Marshall Rosenthal
Cell 2 Soul. 2005 Autumn; 1(3):a11
I was born Jewish American in Brooklyn, New York in 1940. At age 65, I was adopted into a Cherokee family and given the name Grandfather Marsh Wise Turtle. I am now a member of a large family of snapping turtles living in a pond in Newburgh, New York, and an extended Cherokee family, headed by Grandmother Dorothy Runendeer. How this has come about is a source of wonder and amazement to me.
It all began during the first week of May 2000, while participating in a six-day training with the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI), directed and founded by Steven Greer, MD. Our group was being guided in ways to make peaceful contact with visiting nonhuman intelligence.
We were encouraged to engage in personal meditative practice and exercise each morning, prior to the afternoon seminar and evening fieldwork sessions. For exercise, I chose brisk walks along the roadways near our lodgings at the Newburgh Comfort Inn.
As I approached the long narrow pond that ran alongside the hotel, the Level II Reiki practitioner part of me suddenly felt inclined to stop and send Reiki energy to all the residents of the pond. Quickly putting all self-consciousness aside, I sent out a greeting and healing, and waited for a response.
I didn't have to wait long. First, a muskrat swam along its watery trail through the floating weed mat at the edge of my end of the pond. He came ashore at a spot just in front of me and lounged on the grassy bank.
Next, the oval shell of a large snapping turtle broke the pond's surface about thirty feet in front of me in the open water. I could distinguish its periscope-like neck. Its dower, wizened, beaked face intently regarded me.
Then, as if called to order by the conductor of an orchestra, a handful of adult turtles appeared on my right just outside the weedy muskrat trail close to where I was standing.
As a finale to this turtle emergence, an adolescent snapping turtle cruised by as if given some signal by the elder turtle to check out this witless intruder upon their watery domain.
Imagine my delight and amazement at this display. Could I have engendered all this simply by being present and convivial?
On the morning of the following day, encouraged by my success, I stopped once again at the pond, sending greetings and healing thoughts into the pond.
This time the muskrat materialized nearly at my feet, munching on a piece of vegetation he had retrieved from his watery garden. His sudden appearance fairly gave me a start.
Right on cue, the First Turtle Elder rose and held me in its stern gaze. For some reason, I experienced an uncomfortable, unsettling feeling of unwelcome, as if I were commanded to stop wasting time and be on my way. No other turtles revealed themselves. I wished the Turtle Elder well and quietly took my leave.
Approaching a macadam driveway, I noticed a coral colored oval object, about two inches in its longer dimension. Stooping down to get a better look, I discovered that it was a baby snapping turtle turned over on its back. I was concerned that it might be at risk of being flattened by a car tire, or of broiling and suffocating in the bright sun.
I picked up the turtle and placed it on the palm of my left hand. Its eyes looked like two tiny wrinkled turrets on the sides of its mostly retracted head.
Gazing into the turtle's eyes, I began to ask in my mind, first, and then aloud, "Are you still in there? Are you alive?"
The response nearly knocked me over. The tiny eyelids opened for an instant and a twin filament of light flashed directly into my eyes. It was as if I had been struck by a laser.
I now understood the message from the Turtle Elder and my mission. I promptly trotted back to the edge of the pond with my new charge. I set him down where the water met the bank at the spot where the muskrat had shown me his landing place.
I sprinkled some cooling water on the turtle's small shell, performed a Reiki healing on him, and silently called to his clan that he had returned and was coming home.
Later that day I sat cross-legged on the bed in my room at the hotel. I could see the pond through my window. I was taking advantage of a break in the intense seminar proceedings to restore my energy by giving myself a Reiki treatment. The first move is to place both palms and fingers over the area of both eyes. The visual effect through closed eyelids in the sunlit room was like viewing an energized CRT or TV screen, a glowing gray field.
I held this posture, my being in a slightly shifted meditationl state. Suddenly I was struck by the vision of a stegosaurus-like creature walking calmly across my inner visual field from right to left.
At that instant, I knew that the Snapping Turtle Clan had gifted me with an image of their ancestor as thanks for the safe return of their baby. I knew that my destiny would forever be entwined with theirs.