THE FOUR OF THEM, plus Anai in owl form, are looking at me in the soft glow of the fire. I'm looking back at them, feeling such a part of everything here that I swear I can feel the walls breathe with me. And I am more present than I've ever been, inhabiting every part of myself down to the smallest of my cells. I think, startled, “This is what joy is.”
But I knew the time to go was coming. I could feel it.
“Yes, we could use your help.” Guy looks at me.
I realize I've been asked a question, and I think I know what it is. It feels like the heart of my ‘point of magic’—it feels that big.
I feel all the old boundaries between me and everything else melt away—at that moment the world was without boundaries, as it was meant to be. I look at the Team. I can feel them—their feelings, state of mind, intentions, love. The joining of my and their energies has breached the barriers. I see their example of how to live without boundaries. Their pure feelings for each other give them their high energy—a kind of enthusiasm for themselves, each other, and their own experience.
So I'm having all these realizations, and they sound in my head the way they must be coming across to you, too—half-crazy, jumbled up over each other, overwhelming—but feeling so right, so true. They were asking me to do what they do. I was their opportunity to serve. And you're mine—you two. There's not a doubt in my mind what to do. That's why I'm back and talking.
“As soon as they knew I wanted to do it—to serve as they serve—I knew it was time for me to go. They had things to do, and I had a life to figure out. We hugged, we laughed, the owl Anai and I touched foreheads. They teased me about working harder to remember my dreams now, knowing they've gone to a lot of trouble; reminded me to put myself outside as much as I put the cat out, because Nature is important for both of us; told me to capture and hold close those moments of unexpected joy, to fuel my spirit when times get tough.
“Your own joy is your best resource, don't forget,” Lynette said.
Guy added, “We're closer than ever now, all of us. Call on us. We'll hear you. We'll come.”
“Yes,” Kahil agreed, “no one was ever meant to do this Earth stuff alone. No one ever could.”
Uche nodded, as he held both my hands in his, saying, “A bond stronger than life.” That still gives me chills.
There's not much more to tell. I didn't want to go. It was only the strength of my commitment to my purpose that made me able to go. Leaving seemed so unnatural, so wrong. It didn't bother them in the same way, of course—they are so used to parting and coming together, and keep in constant contact telepathically. They are always in each other's presence. I was still working on trusting that.
They said they were going to help me teleport back to where I came in, explaining that they know how to transport matter instantaneously from one spot to another, and could lend their energy to mine to make it possible for me. I asked what this would be like for me, and they said it would be a little like coming out from under anesthesia, but they were going to make sure I remembered everything.
Guy said, “And I don't think you'll have any nausea,” and laughed uproariously, which I found less funny though I was relieved to hear it. I stood in the center of their silent group and closed my eyes. I could feel their hands on me, at the center of their energetic attention, and I surrendered to the wonderful feeling sweeping over me. I felt myself floating off.
The next thing I knew, I was lying in the damp grass near the edge of the Void. It was still morning; the sun was still low on the horizon, its light slanting through the trees. It took me a while to collect myself, to fully realize where I was, to sit up and try to regain a sense of reality here, while the cave still felt more real. I was glad to have come back to such a peaceful place.
I don't know how long it was before I got up, knowing I was going home to say goodbye to my mother. I didn't question it. It just felt right. Before going, I walked over and stood at the edge of the Void and looked down. I could still see where my shoes had flattened the grass before I jumped. I stood there and spread my arms and closed my eyes and gave thanks. That was all I knew to do. It was a place I had trusted more than I had trusted the world, and it had proved trustworthy. I felt as if the Void received my thanks because I imagined I felt it tingling a bit at my feet. I don't know if I'll ever jump again, but I felt as if I could. I have no fear of it anymore.
I go to see Silvia, who is, of course, over-joyed to see me. The first thing she wanted to do was feed me, so I stayed for one of her great breakfasts—vegetarian omelet, just like I like it, homemade biscuits, fresh-squeezed juice—you know what I'm talking about, Miles.
Then I put a few things in a pack, getting away with telling her only the high points of what happened in the Void. She says she can tell I'm different, but she's happy with what she sees because I seem happier. So she's okay with my going, knowing I'll still be in the world and she'll be able to have contact with me. I tell her goodbye and I assure her I'll be in touch. I leave while it's still early, on foot. I like that. Ever since reading the Transcendentalists in English class, I imagined I would do this at some point in my life.
I wandered the back roads for a while, walking, camping, “living rough,” being away from everything, yet more a part of everything that's really important as I see it now. I had realizations out there it could take your whole life to achieve—and that's if you were lucky. What had happened to me was all consuming. I needed to be alone, because I couldn't use words as a means of experiencing or understanding everything. I just felt I needed to be alone and outside. Nature would support and ground my understanding.
The first step, it seemed to me, was to trust that I could find my own way with this. I had taken the pain, the disappointment, the boredom, and my lack of a life into the Void with me, and I came out without those things. The jumping—the falling—healed me. It brought me an internal peace I couldn't deny. I needed to look at what I had now in place of all those things cleansed away by the Void. But really, I began to integrate my experience in the Void because it feels like the most true thing that's ever happened to me. I trust it, and I want to build on it, live it. I know that life, like a story, has a beginning, middle and end. My experience with the Void has changed the middle; it's loaded the end with possibilities it never had before—it's no longer predictable.
Much of my time was spent alone, in contemplation. I can give snippets, like the afternoon I met an elderly woman on her back step, who fed me and read my future in egg whites, from eggs she cultivated for just this purpose. She looked up at me with an open, wondering face and told me I must be a mystic, because the future she saw for me was beyond this planet. She said her mother, who had taught her the skill, had seen a future like that once in a man, and the man was named Edgar Cayce. He had come to town with his photography equipment one summer. She didn't remember meeting him, but her mother never forgot.
I met another woman who is the keeper of an ancient crystal skull, one of the original thirteen skulls, to be brought together at the end of the Mayan calendar, she said. It speaks to her and will speak to anyone else willing to listen. I listened to it, and it carries messages of immense change for the world. I thought that was pretty far out, but in a way I expected it—I knew I was different now, so the people I was meeting would be different. These people are out there, if you're looking for them, and meeting them showed me where I fit now.
I met an old man who is a beekeeper working to save the environment with his hives. He told me that they had found honey in Tutankhamen's tomb, and it was still edible, after 2,000 years. Aristotle kept bees, he said. Bees argue and then reach consensus through dance. He loved that. And they die to protect their mother. Darwin said their death, when they sting us, serves evolution because they've died so that their mother, the queen, can live and keep the hive going. The old man also said 3.5 grams of bee pollen a day contains all the nutrients needed to sustain life.
I didn't want to hold onto the past any more, to have more past than room for present in my awareness. Lingering in the past inhibits creativity, and life and progress depend on our creativity.
My life now is devoted to maintaining the truth I have gained. I know I can't act outside of this with immunity now; it would cost me in ways I might never know the full extent of. I'm part of a Team, a cohort, and I won't forget that. It makes me think of the words to that old Walter Hyatt song, “When I remember your life, I remember mine.”
I'm no longer checking to see what anybody else is doing. I'm no longer wondering or caring what they think of what I'm doing.
Right now, I have a dog and I need to get back to check on him, feed him. I'm still doing odd jobs and some healing work, in partnership with some like-minded people. And I'll be in touch. That's important for all of us now, because I've taken you two on, as part of my Team here. None of us know what that means at this point, but I'm not worried. I know we'll figure it out. We figured out today, didn't we?”
Duncan Robert gets up to leave, looking around as if he might have left something, though he brought nothing in with him. He tells us to stay as long as we'd like. The room is paid for, for the night. We hug. We all have tears in our eyes. “A bond stronger than life,” he says, with a smile, and then he's gone. We watch from the window as he walks out of the hotel, around the corner, and out of our sight. It's hard to let him go. Everything in me says not to. I turn to Miles and wrap my arms around his waist, burying my head in his chest. And then I just cry. He holds on tight, too, and I feel him cry with me.