by John Nelson
“I believe it’s what she draws on and is able to focus and transmit. But what’s interesting is that her healers, who tour or live in other parts of the country, are able to tap into the same energy, despite its apparent low levels elsewhere … or maybe the upsurge of earth energy is spreading out.”
“That would be alarming for our employers,” Emma added.
“Let’s head down. I don’t want to get into a head-talking space on this rock; seems too contrary and it’s kind of … pushing at me.”
We headed back and were particularly interested in the folks we met along the way and their reaction to the energy. Most of the women seemed affected, while only some of the men, or at least as far as we could tell from just watching them. Again, I didn’t want to get into a head space, unlike everybody else who kept chatting away as they climbed up the outcroppings. It was also becoming very hot as the sun rose higher and higher overhead. Once we got back to the shade of the overhang shelter, I felt better about staying longer, as the energy was able to settle in. When the other group of people there headed out, we had more privacy.
“I think you need to get a healing at the next service, so you can help judge the similarities and differences.”
“I want to,” Emma said, “but I trust that you’re on track with your speculation, and I don’t think we need to wait for my healing to figure out what’s up with Musgrave and our mission here.”
“Basically, I think the neural processors keep people in a mind space that cuts them off from their higher functionality and represses feelings, so they’re more easily controlled and manipulated.”
“But yours isn’t acting that way and it seems to be helping, not interfering, with this integrative process in you,” she said.
“Well, like they keep saying, it serves as an evolutionary appendage since it’s made of brain tissue, and in those who can integrate feelings, it seems to accelerate a different kind of functionality, but not in those who are more repressed.”
Emma thought about this analysis. “Maybe it’s Maria’s healing energy, since it moves through her first, that jumps people. But those just feeding off it from the land aren’t as … fortunate or … that’s not the word …”
“Or, as facilitated as those coming to her and her healers,” I said.
“So, eliminate the healers, or the go-betweens, and you … if not eliminate the threat, put it off while you adjust your strategy.”
“Well, that apparently is what they’re thinking and what this whole op was about, using Jean and me and now you as test subjects.”
“Yeah, and we know what happens to lab rats,” Emma said.
“Let’s turn off our portables, drive north to Flagstaff and do a reverse circle-run back to Jerome through Prescott, to shake any tails.”
Emma nodded her head.
“I’m not talking to Musgrave or Klaus until I’ve conferred with Maria and have a better handle on all of this.”
“Are you thinking of teaming up with her and the antigovernment groups against them?” Emma asked rather evenhandedly, not pressing the issue.
“I’m not taking sides either way, at least not yet; I’m hoping there’s a middle way or a way to convince ‘them’ that this can be helpful and doesn’t need to be controlled or stamped out.”
Emma just stared at me. “I doubt if anybody on the other side would agree with you.”
“That’s just the problem: they both think one-sidedly—an us-against-them scenario.”
“Well, Ling says the history of their resistance is littered, like those of the 19th-century Native Americans, with the government’s false promises and betrayals.”
“Let’s see.” We headed back to the car and drove up Route 179 and took 89 east to the hotel. As we approached the turnoff, I kept driving. “I sense that we need to keep going to avoid tails. Hope we’re not leaving anything behind you can’t do without.”
Emma reached over and grabbed my arm. “I’ve got all I need right here.”
I smiled. How endearing. I just hoped I wasn’t signing her death warrant along with my own.
Chapter Thirteen
37.
After we drove through Flagstaff and headed west on the interstate, I remembered my last trip on this highway, and how Jean and I had gone to the Grand Canyon for the night before driving to Phoenix and rendezvousing with Musgrave—to throw off any tails that Maria’s group might have put on us. So maybe I was responding to the recent surveillance vibe I had sensed in Jerome, or the actual FBI tail we had picked up in Sedona, but as we approached Williams and the turnoff for the Grand Canyon, I turned onto the ramp.
“Doing a little sightseeing?” Emma asked, no doubt delighted by the prospect of viewing the Grand Canyon.
“Well, that too, but while this isn’t a vortex or a known one, it’s a huge natural formation, and I just want to check it out after our experience at Bells Rock.”
Emma tucked her feet under her. “Don’t need to sell me. I’ve always wanted to go there. Can we go down the trails to the bottom?”
“No, they’ve discontinued the mule rides; we’d have to hike around the rim for twenty miles or so to find a low access point.”
“Too bad, but we can view it from the edge?” she asked.
“Yes, and walk part of the way down one of the long trails, which is what I want to do, and see if I can sense or even see any natural energy flows.”
“Great.”
Before we checked in at the Maswik Lodge, I drove to the lookout with the old trail heading down into the canyon from the south side. Since we had our hiking boots and UV-cover hats and lotion, Emma and I decided to trek down the path a little farther than I had last time. After we had dropped a couple hundred yards beneath the rim of the canyon and into the belly of the beast, as the Jungians would probably call it, I could sense a subtle shift in the energy, or my energy, I should say. This was a particularly narrow part of the canyon, with the north side maybe a mile across the Colorado River flowing below us, so it felt more like being underground or dropping down a volcano tube into the heart of the earth, and then it dawned on me that if you moved the “h” from heart to the end of the word, you got: earth. The earth as the heart of us all, which had to be a Native American or indigenous concept. I also felt an enormous rush of feeling for “mother earth” and turned on the downward-sloping path to sidle up against the side of the canyon wall, spread-eagled. Emma, who was walking behind me, stopped and gave me my moment before I broke off.
“Anything you want to share?” she asked.
I told her about my little heart/earth epiphany, which she totally understood, without making any self-conscious smart-aleck remark to deflect the feeling. I added, “Well, I certainly pick up a vibration or energy, somewhat similar to what I experienced at the vortex, but … different or less … projective.”
Emma closed her eyes; after a short while, she nodded her head. “Yes, I see what you mean, but what does it do to your functionality?”
“Well, I don’t want to get out of my body and into my head on a five-foot-wide path with a thousand-foot drop.”
Emma laughed. “Yeah, well maybe we should turn back.” She paused, “or that is, if you’ve got what you came for.”
“Yeah, I’m good. Let’s go.” We turned around and I let Emma lead the way up the path to the rim of the canyon.
When we stepped back into our car, she asked, “Are we heading over to the lodge or heading back to Jerome? It’s not that far.”
I tried to get a sense of it all, then turned and looked at Emma sitting next me. “Well, it would give us some … alone time.”
She reached over and grasped my hand. “Well, there is that.”
We drove over and checked into the lodge and ate a late lunch in their restaurant, with all the old-time sepia-toned pictures of the pioneers who first explored the canyon on mules. Emma looked over at me and started to say something about our dilemma, but I put a finger to my mouth and told her we were luck
y the weather was so good and that we could take a hike after lunch.
When we were out on the land, or under the cover of trees and hopefully out of sight of any surveillance cameras or the earshot of any microphones—it sounds paranoid but every restaurant in the world was “bugged” these days—I felt like we could speak more freely. “You were saying?” I asked.
“Well, if this is about the earth’s ‘rising’ energy and its effects, which they can’t stop, even if they eliminate its facilitators like Maria and other healers, seems like they’d want to ‘adjust’ the neural processors, or adapt them to include more just to maintain their agenda, whatever that is.”
It was so great to have a real collaborator in Emma along for the ride, instead of a naysayer or company agent like Jean. I squeezed her hand. “Yes, you would think so, and maybe they’ll come around to that, but now they just seem to want to … hold on to all that they have without compromise, or so I assume—since we’re not getting any real feedback from Musgrave or Klaus.”
“So, what’s next?” she asked.
“I’ve turned off my remote, and I’m thinking we stay here and head back early tomorrow and hopefully attend Maria’s ten o’clock service, then we talk to her afterward.”
“And if Musgrave has the town staked out?”
“No, I think he’ll wait for me, even if it pisses him off. I mean. We do have … operational latitude.”
Emma laughed. “Well, I don’t think this is what they had in mind by ‘latitude.’”
“No, I doubt that.”
“I’m tired,” Emma said with a cute smile.
“Maybe we need to take a nap?”
“Yeah, you never know when we’ll get the chance again.”
I glanced over at her, but she appeared more introspective than I would have expected from such a remark. Well, maybe her intuition in this regard was more attuned than mine.
We headed back to our room at the lodge and made love for the rest of the afternoon and late into the evening, until we both fell asleep from exhaustion, although the psycho-spiritual tension of our dilemma must have contributed to the strain and its need for release and the excess of our response.
38.
Before heading out early the next morning, we checked to see if the Institute had a Sunday service scheduled. It did, for the second week in a row, and again contrary to their earlier scheduling which was usually during the week. Was Maria picking up on my dilemma, or was this a seasonal adjustment? We arrived in town early, but instead of going back to the Sliding Sands, we ate brunch at the Iguana Café before heading over to the church for the ten o’clock healing service. We sat midway up the row of chairs again, so that we could linger afterward and talk with Maria as we walked out after the service. During the set-up to her healing, while Maria sat and waited for June to complete her introduction and for the attendees to line up, she caught my eye and held it for a long moment. It almost felt like a telepathic exchange. After the service, she once again broke with protocol and stood outside the church to greet people as they filed out.
We were the last out of the church, which allowed us a little alone time, as it were, with her. “Ah, Lewis and Emma. How nice to see you back again,” she said rather innocently.
“Maria, we’d like to … talk with you about a pressing issue, if that’s all right with you.”
The woman stood there for a long moment as if she were scanning our auras or whatever it was that she did so effectively. “Sounds serious?”
“Yes, it is rather serious.”
“Then by all means let’s retire to my private quarters.” Maria turned to head back up the aisle of the church. I noticed a rather intense and well-built man standing off to the side of the steps, who seemed prepared to follow after us, but Maria cut him off with a barely perceptible shake of her head. Nobody else would have noticed it, except someone trained to observe such nuances.
In her quarters Maria had her assistant bring out a pot of tea, rather than single cups, this time, since there were three of us. The assistant poured for us and passed the tea around and then left. Everyone took sips, waiting for someone to break the silence.
“Well, Lewis. You’ve certainly sparked my curiosity. I hope Brenda hasn’t taken a turn for the worse.”
I shook my head, all the while keeping my eyes focused on Maria. The energy directed back at me was so loving and supportive that it made my rather difficult confession easier. “Brenda’s actual name is Jean Whatley, and she’s an agent for K Industries that does undercover work for the FBI.” I studied Maria’s facial reaction or micro expressions, as we called them in surveillance, but amazingly enough, or not, there was no discernible reaction on her part.
Maria actually smiled. “I bet that was a relief … Lewis.”
I couldn’t hide my own reaction, but I waited a moment to gather in my emotions before responding. “As you may have guessed, or … seen, I’m not Lewis Hargrove, the novelist, but Alan Reynard, and I also work for K Industries.”
Maria nodded her head, and then turned to Emma. “And you’re part of this … intrusion?”
“Yes, I’m Brenda’s replacement, but my name is Emma Knowles, and I’m just filling in to get out of my contract with them.”
Maria sat back in her chair for a long moment. “So … Alan, since you’ve already broken … protocol by revealing yourselves, you want to tell me what this is all about?”
I looked at Emma who nodded her head. I turned to Maria and gave her an overview of my assignment, the government’s concern about her and her healers, but also our effort to understand the underlying intent of all of this deception, and our speculation on what they were really afraid of.
Maria was somewhat flabbergasted by this whole scenario. “They actually believe that I can remote-view anything at a distance and plant dreams?”
I “felt” my way through Maria’s own admission, which seemed genuine. “So my dreams were just that … dreams, even though I saw this room and its desert panorama, or something close to it?” I asked.
“Again, dreams can be like astral projections and you connect to the energy of the person you’re dreaming about, and depending on how … aware they are, they can block the connection or … play with it.”
I had always assumed that these dreams were just my subconscious fears playing out, but Maria’s explanation made perfect sense, and was a modified version of the FBI scenario, without the manipulative intent. “So, did you actually see me, and know something of my intent when I arrived in town with Brenda?”
Maria paused for a moment. “Again, it’s not like remote-viewing and more like sensing the energy. So when you came to town, let’s say your energy felt familiar, but I didn’t actually know why.”
“Okay, so now that you know ‘why’—what are we going to do about it?” I asked.
Maria again took her time, apparently allowing herself to be directed by her own inner awareness or self. “Well, that depends Alan … and Emma, on where your true allegiance lies. You’ve greatly compromised yourselves with your … employers, and it doesn’t seem like you can just walk away from them, given their reach from Emma’s holdout, and playing both sides sounds like a dangerous game, especially since they seem to have set you up to begin with.”
We nodded our heads.
“Seems like, since our intent, mine and my healers, is benign, or aiding the rise of this earth-energy and its influence; and even if they find that threatening, you could just report that despite our facilitation of the energy for healing purposes, they’re actually fighting nature herself. And they can fiddle with their neural processors all they want, but those who resist this rising energy will be increasingly compromised, unless adjustments and allowances are made to accommodate it.”
It was my turn to be amazed by her summation of our situation. “Yes, in a perfect world, or dealing with more conscious individuals and interests, I could just lay it out that way and hope for the best, but these people control ever
ything, or think they do, and they’re not going to make such a ready ‘accommodation’ to this ‘loss of control.’”
Maria nodded her head and stood up, as did we. “So it seems like you need to mull this over further, as do I, with my own advisors, but know that you’re perfectly safe here, despite your less-than-benign operation, and that we would be prepared to … facilitate your ‘escape’ if it comes to that.”
“Thank you, Maria. I’m really sorry for having, as I said earlier, brought this to your doorstep, and I’m more concerned about its impact on you and yours than on me … or us,” I added, as Emma glanced over at me.
Maria smiled. “It’s only us, not me or you, and all who’ve been touched by this energy and … want to work for the greater good.”
39.
Emma and I headed back to the Sliding Sands, unloaded our gear, and she came to my room to figure this out with me. We hadn’t had much of a chance to explore our options when Musgrave called. I let it buzz for a moment, showed Emma the caller ID, then I took his call. Given my talk with Maria and feeling rather elevated and empowered by it, I figured now was as good a time as any to start this dance. I answered and his vid image appeared on my portable.
“How nice of you to take my call,” Musgrave said rather sarcastically.
I paused for a moment, not wanting to overreact. “Just got back in town from Sedona, but then you knew that.”
“Off the reservation again?”
“Emma and I wanted to check out the energy of the vortexes,” I said.
“And?”
I wasn’t sure just how far I should go with my analysis, but I was feeling particularly “protected” if that’s the word, and figured more deception would only undermine us at this point.
“The energy that Maria channels feels as much earth-based as … I think etheric is the word these people use, and we wanted to check it out.”
“So Emma had a healing?” he asked.
“No, not yet, but we’ve gone to two services and she picked up on the energy.”