A Guided Meditation
Hope Springs Institute
July 9, 2016
Good morning littlebig family. This morning I would like to take you all on a journey that I experienced a few months before I came to live permanently in the USA. The journey is going to take the form of a guided meditation. It will start with me setting the scene so that you might have an understanding of the background and geography of where it was that I came from in NZ and where it was that this “life changing moment” occurred.
I will then explain the experience I had in some detail and the results that emanated from that.
It will take a little while longer to complete our 45 minutes of meditation and we will spend that time in silent contemplation, after which I will bring our session to a close by sounding the chimes
Setting the Scene
Our little village of Taheke is one of those lost, little relics that, to the casual passer-by, or bus load of weary tourists eager to get to their journeys end, could quite easily appear to be just another one of those broken down, ramshackle ghost towns, left behind by time and the whimsical nature of man.
Taheke, our little hamlet sits nestled up against one of the Humps, or to use a metaphor, beside the Flipper of Puhangatohoraharaha. Sacred Puhangatohoraharaha, translated as the spouting whale, represents for our northern families one of the most hallowed mountains in the far north of New Zealand. Each mountain Hump or Bump depicts a whale and another family clans genealogical record, memorialized forevermore into a mountain range when the pod was stranded as the ancient land rose out of the depths of the smoldering ocean. Together the Humps and Bumps protect the inner sanctum of fertile lands from the gale force winds of the west. Spouting whale, our elders will relate in their stories to the grandchildren, is when the rising incoming sea-tide on the west coast side of that particular region, sets in motion a chain reaction which ripples, miles inland and thousands of feet atop the sacred whale called Puhangatohoraharaha, causes a fresh water spring to gush forth. The eternal, spouting whale swims on through the oceans of mountain mists, dreams and its people’s folklore.
Taheke is one of those little historic relics, forgotten by all except the odd farmer, our meandering river, road side hedges of wild miniature pink roses, scampering quail, and waving grandkids calling the wanderer home.
At one time, the homestead had acres and acres of wild beautiful land that lay miles and miles away from any type of settlement. During my childhood and teenage years, it was one of those rare places on Mother Earth where the only light from mid evening to early dawning was gifted to us from the cosmos.
Taheke, the home of our Marae or Ancestral house Mahuri
Up until the 1950’s and 60’s in NZ when the great rural exodus began to take place because of the new blight called urbanization, our Marae or Ancestral Houses for Maori tribal communities were akin to the kibbutz in Israel as communal centerpieces. The Marae represented the Heartbeat of every tribal group.
At the time of my youth, our Ancestral House, like a majority of others, had no electricity. Those who had the responsibility had to stoke our large open fireplaces, with firewood, we gathered from the nearby woods for cooking and heating. Kerosene lamps and crude candles made of lard with a torn strip of material for wicks, served as our nighttime lighting sources. These lighting sources came under the sole providence of the grandmothers who used them very frugally. More not than often!
As children, we learnt to welcome the starlight and its shadows, for there is an exquisite beauty within that realm that stills the mind and opens one’s sensitivities to extraordinary perceptions. I continue to have the same experience today in America, watching a heavy Ohio snow fall or a thunder and Lightening storm with my senses opened and my eyes closed.
After my first marriage ended in 1997, I moved back to Taheke where I had a cottage in the Papakainga or Elders Compound. The Papakainga are always attached to or handily located to the tribal family’s Marae or Ancestral House so that the elders of the families can participate fully in all activities with the community. The elders’ wisdoms, advice and presence are as critical to the younger members of the tribe, as are, cycles of breath, to a koauau, the traditional Maori flute.
It was my intention to become a full time devotee to spiritual practices while still being tutored by the last five remaining Teachers of our immediate family line. Little did I know that three years later in 2000, my life would be changed immeasurably for the Mystery, Te Ao Wairua, was unraveling the true nature of my service to Spirit.
In 2000, I was sent to America by the Elders to complete a task for them and returned home to NZ after having completed their bidding. I continued to travel back and forward between the USA and NZ for another 2 years until I finally came to live permanently in America in 2002, to be in service to the unfolding nature of the Mystery. A service that was given its blessing by my Teachers and a ragged looking Soccer Ball like Object.
But let me take you all back to that beautiful afternoon, now that I have set the scene.
The Papakainga, the Elders Compound, Ramsey Road, Taheke, Hokianga, Northland, New Zealand, Sunday November 4th 2001, 3.54pm
Of Angels, Fairies and Flying Things
Reflecting back to that memorable day, I remember now that the birdsong and its chatter had become as still as was the late afternoon. It was unlike that nervous, sporadic quiet one discerns when one of the family cats are prowling around their feeding stations, rather, their hush could have been likened to that oxygen starved moment just after one’s hero or heroine has stepped out from the shadows, onto the stage and into that blinding circle of light. That moment before reality has registered with the multitude, that fraction of a pin-drop, rattling second before the fuse of recognition ignites the thunderous applause.
At first glance it presents itself as somewhat tattered, maybe having one or two “bits” of its outer skin hang loose from its body only helps confirm that ragged appearance. In some places its lapis-blue finish remains pristine, while in others it has faded and in others still, there is a grayish-black, metal-like coloring where the lapis has weathered away completely. The torn pieces appear to flap occasionally as if disturbed by a non-existent breeze.
I remember the sphere’s surface to be shimmering, which I suppose, could only happen if it was vibrating at a very high frequency, so high in fact that if it wasn’t for the apparent shimmering, one would probably not discern the pulsating effect at all. I couldn’t tell whether the skin was metallic or not but the wavering is what may have caused the “torn” like strips to become ruffled like the breast feathers of small birds standing against a soft, breath of wind.
It has the diameter of a full size soccer ball. At its mid-section there is a ruby, red glowing light that could be an eye or viewing lens – staring outward from within an aperture, whose opening, measures approximately a fifth of the soccer ball’s total circumference. It is not a beam of light rather; it is a distinct orb or an eye. The cavity recesses to the core of the sphere where the light seems to have its dynamic source, and it’s from there, that it beckons you to look at it.
I vaguely remember that there was a tinge of white associated with the ruby-red light. It was a part of it, but distinct from it. Something akin to a pencil-thin white line running outward from the red, glowing light and coming out, laser-like, toward me. The white line/tinge appeared momentarily – then it was gone.
Like a moth clamoring against the unforgiving pane of glass, it is impossible to look away because you’re already mesmerized by a “flying ball” that has appeared out of nowhere, and now there’s this “light” enticing you from inside a hole in the middle of it.
When you finally give your full attention to looking, because you now have a conscious unwillingness to look away, the light or something in it, has sedated you. I can think of no other way to describe how the process unfolded. Held immobile in this momentary enthrallment, one could quite easily imagine the “flash” of a camera going off, as one was being photographed with that dopey lop-sided grin one gets after visiting the dentist by this not-at-all menacing intruder into ones solitary, ritual meditation.
Part of my later reflection process, wondered if the white laser-like light I saw coming toward me, was somehow responsible for the sedative state I experienced.
I understand that a vibration usually produces some type of sound or movement, but apart from the aforementioned shimmer effect, a complete silence surrounds the “visitor” and there are no physical appendages attached to it, other than the two or three inconsequential “hanging bits” to justify its aeronautics. Neither are there exhaust outlets for combustion gases or fumes.
Looking at this “mystery” that has stopped before me, about fifteen feet above the ground, and level to where I am sitting on my second story balcony some eight feet out from my direct line of vision, I am overwhelmed with a melancholy. Man, I inherently sense, has had no part in its construct, for this is not a machine, rather, I believe it to be a living intelligence.
A silent, motionless ball that hangs suspended in the air, appearing to allow me the opportunity to look at it. “What new body of knowledge does this sphere hold within it that allows this extraordinary feat to be possible?”
There are no external identification markings on its outer skin that one would usually expect to see on a military vehicle or even a “child’s toy.”
We two spend a few more moments looking, one at the other. I, at this Ruby-Red Entity, incased in its Sphere, the Entity, I sense, silently watching – completely at ease, and like me – unafraid.
Before one has had time to collect one’s thoughts or even bow one’s head in reverence, there emanates from within this mysterious visitor, soft whirring sounds as it rotates 45 degrees with the ruby colored light that I assume to be a viewing lens now facing our Ancestral Meeting House some 500 meters away to my left up a slight incline. It then continues on its silent journey through the air, steadily climbing higher and higher until it disappears from sight behind a stand of very tall Pine Trees growing on this land we embrace with love.
Its flight reminds me of a large bumblebee trying its best to fly in a straight line, and like watching the bumblebee, I am even more astounded and wonder to myself, “how do you manage to stay in the air and fly without a motor or wings?” And as our unbidden, ancient guest departs, so too does my state of sedation and the euphoria of this unforgettable enthrallment.
I feel a certain vulnerability to criticism in using this particular descriptor “ancient” to evoke a timeframe around this mysterious ball, in this particular writing, as if stating a proven fact, but I do so respectfully, and only because our oral stories have described objects such as these as; Ngakahi, The Children of Timelessness Herself.
I know I am not alone in having been a witness to the visit by this ancient one for I had watched as it briefly visited with my beloved uncle, our elderly chieftain, and my older sister who had been visiting with him. They had been quietly chatting on his balcony before it flew on to me and I could see that its flight path seemed deliberate and not at all random.
My balcony faces directly towards my uncle’s balcony and running around the outer parameters of our houses are a stand of native Manuka or Tea-Trees. As I look across at this beloved man and this beloved woman, I am quietly meditating on how privileged I am to be able to share these serene twilight moments with these two treasured human beings. Suddenly, off to one side – 20 or so feet out, level with his balcony and against the backdrop of trees – the soccer ball fly’s into view from the rear side of my uncle’s house.
Our isolated homes sit side by side, surrounded by a forest of trees on old ancestral land and there is no one, outside of family, for miles around who has permission to access this private land let alone sit in hiding, directing a “mystery” such as this by some type of electronic gizmo. But even if there were, “why would they bother, bothering with us?” for we are a simple people who light our candles in the night and cry for the heartbroken and helpless of the world.
I realize that in writing this down now, it has taken me thirteen years of quiet reflection and the loss of that beloved uncle, to finally break my own silence of having been gifted this amazing experience.
Throughout our own oral histories there are many instances where these Mysteries, in various forms, make their appearances. But then the pall of superstition and embellishment casts its shadow of unintended consequence across those enchanting visitations and these vestiges of forgotten beginnings, become for the children and grandchildren listening to the distorted versions of our sublime stories, scary monsters, things to be feared, and if they should ever be sighted, shooed away, by sticks and stones and angry words.
It is my personal belief, based on this experience and recalling the many similar stories that were shared with me by my teachers, Maori lore enforcement of Tapu, the restrictions or taboos our culture places in certain circumstances, has as its basis, a protective screen for the safety and wellbeing for these ancient travelers.
Depending on how one accepts or intellectually “explains away” these incidents or experiences, the time the Mysterious Soccer Ball like Object appeared “from out of the blue” to the time it flew out of my sight behind the line of tall Pine Trees, may have been as breathtakingly long as one minute or as short as 60 seconds. I know for myself, it had seemed a lifetime and these inner reflections and questions continue all these years later.
Time after time, in a grand house, the Priest, in silken finery, will speak from his or her particular book of sacred record about the evil and ills of mankind, and of the majesty of a supernatural being who will one day come and deliver us from these tribulations, while outside in the common streets of its shared destitution, humanity like every other living organism, goes about its own timely evolution. Each generation in its own time and turn, to be surely scarred or bedazzled by its own evils, ills and triumphs.
The scientist will speak boldly to the throng of a truth garnered from his or her observation, data and analysis but will immediately become unscientifically dismissive of that one who will contemplate in wonder at those unchartered spaces between the “ticks” of indigenous mythology, legend and song and the “tocks” of western science.
Philosophers, Scholars and the great thinkers from time immemorial have all striven and continue to strive, to journey inwards to the most inaccessible limits of their minds to knock at the doorway of the enigma called life, seeking its rhyme and reason. But alas, as of yet, the intellect, beaten and exhausted after having failed, time and again, can but pause on the slopes and look upward at the unconquered Everest of the unfolding mystery.
Maybe, the Savior who is going to deliver us from our redemption is not, after all, going to arrive in a glorious opening of the heavens and maybe that savior may not be a benevolent god, but a new capacity of insight aligned to a virgin field of physics that may unlock that doorway that has remained bolted fast against all who have tried to gain entry.
It may be that the hand that will open the doorway to this amazing possibility will belong to those ancient time travelers who will unveil for us those “hidden baskets of knowledge” that have lain undisturbed and uninvestigated because one group of our human family sang their part of the riddle, another group of the family danced their understanding of it, another told it in a story and the last one measured it with numbers and in the end, because they all did it differently, nothing fit, no one could see the whole picture, and no one dared to believe in anyone else’s conclusion.
If these Mysteries can move with such impunity outside the laws of motion as espoused by Isaac Newton, and be exempt from participating in the scientific principles of aerodynamics, it would appear that they might at least hold a sliver of hope to solving our global energy crisis, and by extension, the willful degradation of our environment. What other new possibilities lie waiting to be unlocked by these soccer-ball-like spherical Mysteries and their counterparts?
While we cast the eyes and sensors of our technological expertise out into the heavens searching for life, billions of light years away, they have resided here, maybe, even before we, and have quietly and unobtrusively lived among us, as attested to in folk-lore, fairy tales, and tribal mythology, while occasionally allowing themselves to be “found” popping up in unauthenticated “sightings.”
One day soon these unexplained intelligence’s might deem humanity to be at that tipping point of absolute crisis and for its deliverance from harm, may be prepared to unlock the doorway to this knowledge. I suggest that a decision to do so, on their part, will carry a number of conditions and the gravest of them being that mankind would have to immediately modify its behavior or suffer the dire consequence of it.
With contact achieved and our obligations met, we may no longer have to create mythical gods and goddesses, for we will be endowed with a higher insight resulting from the gift of knowledge these improbable saviors may bestow upon humanity. Maybe – just maybe, Heaven and her Angels have always been waiting patiently for us, here on Earth.
And it must surely follow – where Heaven is, so reigns, Peace.
Raymond TeKorako Ruka
Son of Waitaha