The Miracle of Anna

by John Nelson

  Maggie needed nearly three sessions and two months to clear and process her second chakra, but the other chakra clearings, especially the higher ones, were much easier since they had less emotional clutter. After the final clearing of the crown chakra, Maggie felt ready to initiate, if not a sexual relationship, an intimate coupling to arouse her kundalini energy. She was constantly dreaming of making love to Thomas, and kept looking at the men she came in contact with in a more carnal light. Maggie was beside herself. She couldn’t discuss this subject with her daughter, because as spiritually precocious as she was, Anna was still a child and her mother deemed such talk inappropriate. Finally, after a partially vigorous yoga workout at the Center, Maggie approached one of her fellow students, a twentysomething graphic designer named Paul Whistler. He had once asked her out, and she had demurred, but now she pulled Paul aside and asked if that date offer was still a possibility.

  “You bet. Want to take in a movie, or dinner and a movie?”

  “Dinner sounds wonderful.”

  “Great. How about I pick you up and we’re go to the Granada Bistro.”

  “Oh, in the historic district. I’ve heard it’s quite nice.” Paul eagerly nodded his head. “But, why don’t I meet you there, and I can follow you home afterward.”

  Paul was taken aback. “Oh, okay. Sounds like a plan. How about Friday, seven o’clock?”

  Maggie agreed, gave the rather overwhelmed man a big hug, and went back to the group to pick up her daughter.

  On the drive home, Anna said that her mother had a really big red aura tonight. Maggie didn’t pursue the comment any further. She called Megan, the midwife who had accompanied them on the first national book tour, and she was thrilled to babysit Anna on Friday and spend the night if needed.

  When Maggie broke the news of her date to Anna and that Megan would be coming over to babysit, her daughter paused for a moment and then said, “Joseph says to breathe deeply and focus on your heart chakra.”

  Maggie broke out laughing. Getting tantric sex advice from a spirit guide conduced through her six-year-old daughter was quite bizarre, but their whole situation was also rather wacky to say the least.

  “I’ll take that under consideration, dear.”

  Dinner was a marvelous affair. While Paul, who wasn’t a vegetarian, ate fish, Maggie had the chef put together a steamed vegetable plate with a Mediterranean flair. They both had a glass of wine, the first for Maggie in quite some time, but she felt she would need to be a little high to close this deal, as it were.

  After the waiter cleared their plates and neither wanted desert, it was time to test the waters. “Paul, I know this is rather forward of me, but it’s been a while and we do get on fairly well, so I was wondering…”

  Paul smiled but there was nothing lascivious about it. “I’ve bought some candles, and I’m all yours.”

  “Well, I’m hoping that you’ve had some… tantric experience, because I am interested in more than sex.”

  “I would hope so.” He paused, a twinkle in his eye. He paid the bill, and the two of them left. Paul had an apartment on California Boulevard, with an extra parking space for guests—helpful since the street parking was mostly taken. His apartment was furnished with a Spanish or New Mexican flair, with its ornate red and royal blue sofa and chair upholstery designs. There were also several Native America pictures on the wall. Paul offered to make tea, but Maggie said, “Show me the bedroom.”

  Their sexual coupling was easy and fluid as if they were practiced partners. Maggie insisted that she straddle Paul so she could better control the rhythm of their conjoining. She moved slowly and then quickly, but as soon as he became too excited, Maggie slowed her pace. Focusing on her heart chakra, she began to feel the kundalini energy start to reverse it channel and move up her spine. Maggie closed her eyes as a sudden burst of energy rose up to her head and filled it with sparkling white light, as she began to twitch and shutter under the impact of this awakened energy. This lasted for ten minutes while Paul watched her counter-orgasmic high in amazement. Finally, Maggie rolled off of him, and still flushed with the energy she told him to fulfill himself. He did and rather quickly, and they laid there wrapped in each other’s arms, Maggie’s eyes still twitching under the impact of the “kundalini flush,” as she had heard it called.

  Hours later, with Paul still asleep, Maggie rolled out of bed, dressed, left a note for him, and drove home. Megan and Anna were sound asleep in her bed, and so Maggie pulled a blanket out of the closet and slept on the sofa, but as soon as she was relaxed and her eyes were closed, the energy just pulsed through her for the remainder of the night.

  Chapter 22

  In the fall Maggie accepted two more students into her school, both of Indian descent, but their families had immigrated to the United States years earlier, and they were more Americanized than Gish, or Anna for that matter. Devi, who called herself Debby, was half-Indian with lighter skin but dark eyes and hair. Amir was darker and went by his given name, since as he told everybody, it meant rich and prosperous in Hindi. This was the first grade, and Maggie had prepared for more formal instruction by acquiring the appropriate books and a first-grade syllabus from a teacher at Hawthorne Elementary in town. The two new students, like Anna and Gish, had attended kindergarten and had some elementary reading skills, and they would work on improving their reading and comprehension. The syllabus identified one of the key components of this first year’s instruction: being able to discern the main idea of a story or picture and to differentiate between fact and fantasy. The first would be easy for Maggie to communicate and test, but given Anna’s spiritual orientation, the second might be harder, at least for her, to tell apart.

  However, the first challenge Maggie encountered was not instructional. When it was time for their afternoon naps that first day, Anna and Gish sat on their mats and meditated, while Debby and Amir looked on.

  “What are they doing?” Amir asked.

  “Meditating.”

  “What’s that,” Debby asked.

  “It’s like resting but not sleeping or thinking of anything.”

  “That’s stupid,” Amir said and lay down on his mat.

  Debby wasn’t so sure. “Can you show me?”

  Maggie smiled at her. “Yes, but not today. Just lay down and take a nap, and we’ll slowly show you how do that, if you still want to.”

  As the weeks progressed, instruction did not prove to be a problem for any of the children. They were all very bright and quickly understood and could recall the main and supporting facts and details of what they read, or as was more often the case, a story Maggie read to them. Eventually Debby, who was captivated by Anna’s quiet energy, asked for instruction and began to meditate with her and Gish, much to Amir’s displeasure. Then one day Amir awoke to find Anna swaying during her meditation moved by the energy flowing through her.

  Amir at least waited until she opened her eyes to question her. “Why were you doing that?”

  Maggie started to answer for her daughter, but Anna gave her mother one of her I’ll-take-care-of-it looks and turned to Amir. “When you quiet the mind, you become one with all the energy around you, and it moves me sometimes.”

  Amir considered this explanation for a moment. “So you get filled up with it, and can use it like Superman?”

  “Or, it can use you like Mighty Mouse,” Anna replied.

  Amir just nodded his head; he wasn’t ready to do this strange practice, but he knew that energy was equated with power, and he definitely wanted more of that. This was not a concept that Debby would have entertained; she just felt better being around Anna and whatever the social arrangement, she sat next to her soaking up the amazing energy.

  Winter came and the temperature dropped to the 40s during the day, but none of the children developed colds or came down with the flu bug when it got passed around the community, including Maggie. The children nor their parents thought anything of it. But, one day Amir was in the backyard during recess
and fell off the monkey bars and hit the ground hard, and he couldn’t move his arm when he was helped up. Maggie was afraid that he had broken it and was about to take him to the nearby medical clinic. Anna stepped over and touched his arm. Amir pulled away but Anna persisted, and pretty soon his arm was feeling better and they went on playing together. However, upon hearing this story, Amir’s mother took him to their doctor the next day. He x-rayed the arm and could detect a slight fracture of the bone, but it seemed to have quickly mended itself. He could not explain how.

  When asked by his doctor about the incident, Amir merely said that Anna touched it and it felt better and he could move it normally after that. His mother thought nothing of it, but the doctor became curious and made a note to himself. But, almost instinctively, the children turned to Anna when any of them scratched a knee, or didn’t feel well. Maggie started to notice this supplication, and she again became alarmed that Anna’s natural healing abilities would become known to the greater world.

  One night she asked her daughter if healing every scratch and bruise of her classmates was advantageous.

  “It is God that heals them, not me. You want me to say no to God?”

  Maggie laughed to herself. How could she answer such a reply? “Well, next time just ask God first, or their spirit, as Joseph has instructed you. Maybe God has another plan for them.”

  Anna nodded her head. “Yes, Mama.”

  Several weeks later, when Anna was sitting next to her on the sofa one night, while Maggie read to her from the Hindu Upanishads, Anna said, “Debby stubbed her toe today, and I asked, and it felt like it was better for her to deal with it.”

  Soon Amir was meditating with the other children during their nap break, and began to lose some of his hard edge and aggressive tendencies. His father noted that, and asked Amir about his instruction at school. He told him about reading and writing and reciting poetry, and meditating. His father took exception with that, and asked for a parent/teacher meeting with Maggie in December. Hari and Parmita came in the early evening, having left Amir home with a babysitter, and they sat in the living room and sipped tea.

  Finally Hari got to the point of their meeting. “Ms. Langford, we are pleased with Amir’s instruction. I’ve had him read for me and write out something, and I was surprised by his facility at this young age.”

  “Your son is very smart, Mr. Kumar, and picks things up readily.”

  He nodded. “We understand that this isn’t a private school but a homeschool situation. We wanted the smaller class setting with only a few students, but I was not aware that this included religious instruction.”

  “Well, nothing actually yet, but all the students are Hindu, and my daughter and I are devotees of the guru Ma hi’ Ma, and so eventually religious instruction will be included.”

  “Eventually?” Kumar asked. Maggie nodded. “But my son is meditating.”

  “My daughter has been meditating since she was three years old. She comes by it naturally, and meditates instead of taking a nap, and the other students have chosen to follow her lead.”

  “Your daughter… from age three. I find that rather… unusual.”

  “Would you like to meet her?”

  Hari looked to his wife who nodded her head. “Yes. That would be welcomed.”

  Maggie stood and went back to Anna’s bedroom and told her that Amir’s parents would like to meet her. Anna along with Bodhi followed Maggie back to the living room. Anna took a seat next to her mother, and Bodhi sat on the floor in front of her.

  “Anna, you have a lovely golden retriever. What is his name?” Hari asked.

  “Bodhi, after Bodhisattva,” she said. “My mother writing book called The Dog Who was God.”

  Hari looked surprised and turned to Maggie. “It’s a children’s book,” she added hurriedly.

  “So, you think your dog is God?” Hari asked Anna with a smirk.

  “Everybody and everything part of God. Why not my dog?”

  Hari was rather taken aback by Anna’s forthright response. “Your mother tells me that you’ve been meditating since you were three.”

  “Before that, while I was lying in my crib, but I couldn’t cross my legs.”

  Hari and Parmita just stared at the child. Finally, Parmita bowed her head. “I think you are a bodhisattva yourself, dear child.”

  Anna put a finger to her lips. “Don’t tell anybody. It’s our secret.”

  Hari shook his head in amazement. He turned to Maggie. “I am not a religious person per se, but I am moved by your daughter’s presence and am confident that her influence will be helpful to my son’s development.”

  Anna smiled. “Your mother Durga thinks so too.”

  Hari looked back at Anna in astonishment, tears rolling down his face at the mention of his dead mother. He finally choked out, “Well, give her my love.”

  Maggie just shook her head. How could she contain such a child?

  Chapter 23

  This first year of formal instruction for Anna and the other children progressed rather evenly. The girls were more fluent in reading and writing, and the boys in arithmetic—just adding and subtracting at this point. Maggie was still in touch with her teacher friends from the elementary school in town, and they told her this was to be expected. She realized that she had secretly hoped that Anna’s presence would create a more whole-brain integration in the other students exposed to her elevated energy. Maggie came to realize that this was her expectation, and that she needed to allow Anna’s effect on them to take its own course, as it had with her. But the schooling had slowed down work on her next children’s book and led to repeated inquiries from Jean Millburn after Maggie missed her submission date. So over the last three months of the school year, she finished the book and finally sent it off to her publisher who was impressed with its blend of metaphysical thought and “dog magic.” She scheduled its publication for late November. It would again require another publicity jaunt, which Maggie could only fit in during the school’s Christmas break. This was workable for the publisher, and she would make adjustments to the schedule.

  This writing again reinforced in her mind the instructional value of the story art form, which had been used through the ages to convey higher spiritual meaning. While she had not planned to include religious instruction in the first year, she was moved to read her class a children’s version of The Bhagavad Gita over the last few weeks of the school year. She wanted to plant a seed of inspiration in the children before they left for their summer break from school and from Anna and her energy. Since they all lived on the outskirts of town, it was unlikely that they would meet up at the lakeside park during this time, where she took Anna and Bodhi for daily walks.

  The children loved the opening of the story, particularly Amir, who had no doubt anticipated a great battle and a slaughter like something out of one of the Avengers movies that he so liked. But, when Arjuna, the leader of the army trying to install his older brother and rightful heir on the throne, was reluctant to pursue this fight against his relatives and the teachers of his youth, he turned to his charioteer, who was revealed as Lord Krishna, for advice. This resulted in a long spiritual discourse, which made Amir quite angry.

  “Why doesn’t Arjuna just fight them?” he asked.

  “Amir, The Bhagavad Gita is part of a much longer story called the Mahabharata, which has many battles, but this tract is a discourse on how war only shows the conflict within each of us.”

  “That’s stupid,” Amir said, quite angrily. “The other Avengers would beat up Thor if he talked to them like this.”

  Maggie spent another fifteen minutes trying to calm Amir and explain the importance of this Hindu biblical text. Finally Anna had had enough of this “discourse,” and she twirled her hand and all of them found themselves in the celestial park with Joseph. Debby and Amir cried out in fright.

  “It’s all right,” Anna told them. “This is a park in… heaven, where I talk to my Krishna.”

  Josep
h smiled, and the radiation of love pouring out of him was quieting for the others. “Not quite, my dear.” He looked from child to child. “So what do we have here?”

  “Oh Joseph, I’m so sorry,” Maggie added, quite perplexed by her daughter’s precipitous action. “We were discussing The Bhagavad Gita, but I wasn’t making much headway with Amir, and so Anna transported us here.” Maggie turned to her daughter. “Anna, who just can’t do that.”

  “I tired of hearing Amir complaining.”

  Before Amir who answer back, Joseph turned his attention to him. “Amir, how nice to meet you.”

  “Who are you? Are you some kind of ghost?”

  Joseph smiled. “No, I’m as real as you, but not quite as solid. Come here. You can pinch me if you like.”

  Daunted, Amir just shook his head. “I believe you.”

  “So, you were asking why Arjuna didn’t just enter the battle and fight his relatives.” Amir nodded his head, still somewhat taken aback. “Amir, you have a little sister?”

  “Yes. Kashmi.”

  “And if both you and Kashmi wanted something only one of you could have, would you kill her for it?”

  Maggie put a hand to her mouth to stifle a cry.

  “No. That’s wrong.”

  “Killing your sister would be like killing yourself?”

  Amir thought about this for a moment. “Yes, I guess so.”

  “And this is what held Arjuna back from killing his own family, and Krishna used this situation, as I believe Ms. Langford has told you, as instruction about how any war is about a war between higher and lower aspects of yourself.”