Friday 31 May morning Sri Kumar spoke about the importance of attuning to time and time cycles – it was already his last discourse of this group living. Some extracts of my notes:

“The whole creation is carried out in tune with the time plan. Time holds the key to involution and evolution, to the law of alternation, pulsation, periodicity, the law of expansion and contraction, emergence of life and mergence of life into itself. All laws are contained in time and therefore time is the ultimate remainder which remains after and is before creation. The birth, growth, completion, regression and conclusion of a creation are in tune with time. There is a time plan to every being, to the planet, to the solar system and to the creators of solar systems, the Prajapatis, to the cosmos. All happens according to time, time is the ultimate terminator… Nature cooperates with those who cooperate with nature; time cooperates with those who cooperate with time. Normally we expect cooperation instead of extending cooperation. Cooperation is the most cherished value in hierarchy; it is the fundamental spirit of brotherhood…”

While parts of the group were going on another excursion to Mount Shasta, we later in the morning had a short meeting of the Executive Board of WTT-Global with Sri Kumar followed by a meeting of the Board of Advisors – discussing topics concerning the development of the WTT. And after the evening meditation there was the annual General Assembly of WTT Global.

Sri Kumar: “The World Teacher Trust groups all over the globe constitute the soul of the World Teacher Trust, and the organisation stands as a personality for the expression of the activity of the World Teacher and his team of teachers. The work is carried out in the organisation with least rules and regulations. Much freedom is ensured for the soul while personality is kept flexible in the sense that the personality shall not condition the soul and the soul has a free play with the personality which is the essence of the teachings of the Hierarchy.”

In the hotel where I was staying, the McCloud Hotel, there was a room where Guy Ballard (pen name “Godfré Ray King”) lived in 1930. He is the founder of the “I AM” movement. In his book “Unveiled Mysteries, Vol. 1″ (Download PDF from this page) he describes how he met another hiker who identified himself as the Count of St. Germain.

On 30 May, the group made an excursion to Crater Lake in Oregon, about 260 km from McCloud. The lake formed in the caldera of Mount Mazama after a huge eruption about 7700 years ago. It is one of the deepest lakes of the world (about 650 m) and there are no rivers flowing into or out of the lake.

In three buses and a number of cars we drove through a beautiful, spacious landscape. My roommate Mark took me and the two friends from Denmark in his car and we enjoyed the sprightly conversation.

The roads along Crater Lake were mostly closed because of snow but the access from the West was open. We walked a bit along the rim of the crater surrounded by steep slopes and looking a bit like a huge chalice where heaven and earth meet. Although people were talking and busily taking pictures you could feel a profound silence and sanctity in the atmosphere. The buses arrived a bit later – the group had brought picknick for all of us.

When on the way back approaching the Mount Shasta area, there was a short and intense hailstorm. We stopped for some time at the side of the highway for evening meditation. Afterwards, a beautiful rainbow formed over Mount Shasta like a bridge to heaven. I couldn’t take a photo – the battery of my camera was down… But here is a beautiful one by Mathilda seen from Shastina – Mount Shasta would be in the centre.

McCloud is a small town in the south of Mount Shasta, and its dancing hall had been transformed into the venue for this year’s May Call Day celebration, the 110th one since Master CVV received the energy of synthesis in 1910 and started distributing it. And all of us had followed the call. About 350 group members had come from different parts of the globe, from India, Europe, and the Americas; many of them had been accommodated at different places in the surroundings and were transported by busses to the hall.

It had been quite a challenge for the California group to organise the event – its members are mainly IT specialists from India living around Silicon Valley, about 300 km away. A tent had been set up as a dining hall and in another tent was the kitchen – everything was well organised and run smoothly, with Indian and Western style food…

Tuesday morning the May Call group living started with the morning prayer at 9 am followed by some welcome greetings and the first discourse of Sri Kumar. Here is a short extract from his second discourse on May Call day:

“Master CVV is a Master of contraries; if you want one way it will be the other way. ‘I want it this way’ – immediately he says thank you; it will never be the way you want it but it will happen. You go with your very narrow understanding. Keep the mind open and look at the input. Newcomers come and find themselves highly in confusion because they think it should be like this. The Master said, why should it be like that?

Expect the unexpected, is the message of the Master. You wish a beautiful ambiance here to experience the ambiance of Mount Shasta. For how much time? There will be dark clouds, heavy snow. I will get messages: ‘They are presenting to me an Alfred Hitchcock movie’ and they think, the Master is like this. I told my family, it is mostly warm there in May; the Master said, ah, is it? I bought the warm clothes in a mall and the moment I bought the clothes the weather became warm. This happens with the Master. To him May Call is more important; the weather is not so important. We had so many May Calls with so many weathers. He wants us to become friendly with the elements by presenting the contraries to you. The first thing is, your life gets into a crisis. Touch the Master and get the crisis.”

Afterwards, there was a group excursion. First, we visited the Sacramento River headwaters. On a nearby meadow, we formed a huge circle and sung some mantrams. Beautiful sunshine shone on the place and for some moments, a white seagull came and flew very low inside the circle, like a messenger from above.

Later, the group went to a place at the foot of Mount Shasta to enjoy the presence of the mount and take some group pictures.

Afterwards, we drove to the upper, middle and lower falls of the McCloud Falls. I got a ride with my room-mate Mark and two friends from Denmark. We did a little excursion down to the river and sat for a while at a beautiful place at the confluence of two rivers.

In the afternoon, there were some book releases and distribution of gifts brought by group members. There were two new books with lectures of Master EK, a book with teachings of Master Kumar on the Secret Doctrine by Mme Blavatsky and the second volume with teachings by Master Kumar on Occult Healing, in German language.

I was particularly happy about the release of the English version of the biography of Sripada Srivallabha, an avatar of Lord Dattatreya. It had been a long way of several years to prepare this English version, after the German translation.

Friday morning the sky was clear and there was a majestic dawn over Mount Shasta. After morning meditation first sunrays painted the snow on the mount with rose colours. And with the rising sun the mount put on a light scarf of white clouds…

Later we drove via Medford airport through wooded areas to Crescent City at the Pacific, where we stayed for two nights at the hotel Lighthouse Inn near the harbour. The Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in the north-west corner of California is preserving several groves of old growth Redwood trees. When walking along these giants, we felt in a dream-like state – I was reminded of the Lothlórien (meaning “the dream flower”) of Tolkien’s land of the elves of the “Lord of the Rings”.

Saturday morning, I had a walk along the harbour, where some sea lions were resting on swimming pontoons. Later, we went to the historic Battery Point Lighthouse. It was just low tide and so we could walk over by feet.

We then drove along the rocky coast and saw more impressive redwood forests and some moose on “Elk Meadow”.

Sunday morning, we returned to Shastina, relaxing in Chuck’s house. The others of our travel group would stay there during the May Call seminar; I went to the McCloud hotel with Marc on Monday afternoon. He was my room-mate during the seminar. Marc is from Seattle Theosophical Society and we had intense exchanges during our stay.

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The hall was now well decorated, ready for the May Call celebration. And by and by group members arrived – many hugs and warm welcome greetings. Very intense days were about to start.

Wednesday morning we enjoyed seeing some deer on the terrace of Chuck’s home. Also many birds enjoyed the birdfeed.

After shopping in the nearby town of Yreka we drove to McCloud. We had a look at the empty dancing hall – much work would need to be done to transform it to the May Call venue a week later.

Afterwards, we went way up to the “Bunny Flat” at Mount Shasta. The road ended there in high snow. And the mount was hidden behind clouds.

At Mt Shasta City, you find old hippies and new age people… We had a good lunch in the Berryvale Grocery – natural foods. Then we stopped at Soul Connections (“a golden age emporium” with lots of esoteric pictures, statues, crystals and other material). While walking through the store, we were surprised to meet Srikanth and Murali – they just brought new books of the WTT to the shop and were on their way to McCloud for preparing the hall of the May Call celebration.

The next day after some errands in Shasta City, we went to the Sacramento Headwaters, a strong source in a little forest where the water from Mount Shasta gushes forth.

Later, we saw the middle falls of the McCloud Falls. There, an old gentleman told us to go and see the Burney Falls, a little farther away.

We did a walk along the falls and the river – impressive beauty of nature. Later in the afternoon we drove up to Castle Lake, which was still partly covered by ice and snow.

Gemini is related to the throat centre which is governed by the element akasha, the content of space; it is represented by the light of the blue or white sky. Gemini stands for duality in creation. In Eastern wisdom, it is symbolised by a male and a female and not by twins. The throat centre is governed by Mercury, the ruler of Gemini. The right use of speech enables us to rise above duality and reach the unity of consciousness.

To visualise the throat centre, I reworked the colours of a water lily. One of its petals forms the pathway leading through the portal of the glyph of Gemini, symbol of the vocal cords. The duality of male and female is depicted by the faces of Hermes/Mercury and of Aphrodite/Venus looking at each other. Over the head of Mercury there is a picture of the planet Mercury.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings. If you want to print the image, you can download the file in medium and high resolution format.
The different zodiacal signs are clustered in groups – you can see here all my Gemini paintings.

Next morning, 19 May, after breakfast we said goodbye to Murali and his parents and started the journey to Yosemite park. It was raining – a rare thing during this time of the year.

The hills along the wayside were shining in yellow colour – the grass was dried out. We passed along huge farmland – long kilometres of trees, all artificially irrigated: almonds, olives, apples, strawberries in plastic packing… The extensive farming seemed to quench every possible profit from out of the soil.

Slowly the Sierra Nevada was approaching. The road was climbing up. We passed through forests and hills with skeletons of trees left over from forest fires. At noon time we made a stop in Mariposa, an old gold mining town, for lunch. It was cold and raining and the ladies did some pullover shopping.

In the early afternoon we reached the place of our stay for the next two nights at the Yosemite View Lodge at the Merced River near the El Portal entrance to the Yosemite National Park. The weather had cleared up and so we did our first tour into the park. The steep cliff of El Capitan, a tall granite monolith, was partly veiled by clouds. The awe-inspiring Bridalveil Fall seemed to gush down from heaven. We stood for a while in its spray. The meadows along the Merced River seemed to be a magic playground for elves and gnomes.

Early next morning, after prayer and breakfast, we started our second tour to the park. Although the park rangers warned of snow on the higher roads (the roads were free), we set out to Wawona and the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias.

Free shuttle busses were transporting the visitors inside the sequoia forest area. It was breath-taking to walk along the huge trees which are upto 3000 years old and have withstood the vicissitudes of time – cold winters, hot summers, forest fires – and the times of woodcutters before the area was transformed into a park. The majestic trees radiated a sacred ambiance; deer and grey squirrels moved through the fresh green still partly covered with snow and a radiant sun shone from a blue sky.

Next morning, however, it was again grey and raining, and so we decided to make a short visit to the Visitor Centre and the nearby Yosemite Falls and then start the long journey northwards to Mount Shasta.

There were dramatic cloud formations over the Sacramento River valley and it was getting already dark when we picked up Chuck’s car from Redding airport. When we approached the Mount Shasta area the mountain was deeply veiled with clouds. At it was already night when we arrived at the home of Chuck at Shastina.

Today three weeks ago, my journey to California and to the May Call Day celebration at Mount Shasta started. In a few blogposts, I would like to share some impressions of this intense time. It was a pilgrimage to sacred places and sanctuaries of nature and above all to an inspiring group living with about 350 members from various places around the globe.

I could not participate in the mid-May group living with Sri Kumar in Miami followed by a sightseeing tour organised by WTT America.
However, Chuck, an American friend and a retired professor of psychology, had invited three friends and me for a tour through Northern California.

On 17 May, I flew with Mathilda from Zurich to San Francisco; Birke and Astrid came from Frankfort, and Chuck picked us up at San Francisco Airport.
They way through the customs went faster than we had expected, just 2 hours. Soon we were driving southward on the freeway 101.

The sun was already setting with a beautiful Taurus full moon shining over the hills when we arrived at the estate of Anu and Murali in Morgan Hill – a spacious garden with flower terraces and lots of roses and a beautiful huge villa on a hill.
Anu had invited us to come to their home although she was at the seminar with Sri Kumar in Miami. But her husband Murali and his parents, who had come from Visakhapatnam, gave us a warm welcome. And slowly a long day of 33 hours came to an end.

It was the night of the Vaisakh festival, and so we tuned into the energies with a profound morning meditation.

Later in the morning, our travel group set out to Monterey. I avidly absorbed the impressions of the beautiful landscape. In Monterey we made a stop at the harbour. It was an open day of the national Marine Sanctuaries. We had a look at a ship of the coast-guard which was surrounded by seals and seagulls.

Later we drove along the coast and walked a while through the wet sand of the bay. Old wind-torn cypress trees overlooking the rocky coast decorated impressive views over the Pacific Ocean.

After lunch in a huge whole foods market, we drove to a nearby mountain. A winding road led through lush vegetation until we arrived at a Vietnamese Buddhist monastery hidden in a forest next to Mount Madonna County Park (Kim Son Monastery 574 Summit Rd, Watsonville, CA 95076). Clouds were hanging deep and created a mystic ambiance. A retreat was going on in the monastery and so we could not have a look inside. At the parking there was an enclosed depot with huge statues of Buddha, Quan Yin and other saints – east meets west.

On the way back we stopped at a huge old tree standing in the middle of a crossroad and tuned into the energy of this old messenger of the plant kingdom.

The 8th May is celebrated as ‘White Lotus Day’, in remembrance of Helena P. Blavatsky, who passed over on this day in the year 1891.

In the book “The Golden Stairs” Master Kumar speaks about the beauty of her being which is compared to a white lotus:

“Madam Helena Petrovna Blavatsky is as tender as a freshly unfolded white lotus. The tenderness of her being cannot be expressed in any language. In her case incompatibles have become compatibles. She is as fiery as she is tender. Her being is essentially and naturally tender and extremely motherly. But at work she is an embodiment of fiery Will. She was the chosen darling of the Hierarchy to inaugurate an era of enlightenment. She did her job ruthlessly, dedicating her life to the noble work of the Hierarchy. She has broken many distorted and crystallized concepts of TRUTH. She synthesized the universal wisdom; she presented afresh Cosmogenesis and Anthropogenesis, which are the world scriptures for posterity. She explained dexterously the story of man on earth. Through the key of Manvantara cycles and races she reintroduced the most ancient wisdom relating to globe chains, the seven rays and their universal application. She skilfully utilised the keys of astrology, etymology and cycles of time to unlock wisdom from the most ancient manuscripts of cave temples that exist in the Himalayas. She was as much in the subtle as she was on the physical and was therefore able to grasp the truth in its variety of dimensions. She was a fully inspired lady who inspired many through looks, through speeches and through mere presence. She was even seen as a reincarnation of Buddha in places like Sri Lanka.
She is regarded as the white lotus that unfolds afresh the beauty and fragrance of new age wisdom. She is respected as Upasika, the one who is in connection with the ruling light of the planet, which is said to be mysteriously posited in the subterranean regions of Gobi desert of Mongolia.
Inspired by her teachings ever since, thousands of groups sprang up in all the four corners of the globe, trying to find the way afresh with the help of knowledge that she unfolded for the forward march of the present humanity. Any praise or appreciation of her work would be inadequate. This teaching is offered at the lotus feet of Madam Blavatsky, who continues to be an inspiration in the heart of numerous beings all over the planet. The Madam stood by the Golden Stairs and her life is a demonstration of the Golden Stairs.”

May the remembrance of her life and work help us to integrate her teachings into our lives and to gradually transform ourselves.

“H.P.B. – Trailblazer for the Aquarian Age” (Booklet)

Have a good White Lotus Day!

Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus is the Eye of the Bull, which exists in us as the third eye. This star is called Rohini in the East. It transmits the energies of divine Will. This transmission causes transformation of mental matter so that a reception of light from higher circles becomes possible. If we align to these energies, our will gets impregnated by the divine Will. The divine Will is represented by Lord Shiva who sits in the form of a lingam. His vehicle of expression is the great bull Nandi, an epitome of Taurus.

For the image I multiplied a photo of a lingam to create the different coloured layers of the lingam. I placed the glyph of Taurus at its centre. In the background there is a picture of the constellation of Taurus with Aldebaran at the centre of the glyph. Behind the glyph, I placed – now invisible – a picture of the eye of God from an old fountain in the city of Berne, and a photo of a sunset. A stream of light pours forth from the centre of the Eye of the Bull.

See more pictures on the site with my paintings. If you want to print the image, you can download the file in medium and high resolution format.
The different zodiacal signs are clustered in groups – you can see here all my Taurus paintings.