Solstice - Of The Heart

by John Blenkush

  Cherrie, yes. She was sworn to secrecy less I confess her dark secret.

  Aaron lay his hands, face up, in his lap. He closed his eyes and tilted his head to the sun.

  I did the same, but had a hard time keeping my eyes closed.

  If someone came climbing up our granite staircase, what would they think? What would they see?

  I closed my eyes and tried to envision what I would see if I were that person.

  Two young people, a female and male, mostly naked, in Buddha repose, eyes closed, facing a fierce afternoon sun. Behind us, an expanse of sky, a carpet of fir trees, and a single dominant mountain standing tall in the distance, filled in the back drop.

  “Can you hear it?” Aaron asked.

  “What? The grass hopper?”

  I peeked.

  Aaron smiled.

  “No. But everything else.”

  “I really don’t hear anything.”

  “Then you aren’t listening.”

  “Maybe,” I said, mentally giggling, “I don’t have my ears open.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  I peeked at Aaron. He was the picture of meditation. His eyes were closed, he breathed shallow, and he sat relaxed.

  Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough, or maybe I was trying too hard. Maybe if I let the concerns and worries of the todays and the tomorrows go I could hear and see more. After all, that’s what meditation was all about, wasn’t it? Focusing? Letting go?

  I settled in, took a last look at Aaron to make sure he wasn’t peeking, (he wasn’t) and let my mind relax.

  As far as I knew there wasn’t any breeze, yet I heard it in the pine needles in the trees up from us. I heard my and Aaron’s breathing. Way far off in the distance, I heard the blow of a train whistle, a raven’s squawk, and a dog bark. Nearer, I heard the rustle of a leaf as it scraped along the granite deck, the trickling of water, and the hum, the sound silence makes in one’s eardrum.

  Aaron broke in.

  “How many sounds do you hear?”

  I counted them off.

  “Eight.”

  “There’s more.”

  “How many more?”

  “You tell me.”

  I returned to listening.

  The growl of my stomach. My watch, yes, the ticking of my watch. A bug’s wings clicking. A jet high in the sky. Crackling, like maybe the drying of bark on a tree. Hot air escaping from the warming of the water bottle. The piercing cry of a goshawk. The crumbling sound of rock as it’s split apart by heat. And the splash of sweat as it rolls off my forehead and hits the granite deck.

  Tears welled up in my eyes. I had never stopped to listen, to really hear the sounds of life. Sure. I’ve heard before, but only what was bombarded at me 24/7, and only as so much noise. These sounds, because I listened, formed mental pictures in my mind. I saw by hearing, the same way the blind Chinese master saw.

  Aaron brought me to a place I had never been before.

  I prayed he would take me further.

  He did.

  17 HISTORY LESSON

  Like everyone else, I know about yoga. I know about meditation. I just never tried it. To be sitting here on the window ledge of the Crags, in my underwear, inches from Aaron, falling into a deep trance, was, as Cherrie would put it, dodgy.

  Did I feel immoral?

  Not at all.

  Aaron didn’t ask me to undress. He simply asked me to be comfortable, to allow myself to relax. If it had happened any other way, I would still be fully clothed. (Not that at a later date I wouldn’t entertain the idea)

  Now, Aaron asked me to purge all thoughts and all sounds from my head.

  And just when I added up and maybe even surpassed his count on the number of sounds I could hear!

  “How many sounds did you hear?”

  I asked for confirmation I was the winner.

  “Doesn’t matter, grass hopper. Cleanse them from your head. Purge everything. Relax. Clear your mind. You will learn.”

  That’s what I was afraid of.

  Learning history had always seemed to be a waste of time in my book. I know, I know. I’ve been told in order to make wise decisions in the future, one must be mindful of the past. But really, what was to be gained?

  Sure, it was said the purpose of recording and reviewing history was so we wouldn’t, as humans, repeat our mistakes. I didn’t see that happening, not today, not yesterday, and not tomorrow. We humans seem to welcome forgetfulness. How many wars had we fought since the first war, how many lives had been snuffed out by stone weapons soon to be replaced by lasers and modern weapons of warfare?

  Were we ever going to learn?

  The greatest disasters to ever inflict the earth, I had read, were from fire, water, and the human impact on humanity. I didn’t see this changing, but I was willing to open my mind to Aaron, to allow him to tell me his story.

  And maybe that’s what it takes, is trust, nurtured by hope, before there can be change.

  I saw promise in Aaron.

  I felt it as we sat together on this granite ridge stripped of our clothes and our preconceived notions.

  I did as he asked.

  I cleared my head. I thought not. I listened and I absorbed as I descended from my soap-box.

  As Aaron talked, I heard his voice as another, more mechanical, as though he had memorized paragraphs, word for word, from a book. They were his remarks, but they seemed to come from a distant place, and with an accent that sounded foreign to me.

  Aaron’s description sounded very much like the Eden I had learned about in my Catholic studies. He made it feel as though I was there, walking through paradise with him.

  The thought of Aaron as Adam and me as Eve passed through my mind, loin cloths and all, as he talked.

  “We came as one from Sirius and Alpha Centauri, seven planets in all to settle the seven continents on Earth. We chose one to be the cradle of civilization, the land we called Mu, the Motherland.”

  I knew from my research on the internet Mu and Lemuria were one and the same.

  “Mu was three islands great stretching from what is now known as Hawaii to the Easter and Fiji Islands, a vast rolling country cut through by rivers and streams and divided by narrow sea channels. Palm trees, fruitfully copious with coconuts, lined the waterways and the shores. Mu’s valleys and Great Plains lay rich in grazing grass and cultivable fields, and were filled with animals from every species, large and small, from the lowly mouse to the mammoth mastodons. The low rolling hills were lush with abundant growths, a veritable pleasure ground. Flowers abounded and were frequented by gaudy-winged butterflies so huge their wings were used as hand-fans by the populace, after they passed. Humming birds and bugs of multitude array glistened like infinite raindrops on a sun full day.

  To this land we came as many, to lay stone for roads near and far, to build monoliths and to prosper and to grow and multiply our numbers. As a crucible is of small worth empty, we filled the lands of Mu, and when our numbers became intemperate on the land, our peoples made way to Atlantis and distant.”

  Atlantis, I had been told, was the most ancient of ancient civilizations, so it surprised me to hear Aaron say Atlanteans were descendants of Lemuria. I wanted to question him on this, but he pushed ahead, his words sounding as though he were reading from a book.

  “Many millenniums passed. We prospered and, like the leaves on the trees, our numbers grew, a status of sixty-four million. We were as one, holding in reverence the Law of One, respecting and loving each as his own and our Motherland, Mu. There was no savagery on the land, nor had there ever been.”

  Aaron stopped talking.

  I felt a chill on my face. I broke free of the trance and opened my eyes.

  The sun crested the spires. It cast a shadow on our faces.

  Aaron’s head lay back as far as his neck would allow. His eyes lay wide open. His mouth too. His breathing sounded labored.

  “Aaron? You okay?”

  He didn’t answer me. He
continued talking.

  “But here to,” he said, “our world began to crumble.”

  I wanted to hear the rest of the story, but the shivering got the best of me. I rose, put on my shirt, and pulled on my pants.

  Aaron talked without regard for the deepening chill or the rustling of my clothes.

  I slipped on my coat and beanie.

  “In time,” Aaron said, “the waters became ravenous. The ocean ate at our shores. The lands shuddered beneath our feet. Fire thrust mountains skyward. Our high-priests foretold of the great cataclysm to come. Many lay in fright. Some sought refuge in new lands. Others burrowed beneath faraway lands, taking with them our lineage and heritage and restoring life.”

  I finished dressing, but I still shivered from the sudden drop in temperature. I heard Aaron’s words and appreciated his resolve, but I thought it time to go home. I squatted down in front of him, ready to awaken him from wherever he had gone.

  I suddenly felt warm, not from the sun, for it was behind the spires, but from the heat radiating off Aaron.

  I placed a hand on Aaron’s shoulder and, in that moment, I felt warmth enter my hand, travel up through my arm, and into my chest. The intensity caused my brow to break out in sweat. I noticed, despite the heat he generated, Aaron wasn’t sweating.

  “In a day and night,” Aaron said, “sixty-four million souls were lost, our beloved Mu cratered by fire and sent to a watery tomb.”

  I prodded Aaron with my finger as well as my voice.

  “Aaron! Hey Aaron. Come out of it.”

  He opened his eyes to see me, fully clothed, standing before him.

  I pointed over my shoulder.

  “The sun’s going down. It’s getting cold and dark. Can we go home?”

  Aaron closed his eyes, folded the fingers of his hands together, and pointed his forefingers up in alignment with the bridge of his nose.

  “Give me a minute,” he said.

  His hands made the form of a church with a steeple. It brought back reflections of when I use to do fold my hands in the same way in Sunday school whereby, when I opened the doors with my thumbs, I could see the six parishioners inside.

  I stepped back, giving Aaron separation.

  Off in the distance, through the granite window, I could see Mount Shasta. Only now she wasn’t cloaked in a shroud of fog. Alpenglow lit her flanks. So dramatic the effect, I lowered myself to a squat to stare at her and the man who, in the foreground, still sat in meditation, his hands folded and tucked to the bridge of his nose as if in prayer.

  The contrast was striking, mauve haze in the background, the mountain glowing red as though on fire, granite darkened by dusk, adding frame and perspective, and a lone man sitting, his head bowed, hair aglow, heat waves rising from his form, hands folded in silent reverence to Mother Earth.

  It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime pictures you regret you didn’t capture on film—or in this day and age—digitally. I settled for storing the image forever in my memory.

  Aaron opened his eyes. He rose to his feet.

  “You dressed fast.”

  “I was getting cold.”

  Aaron looked west to the spires.

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize it was getting so late.”

  He began to dress.

  “You know you’re very hot.”

  Aaron chuckled.

  “Thanks. You are too.”

  “You know I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “So you don’t think I am? Hot?”

  “Okay, so you’re good looking, I’m good looking. But,” I said as I touched his hand, “you’re also hot. I’m out here freezing,” I shivered for effect, “and you’re like, burning up. How did you do that? Magic?” (I was being sarcastic, of course.)

  After putting his shoes and coat on, Aaron led me down the granite steps.

  “No, nothing magical about it. The heat is a by-product of meditation. That’s all.”

  “Well I didn’t heat up. I’m freezing.”

  “Because you never reached the advanced state of meditation.”

  “Okay. How does one get there?”

  “Practice. And more practice.”

  “Think you could teach me?”

  Aaron stopped and helped me down an abutment onto the granite plateau.

  “Maybe. But for most people it takes years to learn g Tum-mo.”

  “That’s the name of it?”

  “Yes. That’s what the Tibetan Monks call it.”

  “So that’s how they keep warm up in the mountains.”

  I side stepped a boulder as I imagined a line of bald headed men, their legs folded under them, sitting high on a mountain in the snow, with heat radiating off their bodies.

  “I don’t think that’s their primary concern. They believe the reality modern day man lives in is not the ultimate one, that there is a reality not dictated to by our emotions, and this state of mind can only be achieved by meditation and doing good to others.”

  “So they’ve adopted the Lemurian Way.”

  “You listen good, grasshopper. Yes, they believe in the Law of One.”

  I wasn’t so sure I liked the name grass hopper affixed to my lapel, but it warmed me to receive praise from Aaron.

  Somehow, though, with all the talk of Tibetan Monks and Aaron’s super human abilities, I felt a bit unworthy of the knowledge handed down by the ancients. I wasn’t feeling that spiritually inclined.

  Sure, I had a good time sitting there half naked beside Aaron while soaking up his words, but it hadn’t moved me to the point of where I felt as though I had been reborn. In fact, I didn’t know if there was any rebirthing needing to be done. I was okay where I stood, spiritually, for the moment. I believed in a higher force.

  I just didn’t know who or what that was.

  “Why are you telling me all this stuff? About the Lemurians and Mu?”

  Aaron stopped, turned, and looked at me.

  “Because you’re heart is in solstice. You’re looking to reverse direction.”

  “If that’s supposed to mean I don’t have questions, you’re wrong.”

  “Understood.”

  “I do. Just not now.”

  “That’s the way it should be. Contemplation is the tool for all fruitful understanding.”

  I shook a finger at him.

  “Now see there, that scares me. You’re beginning to sound like a Monk. Next thing I know you’ll be shaving those beautiful locks of hair off.”

  Aaron’s laugh nixed that idea in a heartbeat. No Monk could reap the joy he got out of pure silliness.

  As we stepped down off the granite precipice, I pointed to the trail in front of us, which disappeared into the forest.

  “It’s dark in there. How are we going to see our way back? Did you bring a flash light?”

  Aaron moved in closer. When I didn’t respond in kind, he leaned into my face.

  “Cat eyes,” he said, smiling.

  I looked into his eyes. Sure enough, the pupils had all but taken over his irises. His blue eyes turned black as coal. A slim ring of blue encircled his pupils. I felt if I stared at them any longer my heart would be forever lost.

  I turned away.

  “So you can see in the dark too?”

  “Yes. Stay close. Follow in my footsteps.”

  As we set out on the trail, I asked, “Do you mind telling me what else you can do?”

  “I’m a fairly good cook. And I do my own laundry.”

  “Chuckle, chuckle. You know what I mean. What other super powers do you possess?”

  “I don’t see them as super powers.”

  “No?”

  I caught a branch to my face and ducked.

  “What do you call them?”

  “Skills.”

  “Well, your skills,” I said as I brushed another branch away, “are pretty darn advanced from my point of view. And,” I added, “probably from a lot of people’s point of views.”

  “I don’t have anything that
over time others couldn’t master. It’s just a matter of training and exploiting energy.”

  “Yeah. Probably take a hundred years or more.”

  I stopped in my tracks.

  Aaron took another few steps before he realized I was no longer behind him. He turned around.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You aren’t one of those guys...” I couldn’t quite fathom the idea.

  “What guys?”

  “...that is much older than he looks, are you?”

  Even in the dim lighting I could see Aaron grinning.

  “How many guys do you know that are much older than they look?”

  I shook my head.

  “None.”

  “Good,” he said, as he turned and started walking. “You had me worried there for a minute.”

  Indeed, I had.

  I had me worried too. My thoughts were leaping all over the place. Next thing you know I’m going to be seeing Leprechauns hiding behind every bush.

  I turned to look, just to make sure. Yep. No Leprechauns. No goblins. No Lemurians. No millennium men passing themselves off as teenagers.

  We were greeted at the parking lot by a highway patrol officer. He waited for Aaron to step off the trail before he hailed me.

  “Are you Julissa Grant?”

  “Yes.”

  I hated to ask what I was thinking. Had Dierdra committed suicide? For an instant I felt the weight of guilt crush me.

  The officer held out a hand.

  “Come with me,” he ordered.

  Aaron stepped to move along beside me.

  The officer cut between us and motioned for Aaron to stay put. He placed his hand on his gun holster.

  “Stay there, son. Keep your hands where I can see them. And don’t move.”

  The officer guided me toward his black-and-white car.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Sure. This isn’t about my mother, is it?”

  “You’re to go straight home.”

  “What happened? What’s wrong? Is my mother okay?”

  “All I know is you’re needed at home.”

  “You don’t know why?”

  “Did he,” the officer said as he pointed to Aaron, “hurt you in anyway?”