After my birthday breakfast, I decided to go out shopping for my presents. Something was calling me out despite the lousy weather and the sense of despair and loneliness that was playing havoc with my heart. I didn’t want to stay in and chill in my room, sitting by the fire reading a novel, or in the kitchen chatting with my friends. I didn’t fancy journaling either. Longing had taken over. There was a strong yearning inside me that didn’t belong to me. I was trained to recognise signs like this. The Earth wanted me to go out on a walk. She would send me signs and symbols until I would understand the message, the signposts she wanted to deliver. I threw my scarf around my neck and put on a woolly hat, big hiking boots and my favourite coat. I closed the front door behind me and stepped into my birthday storm.
I walked down Piper’s Crescent to the Film House. Images from the previous night were back on my mind. I felt as if I was nowhere: as if I didn’t exist and someone or something other than me was calling me into being. I roamed the lands of potentiality as the ghost of someone else’s dream, as the light of someone else’s hope, as a faltering light-beam in the throes of a hurricane. I found myself on Princes Street so I went shopping. It was one of my weaknesses even then. It would nullify my mind for a couple of hours.
My aimless wandering continued later. To my surprise, the signs of transformation returned unannounced on that windswept morning in February, on that fateful day consecrated to romantic love. The local human crowd didn’t seem to pay much heed. I was headed for the Old Town. In front of me, the Castle’s lonely silhouette stood out all alone against the ghastly sky, towering somewhat reassuringly as a backdrop to my personal drama. My delicate frame made me struggle against the wind, highlighting its brutality. I shivered in my tweed coat with my turquoise scarf wrapped up to my nose and my eyes staring at the menacing dark clouds above. On days like that I regretted leaving the warmth of Italy, my country, to follow my destiny on that harsh northern island. I was at my lowest, at my most useless. I went as far as hoping I would die.
Preoccupied as I was with those thoughts of despair bouncing in my head, how could I envisage that the Timeless Power was about to fully manifest through me for the first time? Gordon’s betrayal had to be part of the Plan. Throughout my romantic life, love had always worked mysteriously and disappeared in an equally baffling fashion. Burning a hole in my heart every time. Every single hole was my link to the Heart of the Earth. And the Earth was calling me, wooing me, drawing me into my true function.
The buses’ headlights shone but a faint ray of hope that I could soon find a canvas to express the knowledge I kept: a mirror for my heart. The gloom of the weather was contagious. I didn’t notice any trace of romance on the High Street. No couples were holding hands and kissing under archways. There wasn’t a smile in sight. Just the guts of umbrellas in waste bins, and passers-by bent over the tortures of their minds. The heavens were cut open by a blustery shower and icy rain was beating up the city. I forced my fairy-like body against the elements with tears now streaming down my cheeks. The cold whirlwind whipped my long curls onto my face. I couldn’t see the way ahead. My olive skin had turned a shade of grey. I looked like a homesick Mediterranean Banshee returning from a shopping spree.
“Poor dark sky, ripped open from the inside out just like my heart... Why did he choose to hurt me? Why did he turn my love down?”
My shopping bags flapped from my hands like the wings of a monstrous creature as I crawled against the storm. I was a weary urban ghost struggling along her way past shops decorated with love hearts, champagne flutes and chocolate boxes. They seemed to have popped out of some faraway, happier dimension in their complete oblivion of the weather outside and the moods it generated. I didn’t belong there. So why did I feel at one with the cold Siberian wind that was lashing on the streets?
“Devastated, cold and alone. Left in silence without an explanation. What’s the point? What for? And, above all, who for? How could he swap me for some amateur painter whose charms escape me and the rest of the country?”
Shivers rattled my bones and made me walk faster. I wanted to spit my anger out and rid myself of that loneliness that haunted me.
“This isn’t my true nature. I don’t belong with this sadness. It will pass. A shadowy illusion has entered my mind. I have to be careful. I am the keeper of a secret I am sworn to by my very origin...”
I recited a mantra in my head.
“I am not a rejected woman. I am not going to fall into the cobweb of illusion spun by my ego. There is certainly much more to me than my attractive exotic looks.”
The flame of my wisdom was faint. That day wasn’t only my birthday, after all: it was also Valentine’s Day. And I was still single. Again. I really thought Gordon could learn to love me on my terms. I could teach him and squeeze him into the Plan one day. We still had twenty years to go before the Shift. As it turned out, he was just another temptation on the path. It hurt to know that his blond hair and muscular embrace had gone out of my life into some other woman’s. And a baby would make three. I wasn’t meant for low vibrations. I could only aim high. I wasn’t built to suffer. Yet the situation sucked and my human side sulked. I gave out a sob.
“Poor me, nobody seems to notice my heartache through this frenzy of raindrops and blizzards... nobody knows the meaning of Love...”
Like a heroine from the silver screen I had combed the Edinburgh streets and roamed its pubs searching for him: the man who could put an end to my yearnings, whose glance would bring me peace and stillness, whose embrace would feel like home, whose encounter would signal the beginning of a process I wasn’t quite sure of but, as adepts had assured me, was written in the stars. It was very easy for me to allure the other sex. I was a lovely-looking woman in my mid-twenties. Men would often stop and do a double take at me. But true love still seemed to elude me.
“I’d always returned home carrying only the mere scraps of love: one-night stands, adventures, fun-loving moments. Until the day I met Gordon. I thought that was it, I had found my match. But oh no, far from it: that was the worst of my mistakes, and it has now turned into the biggest heartbreak."
Much more was at stake than simple match-making in my choice of a partner. Special blood flowed in my veins. Yet it meant fuck-all on the morning of my twenty-fifth birthday. Despite all my qualities, I had been discarded and substituted like a flat tyre. Where was that retarded true love of mine hiding? Looking for answers, I kept my eyes peeled and all my senses on alert as I trod down the Grassmarket. I hoped Maria-Carmen was at home. I walked past Greyfriars Cemetery. I could sense the echo of old Templar vows, the clanging of swords, the galloping of horses. Promises made and oaths taken there were still palpable in the air I was breathing. The gloom of the place became pervasive. I found it hard to believe in my predicament and honour my fate.
“Is my secret real or just the offspring of a delusional mind? Am I really who they say I am? Do I foster all those powers? How am I to harness them? Does the Dark Side I need to guard myself from really exist? Do I truly have such a central role in the Plan? And why can’t I date a professional golf player and settle for the joys of being a pretty Italian woman in Scotland? Why was I chosen to carry the torch of evolution?”
I missed the turn for Maria-Carmen’s apartment and went past it. By the time I realised I was supposed to head to her place, I was already walking down the Royal Mile close to Holyrood Palace. The Tudor buildings reminded me of my timeless origin. A few people were walking down the street on the other side of the pavement. They looked like characters out of place. Inside me there was stillness, liquid silence, and the remarkable sensation of space without time that only the initiated can recognise as a sign of connection with higher dimensions. The most life-laden peace came upon me. My devastation became irrelevant. I was at the right space-time junction. My heart acknowledged that.
Then time stood still. The world went motionless and soundless. I slipped into eternity. I had switched that experience on myself. B
ut I didn’t know how and why. Everything and everyone around me froze. Even the rain stopped in mid-air, paralysed in its fall. I touched the surrounding space: dry, weightless, invisible talcum powder. I ran my hands on the wall of the Edinburgh Tolbooth to my left: pleasant texture, like sand. I stroke the face of the middle-aged woman standing opposite me on the pavement. Soft wax. Her scarf fluttering to one side had been seized by this timelessness vacuum and had the consistence of wet jelly.
“Don’t touch anything. Be still and listen,” a voice roared from out of nowhere, filling that weird landscape in its entirety. It tinkled like hundreds of crystal bells ringing just for me. Then it turned into the most beautiful harmony. I could finally hear the cells that make up the Earth and its inhabitants vibrate to the sound of the Ancient Tune. Unison. Universe. My heart melted into that reverberation. My being expanded to embrace the whole planet. Love filled every atom. Everything was One Entity. In a fraction of a second my surroundings and their inhabitants returned to the normality of motion, temperature and texture. I was back in my body but it didn’t feel the same. I felt unbeatable. Incredible. Alive. Sexual. Powerfully excited. Charged. Electric. Buzzing. An amazing sensation. My mobile rang in my bag and grounded me into materiality.
“Cassandra?” The gentle voice of the old Welshman fell on my ears like a soothing breeze on a mirror-like mountain lake.
“Lord Hughes!!!!” I sounded surprisingly chirpy and happy. “Long time no hear! How are you? How is Lady Hughes? Hello, hello, hello! I’m so glad to be speaking to you!!! You won’t believe what’s happened to me just now. I was about to fall into one of the holes in my heart when...”
“My dear girl," Lord Hughes said, “are you talking to me from a helicopter? What is that deafening noise in the background? Please tell me that my far from perfect hearing is not the reason for that!”
He giggled. He had been suffering from tinnitus for years but the condition had not deteriorated. And he’d never once feared losing his hearing. I suspected he’d brought the ‘problem’ on himself, to keep him from listening to all the rubbish that society feeds our ears with on a regular basis. Professor Hughes was incapable of sadness. Or doubt. His frequency was too high, his intelligence far too encompassing and his emotions far too balanced to have the need to feel blue. He was an aeronautics genius and the youngest Nobel laureate to be awarded the prize. He was also a renowned philanthropist, a fabulous friend and my adoptive father. I never called him dad, though. I preferred to call him by his title or his first name.
“No, no, Ralph. It’s just the Scottish weather. I’m on the Royal Mile, in the middle of a storm. You know, the Scottish weather and I have never been on the best of terms...”
“I know, I know... poor little flower... find some shelter immediately for the love of Venus... I know what the climate can be like there... and that cruel wind!”
I stood under the archway of a close. An army of ghosts ran up and down the stonework. Past, present and future overlapped like the chords of an accordion. I was invincible now. Furthermore, Lord Ralph Waldo Hughes meant protection and joy to me. He was my spiritual mentor. Just talking to him could raise my frequency and make me feel clear and stable. I could picture him as he was on the phone in his study, surrounded by huge bookcases covering the walls and the fragrant mark of knowledge and kindness in the air.
“Are you alright now?”, he said. “We are in grand form, pet. And very busy. Indeed, Henrietta is soon to visit the Scottish branch of the Society. We hear from Lydia that you have been a very active member at their meetings, and I am not surprised. Not that there is something for you to learn there, you know. You’re there as a teacher, whether you like it or not.”
I tried combing my windswept hair with my fingers. “Don’t worry, Ralph, I’m starting to like it now.”
“Nevertheless,” he said, “let me tell you why I’m phoning you now. Of course it’s for the most mundane of excuses: we’d like to wish you a happy birthday, young lady!”
I was on top of the world. The burden in my soul had completely lifted and disappeared. The Light of my purpose was shining brightly and resolutely.
“Thank you! And please, thank Henrietta as well on my behalf. I miss you both and I’m delighted at the thought of seeing her up here in Edinburgh very soon. Things are moving fast and the Shift is gaining pace by the minute. Of recent I had found it hard to remember that the future is certain, that we come from the future. Today started as a strange one. I decided to go on a walkabout and read the signs. But wait until you hear what happened to me!”
My mentor had expected that such a wonderful occurrence would take place sooner or later. But my ability to channel the Power on my birthday still impressed him.
“I reckon the timing of it has to do with your penchant for drama. Nevertheless, your knowledge of the Secret Language is beyond our best expectations.”
When we finally said goodbye, we parted with the promise of meeting soon. We never made precise arrangements. The Plan was in charge of them. As I pressed the stop button on my mobile, the rain came to a halt. The sky turned blue and subsided into two rainbows. That was another sign I needed. The Earth had also obviously heard my request.
I dashed back to Maria-Carmen’s flat without getting lost in my thoughts this time. I rang the bell. She leaned out of the window to greet me and opened the door to her apartment. When Maria-Carmen’s partly reconstructed face appeared at the threshold, my pulse began to slow down until it resumed its normal pace. She had the most pacifying effect on me. Her house was a home from home. There I could share the wonders of what had just happened to me with a considerate and knowledgeable ally.
“Cassandra, my darling, we were expecting you. Happy birthday!”
I entered her house to find she had prepared a birthday lunch for me. Lydia was there too, smiling and with a book in her lap. A tarot deck was spread out on the coffee table. The two women had been divining the future.
Maria-Carmen was Lydia’s mentor. Lydia was Maria-Carmen’s. The former was a beautiful middle-aged woman, maybe fifty, with short black hair, amber-like mestizo complexion and gentle Hispanic features. She was a Brazilian lawyer who lived in Rio for half of the year and worked as a tourist guide in Scotland for the rest. At least that was her ‘public identity’. The two of us had met during a visit to Roslyn Chapel while we were standing under the vaults of that site of ancient knowledge, reading the symbols, mesmerised by the ornate secrets. We both loved that mysterious place. We had engaged in conversation immediately and naturally: we had recognised each other as Star-kin. The Brazilian was softly spoken. She articulated her words with an impeccable stiff upper lip English accent. I loved the sound of her voice from the start. She treasured my rebellious wisdom.
Through her, I eventually met Lydia. She was from Brighton and had a distinct, down-to-earth south London accent. She was in her late fifties but looked younger in the way overweight people often do. She wasn’t conventionally beautiful but was altogether attractive. Her hair was still naturally blond and thick. Her big blue eyes always looked happy, even when she was tired. She had married a Scotsman twenty-five years previously and had two grown-up children. She had been an active member of the Godhead Society for over a decade at the time of her divorce, clinging to the ancient knowledge like you would to a life jacket in a shipwreck. She met Maria-Carmen at one of the lectures when the former was the guest speaker on the topic of mind control techniques. They since became first inseparable, and then lovers.
I took off my shoes. “Can I have a towel to dry my hair, please?”
Lydia came over to hug me. “You’re drenched and yet you look stunning: I hate you, Italian woman!”
I related the details of my out-of-time exploit over lunch. Later Maria-Carmen read the tarot for me. The Lovers’ card was laid at the centre of my spread. She winked at me. “Looks like the time has come for you to meet a valid candidate.”
I’d arranged to meet my friends from university in
the afternoon, for a quick birthday drink in a pub in the Grassmarket. It was after 4 o’clock and it had already got very dark. I rushed through the Cowgate to get to my appointment. I was running half an hour late. My friends considered me challenged when it came to time-keeping. Time is a human construct that means nothing to me. That’s why its passage left very few marks on my body. My mates, however, had a different opinion: they thought it was a cultural trait which characterised Southern Europeans, and always expected me to be at least twenty minutes late.
It got very cold. As I pulled my scarf over my nose, something flew above me and made me startle. A white dove fluttered its wings only a couple of inches from my right ear, and was joined shortly by a second one on the windowsill of a derelict, abandoned house. They started cooing. Two sacred white doves: what were they doing here in Edinburgh on Valentine’s Day? They are an ancient symbol of weddings because they mate for life; the Earth had sent them my way to remind me that marriage was imminent. Who was I going to marry? That would remain shrouded in mystery for a little while longer.
Everybody was already in the pub when I arrived. Polly, my closest friend and confidante, knew about me and Gordon. Sam had clued her up.
“I hated the guy from day one. He always treated me with contempt and I know he made fun of my braces and glasses. I’m only happy to see the back of him...”
I sat down at the table in front of a glass of Bacardi and diet coke they’d already ordered for me. Finally it was really happy birthday to me!
Star Woman in Love Page 4