Harry Pond Looks Homeward:
The Spiritual Adventures of an Ohio Farm Boy
By Jay Allan Luboff
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
FOREST PASSAGE WITH THE GUARDIAN
Searching and searching to find ourselves; one day it happens and we KNOW we are home
With Becky home from work, we spent our days over the next few months visiting the forest and doing the homework given to us by our teachers.
Becky spent more and more time in the forest alone, and though she didn’t speak very much about her lessons, I knew they were changing her. Her body, for one, was becoming more lean as she changed her eating habits. She was interested in vegetable meals and gradually gave up meat in her diet. Her spirit remained as strong as ever, but she became more inward and silent, as if her visits to the forest were somehow helping her become strong and quiet, like the forest itself.
As for me, the Guardian came often. Yet, shortly after Uncle Julius’ visit, something changed in our lessons. I’d now adopted a habit to go to the forest each morning for daily walks with the Guardian. This morning, he’d been speaking about the origins of separate thought from God and wanted to “show” me the results of the separation from the “Oneness,” as he called it. We walked deep into the forest, eventually walking along a small deer trail that ran off the main forest path, to arrive at a clearing encircled by trees.
I knew this clearing well, as I’d come here often as a boy. My father would bring me to this place, and together we’d spend nights camping in the forest. In the middle of the clearing lay the charred rock-remains of the forest campsite that Dad and I had made so many, many years back.
I felt so engrossed with the Guardian’s story of creation, at first I didn’t notice the path we were on, at least not until we arrived at the old campsite. It had been so long ago since I’d been here, but I knew this place, very well! A smile of joy crossed my face as I remembered the nights Dad and I spent under the stars here together.
The Guardian stopped talking as we arrived, giving me a moment to reminisce about the past, but soon continued, “Here we will stay for awhile. Today is a special day. It’s the anniversary of the day your grandparents came to this area and bought the farm and their share of the forest. Your remembrance of this place is important. It’s here that your father chose to bring you to initiate you to the forest mysteries. Many of these have been lost to your memory, but now together we will revive them.
And then, as if by magic, I found myself literally transported back to my youth, to the first time my father and I ever came to sleep in the forest. I saw myself at the age of five as if a watcher of the scenes of my own life. We were just arriving at the clearing. This open part of the forest felt very new, as if it had only recently been cleared. No campsite or charred rocks remained at the site. The forest was thick then with young evergreen shoots. A little creek branch ran across the lower edge of the clearing. As we arrived, Dad put us immediately to work gathering rocks for the campsite. I couldn’t really carry any of the big ones, but what I could carry, I did, while Dad gathered the heavier rocks. These are the rocks that are still present to this very day. As I watched us, I noticed that we weren’t building a round fire pit, but that Dad had a different idea. With my little stones and his larger ones, he had us make a common pile. When we’d gathered all he thought we’d need, he sat down with me and explained what we were going to do. The scene stirred deep memories within, for I had no recollection of it in my conscious mind … until now. Still, as I watched, I had the eerie experience of watching a scene that I had participated in as a child, and at the same time of consciously remembering, in the present, the actual events of the scene. Dad’s words rang in my mind. “Harry,” he said, “we will be coming here for a few years and then we will stop. Our purpose is for you to know this area of the forest. One day you’ll be brought back here and it will start a process of remembering within you that will be very important.” With that he began to explain to me how we were going to build the campfire that we’d use at this spot—on that evening and on the other evenings that we came to be in the forest. “First,” he said, “what we’re building here is an altar, a symbol to the Light, that we will use to keep us warm at night in body and spirit. Though you may not remember this time as you grow up it will come back to you and there will be a time for you to know this place and its importance.” We started then to build the campfire, rock-by-rock. Dad had a plan. He knew exactly where each rock went, and he also seemed to know which rocks he should put down and which ones that I would place. I watched my little hands as they struggled to lift the sometimes too heavy rocks that Dad had me carry, and yet all the while I rejoiced at the effort, for just being him was enough for me, as I loved him dearly.
