Also see Rother Bio Short and Rother Bio Very Short

It sounded like fun and something a little more spiritual than we usually did on New Year's Eve.

1995 found me very content with my life as a general building contractor, my calling of the past sixteen years. However, as the last day of 1995 approached, my wife, Barbara, and I decided that we wanted to bring in the new year in a way that was different from anything we'd ever done before.

So there we were--standing on a San Diego beach in the early morning hours of January 1, 1996, attending a simple yet deeply spiritual ceremony that would profoundly change both of our lives forever. The ritual required each participant to declare his or her intent for the coming year as the sun rose. It responded to our intentions by setting life-changing events into motion that I did not expect at all.

The Universe watched and waited for our voices. The smoldering smudge stick was handed to me and I spoke: "I declare my intent to be a lightworker". I heard the words for the first time as they left my mouth, coming from some seemingly unfamiliar place deep inside me. I wasn't even sure what a Lightworker was. At that moment I heard the very strange sound of laughter from over my shoulder on the Beach. I handed the smudge stick to Barbara, wiped the tears from my eyes, and turned to see who was laughing at me. No one else was on the beach that morning.

From that point on, our lives changed dramatically.

Soon thereafter, I found myself searching the Internet and finding a group of like-minded people who knew what "lightworker" meant. I spent a lot of time in a message board on America Online discussing this new concept with my online friends. Many days and conversations later, I told the others I thought it would be great to have an online meditation. The words came back quickly: "Great idea, Steve. Let us know when you have it ready."

I heard a strange laughter over my shoulder, seemingly off in the distance.

Now I was stuck. What did I know about writing meditations? Years of construction industry experience taught me how to build a store. But I had only recently started my own spiritual path, which included my very first meditation practice. I visited others in the AOL folder to gather ideas for the first monthly online meditation. I knew it was a novel idea and great fun, and so I pursued putting it together with great relish. After the first three months, my online friends began to lose interest in providing material. I was left holding the bag, so to speak.

Then I heard that laughter again.

I sat down to write and, as usual, as soon as I got going, the ideas flowed faster than my fingers could type. It was like a race between my mind and my hands to see if I could get it down fast enough before I lost it.

The meditations began with a message, which set the stage for the actual meditation. I'll never forget the first time I stopped writing and looked at the screen to read the last few paragraphs I had written. Where did this come from? I was writing information about events of which I had no direct knowledge. How could a previously non-spiritual person like myself, a former building contractor for most of my adult life, put out information like this, instructing people on how to move to the next stage of their evolution?

I heard that laughter again. Where was it coming from?

I worried about this information I was getting, and wanted to know where it was coming from. I felt the inherent truth of what I was writing, but wanted to know of its origin. Was it from the Galactic Federation, or the Elohim, or my higher self? Or were the Greys (an alien race without the best intents) trying to use me?

The next time the information started coming, I asked the question "Who are you and where are you from?" The voices answered in three-fold:

A. It is none of your business.

B. It is none of your business.

C. It is none of your business.

This did not sit well with me. I was upset: I had spent a lot of time with these voices and was not receiving the answer I wanted.

For a short time, I went into fear and actually cut off the flow of information. During that time, I felt as though I had a hole in my chest where my heart was meant to be. I seemed to be missing a part of myself. It was not long before I went back and asked them why they would not give me their credentials. They responded with: "We will ask you to consider each message for the content of the message alone and not by any label that has been placed upon it. We are here to help you re-member your power and we cannot do that if you continue to give that power away to things such as labels."
The wonderful laughter had returned and once again. They had my full attention.

Now the voices began to speak more clearly than ever before. Somehow I instinctively knew it was a group of several entities and they confirmed it as they began to speak to me. They told me that we humans put way too much focus on titles and labels. And what made me think that if they truly were "the bad guys" that they could not lie to me about who they were? They offered this tool as a means to find direction and clarification for my own path. They said: "If it pulls at your heart strings, then take it as your own. If there is anything less, then leave it without judgment, for it was placed there for another." They called this the tool of discernment and said it was a tool that would allow us to be the greatest expression of the God within each of us. The Group said this was a tool to be used in all areas of our lives--from who you allow in your energy field to what television shows you watch to what food your place into your body. They simply did not care what we called them. They embodied the lesson of discernment in their own anonymity.

Barbara, my wife of twenty-eight years, is a very spiritual being with her own ideas. It was difficult for her to accept that there were then-anonymous entities talking through her husband. All this discussion of channeling and discernment and entity non-identification made her unsure. Still, it was difficult to disagree with the messages that came, because they always made sense. After a time she decided that perhaps this activity was just a continuation of what had been going on for ages--wasn't this what was happening when God spoke through the prophets and the saints? What about the Bible--wasn't that a collection of divinely inspired writings? And what was the difference in what I was doing and what she always trusted as her feminine intuition?

The difference, according to "The Group" as I came to call them, was just a matter of practice.

That New Year's Eve ceremony set into motion a series of events that led me to travel for the next two years with Lee Carroll, helping him conduct Kryon seminars and other empowering events. The Group also guided me to set up a monthly channeling network, distributing information full of guidance and love that is now sent out to tens of thousands of people in 68 countries to date. Known as the Beacons of Light Meditations, these meditations have continued monthly since my first experience at the computer, and has grown into a web site for Lightworkers worldwide. http://www.Lightworker.com. This site started as a home for the Beacons of Light Meditations and has grown into a global community of Lightworkers who give support and love and share information with anyone seeking the Light.

I never returned to my construction business. Barbara and I now travel throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe, conducting seminars of empowerment and distributing information and love from The Group. We offer these seminars not only to Lightworkers but also to corporate and government professionals who seek knowledge that will enlighten and tools that will empower. Truth holds in all areas, and business is no exception. The Group says that the same principles that lead to ascension also show up clearly in the bottom line. Governments and businesses that wish to make the shift to the next stage will need to redefine their foundations in order to progress at the same rate as mankind evolves. Making space for the empowered human will allow that.

Today, I do private spiritual and intuitive counseling sessions by telephone to help those who wish to re-member who they are. The Group sits on my shoulder throughout every session, prompting me with insights and observations that they wish me to communicate to the individual seeking their guidance. We do not do "fortune telling", as The Group considers that very disempowering. The Group reflects each person from an energy standpoint helping him or her to trace problematic energy back to its origins. This kind of a energy inventory makes it easier to pinpoint and release restricting or negative patterns and habits. My channelings serve as a way for people to see themselves from a pure energy perspective, and to think, speak, and act from a spiritually balanced center of love and wholeness. Viewing themselves through the non-judgmental eyes of The Group enables people to find their strengths and their own path. We call them Re-member sessions because they help you to re-member your true heritage and your power. Information from The Group will soon be published as a book entitled RE-MEMBER-A Handbook for Human Evolution.

Oh yes, I still hear the laughter. The Group loves to laugh at us just as parents lovingly laugh at their children as they learn to walk. They say that we humans are so funny because we never give anything any power unless we first surround it with mystique. The Group tells us that we are spiritual masters who have agreed to play this elaborate game of hide and seek for the higher good of the Universe. They say that we are God hiding from himself, searching for herself. We play this game with veils over our eyes firmly in place, not re-membering who we are or why we came here in the first place. That is why The Group speaks--they are here to help us re-member who we are, to help us re-member our powers of creation, and to help us find the members of our original spiritual families (that is why they write "re-member" as a two-part word). They are here to help us prepare for the next step in our evolution. They are here to help each of us create our own heaven on earth.

They say we can change the world--one heart at a time.