I went to the John-Roger birthday weekend of MSIA events in Carpinteria just wanting to be together again in person with our Traveler, our family of initiates and ministers, and to have a really fun time. I experienced all of that, plus a powerful inner shift I wasn’t prepared for. More on that later.

My wife Rita and I drove up from Los Angeles with Dawn White, our friend and fellow minister. We found an Airbnb to stay at overnight together not far from the venue. It was fun having the three of us traveling together and staying in the same place, like a merry band of carolers singing praises to the Beloved in our hearts as we went on the journey.

On the drive up we got a call asking if we had already left Prana. An important box of materials had been left behind. It was at that moment that we realized that we had forgotten the other important box of materials for the ministers’ meeting. Oops! “Maybe two wrongs do make a right,” I thought as we turned the car around and headed back to Prana to pick up the items left behind.

At the Airbnb we met the Japanese family who owned the house whose rooms we had rented. The mother was courteous and friendly, and I found the mix of English and Japanese the four-year old spoke adorable. Only later I found out our young new friend’s birthday was on September 24^th (same birth date as J-R), and it made even more sense to me why we had ended up staying there. I experienced that a lot of Light from the workshop went to the family to bless them just by us being in the house.

The venue at Lion’s Park was even more beautiful than I remembered it. Lush, green grass, a small creek trickling through, hawks flying overhead who would call out to me as I ate the delicious lunches and caught up with old friends, some of whom hadn’t been to a live event since the start of the pandemic. Where in the flock had they been, anyway? It didn’t matter because we were getting together again, and I felt a ton of gratitude and joy for the privilege.

The weekend festivities started out with screams and hollers. Baby Rama made her presence felt during her blessing. John held his fantastic focus and brought in the grace of the Traveler to do its work. And the preciousness I felt for baby Rama set the tone for a sweet weekend.

Pauli Sanderson’s easy and friendly facilitation of the weekend made me feel relaxed and at ease. I enjoyed how she wove stories of working with J-R effortlessly into her presentation, keeping us laughing and revealing the human side of herself and of her wayshower and friend.

The J-R stories kept coming. The ministers’ meeting had lots of them. As I listened, I confess I wasn’t feeling the same outpouring of devotion and gratitude for J-R that so many were expressing. What I was feeling was a growing sense of irreverence. Come on, didn’t he say himself not to get stuck on the physical form?

Story after story from J-R’s inner circle, or people who had known him, it to me it was like, “Ok, but isn’t he here with us now? Isn’t the Preceptor that he embodied a part of our line of authority? Doesn’t he continue to work with us in the most intimate ways from the other side? And isn’t that really what this is all about?”

Still, that didn’t explain why I was having such a strong reaction. Maybe, I thought, I just didn’t get it because I had come into MSIA with John Morton as my Traveler. Or, maybe, I was just feeling left out that I’d missed so many of the good times with J-R. I put it all into the Light and went to lunch.

As it turned out, I had another opportunity to make sense of my conflicted feelings that evening at the J-R birthday celebration. A beautiful gathering over spaghetti dinner with over 350 people joining in online.

The J-R stories kept coming. As they did, my irreverence softened into understanding. I saw how the people sharing their best J-R moments were sharing their loving, and that was indeed what this was all about. I saw, too, an increasingly strong presence of purple light in my inner vision. I had seen it many times but rarely quite like this. I felt like I was being engulfed by it. Maybe J-R was coming in for his birthday party?

On the ride back to Prana I talked to Rita and Dawn about my initial reticence in the celebration and then the purple light which was still completely filling my inner vision. “It’s almost like he’s here with us now,” I said. The instant those words left my mouth I started to smell incense burning.

“Do you smell that?” I asked. Rita smelled it. Dawn pointed out that we were then passing a building labeled, “PTS Furniture.”

Either we were passing an incense factory on the way out of Carpinteria or J-R was making his presence known, whatever it took. It seems he has a way of getting to even the strongest hold-outs.

I will never have the physical experiences with J-R that many shared on his birthday. And I am still getting comfortable with the paradox of a man who never wanted to be idolized or even remembered inspiring so much reverence and so many stories. But I do know that J-R, like the rest of us, is very alive and well, actively bringing forward the Light in multi-dimensional and magical ways. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

View the Photos from the MSIA events in Carpinteria, September 2023