by Rev. Richard Lewis in Lake Cowichan, Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada

The christening table and the accessories for the baptism of first-born Stephan Alexander Scharnberg by Rev. Richard Lewis from Los Angeles, California, USA on Sunday, May 23, 1963 in the Scharnberg home, a converted logging bunkhouse on Neva Road in Lake Cowichan, Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada. Richard Lewis accompanied Dr. Lauenstein from West Germany on a North America-wide tour. After my christening, Richard Lewis continued north to Sproat Lake near Port Alberni, also on Vancouver Island, for the baptism of the first-born Krack child, Marius, and then to the Lower Mainland to baptize the second-born Rachel son, Andrew, at the Rachel’s new home on Cooper Road in Richmond.

Travel has always been an important part of my life. I’ve been on the road since before I was born. I was conceived on the return half of my parents’ honeymoon road trip to northern Mexico, on a US Army cot in the Waldorf School in Northridge, Los Angeles, California. At our first home, the bunkhouse, father planted me a birth tree, a Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), out front, still standing to this day at over 60 feet tall.

The baptisms are mentioned in the booklet, The Standing Wave (a biographical sketch of The Christian Community in British Columbia since the founding and further development) as remembered by Janet and Dean Rachel, published privately at Michaelmas 2005, with proceeds going to The Christian Community.

[1959 Kodak Retina IIIS (Type 027) rangefinder 35-mm roll film camera, s/n 86125, with Schneider-Kreuznach Retina-Xenon 50-mm f/1.9 Synchro Compur lens, s/n 6841319; Kodak Plus-X Pan ISO 125/22° 36-exposure black & white negative film]

© Copyright photograph by Uwe Kündrunar Scharnberg, May 1963 / Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, May 2012

I am the Life and the Resurrection

Dear Friends, during this Easter time, my heart has been filled with gratitude. I have been very thankful to be at home the past two months, spending more time with my children. This alone has been a gift - the gift of time. It has also meant I have been able to take up some volunteer work in the community, reconnecting with old friends, giving a little more time at church, and making new friends. I am grateful for all the people who have come into my life during the past few years, and their love and support for me and my children. I have time to take pleasure in welcoming the longer days, luxuriating in the warmth-giving Sun, and watching blossoms burst forth.

I have also had time to take up more reading. A book my sister gave me for Christmas, which I took in hand last week, is called, The boy who came back from heaven. It's a true story, which happened in Ohio, written by the father and son of a family whose lives were changed forever, due to a horrendous car accident. This story of a child who "died" and went to heaven, and his slow return to the land of the living, is full of miracles from start to finish. I wept through almost every page. You see, when you have experienced pain in your own life, it can lead to being more open to the pain of others. It also is helpful to read about trials in other people's lives, as it makes you more thankful for what you have. The mother in this story also has a blogsite: amomonamission, if you are curious to learn more.

This story is ongoing. It is about Life. It's about walking with God. It's about opening up your heart to the Christ. These words stood out for me today during the service: Those who bring Christ to life within themselves. It's a phrase written over and over in this book as well: The Kingdom of God is everywhere - it is NOW! It is not somewhere in the distant future, in an imaginary place, it can be here and now, if only we can allow our hearts to open like a seed. For it is Love that brings forth the blooms, and it is Love that calls forth our true selves.

Do you know this song? Cherish the Love, by Kool and the Gang

Sparky

Dragon Ships

This month, during the time of Passiontide, I want to touch on the theme of exploration. You see, I have a confession to make: I have EDD. Have you ever heard of this acronym? Probably not, because I just invented it. It stands for Explore, Discover and Develop. If you think back to the middle ages, this was a time of great exploration, the earliest and most wide-ranging being the Vikings. Being Scottish, Irish and Swedish (Canadian), I figure that makes me pure Viking! The Vikings were famous for their dragon ships. Not only did they sail south and west, but they also travelled by land as far east as Sicily and Constantinople. There are now theories that they reached not just the east coast of Canada, but also the west coast. I wanted to present the image of a dragon ship, as it ties back into my earlier blogs on the Chinese year of the Dragon.

EDD can hit you at any age. Adolescents are encouraged to explore, discover and develop their skills and talents. It's unbelievably difficult for teenagers today to do that. All sorts of things get in the way: television, computers, video games, ipods, cell phones. This age of electronics conspires to create a cacaphony of noise and artificial images, striving to prevent them from doing any real inner work.

In going through a time of change, as I am now, I have to do the same thing. What marketable skills do I possess or could I develop? That's a very hard thing at my age. It's a very interesting thing that 5 or 6 years ago, when I was on the brink of a major change spiritually, the first volume of Esoteric Lessons came into my hands. Now, the second volume has arrived and I have the time and opportunity to discover and explore each lesson.

EDD can apply not just to individuals, but to groups as well. Our congregations are also going through a time of change. The impulse that led to the founding of our little communities is fading. Something new must be "discovered" and "developed". It is a time of "dying" and "rebirth". We are called upon every evening as individuals, and every Sunday as a community, to once again "die into Christ".

This year we mark the 90th birthday of the founding of The Church of The Christian Community, or TCC. (Privately, I like to refer to it as TLC). It's an interesting thing that it falls in the year 2012. We are being called, both as individuals, and as communities, to prepare for something new. Do you know this motto, "Be Prepared"? It's the motto for the Girl Guides. It is also the motto for my alma mater - Nous sommes prets - we are prepared. Simon Fraser University, named after another famous explorer (Scottish), sits atop a mountain in the heart of Vancouver, almost at the foot of which, is our church. For 4 years, I bussed, drove, and traipsed in heavy snow, up and down this mountain. What I could do in my 20's physically, I must now find a way to do inwardly. It means creating a space for movement - a movement of spiritual renewal.

Skol

Sparky

God's mighty creation

In the early 1980's I lived in Europe for three years, to be exact in southern Germany in the state of Bavaria, southwest of Munich, in an area known as Vierseenland (four seas or lakes land), in a town called Wessling beside a small lake (Wesslinger See). I was learning the trade of cabinetmaking and early on I did not know too many people there except the friends of my parents I was living with. I would not say it was a rough time in my life but there were days when I was a little lonely. Anyway, one day, around this time of year, I decided to go for walk after having studied my cabinetmaking theory for several hours. Wessling lies just on the northern edge of a huge but shallow valley which extends pretty much all the way south to the Alps. At the very time I came upon this scene there was a moment of twilight magic. About seven or eight years later, when I was living in the Lower Mainland, I woke up suddenly with all the ideas for a poem fresh in my mind. I had to get pencil and paper right away or my flash of insight would have been gone forever, or at least in the way I had "heard" it. I am not joking when I say this: I literally woke up and each and every word of this poem came crysal clear into my mind in one contious stream before I got up to write it all down.
Here it is:

  Distant Spires

   The evening light warm did fall

slanting slow through beechwood 'halls'.

Ancient images I beheld

as I did see a slaten spire shining fair

miles off, standing high of dusk befallen air

creasting high on a distant darkened hill

proud upon it's Alpen sill.

  There, further past a dimmer, orange, snowy range

it seemed to me

that I could look  upon a far-off

warm blue sea.

   Felix Hayo Scharnberg

It is a short poem but it is also an explanation of the singular beauty of God's creation in nature.

The beechwood trees I was walking through were so dense I could think of them like an outdoor hallway.

The ancient images were connected to all the activities of people living in this part of the world for the centuries gone by. Slaten spire refers to a fairly well known church known as Kloster Andechs, by the way they make very good beer in this tiny hamlet if you are into that sort of thing. To explain the whole scene some more: from near where I was standing all the way to the Alps over 100 km away the valley was in evening shadow. The exceptions were this Kloster Andechs with its slate tower still in sunlight and then the entire north wall of the Alps with colours of yellow to oranges on it's snowbanks to blues and darker purple on the rocky parts. Then, with this side of the Alps still being  in a sort of wintery state and having been in California and Mexico a couple of times I could imagine the warm Mediterranean Sea south of this impressive mountain range. Of course, the darking night sky leads into outer space and the vastness of all the rest of God's mighty creation! Here also is a photo of this Kloster Andechs that was taken at a different time during my stay. It is a very idyllic place, of which there are many in Europe.







Raising Consciousness, Part IV

Dear Friends, I had meant to do this blog at a little later date, but it is better for me to do it today, before hard reality sets in.

In the first part, I talked about being able to see things from different points of view. This is also a very important part of raising consciousness, of looking at things objectively rather than subjectively. This is a very important step - to put aside your own viewpoint and consider someone else's.

Today, my company was informed that we will be shutting down in a few short months. This is a result of being bought by a larger company 18 months ago. It's nothing new in the world of business and economics. I will be laid off shortly, after 5 years. As a single mom, in the world's 2nd most expensive place to live in the world, it is a little alarming and daunting. But that is not what I want to talk about.

I started in 2006, working as a temporary office worker. It had been 12 years since I had been in the workforce. The first day back in an office was horrible. After the first hour I wanted to cry, and by lunchtime I wanted to go home and never come back. I couldn't do that, because I knew I had to get back to work to support my family. I was also struggling to manage my rheumatoid arthritis. Because of my job, my wrists and feet literally ached for months.

After about a year, though, I found the rhythm to what I was doing. It was a start up company, and I had 4 people working under me, just trying to keep up with the deluge of work. I loved it! People appreciated my being there, I felt valued, I was making some money, working outside the home, meeting people. I had a job in which I could make my own decisions, organize my work, set my own pace.

The thing I loved most though, was the people. I had a chance to meet and work with people from all over the world: India, Sri Lanka, Romania, Germany, France, Madagascar, Africa, the Philippines, China, without going very far at all! My travel opportunities off the continent have been limited so far to the UK and Hawaii, not very exciting, but eye-opening nevertheless.

The point is, my life has been enriched by the people I have met from different cultures. It doesn't matter if it is for only a short time, or long, and hopefully theirs were enriched in return. It may be hard for someone to imagine who is a "world traveller", who is used to seeing different places and people. Who takes "hopping across the pond" very lightly, as matter of fact. This is not the case for me. My parents grew up in small towns on the Prairies, and never dreamed that one day they might get to see places like the Sandwich Islands, Borneo, Scandinavia, or Australia, but they did!

Having the chance to meet someone from another country is something I would put a high value on, not just for my own sake, but for the sake of a larger, world-view, and especially for those who might otherwise never have an opportunity to expand their own. The benefit of hosting and enabling an inter-continental conference works both ways, my friends, both ways.

Sparks

Raising Consciousness, Part III

It's amazing what you can find surfing the internet, and where it leads you. This picture is on the Colorado Plateau, near a spot called the 4 corners, taken in a rare year when the elements come together in such a way that the desert becomes a carpet of purple flowers. It is a flowering, or bursting forth, but not just out of nowhere. In between, the rhythmn of the seasonal cycles works. This is a definition for "epiphany" which I like very much. That special moment occurs often only after long, hard, repetitious movement or work. (remember I promised to bring up repetition?) When the time is right, something miraculous can happen.
The same can happen in the different ages of man. What happened in between 1000 AD and 2000 AD? The Renaissance! A seemingly sudden flowering of literature, science, art, religion and politics. It involved social and political upheaval, and has been called the "bridge" between the modern and middle ages. Of course, it did not happen without a lot of hard work on the part of pioneers like Archimedes, Socrates, and so on.
What often happens, though, is that a person's work or genius is not fully recognized or appreciated until decades, if not centuries later. The common man simply is not ready, and cannot fathom it until a great deal of time has passed.

This year, 2012, I feel we are once again on the verge of the opportunity for a "renaissance", or flowering in similar areas: medicine, agriculture, religion, education, socio/political arenas. Perhaps it could be said that through the work of a great pioneer, 100 years ago, and the steady devotion to his work that has taken place over the past few decades. Perhaps Dr. Steiner's work, otherwise known as anthroposophy, could be called the "bridge" into the future. It's kind of like learning how to play a musical instrument: you have to practice scales and chords endlessly, until you can do them in your sleep. Only when you have become a "master" is there the possibility for you to make the leap to "maestro".

In Alfred Heidenreich's 1942 lecture, he acknowledged that his generation might not see the actualization of Steiner's work, certainly not to the extent that they had hoped. Today, 70 years later, thanks to all the hard work performed with sincere dedication, I think we can be more optimistic.

Raising consciousness is what our Living Gold Conference (or as I like to call it, our big fat Canadian Conference) this summer is all about. There will be workshops on numbers, comparative religions, spacial dynamics, music, singing, sculpture, economics, historical occurrences - even on humor! Do you know the phrase "live large"? It means take everything to the max, take everything in, stretch the boundaries, tear down the walls. Oh and yes, Vancouver Island also offers bungee jumping...

Go for the Gold!
Sparky

Raising Consciousness, Part II

Hi there. Today I want to present 3 images: the cadeuceus (on the right), the one below, called a taijitu, better known as yin and yang and one more, without an actual picture.

Notice that neither half of the taijitu is completely black or completely white. Theoretically, no one is completely bad or completely good. It also introduces the concept of "chi", or "life energy". You probably have realized by now the connection between ancient mythology and yoga, as discussed in my previous blog. The answer is of course, that yoga goes back hundreds, if not thousands of years. So too does a practice in China called chi gung, or qigong. It is similar to t'ai chi, which personally I find a lot easier to try than yoga - it's downright embarrassing watching me try to get down onto, and up off of, a floor mat.

Typically, a qigong practice involves rhythmic breathing, coordinated with slow, stylized repetition of fluid movement, and a calm mindful state. From a philosophical point of view, it is believed to help develop human potential, allow access to higher realms of awareness, and awaken one's true nature. Please note the phrase, "repetition" - I will come back to this in my next blog.

Did you pick up on the word "dynamic" in the previous blog? I like this word a lot. What other words can you think of that include this one? How about spacial dynamics, or bio-dynamics? I am going to try out spacial dynamics for the first time this Sunday after church, courtesy of one of our members, Les Tulloch, who will be presenting a workshop on this at the Living Gold conference, together with a colleague from Argentina.

I like the use of symbols, as they tend to be universally recognized, which is good when you are addressing someone who may not be entirely familiar with your own language. Numbers are also universal symbols. Another member of our church, Felix Scharnberg, introduced the concept of "fractals" to us awhile ago - positively fascinating. The image for this concept could be the spiral. It's a fact that our world could not exist without numbers, - even we as human beings would not exist. Think of the symbol for DNA.

This brings us to the second symbol, the caduceus. It is associated with the god Mercury, and the metal by the same name. In Greco-Roman times, this god stood for trade, commerce, negotiation, an equal exchange, or balance (this is what yin and yang is about as well - balance - it ties in nicely with our Living Gold conference, too). Under the Greek name, Hermes, he stood for initiation, shepherd, numbers, divine messenger, and mediator between the physical and spiritual worlds.

Now I want to give you the last symbol: the feathered serpent of ancient Mexico, Quetzalcoatl. He was the patron god of priesthood, learning, knowledge, and represented the evolution of human consciousness. One of our workshops during the conference will be on the Virgin of Guadalupe, presented by my friend, Stephanie Georgieff.

These are all just tidbits, which I hope will entice you to look into further. My final blog on this subject will be in a few days, around the 4th and last Sunday of Epiphany, where I hope to tie everything neatly together.

Wish me luck! or maybe I should say, Kung Hei Fat Choy!

Sparky