The Seventh Direction

PART FOUR: Force and Form. Episode 109

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

___Cross to Freedom

Approaching Gnarly Tree's domain, I noticed its sparse shade. Cool winds were breezing in from the valley below. Grandfather Sun was now at high-noon, very hot, and the freshness of Wind and the shadow of old (ancient, it looked) Gnarly Tree invited me to come sit a while. Good idea. I wandered down the slope . . . headed west for Old Gnarly.

"Nature reveals myriad ways of seeing The Creator," I mused, and my awareness shifted as I felt this now. "My capacity to receive spirit grows . . . my heart space opens wide when a fuller moment fueled with Beauty is seen in form around me. Beauty—" I gathered in the Beauty, the connection easily made, there were no thoughts about it. "I'm inspired now to move with the trees, the water, sun, and air: to be at one with Nature; to be at one with Beauty; to be at one with Love and open to a miracle—to Love returning to me and my path; to Love manifesting due the Law of Love—to being fully in Love and open to the next signpost on my pathway to Oneness.

"But there sure is a curious vibration round here," I sensed it, and felt like my Wyllen might at any moment pop out from behind old Gnarly Tree. "Some grounded-out, elemental presence (moaning, groaning, rumbling, rising) vibrating here." I sat down, my back against Gnarly Tree, and let myself go to the moment.

'Work and rest, rhythm~~~

Being here in the garden, filled with the Beauty round me, was just about all I could ever think to ask for. I loved being here in the moment—daytime. Sunny day. What a wondrous place this is! But, as wonderful as it was, the garden-effect didn't last; for as cool winds caressed my face, I felt myself growing drowsy, awfully drowsy, slipping slowly, as if deep, deep into "—but . . . but!?"

The wind without warning gusted. Leaves flew off the tree. Branches bent, opening the way, I should imagine, for my head was sagged and I couldn't see as a bolt of (. . . felt like!) lightning struck, penetrated from behind, scorched my open heart space . . . and a sorrowful pain raked sharply through me (like a part of me was being devoured. Raw! Like the walls of my scorched heart were being scraped ruthlessly clean, bled of some lingering enmity!), and spiked through the core of my being. It felt like something was dying. "But . . . but!? What is this place!? What? What? Pleeeease!?"

Shorn. Seared I felt. But still alert (more alert). Yes, a cooler head prevailed now, somewhat, as—raised in awareness, fractionally beyond my unexpected undoing!—I looked in on my smoldering heart.

'Personality and Ego, both useful in their time, are no longer valid in quite the same capacity. Individuality—Soul—has need now to take charge~~~

My head raised. Eyes and mind, both open, bolstered my awareness of Wood's End and Valley Proper and the river, and those black, monster mountains, a long ways off, up ahead, in the distance. All the while, faint-hearted feelings suffered an other image, born of other senses, within which something faded, obscure, and yet grossly familiar, appeared to be stretching toward form. Drawn further into this presence—sucking deeper into the elemental—it all began to come clear. Too very clear!

I saw my Wyllen wired to the machine. Same as I had before. This time, though, I could feel the Beast. Noxious. Bitter. It was morphing fleshy appendages, hideous—and I felt a great struggle. Like third-dimensional twins whom can sense their brother and empathize with occurrences in the other, I felt Wyllen's struggle to come conscious! as if it were my own; and I started trembling, uncontrollably, as realization shook me. A moment ago, I had been cleansed by Earth, Water, and Sunfire; but now there was something looming in the Air. And swarthy, dark grey clouds moved quickly in, and an ice cold wind drew over me. (It's freezing in here!) Still, in some far reality, I held fast to a sun-shining day.