The Seventh Direction

PART FOUR: Force and Form. Episode 112

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

(The light is on, but is anyone home?) What was once seen in my mind's-eye as................light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel.................was now surrounding me, and I could sense, feel, and see my path being woven. In the moment.

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

Still, being in the moment isn't as easy as it sounds. There are requirements requiring consciousness—near as I can figure. To my way of thinking, one must bear with him all of his compiled wisdom, drawn from all of his past experience. But what is wisdom? And where does wisdom live? (Wisdom. Wisdom.) Wisdom, I think so, can't be found in memory alone. Nor can it be found and extracted from the intellect. Awareness is the foundation of wisdom. Awareness is pure. Pure awareness—

"Acceptance with awareness—"

"Hi, Lady El." I turned, a little bit startled and a little unsure. But there she was, radiant and floating up the trail.

"Accept everything. E-ver-y-thing," Lady El stressed. "But remain aware, right? Acceptance with awareness. You know this, yes?" Her feet kissed the ground. She took my hand. Her voice lowered, crackled, Grandmother-like. "Acceptance with awareness," she said: "brown on The Wheel. Three o'clock. March. Wyl's fourth-gift and, like gratitude for you, most-important, yes?" Her appearance hadn't changed—she was still Lady El. ('Yes, Lady El'). But why is she hammering me, Grandmother-like, with what I already know?

Her voice returned approximately to normal. She faked surprise. "Did you already know about Wyl's fourth gift? Did Master J' tell you?" (She knew.)

"Was it you flew over, El? Did you drop a feather?" I ignored her bogus queries. "Should I have smudged the area? Should I have? Did I fail a test?"

"Yes, I knew. And yes, I flew over. And no, I didn't drop a feather. And, as it were, my dear, you passed a test."

"So, how close are we, here, now, to the lower-Astral plane?"

"Right in the middle of it. Here has always been lower-Astral plane, except that we have it protected—"

"Except for 'the testings,' and then you let open the portals?"

"Pretty much," she said.

"But what about those hunters? Were they lower-Astral?"

"Noooo."

"I didn't think so. So how did they get in?" El cocked her head, raised a brow, grinned, squeezed my hand. "It was you, El! It was you and Master J'!"

"A test," El said. "You did very well, overlooking them/us and letting them/us pass right through you! And—" she giggled "—we didn't FRY when we left The Wood."

"But I didn't pick-up on it being you guys—"

"That wasn't part of the test. Besides, we were pretty good freaked-out hunters, weren't we? 

"You sure fooled me. And you guys freaked ME out, when the Valley Proper erupted. I didn't feel or sense or suspect you and Jay at all!"

"Oh, no," El said, "No. No. Jay and I didn't cause the Valley Proper phenomenon. When you were overlooking, you picked up on Wyl and his timeline and his trials and tribulations."