by Jim Becker

My two children are now six and eight and are both very fascinated with the thought of seeing snow for the first time. Being life-long residents of Florida, the harshest winter weather they’ve ever been exposed to is an occasional morning frost on the roof tops.

I was rather looking forward to the spectacle of snow-capped peaks and the looks of delight on my children’s faces as they throw their first snowball. So after making a few reservations we packed up the car and hit the road; our destination—The Great Smoky Mountains.

As we turned from the highway paralleling the east coast to the highway heading into the heart of South Carolina, the landscape changed from green, flat and occasionally marshy to the browns and burnt oranges that color the rolling hills and leafless trees in February. The miles ticked by, and the hills gave way to mountains as we left the gas stations and fast-food restaurants that populate interstate exits and traveled into the two-lane history that winds its way through the mountains of North Carolina. Although the modern world returned when we reached the ski resort, there was a length of road between the interstate highway and the mountain top that seemed to have missed the last several decades.

In that marginal area there were some great looking old barns and cabins abandoned out in the fields. I don’t know why they attracted my attention, but I found myself captivated by the rusting roofs and rotting sideboards. On a few occasions I stopped to take pictures of some of the more interesting and accessible ones.

While taking pictures of one old barn I found myself wondering about its history. At one time somebody had gone to a lot of effort and spent a lot of time to create this structure. Plans or blueprints were drawn up. Lumber was purchased, cut, nailed in place and painted. The barn had a purpose. It was needed. It might have housed horses or cows or maybe a tractor used to plow the fields. Presumably it was used for some number of years, but somewhere along the way it had been abandoned. It is now neglected, discarded, no longer filling its original purpose. More than likely in this state of disrepair it is now something between a nuisance and a serious problem.

I’m not sure exactly why but somehow my mind made the connection between thinking about the life of this old barn and my study of beliefs on The Avatar Course.

We all create beliefs. These beliefs shape the way we live. They run the gamut from helpful, through hindering to harmful; “Fire can burn me,” or “Nobody likes me,” or “I’m stupid.” The trick with beliefs is being able to recognize the ones we have and change or discreate the ones that no longer serve us. Unfortunately recognizing the beliefs we hold is not as simple as spotting an old barn in the middle of a field. Actually, it’s more of a skill than a trick, a skill that The Avatar Course helps us to rediscover and exercise to our benefit.

The analogy here is that people, myself included, often create beliefs, use them for a time and then, like the old barn, abandon them. During our lifetimes this can create a lot of neglected structures that are more than likely something between a nuisance and a serious problem in the otherwise open fields of our consciousness.

These abandoned structures are still present in the fields much like our discarded beliefs are still affecting our mental landscape on a day-to-day basis. With the help of the Avatar tools, anyone can cleanly and quickly disassemble and/or recycle these abandoned beliefs and restore our mental fields to their pristine, functional beauty.

I suppose this is another one of those stories centering around the notion of the journey being more valuable than the destination. Although the smile on my little girl’s face and her raucous laugh as she threw a snowball at me were pretty valuable as well.

If you would like to clear away your hindering beliefs, find out more about Avatar by visiting AvatarEPC.com or calling one of the Avatar Masters listed in this magazine.

Jim Becker, employee of Star’s Edge

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