by John Nelson
“Maggie,” her guru started off, with frown lines prominent as well as pouty lips. “Anna is not strictly ‘yours’ in the traditional sense of mother and child, as Jesus was not Mary’s. You must step back and allow the natural outpouring of her inner energy, and if that appears as dreams to others, you must accept that and even be grateful for the sign.”
“And if this is just an example of the psychic contagion that happens at most ashrams, which you yourself have commented on in the past, I’m just supposed to allow this unhealthy fixation?”
Guru’s frown deepened. “You should let me be the judge of that.”
Maggie tried to contain herself, and she let her emotional reaction settle so as not to lash out unconsciously. “In most matters spiritual, Ma, I would be willing to abide by your judgment. And while I may be overprotective, I feel that my instincts in regard to Anna for now take precedence.”
Guru actually smiled and did not take offense, or seemingly so. “Yes, every mother feels that way. I’ve always loved the story from Yogananda’s The Autobiography of a Yogi when Sri Yukteswar’s eighty-year-old mother asks him if he’s still hanging out with those yogis.” Maggie recalled that episode in Yogananda’s book, one of her favorites, and was reassured.
“But, I would expect more from you, Maggie,” said Guru, a smile lingering on her lips. “Let me ask you, has Anna appeared to you in your dreams?”
“No, not that I recall,” Maggie reluctantly added, knowing where this line of questioning was headed. Guru did not comment on the obvious. “And so you think I’m jealous?” Again, no reply. “And has she appeared in yours?”
Guru narrowed her eyes, but did not overreact to that lack of proof. “No, but then the real question is, have I appeared in Anna’s dreams?”
Maggie hesitated. Was this a trick question? “I guess we won’t know until she can speak.”
“Well, establish a telepathic link with Anna and ask her?”
This was galling for Maggie since she could hear Anna in her mind, but so far had been unable to establish an inner dialogue exchange with her daughter and ask questions. She figured this would come in time and that her exposure to the child’s elevated energy would open such a channel.
“I’d rather just drop this inquiry,” Maggie insisted.
“Just more religious hysteria?” Guru replied rather unkindly.
Maggie stood and bundled up her child. “I have always been a devoted disciple of yours and will continue to be, but I can see that there is a tug-of-war of wills going on over my child, and that I will not tolerate it. So, for now, I ask that you withdraw your financial support, and Anna and I will allow the greater universe to bring us what we need without undue obligations.”
Ma hi’ Ma winced, feeling somewhat contrite, but resolved nevertheless. “If you wish, but you will discover, I’m afraid, that the protection of this compound may be Anna’s only refuge from a world hostile to those with a true spiritual spark.” When Maggie didn’t react, Guru added, “And their protectors.”
“We’ll see,” Maggie said dismissively.
“I’m sure Gary would be glad to drive you back home tomorrow.”
“If he or somebody else could just take me to the airport today, that would be more to my liking.”
“As you wish, child.” Guru clapped her hands and closed her eyes, indicating that this audience was over. Maggie walked out of the temple and hurried back to her lodging, calling Gary on her cell phone. He was more than glad to drive them back today, but Maggie asked if he could just take her to the Sacramento Airport, since the drive time there was shorter than to the Bay Area’s large airports with the city’s congested Christmas traffic.
Gary tried to dissuade her from flying back, and when he couldn’t, he called his assistant and had her pull strings to book Maggie on the next available flight, and had it charged to him. Maggie protested, but he sounded so crushed that she gave in to this sweet man, innocently caught in a battle of wills between these two hardheaded women. The antiseptic air, noise, and dissonant energy of this international airport was not to Anna’s liking, but once they were airborne she calmed down and seemed to enjoy the movement of the commuter jet, even the occasional jarring from air turbulence. It was a quick thirty-minute flight, and despite the unwanted attention of the woman seated next to them—an odd-looking Filipino with boundary issues—they had escaped the perceived peril of the ashram and would soon be delivered to the sanctity of their home. Anna finally fell asleep on the taxi ride from the airport, but it had been an eventful three days, one Maggie hoped not to repeat on future holiday outings.
That night, after breastfeeding Anna and putting her in the baby crib, Maggie poured herself a glass of sparkling apple cider, her alcohol substitute, and settled into her comfy chair in the living room to review the events of the last few days. She didn’t like to dwell on the past, but she had made a precipitous decision that had brought more confusion instead of less into this holiday season, and she wanted to know why. Why, in fact, had she not wanted to go home was the first question? She let this inquiry settle, and the answer was not surprising: she didn’t want Anna exposed to the generational dysfunction of Christmas and its typical American celebration in a family setting. Her parents were more conscious than most, but as a spiritual commentator had once said, “If you think you’re enlightened, go home for Christmas.” The holiday season did seem to bring up old wounds, and Anna was very sensitive to her surroundings. But then Maggie ran in the opposite direction, to the ashram where she expected a more tranquil setting and less unconscious projection. Instead she was confronted with more of both, if of a different variety. Maggie had tried to shield Anna from the outside world’s intrusion but had failed miserably, and then she wondered if maybe her daughter did not need her overt protection, and this was more about her needs than Anna’s. Maybe she should just let go and “let God” as it were? Was it that simple, she asked herself?
Maggie set down the wineglass, pulled the knitted comforter over her, lay back and instantly fell asleep. It was a restful sleep, and she dreamed of Anna as a precocious four-year-old, with her curly light brown locks and a button nose, but with eyes that saw everything. She reached over and took her mother’s hand and brought her to the playground at the nearby park. There she jumped onto the merry-go-round and pulled her mother onto it, and it began to spin around faster and faster. Maggie was holding on for dear life, while Anna grabbed a bar with both hands and let her legs get extended out as it whirled faster and faster, and then she let go and flew through the air landing upright on her feet. Her mother was terrified that she would hurt herself, but as the merry-go-round slowed down and she jumped off, her daughter came over, took her hand and led her away, as if the parental roles were reversed. Maggie woke up and smiled. She got the message, but would she follow through with it?
Chapter 4
Maggie’s teachers’ union had been outraged by her dismissal, but she refused to take legal action against the school system, who claimed she breeched her contract’s moral clause. While the union did find substitute teacher assignments for her with local private schools, Maggie wouldn’t put Anna in daycare or hire a babysitter so she could work outside the house. One of the teachers, a devotee of Ma hi’ Ma, would drop off home assignments, and so Maggie was able to bring in a little income while living off her dwindling savings from her guru’s earlier stipend. She didn’t apply for unemployment because of its job-search requirement. Her parents were concerned and asked that she move home with them, since they still had an unused bedroom after the girls had left for college years ago. Jill’s room had been converted into a studio for Grace. Maggie said she would be just fine and that something would turn up.
She had always wanted to write a book, and given her free time Maggie penned a children’s story showing how art can connect people to themselves and others. It had a subtle spiritual undertone, but she was careful to keep it secular and universal. She self-published a version on her
home computer with rather elaborate illustrations and printed out color copies. The arts-and-craft teacher, who provided Maggie with freelance work, loved the book and passed it out to select students, one of whom had a father with publishing connections. The book found its way to a San Francisco publisher of children’s books, Millburn Press, who offered Maggie a contract on the book, which they would republish with a few changes, and an advance with a request for a follow-up book. Maggie was delighted and thanked her spiritual guides for providing this opportunity.
For Anna’s first six months, Maggie’s days were otherwise spent raising her daughter. For a usually very active and creative woman, she did not find the demands of motherhood tiring or trying. In fact, this caregiving focus was as much a caring for her own feminine nature as it was for her daughter’s welfare, with the added benefit that Anna’s powerful spiritual energies deepened her inner life and her connection to the greater whole. Her daily tasks had become a kind of active meditation. There were carriage strolls to a nearby park, where Anna loved to watch the children playing on the swingsets and the slides. When Maggie acquired a baby sling, she could swing with her, but what Anna loved even more were strolls along the beach or sitting on a bench at the Pismo Beach Pier and looking out at the ocean on a warm day. Maggie knew that waves hitting the shore created large amounts of negative ions, or prana in Eastern lore, and Anna just naturally responded to this outpouring of energy. She loved the sun and being outdoors, but Maggie had to limit her exposure time. While Anna would have liked to stay out all day, or so it appeared to her, the child never pouted when it was time to go inside. She just accepted what happened and seemed pleased with the beingness of life or the “isness” of the moment as some would phrase it.
After her book’s acceptance, Maggie was asked to come to San Francisco, or actually Mountain View south of the city proper, to talk with the book’s editor and publisher, Jean Millburn. She was a bit apprehensive about this first foray into publishing and the exposure it would bring them. Maggie had never been what you would call a “public person,” and she knew, if the book were successful, that she would have to step out into the world and speak up for herself. But, she had a child to support, and she would push herself to make the most of this opportunity. Maggie packed the car, strapped Anna into her infant car seat, and drove up the coast to the Bay Area.
Anna loved the ocean breeze coming through the window, but eventually she fell asleep and didn’t wake up until they were just outside of Big Sur. Maggie pulled into a seaside park and breastfed her daughter with the sound of waves pounding against the high cliffs in the background. Afterward Maggie carried Anna over to the railing overlooking the ocean, and she appeared delighted with the ocean spray that dampened their faces and no doubt filled their lungs with negative ions. As they resumed their trek up the coast, Maggie glanced at her daughter in the rearview mirror and noticed that her eyes were closed and she was shaking or shivering. She immediately powered up all the cracked windows and turned the heat on, but Anna continued to shake with her eyelids twitching. Apparently she wasn’t cold, and so Maggie became concerned that her daughter may have a nervous disorder and decided to have her checked out by her pediatrician upon their return.
They arrived at the publisher in late afternoon. It was a small second-story office above an art gallery but well appointed with a half-dozen young people engaged in various activities. Jean Millburn stepped out to the reception area and took Maggie back to her office. She was of medium height, well-proportioned, with wavy dirty-blond hair, and a wonderful smile. The hallway wall displayed a row of book covers in frames, two of which were award-winners, but Jean didn’t gloat over them. Maggie was ushered into a small, sun-lit office and sat across from Jean at her desk with Anna sitting upright in her infant car seat in a chair next to her.
They talked about the book’s publication; Maggie was shown page layouts, which she liked, but was concerned about the reproduction quality of the artwork.
“These are just mockups,” Jean told her. “You’ve seen our books; they’re of the highest color-printing quality.”
“Yes, of course. I should’ve known better.”
“The main challenge at this stage is the title: Rainbow Magic. There is a whole series of Rainbow Magic books, and so we need to come up with something original.”
“Darn. Rainbow arcs are how Lisa sees the children connecting through their artwork.”
“Yes, but it’s about ‘connecting,’ however it is interpreted.”
They sat and thought about an alternative title while Anna kept looking back and forth between them, as if she could see the rainbows of energy connecting all three of them. Suddenly, Maggie had a thought. “How about Life Lines.”
Jean smiled. “Yes, that’s great. Let me see.” She searched Amazon under children’s books. “No, nothing with that title.” She thought a moment. “How about Lisa’s Lifelines?”
Lisa was the main character who could see the invisible connections between herself and others, which appeared as thin colored strings, or rainbows. “Can we still use the rainbow strings?”
“Yes, but see if you can’t weave this ‘lifeline’ theme into the text.”
Maggie nodded her head. “Yes, I can do that.”
Jean called Barry Howell, her art director, into the office. He was in his late twenties with straight blond hair and the loose limbs of a surfer. She introduced him to Maggie and told him the suggested new title. He liked it and said he could come up with some mocked-up covers tomorrow. They then settled into an editorial meeting as Jean told her about changes she would like in regards to both story and character development. Maggie agreed with most of them and made a good case for those she didn’t particularly like. She also didn’t want to homogenize the spiritual import of the theme, and her publisher finally agreed to that. It was five o’clock, and Jean said she was taking them to dinner, and as they had arranged earlier, Maggie and Anna would spent the night with her. “I hope you like Chinese, because Cupertino, where I actually live, has some really good restaurants with its Asian population.” Maggie nodded her head as she gathered up Anna. “Or, you could leave your car here, and we could drive into San Francisco?”
Maggie stood up with Anna in her arms. “It was a long trip, and we’re pretty tired. A Chinese restaurant near your home sounds just great.”
“Okay. Would you like Barry to join us?”
Maggie smiled. Why did everybody want to fix her up with colleagues or friends? “I’d rather something quieter with just the three of us.”
Jean did a double-take. “Oh, you mean Anna as the third.”
“Yes, you’ll find she has a rather strong presence.”
Dinner was delightful, and Maggie learned that Jean had graduated from UC Berkeley where she got her master’s in English and then went through Boston College’s publishing program before securing an assistant editor’s job in New York. She was fortunate enough to have started in 2002, a few years before the 2008-2009 economic crash that decimated publishing and its personnel. At that point Jean moved back to the Bay Area and worked for several small publishers, before opening her own shop.
While she was telling her story, Jean occasionally glanced at Anna in her car seat; she was staring at them as if she were following the conversation. This became unnerving after a while. “Maggie, your baby seems unusually captivated by a conversation she can’t possibly be following.”
Maggie laughed. “Of course not, but she seems pretty attuned to people’s energy and its expression, as if she can see their auras or something.”
Jean was amused by this statement. “Maybe this is where you got the rainbow idea for your book… watching her with others.”
Maggie stuck her finger out and Anna grabbed hold of it. “So, Anna, if that’s so, you can start to think about mommy’s next book.”
She smiled and gurgled and acted in a typical baby manner. Maggie had noticed this “baby routine” on occasion, especially when she ha
d detected an unusual level of interest in Anna’s reaction to the goings-on around her. She tried not to project too much onto the situation, but it was intriguing. Maggie just assumed that Anna had a strong spirit-body connection, which could sometimes come through more clearly than it did with older children and adults locked into their mindsets, and that directed her actions.
After dinner Maggie followed Jean to her house, a lovely two-story adobe-style home on a tree-lined street, and they chatted for a while before retiring early. Jean said they’d leave in the morning around 8:00 a.m., so it was best to meet up for breakfast around 7:15 or so.
Maggie and Anna, dressed for their drive home, made their breakfast appointment but Jean was late. After a while Maggie went out to the front porch with Anna and they sat on the divan; Maggie breastfed her baby while sipping a cup of tea and just being in the moment. Fifteen minutes later Jean trudged down the stairs, fixed a cup of instant coffee from the still-warm kettle, and joined them on the porch.
“My apologies. I slept right through the alarm. Don’t ever remember doing that.”
“Apparently you needed the sleep.”
Jean nodded her head. “I had the most peculiar dream. There was a book launch party at a high-end restaurant, and my assistant, who I expected to bring out copies of our new book, wheeled out a bassinette with a newborn baby instead.”
Maggie had to laugh. “Have you been thinking of having a baby?”
“No. I’m definitely a career woman.” She set down her cup and put out her arms, and Maggie handed Anna to her. She sat down on the divan with this bundle of joy. “But, if they are all as calm and self-possessed as little Anna here, I might reconsider.”
Maggie was tempted to share with Jean her guru’s belief about Anna’s spiritual lineage, but she had promised herself to keep this a secret between the two of them, or at least among the small community of Ma hi’ Ma’s select devotees. She figured that the time would come for full disclosure as Anna grew older, and Maggie wrote more books for this publisher.