The Seventh Direction

PART THREE: Stalking Violet. Episode 78

                                       ["D/A" narrates —A.A.]

"Yeah, El, even the old stuff that I know quite well . . . if I look and observe, I can see it changed in some way."

"Exactly," she said. "Let's take a break. I'll be back shortly."

                               ........................

El had shaped hawk and flown through the wee small opening in the hedge. I'd stayed put. Actually, I was up and walking round the ring-of-stones, to see if I too might get bumped. No. Time to sit back down. So I sat back down on the stump to think about "key" words that had come from my mouth. "Being" overshadowed the others (Capital-B.)

Being, in my mind, was now interchangeable with God. Being—my brand new name for God. Of course, I had other names for God, and I will still use them, depending on the context. The Great Mystery. The Great Spirit. The Invisible. The Unseen. The Unknown. The Unnamable. The Nothingness of the What (which 'Nothingness of the What' I'm striking from my vocabulary, for I now realize Nothingness can't exist unless it is or was created for a purpose). Being is the new nothingness in my mind. But I still struggle some with the concept of Being. And I suppose all those times past, when I was lying awake at night, thinking about and asking "Where did God from?"—I suppose it was a valid question at the time, seeing as how I was looking into the black depths of space then (. . . well, looking at the black depths of my eyelids, for I'd closed my eyes, then), trying to figure how something came from nothing. But—no such thing as nothing! Being is my new nothing now. Being, mm-hmm. And just because you can't see Being (actually you can see little flittings of red, blue, green and white, in the blackness of space, if you look real hard) doesn't mean It doesn't exist. Being—and I suppose I'll use other names for God in the future.

Being I sensed within me. And Being I realized on a grand scale. Oh, and I well know this is nothing new, but just imagine looking through the Hubble telescope, far out at one pin-point location in space, and seeing I-don't-know-how-many galaxies. Move old Hubble one ten-thousandth of an inch . . . and another gazillion galaxies! How mind blowing is that? Then of course there's the interaction between Little Being (within) and BIG BEING (both in here and out there) to deal with. And it's all for the good, believe it or not—Ripley.

"It most certainly is all for the good, love. Believe it or not . . ."

"Master J'?!" I looked round but couldn't see him. "You can come out now . . . or—or in."

"No, no, I won't right now. I'm just here for a peek to see that you're okay."

"I'm okay." I couldn't see him anywhere. "I'm OK, Master J'. Shouldn't I be?" He roared a gut-curdling, booming, sinister laugh, which went echoing round the copse. Then a dreadful, unforgivable passing of wind (rotten and lightly misty brown) blew through the wee small opening in the hedge, westward. "Master J'! How could you!" And the laugh echoed away, following westward, diminishing, going . . . and then it/he was gone. Gone through some sinister side of a portal, I was beginning to suspect.

"Sorry about that, dear. Couldn't help it. Are you okay?" El was sitting once again in August.

"I'm just fine," I said. "Except that wasn't Master J', was it." Not really a question. "And how do I know you are really you?"

"You'd better know, love! Your future situations and dealings within spaces open to darker forces depend on it."

"Thank you, Obi Wan," I said. El laughed. It was her. No mistaking the joy in her laughter. "So are you going to explain?"