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MEDITATION, PEACE AND MYSTICAL BEING Epilogue
Epilogue Part Two
Katrin Speaks
This is the final chapter of this book, or 'blovel.' The next should start in approximately two months. I thank the people who have followed along with me and hope this does a small part to raise the energy of the earth, so that eventually violence is no longer a choice.
“As they say in the Sikh religion, once you realize God knows everything you are free.”
Ram Dass [1]
"Jesus said unto him, 'THOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL THY HEART AND WITH ALL THY SOUL, AND WITH ALL THY MIND.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, THOU SHALL LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
Matthew, Chapter 22, Verses 37-40.
My compatriots on the committee though, particularly Steve the chairman, frequently intervened to prevent me from actions they knew ultimately wouldn’t serve Portia well. He had in his last lifetime worked as manager of a tire company in Indiana. He still wore the wire-rimmed glasses of that incarnation and the uniform. It had been a very pleasant time for him. He didn’t come into that life with heavy karma, just some minor issues and generally found it a very gratifying experience. He had been greatly loved by his customers with whom he was infallibly honest and would go out of his way to help. I believe he had an African grandmother and a hint more pigment than the average white man then. Given the sad state of racial relations in mid twentieth century America, this seemed one of the burdens he was given to bear. But he never suffered from it, indeed the impeccability and honesty he lived by, rather won many a hard hearted racist to the cause of black people than to give him trouble. So it was the calm and impeccable Steve who invariably held me back from letting my emotions dominate certain situations. For instance, I had wanted the azure butterfly to stay with Portia as a reminder of me at most times or at least more frequently, a clue that she was protected. Steve felt that would lead to her focusing unnecessarily on the spiritual realm and might detract from her business on earth, pointing out that being accompanied by a butterfly was unlikely to happen under ordinary circumstances. So I had to settle for just an occasional reminder. He did give in though on allowing the pastor, in fact our committee member Mark, to visit Portia briefly on her way to America. It was decided that was needed to remind her of the moral nature of what she was doing. The intensity of the dreams and the interpretation by Mark were thought to be instructional. Mark had also previously been a healer in a California commune, a person with real abilities but who had more frequently than not taken more of a profit than should have been his. Yet his desire to help people was intense. He had been an actual priest in Spain at one point more than a century before, which he mentioned to Portia but of course without specifying the time.
But I was allowed to intervene in her times of greatest peril so that the course of her life would proceed. We had hoped she would have been easily able to shed those intense negative feelings she picked up, that resentment and anger towards poor Rick and later at Ann, but she wasn’t yet ready. You see, in spite of probabilities, we have free choice. It became necessary though to influence the minds a bit, you might say, of the scoundrels who had grabbed her on her flight from Boston so that she would survive. She thought it was her meditation that did it, but in fact, with her mind overwhelmed with fear and hate, her meditation alone was almost powerless for something that intense. And again we had to send an energy down in the guise of a wolf to the jungle in Mexico to allow her to get away from poor Ann’s stooge. She wouldn’t have survived without those interventions, so they were allowed.
Fortunately, she eventually saw the light and was able to drop the resentment. It took no effort, those low vibrations eventually just couldn’t make it with the being she was becoming by then. Yes, I did appear there before her through Ann’s physical being in Lucretia, very briefly. This helped her awaken to the fact that we are all one and have Love within each of us. And of course our committee had greater guidance from individuals much higher in vibration than ourselves. Though we were not able to see them, we received directions from them on crucial
matters.
In short, almost all of the entities in Portia’s life did pretty much what was expected for them to do, without of course having knowledge of it at the time. Portia herself had presented the major obstacle with her stubborn retention of anger, longer than expected. I must add though that Ann was the one who surprised us the most. We expected that she would have a glimmering of self-recrimination after her abhorrent acts; but to shed all that in a moment and become such a vessel for peace, that we did not expect. Yet that kind of awakening is entirely possible, for anyone. It was a choice, a leap of awareness she made herself, something that will in turn serve to further elevate her consciousness and that of others.
On the other hand it was quite possible that poor Glen could have taken a different path, one more enlightened and ultimately beneficial for mankind. We tried to lead him in that way with the image of the blissful children shockingly beginning to fight, a metaphor for the irrationality of war and the industry he was becoming enmeshed in. But it didn’t take. Given the strong history with his wife, he was unable to rise above his profound physical attraction to her and the capitulation that entailed for him.
And so we muddle along, at times in ineffable bliss, happy to be a part of it all. There is no need to lie or cheat or hide, only to do our best. The Almighty knows every thing, tiny or huge, that we do.
[1] Ram Dass, Experiments in Truth, CD 5, lecture3.
1] MC Dillbeck; G Landrith; DW Orme-Johnson; Journal of Criminal Justice, Volume 4, P25-45; 1981. This is one of many studies showing the positive results of transcendental meditation.
2] Healing Words; Larry Dossey; Harper San Francisco; 1993.
3] The Intention Experiment; Lynne McTaggart; Free Press;2007.
4] International peace project in the Middle East: Effects of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field, Journal of Conflict Resolution 32{4}: 776812, 1988.
5]The following trilogy by Kyriacos C. Markides which helped inform this humble book:
The Magus of Strovolos, Arkana Press, 1985
Homage to the Sun, Arkana Press, 1987
Fire in the Heart, Arkana Press, 1990.
[6] Thought Power;Sri Swami Sivananda;the Divine Life Society;1996.
[7] We're All Doing Time;Bo Lozoff;Human Kindness Foundation; 1985.
[8] Wired for War; P.W. Singer;Penguin Books;2009.
[9] The Bible
[10] Ram Dass, Experiments in Truth CD's, published by Sounds true, 1998.
MEDITATION, PEACE AND MYSTICAL BEING Epilogue
Epilogue Part One
Katrin Speaks
“…God, my love, is life, it is your smile, it is everything around us." Daskalos to his grandson.[1]
I hadn’t wanted to leave Portia that soon. You can be sure it was the influence of those in this committee as you might call it, who made me realize that leaving would be the right thing. Some of them were better at viewing future probabilities than I had ever been. It wasn’t my forte.
If I had followed my own impulses and stayed with Portia, it’s unlikely anything good would have happened. They’d told me she would have just stayed there with me until she grew older and would become bogged down with a man, a young lothario from her high school. Yet it was clear if I told her beforehand that I had to leave, she would have begged me so sorrowfully to stay that I’d have done it. So I just disappeared, or so it seemed to her. In reality of course, I was with her much of the time after that. But I couldn’t interfere for the most part--- that was against the rules.
Believe me I know a lot, but compared to what I don’t know, it’s just a piece of sand on an endless beach. Yes, I never set myself up to be any advanced being, though I did pick up a lot, it seemed, almost effortlessly. Although I’d had hundreds of lifetimes, incarnations one might say, it wasn’t until what would seem the most recent ones that I gained any real knowledge and this was just a glimmering.
If you could see me on the etheric level, you’ll see all the trappings of my most memorable lifetime: the long black skirt, the leather shirt, the sturdy black boots, the doctor’s bag---I still carry them with me, a token of the profession that meant and still means so much to me: healing. Indeed in that appearance around the turn of the century, I graduated from medical school, the University of Pennsylvania, not some horse college where many of your doctors went back then. Yes, you can tell that even I still have some attachments, an ego to deal with. But I was a healer, took my oath very seriously. I’d carry my little self, small even then much like my most recent lifetime, back into the Pennsylvania countryside to the distant farmhouses and even into the forest. I knew the area well and people depended on me. Of course I didn’t have this physical appearance then, the wild hair, this raving platinum mane came to me at my next sojourn, a gift from the DNA of some distant anglo-saxon progenitor.
I wasn’t alone as a doctor. I had, as my transportation, a sturdy chestnut mare named Argo with intelligence far beyond what her equine form would suggest, and a dog, a feisty part-wolf, who accompanied me everywhere, and never feinted or drew back in difficult circumstances---of which there were many. But I won’t go into that now. It was from the living of this life that I entered the next, to become an Indian healer with my roots in Brazil.
My sometime stay in the Costa Rican rainforest was an artifice purely for the benefit of Portia. For it was clear that she had a destiny about her---that is, a potential, which given the wrong conditions might not have been expressed. She had worked doggedly, unbeknownst to her, in previous lifetimes for others’ welfare in very rough and thankless jobs. She had developed a steely attention and tenacity as well as a pure idealism which, should you be able to see the pattern of energy around her, you would detect immediately.
And events conspired to help her achieve this capacity, although much of it was difficult for her. Her mother was sent then to have only a brief sojourn on the earth and though it pained Portia deeply, her departure was necessary for Portia to pursue her obligations. For that is at least partly what they were. Although she had many positive attributes, she also had a history during some of her previous stays on this planet of engaging in very reprehensible activities that created heavy debts. And thus it was Portia’s purpose to devote herself to the creation of peace which incidentally she has been very willing to do since her birth, when she recalled nothing of her obligations. I tried to make things as easy as I could for her, for she and I have had a long history through the ages and share strong affection.
[1] Markides, Homage to the Sun, page 121.
MEDITATION, PEACE AND MYSTICAL BEING Chapter Fifty One Part Four
Chapter Fifty One Part Four
“And you can get so every in-breath is a blessing you receive and every out-breath is a blessing you transmit.”
Ram Dass [1]
That night, after I thought Joan was asleep, I still lay there tense and depressed, until she finally reached out to touch my shoulder. Surprised, I turned to face her. “I saw you out there today, weeping…” she told me. “I know you’ve been upset, afraid of what I thought, how I was judging you. Yes, I have been judging you. It’s no lie. I’ve been angry. At the beginning just full of rage for what almost happened to our child, how I’d trusted you and…you let me down. But I know how upset you’ve been, I’m not blind. You haven’t been eating and you’re drinking way too much. Even the children asked me what was the matter. I’m over it now though, Glen. Maybe I expected too much for any man to live up to, expecting my man to be… just like my father, not even like my father maybe, but like the fantasies of my father I’ve always had. And he’s an incredible man, don’t get me wrong, but even he isn’t perfect. Believe it or not, he has his faults. I never expected you to be perfect either…but believe me it’s taken a couple of days to get this straight in my mind. I guess your fault was, in a way, being a little too idealistic, I’ll bet, knowing you, looking up at some beautiful bird or plant, trusting that things would be alright because you’re such a faithful good-hearted person.”
I kept quiet, just holding her hand, didn’t want to tell her she was exactly right, didn’t want her to know it was a bunch of flowers right beside me I was staring at, because they reminded me of stars.
“You did your best. So you made a mistake, maybe a big one, but we were blessed and I am very thankful. And I’m very thankful I have you as well. Such a faithful intelligent man, such a devoted father, usually,” she laughed. “But next time I’ll be in the rear and you can take the point guard position,” she whispered and pulled me close to her, embracing me.
We had one last day in Costa Rica and were to leave early the morning after that for the airport. We decided to have a picnic on the beach, to spend the afternoon snorkeling with the children in the shallow water. The picnic was grand, enjoyed beneath the shade of one of the larger coconut trees overlooking the beach. It was usually eagerly sought out by other beach goers for its soothing shade, but that day we got there first.
After lunch, Paul, our third child, asked if he could go down the beach for a short walk. Joan and I looked at each other and hesitated. “I’ll go with you,” I offered. “Let the other children stay with Mom and play here.”
We walked a short way then noticed that there was small crowd of people, some kind of a meeting, way down the beach. Paul wanted to go all the way down to see what it might be.
As we approached, I could see the outline of a woman in the bright sun. She was standing next to one of the large trees, now and then resting her arm against its trunk. Something about that woman’s form, or maybe her motions, looked familiar. I felt immediately and unaccountably drawn to her.
As we approached further I was startled to realize it was none other than Portia standing there, expounding on something in Spanish. I’d heard she was teaching her methods to various people in seminars though I couldn’t imagine who would want to pay for such trivial knowledge, nor how she could stretch her teaching out that long and make it interesting.I wanted to turn and get out of there just as fast as possible--- but Paul had other ideas. I’ll admit he had become somewhat willful and impulsive and certainly much faster than I. He had already made his way right into the small crowd, maybe ten or eleven people surrounding her. I stood back, not wanting Portia to see me but close enough to keep an eye on him. To my amazement, he sat himself down right there on the sand. Almost immediately Portia, who had been facing the other way, turned and saw him. She smiled, then said welcome in English. I was in a quandary. I didn’t want to go up to the group and risk having to interact with her but I didn’t want Paul to stay there either. For one thing, I was sure Joan would be wondering what had become of us and given my recent performance as well as her forgiveness of it, I definitely didn’t want to risk her fury again.
I adjusted my large-framed prescription sunglasses, pulling them down on my nose somewhat, to better obscure my distinguishing features then smeared some zinc oxide sunscreen over my nose and cheeks. I thought it was unlikely she could tell who I was. After all, it had been more than ten years since I’d seen her. I’d even developed a definite pot belly and more sloping shoulders. I stepped closer to the group and first tried emitting a low whistle that I had frequently used to call my children and which I hoped wouldn’t be noticed by anyone else. Paul turned and looked back blankly, ignoring the frantic gesture I made with my arm. I did it again. Nothing---but one or two of the other people turned briefly as if wondering what this mad intruder was doing. Portia didn’t even look up, just stood steadily talking, occasionally gesturing with her arm. Paul sat for a while as if transfixed. The reason for this I could not imagine. Even at my most enthralled with Portia, I’d never been struck with her verbal eloquence. Feeling desperate, I finally stepped up close enough to reach out and grab him by the arm, but noticed as I crept towards him that Portia was addressing something to him. No matter. I yanked him away before I thought she could possibly identify me for certain. As I expected, Paul then set to a terrible whining. He hated to be told he had to go anywhere when he was preoccupied with something. I turned to lead him away. “Your mother is waiting! Wondering where we are,” I grumbled and looked off in her direction. There she was, silhouetted in the distance, a fretful being, pacing back and forth. You could feel her anxiety from where we were; it penetrated the air like moisture before a storm. All the while Paul was screaming and instead of settling down as I’d expected, became all the more energized, revving himself into a major tantrum.
What IS the matter with you!” I demanded, as we drew nearer to Joan.
“Didn’t you see her, didn’t you see the lights around her? All around her!” he sputtered. “Beautiful colors. She’s magic!” he shrieked as I pulled him forward and he tried to brace his feet against me in the sand.
This I hadn’t expected and had no answer for. I’d never seen any lights around her before and certainly didn’t see any then. “That’s just not so. It’s crazy talk,” I told him tersely, at a loss to say anything else. His behavior startled me---generally my children were pleasant and acquiescent. An image of my intense imaginings in Lucretia so many years before flashed ominously through my mind: that blissful garden by the sea filled with my children and then their wild unexpected behavior. I stared at Paul.
“She is, she is,” he wailed dejectedly, as if I’d always deliberately lied to him and he’d finally caught me at it. He then progressed to a quiet sobbing. And she KNEW YOU TOO,” he wailed. “She told me to give you… her best,” he whimpered as an afterthought.
Now that floored me. I thought she wasn’t looking at me, but even if she had, wouldn't recognize me. Could he be making it up? I was dumbfounded and felt profoundly shaken. Then I envisioned him relating this scenario to Joan. “Hush!” I told him sternly. “It was only your imagination. She probably feels like she knows everyone. Some people are just like that. Don’t you upset your mother with all this!”
He looked at me furiously then at his mother a few yards away. She was smiling, relieved I’d managed to bring him back safely. “Well OK,” he finally muttered before running to her, “but I WILL see her again, I know it. I’ll find out what she does,even if I have to wait ‘til I’m grownup. I know it’s magic.” At that he let go of my hand; but I felt that old unease well up briefly as I watched him run from me.
[1] Ram Dass, Experiments in Truth CD collection, produced by Sounds True, 1999, CD #6, lecture #9.
MEDITATION, PEACE AND MYSTICAL BEING Chapter Fifty One Part Three
Chapter Fifty One Part Three
Immediately the guide was upon us, enraged that we had let our child venture from the path. Joan began a wailing, her voice gathering shrillness to explode in a wordless shriek at me. I felt slain, reduced to nothing, a small nub, a useless core of myself. I spun around and raced with my crying daughter clutched in my arms down the narrow path back toward the hotel, and soon approached the immense hill on which the hotel sat. My clothes were drenched, sweat had pooled above my collar bones, my thighs ached and had become so stiff they throbbed with every step. And what would happen when we got up there, I asked myself. Would they be able to deal with this, did they have anti-venom, an EMT, how could they not have, in a place like this, this miserable forsaken place? I began to be enraged as well as panicky. It seemed forever that we raced along that path hearing the guide try to make contact with someone at the hotel, knowing we had a good fifteen minutes yet before we reached the end of the path, cussing at myself for ever agreeing to come down here. Shouldn’t I have known better? Hadn’t I after all had enough of Costa Ricans after my hapless relationship with Portia?
It seemed many minutes but I suppose it was mere seconds before someone who'd been at the head of the line elbowed past everyone else towards my daughter and grabbed her ankle, shouting at me that he’d worked in an emergency room and could help. While I watched in horror, he took a small switchblade and with a deft swipe of his arm, cut out the reddened area around the tiny fang marks on my dear Beth’s ankle. “This will help,” he said, “they will have anti-venom up there, otherwise she may die right here in front of us, but now she should be alright.” The guide, seeing what he had done, became enraged again and screamed at him in Spanish. The two of them began arguing there behind us on the path as I raced on, the guide insisting she would be alright as long as we got to the hospital in Manteo within two hours, the other shouting back at him about his experience with snakes. By that time, I was physically and emotionally drained, with the other children running behind me asking if Beth would live, and Joan much too furious to speak, occasionally muttering cuss words under her breath, which I had never heard from her before.
To my relief the staff at the hotel reiterated what the guide had said and urged us to get down to Manteo as soon as possible. I’ll admit I navigated the narrow roads like a maniac, frequently darting foolishly past the plodding old trucks on curves to arrive there in an hour. “It’s lucky we’re all still alive,” Joan sulked as we walked into the emergency area.
Beth was successfully treated but required antibiotics for the area that had been cut into by our overzealous companion. “This will frequently only make the situation worse,” the doctor told us and I berated myself for not pushing the man away. When we returned later to get our things, the hotel manager greeted us. “This is why the native men wear the thick boots covering their ankles around here. The snakes don’t bite through them and only go for the ankle…generally,” he told us in a thick Spanish accent, “but who let the little one wander away? Not a good idea!”
I said nothing but Joan glanced angrily at me, and the hotel manager shook his head.
We debated leaving the country that night but ultimately Joan decided that we should stay a day or two at the beach, that maybe our frayed nerves would be soothed by the ocean. We were assured that there would be no snakes in the area. I still felt miserable, maybe a little larger than I had, but understood that Joan felt completely betrayed by me. She didn’t have to say a thing, I knew exactly what was on her mind, and kept asking myself the same thing: what was I doing staring at some plant, not watching my children adequately? She had depended on me. Beth was only five years old and of course couldn’t be relied on to act rationally in potentially dangerous situations, in any situation. What had I been thinking anyway? The more I chastised myself, the worse I felt and dreaded the notion that Joan would tell her father about this. It seemed to take away in one swipe all the confidence that I’d built up during the previous ten years. Of course her father would never have been prone to any such foolishness as to not watch his child carefully. All these years she had grown up with that most competent of men and here she was now, stuck with me, someone so dreamy and disconnected I let my own child wander away right in front of me.
She hadn’t even brought the subject up by the first night at the beach, but I knew it wasn’t because she wanted to be kind; she was simply too angry to do it. The second night though, she came out onto our small balcony where I had been silently brooding, occasionally weeping at my own folly and the disaster we had narrowly avoided. She said nothing, just sat down and looked out towards the ocean. By then I had lost several pounds. My appetite had left me, from the moment Beth had ventured off the path, and it had not returned---but I did drink wine, much more that usual.
MEDITATION, PEACE AND MYSTICAL BEING Chapter Fifty One Part Two
Chapter Fifty One Part Two
Upon arrival at the jungle retreat, I was surprised at the wildness of the area. The total absence of anything resembling the civilization I was accustomed to, startled me initially and remained a little unsettling. Notions about where the closest medical facility might be, briefly popped into my head as we ascended the long driveway to the hotel, then I recalled I had seen a small hospital in Manteo about an hour from the hotel. But I’ll admit this gave me some pause, traveling with my wife and five children, used to the ready medical amenities of Boston and even those close to our houses abroad. The beauty of the place, nonetheless, was overwhelming and soon seduced me into a heavy sense of bliss like one might experience in a heavenly scented warm bath. In fact there was a giant Jacuzzi at the hotel of which we took full advantage. Joan was so enthralled that she urged me to contact local realtors to see if there might be a home there which suited us, to which we could withdraw occasionally and recharge, far from the ugly sights and noises of civilization.
It was idyllic. Joan and I rode in the lofty tree canopy harnesses, lurching across space like winged monkeys and floating from tree to tree. Worries fell away as we indulged ourselves while the children looked on in wonder. Of course we had taken our nanny with us in order to have some freedom and time to ourselves. We took advantage of all the entertainment offered at the resort; there was certainly nothing else around the area except for a few tiny stores. We traipsed to our meals across the rope and board bridge joggling over the ravine with each footstep. The sounds welling up from below were booming, of an intensity and volume akin to sitting on top of an orchestra pit. Frogs as loud as kettle drums, insects emitting melodious humming to the background accompaniment of a steady low drone, and whimsical harmonies of birds before they sought out their night time resting places. Occasionally there was a flash in the night sky, reminding us that we were happily ensconced at the foot of an active volcano, one that occasionally flared up angrily. I had decided the odds of it exploding while we visited were minimal---I’d researched the issue. During the day we sought out every walk available, accompanied by guides of course. I wouldn’t trust myself in such an untamed area without them.
One morning we chose a walk to the foot of the volcano where we were told there were huge volcanic rocks and a myriad of local wildlife to be observed. As we wandered down the narrow path behind the guide and other tourists, I remembered the sign in the lobby warning us to always stay on the path so no injury from local fauna would be risked, a warning I repeated several times to my children. The concierge had politely replied to my questions, that the snakes were smart enough to keep their distance from tourists as apparently were other vermin. He’d added with a sheepish grin that it didn’t always work both ways. Then he directed me to a collection of jars resting ominously on shelves with their horrifying contents: long, thick or narrow, various-colored preserved snakes curled within each of them.
I told myself not to worry, yet it was with a slight sense of fear later that I shepherded my small flock in front of me, trusting in the guide ahead to keep a good lookout. A bird perching on a tree limb far above us emitted a strange cry, static like a channel-less television promptly followed by a melodious rejoinder from a crimson winged creature right above us. I felt a surge of joy and stared tree-ward to catch a glimpse of any other exotic creatures. At that moment, the guide shouted to look up to the left. “Toucan!“ he shouted followed by an explanation in Spanish then English of their living habits. There he was, perched majestically, his beak big and yellow as a slice of the moon, staring down at us as we proceeded beneath him.
Yes, the beauty was overwhelming and yet there seemed to lurk beneath it a sense of the inscrutable, a feeling that we sit like pieces of dust upon this looming nature, imagining we have some control. I laughed to myself and contemplated my sense of irony---I’d always felt quite proud of it. In fact I didn’t even see the snake coiled in the arm of a tree beside us until the guide pointed him out. “Yellow and black friend of Jack...sometimes,” he announced blandly in his crisp Spanish accent and noted the color pattern, then smiled back at us as we all stopped briefly to admire the snake, oblivious to us, coiled like a tight bright rope in the hollow of the branch. “So beautiful, those colors, exquisite,” Joan said softly as we proceeded past him, “and the flowers, they are glorious. I wish I had one of these plants at home,” she exuded, pointing to a circular bush whose pointed red blooms darted out like flames. As the other guests murmured in agreement, I glanced to the left toward a thicket of delicate bright turquoise and ivory blossoms emerging from the dense green underbrush like bright stars on a dark night. I held my gaze there a second longer than I’d planned, contemplating whether the flowers might be a good omen. When I dreamily returned my gaze to the path, our daughter Beth who had been walking right in front of me, was strangely absent. I stared at the space where she should have been as if entranced, then jerked my head from side to side suddenly, so gripped with anxiety my face was burning and wet with sweat. And then I saw her: teetering precariously just a few yards from the path, “There’s a beautiful flower here! I want to get it for Mom,” she shouted, as if we should be pleased with her. Joan lurched around at the sound of Beth’s voice and began to scream, then to stumble off the path to retrieve her. I jumped out, yelling at Joan to stay there, and leapt above the mossy undergrowth, lunging over to sweep Beth into my arms and back to me. But just as I began to lift her, there it was. A black and brown serpent springing from the dark foliage, indignant that we had violated his space, then hurling that blunt head in one swift jerk against the embroidered teddy bear on Beth’s cotton sock.
MEDITATION, PEACE AND MYSTICAL BEING Chapter Fifty One
Chapter Fifty One
Glen Speaks
I confess to feeling guilty about a certain disappointment when the peace initiative in Lucretia began so soon, but due to other influences it was stymied for a long while. I didn’t want to know what part Harold had played in this but I believe it was significant. He had begun to branch out into media communications and ultimately likely had a big, though anonymous effect there. Joan had been so proud of my efforts in the country that when peace looked likely, it crossed my mind that I’d let her down again. And yet my more idealistic part, that vestigial part from the Portia days, truly welcomed the prospect of peace. But I like to think it had been what we all, including Harold, had ultimately wanted; he just felt it should be achieved differently than I initially had.
I became more energized than ever after that, I don’t know why. I think it likely had to do with my relationship with Joan who remained not just the love of my life, but its centerpiece. Our company’s efforts in other places were often successful though it seemed we were frequently stymied more than one might expect; nonetheless our division for supplying military materiel flourished for sometime and as CEO of this part of the business, I came to enjoy it. Even after peace had surprisingly been achieved in many countries, business remained good as we provided fledgling governments the support they needed---my component of the business still flourished.
Our family life also bloomed. Joan never tired of telling me how proud she’d become of me, how I had satisfied her every need. It had been clear from the start that primary among those needs was keeping her father happy and ultimately this became a burden I was delighted to accept. When her father was happy she was happy; when she was happy, I was happy. My confidence level, which had been so pitiful early in my life, partly because of my failed attempts with women, soared to heights I’d never imagined. To be honest, it seemed there was almost no task I couldn’t accomplish. It had always been clear I’d been gifted with intelligence, yet my fears and worries had always interfered with what I might accomplish---but no more. The turning point of course had been my relationship with this beloved woman as we each grew to understand what was most important to the other.
She and I were ultimately blessed with five children, the last of which was a surprise to both us both. I relished my enhanced ability to be a father, both financially and emotionally. Our financial status allowed us to easily afford the help we needed to care for the children properly and I no longer had to worry about going to dangerous foreign places; people under me were tasked with that. I was able to be fully present emotionally as well as physically for all of my children. Not that my job wasn’t challenging---it certainly was, but with the support of the family, things became almost easy.Needless to say my parents who had themselves wanted many children, were thrilled with their five lovely grandchildren, all the more so as they had once thought they wouldn't have even one.
Now and then though, in spite of all the satisfaction in my life, I felt a certain restlessness, an unease--- some part of me that wasn’t quite satisfied. I tried not to acknowledge or dwell on it, that would have made it all the more powerful. I knew though that my professional aims had not become quite what I had once envisioned. Yet it seemed that in most cases our interventions were justified in terms of our country and what I had come to expect its future should be, not some passive bystander in the machinations of other countries but an active player which frequently helped shape their policies. It seemed to me that it all played out in a way that was usually for the best if one took the long term view. The sure cure for my infrequent soul-searching was simply being with Joan, even a look at her, her lovely body still lithe and sensual, her soft hair, even with a few white strands beginning to appear, and those soft kind eyes. She was of course still beautiful, even more so with the bearing of our five children; to me she became even more sensual during those months. Though at first she was dismayed to learn of her last pregnancy, the truth was I was delighted from the start. Nothing could have made me happier. If she’d been willing, I’d have wanted eight or ten children, loving her more with each pregnancy and each wonderful child. Each one seemed to me like another stamp of approval from the universe, strengthening my bond with Joan, even reinforcing my feeling that I had chosen the right path. They all favored Joan except for Paul, the third one, who I must admit closely resembled me.
At our twelth anniversary, Joan wanted a vacation in Central America. I didn’t contest it. For special occasions though, we generally had gone to France or Greece where we had vacation homes, so I was somewhat surprised. Though she had always known about my brief involvement with Portia, it had never bothered her. “I want to see the country,” she told me, “my friends say it’s beautiful, like another world, the surroundings change so abruptly from jungle to beach to mountains in only a hour or two of driving. The hills and valleys where people do the the terraced farming are so vast and vivid it seems like stumbling into another dimension. I want the children to have this experience before they’re too old to see it with fresh eyes.”
It was fine with me, I wanted to see the place again. I’d certainly had happy memories of it as a child. We would be staying at the finest hotels, I assured myself, as the possibility of our running into Portia flittered through my mind. There was probably no way she would be around places we'd visit, though I’d heard she’d been peddling those theories of hers, that she’d even had become somewhat of a celebrity from them. She even got Ann into it---that had truly amazed me.
Anyway I left the arrangements to Joan. When she told me that we would be staying in a rainforest resort, I was delighted and envisioned us swinging from the trees in special harnesses and going on horseback rides. When she told me as an after thought that we’d later be staying at the beach where there were marvelous coconut trees overhanging the sand, it caused me a brief start. What if it was the same beach that Portia used to visit as a child---but she certainly wouldn’t be there at this point and anyway what would it matter if she were? It wasn’t like I wanted to see her, quite the contary, and my marriage was certainly strong enough to weather a little disturbance such as that. Joan had had old boyfriends, more than I could count. We even ran into one now and then. It didn’t bother her or me.
MEDITATION, PEACE AND MYSTICAL BEING Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty Part Two
Ann participated in many of my early seminars, held first in Central America, later in Europe, South America, and Asia. After a while she started leading them herself, so there were two of us going out to teach this concept. Even with all this, her family needs were never ignored and her husband and children flourished. Even Rick no longer chastised her for this and became interested in the meditation himself.
Eventually there were many people who learned this. We were determined to advance this simple idea and gladly let them conduct their own seminars. The philosophy of taking contributions only, was the single stipulation for them and they were told to abide by it. I know there were some, however, who kept more of the proceeds from their teaching than was necessary to meet their needs, but to be honest this didn’t concern me much. My main objective was to spread this idea to as many people as possible all over the world, so that everyday it would sweep around the earth like a wave. People upon awakening and upon going to sleep would devote just a few minutes to this so there would always be some people doing the practice, following the ancient pattern of the earth's rotation with our grateful intention for peace---that was my dream. At first it appealed to women, mostly mothers who have borne so many of the losses from wars, then also to men, and finally to children. It was said that children were singularly likely to be drawn to it as they were able to see the beautiful light around those who had been practicing this for years.
We did not take a moralistic attitude. But the fact is that to do the meditation most successfully one had to attain a certain state of higher being or vibration, in which feelings such as greed, hatred, jealousy, or too much attachment to material items couldn’t survive. Ann had urged her students to practice reviewing their actions of each day at night, to pinpoint where they had been irritable, resentful or impatient, to soon be able to spot those times immediately as they were happening; the tendencies would be eventually snuffed out, allowing the presence of a greater awareness and grace. Since she had made so many mistakes, she judged herself an expert at this. It was adopted by most teachers since it was clear that to truly align ones self with the practice, emotional cleansing must occur. Yet the practice was helpful no matter how evolved the meditator; the key was that the more people engaged in it with good intention, the more successful it would be.
Ann had confided sometime after our trip to Lucretia that she had felt despondent from our lack of success there on the very night that I had sat watching her. She had asked for guidance many times and the idea had come to her then: to focus her energy on a single thought. What came to her startled her. She described it as energy like a wind which she felt sweep into her from the heavens above through the vertex of her head and from the earth below through her feet, and from every direction.The essence of this was love, as intention and energy,seeming to flow into her and through her like a wind into her heart then out from her every cell to fill each corner of the earth and again return to her. This happened only once, though it continued in some aspect in all her later meditations. Her breath seemed to bring in negativity, but once it connected with her heart center, it left with only love, saturating each cell as it proceeded from her to help heal herself and the earth. Eventually she changed to meditation that she hoped could be used by all. As she imagined fear leaving every cell of her body she experienced a sense of lightness so intense that she felt herself to be almost floating; then with an intention for peace in a specific area, her cells filled with love as she breathed in to her heart space and out again to all, imagining the area suffused by each breath with a golden white light of love surrounding all beings, visualizing peace there and over all the earth, then ending with a prayer for peace imagining that it had already happened. This is what she taught her students and soon I myself adopted to teach. She felt it was more helpful than observing the breath or healing colors, that was apparently something only I had been proficient in. And yet, her students found that by only focusing initially on the intention to create peace, any meditation which got one’s incessant thoughts out of the way, seemed helpful. It wasn't neccessary to be in the area of concern.
Of course our efforts in Lucretia had appeared to make a difference--- but before long forces for war had once again gained the upper hand.For these difficult situations it was clear that ongoing efforts were required. It wasn’t until months later that actual peace occurred in that country.
MEDITATION, PEACE AND MYSTICAL BEING Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty Part One
Portia’s Good-bye
"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."
The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 5, verse 9.
"The daily cost of the war in Afghanistan is estimated at more than 300 million dollars. I wonder how many disaffected people could have been provided jobs and won over to our side with all the money that's been spent?"
Anonymous Reiki Practitioner.
When I left Ann in Boston I felt a great sadness. The bond we had developed was indescribable and unaccountable. After having such anger at her husband then at her, the deep sense of attachment and acceptance I had recently come to feel for both of them was overwhelming. It was like an unexpected gift, but one with consequences far beyond my expectations. This shift in awareness as I described it, influenced my every thought. And of course I now also had a sense of empowerment about the process that had evolved. Ann would become my partner in the efforts to disseminate the idea, adding her own experiences to it, and we were to see each other frequently.
When I returned to Costa Rica after one night spent with Ann and her family in Boston, I saw life in a new way. On the evening of my return it seemed a good thing to go out to the old tree near Katrin’s hut and relax there for a while. I felt in harmony with the jungle and a heightened awareness to all its manifestations.The sounds of the forest were like a symphony to me, the rustling of leaves and vines, the calls of toucans and canaries as they settled in for the night, the rummaging in the leaves of lizards and other night creatures, even the screams of restless monkeys, all part of the night music. I felt no fear there in the dusky light though I knew there would be snakes and other night prowlers afoot; I was a part of it all. The lights of the forest were just becoming clear against the shadowy foliage, the insects' enigmatic movements flashing and brilliant in the darkening secret pockets of the jungle. I watched them flittering up and down, cascading through the night, so surprising as to seem pure magic. I don’t know how long I lay there--- all perception of time was lost; it seemed irrelevant. I recalled what a teacher had told me long before about space, and believed that it also may be a dream, a construct of our imagination, that place I occupied so seemingly stable, now in a totally different place from that of the previous second. My consciousness felt liberated, my body disconnected from the rest of me.It seemed to be something I was only using, a vehicle that I had borrowed. Of course it had to be taken care of, all those important parts and functions, but was ultimately to be jettisoned and allowed to decay and rejoin the earth. The things that had at times concerned me before---my clothes, what girls my age were doing, my living arrangements--- all became of little consequence. It was clear that of my few cherished things, none truly had the importance attached to them. Time and space seemed illusions then, only my awareness and the love it held for others were unchanging. ‘Relieve suffering,’ came a thought from within me, the rest was trivial. But it was clear I still had responsibility for everything I was involved with. And so I made the decision there that I would set out to do as much teaching as I could, for in that moment I saw it as something that would only spread love.
Following this experience, I found myself having much more energy and clarity---a calm rested within my heart. I no longer felt the need to judge other people or compare my lot to theirs. I didn’t feel jealousy when I encountered people doing much better than I materially or spiritually. It simply was no longer relevant. Strangely though, the more I let go of the need for material things the more were offered to me. When I conducted my seminars which I did only for contributions, I was offered beautiful homes to stay in. People were not encouraged to give; if they were poor or found what I was saying to be foolish, they would give nothing. It didn’t matter to me. My needs were always met somehow and of the money I earned, which was considerable, I gave all away except what was needed to support myself, not much.
MEDITATION, PEACE AND MYSTICAL BEING Chapter Forty Nine Part Three
Chapter Forty Nine Part Three
“It‘s a long way from Boston,” I volunteered.
“Yes well it’s not that, of course, I’ve been much farther and in many more dangerous places,” Ann said, as if to remind herself of this. “I don’t know why this is unnerving.”
“Probably because you’re not in your official capacity, you’re just traveling…like anybody else, a nobody,” I laughed. And with a Costa Rican peasant, I thought to myself but just added, “Without the …backing of your government.”
“Yes OK, but I don’t need the backing of my government to feel justified or confident. I picked a place that is fraught with turmoil and yet that we could still go to, though I think that situation will be changing before too long, so that we could give this marvelous method of yours a chance, just a fighting chance to see if it might change the situation for the better. After all it’s one thing when a few rats might settle down, who’s to say what made them do that anyway, not to question your abilities but really who’s to say what happened there… they’re just rats. If there’s some kind of difference here, then it will be the proof of the pudding,” she added and smiled widely.
“And these are people,” I mumbled, doubting my capacity at that point to do anything, which I hadn’t yet mentioned to her.
“Yes people, silly irrational people. It will be harder than I thought to even notice if anything changes in this country. Maybe we should just have gone to South Boston,” she sulked.
We walked down the poorly paved and narrow street later to a cafe in the small town about a half mile away. As we dined on tepid tea and dry toast I began to wonder once again how I had let this thatched-headed wisp of a woman take over my life even if only briefly, the same feelings I’d had during all her testing in Boston. I became increasingly angry while chewing on my toast, reminding myself that this is the one who had put me through so much misery while I was blaming everything on her husband. As I ranted to myself she prattled on about her efforts at meditation, how she had become a complete convert to it. “It’s as important to me now as brushing my teeth. And I do think Rick and I have been getting on better and the children are so calm,” she rhapsodized, seeming almost euphoric. I felt like screaming at her, ‘Fine do your silly meditation, it doesn’t do anything anyway,’ remembering how mine had frequently seemed to fail. Then I recalled that Katrin had contacted her, not me and felt my eyes fill with tears.
That afternoon we established what our schedule would be during the four days we planned to be there. We would eat breakfast then meditate the entire day, have dinner, come home and meditate until bedtime, then get up and do the same routine until the day of our departure. All the while we would closely follow the news of the place on the small TV in the lobby. The man behind the counter could help us translate.
That first night, upon walking back from the bathroom at the so-called hotel, I heard a loud blasting sound in the distance, then silence followed by the faint shriek of a siren. We discovered the next morning that someone had bombed a public building close by, a library that had been built by the government with oil profits. We set to our meditation with a new urgency that night, more acutely aware of the dangers surrounding us. Ann remained optimistic and told me wanly, “I’ve been reading about this and it seems that sometimes meditation can have delayed effects. We’ll keep trying.”
The second night she began her meditation with an almost tangible determination, many minutes before I did. There had certainly been no detectable positive changes in our area or in the country yet. My doubt that my ability had been lost was stronger than ever as I sat there glumly staring at her. It seemed that her face looked older than ever, her cheeks more sunken since we’d stepped off the plane, maybe from the shoddy diet we were eating there: toast, tea, and greasy potatoes.
On I sat, unmotivated, sullen, still as a fungus in that dim light, watching her. At first I felt nothing except a trace of anger and a sense of hopelessness. Her face looked so old in that dim light, traversed by shadows and creases, as if she carried some huge weight on those wispy shoulders. The hair around her temples shone almost white in the small stream of light surrounding her; her lips were set in a ridiculous stiff pucker as if pursed in concentration and determination so total that she had abandoned all self-awareness. Her hands, folded demurely on her lap, were streaked by bright veins and looked surprisingly thin and bony. But as I sat there with no incentive to move or even look away I felt a different feeling creep into my awareness. At first it was just a trickle; then it surged, gripping me like a riptide yanking a shred of driftwood out to sea. For a moment it seemed I saw the image of my beloved Katrin right in front of me, as though she had temporarily just taken over Ann’s form. Transfixed, I reached toward her hand; but in the next moment the image was gone. Only Ann still sat there, still grimly determined. At that point a huge welling of love arose within me. I don’t know where it started--- my heart, my mind, I’m not sure which, but there was a shift within me. It seemed the spirit of love had to be within every one of us, even the most depraved. For just a second I felt a burning compassion for Ann, in spite of all of her mistakes and imperfections, even her duplicity. The anger that had so flared within me before was overwhelmed by a flow of love, washed clean. And I felt myself forgiving her, free of any other thought. Free. All the self righteous anger that had been bogging me down for so many months just dissolved. It seemed she was just another flawed being, trying to do her best with what she had, with what she came to this earth with, and I had no idea what she’d had to deal with. As I sighed and closed my eyes a sense of peace arose within me; but at the next moment I realized it had always been there, this sense of peace. My self-righteous feelings had only been hiding it. When I opened my eyes, Ann looked strangely serene and without worries, ten years younger, like she had when I first met her. Could my feelings have affected her? I began my meditation and it seemed this time that I was once again fully engaged, then transported. My energy seemed dispersed into tiny particles there in the room, outside the room, and far beyond. I understood finally what had happened.
We left on the morning plane out of Lucretia two days later. On the day after my realization, there was still no good news, but there hadn’t been any bombings that night either in our general area. Ann carried a newspaper on the plane to review on our flight but I felt discouraged and, hoping to relax, drifted into sleep.
In a short while I was interrupted by an overwrought florid-faced Ann. She had attempted to read the paper and was so surprised by what she found that she had double-checked it with the Lucretian stewardess before waking me. “Portia, you will not believe this,” she said. “ According to this paper the leader of the Muschia opposition just this morning reached out to the government to have talks. And was accepted. The first time in months.”
MEDITATION, PEACE AND MYSTICAL BEING Chapter Forty Nine Part Two
Chapter Forty Nine Part Two
"Revenge...is like a snake eating its tail."
F. Murray Abraham, interview on Diane Rehm show, 1-1-13
The airplane banked then lurched slightly. I peered down onto the dark mountains of Lucretia. Ann was beside me snoring softly and looking more relaxed than when she’d been in Costa Rica.In the distance a pinkish light flared into the darkening sky above the mountains, a light from a city not an explosion, I hoped. The country had become more violent over the recent months, which many observers were at a loss to explain. They had lived together in relative peace for years and all of a sudden tempers flared and erupted in gunfights and bombs. All I knew about it was that things had been better before the disagreement over what should be done with their oil. As I contemplated the situation, the airplane began its descent and then lurched onto the runway which seemed to be in the middle of a pasture. I could see white blurs moving in the distance: cows. One of the passengers told me they had recently built the airport, which wasn’t yet finished and the plan was to build a city around it.
Ann and I dragged our small bags through the new airport terminal which looked like a glossy American shopping mall: lustrous, plastic, and loud, with well known specialty shops everywhere. We stopped to get some espresso to help us adjust to the time; it was almost morning there and we had much to do. Ann was more familiar with the place than I and managed to get a cab immediately, a beat up grey Toyota with red doors. The driver spoke some rudimentary English and told her that the hotel she’d stayed in before was not now available but didn’t say why. He offered to take us to another one, “Just as nice,” he said revving the engine as we lunged away from the curb. He drove down the narrow road as though racing with the other cars, careening past then jumping in front of each of them until he veered off sharply to another wider road. “And I thought Bostonians were bad drivers,”Ann mumbled to me.
After charging down yet another road, he jerked onto a tiny side street and screeched to a stop next to a two story building with a small red neon sign in front, claiming it was a hotel. The cab driver turned off the engine which continued violently hiccupping for several seconds. He then abruptly turned to Ann and shouted, “This is the place?” as if it were a question. It didn’t look auspicious to Ann, who asked him if it was all that was available.
“Yes right now, this it,” he muttered. We got out after paying him in American Express dollars and walked into a tiny dimly lit office with no one behind the desk or anywhere in sight. A large copper cow bell was set on the desk with a hand scribbled sign under it, presumably to ring for service. Ann took the bell and waved it, producing a dramatic clanking sound; this immediately drew a large sulky man from the back room. He was wearing a nightshirt over some pants and a red night cap which he immediately pulled off, apparently just remembering it. His ears were round and protruded from his long head like the handles on a jug. He knew no English but Ann knew some Polish and there was enough similarity between that and the Lucretian language for him to know we wanted a room. He began to frown and gesticulate, pointing to the back of the building, the gist of which was that the only rooms yet available were outside, behind the back of the hotel.
He gestured for us to come with him and we followed, baggage in hand, to a long low structure resembling a Quonset hut. We were shown into a dim musty room with one light in the corner and were advised that we would be comfortable there but would have to come back to the main hotel to use the bathroom when necessary. If anything, it was on a similar scale to my accommodations in Costa Rica, but Ann was clearly upset by the place. “This will not do,” she muttered then added, “but we’ll have to take it for now, until we figure out what’s going on.” In spite of the espresso we both were exhausted and collapsed into bed after getting to the room.
We awakened late that morning to scuffling in the adjoining room. After a few minutes a puffy-faced heavy woman knocked on our door and announced that she was the maid but also the owner of the place she hastened to add and wanted to pick up after us. She knew English fairly well and volunteered to Ann that she had always been interested in America and had set herself to the task of learning English since her teenage years. When Ann asked about other hotels, the woman laughed. “Oh they are too busy now, all full,” she smiled.
“Why?” Ann asked.
“The military, the government has taken them over. Lucretia never had a real military before but now with so many subversives stirring up things, they are building a large military, conscripting every man they can, but they have no housing so they’ve taken over many of the hotels, mostly the larger ones. But the others, the ones trying to upset the government, they just hide in the mountains or the bushes outside the hotels. It’s a crazy situation. All the money they were spending before that they got from the oil, on schools and peoples’ needs, they are now spending on this military and on weapons,” she sighed. “We used to have a peaceful country no one cared about and they left us alone. Now…I don’t know, it’s all different.”
“So it will not be possible to change our hotel?” Ann asked, looking desperate. The woman laughed again. “Not possible,” she said, “or even a wise thing to do…in this place maybe there’s a little less danger. Just stay here.” She asked why we came, two foreign woman; it was a very strange thing to her. Ann told her that we were trying to help the country, trying to help make peace.
“Well, good luck then!” the woman laughed and left us alone.
“Well indeed!” said Ann, “I had no idea things had progressed to such a level of turmoil,” then she looked at me as if I should have had some special knowledge of the place. She appeared slightly unnerved as though this was more than she’d bargained for. I suspected she wished she’d stayed home.
