The Awakening

by Colleen O'Flaherty-Hilder

  The beings smiled at her and, as was the tradition, gave her a ring made from the silver-flecked sapphire crystal which they ceremoniously placed on her index finger. Orla enquired as to the quality of the silver as it was a metal not crystal. They explained to her that the silver was very reactive and was able to hold the form of letters and numbers more securely in the body of the sapphire crystal. Without this, the information emitted from the sound could not be translated to the material world in a form that would be understood. Orla reflected on her small collection of rings and looked at each one representing the qualities of the Crystal Worlds from where they had come, an ever-present reminder of her journey so far.

  Before she left this world, Unicorn and the beings took her to one of the Halls of Experience. As she walked closer to the Hall, she observed its perfect crystalline dome-like structure created from the sapphire crystal and silver, which had the shapes of the languages and music carved around the exterior of the Hall. She followed Unicorn through the semi-circular opening and, although there was no door, as she stepped over the threshold she sensed a difference in the atmosphere. Her focus changed from the chamber to her interior self, it was as if she was looking inside her own mind, being drawn to the deeper recesses of her memory, which prompted her to close her eyes and experience rather than understand. Unicorn nudged her forward gently with his head and guided her towards a crystal seat in front of a sheer crystal screen. Two beings from this world, sensing her need for reassurance, gently sat either side of her and she immediately felt a strong sense of security from them both and began to relax, releasing her mind as she prepared to receive the next chapter of Earth’s story

  The screen began to change and images appeared before her; images of people in many situations, in the workplace, at home, at school, all of whom were in a state of anxiety and anger, treating each other in an aggressive or disrespectful manner. This appalling behaviour was reflected in all levels of societies and in all countries of the planet. There was such a sense of fear pervading the lives of everyone that respect fell to the bottom of the list of criteria for relationships. She was amazed at the degree of vitriol that people could produce. Equally the language was appalling; she saw what appeared to be educated adults throwing ugly words at each other, which had the effect of filling the memory of the air with sadness. Not only were the people dealing with each other in their daily lives like this, but it was also reinforced and reflected in their entertainment. Life was imitating art and art had become truly ugly. The content of the entertainment industry was dedicated to depicting the most base form of human relationships, portraying characters with limited personality traits, functioning on superficial levels thereby affirming and imprinting that limited and primitive standard of behaviour deeper into the minds of its audience. Man had become obsessed with bringing to the surface his most base behaviour, and was addicted to watching it over and over again so that it constantly overwrote all Crystal knowledge ensuring no challenge to authority.

  The music also reflected the same ugliness, people with no access to the songs of Wisdom – the music of Creation – controlled the production of music and the result was another reflection of the ugly base behaviour. Because of the advancing technology, much of the popular music which poured out of personal music systems, could be manufactured and therefore distort the ability of music to convey the message of Crystal Wisdom. Power leaders decided to minimise the use of people with true musical talent for a very good reason; these gifted musicians were true communicators of the Crystal knowledge and their music would speak to the Crystal Wisdom hidden deep in the memory of man, awakening his thirst for more Wisdom. Like every other industry in the 22nd century, the priority of the music industry was to make money and control the buying power of the consumer. With this intention they succeeded in creating sounds that tapped into the primitive side of man leaving behind in its wake another agenda, which Orla would only fully comprehend on her last journey and was shown the Earth’s history in all its dark glory. She was far from ready to be able to witness the enormity of that information at this stage.

  Orla was puzzled and wondered why and how the beauty of Creation’s sound had been distorted so much that it was not identifiable. On Crystal Island the voices of the people were naturally musical, lyrical and nurturing, which served to reinforce the balance and communion they had with nature. The melodies of Creation that were created in the turquoise and violet crystal, had been lost in a cacophony of angst. The screen became blank and there was complete silence in the chamber. With a sigh of disappointment, Orla stood up wearily and bade farewell to the crystal beings as she slowly left the chamber following Unicorn back onto the crystal path deep in reflective thought about the scenes that she had just witnessed.

  THE RUBY AND IRON PATH

  They continued silently on their path as Orla contemplated the complexity of the multilayered information she was receiving. The crystal path again began to change colour, gradually losing the blue tones, adding warmer tones until it changed to a deep ruby red flecked with a dark metal that she couldn’t quite discern. They were eventually greeted this time by very different beings, beings with much more physical presence. Within their core was a ruby crystal, but their outer form took on a more solid human appearance. Men and women with a physically very strong appearance greeted her. Their muscles were well defined, their limbs long and they had coarse red curly hair – every shade of red that Orla had ever seen. Her attention was drawn to a group of them who were engaged in what looked like combat but there was no physical contact. They were using their minds to deflect the other person. They could use their mind to move, elevate and lift objects, and do any physical task they were called upon to do.

  Unicorn emphasised the importance of the qualities of strength in mind and body that the Crystalanders needed when they travelled the galaxies, as they had to be able to deal with all kinds of resistance from the indigenous beings they encountered. Orla enquired as to the nature of the dark metal flecked throughout the ruby crystal and Unicorn explained to her that, for the ruby Crystalanders to have physically strong structures which would allow them to traverse hostile planets, they needed a metal called iron to give them the strength and magnetic resonance of three-dimensional worlds. She knew about the effects of iron on the human body and knew of its importance for human blood. What she didn’t know was that it was the iron in the blood that carried the messages from the Crystal memory to all parts of the body so that there was a constant flow of information being received by all the body’s cells.

  It was also the ruby Crystalanders who decided on the quality of information to be given to the planets that they successfully colonised. These pioneering Crystalanders would visit a planet, interact with the primitive inhabitants and discern what information they could cope with. To give too much knowledge at once could confuse and overwhelm them, to give too little could hinder their development. Orla was mesmerised watching their disciplined movements. There was no competition amongst them just strong, focused discipline and a deep respect for each other. As she was watching this wonderful display of strength, one of the ruby beings came towards her with a necklace made from a string of ruby crystal. Each crystal was mounted into an iron claw and was held together by an iron coupling. He gently placed the necklace around her neck where it sat comfortably, settling into the hollow curve between her neck and collarbone. She closed her eyes, felt the strength course through her body from the crystal and iron, and smiled in deep gratitude as she became acutely aware of the protective quality that this necklace gave her. She was gradually gaining a better insight of what life was like in the world outside of Crystal Island and she intuitively knew that she would need this protection one day.

  Whilst she sat with her eyes closed experiencing the newfound strength flow through her body, she gradually became aware of another person in her mind. She opened her eyes and saw a group of young men undergoing training from the ru
by Crystalanders but one of them looked very familiar. She blinked her eyes in an effort to make her see more clearly and then, with great delight, she recognised Finn. It was not the Finn she had left behind but an older Finn. Since they had been separated to follow their own initiations, he had grown in both height and physique. She watched admiringly how well he demonstrated his physical and mental strength. When the group had finished, she walked over to him shyly as he was now a grown man, not a boy, and she still viewed herself as young girl completely unaware of how she had also developed. He too was surprised by her appearance when she approached him. She had grown even more beautiful and her experiences in the Crystal worlds had given her an air of authority and majesty, which left him speechless and breathless. They embraced awkwardly and surveyed each other. Their thoughts were united and each understood the other’s hesitancy. Orla broke the spell and began to ask him many questions about what he had learnt and how long he had been on ruby Crystaland, and within minutes they were back to their old animated selves, talking rapidly and excitedly together. After a period of time Unicorn came over to the charmed couple and indicated that Orla had to have an understanding of how the world had misused the ruby crystal energy. Finn nodded, he had already seen this, and more, as part of his initiation and had been both shocked and deeply disappointed. He knew Orla needed to understand the degeneration of the planet but his protective side wanted to shield her from the harshness of the world. She hugged Finn farewell as he, like her, still had several Crystal years more of his initiation to complete, and Unicorn led her to the ruby Hall of Experiences. As with the other Halls, the ruby Hall was made of ruby crystal bedecked with iron configured into shapes, which represented the atomic structure of iron, but Orla could see that the structure was far more complex than that which she had learnt at her studies.

  Just as she was immersing herself into the complexity of the atoms trying to understand their structure, the ruby crystal beings led her to a seat in front of the crystal screen. Within minutes images filled the screen of horror and devastation, depicting scenes of destruction made by sophisticated arms that could annihilate whole countries with the press of one button by one man. Each Federation on Earth had their own armoury of destruction and, in their childlike attempt to control, would send missiles of destruction into the lives of innocent people destroying their future completely in one moment of angry leadership. The images on the screen eventually stopped and Orla, once again, hung her head in disappointment; she couldn’t understand the degree of hatred that humans could project on to each other. Looking at the ruby beings she asked them: “Don’t they realise that the hatred that they project onto others is transferred back onto themselves?” They confidently assured her that, when the time came, she would see how this had come to pass in the world and therefore understand what would be required for it to be transformed. She accepted this explanation with humility and wanted to stay longer to ask many, many questions but Unicorn led her out of the Hall and gently reminded her that she still had a long way to go before completing her journey.

  THE CORAL PATH

  As they left ruby Crystaland, the path began its familiar process of changing colour, lightening in shade, and eventually becoming a rich coral crystal; not the bright orange of the sun, but a soft rose coral. The landscape either side was smooth and orderly. There were no rough crystals on this landscape just a smooth crystalline structure reflecting the strong rays of its three suns. The crystals deflected the heat from the three suns of Crystaland back into the atmosphere so that the ground didn’t absorb the intense heat of the suns but benefited from their brilliance. The combination of the three suns on the coral crystal increased the intensity of the release of information from the crystals so that they were teeming with activity and information. Orla felt her mind become acutely sharp and alert. She felt as if all her senses were heightened, but not with the normal jagged energy that usually accompanied humans whose senses were heightened because of fear. This was an acute elevation of her senses to their optimum level feeling that each one was working in harmony, complementing and enhancing the others.

  As before, the beings that greeted her reflected the colour of the terrain but unlike the beings from the other worlds, they communicated with her verbally and explained that they were responsible for teaching language to the inhabitants of the selected planets they colonised. They had the responsibility of identifying the language that the inhabitants would best be able to assimilate and use. She had already witnessed in the other worlds the rules governing the combining of numerology with language, sound, colour, and light, which formed the basis of all Creation, but all this had to be put into a formula that new colonies could understand. The indigenous people were then taught how to apply the necessary focus and discipline that was required to communicate the Crystal knowledge. These formulas were the foundation of the Crystal Wisdom and the basis for all science and technology on Earth that would be developed in the fullness of time.

  Unfortunately, Orla would eventually discover the full impact of what happened if these rules were broken but, before she left this world, Unicorn led her to the coral Hall of Experiences which initially Orla could not see in the landscape as the suns’ rays were bouncing off its dome shape causing the Hall to merge into the landscape. The coral beings joined her and, as before, sat her before the crystal screen which began to fill with images of children. Orla stared at the screen in disbelief she was witnessing large numbers of children maybe 2,000 or more in large concrete buildings called schools, segregated into rooms of about sixty children with one teacher. Each schoolroom had a security officer with various weapons to ‘control’ the class. The beings explained to her that the cities had become so overpopulated that there was insufficient money for smaller schools so they herded children together where they stayed for seven hours a day. The schools were cramped; ill lit, with poor ventilation and heating. It was little more than crowd control rather than the educating of young precious minds. More interestingly, she thought, was what they were being taught. She looked on questioningly as she heard teachers giving definitions of the beginning of the Earth and she laughed and asked Unicorn if this really was a fairy story they were telling the children. Unicorn shook his head solemnly and waited for the crystal beings to educate Orla. They explained to her that all Crystal knowledge had been suppressed and mankind had decided that they were the co-creators based on limited three-dimensional knowledge. She gasped; even Orla knew from her experience that by following this path of education, it restricted the ability of an individual to speak their truth. At a very early age, these young humans were being conditioned not to question, not to find their own inner gift and accept the word of the so-called ‘man-made authority’. Orla pondered: If the children are educated in this way, what sort of contribution could they make to the welfare of the planet if they were not using their gifts?

  Orla reflected on her own education. In a child’s early years on Crystal Island they learnt about the qualities of the Gifts of Wisdom by experiencing them. So they spent their days exploring the landscape, learning to create sound, drawing and painting what they saw and being taught to align their thoughts with nature.

  The main subject on the curriculum was learning the language of Creation and developing personal gifts and talents for its continuation. Once this was established then the knowledge of the three-dimensional world was learnt in a very short space of time. As they matured, their ability to learn facts were accelerated and they could absorb information by just looking once at a page of a book or the screen of a computer.

  The beings instructed her to look at the screen again and she saw how industrialisation – the manufacture of ‘things and stuff’ – had gobbled up the countryside and, where there once stood lush fields and productive farms, now stood cities, towns and large buildings where people were employed in virtually the same conditions as the schools. However, there was no need for the security guards to keep contr
ol in the workplace. The fear of unemployment kept the people in a vice-like grip of obedience. Sadly, their imprisonment, which had begun at school, continued seamlessly from school to work. This saddened Orla as she felt she was witnessing the imprisonment of people from the age of five till they died with a very primitive range of understanding.

  “Which was of course”, interjected Unicorn, “the intention of the leaders at that time. No free thinking, no creativity – no challenge. The survival formula of the power leaders”.

  Orla thought seriously about this but it was hard for her to understand given that her upbringing on Crystal Island was based on respect for each person’s natural gifts and talents; their whole life was dedicated to exploring and expanding upon their gifts. Unicorn knew that she would eventually be able to piece the whole picture together and understand the global impact of industrialisation. Orla and Unicorn left the Hall, and the coral Crystalanders gave Orla a gift of coral earrings that she could wear whenever she needed to have dialogue with anyone programmed with fear. The coral would help her to sift through the confusion of their fear, give her clarity and be able to talk to them in words that would not challenge their inner safety.