My desire to be in your company was unbearable one night. It had taken me ages to fall asleep because I kept fantasising about our next encounter, our inevitable embrace. I fell asleep eventually, but you jolted me out of my slumber shortly after. It wasn’t quite a visual dream: you came to me through sound, not images. Your voice woke me up. Its timbre was your most attractive feature: gold mixed with lazy sunshine and honey. All the atoms of my body would recognise it and follow it like a colony of bees would a queen bee. Its sound made me feel complete, expanded, universal. I loved it more than your jet-black locks, it was even dearer to me than your stunning features and your tall wiry body. I’ll never forget the words you whispered in my ears that night, in that dream.
“Open up the door to your heart: I am ready to explore”.
They awoke all of my senses, physical and metaphysical alike. I sat up in bed and started thinking about you. I wanted so badly to move my body over to Mexico. I heard you say those words as though you were pronouncing them in real life. As a shaman, you were learning to send your spirit to me through sound. I would try to project myself to you through matter then: teleportation, a skill I knew I had. It was time to give it a try. I pictured your face in my mind’s eye. Those familiar features emerged on the inside of my eyelids. The method was working. The Light of my love for you drew your face on the darkness of my closed eyes. Your entire face lit up, and I saw a flash becoming pure, fluid sunshine. And then I saw you, tending to a bonfire in the middle of a field.
It was daytime where you were. You were on your own moving the embers with a long stick. You wore a woven poncho on your naked body. Ash was smudged all over your face and hands. You were drunk on aguamiel, honeywater. The scent of incense mixed with the smoke from the fire. Your eyes met mine. Then my teleportation experiment went wrong. I could smell burning: my hair was burning. I had landed in front of you in the middle of your bonfire. My physical senses shook me back to my bed, into my room in Edinburgh. I felt exhausted and I fell asleep in a second, but my sleep was uncomfortable for the rest of the night.
When I woke up in the morning, I had a fever. My sugar levels were very low. When I got out of bed, the room started to spin. My sense of perspective expanded. Then it contracted and everything went black.
It was early in the morning but Sam was already up. He came to my door to check on me. I returned to my senses and called him in. I was sitting on the floor, my face had turned almost green and I was drenched in cold sweat. He wrapped a blanket around my shaking limbs. My teeth were rattling. I was sick. I went to bed where I spent the following five days, during which you never phoned me. Not even once.
My strength came back on the sixth day. That morning Gwen brought me your first letter, three weeks after your departure: pages with your handwriting describing in poetic detail how you longed for me. I cried as I read your words.
“See,” I said to her, “he’s attached the sketch he had drawn of me on the day he first saw me in a Café in Glasgow.”
Her jaw dropped. “He’s portrayed you in such a poignant manner, as if he knew you inside out. The likeness is remarkable. He’s a formidable artist, and this piece must be very valuable!”
“Well, the most astonishing feature is that he painted my aura around me like an aureole, in the shape of the Vescica Piscis. That’s quite unusual...”
My friend Gwen knew that Romanesque and Byzantine artists used to paint an almond-shaped aureole around the figures of Christ and the Virgin to portray sacred moments of transcendence, when the holy figures went past the boundaries of space and time. It is found in representations of the Resurrection, Transfiguration, and the “falling asleep,” or death, of Mary, the God-Bearer. In Sacred Geometry, the vescica is formed by two circles with the same radius that intersect in such a way that the centre of each circle lies on the circumference of the other. Initiates can see this symbol around a very small percentage of people. It’s a hologram of the wound in the heart that forms when the Flame of Love starts to burn its way out. It marks a shaman with the ability to travel across dimensions. It crowns a perfected human being.
The fact that you saw it meant that you were familiar with the layer of reality only the mystically proficient can discern. I understood what you meant when you described yourself as a “spiritual artist.” You walked in the Dreamtime, in the Land of Spirit. Your paintings showed the images you caught from the realm of potentiality, from the fourth dimension. You were the right man for me.
The vescica pescis is undoubtedly shaped like a vagina. It symbolises the tear in the mask of materiality, or Veil of Illusion, through which the potential of an idea becomes flesh, or takes form. Its presence around me was the sign of my work and my abilities as a time traveller. When you saw me, you also recognised the door I held open to the best life you could have, to the most beautiful dreams in your heart; they were your birth right. I would always point you to the life which was intended for you by your Higher Self. Your letter and your drawing laid your soul bare. Your vision was strong way back then.
* * * *
Teotihuacan, 28 May 1993
Dear Cassandra,
I’m writing to you from one of my favourite places in the world. This land is marked by death but the presence of Spirit is very strong. I’m gazing at the sky thinking about you. I can feel your energy from here. I’m on a blanket in a field, above me only stars. It’s a magical time. I am at one with the vastness of creation. I feel protected, and alive. I don’t even know where to start. There is so much I want to tell you but I don’t really know if I can put it into words...
Cassie, this is the Life...
This is the one and only opportunity I have, we have. I am only starting to dip my toes in the water. Not sure yet if I’ll dive in or not, if there are currents in the ocean of my intuition. I can see your trepidation and don’t know what to do about it. So I don’t do anything. I can’t decide, it’s so typical of me. I don’t act when I’m not sure what to do. I know my impulse will move me. Eventually. I’m waiting for some inspiration. My dreams are confirming what I understood implicitly the first time I laid my eyes on you in Glasgow: you know me. You know the truth of who I am. Sometimes I fear you know me better than I know myself... How do you do that?
If you were here with me, I would take your hand right now. That’s how it feels like tonight... I’ll always want to follow you where you want to lead me. I need you to guide me. There is something I am afraid of though, something which is still unclear and which I fear in relation to us. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m great at beginnings and messy at endings, it’s a fact. Yet there is so much I absolutely adore about you. You and the torch you carry are new territory for me. Do I belong there? I keep asking myself. You know me and yet you don’t. You know what matters about me, what should matter about me.
Know that there is more to me than that. I am a darkened soul. I don’t know if I can go where you’re heading, if there is truly some space for me there. I may seem very self-assured, but I am not. I am very shy. I let my body lead me where its fancy wants, lest I have to resort to using my mind. I don’t want to use it. My mind is clouded: it knows sorrows so deep time itself can’t wipe them away. Since you stepped into my life I’ve forgotten my gloom, I let go of what was a constant companion: my sense of guilt. I won’t go into detail now. I am a hurt-generating machine and I always hurt people, even when I mean their good. It’s my karma, it seems. You are so innocent, so pure. When I’m with you I think my spell is broken and I feel free. I don’t know, though. And I don’t want to find out at your expense.
Cassie, I don’t really know what it is I feel for you. I don’t know what it is, or was, between us. I don’t know if we have a future, if we have a past, or a present. I only know that when I’m with you I feel at home. I had to tell you. I am telling you now. I want you to know so that you can do what you think fits with this information. I guess it’s easier to reveal all of this from a distance, when there is an ocean between u
s. There is also a big void in my heart from the day we parted. My shyness never let me tell you in person, face to face, looking into your eyes...
You know what I mean, don’t you? I don’t need to spell it out, do I? It’s a revelation to me as well, I must admit. Me, here, on sacred land, writing what is pretty much a declaration of my feelings for you. I’ve not told you what it is that I feel. I don’t even know if I know what these feeling are, and if they have a chance to be at all, given the harsh environment in which they are emerging. My heart is a desert: barren. Maybe you didn’t notice. You are gentleness itself and everything grows tender in your presence. You bring my best out, you can make me a better me. What do I do to you? Can I do anything for you? I don’t know that I can...
Cassie, I want you in my life, I want you to accompany me on the path which stretches ahead of me. My time has come. I need a woman at my side: I’d like you to be that woman. Will you join me in Dublin when I come back? You’ll have finished your course by then. Life there is cheaper than in Edinburgh anyway. You can find things to do there. It’s meant to be: I’m just the mouthpiece of the Earth. I don’t even know how to explain it. My intuition tells me there is great work for you to accomplish in my native land. It’s an old contract. I’m a man who travels across dimensions, who understands people from the depths of their souls. I believe my role in this moment is to take you to the place where your future is going to unfold...
In practical terms, I’ve got somewhere in mind where you can stay. You can live in my friend Fintan’s house and you don’t even need to pay rent. He’s an artist as well. Now he’s moved to the countryside with his girlfriend. It’s a quiet, spacious place. It’s near the sea and you can go for walks on the beach. I use the house as a base in Dublin as well. I hope you wouldn’t mind living with me. Of course, I still have my room in my parents’ house though I tend to use it only when mum’s travelling on holiday. Well, actually, I don’t have a real base anywhere. I prefer to be like that: rootless.
I can’t deny that there is a lot at stake for me if you decide to take up my invitation. I really would like to see you all the time, I’d like to get to know you, I’d like to witness the enfoldment of the seed in your soul whose fruits I merely intuit. There is so much beauty in you and about you.
I guess what I am trying to say here is that I need you.
Not in a needy way, don’t worry. But I’d like you to be around. I’m not one who lets people in easily. I’m normally very circumspect and suspicious. But you... you make all my defences crumble... I have to let you in, it’s impossible not to. Perhaps it’s a gamble, or maybe it’s hazardous. Foolish, even. Please let me know what you think of the idea.
Maybe just come over for a couple of months. I’m planning to paint a new body of work and you could be my muse. I’d love you to pose for me regularly. I’m good company, I cook great vegetarian meals and I can take you everywhere you’d like to explore on the island. You can have a wing of the house and enjoy your privacy as you figure out what you want to do in the future.
I know this is sudden.
But I can’t wait.
Please, do come.
Love,
Oscar xx
* * * *
I looked at your letter for hours. I read it over and over again. I held it next to my heart, letting the joy it brought me run through my veins. I slept with it on my bedside table. It made me happy. Yet it spoke of darkness and confusion, too. What did your words mean? Were you trying to tell me that you loved me as much as I loved you? Did you know who I was? All the questions you asked were a reflex of the ponderings of my subconscious mind. Could I trust you? Could I believe you? What should I do? It was time to let my body take the lead. I would follow you to Ireland.
Eventually I told Polly. She was mad at me because she thought it was a rushed decision, and a reckless one at that. I didn’t know you well enough. She had a point. Given your reputation as a Casanova. Given the fact that I’d only become a part of your life six weeks previously, four of which we weren’t even together. It was a gamble, though an inspired one. Hormones are a great driving force in one’s youth.
My absolute rationalisation came in a flash during a meeting at the Godhead Society where we were running psychic experiments. My participation was central to the session: I was trying to guess the size of some of the members’ auras. Results were being consolidated by a biofeedback machine which could measure the magnetic field around people. My readings were impeccable, as precise as the machine’s. Even in those days I found it easy to see people’s auras, though seeing is not the correct verb I should use to describe the process. It’s more like a unity of two senses: sight and empathy. And yes, empathy is a sense: it’s the ability of tuning into another person’s feelings. We all have it. But it’s often dormant or underdeveloped in human beings, though it’s alive and well in other Earthly species. That night I felt that my Birth Light was becoming stronger in my self-generating body. Memories of my origin and identity were emerging more and more vividly. My decision to follow you to Ireland was one of those memories sprouting out from my Core. It was no decision after all, but the natural thing to do. I was going to take up your invitation. Irreversibly so.
* * * *
My move to Ireland didn’t happen until six months later. I had missed you enormously over our time apart. Our letters kept our hearts connected but our bodies longed for each other’s touch. I landed in Dublin on a cold winter’s day in 1993, shortly before the seasonal holidays. The place felt so familiar that I had to catch my breath. You and your native land had a lot in common. I detected more Light in the air than anywhere else I’d been before. I hurried my way through Passport Control and the Luggage Collection Lounge to the exit. The sliding doors opened and disclosed a crowd of people gathered to welcome arriving passengers. But I could only see you, wearing a long blue coat, with a bunch of yellow roses for me. I stopped in my stride, letting the perfection of that moment sink in and be sculpted in my heart forever. You tilted your head to one side. Your eyes were grinning. Then you took a step towards me and stopped again, to stare at me. Another step, another smile. Bliss erupted: I began laughing out loud as I ran into your arms. We held each other for a long time, as we always did, as we could still do.
You took my bags and I followed you to your car. It was an old, beaten-up banger of a vehicle, full of all the bits and pieces that had accompanied the previous years of your life. It was in tune with your character. You had to squeeze my luggage on the back seat, among bags of drawings, colours, old photographs, tree branches, clothes, shoes, newspapers and an assortment of rubbish. The inside of your car smelled of eucalyptus. It reminded me of the lingering scent in my bedroom when I was a little girl. Mum used to rub Vicks Vapor on my chest to prevent the onset of seasonal colds. I still equate eucalyptus with healing to this day.
We didn’t speak much on the way. The Silent Language had already kicked in between us. Intuition and telepathy were starting to emerge. We couldn’t believe we were together again. You held my hand for the whole journey, letting it rest on the gearbox, changing gear together. You didn’t want to let go of me, I didn’t want to be let go of by you, now that we’d found each other again. A wide, calm sense of spaciousness stretched out ahead of us. My heart melted into that moment. Time had no meaning at all.
You drove slowly towards the river, along the quays and then back on to your friend Fintan’s house on the North Side. Christmas lights decorated the Dublin streets. The city was enchanted. It was caught between dimensions. Where is that magic now? Nineteen years on, and that source of Light that Ireland’s capital used to be has gone, has become one of the deepest wounds of our planet. But let’s keep our focus on those happy days, and the beauty they held for us then.
Fintan’s house turned out to be a mansion. The entrance faced a road which ran along the coast. The beach was a stone’s throw away. There was a big garden all around the property, with trees, benches, a water featur
e and a decked area. We put my bags down in the dining room and headed for a place you wanted to show me. Once we reached the beach across the road, we sat on a rock by the water. The waves lapped at our feet in all their hypnotic rhythm. It was cold and my scarf was up to my nose. You took an ocarina from your back pocket and started playing a tune. The long slurred notes mixed with the sound of the waves, the cloudiness of the sky and the greyness of the water. The scene stood still in front of us, bar a dark spot that could be seen as it moved closer. It was a baby seal which was swimming towards us at the sound of your ocarina. You and I and the seal, slipping out of time. A ray of golden light shone on the sand, drawing a line which stretched from our rock over to the house where we would be living together.
“It’s a ley line, Cassandra,” you said.
“I know. It’s our ley line,” I replied.
We sat with the sea a while longer, until the sunset brought darkness so deep we could see the stars in the sky.
“Let’s go back,” you told me.
So we trailed back to the warmth of our joint dwelling. You lit a fire and I unpacked. Unexpected tears welled up in my eyes, and a deep sorrow came upon me. It didn’t belong to me but to you. Our auras had started to merge: I could feel your emotions now. It only lasted a few minutes. I turned to see a blue and red butterfly outside on the windowpane. My mood changed again and joy returned to my heart. I put my face closer to the window to absorb the crystalline energy from the flying visitor. She told me that much learning was ahead.
“You are in the right place, Cassandra,” she said, “and the right teachers will appear on your path. You are going to be trained in natural magic. You will meet your tribe and become the Dreamtime queen of this land. In years to come, there is soon going to be a gathering of highly evolved souls on the land of Ériu. The Game of Heaven on Earth has officially started with your arrival on Irish soil.”
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