In the short 260 pages of this book, we are given the story of creation of a paradise on Earth for Man, we are taken on a trip with Anastasia and Vladimir to another planet, and finally we are shown how you and I can make for ourselves a Paradise on Earth today, beginning where we are. After reading this book, we can be passive readers no longer. Anastasia lays out a plan for each of us to construct our own piece of Paradise on a hectare of land (2.5 acres) in which we may live healthy and productive lives without depending upon some federal agency to provide us health care, medicines, or any of the other obtrusive interventions which have progressively reduced both the quality of life and independence of human beings across the globe.

If you have read the first three books of the Ringing Cedars Series, you know about Anastasia's beloved dachniks, Russians who work in the city, but have a small plot of ground about the size of a city lot in the USA on which they cultivate fruits and vegetables on the weekends. Over half of all Russians get most of their fresh produce this way. You have also heard about the concept of the "Seed as Physician", and if you have read my review of Book 3, The Space of Love, you have heard how the discoveries of biochemists in the last two decades have revealed the mechanism of "transposable genes" in plants which provides a pathway for the information from your own body to modify the proteins made by plants you grow so that your body will receive nutrients which are vital for your health. This happens on a one-on-one basis. Only the foods you individually plant, harvest, and eat provide such fine-tuning of their proteins directly for your individual body. The seed can thus become your personal diagnostician and pharmacist to heal what ails you before any outwardly visible disease appears, and, in fact, forestall indefinitely the onset of any disease. Clearly, not many drug companies or physician networks would acknowledge such a mechanism, up until now.

In this book, Anastasia, under prodding by Vladimir, goes further and shares her dream for a world in which the concept of dachniks evolves into people living on the hectare-size plots of ground with trees, berry hedges for fences, a pond, a tree plot, a garden and a house. Photos of drawings of these plots appear on color plates between pages 186 and 187. Anastasia is openly and gladly sharing with us the opportunity to build our own Space of Love on such a plot of ground which will live on for generations as a place of veneration and living love for our descendants.

If you think this is unrealistic, then I agree, to you it seems unrealistic, but what Anastasia proposes seems realizable to me. And it seems realizable to people around the world who are already building these garden paradises in which to live and raise their children and themselves. If you are convinced it is unrealistic, then it would be best to stop reading here. If you continue reading, either one of two things will happen: 1) you will come to grasp that her plan is realizable or 2) you will justify your original position by trying to undermine those who believe it is realizable. For your own peace of mind, simply stop reading now. No one, especially me, wishes to change the way you choose to live in freedom.

The Creation Story

What amazed me is that this creation story by Anastasia has many of the components of the Biblical story and creation stories from many other sources. This from a young woman who has never to been to recognizable school, owns no books, has no library available to her, and who has lived all her life, alone, in a cedar glade in the taiga of Siberia. She begins by sharing with us the "divine dream."

[page 1] "I shall tell you about co-creation, Vladimir, and then everyone will be able to provide an answer to his own questions. Please listen carefully, Vladimir, and write about the Creator's great co-creation. Listen and try to understand with all your Soul the aspirations of the Divine dream."

Vladimir is not ready to hear her talk about Co-creation or God. He acts as the skeptic for us readers and voices his objections to Anastasia.

[page 1,2] But really, how could I — or anyone else, for that matter not entertain at least some measure of incredulity? What could not this passionate recluse dream up next?! She doesn't have any historical proofs to offer. If anyone can talk convincingly about the past, then surely that would be the historians and archæologists. And there's lots of talk about God in the Bible and in the books of other denominations. In all kinds of books. Only for some reason, when they talk of God, they can't seem to agree. Might not that be on account of the fact that nobody has any convincing proofs?
      "There are proofs, Vladimir," Anastasia suddenly broke in confidently and excitedly in answer to my silent question.
      "And where are they?"
      "All the proofs, all the truths in the Universe are preserved for ever in every human soul. Lies and falsehoods cannot survive for any length of time. They are exposed by the soul. That is why so many different kinds of religious treatises are thrown at Man. Lies constantly need new disguises to survive. And that is why mankind is constantly changing its social structures, trying to find in them the truth it has lost, yet only distancing itself from the truth even more."

In this next passage Anastasia offers a truth which has been known through the ages, but was forgotten for the most part after Bacon decided that all reality consisted only of what we experienced with our sensory apparatus. Reports of realities experienced while dreaming have since then been treated as complete fantasies, up until now. As a result, we have been taught to believe that dreaming occurs during REM periods and that we stay completely within our bodies all the while we are asleep. That is true according to Bacon's criterion, but the deeper truth has been known in esoteric schools for millennia. That Anastasia, without access to such schools, should describe what happens to our soul and spirit during sleep, somehow confirms that this reality is part of the information stored inside every human being.

[page 5, 6] "When a Man, exhausted after his daily cares, lies down to sleep, when he ceases to feel his weary body, his set of invisible energies and his 'second self'(1) leave the body to some degree. And at that moment earthly limitations do not exist for them. They know no time or space. In less than a second, your consciousness crosses all the distances in the Universe. And your complex of feelings senses past and future events, analyses them, measures them against the present day and dreams on. All this means that Man feels the unfathomable Divine universal creation not only with his flesh. His God-given thought is at work creating afresh. Human thought alone is capable of creating other worlds or changing what has been created."

"What kind of dreams do God's children have today?" she asks Vladimir. What do you, dear Reader, use your creative dreams for? That is the question she poses for all of us. Vladimir, representing everyman in the book, answers, "Money for food, car, clothes, furniture, etc." She spoofs him, saying that we are already given these things by God. Vladimir wants to know where these are hidden and she tells him and us a paraphrase of what the Fox told the Little Prince, "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye." Our feelings, what we feel with our heart, are invisible to the eye, and only the most heartless of Bacon's adherents would deny that they possess such feelings. We are given a charge in this next passage to allow our feelings to lead us into the new millennium in which our culture of frailty, need, and want will fade from view and a new vision of robustness, abundance, and joy will begin to replace it.

[page 7] "Something to eat, something to drink — you realize, Vladimir, that all this has been given to everyone in abundance, right from the very beginning."
      "Given? Well, then, where did it disappear to after that?"
       "Think for yourself: where might it have gone?"
      "Well, I would imagine the original clothing simply got ragged and worn out, and the original food got eaten up æons ago. Times are different now, clothing fashions have changed, along with tastes for food."
      "Vladimir, God gave His son indestructible garments, and his food reserves are not the kind that can ever be exhausted."
      "So where's all this today?"
      "It has all been preserved, it exists right now."
      "Then tell me where. Where do I find the hiding-places where so many supplies are stored up even today?"
      "You shall see. They shall be seen. Only look with your feelings. Only with your feelings will you be able to grasp the essence of the creation of God's dream."

Chapters 2 through 9 are devoted to Anastasia's tale of creation, how God and Man became co-creators in the Universe. From the beginning the two were equal in creation and therefore co-creators. The first body of Man was like the second self. All of creation at the time asked God, "What do you so fervently desire?" and He answered, "Conjoint creation and joy for all from its contemplation."

[page 9] "And what may bring joy to everyone in the Universe?"
      "Birth!"
      "The birth of what? Each one of us is self-sufficient for as long as we can recall."
      "A birth in which will be included particles of all!"
      "How is it possible to reunite in a single whole that which is all-destructive and all-constructive at the same time?"
      "Through opposing forms of energy, after first bringing them into line, balancing them in one's self, you see!"
      "And, to achieve this, who so strong would there be?"
      "Me."

From the Beginning God made Man connected with the rest of the Universe as beings of opposing energies but with the freedom to choose and to co-create with Him. This is the essence of Anastasia's creation story.

When the first Man appeared on Earth, here is the exhortation of God to the Universe:

[page 14] "Look, O Universe, look! Behold my son! Man! He stands upon the Earth. He is material! And in him are particles of all the diverse energies of the Universe. He dwells on all the planes of being. My image and likeness he is, and in him are particles of all your diverse energies. . . So love him! I urge you: love him!
      "My son shall bring joy to all living on the Earth. He is creation. He is birth! He is all of all! He will create a new creation, and will transform into infinity his ever-repeating regeneration."
      "When alone, or when infinitely multiplied, he emits invisible light, merging it into a whole, he will rule the Universe. He will endow everything with the joy of life. I have given him everything that is Mine, and will furthermore give him for his own all that may be thought at a future time."

With this Anastasia ends the story of the creation of the first Man. After that she goes into the life and challenges of Adam. One memorable portion of the story involved an enormous living hot-air balloon, a brontosaurus with wings that, with a leap into the air and with some flapping, could fly. The gases were likely methane from digestion and if the animal gnashed its flint-like teeth, sparks would fly and ignite the methane exhaled. We have in her story a plausible explanation of the fire-breathing dragons of legend.

Then Eve gave birth and Adam leapt for joy at the sight of the "tiny wee lump, all wet" lying helplessly on the ground. He exclaimed:

[page 39] "Why yes, it is true!" Adam intoned with exultation. "Light like my own is emanating from my creation. Maybe it is even stronger than my light, if such an extraordinary thing is happening with me. All creatures have fallen down before it in delight. I desired! I carried through! I created! I created a creation resplendent and alive! All of you! All of you come look at him!"

Yes, some of you may be thinking, "But Adam got expelled from Paradise." That was Vladimir's reason for all the "thievery, bandits suicides, prisons" that he saw on Earth and led him to say that very thing to Anastasia. Her response was direct and to the point: "Vladimir, God never expelled Man from Paradise." Vladimir objects and she continues:

[page 44] "So where is the logic then? You will agree that a loving parent would never expel his child from his home. Loving parents, even if it means suffering deprivation themselves, will forgive their children any transgressions they have committed. And God is not indifferent to all the sufferings of people — the sufferings of His children."

She asks him in reply: How long can Man go on not seeing or feeling and appreciating the Love of his Father? Vladimir demands that she be more specific. In reply she offers her view of the modern city in the midst of which God's magnificent creations still sprout forth as a call for Man to return to Paradise. Since the Sun gets its heat from reflecting the Love sent into the cosmos by Man, its heat should be decreasing, but yet it remains strong.

[page 44, Vladimir, then Anastasia] "What you are so concerned about all of a sudden? Be more specific. Where are these manifestations today of the Divine Love for us? Where do we look for them?"
      "The next time you are in the city, take a close look around you. The living carpet of marvelous grass has been paved over with lifeless asphalt, all around are harmful masses of concrete called housing, cars scurry around in between them, emitting deadly fumes. But even amidst the stone masses, finding even the tiniest of islands, grass and flowers still sprout forth — God's creations. And through the rustle of leaves and the song of the birds He is still calling out to His daughters and sons to reconsider everything that is happening and to return to Paradise.
      "The glow of love emanating from the Earth keeps on getting smaller, and for a long time now the Sun's reflection should have been decreasing, too. But He with His energy is constantly intensifying the life-giving power of even the Sun's rays. Just as before, He loves His daughters and sons. He waits, trusting and dreaming that one day Man will wake at dawn and suddenly regain his conscious awareness, and that this conscious awareness will restore to the Earth its original, pristine blossoming."

How did the dark forces originate? The beings of the spiritual hierarchies are all subsumed under the name, "the elements", by Anastasia in her explanation of how the dark forces of the elements attempted to create something similar. But like all apers and imitators since time immemorial, the imitation is never as good or as great as the original. For one thing, it is not original or fresh, by definition. Rudyard Kipling knew this, and in this memorable passage he offered us his advice about how to deal with plagiarizers, imitators, and all thieves of primary property (one’s thoughts and ideas), "They copied all they could copy, but they couldn’t copy my mind, so I left them copying merrily, a year and a half behind." The dark elements are still today fighting a losing battle, but their hopes are buoyed by every human being who is attracted to their counterfeit promises, up until now.

[page 46] "When the Earth and everything upon it was created by God, the unparalleled speed of the generative process made it impossible for the elements to understand by what power God was bringing about this grand creation. After everything was already created and was visible, when they noticed that Man was the strongest of all, many were plunged by this resplendent vision first into astonishment, and then into excitement, and finally came the desire to repeat it. To create something similar, all on its own."

We learn that the dark elements are creators, but, by striving to create what only God can create, they are forced to imitate. As imitators, they can create the pieces of the systems, but they fail at the trickiest part of any system: how the various parts of the system interact with each other. All the parts of a viable and thriving system must interact smoothly and harmoniously, in an ever-increasing cycle of growth, else the system will fail — it will decline and fall apart — like all man-made mechanical systems. But no dark element and no Man has ever made a plant, or an animal, or another Man which can live in complete harmony with each other. Frankenstein’s monster portrayed in story the lugubrious results of an attempt to build a Man. Obviously the monster did not live in harmony with the humans it interacted with. Its story illustrates the desire of Man throughout the ages to create living beings, and the desire of the dark elements of the Universe to create another Earth full of Man, animals, and plants. All attempts lack the robustness of Earth with beings living in complete harmony. The search for extraterrestrial life (SETI) or for planets with life on them is doomed to find, if successful, a world full of Frankenstein monsters.

[page 46] "This desire kept on growing. Even today it is still present in a multitude of the diverse energies. They tried to imitate earthly creations in other galaxies, on other worlds, even using the planets which God had created. Many managed to come up with a facsimile of earthly existence, but only a facsimile. The harmony of the Earth and the interrelationship among all things — that is something none have been able to achieve. Thus throughout the Universe, even today, there are planets with life, but this life is but a poor imitation of life on the Earth."

We saw an example of this on an earth-size scale when the USSR tried for seventy years to excel and exceed the productivity and creative technologies of the USA. They captured our airplanes and weapons, dismantled them, and by reverse engineering built replicas or equivalents which they proudly paraded in May Day parades. But while they were applying their ingenuity in this fashion, Americans were designing and building the next generation of technological devices. Both countries were full of ingenious and innovative people, but the social systems restrained one to copying from the other. The copying system eventually went the way of all imitators. The secret of the success of the USA was an open secret: its innovators were not told to imitate, but innovate and were allowed the freedom of expression and communication with other innovators. Coercive political systems, like the USSR was, can not innovate, only imitate. They rise quickly and fall with a crash.

How was the Earth and everything on it created? Scientists on Earth and even the elements scattered throughout the Universe would like to know the answer to that question. Anastasia says that God will not give us details on that matter. Here's how she imagines He answers any Man who poses the question.

[page 47, God speaking] "I ask you, My son, to create. You have been given the power to create in the space on Earth as well as on other worlds. What you think up in your dream will be turned into reality, you need not doubt. Only one thing do I ask of you: do not try to figure out how, by what power, it all comes about."

Remember all the secrecy about the atomic bomb during World War II and afterwards? Spies stole the secret and created a nuclear arms race. Soon we were on the brink of Mutually Assured Destruction. The secret God keeps from us could start a Universal arms race and quickly result in a War of All against All. Vladimir does not see the connection between God not revealing the secret and universal war, so Anastasia explains further, admitting that this is her best guess as to why:

[page 47] "If ever the secret of creation were to be revealed, then on other planets in the Universe other forms of life might arise, equal in power to those on the Earth. Two powers might have the desire to test each other. It is possible that such a contest could take place peacefully. It is also possible it could turn out like the wars on the Earth. And that could touch off a war throughout the Universe."

Vladimir prods her further saying that perhaps one of the elements will eventually figure it out. She says that she doubts that possibility, given that it would require both co-creation and inspiration. Here is her explanation to Vladimir of the two terms:

[page 48, 49] "Co-creation signifies that in His creating, God used particles of all the diverse energies of the Universe, and His own energy too, and even if all the elements got together to produce a duplicate of the Earth, they would still be missing one particular form of energy — the one that is inherent in God as an idea of His own, the one born in the Divine dream alone. Inspiration signifies that the creations were produced through an impulse of inspiration. Who among the great earthly artists and sculptors, after creating their works in an impulse of inspiration, will dare attempt to explain how they held their brush, what they were thinking or where they were standing — these were not the kinds of things they paid attention to, absorbed as they were so completely in their work. Again, there is the energy of Love, which God sent to the Earth. It is free, subject to no one and, preserving its loyalty to God, is in the service of Man alone."

The dark elements wished to learn the secret of the creation of the Earth and all its creatures and it was this desire which they transmitted to Adam and Eve and their descendants, namely you and me. How many humans have been involved in breaking apart things of God’s creation to see how they work? Many people. I was — during my study of physics and early jobs in the field. The more we break them apart, the more we learn, the farther we seem to get from the truth. Take surgeons who learn by dissecting human corpses in medical school. They learn about how the organs and muscles and skeletal structures are situated in a human being, but nothing about how to build such a creature. The recent discoveries in cloning may allow humans to create exact replicas from an already living being, but that is not the same as creating a living being from proteins. Cloners become but a fanciful copy machine, not a creator. This all started with Adam when he broke off the limb of an apple tree.

[page 50 Anastasia first, then Vladimir] "First, Adam broke off a branch of the tree with its marvelous fruit, and then . . . Then . . . now you can see for yourself how Man's creative thought came to a stop, a standstill. Even today he keeps examining things in detail and breaking them apart, trying to analyze the structure of everything and produce his own primitive creations with his thought instantaneously at a standstill."
      "Hold on, Anastasia. That's not at all clear to me. Why do you say that human thought has come to a standstill? When people examine something in detail, on the contrary, we say they're learning something new."
      "Vladimir, Man is made in such a way that there is nothing he needs to examine in detail. He includes . . . Oh, how can I make this clearer to you? The structure of everything is included in Man himself in what you might call an encoded format. The code is deciphered when he tunes into his dream of inspired creativity."

She in unable to make it clear to him, so finally she makes her case by pointing out the distinction between man-made inventions and machines and God's creations.

[page 51] "God's creations not only do not break down, but are capable of re-creating themselves. Hence why should one need to tear them apart to see how they work?"

Vladimir is not convinced and he assaults Anastasia with all sorts of questions about missiles and rockets. Finally she stops him by saying that this is "only one inventor of all rockets and all the lethal weapons attached to them." Vladimir asks the name of this one inventor who gives out hints to all scientists and inventors no matter where they live in the world.

[page 54, Anastasia ] "Destructive thinking. At first it got through to a single individual and took over his material body, producing spears and stone spearheads. Then it proceeded to come up with arrows and iron arrowheads."

This element of destructive thinking wishes to establish itself and it has done so very well. Vladimir, after much discussion is finally convinced by Anastasia, and asks her pointedly, "And how do we exterminate it from the Earth?" (Page 54) Her answer mirrors an answer first appearing in classical Greek literature, the play, Lysistrata, by Aristophanes. In it the Greek women, angry because their men are always at war, decide to withhold sex from them until they give up their destructive war. She tells Vladimir not to let destructive thinking into his thoughts or body, and then offers her suggestion to the women. This time it is Vladimir's time for a Wow!

[page 55] "All women should avoid intimate relations with men who permit destructive thinking into their consciousness, so as not to reproduce it over an over again.
      "Wow! That's quite a thought!" I exclaimed. "If all women gang up like that, all our scientific military minds will go out of their minds."
      "Vladimir, if women start acting that way, there will be no war on the Earth."

Why might this idea work better today than in ancient Greece? Consider the differences in cultures. Back then women were basically treated like chattel. They were not allowed downstairs nor into the front rooms of the family home. Married women were universally forced to stay indoors to weave, cook, and raise children. Today, a woman can choose to do as Anastasia, who is raising her son alone in her own space of love and does not require a man to be present. Vladimir sees the power of her suggestion, since no man would go to war if doing so meant killing his own unborn children. That would be the result if no woman would bear his children after he returned from war. He would be not only be putting his own life in danger at war, but ensuring that he would never have a child of his own! The first woman, Eve, would have her own grace redeemed by the deeds of all women living today.

[page 55] "If women were willing to do this, nobody would ever start a war. Eve's fall from grace would be expiated by women living in today's times, not to mention their own decline, in the face of themselves and God."

Vladimir, ever the skeptic, accuses her of being naïve, "How can one believe in all the women on the Earth?" Anastasia responds with a clarion call to all the women of the Earth.

[page 55, 56] "How can I not believe in all women, Vladimir, since I know that the Divine essence is present in every woman living on the Earth today? So let it reveal itself in all its resplendent array! Goddesses! Women of the Divine Earth! Reveal in yourselves your own Divine essence. Show yourselves to the whole Universe in all the beauty of your original pristine presence. You are a perfect creation, you are created from the Divine dream. Each of you is capable of taming the diverse energies of the Universe — dear women, goddesses of all the Universe and the Earth!"

After war, Anastasia takes on technology, our "ease-makers", as she calls them, those "soulless objects" we spend our whole life in slavery in order to acquire, and, of course, to maintain.

[page 80] "You are a Man! Take a careful look around you. In order to produce yet another mechanical object, whole factories are built, spewing out deadly pollution, killing the water, and then, you... You, a Man, are obliged to spend your whole life in joyless work for their sake. They do not serve you, but you them, inventing, repairing and bowing down to the things you make."

And yet, no Man has yet produced a machine which can replicate it, repair itself, refuel itself, and operate in complete harmony with its environment like, for example, a squirrel does. She calls Vladimir's attention to a squirrel holding a cedar cone. The tiny animal strips the kernels from the nutshell, places them on a broadleaf, and when Anastasia opens her palm, he transfers all the kernels into her hand for her to eat. She thanks him and the squirrel scurries back up into the tree. Vladimir muses over this amazing demonstration.

[page 81] Well now, that's quite a mechanism, I thought to myself. It collects the product, delivers it, even separates it from the shell. This little creature doesn't require any maintenance or repair, and doesn't consume any electrical energy.

The other reason we work so hard is to buy food for us and our family. Anastasia invites Vladimir to dine with her in the taiga. She spreads a large feast before him.

[page 84] There on the grass, on a variety of leaves both large and small, lay a host of delicacies. They filled an area larger than a square meter in size. And everything was beautifully laid out with tasteful decor — cranberries, huckleberries, cloudberries, raspberries, black and red currants, dried strawberries, dried mushrooms, some kind of yellowish paste, three small cucumbers and two medium-sized red tomatoes. These lay among a multitude of clumps of herbs, decorated with floral petals. Some sort of white liquid, looking not unlike milk, stood in a little hollowed-out wooden bowl. I couldn't tell what the scones were made of. There was honey in the comb, too, strewn with multicolored grains of pollen dust.

My dad always had a large garden with a lot of produce; usually he had green beans, bell peppers, cucumbers, eggplants, okra, and tomatoes. He shared them with all six of us children and I never tasted a better tomato or cucumber than that which came from his garden. It wasn't until reading the Ringing Cedar Series that I came to understand about the significance of the difference in flavor. Those plants were grown in soil that I had worked as a child and an adult. Those plants had modified themselves to my own body's requirements using their transposable genes to create proteins and other nutrients my body needed. My body recognized the presence of these nutrients and signaled me of their presence by the enhanced flavor my palate presented to me.

This concept of enhanced flavor due to the presence of the body's needs may seem far-fetched to you, dear Reader, so let me give you a down-to-earth example from my own experience. Growing up in South Louisiana summers were hot and sweaty with temperatures in the 80s and 90s into September and humidity less than 60 percent was considered dry. In the 1940s and 50s as a growing boy, a special treat was an ice cold watermelon on a steamy summer afternoon. Along with the watermelon, my mother, as was the custom in our area, always placed a salt shaker on the table to sprinkle on the watermelon, "to make it taste better." I remember trying the watermelon with and without the salt and sure enough, the watermelon tasted better with the salt sprinkled on it. Even as a child, I was an experimenter, and I wondered at times about how something salty could make something sweet like watermelon taste better. I held that unanswered question for about six decades until recently.

One day I was invited to have watermelon with an 87-year-old friend of ours, Rosie. She placed a salt shaker on the table. Neither one of us used the salt, but it was there. Why? Why was the shaker there, and why did we not use it? If salt in fact made watermelon taste better, as I had confirmed as a child, why do we not use salt on watermelon today? What was different? Then it hit me! Air conditioning! As a child, neither Rosie nor I had air conditioning in our homes. We were outside playing, running around, working, etc., and perspiring profusely. Our perspiration contained salt, so our bodies were depleted of salt as we sat down to eat watermelon. This fruit contains little or no salt within it, and our bodies needed salt. Thus, by sprinkling a bit of salt, we restored a healthy balance of salt to our bodies. That’s simple biochemistry stuff. But, note how the flavor was enhanced because our body needed it! Our body let us know that we were doing the right thing by adding salt. It changed the flavor so that the watermelon actually tasted better when we added the salt! Our bodily wisdom actually encouraged us to add salt by enhancing the taste. Nowadays with air conditioning we do not sweat as much and while someone might, out of habit, place a salt shaker on the table with the slices of watermelon, no one uses it anymore.

It is a short step from the salted-watermelon tasting better to the home-grown cucumbers tasting better. Why? Because those cucumbers contain nutrients with designer genes created by the plants specifically for our bodies. Vladimir discovers the special taste of the cucumbers grown by Anastasia in her cedar glade, and describes it for us. (We should note that this was Vladimir's second visit to her glade, at least a year later, and her plants had had a chance to adjust to his bodily requirements already. Anastasia ensured that over two previous visits as she explains later to Vladimir.)

[page 85, 86] You see, this ordinary-looking cucumber was utterly different in taste from any I had ever eaten before. This taiga cucumber had a pleasant unique fragrance. You're no doubt aware that cucumbers grown in hothouses taste quite different from those raised in garden beds in the open air. The ones growing in the open have a significantly superior taste and fragrance. But Anastasia's cucumber surpassed all the open-air cucumbers I had tasted before, and possibly by an even greater margin of difference.
      I quickly picked up a tomato, tried it and polished it off on the spot. Its taste, too, was extraordinarily delicious. Like the cucumber, it was far tastier than any other tomato I had ever eaten. Neither of them required any salt, sour cream or salad oil. They were delicious in and of themselves. Just like a raspberry, or an apple or an orange. Nobody would ever think of either sweetening or salting an apple or a pear.

Nor would anyone in South Louisiana in the days of air-conditioning consider salting a slice of watermelon. Our bodily wisdom, by flavor enhancement of what it requires, helps us to select, prefer, and savor those things which the body requires. Anastasia tells Vladimir she had prepared the feast in the taiga so that his body could begin taking over the cure which she had been doing on two previous visits but would do no more. He asks, "What might cure me?"

[page 88] "Your own body. Once you try a bit of everything, the body itself selects what it needs. You will feel like eating more of what you have chosen. Your body itself will determine what it needs."

Then he asks her why she will not take the pain away from now on. Her answer contains a deep insight into the healing profession. She offers us the words, "Pain is a conversation between God and Man." Translated into karmic terms, God represents the spiritual burden of karmic debt each one of us carries, and pain is one way our body balances some karmic debt. No one else can remove that karmic debt, only defer it for a time. But if we change our diet and other addictive habits, we can bring some balance into our karmic debt and the pain will cease. By providing Vladimir with foods that could help him, she offers him a chance to do exactly that. The signal of accomplishment will come if and when his pain ceases.

[page 89] "I shall not take away your pain any longer. Pain is a conversation between God and Man. But, I can now . . . since I am just offering you food — that does not go against Nature, although it does go against them."
      "Who's them?"
      "The ones who thought up the regime that is so harmful to Man."

The regime is simply that followed by most people — buy what is made available at supermarkets. The solution is to sow and grow and eat food grown with one's own hands. So we have ease of acquiring food, but pains which accompany our choices, and a large industry of drug companies eager to sell us drugs designed to minimize the pain. Not take it away, not cure the underlying deficiencies, simply reduce the pain to a level of tolerance. As a society we have lived with pain and the discomfort which can result, up until now. Is there a solution?

[page 90, Anastasia, Vladimir] "All systems under a technocratic way of living invariably work only for themselves, Vladimir. Do you consider it 'convenient' to get those lifeless frozen or tinned foods, or water that is half-dead? Was it your body that determined the selection of foodstuffs available in grocery stores and supermarkets?
      "The technocratic world's system has taken upon itself the role of supplying you with the necessities of life. You have agreed to this, you have complete faith in it, to the point that you have even ceased to wonder whether you have been supplied with all the necessities."
      "But we're still alive — we aren't dying from using these stores!"
      "Of course you are still alive. But the pain! Where do you think your pain comes from? Think about where pain comes from with the majority of people. Disease and pain are not natural for Man, they are the effect of choosing the wrong path in life. Now you will be persuaded of that for yourself. Here before you lies just a small sampling of what the Divine Nature has created for Man. Just try a little bit of each thing, and then take what you like with you. Three days is sufficient for these little herbs — which you yourself will select — to overcome your pains."
      I began trying a little of everything while Anastasia was still speaking. Some of the clumps of herbs were tasteless, while others I felt like eating more of. Before my departure Anastasia put the things I had taken a liking to into my backpack. I ate them over a three-day period. And the pain completely disappeared.

Vladimir asks Anastasia in Chapter Fifteen a question that crossed my mind and must have occurred to every male reading these volumes, "Why is it, Anastasia, that every time you speak of your forebears, you always talk about mothers, about women? As for men, your forefathers, I hardly hear anything." She says in reply that she can feel and see the deeds of her forefathers and admits that she does not understand them as well as those of her foremothers. She agrees to tell him stories of her forefathers, amazing stories, including the story of a man named Egypt who founded Egypt, the story of her forefather who possessed a power "greater than all the weapons known, either today or in the future." (Page 91)

Tens of thousands of years ago, her forefather left the taiga to go to a new land filled with tribes of people who were at constant war with neighboring tribes. He gathered a group of eleven poets and seven priests from different tribes and addressed the influential priests:

[page 95] "The tribes can be made to cease their enmity and war. And all the peoples will then come to live in a single state. They will have a single just ruler, and every family will be saved from the horrors of war. People will start to offer each other help. And the brotherhood of people will find their way to the garden of their pristine origins."

The priests laughed at his suggestion, but he sobered them up with a promise of a powerful weapon, the one Anastasia had referred to earlier. But this weapon had a sting as they found out.

[page 96] "You are wise men, and your wisdom is needed to make laws for human society. I can give each one of you such power that no weapon made by human hand can withstand it. If you cherish it and use it for a good trust, it will help everyone reach their goal, come to the truth, to a bright sunrise that is blissful and grand. But if its possessor lusts in his soul to fight others with an evil intent, he himself will perish."

Rightly understood, every destructive weapon has such a sting — "anyone who lives by the sword, dies by the sword" is an old saying which expresses this truth. In his wisdom her forefather chose a ruler of a small tribe who had avoided all confrontations with his neighboring tribes. His name was Egypt and the forefather chose that as the name for the state, the first state in the history of humankind, so far as we know. The results of the cooperation of the tribes formed into one large state or country can yet be seen in the large pyramids and monuments in the country of Egypt. How did he form this state? By singing and moving the hearts of everyone.

[page 97] "Whereupon my forefather sang three songs to those gathered. In the first song he formed the image of a just ruler, calling him Egypt. The second song conveyed the image of a happy people living together in harmony. In the third song was the image of a loving family with happy children, fathers and mothers, residing in this extraordinary state."

That was the starting point for the collapse of the individual tribal leaders and the merger of all the tribes into one governing body of priests. The high priest eventually became known as the Pharaoh. But all this came about because of the dream of Anastasia's forefather as communicated to the people in his songs. I read a true story of an American Indian medicine man (priest) as a young boy. At the age of nine years old he got sick and went into a feverish coma for several weeks. When he awoke he acted strangely and didn't talk to anyone. He spent his time wandering around the village alone. One day an old man came up to him and said, "I know what happened to you." The boy stopped and listened to the old man. "You had a dream, a big dream, and you must share this dream or you will surely die." The young boy told the old man his big dream, which involved colored horses riding in from the directions of the four winds, a different color of horse from each wind. The old man listened intently to the boy's dream and said, "You must tell this dream to all the members of the tribe so that they will re-enact this dream with you." The boy did so. He got the tribe members to assemble the four different colored horses and created his big dream out in the world. This young boy grew up to be a very powerful medicine man for his tribe. This is an age-old process of converting one's dreams into reality. The bigger the dream, the more powerful effect it has on oneself and the tribe in which one lives.

[page 97, 98] "Just five years later, out of this very small tribe, the state of Egypt was born. All the other tribes which had earlier vaunted themselves above their neighbors simply fell apart. And there was nothing the war-inclined rulers could do to stop it. Their authority weakened, and disappeared completely. They were defeated by something, but there was no war.
      "Accustomed to material conflicts, they had no idea of the power the images held over all — images that delighted people's souls and fascinated their hearts.
      "In the face of but a single image, provided it is genuine and untainted by mercenary interests, all the armed troops of the Earth are useless, whether they carry spears or any other deadly weapons. Before this image all warriors fall to the ground, powerless.

Eventually the high priest becomes jealous of the power of Anastasia's forefather and threatens him with life imprisonment in the tower if he does not share the secret of his power with him. "Tell us how to create the image than is stronger than all the rest." he pleads. The high priest insists that he is a creator, but her forefather make a cogent case that the high priest is not a creator. The reason lies in the difference between originators and copiers, between creators and imitators. If someone is pleading for something from a creator, they are revealing that they cannot create — by their very act of pleading. Anyone who limits their belief structures cannot create freely. They are like a hobbled horse who cannot run. The high priest had revealed his own powerlessness by pleading.

[page 102] "One who creates will never bring himself to entreat. One who creates is capable of giving of himself. You, on the other hand, are one who entreats, which means you are already well within the shell of unbelief."

Vladimir becomes interested in whether Anastasia might be able to sing those songs which her forefather used to merge the tribes into the state of Egypt. She demurs, saying she can hear them but cannot sing them because so many of the words no longer exist or have different meanings. But she gives him hope of hearing them:

[page 104] "You shall hear them, Vladimir. They will rise again."
      "What d'you mean, they'll rise again? You just said a translation is impossible."
      "A full and accurate translation, yes, is impossible. But it is possible to create new songs in the same spirit and with the same meaning. Bards are creating them right now, using words familiar to everyone today. The final song my forefather sang back then you have already heard."
      "Heard? Where did I hear it? When?"
      "A bard from Yegorevsk sent it to you."
      "He sent me a lot of songs."
      "Yes, he did, but one of them is very similar to my forefather's final song."

Chapter Twenty-One begins an amazing journey for Vladimir. First Anastasia demonstrated beaming herself from beside Vladimir to the other side of the lake! Yes, without any Star Trek transporter, she dematerialized from one side of the lake and instantly re-appeared on the other side. Prompted by Vladimir's questioning, the two of them begin talking about other planets and Anastasia admits to him that she has visited a distant planet with almost human creatures. He asks her to take him along with her and in the next chapter "Other Worlds" she does.

They find there a planet formed by the elements who have tried to create human beings, but managed to only create android machines which resemble human beings. Anastasia indicates that these beings have been planning an invasion of Earth, and Vladimir after learning of their powerful weapons sees no way for us to survive, but Anastasia rebuts his pessimism:

[page 148] "That means nothing can stop them, if there are no weapons on Earth stronger than theirs."
       "Man does have a weapon. It is known as Man's thought. Even I alone could turn about half of their weapons into dust and scatter them through the Universe."

She lays out the plan for the invasion and it becomes clear that these proto-humans are fully ahrimanic beings who offer to create completely material beings out of divine, spiritual Man. Enough ahrimanic influences exist already on Earth that such an invasion would be welcomed by the powers in control of most all the countries in the world. Vladimir sees the prospect of a world without wars and crime — with all one’s material needs taken care of automatically — as a boon. Anastasia pinpoints for him that the danger is to one's immortal soul and spirit.

[page 154] "Vladimir, do you not realize that once mankind accepts the terms of the aliens, they at the same time renounce their non-material, Divine self? In fact, it will self-destruct. All that is left will be material bodies. And every Man, Vladimir, will come to more and more resemble a biological robot. And all the children of the Earth will henceforth be born biological robots."

Humans will recognize their loss and start ending their own lives, she tells him. Why? he asks, "What would they be lacking?"(2)

[page 154] "Freedom, creativity and the feelings that only co-creation with the Divine creation can bring."

If Man's thought is so powerful according to Anastasia, you might be wondering how could we be in danger of invasion by a lesser form of being. That could happen — but only if we unknowingly turned our most powerful weapon, thought, against ourselves.

[page 155, Anastasia] "When man admits the thought that he is not a perfect creation, when he all at once begins to imagine that there are beings on other planets of superior intellect, he himself feeds them by his own thought. Man himself thereby belittles his own God-given power and attributes power to other creations other than the Divine. They (those other creations) have already learnt to gather the energy human thoughts and feelings can produce into a unified complex and are proud of that achievement."

From Chapter Twenty-Four forward we are admonished by Anastasia to "Take back your Motherland, people!" Vladimir recounts in the remainder of the book his extensive conversations with Anastasia about what constitutes a Motherland for a person and how we might proceed to create once more our individual Motherland here and now, beginning with where we live, work, and raise our children. She explains this all to Vladimir by telling him an old parable about two sons. The younger brother stays home and just lives while the older brother sets out around the world searching for the wisdom of the world to bring home to his brother and their descendants. The younger brother tell his elder brother he wishes to stay home.

[page 171] "Agreed," replied the elder to the younger. "Only there is no opportunity to seek out wisdom by staying here at home. There is no wisdom here, no one has left it here and no one will bring it to us of their own accord. But I as the elder brother have decided I must, for both our sakes, and for the sake of our line which will extend through time, find everything that is wise in this world. I must find it and bring it home, and bestow it upon our descendants as well as our own selves. I shall take with me everything of value our father left us, and travel throughout the world and meet all the wise people of different lands. I shall learn all their teachings and then return to my native home."

With that the elder brother sets out into the world journeying North and South, East and West, and with his excellent memory, he commits everything he learns and encounters to his heart. After sixty years he returns home and shares his knowledge with his younger brother. Each thing he shares, as he shares it, we watch as the younger brother demonstrates that very thing. Miraculously, the younger brother while staying home learned the wisdom his older brother had spent his life in search of. Here are some examples, with the elder brother's advice in italics and the younger's words following in regular type:

[page 172] "Here is the first: all people should live in a splendid garden."
      "Go to, my brother. On the table before you are the fruits of our garden — I have gathered the best for you."

[page 173] "Every Man living on Earth should cultivate his own family tree."
      "Forgive me, my wise brother. I forgot to open the window so that you can breathe the fresh air." Whereupon he threw the window open and then went on: "Here, breathe the air of our two cedar trees. I planted them the year you left."

[page 173] ". . . each of us should strive every day for love."
      "You have learnt such great wisdom, and I am embarrassed in your presence. Forgive me, I have not even introduced you to my wife."

[page 174] "To learn how to raise children that will be happy and righteous."
      "Tell me, learned brother, I long to make my children and grandchildren happy — you see, my noisy little grandchildren have just come in." [What follows in the text of the book is an example of how his grandchildren settle a dispute on their own.]

After the wise elder brother was finishing sharing his wisdom with his younger brother, he asked for their father's old hammer and chisel and said that he would inscribe the most important lesson on a great rock by the pathway and then leave forever. As we read this inscription we can imagine that the wise man received this last lesson at the home of his younger brother when he returned.

[page 176] Whatever you seek, pilgrim, you are already carrying with you. You keep losing it with every step you take, and are finding nothing new.

Vladimir gets the message and asks Anastasia, "Who taught the younger brother all these wise things?" Her answer is the key lesson we can take from the Parable of the Two Sons.

[page 177] "No one. All the wisdom of the Universe is included for ever in each soul right from the moment it is created. It is just that wise men slyly intellectualize for their own interests, and thereby lead people away from the most important thing."

And what is the most important thing, you and Vladimir are probably thinking at the same time? Anastasia begins the next chapter with the answer:

[page 178] "The most important thing, Vladimir, is that even today everyone can build a home. Everyone can feel God with their soul and live in Paradise. One single moment is all that separates Paradise from people living on the Earth today. Each one possesses conscious awareness within. When dogmas do not interfere with this awareness, then look Vladimir, at what can come to pass. . ."

With those words Anastasia lit up and led Vladimir to a patch of bare sand where she began to draw a square representing the hectare of land (about 2.5 acres) upon which each person will build their own Paradise. The land can be open land covered with wild grass. At this point Vladimir asks her if she's opposed to fences. She says no, but asks him of what material should it be made. All the materials he proposes are expensive to acquire and construct and require constant maintenance. She offers him and us a better plan. A living fence made of raspberry bushes and trees at various distances apart. The individual could choose what kind of berry bushes and trees to suit their own location. Here's Anastasia's solution for the fence in part.

[page 184] "Planting different-colored trees. Birches, maples, oaks and cedars. Someone may intertwine a rowan-tree with clusters of bright red berries and still plant guelder-roses in between. And make room for bird-cherry trees and lilac bushes. After all, you. can plan it all out in advance. Each planter should watch to see how high each one grows, how it blooms in the spring, what kind of a fragrance it has and what feathered friends it attracts. Thus your hedge will be both sonorous and pleasantly fragrant, and you will never get tired of looking at it, as the picture will be changing its tints with each passing day. It will flourish with colors anew every spring and every autumn burst forth in an explosion of fiery hues."

Notice how robust her solution is to the problem of the fence: no expensive materials or labor to install, no maintenance, with lots of pluses such as birds, animals, fragrances, colors, and nutrition. A fence that would truly be a "thing of beauty and a joy forever."

As the two of them go over the plans, Vladimir is surprised to find that Anastasia is not diametrically opposed to the use of technology.

[page 185] "On the contrary, Vladimir. There is no sense in rejecting technology for the project at hand. Indeed, any invention of the dark forces must be put to use to serve the forces of light. It will hasten the implementation of the plan if you use a plough to dig a trench around the perimeter of the ground-lot and plant the saplings in it, along with the seeds at the same time — for the bushes you have decided to plant between the trees. Then you can go over it again with the plough to fill in the soil. While the earth is still loose, you can adjust the position of each sapling to even out the row."

Vladimir asks for more details about creating sustainable land without artificial fertilizers and exactly what crops to plant, etc. So she outlines the plan starting from the hedge fence of berry plants and trees.

[page 189] "Let us say our lot is on a barren section of land, and is now enclosed on all sides by a hedge. Let us divide it, reserving half or three-quarters of the lot for a forest, and there plant a variety of trees. On the edge of the forest, where it borders on the remaining part of the lot, we shall plant a hedge in such a way that animals cannot pass through it and trample the crops growing in the garden plot.
      "In the forest we shall set up a pen using densely planted saplings, which in time will be home to a goat or two. And we shall also use saplings to construct a shelter for egg-laying hens.
      "In the garden plot we shall make a pond approximately 16 meters across. We shall plant raspberry and currant bushes among the trees in the forest, and wild strawberries around the edge. Later, after the trees in the forest have grown a little, we can set up two or three empty log hives there for bees. And we shall use trees to make a gazebo where you will have a cool place, safe from the heat, to talk with your children or your friends. And we can make a summer sleeping area out of living things, along with a creative workshop for you. And sleeping places for the children, and a living room."
      "Wow! It won't be a forest we end up with, but more of a palace!"

There is a tremendous lot of barren land in the USA where such hectare plots of land could be turned into such a Space of Love in perpetuity for a family using the general plan outline set down by Anastasia and modified for local flora and fauna.

Anastasia builds a scenario for a marriage between a man and a woman living in the Space of Love, their own bit of Paradise, a Kin's domain built as she laid out the plans. One such plan was designed by Irina Labountsova ©2003, and a color plate facing page 186 is reproduced below to give you a visual of how the various pieces of Anastasia's plan might fit into the hectare plot of land.

That is the home, the "splendid living home in love" that Anastasia mentions in the next passage where she describes a newly married couple planning their first child. Vladimir has just finished offering the usual pattern of people coupling without any thought to having a child, often before they have married.

[page 200, Anastasia] "Now picture a different scenario. He and she build their splendid living home in love for one another and in thoughts about their future co-creation. And they visualize how their son or daughter will be happy in that place. How their offspring will hear its first sounds — its mother's breathing and the singing of the birds, God's creations. Then they will visualize how their child, when he grows up, will want to rest in his parents' garden after a hard day's journey and sit in the shade of a cedar tree. In the shade of a tree planted in love for him by his parents' hands, with thoughts of him, in their native land. The planting of the family tree on the part of the future parents will define this first point, and this point in turn will call upon the planets to aid them in their future co-creation. It is vital! It is important! And above all else it belongs to God! It is confirmation that you will be creating in His likeness! In the likeness of Him, the Grand Creator! And He will rejoice in the conscious awareness of His son and daughter."

Rather than thoughtless conception, Anastasia urges thoughtful conception, and describes what the spiritual effects of such conception will be.

[page 200] "Thought is the origin of everything. Please believe me, Vladimir. The currents of all the diverse energies of the Universe will unite in that spot where the thoughts of two have merged into one in love, where two together are contemplating a splendid creation.
      "The second point, or rather, yet another human plane, will be born and light a new star in the heavens when two bodies merge into one — merge in love and with thoughts of a splendid creation — in the very place where you build your Paradise home, your living home for your future child."

In her words, we can visualize the famous quote of quote of Baal Shem Tov (1698 - 1760) coming into realization, "From every human being there arises a light that reaches straight to heaven and when two souls that are destined to be together find each other, their streams of light flow together and a single brighter light goes forth from their united being."

She goes on to describe how the pregnant wife will live in that spot for nine months, experiencing joy in the blossoming of spring and summer, surrounded only by sounds of Divine creations.

[page 201] "And a third point, a new plane of being should come about in that space. Right there on the spot where the conception occurred the birth should take place. And the father should stay close around. And the great all-loving Father will raise over the three of them a crown."
      "Wow! I don't know why, Anastasia, but I find your words even took my breath away. You know, I was able to visualize the spot you're talking about. And oh, how I could visualize it! It made me feel as though I wanted to be born again myself in such a place. So that right this moment I could go and rest in a splendid garden planted by my father and mother. So that I could sit in the shade of a tree planted for me before my birth. The place where I was conceived and where I was born. Where my mother walked in the garden, thinking about me, even before I came into the world."

Here we are presented with a hardened entrepreneur being wowed by Anastasia's description of how a married couple might bring a child into the world. Imagine the young people who will be reading these stories in the coming years who will create out of their thoughts spaces of love and homes that will be palaces in their own Kin's Domain where they will conceive, give birth to, and raise their children in living love, a place where all the planes of being are woven into one tapestry of love.

What are you waiting for to begin building your own Space of Love and participating in your true vocation as a co-creator in the Universe? The time is now, the place is where you are, and it all begins with the most powerful weapon in the Universe which you as a Man possess, your thoughts. Think about that.

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All Published Volumes of The Ringing Cedar Series

To Read any book listed, Click on Ringing Cedars Logo below and order yourself a copy.

Book 1:       Anastasia
Book 2:       The Ringing Cedars of Russia
Book 3:       The Space of Love
Book 4:       Co-creation
Book 5:       Who Are We?
Book 6:       The Book of Kin
Book 7:       The Energy of Life
Book 8.1:    The New Civilization, Part 1
Book 8.2:    Rites of Love, Part 2

---------------------------- Footnotes -----------------------------------------

Footnote 1. second self' — see Book 3, Chapter 15: "A bird for discovering one's soul". This second self encompasses what Rudolf Steiner calls the etheric, astral, and Ego bodies.

Return to text directly before Footnote 1.

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Any questions about this review, Contact: Bobby Matherne

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Footnote 2. Read my review of Wisdom of the Sands by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, wherein he gives an extended metaphor of those who destroy their father’s palace and then soon begin despairing for a place “where every footstep had a meaning.” The despair of loss of creativity brings that same level of despair to those who are not aware of the importance creativity plays in their lives and consider it unnecessary. To such people the paradox of the words on a Betty Crocker cake mix box, “Be Creative, and Here’s How to Do It”, are completely meaningless, up until now. Why a paradox? some Readers might ask. Would the instructions have to change if the title on the box read, “Forget Creativity, Do It This Way”?

Return to text directly before Footnote 2.

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