REMINDER from Mano:
Writing this Blog, “Celebrating Barbara,” gave her Council an opportunity to reveal to her the many ways she has been available to be of service. This is not something she thinks about, she just does it. We are happy to let her see how her prayers are answered and people are blessed.
REMARKS from Barbara:
This has been a wonderful time of celebration. I have been so blessed in so many ways. I live in gratitude for all of my blessings and especially for Mano, Rama, and Joseph. I am so blessed and so fortunate.
REMEMBERING Mary Jane:
With all of this gratitude flowing through my life I want to thank Mary Jane for being willing to write Mano’s Blog when I felt so incapable of doing it. It is hard to believe I have more than 100 Blogs behind me.
Celebrating Barbara 99 Years
Blog #159
On August 9, 2026, I had a wonderful Birthday Celebration honoring 99 years on the planet. Over 50 friends joined with me in the Amphitheater. We started with Circle Dance to bring everyone together, then I shared the story how Mother Nature called me to move to the Amphitheater in 1987. I was sitting outside watching the stars leave always waiting to hear the birds start singing to welcome the sun. I heard an audible voice speak in my head saying, “Barbara, I don’t need you in San Luis Obispo any longer, I need you on the Mountain.” When I told Jim he said, “Great, I have always wanted to live in a little mountain cabin.”
And so we started transforming Hanna’s little cabin we had just purchased, from a cabin to a cottage. This involved adding two fireplaces, skylights and closets. We sold our wonderful house Jim had built for us years earlier and moved to the Cottage just after our 60th birthdays.
When we moved to this sweet little mountain community, we wanted to contribute to the community first by opening the Amphitheater for circle dances we had learned while living in the Findhorn Community. Next we opened a coffee house, The Gathering Place, in Ben Lomond for three years and later gave the building to a non-profit group to create an art center.
I met Mano the first day when we moved to the Mountain. As I walked to the Amphitheater that first day I became aware of a large Gnome walking beside me. He said his name was Mano and his size indicated he was a Master Gnome, not a nature spirit. As we walked, he asked me to speak to the plants, touch them and tell them they are beautiful. He asked me to walk to the Amphitheater every day and he would meet me there to teach me and have me paint every day.
In 2014 I was asked to come to the Amphitheater each day and take a stick off the ground, dip it into India ink and let the land draw a picture each day. In 2020 the CZU fire burned my cottage and I moved to my apartment in Capitola Village and continued my daily connection with The Mother from there.
At my birthday party, after the dance and my story, food and chocolate birthday cake, we lit 12-inch sparklers to “Celebrate Barbara.” Then people shared stories of things we had done together. Very nice things were said with a repeated theme that caused me to ponder about myself. Many said their lives were affected, and for some changed, by being with me. One note said:
Barbara. You model love, joy, and grace just being yourself.
I asked Mano about this. He reminded me of an experience I had had years earlier. In meditation I saw my body as a corpse with a Spirit nun standing over me saying, “Six lives as a nun is too many. No more incarnating with dedication to the Church.” Mano continued to explain that my dedication shifted from Mother Church to Mother Nature, and the benefit of six lives of prayer is carried in my aura and affects some people by being near me.
I remembered once while traveling in Egypt the day before their 7-day war. In prayer that night I was lamenting I was not putting energy into relating with women in the hotel. That night Rama, my Angel guide, comforted me with the revelation, “Barbara, you serve with your Aura not with your mouth.” With that revelation I prayed, “Lord let me always be of service, only don’t let me know so I won’t be self-conscious.”