Chapter 36
Anne is such a sweetheart! And I loved the way she described the beginnings of what would eventually become known as Solfield. My name is Beatrice, by the way. You can call me Bea, if you’d like. Most people do.
I will be handling the storytelling for the next stage our tale. I will be telling you how a plot of land in the middle of nowhere turned into an internationally known and often visited destination. A new Mecca of sorts.
I’ve done a great deal of thinking as to why Solfield eventually grew into what it did. First, the name: Solfield. Anne and I had gone round and round about what to call the place. Paul had dubbed the hill Soul Mound, which was what people would eventually call it, though Anne and I, and Paul, and many of the people who would come to make the place their semi-permanent home, often referred to it as Harry’s hill. Which has more of a ring to it, if you ask me.
So when we were contemplating what we should call the entire property, two themes kept coming up: the soul, which had obvious importance in what we were doing, and solar, which refers both to the sun and to one, or unity. So we went back and forth many times before stumbling upon a name that seemed to capture all of the above: Solfield. And the moment we said it out loud, it felt right. So the name of the place officially became the Solfield Spiritual Center.
In the years to come, people would travel from all corners of the world to visit Solfield. And it’s my job to tell you how, exactly, that came about.
I didn’t meet Harry until the following year, but I did read his book. Now I have to tell you, I’ve been around a long time. I was part of the early wave of New Agers, metaphysicians and the like, in the 1960’s. I pursued Eastern meditation, studied Zen Buddhism and Taoism (which is still my favorite of the mainstream paths), and immersed myself in the many channeled teachings given to mankind over the past forty years. I would consider myself an old school spiritualist, if the term has any meaning to you.
So when I read Harry’s book, I pretty much knew all that he was discussing, and there were no startling surprises contained within it. What I experienced while reading it, however, was another story. During my life, one constant fixture of my spiritual path was the relationship between the teacher and the student. It was a common assumption that at some point a serious seeker had to find their guru. It was almost a right of passage.
That, and spirit guides. They were a staple of New Age spirituality: your guides were there helping you, looking out for you, handling the behind-the-scenes work for you. I knew many people who referred to their guides frequently, even by name. Some even bragged about how many guides they had. All of this may seem somewhat odd to some of you, particularly to those who have remained aligned with the more traditional paths – Christianity, Islam, Judaism and the like. But this was all part of New Age spirituality – gurus and guides.
And then along came Harry’s book, in which he challenges that notion outright. According to Harry, the age of the guru is over. And I must admit, I was extremely taken aback at first by such an assertion. I knew many respectable people who took the role of a guru quite seriously, and who considered the guru as supremely necessary to the spiritual path. I, myself, had been taught for 14 years by a person of knowledge and wisdom, someone without whose teachings and guidance I would have made little or no progress along my path.
So what did Harry mean when he said that the age of the guru was over? According to him, such authority figures were necessary throughout history because of our limiting mass beliefs. In layman’s terms, he means that our society was so ignorant and so resistant to empowering ideas that a guru was necessary as a role model, as an anchor, as someone to emulate. Society did not have such role models in public, and it was only through emulating an established and respected master that one could progress toward self mastery.
But now, as part of the ongoing shift in consciousness being engaged by the human race, affirming beliefs are beginning to take hold and proliferate in the collective consciousness of the human race. As this happens, there is less and less resistance to achieving balance, clarity, insight, and understanding. And this is alleviating the necessity of the guru – we no longer need to apprentice ourselves to some authority figure in order to climb out of the pit of ignorance.
It is becoming increasingly possible to “be your own guru”, as Harry and others have said. We are emerging from the age of authority figures, and each individual is on the path toward the realization that he or she is, in fact, their own authority figure - that no one is more of an authority on what is best for you than you are.
We are collectively dismantling, sometimes aggressively and sometimes slowly and carefully, the belief system of authority figures. But because this will be perceived as an attack upon and an erosion of society’s foundation (which it is not, but fear will cause people and old-energy institutions to view it that way), we must move slowly and carefully and respectfully.
Harry discusses this topic with much more clarity and detail in his book, but I wanted to point out to you one of the things that truly resonated with me as I read it. I was motivated in many new and intense ways, particularly as it pertained to the establishment of Solfield and what it was to become.
We intended from the very beginning to place the emphasis on the individual, on the value and importance of the individual, and the name, Solfield, seemed to capture that well.
So there is a little background on my participation with the project, the initial source of my enthusiasm and inspiration. I felt from the start that we were creating something new, something that was moving beyond old structures and old approaches. Solfield was to be an entirely new creation, carefully and lovingly breaking beyond old limitations and fostering an inspiring and creative environment in which individuals could thrive and grow.
That is why I got involved, and that is what we set out to create.
