The Miracle of Anna

by John Nelson

  In July she received an invitation to visit Ma hi’ Ma at the ashram, and that a car would pick her up and drive her both ways. Maggie responded that she would love to visit, but felt it was best to stay close to home and not undertake any long journeys during her pregnancy, or so she said. She was surprised weeks later when she saw a poster announcing a visit by Sri Ma hi’ Ma, who would hold satsang and give blessings at the Bodhi Path Buddhist Center the first week in August. So, she thought, If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain. Guru would be staying with a local devotee on his farm outside of town, and after her arrival Prema called and said a car would pick up Maggie the next afternoon for tea. Maggie was a bit apprehensive. She appreciated all that Guru had done for her—the extra money was a godsend—but she was more concerned for her unborn child. The last thing she wanted was for Guru and their community to project the same kind of high expectations on Anna that Krishnamurti had to deal with as a child, or in the future to appropriate her daughter’s supposed high being to bolster even Ma’s benign agenda.

  When the car arrived at the farm, Prema met Maggie and ushered her through the lustrous rose garden to an elevated gazebo with a magnificent view of the surrounding countryside with its green fields and blue lake. Here Ma hi’ Ma was having tea with Gary Pritchard, the landowner and longtime devotee.

  “Ah, here she is,” Ma said, as Maggie gingerly walked up the steps to the gazebo, holding on to the railing. She stopped at the top and bowed to her guru, with hands folded and the thumbs touching her third eye. Pritchard stood up and pulled out a chair for her, and she sat down.

  “I’m so pleased to meet you, Maggie,” he said taking her hand. He was in his fifties, with touches of gray hair at the temples, his blue eyes clear and his smile utterly genuine. Maggie sighed in relief.

  Guru had watched this exchange and smiled. “You sigh,” Ma said, her stare piercing through her devotee’s cautious manner. She turned to Pritchard. “Oh, I believe Maggie thinks we have designs on her daughter.”

  Looking at Guru and her beaming smile, Maggie felt guilty for harboring any such reservations. She bowed her head again. “No, Ma. Just concerns that Anna be allowed to develop on her own.”

  “One never knows with these great souls; it takes many years for some of them to find their path, while others know immediately.”

  “So the pregnancy goes well?” Gary asked.

  “Yes, and she’s a chatty little girl,” Maggie volunteered, feeling she could share this revelation with them.

  Ma hi’ Ma’s eyebrows lifted. “So, you speak with her?”

  Maggie shook her head. “She speaks to me, and even has a preference on soya milk.”

  Ma clapped her hands. “Oh, how wonderful. You must tell me everything, child.”

  Prema brought out a teapot and filled their cups, and leaving the pot in the center of the table, she strolled away. Maggie took a sip of the yogi tea, and then placed a hand on her abdomen as the baby stirred.

  “Well, apparently she likes this brand. We’ll have to order some for you,” Ma added.

  Maggie proceeded to share several stories with them, like the one about talking to herself in the health food store, and she had a rapt audience for the next hour. After a while, Ma closed her eyes and seemed to create her own bridge to Anna, or so it appeared. When Maggie finished her last story, Ma hi’ Ma opened her eyes and said that Anna had a distinguished spiritual heritage, having been both a Hindu Guru and a Tibetan Rinpoche in past lifetimes. But, while she may follow her mother’s religious tradition, she eventually wants to be free to choose her own path.

  Maggie started to tear up upon hearing so wisely expressed what she felt in her own heart, even as she wondered about its true source. She reached over and kissed Guru’s hand. “Thank you, Ma. That is what I wish for her as well.”

  Ma lifted her chin and stared into the young woman’s eyes. “You must trust that I want only what’s best for Anna, and to prove that, I will not force any further contact and will wait for you to get in touch with us, be it months or years, but our support will continue for as long as you may need it.”

  There was a small gathering that evening of devotees from the area with some coming from as far south as Santa Barbara, but Maggie was treated as just one of many with no special considerations. Apparently Ma hi’ Ma’s premonition about Anna was also a kept secret among the three of them, not even Prema or the other attendants seemed to know. At the conclusion of the evening’s festivities, everyone lined up and one by one Guru gave each of them her blessing, which included a laying on of hands and a transmission of Shakti. Maggie nearly fainted as her unborn child seemed to draw in huge amounts of the precious energy. When she opened her eyes, Ma smiled sweetly and knowingly at her. Prema volunteered to drive Maggie back to her apartment, and while the conversation was general, she sensed that Prema was curious as to Guru’s unexpected visit here and Maggie’s equally surprising personal summons. But nothing was made of it.

  When she had started back at school in late August, Maggie found herself less bothered by the hustle and bustle that attended the startup of each school year, but when her early maternity leave turned into a permanent vacation, she was somewhat relieved to be free of teaching for now. This may have accounted for Maggie’s lack of protest over her unjust dismissal, or how it had been contrived. She had come to feel that the events of her life were being orchestrated at some higher level, and she just needed to go with the flow. Her friend Leo, a musician and fellow yogi, had volunteered to be a surrogate father at Lamaze classes if she were so interested, but Maggie didn’t want to gather with other pregnant women, especially those with partners, and hear their customary complaints. Since Maggie had no grievances and Dr. Martin said hers was a most uncomplicated pregnancy, she preferred to keep to herself.

  When Maggie had not come home for a visit and her pregnancy was progressing and preventing travel, her parents decided to take the initiative and drove up to San Luis Obispo in mid-October. Her father was able to take a four-day weekend: his Fridays were usually free and he would have graduate students teach his Monday classes, and so they arrived midmorning, checked into their hotel, and drove by and picked up Maggie for brunch. She had had two days’ notice, but given that this was the first few weeks of her sick leave, she had not had the time or inclination to thoroughly clean her apartment. Grace took immediate notice of the clutter, but said nothing given her daughter’s condition.

  At a local bistro with outdoor seating under a canopy of cottonwood trees, they ordered and her parents were surprised that Maggie was having a salad given the vast array of omelets and egg dishes on the menu. Her mother said something about it.

  “I’ve gone vegan for the pregnancy,” she replied.

  “Aren’t you concerned you won’t get enough protein?” Grace asked.

  “I eat lots of soya products and vegetable protein, and Dr. Martin says my blood protein levels are… adequate.”

  “Only adequate,” her father protested. “Won’t that stunt your child’s brain development?”

  “Not really, Dad. I trust my baby has inherited enough smart genes to handily compensate.”

  Mark laughed. “Flattery will get you… only a brief reprieve, my dear. Nothing more.”

  While they waited for their meal to be served, Grace brought up the subject that had been bothering her and that Maggie had circumvented during their recent phone conversations.

  “So Maggie, you’ve never told us who the father is?”

  Maggie hesitated, knowing this subject would be contentious, and she didn’t want to quarrel with her mother about it right now. “He is a Kundalini Yoga teacher I had a brief one-night fling with. He had already left for India when I discovered I was pregnant,” she added and lied, and could actually feel a physical reaction to lying. Was it Anna monitoring her, or her own increased sensitivity, she wondered.

  “Well, if I’m not mistaken, there is postal service in I
ndia, and if he has a cell phone like most in your generation, you could just call him.”

  They were interrupted by their meal being served, and with the attendant fill-up of coffee cups and a new hot water pot for her yogi tea, the subject was momentarily dropped, but not forgotten. After they had started eating, her father directed the conversation to how Maggie planned to spent her maternity leave and make use of the opportunity. She couldn’t help but smile; her father was always the supreme utilitarian.

  “Well, Dad. I won’t be taking night or correspondence classes, if that’s what you’re getting at. I plan to paint, listen to music, do yoga and meditate to create a sacred space for my baby’s development.”

  Her father sighed and lowered his head, concentrating on his steak and eggs, which were rather good and with plenty of animal protein.

  As they finished their meal and after her husband had surrendered the conversational field, Grace once again pressed the issue. “Really, Maggie. You can barely support yourself on your teacher’s salary. Raising a child by yourself without spousal support is… rather irresponsible.”

  Maggie didn’t want to discuss her guru’s stipend with them, since it would lead into an area, her premonition of Anna’s sanctity, that she didn’t want to share at this time. Let the child’s presence be the test of that claim. Maggie just looked back at her mother with a sweet smile, and after a few moments it became clear a reply wouldn’t be forthcoming.

  Before Grace could press the issue further and spoil a rather pleasant outing, her father added, “Well, put his name down as the father on the birth certificate, so if you change your mind later, you’ll at least have legal recourse.”

  Maggie turned to her father. “Yes, that would be smart.”

  While this wasn’t an agreement to follow through on the suggestion, it was the best he could expect. “What say we head down to Pismo Beach, get a cabana, and let you get some sun?”

  “Yes,” Grace chimed in. “You do look rather pale.”

  “Sounds good to me. I don’t have a bathing suit that’ll fit, but I can put on shorts and a halter top.”

  Her father stood, tossed a fifty-dollar bill on the table, and said, “Then it’s settled.”

  Maggie decided to have a home birth with a midwife. She had attended the hospital births of friends’ babies, and the cold sterile atmosphere of the delivery room would not be in harmony with her baby’s energy, or hers for that matter. She contacted the ashram, and their outreach clinic recommended a local devotee, Megan Fairchild—a most auspicious name for a midwife, Maggie thought. Dr. Martin wasn’t entirely pleased with her decision, but said if any pregnancy lent itself to a home birth, it was hers. Maggie also sensed that this was her child’s preference as well, not that she would tell anybody about this consideration. Her parents, especially her father, were rather alarmed by this decision, given all the complications that could ensue, but Maggie promised to keep her mother posted and she would come up a week early and stay with her during the home birth.

  Maggie was unable to keep this promise. One night in late November, nearly two weeks before her due date, Maggie had a dream in which a damn broke and a frolicking infant rode down the river in a life raft waving her hands. In the morning she called Megan and told her to be prepared. Shortly afterward, she felt the fetus drop into her pelvis and rotate to come out of the birth canal head first. Megan arrived as the first contractions began. The birth alert had gone out, and several local devotees hurried over and unbeknownst to Maggie, Gary Pritchard was called and he notified Ma hi’ Ma.

  Hours later, in what was claimed by Megan to be her most uncomplicated and easiest delivery ever, Anna Jane Langford was born in San Luis Obispo surrounded by lighted candles and Hindu chanting without a cry but with a monumental smile on her face. Mother and child were pronounced healthy, and Anna was cleaned up and wrapped in a baby blanket and placed in her mother’s arms as Maggie sat up in bed. The baby girl continued to look up at her mother and to the delight of those assembled, as legend would have it, with an upward tilt of her head gazing at others of a less corporal nature, or so they assumed. Grace Langford flew up that afternoon from Santa Barbara, and her presence scattered the midwife and the few remaining devotees who lingered on, especially after she blew out all the candles “to get some oxygen in the room.” Maggie was peaceful and accepting of the role her mother needed to play, but one look into her baby girl’s eyes seemed to calm Grace, and she ended up holding her granddaughter and rocking both of them to sleep shortly afterward.

  Chapter 3

  Anna was a normal infant, or at least by outward appearances. The child had a sweet disposition and hardly ever cried to alert her mother of dirty diapers or the need to be fed. Baby books had trained Maggie to listen for these cues, but when they weren’t forthcoming, and after a few embarrassing dirty-diaper comments from others, she became more vigilant and proactive. It also became obvious that Anna did not like either the noise or the energy frequency of television and would practically shiver when it was playing. Maggie permanently unplugged the TV’s electric cord. While she did not view many programs, she switched to reading newspaper articles on the Internet from Google News and watched streamed programming on her laptop. Soon, however, even that need faded and the atmosphere in the house became very tranquil and almost sanctified. The ashram’s female devotees in the area often came by to bring food or hand-knitted baby apparel, or just to be in the space and “soak up the vibe,” as one of them articulated. Gary Pritchard called and stopped by to see the baby a week later. He asked to take a photo for Ma hi’ Ma, but Anna balled up her little fists and pouted at this intrusion, and so he desisted but stayed on and rocked her to sleep, totally enchanted by Anna’s “sweetness,” which many had noted and which became an unofficial baby nickname.

  As Anna’s first Christmas approached, her parents were insistent that Maggie either drive down with her baby, or they were driving up and would take them out for dinner at a local restaurant. Maggie didn’t want to spend Christmas with anybody, other than inviting a few friends over, but she had always been a dutiful daughter and felt conflicted by her reluctance to celebrate the holidays with her family. There seemed to be only one solution, and so she called Gary Pritchard and asked if he would like to drive them to the ashram for Christmas. He was delighted and readily agreed, and Ma hi’ Ma took this as an overture and called to extend her welcome. Maggie asked her if she would send an invitation that she could later share with her family as the reason for her absence from their holiday festivities. Ma hi’ Ma, who grew up in a large Irish family, said she understood her evasion perfectly well and they had a good laugh over their little conspiracy. Her mother was offended, but her father understood the “primacy of a religious imperative,” although this was, as with most of his cultural opinions, mainly an intellectual appraisal. He also secretly wanted Jill and her family to visit, which would not happen if Maggie was present. They spoke about them coming up after the first of the year, when her father promised to look into her teacher’s suspension. Maggie agreed to the visit if not to the investigation.

  While this was a Hindu ashram, its guru was a Westerner and raised Christian, and so both Christmas and Easter were celebrated there as a nonsectarian show of religious tolerance and a belief in the one Spirit that all worshipped in their own way. Ma hi’ Ma had agreed not to speak of her premonition about Anna, and that Maggie and her child would be treated in no special way, outside of a private audience with her. It became obvious, however, that Anna was indeed special, and devotees who had spent years “soaking up” the spiritual emanations of their guru knew the energy when they were exposed to it. At first this took the form of holding the one-month-old child and passing her around, to Ma holding Anna during the “procession,” when devotees would kneel before her and receive Guru’s Christmas blessing. Many claimed this offering was particularly potent that year. As with any changes or a disturbance in her routine, Anna was amazingly tolerant and her equani
mity was noted as a sign of her spiritual status, which Guru finally acknowledged with Maggie’s reluctant agreement. They were told that Anna had been a Hindu Guru and Tibetan Rinpoche in a past life, and Guru left it at that.

  When several of the devotees reported Anna appearing to them in their dreams, Maggie grew concerned and considered these claims as a kind of psychic contagion where overly religious people in an isolated environment project their unconscious “affects” onto each other. In this case it was her infant child—a natural focus given the Christmas season with its depictions of the manger and baby Jesus. During her pregnancy and after Anna’s birth, Maggie had restrained herself and tried not to project a mother’s natural expectation of high promise on her child, especially given all the signs of Anna’s sanctity. She had personally dealt with her parents’ hopes and wishes growing up that she follow an academic career path, despite her mother’s own artistic leanings, and with their disappointment when she chose another course of study. So, Maggie decided to cut short her visit. When news of her decision came to Guru’s attention, she was summoned for a private audience. She brought Anna with her, since she felt uncomfortable leaving her with any of the devotees given the heightened atmosphere the child’s effusive energy had generated.

  It was fairly cold even for Northern California, and Maggie and Anna were dressed in warm winter clothing, which they kept on when visiting Ma hi’ Ma in her temple room. While the old mansion was heated, and there was a fire burning in the rather large and ancient stone fireplace, the atmosphere in the room was still rather chilly.