Our Happy 38th Anniversary Celebration!
The years fly by don’t they? Preparing for our Anniversary Festival Day on Sunday, I could hardly believe that it is now 38 years since the White Temple on the hilltop here at New Lands was dedicated in service to the Brotherhood of the Star. Our day began with a Retreat Morning on the theme of Bridge to the World of Light, and my cousin Colum and I talked about this ‘building the bridge’ being such a foundation part of our White Eagle work from the very beginning, and now of our unfolding Wisdom School. Our astrologer Simon then spoke about the horoscope of the Lodge and the Temple, and also briefly about Grace Cooke’s chart and how clearly these show the integration of heavenly wisdom with earthly wisdom and our underlying principle of service to the whole world, and the brotherhood of all nations. I do believe that White Eagle is asking us to focus on this especially in the year of 2012—a year of great opportunity for us all. When thinking this, I was drawn to these words from The Light Bringer: We would have you realise that however simple, however obscure your own life, you have come back to earth for a special purpose. You have come not only to develop your divine consciousness but also to pioneer the pathway which will become the path for all who follow. You cannot help but develop your own character and divinity if you are truly serving others.
During the celebratory day Minesta reminded me of the time in 1966 when she first had the clear instruction from White Eagle that she had to go ahead and build a physical temple on the hilltop at New Lands, thus fulfilling ‘the plan laid long ago by the Illumined Ones behind this work’. In her everyday self she was really worried about the mammoth task she had been set. However were we to raise the money for building the Temple! She sought advice from professional fund raisers who told her that in building projects of this kind usually the money was raised by targeting a few rich donors, but she knew this was not the way we do things. Instead she followed White Eagle’s direction to write a simple appeal from her heart to all supporters of the work all round the world. As a result of this, many, many hundreds of little gifts came in, which together brought the vision of the heavenly temple to earth. It is lovely to think that our temple is built from the little gifts of many, many people—so there we are…everyone’s contribution to the light is significant!
