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| Mary Maguire and a bunyip named Ahau |
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| With Marilya at Magick River (1990) |
This was also the year I collaborated musically with Marilya Corbot – a
Brazilian-born shamanic performance artist who divided her time between Tokyo,
Los Angeles and Kuala Lumpur (where I recorded the many hours of music she
commissioned). It was Marilya who passed me a copy of a shiny book called The Star-Borne
~ A Remembrance for the Awakened Ones by Solara. Marilya suggested I read
it quickly because she was leaving in a week and wanted the book back.
I went through Solara’s book over the next couple of days,
felt absolutely no resistance to what she was saying, and photocopied it for leisurely reference. Months later, when I decided to re-read Star-Borne, I discovered more than a
dozen pages missing – the photocopy shop had done a very sloppy job. However,
the credits page was intact and it had a postal address for Star-Borne
Unlimited, so I decided on an impulse to write Solara, apologizing for having
had to photocopy her book and asking her very sweetly if she would kindly send
me photocopies of the missing pages. Cheeky, huh?
In this instance, audacity paid off handsomely. A few weeks
later I got a parcel in the post. It bore the shiny Star-Borne logo on the return
address sticker. With quiet elation I opened the package and found three books and
a booklet by Solara Antara Amaa-Ra, with a beautiful handwritten note enclosed.
The energy emanating from the parcel was unlike anything I had ever felt. It
felt new, completely new, like something that had never before existed on this
planet. And it felt lovingly true and real.
Solara had generously chosen to gift all her published works
to me, starting with Invoking Your
Celestial Guardians (a booklet published in 1986); The Legend of Altazar: A Fragment of the True History of Planet Earth (1987); EL*AN*RA ~ The Healing of Orion (1988); and, of course, The Star-Borne~ A Remembrance for the Awakened Ones (1989, updated and reissued in 2012).
Needless to say, I read them all in rapid succession and felt deeply comforted by them. I remember writing a nice long letter to thank Solara and we may have corresponded, off and on, for a while. Those were snail-mail days and people often wrote long, lyrical letters – sometimes by hand, though I generally preferred to use my trusty typewriter, to spare my readers’ eyesight. Around that time word processors began taking over, along with floppy disks and dot-matrix printers. I remember Mary’s first Toshiba laptop with a metallic blue screen and blinking cursor… but let’s not digress too much.
Needless to say, I read them all in rapid succession and felt deeply comforted by them. I remember writing a nice long letter to thank Solara and we may have corresponded, off and on, for a while. Those were snail-mail days and people often wrote long, lyrical letters – sometimes by hand, though I generally preferred to use my trusty typewriter, to spare my readers’ eyesight. Around that time word processors began taking over, along with floppy disks and dot-matrix printers. I remember Mary’s first Toshiba laptop with a metallic blue screen and blinking cursor… but let’s not digress too much.
The very next year, 1991, saw me off on a 23-day whirlwind
tour of 5 Australian cities (Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide and
Melbourne) sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs. It was what they
call a Cultural Award, aimed at fostering closer ties between Malaysian and
Australian arts practitioners. In Adelaide, my host was a poet named Anne-Marie
Mykyta who had planned a small dinner party, so I could meet some of her
friends. She even cooked a green curry in my honor. I subsequently learnt that
Anne-Marie and her affable husband Irush Mykyta (a Ukrainian migrant) had
suffered the worst imaginable family tragedy in 1977 when their 16-year-old
daughter Julie became the third victim of a psychopathic serial killer
who managed to murder another 4 young women before he got killed in a car
accident a month later.
Among Anne-Marie’s friends was a buxom blonde who introduced
herself to me as Beylara Ra. “Is that an angelic name?” I asked, whereupon
Beylara’s baby blue eyes widened in astonishment and she performed an elegant
and elaborate mudra. As she was doing so, I had a fleeting glimpse of an
18-foot tall golden winged being. When she heard I would be in Melbourne next,
Beylara passed me the address and phone number of someone named Azuria
Luminaria, who she said was Solara’s 11:11 coordinator in Australia. “In
fact, Solara just did a workshop in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago!”
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| Azuria as a "good witch" |
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| Mario Schoenmaker (1929-1997) |
Before I left Melbourne, Harb also introduced me to the Rev.Mario Schoenmaker, founder of the Independent Church of
Australia, and his impressive daughter Antoinette. Harb told me Mario
Schoenmaker was a gifted clairvoyant, particularly good at reading auras. She
also said there was a long waiting list of people wanting their auras read, but
since I was on a short stay, she hoped he might let me jump the queue. In the
end there was no aura reading but the meeting with Mario and Antoinette led to
a long friendship which endured till his death on 12 January 1997.
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| Colin S. Read (1944-1999) |
In 1994 Mario and his closest colleague, the Rev. Colin
Read, chartered a taxi all the way from KL to visit me at Magick River. It was
a memorable visit from two immensely elevated souls, special emissaries from
the Order of Melchizedek, who came to bestow a blessing on me in lieu of the
aura reading Mario had promised (he explained that he had stopped doing such
work some time ago, as it was too draining). I was very touched to be invited
by the Rev. Colin Read to contribute a personal eulogy to a special issue of
the Church’s journal celebrating Mario Schoenmaker’s extraordinary life and
work. Two years later, Antoinette wrote me about Colin Read’s passing. Two
great human angels were finally reunited.
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| Magick River ~ hologram of heaven on earth! |
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| Magick River Phase III ~ Bamboo Palace in 2006 |
Anyway, towards the end of 1991, Mary Maguire and I decided
to initiate an alternative community called Magick River – to be located on an
exquisite 3½-acre property overlooking the Chiling River in Pertak, where Mavis
and Clifford D’Cruz had built their dream house, Maycliff, in 1984. As they had
relocated to Melbourne to be closer to their granddaughters, they were willing
to rent the spacious bungalow to us. The lease was to begin in April 1992 but
we arranged to use the property for a week, so I could celebrate my birthday on
January 7th as well as anchor the Opening of the 11:11 Doorway on the 11th.
What an amazing, life-changing week that was!
