by John Nelson
“Anna, this nice lady is Beverly Foster, and she wanted to say hello to you.”
Beverly stepped over and squatted down on her haunches. “Anna, you are quite the artist.”
Anna smiled winningly. “I like to draw.”
“I can see that. What else do you like to do?”
“I like to pray, go to the park and beach.”
“What about playing with other children? Do you like to do that?”
“Sometimes, but they slow.”
“Maybe you should give them more of a chance,” Foster added.
Anna smiled winningly. “Maybe.”
She stood up. “It was certainly nice to meet you, Anna.”
“I like you too,” Anna said, and went back to drawing her angel picture.
Maggie and Beverly went back to the living room where the woman picked up her purse. “Well, she seems well-adjusted, if introverted, and fairly advanced for her age. I would suggest more contact with other children, but otherwise I see no problem here and that’s what my report will say. Thank you for allowing me to visit with both of you.”
It was only after she left the apartment and was driving to her next appointment that it struck Beverly that in the bedroom the little girl had not verbally instructed her dog to sit down. How did he know to do that? Also, this was the first time she ever heard a child her age say she liked to pray. Beverly filed a report clearing the issue, but later she decided to add a personal note to herself to do a follow-up visit in a year’s time. She would also check to see if they were receiving child support from the father, since Margret Langford’s file listed her as a single mother. This note was somehow misplaced and she didn’t do a follow-up visit as planned.
After her mother and the woman with the dark cloud around her left, Anna put down her colored pencil, went over to her meditation pillow and sat. She could sense the woman’s concern and her mother’s own fearful reaction to her and to the threat she presented. This confused her. Anna operated at such a high level of trust with her spirit guides, the Divine, and even with Bodhi and her mother that this fear, or so she had heard her mother describe it, was strange to her. Did these adults not know that everything happens in the divinely orchestrated play between all levels of existence, or so she sensed? She would not yet articulate it in these terms, but her spirit informed her of this in its own nonverbal way. But, she was slowly coming to realize or sense that it was this mental language expression in itself that was the root of the problem for them.
The more she spoke and used language and listened to adult speech patterns, she could sense or feel something developing inside of her, a kind of social or mental self that grew with her use of language. She had asked Joseph, and he said it was normal but not to confuse her real self with it, like everyone here eventually does. She asked, why allow it? He told her that it was the basis for humanity’s communal interchange and one’s ability to communicate with others. He also reminded her that the divine included everything and she was, as the saying goes, a spiritual being having a human experience. Anna liked this concept, and it made her feel more at ease about allowing her talky self, as she liked to refer to it, a freer reign. She now could sense her mother’s bad feelings, and she stood up and walked out to the living room.
“Time for walk,” she said as a statement and not a question.
Maggie turned to her daughter and stared at her for a moment. “Yes, dear. Let’s do a beach walk.
Anna’s eyes lit up. “Goody, mama.” Anna looked at Bodhi and he barked and ran to the door.
Maggie bundled Anna up in her winter coat and gloves, grabbed her own coat and the dog’s leash, and they walked out the door. They drove down to Pismo Beach. On the way there, Anna asked, “Why you ‘fraid of woman?”
“Not afraid, just cautious,” Maggie replied, glancing into the rearview mirror at her daughter in her front-forward car seat.
“She want to harm me?”
“No, dear. Nobody wants to harm you, but some people don’t understand how Spirit works and want to help out in their own muddled way.”
“Sometimes, you don’t, Mommy.”
“I need to trust more?” Maggie asked.
“Yes,” Anna said, and then switched the subject. “We get mustard… thing?”
“Pretzels,” Maggie clarified, smiling at her daughter.
“Everything good. You see.”
It was low tide, and the walk along the shore did wonders for Maggie’s mood, and afterward they headed back to the boardwalk and its concession stands. She bought each of them, including Bodhi, a pretzel—his without mustard—and hot chocolate for her and Anna.
The two of them sat at a booth inside the restaurant and looked out at the ocean. After they became mesmerized by this churning wave action for a while, Anna turned to her mother. “We live on ocean sometime…”
“It is very expensive here,” Maggie added.
Anna shook her head. “Wish and trust, Mommy. Everything yours.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, dear.”
On the way out, she picked up The Tribune newspaper, and saw the front page article on the arrival in town of a bestselling author, who was giving a lecture and signing books at Barnes and Noble on Wednesday. Driving back to their apartment, Maggie started to think about writing a third children’s book. She had a tendency of being satisfied that all their needs were being met, but didn’t give any thought to the future or how more income could make their life easier. She wondered if Anna had set the stage for this endeavor with her wanting to live closer to the ocean. Well, she thought, Santa Barbara would make that a reality, but did she want to live that close to her parents?
Chapter 13
After the visit from Child Services, Maggie was tempted to take James Edwards’s advice and eventually have Anna initiated as a Hindu guru. She made further inquiries of Ma hi’ Ma at the next Maha Shivaratri festival the following March. Now that Anna was older she could more easily handle the “heightened atmosphere” at the ashram. Her guru was open to the idea, but insisted that she and Anna move to the ashram for a year in order for her to instruct the child further. While Maggie and her daughter sat on pillows in the temple room and she discussed this matter with Guru, Anna shook her head at one point.
“You object, child?” Ma asked.
“Not want to be guru, or live here.”
“And why is that?” Ma inquired further. Maggie was about to intercede, but Guru raised a hand to quiet her.
“Joseph says better I be out in world now.”
“Joseph?” Ma asked, looking questioningly at Maggie.
“A spirit guide, he says. You want to meet?” Anna asked.
Ma smiled indulgently. “Yes. Very much so.”
Anna made a swirling upward motion with her right hand, and the three of them, or their spirit bodies, were suddenly transported to the spring where Joseph sat on a bench with Anna. Maggie and Ma sat across from them.
Joseph wore a white suit of sorts, his gray hair lustrous in the preternatural light.
“How interesting,” Ma said, somewhat in shock, looking at Maggie who just smiled.
“Ma, nice of you to join us. We are appreciative of your spiritual oversight of young Anna.”
“We?” Ma asked timidly, somewhat in awe of the man.
Joseph smiled. “Anna’s spiritual guides.”
“Who would prefer that she remain outside of any one tradition?”
“Yes, we have decided in consort with her Spirit that she not be initiated as suggested, or at least for now. There may come a time when it’s… necessary.” This caught Maggie’s attention. What did he mean by that, she wondered.
Before she could inquire further, Joseph addressed Ma’s apparent confusion. “This does not preclude her further instruction in Hinduism and your own guidance of her in that faith.”
“I see. And the issue of her religious expression?”
“We will protect her from those, unlike yourself, who would exp
loit or stifle her.”
“I understand and will concur.”
Anna smiled at Joseph. “I tell you she very good guru.”
Joseph just smiled back, twirled his hand, as the scene dissolved and the three of them were again in the ashram’s temple room.
Ma was still a little unnerved by this intercession, as it were. She turned to Maggie. “This has happened before?”
“Yes, Ma. There was a question about Anna’s healings, and Joseph clarified the issue for us.”
Ma finally chuckled to herself. “Well, how can one disagree with the child’s own spirit guide?” She turned and looked at Anna. “So be it, or for now. But, as Joseph kindly emphasized, your own religious instruction will follow soon.”
“Yes, Ma,” Anna said and bowed her head. Reassured of her place in the child’s celestial pecking order, Ma dismissed Anna and her mother and slipped into a meditative state to further align her will with God’s and that of her emissaries.
Ma gave Maggie several Hindu children’s books of myths and stories to take back with her and to use as Anna’s initial reading material. This, however, created a problem—not the material per se, but the child’s resistance to reading.
While Anna was a little young to begin reading, Maggie was acquiring a broader elementary school teaching degree, if through correspondence and Internet courses, and was qualified to teach reading, but her daughter resisted.
“Me not want to learn read yet,” she insisted after her mother’s initial instruction.
“It will open new worlds to you, dear,” her mother insisted.
“And close others,” Anna insisted. The child crossed her legs and went into a meditative trance state, and she would not discipline her further at this time. Maggie left Anna to her own devices and went back to her bedroom and lay down. She found that any conflict with her daughter was very tiring, and the best recourse was to take a nap. Maggie fell asleep almost instantly and found herself back in the park with Joseph, but just with just the two of them this time.
“I’ve been meaning to consult with you about this,” Joseph said sheepishly, as if he had been neglectful of his duties.
“About Anna learning to read early?”
“Yes. It’s a delicate balance. She must further shore up, I believe the term is, her connection to her Self, or what you would call her Higher Self, before reading and mental activity develops the ego self, as you would say, much further.”
“I see. Thank you for that clarification.”
“As always we are… appreciative of your guidance of her as well.”
Maggie woke from the nap to find Anna lying beside her. She rolled over and looked at her daughter. “You went without me,” she said almost accusingly.
“Didn’t mean to, dear. But Joseph summoned me.”
Anna nodded her head and smiled. “Hurt, I was,” she said with a self-depreciating smile. “You have your own spirit life, need to… allow.”
Bodhi walked into the room as if on cue. “Time for walk,” Maggie said to him, and he barked. Anna looked at her mother. “Bodhi need bath soon.”
“We’ll take him to All Paws Saturday.”
“Me want to wash him,” Anna said in a pout.
“I’m sure they’ll let you, dear.”
They got ready to head out. It was early April and the weather had turned warm, and all they needed were light coats. At the park, as Bodhi ran free and stretched his legs, Maggie and Anna found Martin’s mother sitting on a park bench crying. She stepped over and sat down next to her and learned that her son Martin was in the hospital dying.
Anna immediately added, “We go see him.”
Dorothy looked at Anna and smiled. “He would like that. Visiting hours start at seven, but he’s in intensive care and I’m not sure how close you can get to him.”
On the drive to the Sierra Vista hospital that night, Maggie asked her daughter, “Did you check with his Spirit?”
“Yes, Mama. He ready be healed. Had enough pain, he tell me.”
“Okay, but let’s do this in stages. Tonight and then in another day or so, but not too fast or too obvious.”
“Not control. I send energy. It does what it does.”
Maggie was a little alarmed that her daughter’s visit would be connected to the boy’s recovery, but she also realized that a boy’s life was at stake and that she needed to trust Anna’s guides to protect her from any unwanted scrutiny.
Apparently Anna’s spirit had already initiated her healing work starting at the park, because by the time they arrived at the hospital that night, Martin had recovered to the point that he could see visitors. Anna held his hand the whole time, and while Maggie looked for any sudden changes, nothing obvious transpired. Dorothy thanked them for coming, and was a little amazed herself by her son’s partial recovery, or his stepping back from the brink of death today.
The next night Maggie had asked if Anna wanted to return to the hospital, and she said that there was no need to. “Not like that place. Too much bad energy, but people nice. They try.”
“And Martin?”
“We see him at park in summer.”
As it happened and as the newspaper article recorded, Martin was miraculously healed of his Stage Four bone cancer. It was a gradual process over several months, and apparently there was no connecting link to Anna’s visit, or so Maggie thought. That summer, as Martin played with Anna and Bodhi in the park, his mother sat next to Maggie.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Oh, for the visit?” Maggie asked. “I wanted to go back, but Anna doesn’t like hospitals.”
“Me either, and not for the visit. I know what happened. I had asked the nurses, and they said Martin started to recover in the early afternoon, right after I told you and Anna about his condition, or so it seems.”
Maggie was about to call her suspicions a “coincidence,” but the woman shook her off. “I’ve heard the rumors about Anna, but won’t say anything.” Dorothy teared up. “Martin’s fourth birthday is next week, and my husband and I would like you to join us.”
Maggie gave the woman a questioning look. “No. He doesn’t suspect a thing. Anna is his only real friend. The illness has cut him off from other children.”
“We’d be glad to.”
“And Martin wants you to bring Bodhi. We have a big backyard.”
This episode more than anything else reassured Maggie that Anna’s preternatural state of being and its expression did not require her constant monitoring. It was somewhat of a relief, and she could focus more energy on herself. Celebrating Martin’s birthday with his family made it obvious to her that it was important that Anna spent some time with her father, and maybe with the three of them together, and so she wrote Thomas a letter hoping that he would agree to visit them. She had heard at the ashram that he was back from India on a teaching hiatus. She had to admit to herself that this inquiry was as much for her as it was for Anna. She was feeling the lack of a loving male connection in her life, and while she said her spiritual journey with Anna took precedence, its essence was love and she needed to open her heart to such a relationship. Maybe a brief loving exchange with Thomas would set the stage for something more lasting, but she sensed that like Anna her own journey was being orchestrated by her God Self and she just needed to “let go, and let God.”
Chapter 14
After accepting Maggie’s invitation, Thomas arrived in town six weeks later. He had arranged to teach several Kundalini Yoga classes in exchange for room and board at the Yoga Center. They had a room for visiting yogis and a kitchen used by the staff and students. Maggie allowed him to settle in, and the next day she and Anna picked Thomas up at the Center and took him to lunch at the nearby Bliss Café. They were able to walk there, and Anna held her father’s hand all the way. Before Maggie extended her invitation, she had talked with Anna figuring she didn’t remember Thomas from the book signing in Seattle. But, Anna said that she knew of him and often visited him in her drea
m state.
“He better yogi than our teacher.”
“Well, we’ll have to attend one of his classes.”
“You make another baby? I want brother.”
“Anna. Do not talk of this. We are only friends, but he is your father and you should get to know him.”
Anna picked out her favorite outfit, and at lunch she was on her best behavior. She apparently wanted to impress Thomas, but he was already totally taken with her.
“Do you remember dream where we walk on beach?”
Thomas gazed at her daughter. “No, Anna. But I’m sure I enjoyed it.”
“We have beach here. You take me for walk?”
“I’d love to, dear.”
The waitress came and they began to order, but Anna interrupted the process. “You need more pro… tein.”
Thomas laughed, and ordered extra tofu with his salad. While he wanted to talk with Maggie, Anna demanded his complete attention and they just allowed her to take center stage. Afterward they drove to Pismo Beach, and Maggie watched Thomas and Anna walk on the beach with Bodhi while she sat on the pier. She was happy that her daughter had established a good relationship with her father, but she was concerned that once he left town it would greatly affect her. When they came back from their walk, the three of them went inside the surfside restaurant and ordered hot chocolates. Bodhi sat on the deck.
Thomas turned to Maggie. “I was amazed to hear that Anna has been doing Hatha Yoga with you and your class.”
“Yes. She’s quite the yogi, but she says that you’re a better teacher than Vivian.”
“She told me that, and I tried to explain that different types of yoga require different approaches, and it may only seem that way.”
“We find out. Mama say we go to class.”
“There’s one tonight, and you’re definitely invited,” Thomas said. “Maybe afterward, I can drive over to your place and mommy and I can talk.”
“You mean after Miss Take-Up-All-Your-Time has gone to bed.”
Anna pretended to be mad and made a face, but couldn’t keep up the pretense and burst out laughing. She turned to Thomas. “Me watch in spirit.”