by Lucia Ashta
16 Words Hang Suspended in the Air
The sun rose over the horizon and seeped beneath the curtain of their room at the inn. It tinged the room with a warm, orange glow. Marco was still asleep, his breathing deep and regular, facing Elena from the pillow next to hers. Dark lashes swept over his closed eyes; his lips were full from sleep.
Elena inched closer until she could touch her lips to his. He was sleeping soundly, and she didn’t want to startle him awake, but he was so beautiful to her in that moment that she could not resist the light touch of a kiss. She pressed her lips against his softly.
His lips moved against hers. “Am I dreaming?” he murmured.
“If you are, then I am too,” she said. “We are in this dream together.”
Marco moved toward her until his body pressed against hers. “My beloved,” he whispered.
Marco’s kisses grew deep. His tongue found hers in exquisite warmth and wetness. A moan accidentally escaped Elena’s lips, and Marco responded to Elena with a burst of passion. He desired her as much as she desired him. There was already a sense of oneness between them. Nothing could halt what destiny had put in motion. It was all a flurry of movement and yearning after that. There was a sense of urgency, of necessity. There was a need to be complete and whole once again.
Marco experienced a sudden, sharp intake of breath when he saw Elena naked for him. His beloved was there for him once again. He had waited for this moment as long as he could remember. They closed the space between them quickly. He brought his mouth to hers again in an ardent kiss. His closed eyes sprung open as she guided him inside her. They both lost their breath. There was no more room for thought or anything else outside of the world they were creating. It was just him inside her as it had always been meant to be.
Gazing deeply into her eyes, the same amber intensity glowed back at him as he shared his soul. He gave himself to her. Marco breathed as if for the first time as their essences filled each other. They were lost to everything and anything but each other.
Elena closed her eyes, feeling physically connected to Marco as one, and thought she heard angels singing. Elena and Marco were truly making love. There was no other way to describe it. This was a creative act; they were creating a force more powerful than any other. With this love, they would move the mountains they had come to move on this earth.
Elena and Marco lay entangled in a heap of sweaty limbs and sheets. Elena’s head rested on Marco’s chest; her hand played with his hair.
“Marco, what does all of this mean? The visions? Discovering we are twin souls? That I am a sword-ready angel warrior? That I am somehow related to Mary Magdalene that I didn’t even know was Jesus’ wife? I don’t understand any of it, Marco. What does it all mean?”
Marco, already merged with Elena beyond what he had known was possible, looked at her. She had changed his life forever. She was a great part of what he had been searching for all these years of wandering. He understood that now. Her presence could only be explained by the supernatural; nothing else made sense. But then, he believed in the inexplicable. His life experiences had taught him that magic was present for anyone who chose to see it.
Still, even though he believed in the magic that made him and Elena possible, a part of him was still incredulous. Had it really finally happened for him? Had he really found the twin that his soul had been searching for?
Marco looked into Elena’s eyes as she waited for his answer. She smiled. Her world was changing rapidly, and she had no framework to guide her. The belief systems her family had taught her would no longer serve her; they would no longer explain the reality she was beginning to accept. But he would be there for her. He would guide her. He would support her in her awakening. He had already fallen in love with her. There was no other choice for him now.
“Amore, you do not need to worry. Everything will unfold in its perfect timing. I will help you. You are beginning to awaken to the truth of life, which is quite different from everything most people in the world believe it to be. It is your time though. It is time to realize who you are and what you have come here to do. I will help you in any way, and I mean in any way,” he said with a boyish grin. He moved her from his chest so that he could kiss her neck. The kisses were just whispers along her neckline, but they were beautiful.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this to you right now,” Elena said, “but could you talk while you kiss?”
Marco kissed the delicate spot beneath her ear.
“I need to understand. I don’t know what is going on with me. It’s like I’ve become another person already, and I don’t know this person yet,” Elena said.
Marco’s hand was cupping Elena’s cheek as he grazed his lips against the other side of her face and neck. Elena reached up and stilled his hand. Marco’s eyes, already out of focus in his desire for her, reined in to meet her gaze. In her eyes, he saw a need that he wanted to meet more than he wanted to kiss her. The protective side was ignited in him.
Marco gently pulled his hand out from under hers and sat on the bed. He reached out to grab both of her hands.
“The truth is this—nothing is as you have been led to believe it to be,” Marco said. “At the center of everything is one God, one Creator, one Great Spirit, one force that moves everything. Whatever you want to call this energy, it is the same thing. It is all encompassing. This Creator God loves all humanity in equal measure, regardless of religious label or anything else.
“Other than that fundamental teaching, almost nothing else you have been taught is true,” Marco said.
Elena knew that she had entered a world where nothing operated the way she believed it did. The walls had crumbled around her and now she was rebuilding, beginning from the foundation up. Nothing could halt the process now. When she had spun the globe in that Ann Arbor bookstore she had given herself over to destiny. That was when it had begun, when her awakening had been set in motion.
In her bewildered state, the nonessential distracted her. “Marco, why is your English so good?” she asked.
Marco laughed aloud. “When told that everything in your life is different than what you believe, you ask me about my language skills?
“Well, my English is so great because I am so great,” Marco told her. He got up from his perch on the bed and bowed theatrically. He brought playfulness into what was, in reality, quite a serious discussion. Elena smiled, ready to play along after allowing the spark within her to lay dormant for so many years.
Marco sat back down on the bed facing her, sober again.
“I am European. Most Europeans speak several languages because the countries are all so close together in Europe. I also speak Spanish, French, and a bit of Portuguese. And Italian of course,” he said. “Okay, amore. What would you like me to tell you? Just about Mary Magdalene? Or about everything?” he asked.
“Well, please start with Mary Magdalene but end with everything,” Elena said.
Marco laughed again. “Okay, amore. Let us begin.” But Marco didn’t tell her the story about the workings of the universe that he had planned to tell her. Instead, he told her his story.
The conversation lasted hours. Marco told Elena that he had been different as a child from everyone else around him. He had always sensed that there was more to life than what his family and schoolteachers told him. As a boy, he heard the voices of the angels and talked to plants and animals. He could see the angels, fairies, gnomes, and all sorts of otherworldly beings as they flickered in and out of this world.
But he had learned not to speak of these things with others early on. There was only one who understood him. Everyone else, including Marco’s parents, his oldest sister, and his younger brother, told him that he was imagining things. His oldest sister taunted him, and, when his younger brother grew old enough to choose to leave the world of make-believe behind, he had also mocked Marco mercilessly.
The greatest source of Marco’s delight was his sister, Angela, who was two years older than he was.
Marco affectionately called her Gela, and she shared the same sensitivity. Just like him, Gela could hold an ancient, robust tree and hear its wisdom and teachings.
Because of their shared world of enchantment, Gela and Marco were best friends. Gela was the one Marco went to whenever anything exciting happened to him. Gela shared in Marco’s enthusiasm and in the wonder of all life. It was also Gela that Marco sought when the outside world was cruel and unsupportive of his untainted innocence and connection to the other worlds. Marco and Gela supported each other through the ups and the downs.
Then one day the tragic and inexplicable happened. Marco’s only companion, his mirror of understanding and support, his partner in complete shared knowing, left him in a way that was irreversible. One afternoon when Marco was fourteen, Gela had come to the room that he shared with his younger brother looking for him. Marco had delayed after school that day playing soccer with some friends, so Gela went on their usual walk alone.
Gela strolled through the familiar streets near their home, streets they had walked together so many times that they could navigate them with their eyes closed. They knew every upturned tile and gap in the sidewalk. As Gela stepped off the curb to cross the street that led to their favorite tree-lined park, a car sped around the corner, lost control, and jumped the sidewalk. The car rammed into Gela; she would die before any of her loved ones could reach her.
Gela directed her final words to the driver that had ended her life. He was crying as he knelt next to Gela. Both Gela and the driver were only sixteen years old. The boy stared at Gela without knowing what to do, sobbing, his body wracked with emotion. Guilt, despair, and loss ran through him all at once. Gela stared up at him and smiled. Her smile was that of an angel, and the teenage driver thought it would break his heart.
Gela told him, “It is okay, dear one. It is the way of life. I will go to a place of eternal peace.” She rasped for breath as her nearly collapsed lungs struggled for air.
“Do not despair,” she said, struggling to deliver her final message to the stranger that did not feel like a stranger at all. In life and death, everyone is the same. “Do not ruin your life with guilt. You have learned your lesson. Life is meant to be lived. Live it with joy in your heart.”
Then, Gela closed her eyes for what the driver thought would be the last time. But she could not go yet. Her eyes fluttered open once more. With blood bubbling up into her mouth, she sputtered, “My brother, he will come. Tell him he must always believe in what he . . .” Gela stopped to draw breath and panicked when she didn’t know if she would be able to deliver her final message for Marco. After several attempts at breath, she was able to continue, “Knows and . . . sees.”
She had to close her eyes to rest, but it was crucial to her that she continue. Gela knew that her passing would be the most difficult thing Marco had ever faced.
“Tell him . . . that now he needs to . . . believe for both of us. He has to believe twice . . . as much.” Gela had so much more to say but her body was already beginning to fade from this life. “Tell him . . . that I love him so much.”
Gela smiled faintly at the young driver with her last spark of energy. The driver responded by squeezing Gela’s hand fiercely, trying desperately to hold on to this beautiful girl. But she was gone. She closed her eyes for the last time and never opened them again. Blood smeared her mouth, and her body lay at impossible angles. The boy folded over her in devastated sobs. He stayed like that until medics arrived at the scene and tore him away from this girl that he experienced love with so deeply. He had seen the beauty of her soul only to watch it float away from him.
Elena kept catching herself holding her breath while Marco told the story of his sister’s death. Tears glistened in her eyes. This was not what Elena had expected Marco to share when she had asked for help in understanding what was happening to her.
Marco continued. Despite his strong beliefs and Gela’s last wishes, he had turned to destructive behavior in his devastation. He experimented with drugs and alcohol. He was quick to agree to anything, the riskier the better. He became the attractive wild one that all the girls wanted. But Marco didn’t care about any of that. He didn’t want to be with anyone. He didn’t want anyone too close to the pain he felt inside. Marco had pulled away from his family too. His family had found ways to go on with their lives while the tragedy left him in a tailspin.
It took Marco four crazy years before he woke up one day and realized he had to stop; he was not honoring his sister or himself. He learned to trust God again. He learned to believe that God had taken his sister for a good reason. Marco released his anguish and allowed himself to trust in the flow of life once more. Slowly, he welcomed the angels and fairies back into his life. Marco realized then that he had to leave Rome. He had to find the reason behind life's mysteries. He had to be who he came to this earth to be. He owed his sister that, and he owed himself that too.
Marco set out on a quest to find his raison d’être as soon as he graduated from high school. Instead of studying at the university, he taught himself through books and life experience. He left Rome and flew out to Lisbon. From there, he backpacked his way across Western Europe until reaching Prague. Then, he answered a calling to Egypt and spent time with the pyramids. Sitting alone in the dark of their cavernous enigma, Marco had visions. Elena’s eyes widened as Marco shared some of his visions; they were of the same life Elena had begun to see. He had seen the lifetime of Ashta and Anak too, years before she had.
Sitting in the pyramids, Marco heard himself calling to his twin, Ashta. He called out her name as if it were the only word that mattered in his life. He knew then that this strong connection with his twin was essential to his life. In time, Marco came to realize that he was seeing another life that he had shared with this twin soul. Since that time, Marco had longed to find Ashta again.
Elena heard Marco speak and wondered about the world that was beginning to engulf her. Could she accept this as her truth? Could she believe that the soul she had yearned for longer than memory had found her at last?
Without consciously knowing, had Elena been longing for the man that sat next to her on the bed, sharing space so comfortably that it was almost easy to believe they had loved each other in another time? But none of this was easy for Elena to accept. Nevertheless, when she looked into Marco’s eyes, a part of her that she could not deny knew, beyond the limits of reason, that everything he said was true. She would have to find a way to adjust all of her previous notions of belief to accept it, because, more than anything else in her life, it made sense.
After Egypt and the visions Marco had while there, he set off to understand them. He boarded a plane to South America looking for answers. There, on a bus to nowhere, he had met Manay Quispe, a man with deep wisdom. Under Manay’s guidance, Marco had learned to let go of attachment to worldly life. He unearthed many of the beliefs he had acquired in this life, examined them, and replaced them with ideas that served him better. He worked very hard, and, as he continued to make progress, it became easier to embrace the unknown. Marco decided that the best thing he could do was to live his life in harmony with the highest spiritual principles and let go of the reins, the illusion of control.
In Egypt, Marco had learned the most not from a living person, but from visions of another time. In Peru, Marco had apprenticed with Manay and learned the living knowledge that the elders had passed down through oral tradition. It was after a period of spiritual exploration of almost fifteen years that Marco arrived in Sedona. Now, Marco’s foray in North America was just beginning.
“The entire world is a great ball of magic. Life is nothing like you thought it was. It is infinitely more enchanted, beautiful, and simple. I celebrate those moments of transcendent understanding when it becomes clear that only love, peace, and faith make sense; that is when we really understand life.
“Life can truly be that simple. The human mind makes it much more complicated than it is. You see how different nature is. All natu
re operates in harmonious, cyclical ways. The animal and plant kingdoms do what they are here to do on this planet without analysis or question, but with peaceful acceptance. And life is therefore simple for them. And, in that simplicity of understanding and acquiescence, there is harmony with everything that happens in life and in death.”
Elena looked into Marco’s eyes and recognized that as the same way he had found peace with his sister’s death.
“So, Elena, why did I tell you all of this? To answer your question?” Marco laughed a nervous laugh. It was the laugh of someone who had just realized how much of himself he had revealed. All of his words hung suspended in the air around them, and he could not take them back.
“I suppose I needed to tell you all of that. You are no ordinary woman,” Marco said.
Marco blushed, suddenly shy at being so naked before another. Despite his vulnerability, he continued.
“This is where I am now in my understanding of life. I believe this is a life of astonishing creativity where we humans have great power to influence reality. The energy of our thoughts and intentions can shape the future for all humankind.”
“Really?” Elena asked. “How?”
“You will learn. You will perceive. You will begin to see everything more clearly now. Just give yourself time,” Marco said.
Elena wasn’t so sure.
“Don’t worry, amore. You will soon understand. It has already begun showing itself to you. The power, the synchronicity, all of this comes through in life if we raise our awareness to see it. It is all revealing itself to you already.”
Marco tilted his head, looking at Elena. “You know,” he said, “I hadn’t seen it before, but Victor is right. There is a reddish tinge to your hair.”