At the time I found the Phaistos Disk in a book and began to research the Minoan civilization, I was also beginning to explore more deeply my interest in the metaphysical and had begun reading Tarot cards. But I was not aware what a dynamic combination this could be, the attempt to reach deeper into the subconscious mind via a psycho-activating device like Tarot cards while at the same time trying to gain information about a lost civilization in a time before written history via another psycho-activating device, the Phaistos Disk. Trying to access impossible-to-acquire information about lost civilizations is like exploring the subconscious mind of history. So, these two activities parallel each other in a microcosm-macrocosm kind of way, and in metaphysical lingo it's called spiritual alignment.

While I was at the library looking for more information about the metaphysical processes of opening up the subconscious mind, I was seeking information about this in books about ancient Egypt, the god Horus, the antediluvian world, the Bronze Age world of Minoan Crete, the ancient world of the Maya, the lost world of Atlantis, and any other worlds I could think of that were considered lost. It did not occur to me that if I attempted these two things at the same time that something remarkable might happen, that I might activate memories that perhaps were mine and maybe they were not, and it might be difficult to know the difference.

When you have a memory you naturally assume it is your own personal memory, but I was also reading Carl Jung, who wrote extensively about the collective unconscious, and I was reading books about Kabala, about the Tree of Life and about Neshima Consciousness (left, Lightbody Network showing a Tree of Life with original oversoul and individual souls incarnating from it and sharing collective memories). I suppose that combination was what it took to open the portals to the old worlds and to future worlds, as well. I kept a journal of the events that occurred as a result of my alchemically mixing these dynamic components together in the alembic of myself. The distillation of many new realities began. This autobiographical book is my journal, written in the epistolary genre as letters to Meryl. Off we go on a wild ride!

March 1
Atlanta, Georgia

Dear Meryl:

How strange life can be! Sometimes the good is really bad and the bad is really good. And half the time, you don't know which is which. I guess the key is just to gain the experience of each and then make up your mind later. A bad thing just happened, but it's turning out good. My old car was stolen, and my car salesman brother is finding me a nice new one. I tried to tell him what kind of new car I wanted but he interrupted and said, "I know what you want. You want a $10,000 used car for $2,000." Yep, that's what I want!

Now, here's the strange thing. If I had a car I would be playing Bridge, but it's lucky that I'm not because I would have missed the phone call from Jeanette. She's a friend of mine and one of my Bridge partners. There was nothing special about that phone call but the odd thing was, I had the feeling that something important was going to happen but that it depended on my catching her phone call. Have you ever had that feeling, that one event is entirely linked to another event and then to another? It isn't something I can define but just a feeling.

Jeanette just came home from Hong Kong where she has lived the last four years. She moved there with her husband Mike. He works for IBM (I've Been Moved :). She tells interesting stories about the place! In Hong Kong, she opened to the spirit world and became fascinated with Feng Shui, the Chinese Art of Placement. She's trying it out in her home as she unpacks. She has some idea that putting certain things in certain places assists the flow of chi (spiritual energy) through her home. As soon as she finishes with this, which may take a while considering she bought half of Hong Kong, we have some Bridge games planned. If I can get to the games, that is. No doubt, some great and divine being determined it was time for me to be without wheels and the places they take you.

Oh, and I meant to tell you, I bought a book called Tarot Spells. It is filled with beautiful affirmations that the author calls spells. They aren't the kind of spells we've ever heard of but I guess one woman's spell is another woman's prayer or something like that. Anyhow, I'm hoping they will help me improve my strange luck. I bought a deck of Tarot cards to go with the book. Do you know anything about Tarot? I think it's pronounced either Taro or Tarot.

From what I'm learning, Tarot is a deck of 78 picture cards, used mostly as fortune telling cards. According to another book I have, the cards show an ancient philosophy. Each card is supposed to show a different part of the philosophy and is supposed to impart a spiritual insight. Supposedly, I can use Tarot to analyze a problem I might be having or help out with something negative in my life. I like them because they're based on playing cards, and that really appeals to me. I'm going to use the cards and the spells to see if I can upgrade my life.

And riddle me this, oh wise one! What does a tireless card player do when stuck at home with no car? She runs an ad in a magazine to read Tarot cards for free over the phone. That ought to be a hoot, don't you think? Car or no car, I will play some kind of cards! Oh, and you should see where they put my ad. What a laugh! It's between two root doctors' ads! Let's see what happens. What's up with you, lately? Write soon.

Naples, Florida

Dear Claire: What in the world is a root doctor? I take it that it is not a urologist.

Tarot, Claire? Will wonders never cease? I never knew you could read them. I never knew anyone who could read them. There's a deck around here somewhere that I don't know how I came by or even if they are all here. And how do you read Tarot cards? Do you take a Tarot course or do you just pick them up and start guessing?

I don't mean to sound glib and unbelieving. In fact, I have always wanted to have my fortune told, but I got off to a bad start with fortune-tellers back in high school. Remember when I went to one with Ricky Mikeston after you broke his heart? He was desperate to get you back. The fortune-teller relieved him of some of his money and told him that if he bought her a certain expensive sweater that she wanted, she would be able to work enough magic for him to get you back. That was when I realized he was a fool and I began to see why you dropped him in the first place. But you might be able to work the sweater scam or a variation of it into your routine: "If you will bring me those ruby earrings from Neiman Marcus, I know it will increase my power to alter your fate." I also think you should wear a turban like the one Mikeny Carson wore as the Great Karnak.

So, you have a friend just come back from China. If you're interested in China, read Clavell. He writes about Feng Shui and the dragon's breath. It's a marvel to me that you have a Master's degree in English but have never read Clavell. And I am thrilled that you finally have a phone. An excellent investment! Not having a phone because you don't want to hear it ring is not a good reason not to have a phone. All you have to do is attach an answering machine to it and then turn off the ringer.

You never did say how you are enjoying learning Windows PC? Did the addition of windows make it any more interesting? I am pea green with envy that you know all that new computer stuff and word processing software. You don't love words any better than I do. I have often thought about taking a computer course just so I could get into the 20th century, so to e-speak. I have a friend who is a court reporter. I could never perform that job properly. There would be times when I would be unable to keep my mouth shut and type.

Cassie is growing like a weed, but she's not tall enough yet to reach the videotapes. I finally realized I needed to rearrange her burgeoning tape collection so it is all housed in a drawer she can reach. Now, we no longer have to go through, "What do you want to watch?" where I have to name off all 14 and let her decide. Who would have thought a 3-year-old would require so many videocassettes? Today we have watched The Wescuers, Wobin Hood, and Jungey Book. And she just brought me Wescuers Down Unner.

I shouldn't complain. Once, when she was younger, the TV went out and I read Brer Rabbit and the Tarbaby six times in one day, and if I hadn't been such a bad mother, I would have read it six more. I wanted to read Peter Rabbit, but Cassie wouldn't listen because the illustrations weren't as eye-catching. I couldn't explain to her that they were the originals. As unpatriotic as this may sound, comparing Joel Chandler Harris to Beatrix Potter is like comparing Danielle Steele to Amy Tan. You can bet Cassie was glad to get her TV back, and so was I. It was essential to her potty training as she was quite willing to sit there until gravity took over as long as something interesting was on the TV. When she was potty training, I was going to set the timer so I could remember to let her try to potty every hour or so, but I got afraid that I would have her conditioned like Pavlov's dog, and every time an elevator dinged, she would wet her panties. So many choices and I may not know for 20 years which ones were wrong.

And, oh, the continuing woes of a cat lover! That hateful Kitty Emil just spilled a quart of iced tea on my bookcase and all over my cookbooks. If I could catch him I would wring his neck. A couple of weeks ago I caught Cassie chasing Kitty Emil and thrashing him with my belt, but after finding one of my eel skin boots cat-mauled past recognition or ever wearing again, I was loathe to make her stop. I would tell you how much I paid for those boots 10 years go, but I would have to stop typing and go throw up.

Because of the incident with the boots, and other such incidences, Kitty Emil and Sandra Dee have been de-clawed one week today. Kitty Emil was his usual hateful self. I had to load him up in the box to bring him home because nobody at the vet's office would touch him or the box. Patty said he acted like the cat from Pet Sematary and that I have a career waiting for me at Ringling Brothers as a cat handler. Dr. Starbuck told me I could take Emil's Droncit home with me and give it to him myself because he was so mean. And I said, "Oh, he's nothing but hiss. Besides, now he doesn't even have any claws." That was when she held up her mangled hand and said, "Yeah, well, he didn't have any claws this morning, either." So far, Emil has never seen a vet but once than I have to find another vet. I wish he wouldn't be so bad. I really like these vets. They've always been good about sending home the medicine without seeing the animal. If they had known about little Kitty Emil, they would probably have sent me home the stuff to de-claw him with.

With which to de-claw him? It was a great literary faux pas to declare that sentences can't end in prepositions like they're supposed to. It is one of the most perverted rules I can think of. Real people speak the way they're the most comfortable with. I have decided that the person who invented it is the reincarnation of the person who decided that Chinese women were sexier with their feet deformed and crippled from binding up. It just goes to show the atrocities humans and grammarians are capable of. The rule binds only the writers, and not even all of them. "It is an ancient Mariner, and he stoppeth one of three."

Speaking of not-very-ancient mariners, my good friend Wade died of leukemia. I miss him so much. I'm sure the crew of his ocean-going barge misses him, too. Now they have Don as their pilot. They were safer when Wade was the pilot. Wade said he had to be sleeping to be able to stand it when Don drove the barge. He said he knew Don too well and that whenever he saw Don at the helm, his eyes played tricks on him so that he saw Daffy Duck instead. But in all fairness to Don, when the Tampa-St. Pete Bridge collapsed after the ship hit it, and when the rush hour drivers were plummeting to their deaths, it was Don who positioned the barge against the bridge and held it in place. Without Don, the entire bridge would have collapsed. Daffy Duck saved the lives of maybe 100 people.

Losing Wade is almost too much to bear. He was born in Rum Gully, South Merylina, and grew up in Savannah, Georgia. The nicest thing he ever said about Savannah was that it was situated directly over one of the vents of Hell. I lived there for years. It wasn't that bad. It was good-bad, like you said. Or bad-good, however you look at it. And it is a beautiful place. That's where I met Wade.

Just before he died, he was in pain and taking Valium and chasing it with brandy. I don't think it was strong enough to kill the pain, but Wade didn't want to take anything stronger. He said he didn't want to lose focus. One day, after taking Valium and drinking brandy, he invited me out to eat at an Italian restaurant. The next day, when he opened his wallet, he saw his American Express card had fettuccini wrapped all around it, and he couldn't remember how it got there. Wade's hair was falling out because of the chemo. He said it looked exactly like someone had used a burning rope to give him a hair cut. He said that when he lost all his hair, he intended to have his scalp tattooed in black finger waves. Wade never lost his sense of humor, even though he lost his life. A few years ago he spent far too much money for a set of four Dali prints. Wonderful prints, the Alice in Wonderland series. Alice appears to be holding a jump rope but Wade always swore it was a whip! The dumbest thing I ever did was not buy a page out of a Dali sketchbook for $450 in 1980. It was Don Quixote on Rocinante in a rearing position, with Quixote wielding his sword with both hands. Done mostly in cyclonic downward spirals. If there are any brown spatters on this paper, it is because I tried to gnaw off my thumb in remorse.

Did brother Bill find a $10,000 car for $2,000? Even a $6,000 car for $2,000 would be acceptable. When you get your new car, you should immediately start planning a trip to south Florida. In the meantime, let me know how things progress in your anything-but-dull existence. Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

My brother did indeed find a nice car. A Mercury Tracer at book value, including tags and taxes, thanks to the cooperation of the nice owner of the dealership and to the spell I cast. I used the spell designed to speed up the events in my life. I subbed in my own words in place of the book's version. The spell goes like this:

I call upon my own power within
I call upon the power of the universe.
I call upon the power of the spiritual
forces surrounding me.
Set forces in motion!

Shape circumstances in my favor!
Make things happen!
Bring about events!
Build up momentum in my favor!
So shall it be!

All that for a new car! I also did a ritual, a Tarot card reading and visualization. And you know what? I'm beginning to think some luck, besides just strange luck, was involved in my car being stolen. It was timely at least, because Bill will soon be out of the car business and into the TV advertising business. I can't think of anything that I want to advertise on TV, especially free Tarot card readings.

Everyday after work I come home to an answering machine full of messages. The machine records about 15 calls a day, and that doesn't count the hang-ups. You couldn't get another message on there sideways! Most of the callers sound like professional people, you know, all quite sane and intelligent. They leave very calm messages. But a few callers are clearly wackos and some are seriously desperate.

Truthfully, I feel overwhelmed, which is why I don't answer the phone when it rings. I let the machine catch it while I listen. I don't know what to do about all these people, and until I do I'm not answering the phone. And I haven't returned any of the calls. At night I turn off the ringer because people call all night long. I think I over-invoked when I invoked the universe to make things happen and to speed things up. Now what am I supposed to do? I guess I'll cast a spell to increase my psychic abilities. I may need them!

In this spell I called upon all the good and friendly spirit guides to help me become more psychic. I asked them to help me open myself to the Knowledge and to their guidance. Out loud I said, "I call upon my high-level Guide. I want only my high-level Guide to respond to me." Here is the spell:

I enter the temple.
I unlock the invisible doors to the spirit world.
I enter that world of metaphor and myth.
Since time began, esoteric knowledge has been held just for me.
All that was hidden is no longer hidden
But is now brought forth into my understanding.

I begin to know all the secrets of the Spirit World.
I see with spirit eyes.
I hear with spirit ears.
I feel with spirit feelings.

And while I was asking for all these psychic abilities (clairvoyance - the ability to access psychic information by using the sense of sight to see external and internal visions; clairaudience - the same ability but using the sense of hearing; and clairsentience - the same ability but using the sense of emotional or physical feeling), I also requested a new boyfriend. Well, why not? Looks like this stuff is working and I could use one.

I called for love to come to me, from near or from far. I called for a passionate love, a lasting love, and a love drawn to me like a butterfly to a flower, like a bee to nectar. I was very intense and I invoked several times. Then my phone rang, and I was sure it was the spell working! But it was not my new lover. It was a lady begging me to come see her sick and dying mother. "She's dying of unknown causes," the lady said.

Oh, dang, what now? I told her it was beyond my experience and abilities. She said they'd lost all hope anyway and that it couldn't hurt for me to come try to find out what was killing her. To discourage her, I asked for what I thought was a large fee of $50. Well, it was, after all, my professional debut as a psychic so there was a good chance she was throwing her money away, and I didn't want her to throw away too much of it. But, she agreed right away and gave me directions to her home. I told her I would go if her mother called me and asked me. About 30 minutes later, her mother called and asked me to come. I can't even believe it, but I went.

They live in a tidy frame house with a big, screened porch. The daughter is really nice. She met me at the door and took me through the living room, where pictures of Martin Luther King and Mike Kennedy were hung over the sofa, and there were crucifixes and images of Jesus in the room. She led me down a short hallway and into her mother's bedroom at the end. On the bed lay her mother, who really looked old, in her 80's, and shriveled. She was lying uncomfortably on the bed, and I could see she was very sick. As I walked towards her I stepped on something crunchy scattered all over the floor. It was bent toothpicks, all broken at the center. The daughter said that she keeps finding them on the floor but she doesn't know how they get there. I thought, yeah right, well, somebody puts them there. I suspected the mother. I asked the old woman if she puts the toothpicks on the floor. She gave me a sharp look and said, "No!' But I didn't believe her. The daughter put a wad of money in my hand before I could run out the door. I glanced at it as I put it in my purse - $100. Oh dang, they'll be expecting results.

I sat down in a chair by the bed and asked the mother, "What do you think is wrong with you?" She picked up a stack of papers and handed them to me. It was Xerox copies of her medical history. I could tell by the way that she looked at me that she didn't have confidence in me. According to her medical history, which I was able to perfectly understood having put myself through school as a part-time medical and radiology secretary, she had seen several of Atlanta's best doctors. They diagnosed her, and then undiagnosed her, as having lung cancer. They couldn't see it on the chest x-rays. They were just guessing. Obviously, they didn't know what was wrong with her. All they know is that she's suffocating to death. They can't even find emphysema or any respiratory problems. They think she's psychosomatic. They sent her to two psychiatrists who also couldn't help her. Her diagnosis is unknown and her prognosis is death. She said the last doctor she saw told her to "go home and die." I hope I never go to that doctor!

I asked her if she thought she was dying. She said "yes," and she looked like she believed it. "Yes, and the pain pills won't stop the pain." Then she started crying. I told her that death is an illusion, just a transition to another existence, but she wasn't consoled. (It wouldn't have consoled me, either.) I sensed a strange atmosphere in the room like doom or despair. It felt like I was sitting over one of Wade's vents of Hell. I started thinking that this old woman was wicked. She seemed cold and mean, and she stared at me in a daring way, like she was challenging me with her eyes. I could tell she didn't think I could help her. I thought she was just humoring her daughter, who must have talked her into this. The daughter always looked down at the floor and talked to the plywood. She never looked directly into her mother's eyes. Whenever she did look up, she looked at me. Her face was shining with hope and love. In a soft voice, she told me that I had a beautiful spirit and that she knew I could help her mother. The old lady smirked at this.

But I was getting something out of all this that they didn't know about. I felt competent and relaxed and it really felt good. I was getting into how I felt in this situation. I kind of stepped out of myself and I began to feel like I was floating near the ceiling and that I was transcendent of this whole thing. I asked spirit for help and guidance. I felt myself transition to someone who was myself-not, someone who suddenly knew exactly what to do because she had always known what to do.

Sensing this change in me, the mother asked me to read her Tarot cards to see if she had lung cancer. She asked me which card was her card. You know how you just KNOW things, sometimes? I just knew she was "The Hermit." I took the card out of the deck and showed it to her. I told her The Hermit was a spiritual person, someone who lights the way for others. Her daughter got excited and, for the first time, she looked up and spoke in her mother's direction. She said that her mother had always been a spiritual woman, and many people called on her night and day for advice and guidance. The mother smirked again. She was too weak to shuffle the deck, so I gave the cards to the daughter. I told them both to concentrate. The daughter shuffled and cut. The first card up was The Hermit. When they saw that card, they starting rocking back and forth, saying "Sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus. Thank you, Jesus." But I was not surprised, because myself-who-was-myself-not just KNEW that card was coming up.

The cards showed me that the mother did not have lung cancer or any physical malady. They also showed me another card, The Devil, and I knew right then the real problem. It was pretty clear the meaning of that card within this context. Then, the cards showed me some people and their negative intent. The people were doing something against this old woman. That's when "voodoo" first occurred to me.

I don't know much about voodoo, just what I pick up watching movies about it but I do love those kinds of movies, like "Live and Let Die" and "Angel Heart." Just as I thought "voodoo," I glanced at the mother and saw into her. And I saw that she knew what I was thinking. She stared back at me defiantly, and I looked into her eyes and I saw her for who she was, a voodoo priestess like Margaret Krusemark and Evangelina Proudfoot in "Angel Heart." Now, I knew why the daughter was afraid of the mother. I knew why the mother seemed wicked and why the room was filled with a gloom. I knew why people called on her for advice and why the doctors thought her illness was psychosomatic. And then, I understood why the broken toothpicks were on the floor. I said to her, "What are those toothpicks supposed to do, stop evil spirits?" She admitted it. I said, "Are they supposed to stop the pain?" Tearfully now, because the toothpick magic wasn't working, she answered kind of pathetically, "Yes," and gave herself over to me in that moment.

My consciousness kept shifting from being up on the ceiling and knowing everything to sitting in the chair and wondering how I could have gotten myself into this. Voodoo. Can you believe this? And what does that make me, a root doctor? Some people somewhere had cast a voodoo spell on this old woman, probably in response to an evil magic spell she had aimed at them, and now here I was, the root doctor hired to remove the spell. I didn't come equipped with roots, and where was I going to put the spell if I took it off her? I think the evil is supposed to be captured into the roots that I forgot to bring or even know where to get.

In a flash of comprehension I realized what had happened. They had found my Tarot ad sandwiched between two root doctor ads and they assumed I was a root doctor. That's a person who removes voodoo spells. Root doctors use various roots like mandrake and they use strange talismans like stump-tail lizards that they catch in a graveyard at midnight. All these thoughts raced through my mind at 90 miles an hour. It blew me away and my mind began to drift and scrounge around in my memory for anything I could remember about voodoo and root doctors, because I figured it was on me right now to do something about all of this and earn the $100.

South Georgia abounds with root doctors. Have you met any? Years ago, when someone told me about root doctors, I laughed. Well, I wasn't laughing now. I was sitting at the bedside of a sick and dying woman who already must have run through several root doctors, and none of them could help her. $100 and it's all up to me. And not only that, but I left my spell book at home! Plus, the only roots I'm familiar with are the ones I try to die out of my hair every month. I would have to either get up and leave or improvise. And I was just thinking about refunding the money and leaving when I felt a strange force stop me. Then, some images floated through my mind and I had that strange knowing again, where I just KNEW what to do.

I became myself-not again and I sent the daughter to find a piece of paper, a pen, a candle, some matches, a glass jar, a wash rag and a bowl of water. When she had assembled all of these things on the table before me, I asked the mother - she was really excited and hopeful - if she knew who was putting a spell on her? She named five people, and as she did I wrote their names on a piece of paper. Then, I laid out five Tarot cards: The Hermit, Strength, The Star, The World and the Ace of Cups. As I laid them out I said to the mother, "This is you. You are The Hermit. As I place this card on the table I am placing you in one spot and I am going to surround you with spiritual help like a force field around you. As I do it, think about how much you want to be well. Close your eyes and think about the days when you were healthy and happy." She closed her eyes and smiled for the first time.

To the bottom left of The Hermit I placed Strength and said, "I surround you with strength. Imagine you are the strongest person you know. Think of yourself as having all the strength you need to break the spell cast upon you. You are so strong, you can get better and better until you're well again." To the top left of The Hermit I placed The Star and said, "I surround you with angels and Spiritual Guides. Perhaps the doctors and nurses couldn't help you, but the angels and the spirits can, for they have more power. These spiritual beings surround you and look after you. They will help to heal you if you will let them. Imagine that they are touching you and healing you right now." To the top right of The Hermit I placed The World and said, "I surround you with the life force of the universe. The life force is entering into your body to heal you. Feel the life force as it comes down through the top of your head and goes all the way down to your toes. The life force comes back up and goes into your lungs, healing you and making it easier for you to breathe. Concentrate on your lungs and direct the life force of the universe into them. It fills up your lungs." She tried to breathe deeply.

To the bottom right of The Hermit I placed the Ace of Cups and said, "I surround you with happiness and joy. Imagine yourself being happy and healthy and getting up from your bed and walking around. Picture yourself walking into your living room and into the kitchen to cook supper like you used to do. Imagine that you have completely recovered from your illness and that you are active and happy. Think of yourself as whole and healthy again."

Then, we three joined hands and I told them to repeat after me. I called upon the strongest powers in the universe. "I call now upon the Earth, the deserts, the mountains, the plains, the forests filled with trees and scattered with rocks. Give strength and power to my spell as I light this candle in summoning." I lit the candle in front of me. Then I said, and they repeated, "I call now upon the waters, the lakes, the streams, the rivers, the oceans. Give strength and power to my spell as I light this candle in summoning. I call now upon the skies, the distant galaxies, the moons and planets, near and far, and upon the wind and the breezes. Give strength and power to my spell as I light this candle in summoning. I call now upon the fires that burn in the stars, the fires that burn in the earth and the fires that burn in the human body. Give strength and power to my spell as I light this candle in summoning."

It wasn't like I didn't understand what I was doing, and I think I must have read something like that in a book somewhere. Each of these powers is represented in the 4 suits of the Tarot deck. Earth is Pentacles (Diamonds), Water is Cups (Hearts), Air is Swords (Spades) and Fire is Wands (Clubs). I had just been reading about Aristotle in ancient Greece. He did a lot of work with these correlations and established it as part of a philosophical system. By calling on these 4 elements, according to Aristotle, I called upon the genius of the universe. And I really needed a genius to help me, that's for sure. And the amazing thing was, I fully expected this stuff to work!

Then I closed my eyes and said, "Reaching far back into the archaic past of the universe, into the deep eternal reaches of time, I call forth the Creators of the world to bring us Fortune and to fulfill our spell." I placed my hands directly above the card layout and said, "Into these cards I direct the Powers of the universe. Into these cards I direct the spiritual forces surrounding us. Into these cards I direct my own powers, and I call upon the forces of Nature to be with me now as I work to make this spell manifest. I petition you, great and infinite creative Powers and beings of Nature, to make my spell manifest. Mark well what I have done here and work to make it so."

Next, I dripped wax onto the piece of paper with the names and I dropped the paper into the glass jar. I changed the card layout. In the center I placed, as before, The Hermit. To the right I placed the 8 of Swords and said, "Those who cast the curse upon you are bound. Those who cast the curse upon you are confined." To the left of The Hermit I placed the 9 of Swords and said, "Those who cast the curse upon you are blocked." Directly below The Hermit I placed The Hanged Man and said, "Those who cast the curse upon you are unable to move against you. Those who cast the curse upon you can do you no harm." Above The Hermit I placed Temperance and said, "The angels protect you now. The spirits of the universe are on your side. Those people who want to hurt you are now in this jar, where they will not be harmed but where they cannot harm you, either. They are surrounded by a positive force field that repels them and their negative intentions. If they try to harm you, their bad thoughts and negative energy will deflect off the glass and fall right back on top of them. So it is and so shall it be."

Next, I put the wash rag into the bowl of water, and I held my hands over the water and said to the mother, "Close your eyes and imagine you are floating in space in a field of twinkling stars. You are up there floating and weightless, just relaxed and looking at all the beautiful stars out in the universe. Do you see the twinkling stars?" She said, "I do! I see them!" I said, "You are there floating and I am here below you. I call upon those twinkling stars to direct their power down through you and down to me. The star power flows down through you and down into your arms and fingers and into this water." Then I said, "I direct great powers, the powers of the stars, into this water."

I bathed her from head to foot, concentrating on her chest area, and wiped the wash rag over her nightgown. As I did it I said, "I am bathing you in starlight. I am bathing you in the healing powers that flow through me. I am wiping away your illness. Your sickness flows away from you like a river. It flows into this wash rag and is gone away." I told her to repeat after me, "I release all sickness. I release all pain. I am in full health. I feel wonderful. So it is and so shall it be."

Before I left, I told her to light a candle every day and to wash herself this way every morning and evening. I instructed her to spend a part of the day visualizing feeling better and getting well. I told her to keep the glass jar in full view and to stop giving spiritual advice and guidance to others. I told her to concentrate all her powers on herself and to pray to Jesus to be with her. Finally, we three held hands and prayed to Jesus to help her get better.

I was in her home for about three hours. As I was leaving, she and her daughter thanked me again and again for all I had done. The next day, my big toe on my right foot hurt so bad I limped all day and into the night. It freaked me out because myself-not KNEW that's where I had put her evil voodoo and her pain. I guess a big toe on a human is analagous to a root on a plant. I just hoped that thing would stay quarantined in my toe and not get the idea to spread out into my body. My answering machine recorded several calls from the mother telling me her pain was gone, that she felt better and that she was up and walking around for the first time in weeks. I went to the library and read about Therapeutic Touch, which is sending energy through the hands into a sick person's body. This is a modern version of Laying on of Hands. According to the book I read, by washing her I cleansed her energy field and smoothed out her aura, which is the personal biofield of an individual. I went home and gave my big toe several baths in cold water and said some ritual words over it.

The toe pain was gone by the following morning, but the memory of it and of how it happened stays with me. I doubt that I am suited for this line of work. In fact, I think I'm well out of it because I don't want to get involved again in trying to remedy in one night what might be the result of a lifetime of someone doing what they shouldn't do, like practice black magic. In short, I am out of the root doctor business forever. Write soon.

Dear Claire:

I adore your new career. Must you give it up? I think you should start getting yourself all done up like Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard" or, at the very least, like Gina Davis in "The Accidental Tourist." And read Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins. I am certain there are things in it you can use in your new career. I am very interested in your psychic wardrobe. Remember the robe that Mickey Mouse wears when he is the sorcerer? It's dark blue or black with the silver stars and crescent moons and other sorcerish-looking things on it. Well, you should at least have one of those to wear when you get out of the shower.

I think your hair is too pretty to be contained under a turban. Perhaps you could find some astral-looking barrettes and chignon pins in antique and junk stores, along with some astral-looking jewelry. Bakelite is a good choice, and carnelians protect against hemorrhage and gunshot wounds. (Napoleon wore one into battle.) And if you are going to hang out with aging voodoo priestesses (who are possibly looking for a nice, healthy body to jump into), then I suggest you invest in a very large carnelian. And a garlic choker. And a vial of holy water. And a nice Gucci purse to carry it all in.

Oh, the woes of a single mother with a small child. I have just spent a grueling hour out at the barn standing on the very top of a rickety little wooden ladder and trying to figure out how to hang Cassie's new swing. Nothing would go right. I couldn't get the eyebolts into the beam. I couldn't get the chain in the S-hooks. I just couldn't get the thing up there. I got so mad and frustrated that I wanted to take my shiny new hammer and bust up the new swing but Little Tykes is a subsidiary of Rubbermaid, and their toys are absolutely indestructible. Cassie stood beneath me swinging a long stick all around knocking down "fidey webs," and nearly knocked me off the ladder. After several near death experiences, I finally got that thing up.

We went to Dr. Bartlett yesterday for her checkup, and she cried when the Prince of Darkness put his little light in her ear. But just as soon as he put down the Deadly Brain Scrambler, she was fine again. She even crossed the room and took the prescription from the Accursed One and brought it to me. While we had Cassie pinned down and screaming, and while he tried to check her ears, I told him his job couldn't always be so thankless or he wouldn't want to do it anymore. He said, "No. At about age three they start to come around." Except for Cassie, I guess.

Sometime in the dim, recent past I ordered a set of books for Cassie, and the first eight came today. We came home from the post office and read all eight, and they are really quite good: simple texts, good illustrations, and stories about things that kids do, like going to the doctor. Dr. Cat should have come yesterday. One illustration showed Dr. Cat using the Deadly Brain Scrambler to look inside little kids' ears. Cassie tried to act offhand about that, but it wasn't lost on her.

We are the proud owners of ten chickens. I have never had any chickens before and know zip about them, except that they like lettuce, and you have never seen any animal go as crazy over anything as chickens over lettuce. Of course, it could be argued that chickens are pretty crazy, anyway. Following the directions in a chicken book that I checked out from the library, I built a chicken coop beside Mr. Moore's horse stall: a nice coop as far as coops go, but all chicken yards are ratty looking and made out of junk. Do you ever remember a fancy chicken yard? Then, I spent two nights building a chicken pen that mounts to the wall beside the other chicken pen, as a holding pen for the new biddies until they are tough enough and big enough for gen pop. Next, I have to build a big chicken yard. (I don't see this thing ever ending.) After I keep the chickens in the coop for about a week, I can let them out so they can crap on everything out at the barn. Then, they will only go in their coop long enough to roost and lay eggs, of which they are not doing very much. After purchasing everything it takes to accommodate chickens, I figure I have about $12 apiece in four eggs. Chicken hours are from daylight to dark.

Cassie's getting bunnies for Easter. Did I tell you? Now, here is the most useless pet there is. Flopsy and Mopsy will just live in a nice little cage and I will feed them. And never, ever will I let them out because something will eat them before they hit the ground. Nature is very hard on bunnies and chickens and everybody else. I have to color eggs today, having put it off as long as possible and still remain a fit mother. (I considered rewriting that sentence but ultimately figured you would understand it even if you did not find it magnificently crafted.)

The Easter Bunny also is bringing Cassie a stuffed green Easter Dragon, not the usual stuffed animal but certainly the one she liked the best. I am going to hide some eggs in the backyard for Cassie to find. And if I don't get over this nagging headache soon, I'm afraid I will want to stand on the back porch and throw the eggs. I don't see the point of this thing. Usually the only eggs I hunt are the ones on my plate.

I just spent 15 minutes rereading and adding to my master list of Important Things I Need To Do Badly, but I didn't do any of them. I fear I have written off more words than I can actually chew with regard to the list of things that I need to accomplish today. Oh, fiddle dee dee. I'll just erase some of it. So how is your life? Not so full of chickens, I suspect. I will leave you with an incantation that you might find useful: "O! Wotta goo Siam." Write soon.

Dear Claire:

I still haven't heard from you, and I hope it is not because I was so glib about your new career. I am surely sorry if I made you mad. I was only joking, even though I meant every word of it. Well, there I've done it again. You could write and cuss me out. That's much better than no letter all.

I have thought about calling you to tell you how sick I am, just in case you could heal me over the phone, but I didn't want you to catch the flu. I am too sick to describe it in only a few words. I think I have settled on a leopard print silk for the casket lining, and make certain the mortician uses blue eyeliner instead of gray.

Cassie and I have come down with something flu-like; it is most likely Black Lung. Last night, when I was trying to pour grape flavored Tylenol down Cassie's throat, she was covering up her mouth and yelling, 'Go away!" Sometimes she changes it to "Get away!" She learned it from me because that's what I tell her when she is driving me nuts.

I wish I had never taught Cassie how to blow that little oak whistle. She blows it if she needs anything. Cassie has probably blown it 1,000 times this afternoon. What's really fun is when she gets right next to me or on top of me and blows it. The cats really like it, too.

I am so full of antihistamines my eyes will hardly turn in their sockets, and since Cassie has finally taken a nap, I must crawl back to my sick/death bed and rest. But I am thinking of you. Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

Of course I am not mad at you! I haven't written because I have been spending time with Jeanette. She has suffered the worst disaster. No sooner did she and Mike come back from Hong Kong than he had a heart attack and died! And he was only 51. He was in the bathroom dressing to go to work as usual and collapsed while straightening his tie. The paramedics revived him five or six times. He kept dying and they kept bringing him back. He was dead when they finally got him to the hospital. The whole thing was horrendous and has left Jeanette distraught, confused and angry.

I thought I had plenty of time to meet Mike. I was wrong. I really know very little about him except that he was one of IBM's leading salesmen, and that hardly tells me anything of his personality. I guess it means he had an aggressive personality? Or a charming personality? Or a persuasive personality? Jeanette said that when he was 40 he had open-heart surgery and a heart by-pass. When they were in Hong Kong, he gained about 40 pounds.

It has been six weeks since he died, and I only this week found out about it. I wondered why I wasn't hearing from her but I was at the library so much I didn't get around to calling her. Now here is the incredible thing! When I talked with her today, she told me his spirit is still there in her house! She says he's in her bedroom, in one spot in particular, and he moves around. He stands by the TV in the bedroom and over by the window. Sometimes, he goes into the bathroom like he's revisiting the last few moments of his life. She wants me to come see her and bring the Tarot cards. She says he's trying to tell her something, and she thinks maybe we can use the cards to find out what it is.

Jeanette said when Mike was alive he used to argue with her about the spirit world and the afterlife. He told her she was silly to think there was anything happening after death except worms and the grave. She says that now that he's spirit and trying to communicate with her, its all she can do not to say, "I told you so." When she was in Hong Kong she went to the VitaLife Center and took some classes in metaphysical awareness, spiritualism, reincarnation and getting in touch with her past lives. She said Mike was always making fun of her for doing that.

I wonder how a seance is held? Do you know? I saw one in the movie "The Hound of the Baskervilles," conducted by Mrs. Mortimer. She tried to contact the recently departed spirit of Sir Henry Baskerville, but instead contacted a spectral hound. I hope that doesn't happen to me! Anything spectral would surely unnerve me. I saw another seance in the movie "The Changeling," with George C. Scott. The lady who held the seance used a cone made of some kind of light metal, aluminum perhaps. She put it in the center of the table and when the spirit was present, the cone started moving. I wonder if that would work? My ex-husband is in the air conditioning business. I think I'll call him to see if he will make me a spirit cone. He's also a karate fighter. Maybe I'll station him in the corner just in case he needs to karate whack some evil spirits that come through the cone. Just kidding. Hahahaha. As far as I'm concerned, he can be stationed anywhere he wants except in a room with me.

Stranger and stranger! On top of everything else that's happening to me, I'm having unusual dreams. I want to explain some of them to you but I hardly know where to begin. Last night, just before I fell asleep, I meditated one of my Tarot cards, the One of Fire-Force, also known as the Ace of Wands (Clubs. It shows a hand holding a club coming out of nowhere and suspended in air.) Then, I dreamed I went outside my apartment and came back in through the brick wall. As I passed through the wall I heard the bricks grinding together, like someone was bricking up a hole in the wall. Next, I dreamed something about a hole in the flower bed and a hole in the embankment outside. When I woke up, I went out there to look. I went behind the shrubbery and saw a hole in the wall. It was on a level with my bed and it had been re-bricked.

I tried so hard not to ask my landlady about it. She's a weirdo, and she's so attached to that old house. It's a relic left over from the Civil War in Midtown Atlanta. She has a weekly regimen of inspecting every square inch of the place. I knew better but I couldn't contain myself. I just HAD to ask. So, in the most offhand way I could think of, I asked her about the hole. Well, of course, she got weird on me. She demanded to know how I knew about it! I shuffled and mumbled some answer. She got impatient with me. (She thinks I'm an idiot, but I don't take that personally. She thinks everyone besides herself is an idiot.) She told me, a little wild-eyed I thought, that 30 years ago she and her husband found a huge hole in the flower bed and the embankment. They looked everywhere for a dirt pile to account for the hole but never found one. I mean, Meryl, a big hole just mysteriously appeared overnight in the flower bed and without ever any explanation or clue as to why! And that was 30 years ago and now I am talking with her about it!

I told her I didn't mean THAT hole, I mean the hole in the brick wall, and she just about screamed, "What hole?!" When I showed it to her, she was speechless, and it takes a lot to make this woman speechless. Did I mention she's a Jehovah's Witness? The re-bricked hole is about two feet in diameter and really hard to miss. She didn't know the hole was there, and this might be the hole that broke the camel's back. She was so wild-eyed looking that I regretted the whole conversation. After that day, she eyes me like I'm a snake in the grass and about to strike. I mean, she CUTS her eyes at me when she sees me. I think my lease may be in danger. I doubt any of this is kosher down at the Kingdom Hall. I hope she doesn't tell them about me. They might come out here to try to convert me. Or save me. Or confuse me. Or whatever their agenda is when they go out visiting people.

That is not the only unusual dream I've had lately. The other night I dreamed I was lying naked on the bed (which actually I was), and a strange woman materialized and sat down on the bed. She wore a crystal necklace and she placed crystals on my chest. They were quartz crystals, amethyst crystals and some other kinds I didn't recognize. I watched her do it and wondered why she was doing it. She took her time about it, too, carefully covering my chest in crystals. Then, I began to feel a little nauseous and light, as if I was dissolving, and I floated up toward the ceiling and I looked down at her and the bed. I cannot describe the absolute joy I felt! I did loop-the-loops and back flips, but suddenly I fell back onto the bed and couldn't float back up.

I kept trying to float up but I couldn't. Then, the crystal woman handed me a blow dryer and told me to tie it to my butt and turn it on, which I did. It was great! It worked like jet propulsion and blew me right back up to the ceiling. I got so excited about the blow dryer! I asked the woman the brand name of the dryer, and she showed it to me on the handle. It said TER SHAT. I asked her where I could buy one and she just laughed. When I recorded the dream, I realized TER SHAT is an anagram for The Star, a Tarot card that means Inner Guide. There on The Star card is an image of a naked woman. She has one foot on the ground and the other in water. Supposed to be, in Tarot, when you mysteriously become one of the cards, however that works, it means you are metaphysically evolving into someone represented by the card. The Star Card is supposed to mean that we live in two realms, one foot in the temporal plane of matter and the other in the timeless realm of spirit. In my case I think it indicates my evolution into myself-not, who is a crystal woman who fully exists as she creates herself and who is in the process of becoming. She is discovering all the mysterious facets of herself. The woman in my dreams covering me in crystals is Crystal Claire, the name of myself-not which actually means "crystal clear," or what I am becoming.

Here is another odd thing that is going on in my dreams, but it happens before I fall asleep. I lie down to go to sleep but just after I close my eyes, I see an entrance into a long, winding tunnel. It's narrow, dark and circular. I call it my spirit tunnel. I mentally enter it while I'm still awake and I fly through it. I look around to see what I can see, but the only thing I can see, other than the black walls of the tunnel, is the floor, which is crisscrossed in hundreds of doubled, straight lines like a matrix or a lattice. I can open my eyes any time but I don't want to because I want to keep seeing it. As I fly along, I see a bright light and I fly towards it. Out loud I say, just to validate to myself that I am wide awake doing this, "Look how dark the walls are. Look at the floor. What are those lines? What is that light I keep glimpsing?" The tunnel winds hypnotically around and around, up and down, and I fall asleep before I can reach the light. Then, after some time, I don't know how much time, I come awake in the middle of a dream but I am still asleep.

The other night I flew through the tunnel, fell asleep and then awoke in ancient Greece or somewhere in the Aegean world, where everyone, including me, was dressed in the clothes of that age. I was a soldier and I had a big sword. I was wearing lace-up leather sandals. They fascinated me and I kept looking down at them as I walked until I bumped into something and looked up. There around me was the Aegean world, bright, beautiful and chaotic. The city was on fire, the earth was shaking, the Doric columns were crashing to the ground, the buildings were coming apart and falling down, and the people were screaming and running in all directions. I thought, "Where in the world am I and what is going on?" I thought I was on an island during an earthquake. You know how you just KNOW things in dreams? I just KNEW that a tidal wave was on the way. What a thing to suddenly know when you think it's real! I kept searching the horizon for the top of the wave but never saw it. Even in my dream it occurred to me, maybe I don't see it because I don't how to create it yet. When you are lucid like that in a dream, it's another brain wave coming through explaining reality to you. Don't know which one though or even how that works, it just does.

Then, I made the reflection during this dream that I was dreaming and didn't know where I was. I said, "I'm dreaming! What's going on? Where am I?" But my sudden awareness of my reality didn't stop the dream and the destruction, so I took shelter by running into a small house. I ran in and locked the door and turned around. There inside was a family of four, a mother and father and two children. They were huddled together in terror, all cowering closer together when they saw me, as if they thought I was going to hit them with my sword. Then, thank God, I awoke. I was so glad to be alive and safe in Midtown Atlanta but I was convinced I had just had a past life experience. I was thinking about trying to go back there to see what happened after that, but I decided it wouldn't be good. Either I killed those people or their house fell on me, one or the other or both. Or the tidal wave got us. I didn't want to die in my dream. They'd say "oh, she died in her sleep," but that wouldn't be the whole story.

I know I was that man with the sword, but I think there must be a deeper meaning. Was that my old life and not my past life? Was it all my old concepts crashing down around me? And the people who feared me, were they projections of mine, images of my old self that cowered in the presence of my new, stronger self? Well, that's psychology for you. If nothing will confuse you, psychology will. Where is Carl Jung when you need him? And let's don't ask Freud what it means. He would say I ran in the house to avoid a sexual conflict. He would be wrong. Right now, there's no man in my life to be sexually conflicted about, sadly. I just want to know what it means but I also kind of hate to find out, you know? Write soon.

Dear Claire:

How wonderful to finally get a letter from you, especially one that does not begin with, "Woe unto thee, 0 Unbeliever!' And how sad about Mike. Be sure to tell Jeanette I'm really sorry. It's so bad when someone dear to you dies, but to be right there, as she was. It must have been awful.

As for my own illness, I am over the worst of the flu but I still have this horrible, hacking, debilitating, consumptive cough that kicks in whenever I get hot, which is why I am writing you and not jazzercising. I must either lay off the exercise or buy Depends. I am starting back Monday, even if it means supporting June Allyson.

About your landlady, I wouldn't mention anything else to her, no matter how curious yellow you are. She has probably been wondering how you could have put those holes on her property and in her house. Also, I have decided you dreamed yourself to the fabled Atlantis, which came crashing down around you. Maybe you were in Crete. I think I read somewhere that that island civilization was destroyed by an earthquake. Now, there's another grammatical no-no I take umbrage with. The "that that" combination. I like it, I'm going to say it, and that's that. Speaking of which, I am becoming concerned about all the wonderful south Georgia idioms dying out of the language as a result of education (which so far isn't worth the loss of the idioms). I think I shall purchase a Big Chief tablet and record some of my favorite ones, like "more precious than a ruby-jewel," and "finger-ring." I especially like "Y'all come go with us," and "I holp ya good luck." And what about "cur dog?" I love "Git down and come on in the house." I remember you told me your Grandpa used to tell you to "blow out the light." I thought it was wicked of you to make blowing sounds when you switched off his light.

I've been reminiscing lately about Cassie when she was a baby. Dressing her was so much fun. One day she was Lieutenant Uhuru Cassie, and the next she was Spring Moon Cassie, and the next she was Clay Basket Cassie. When I gave her a bath I would wrap her up in a bright towel, and she was Malama Cassie or Esther Williams Cassie. I can't wait until she is old enough to play dress-up. I am going to Goodwill and get her some fancy hats and evening dresses, and a few for myself.

I found a wonderful book for Cassie, Hanna Barbera Animal Follies, with a story about Ruff and Reddy and the men from Muni Mula. That's aluminum spelled backwards and that's exactly what you need to work your seance: a Muni Mula power cone, over which you can chant, "Muni Mula, Muni Mula." In the interim I have found you a temporary power cone, which I enclose with this letter. And make no mistake; this is the thing, even if it's only a paper cup. It has great psychic powers. It willed me to remove it from the dispenser at the service station and mail it to you, so I rest my case.

Why didn't you tell Jeanette to buy a toy telephone, in case Mike wanted to call her? I read somewhere spirits do that, but if spirits could call you on the phone, Wade would have already called me. He loved to talk on the phone and he called me from all over the world, just so I could say I had been called from that part of the world. Oh, Lord! Just as I was typing this, Cassie's toy phone rang of its own accord, I swear, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. But I am not going to answer it!

My baby chicks are ready to come out of the brooder and I am expecting a new brooder load next Thursday. Three of the chicks are Frizzles. Their feathers stick up and sort of curl forward. They resemble a porcupine but with feathers. My friend Joey is giving me the three that hatched with his eggs, so I am going to have a regular little flock of them. Some of our new chickens are Arraconas (no telling how it is actually spelled). Arraconas are supposed to have lower cholesterol. Joey said no cholesterol, but it is impossible for an egg to contain no cholesterol, by virtue of what it is. Although Publix carries a lower cholesterol egg that is white, I don't think Arracona eggs will ever appeal to a large market, because they are green. Dr. Seuss would eat them with ham, and so do we.

We have a Rhode Island Red named Selma, who is one boss ugly chicken and lays eggs the size of cue balls. One of the chickens had a cold so they are all taking chicken medicine, which you mix with their water. According to my chicken book, if I do not quit messing with their nests they were never going to lay right. Every time they get a nest wallowed out the way they want it, I go rushing in there and clean up the chicken crap and replace the hay. Fluffing up beds is just ingrained in an old nurse. I don't want the chicken pen to smell like a chicken pen, so it gets mucked out as much as Moore's stall.

But the chickens seem much happier with their nests, now that they have them urethaned with chicken crap. The day I was torturing the chickens about their messy nests, they laid their eggs on some hay in the corner, so I knew the book must be right. Oh, by the way, I know what it is that gives Bird's Nest soup its flavor, and my advice to you is not to eat it.

Moore is so funny about the chickens. Every night when they roost, he lies down, too. And their pen is always filled with hay that he dropped while he was standing with his head hung over their stall watching them. And his hay consumption is up about two bales a week because he stays in his stall and hangs out with the chickens. Of course, he doesn't allow the chickens in his stall; whenever they come in he shoos them out. Perhaps Moore is just trying to figure out a way to get in there and stomp them.

I will cease regaling you with chicken news and await your forthcoming letter with great anticipation. Please don't let my seance-disbelief chatter affect you in any way. If you can contact Mike, I definitely want you to do it and tell me about it. Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

I love your idioms and your idea about saving them. Here are two more for your collection. One is "hose pipe," meaning any rubber hose, like the garden hose. The other is "bad to drink" as in, "He was a good person but he was bad to drink."

And here is the seance news. When I arrived at Jeanette's, she led me straight up to the bedroom. I couldn't sense anything unusual like a ghost. Then, she directed me over to the spot where Mike stands and told me to stand in it. I did and got right back out. It wasn't a place I could stand in for long without developing chills. When I checked my arms for chill bumps, Jeanette said, "No, there are never any bumps." All the hairs on my arms were standing straight up, and my jeans had so much static in them they stuck to the backs of my legs. I tried putting just one foot in the spot, but my foot jumped back out. I tried a hand but the hand wanted out. As I sat on the bed to think about it, Jeanette said, "See. I told you. He's here."

"Someone's here," I said, "but how do you know it's Mike?" She said, "I've known him for 13 years. I would know him alive or dead. It's Mike and he wants to tell me something." We decided to go downstairs and drink some coffee and think about what to do next. When we went back up, Mike had moved but we could follow him around. He stood by the TV and then by the window. We followed right behind him, chatting about it. Neither one of these other two spots was as electric as the first spot, but both were unpleasant to stand in.

Finally, after being taken by Mike on a tour of the bedroom and the bathroom, we followed him back to the first spot and stayed there. I read the cards and we saw something about a message about money. I told Jeanette I had an idea about how to get the whole message. Laying out three Tarot cards, I placed the Queen of Pentacles (Earth, Diamonds), Jeanette's card. Above that, I placed the King of Wands (Fire, Clubs), Mike's card. In the center of the two I placed Temperance (Major Mystery, Duality). As I laid them out, I said, "This is Jeanette on the physical plane. This is Mike on the spiritual plane. I call upon the great Spiritual Powers surrounding us to open the pathway of communication between them so they can speak with each other and so Mike can tell Jeanette the thing he wants to tell her." Then, I told Jeanette to imagine herself in a conversation with Mike. As she and I touched fingertips and as she repeated after me, we called upon all those same Powers I had called on before, the Earth, the deserts, the mountains, the plains, the forests, the rocks. We called upon the waters, the lakes, the streams, the rivers, and the oceans. We called upon the stars, the galaxies, the moons, the planets, the wind and the breezes. We called upon the fires that burn in the stars, that burn inside the Earth and that burn inside each of us. Then we called upon the angels, the Spiritual Guides, the Creators of the Universe. We asked these great Powers to lend strength and power to Jeanette's spirit as we called for Mike in summoning. We summoned him four times. Then, our mood changed and we began to feel light and happy. We laughed and joked and went downstairs for more coffee.

I saw a séance movie once, "The Changeling," the same movie with the power cone, in which the psychic was irresistibly drawn to the foot of the stairs. There she would stand, staring eerily up at the top of the stairs where the spirits were. Then, ever so slowly, she ascended the stairs. Oh, it was spooky! Well, when Jeanette and I finished our coffee and headed toward the stairs, I stopped at the bottom step and stared up there, just like the psychic in the movie. Jeanette came from behind me and asked, "What is it?" She went up the stairs with me right behind her, and just as she turned the corner at the top, she stopped and said, "Whoa! Look at that!"

We stared down the long hallway to the bedroom and we saw the hallway lengthen and fill with a white haze. We walked down the hallway, right through the middle of a group of spiritual beings. It seemed to me we were walking through a crowd of people like in a crowded bar. To those hazy spirits I said, "Excuse me, excuse me," as I brushed past them on my way to the bedroom. We agreed there seemed to be about 25 or 30 spirit-people in her hallway. And they seemed like just some friends getting together for a party. We felt very gay and lighthearted, and Jeanette said she hadn't felt that good since Mike died.

In this party atmosphere, we sat in the bedroom and laughed and talked. We went downstairs and came back up a few times. Each time, they were still there. Jeanette's two cats were with us there, tiptoeing around and looking suspiciously through slanted eyes and twitching their tails and their ears. The gathering lasted for about two and a half hours. Sometimes, the people came into the bedroom filling it up with their presence, sometimes they went out into the hallway. They never did go downstairs. After a while, the haze became lighter and lighter until it finally disappeared and they were gone. We recorded all of it on her tape recorder, from beginning to end. Too bad we didn't have a camcorder. We could actually see the haze.

That night, I was too excited to go straight to sleep so I sat up in my bed thinking about it, wondering about it, until finally I fell asleep. I was awakened in the night by the brightest light I've ever seen. I sat straight up in bed to look, but it was so bright I had to cover my eyes. Even that wasn't enough to shield me. I turned my face away but that didn't help either. The light lasted for about five seconds and then it was dark again except for the TV screen, which was glowing slightly. When I first saw the light, I thought a car had come through my bedroom wall where the hole is. I thought I was staring into headlights. But I knew that no such thing had happened. The wall was still standing, I was still alive, and it's impossible that a car can come through. I'm on a hill. A car would have to fly through the air to come into the apartment, but that's the way my mind was working, trying to identify that bright light.

I was aware also that the light, which seemed to be outside of me, was coming from inside me. If anyone else had been there to see it, they would have seen me sitting on my bed and glowing like a light bulb. And they would have needed sunglasses. The light came from inside me and just poured out of me in all directions, lighting up the room and making the TV screen glow. The next morning when I awoke, I tasted sweetness in my mouth like ambrosia. Later, I found a reference to this light in my Tarot book. It said that magicians and mystics describe it as the light of the mystic, the light too brilliant to behold. I'll say! I even found it portrayed on a Tarot card, the IX of Swords (Air, Spades). When I spoke with Jeanette later that day and told her about the bright light, she said she had no idea what it could be. She asked me what I thought it was and what it had to do with Mike, and I said I thought it had more to do with me than with Mike.

My spell to change my life really is working, isn't it? I am off in a new direction and wherever it takes me is OK with me. I answer my phone when it rings, I read Tarot cards for hours, and I feel like the Oracle of Delphi. (Herodotus said the Oracle at Delphi was established when three sisters came from Libya to Greece to set up an oracle. Enterprising girls!) I enjoy reading cards but I am not sure I want to go in that direction. I think something else beckons, something wonderful and mysterious.

One night, as I was sleeping, I dreamed a yellow light was being beamed directly into the top of my head. It gave me a ton of energy! I found an account of this light by the science fiction writer, Philip Dick, who experienced it as a pink light. He said he had a mystical experience, in which he encountered God, who "fired a beam of pink light at my head." Then, he records that his own mind was entered "by a transcendentally rational mind, as if I had been insane all my life and had suddenly become sane." He said the rational mind was not human, that it was more like an artificial intelligence. Well, that's myself-not! I am feeling saner these days, although I imagine some people would be of the opinion that I've lost any mind entirely.

Jeanette called two days after the seance to say she had a blissful dream in which she spent the entire night talking with Mike, and they were so happy to be together. Mike told her about a mortgage life insurance policy with a certain insurance company, one she didn't know about. She can't remember the name of the insurance company! I told her that unless she can think of the name of the company, she will have to send letters to every company she can think of.

She called her attorney and he put his secretary right on it. The secretary found out the names of all the insurance companies that IBM employees use. She called around until she found one with a mortgage life insurance policy for Jeanette that Mike never mentioned to her. And you know what happened?! The insurance adjuster, on learning of Mike's death, pulled the wrong beneficiary card and paid Mike's ex-wife instead of Jeanette! I guess Mike couldn't live with that, or die with that, however you want to say it. The company still must pay Jeanette, but her attorney may have to take them to court. Well, there's a thoughtful husband, hanging around after death to make sure her beautiful and pricey home is all paid for! Or maybe he just didn't want the witchy ex-wife to get the money. Whatever the case, he transformed Jeanette from a grieving widow into a woman of leisure. Check out the IX of Pentacles. There's a picture of it! Now I know why it's her card. Write Soon.

Dear Claire:

I read your seance letter and thought, with no small amount of admiration, "She's really full of it, isn't she?" But in the 28 years I've known you, you've never told me a lie. So if you said it happened, then it did. I eagerly await your analysis of those events.

I should not have been able to go straight away and lay my hands on my Tarot deck. I can't put them down and I cannot see a thing in them and have to keep looking everything up in a real dud of a Tarot book I got from the library. I had Ives order The Tarot Revealed and Mastering the Tarot. What other books do I need? What I need is to find a murky old book store on a back street and go in there and find a dusty old volume covered with fidey webs and full of the power. And I need a long, silky robe in a real brash color and a very large and expensive occult-looking necklace. I think a tiara would be too much.

I've been getting up every morning and confounding myself with a couple of hours of playing with my Rider-Waite Tarot cards, from which I come away with the feeling that I am never going to see anything that I recognize except 78 cards with strange symbols and imperfect artwork. What I can see is that I will only be able to read for myself. I would have to keep ducking behind the curtain like the Wizard of Oz to consult the book, and somehow I feel that it would undermine my credibility.

I've been thinking about those "people" in Jeanette's hallway and I've decided they have no flair for drama, or any respect for tradition. If I were going to appear in someone's hallway as spirit, I would wear a Mrs. Haversham costume -- moth-eaten wedding gown and veil with fidey webs. My accessories would be a broken wristwatch and a mouse-eaten wedding cake. And I would imagine Jeanette would not be intimidated by that either.

Cassie and I just came from the barn, where we had to feed the chickens for the 4th time today. Cassie takes excellent care of her chickens. I hope they don't get so fat their little spindly legs won't tote them around. Today when we came home, they had gotten out underneath a board, and she cried and cried. But since then, she has become very adept at chasing them back in while telling them, "Git!" and pointing her finger. Apparently, the finger has a lot of power.

I joined a Grolier "Learn to Read" book club, featuring Harry Hippo Takes a Bath and the fabulous Dr. Cat, who Cassie considers the most fascinating character in all literature. Since reading Dr. Cat, she even allows the infamous Dr. Bartlett, whom she previously thought was the Prince of Darkness, to look in her ears with his otoscope. Then I bought her the Fisher Price Medical Bag, and she thinks she is Dr. Cat. There was no otoscope, but she insists on looking in my ears with her little plastic percussion hammer, which does resemble an otoscope. And any time she hears the words "blood pressure," she runs and gets her blood pressure cuff and fastens it around my fingers. I am on a water diet from drinking all the ice water Cassie serves me out of the Magic Tea Party teapot. And it seems I spend a good deal of my personal time lying on the floor and coloring with her as long as she wants to. "Cully, Mommy. Peeze." Last night I colored Big Bird to her specifications. A lot of what she does to me could only be described as sheer torture.

Today after Mr. Moore had his bath and I was walking him, I remembered how thrilled I was when I first got his big, red, hateful self. I brushed him and told him the story of Red Beauty. You may have heard of him under a different color. I also told him the story of The Red Stallion. When Moore had been my horse for a week, and I was fast becoming a doting fool, the first thing I did was climb up in the top of Tam's barn and mount him a window fan. That was just before Tam and her 60 horses moved out and were no longer living with that old geezer. I can't believe she ever was; he was older than Xavier Cougat but had beautiful money.

I'll never forget that day she moved out. Tam and I were tooling into town to have lunch when we ran up on a gunfight in progress at the motel by Shoney's. It had just started and there were cars all over the road with their lights on and with people hiding behind them. I thought at first it was a wreck, but when I heard the gunshots I just backed right out of there. I have the innate reverse of a true coward.

I fell for Mr. Moore the first time I saw him. And I rode him before I bought him, which means I have no excuse for having bought him after that. It was Halloween and I should have known better. He reared straight up and dropped me off the back of the saddle and then stepped on the inside of my knee with the shoes I had just helped Tam put on him. I guess he wanted Weejuns, instead. I had a horseshoe print on my knee, and my hands looked like catchers' mitts. I don't remember anything like that happening to Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet. Thank goodness Moore isn't a unicorn. Fortunately, I didn't try to jump him over anything that day, or I would not be writing this letter. One day I was riding him, just after he had been gelded, and an old mare in heat galloped by, cut in front of us, and stopped and batted her eyes like Norma Desmond. After that, it was wild ride. And he was already gelded. What else could I do to him? I guess Moore hadn't been gelded enough.

I could have bought a pony horse named Spotty. A pony horse is that calm, reliable animal leading the racehorse from the saddling paddock to the gates. He is also strong enough to drag the racehorse to the gate, if necessary. I am feeling so remorseful because Spotty is one of the neatest horses I ever rode, and among quarter horses, an apt pupil. The only reason I didn't buy him was because he was not beautiful like Moore, who is part quarter horse and part Thoroughbred. Moore is one of the King Ranch horses. That won't mean anything to you but the King Ranch is famous for breeding fine horses. Moore's grandfather was Royal King, two hands taller than Moore, which explains why Moore is such a big, beautiful red horse. But Moore has his good qualities; he is the only thing that never changes in a changing world. No matter how much I baby him, he is still a dangerous horse to ride. I take consolation in the fact that Moore, with all his faults and his 16 hands high, is the best riding horse I've ever ridden. And as long as I watch him carefully and bang him over the head every now and then to remind him he has a rider on board, he stays that way. Still, as I remember Spotty, I think I'll cry and mop the floor.

Today, Cassie started in on me again, "Wide horse. Wide Mowey," but even though I know he won't throw The Princess, I don't let her ride him for fear that, if he does misbehave and she gets hurt, I'll pull a Rhett Butler and shoot him like the way Rhett shot Bonnie Blue's pony. It is time for me to go out and do Moore's stall and to brush him and feed him and tell him how wonderful he is. Talk about your sacred objects. Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

I'm glad you bought those Tarot cards. I may need you to read my cards! Strange things are happening. For one thing, my basement apartment is coming alive with sounds. This apartment isn't the greatest place I've ever lived. I have to burn incense to mask the smell of it being old and damp. Also, the heater is down here with me, and I can always hear it turning on and off. The refrigerator makes a whining noise when it comes on and the plumbing rattles when anyone in the house uses it. But these sounds aren't really often or loud. Lately, I've noticed the heater frequently makes the heater turning-on sound, but the heater doesn't turn on. And this sound is slightly different; it's mellow. The refrigerator makes the refrigerator coming-on sound but it doesn't come on, either. And the sound it makes is also slightly different; it's pleasant. There are some tap, rap and crack noises I have never noticed before, but these noises are almost comforting. It's like they are more companions than sounds.

Then, the other day, I went into the bathroom and saw haze in there about head-high, like the haze in Jeanette's hallway. Just as I saw the haze, it zipped away and disappeared. But I definitely saw it! This morning, I went into the bathroom to shower and I saw two of my cloth ponytail bands on the bathroom floor. The elastic is gone, the cloth is frayed and I never wear them. One is pink and the other is blue. I don't know why I don't throw them out. The blue one is really useless, with no elastic left. I picked them up and that's when I realized I had picked them up twice before in the mornings, I just hadn't wondered until now how they got on the floor.

As I put the bands back on the shelf in the hall, I noticed that the pink one was knotted into a tight ball, like a rubber band with too much elastic. Then, when I stepped into the shower, I had a flashback of a dream memory, and I remembered standing in front of the bathroom door and holding the pink ponytail band. In the dream I was knotting it, trying to form it into the shape of a key. I needed the key to unlock the bathroom door. But there's no door there, just a portal. In the dream I couldn't pass through the portal because it was "thicker" than my dream body was. So, I tried to make a key out of the ponytail band to unlock the portal. It must have worked because I've been finding the bands on the bathroom floor rather than on the hallway shelf. It happens in the middle of the night as I'm dreaming. If I had a roommate who happened to get up to go the bathroom at the same time I'm making a key, they would see the ponytail band floating in mid-air! Or they would see me standing there and then disappearing into a portal.

I took my shower and stepped out of the tub. There on the floor, in the shape of a figure 8, was the blue band I had just put back on the shelf in the hallway. In Tarot, the figure 8 is a lemniscate and symbolizes infinity. According to my Tarot book, it also means that process is eternal. (I guess that means this spiritual stuff is never going to end. Well, I don't want it to.) I picked up the band carefully, so as to preserve its figure 8 shape, but it seemed permanently fixed in that shape, like someone had ironed it. Then, I noticed that it had been "healed"--the cloth was no longer frayed and the elastic was good.

Out loud I asked, "How did you do that?" I knew I hadn't done it. I was in the shower when it happened. An invisible being did it. I listened for an answer. No one answered. You know what? I think I have a spirit guide who lives in the bathroom. I have been researching spirit guides. Did you know that Pythagoras had spirit guides? He called them his "Heavenly Partners." Socrates and Plato also had Heavenly Partners. Pythagoras said the Heavenly Partner and the individual merge in a mystical way to form a marriage of beinghood, out of which is born a new person. According to the Tarot cards, my heavenly partner is Water Brother (Page of Cups, Jack of Hearts), which means "Wings of Love." The card says the Wings of Love is the lemniscate! On the card, Water Brother is pictured as a man in astral body, rising from a pool of water, like me getting out of the shower, I guess.

Isn't this a wonderful symmetry! While I am taking a shower and thinking about how I travel in astral body, a spiritual being named Water Brother, also in astral body, is placing a symbol on my floor, a figure 8 that means Wings of Love! Can this be the lover I called for? I really thought he was going to be physical when he got here. Furthermore, I must have over-invoked when I laid on my spell calling for a lover because I think I have more than one Heavenly Partner here. The invisible people who were in Jeanette's hallway are also in my apartment, surrounding me, watching me, and connecting with me. Maybe they need me or something. I wonder what they could need me for?

Speaking of watching me, these Heavenly Partners never sleep. If I wake during the night, I am aware they also are awake and watching over me. In my dreams I sometimes see them as giants towering over me. I found something about them in Angels: An Endangered Species by Malcolm Godwin. According to him, I am now in the presence of the Bene ha Elohim, the "Sons of God," also called the "Watchers or the "Grigori." These are mysterious guardian angels that are said to be gigantic and that are of an essence different from the other angels. They are "those who watch, "those who are awake" and "the ones who never sleep." They are "nearer in form, genes and sexual enthusiasm to humankind." This describes my partners, including the part about sexual enthusiasm. From the beginning of our meeting, I had the distinct impression that my partners are sexually active! That's probably why the old Biblical patriarchs claim they are of a different essence than the other angels. Godwin says that the angels have always been sexually inclined and that the clergy have always tried to hide it or explain it away. I bet they have! Who ever heard of sexy angels? It just ain't Christian!

According to the legend of Enoch, says Godwin, the Watchers descended to Mt. Harmon about 12,000 years ago to assist the Archangels in the creation of Eden and to teach humanity the arts of civilization. They enthusiastically embraced their work but some of them were overcome with love and desire for earth women, the "daughters of Eve." Uh-Oh! These angels are supposed to be the only ones who have the physical wherewithal to have a sexual relationship with a human. I have to argue with this patriarchal Jewish material a little bit; it speaks of the Watchers as if they were all male. Some of my partners are females and I get the impression that most of them are androgynous. They do a lot of shape-shifting and gender shifting. In Angels Godwin refers his readers to Genesis 6:1-4, wherein the Bible tells of the Watchers:

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose. And they said, My spirit shall not always strive with him, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

In all accounts of them, the Watchers have "a genuine friendship and a desire to teach humans the secrets of heaven." (Godwin) Well, good for them. They have found an eager student in me! Maybe that's why they're here, to teach me. Ever heard the saying, "When the student is ready, the teacher arrives?" I'm ready. Write soon.

Dear Claire:

When I was in the grocery store the other day at the treadmill-counter, where you are surrounded with self-improvement magazines and rag press, I read that someone had been impregnated by Steve McQueen's ghost, and I thought, "I hope it wasn't Claire!' (And I hope that somewhere in the afterlife, our high school English teacher-tyrant has to diagram that sentence.) I don't know about this Heavenly Partners thing. Every time I think about a Heavenly Partner, all the cards come up reversed. I have two tables for reading cards that ought to attract the spirits. One is a cherry Federal tilt top and the other one is a 1920's black wood card table that some forger decoupaged onto a Maxfield Parrish print - The Waterfall - which is neat, even if it is a fake. I just got up and waxed that cherry table because Wade gave it to me when he knew he was going to die and he would nag me if I let it get dirty. And at least my cards are going to like lying on this gorgeous, shiny old table. The only recently departed suitable spirit I know is Wade. And although he was great fun and I miss him more than I can say, and although he would just love this sort of thing, given his bent for pageantry and love of dressing up, I don't know if I could trust him. He'd be pretty apt to tell anybody who inquired that he was sitting there having coffee with Abbie Hoffman and Attila the Hun, whether he was or not. "Come on, Meryl, I'll introduce you to Oscar Wilde."

Oh, the mundane is sad today about the Great Dane! The animal control man just came and put my Dane, Harlow, to sleep. She was the last of my five Danes. I kept them all when their mother China died giving birth to them and from that moment on I was their mother. They were Harlow, Scarla O'Horror, Wizzy, Panzer, and Tai, their daddy. I raised them as if they were my very own little children. They never did understand why the school bus didn't stop to pick them up. And they behaved like spoiled dog-siblings would behave. Do you remember the movie Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? The Danes got along like the Hudson sisters.

Harlow was 13 and eaten up with cancer. I've cried off and on for two months and steady for the last two weeks. For ten bucks they'll come out to your house so you won't have to take the dog somewhere that's strange to the dog, so the dog won't be scared. The man who did the job was black, and so nice, with seven dogs of his own and a real understanding that the urge to jump in the grave behind the dog runs high in a south Georgia girl. He said they always sent him to people's houses to put dogs to sleep. He said a lot of animal control people couldn't stand to put down a dog with the owner watching, but that he didn't feel that way. He said that he felt like when a dog had been as loyal as a dog could be for 10 or 12 years that the owner owed it to the dog to be with them. That was just respect. He told me that when you took the dog off from the owner and gave it the medicine (Sodium Pentothal), the dog was scared and it ran and it twitched and it whined while it was going under. And he said that when somebody who loved it was rubbing it and talking sweet to it, that it just went on off to sleep. And it wasn't thinking nothing but good thoughts. And I guess that's what happened to my old dog. I hope so, anyway.

I had some half-baked idea that I should get the medicine from the vet and give it to Harlow myself. I can be such a fool sometimes. For some reason, nursing transforms people so that they think they can do things that they have no business doing, like brain surgery. What made me think I would ever be able to stick a vein while squalling like a baby? Anyway, I got up this morning and drank a pot of coffee and read the cards. They told me, "No, Debbie Allen was not going to sell me the sodium pen," even though she has sold me almost every other drug I have ever asked for, whether she has seen the animal it was for or not. The more I look at the cards, the more I can see, but I can also see that I should have been reading them all my life if I was ever going to be any good at it.

To help assuage my grief, I bought myself a Resistol hat. They aren't very pretty, but the other kinds of hats fly off while you are cantering or while the horse is in the process of trying to throw you. The wide brim also hides how scared you are if the horse does something bizarre, which Moore enjoys doing frequently. I also want some chaps.

I forgot to tell you in my last letter that we are the proud, newly gifted owners of a black calf named Sarah. We have fattened Sarah up considerably so that she looks like a midget cow instead of a calf. She is so fat that her little cloven hooves are very cloved apart in an effort to support her weight, and my friend Tony keeps making unnatural remarks about how delicious she would be and how long she would last in the freezer. (A long time, I point out to him, since Cassie and I would not eat her, and I would not cook her.) Do not despair for her safety, however. Tony says it is a good idea for me to eat my chickens and sell the extra ones to the Viet Cong, but he is mistaken about that, too.

Cassie and I are watching The Wescuers Down Unner again. George C. Scott (McLeach the Poacher) is singing "Home, home on the range/Where the bears are tied up in chains./I cut through their sides/And I rip off their hides/And the next day I do it again." Sheesh. Talk about going from the sublime to the obscene. I guess it's supposed to program into the minds of the little children an innate objection to the slaughter of animals for their hides. I don't know.

When we are not watching Wescuers, we are in a flurry of activity getting ready for the fair. Cassie is entering a dish garden, which I had to plant because she did not want to get dirt on her hands. (She did put in the lava rocks and the dinosaurs.) She's entering a macaroni necklace and a hand-painted tee shirt. And perhaps a couple of chickens. I don't know whether Roy Rooster wants to go to the fair but I would guess not. He is however a very beautiful Rhode Island Red with feathers that just glisten. I'm changing his name to Stretch because of the way he stretches his head up and down when he wants to show his hen harem, who follow him everywhere, the wonderful bugs he has found for them to eat.

Kris brought me some eggs that her Silky hen had quit setting, which may (or may not) hatch in about a week. Silkies are neat; they have down instead of feathers and they have it on their feet. They are built real low to the ground, like some of those Japanese pick-up trucks. Did I mention that they have blue skin?

I am trying to limit Cassie to one band-aid a day, and it is a hard task. She tried Mickey Mouse band-aids but she didn't like them because they stick too tight. Now I have to wear them. She has moved on to Neons, which is a real happening kind of band-aid in bright pink and bright yellow and bright orange. And she is steadily searching her body for a hint of a boo boo which might need bandaging.

The new biddies are hatching and it is pouring down rain. Oh, well. A beautiful day with a brilliant sun would just be too much to bear. I guess I had better close. I have to go change the paper in the brooder, again. And check on the eggs in the incubator, again. And I can't think of a single illness that would prevent me from cleaning the rock shrimp, and I am a nurse. I told Wade once that I was scared to death the whole time I was around anybody sick when I was a nurse. Wade said it was because I was potentially the Stephen King of nursing. Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

Things are happening so fast, now, that I hardly know where to begin or how to tell you what is going on! I am beginning to meet the individual spirits who were in Jeanette's hallway during the seance. Not only are they making sounds all around me but they are appearing to me in dreams and talking with me, telling me things and introducing themselves to me. A few nights ago I had the most amazing dream. It began when I flew through my spirit tunnel. The walls were all glittering with tiny, white stars. The light in the distance was brighter and closer, but I fell asleep before I could reach it. When I came awake in the dream, I was sitting on the passenger side of a pick-up truck that was parked in front of a house. A man came out of the house, got in the truck on the driver's side, smiled at me and said, "Hello." It seemed I knew him well but didn't recognize him. I called him Bobby. I couldn't see his face very well, but I could see he was good-looking. And modern looking, too. He wore jeans, tennis shoes and a long-sleeved shirt rolled up to the elbows. (I finally identified him as I saw him so often in many variations, but always recognizable to me as Bobby. He said his name was Baba but in the dreamstate, when your ears might not hear so well, I thought he said Bobby. Here is a picture of him as Babaji, the young man on the right, when he was physical.)

As we drove along in the truck, he told me he had been living in Mexico. He said that a group of his friends was staying there. More of his friends wanted to go stay there, he said, but they all had to take turns, one at a time. I told him, "Well, why don't you all just go together and rent your own place?" He looked at me and said it was a good idea, one he hadn't thought of. I asked him, "Where are we going?" He smiled and said, "Mexico."

We chatted as we drove along. He told me he had made love to 400 women. I laughed and said, "Oh, right! Nobody has made love to 400 women." He said, suavely and with a smile, "I have." Can you believe this? Even in a dream, guys are making stuff up to impress you! He drove the truck along a mountain range and through a portal, which was a big semicircular Roman arch. It didn't have any physical arches but just the idea of arches. When we drove through it I heard a sizzling sound like the sound old TV's make when they're just turned on.

On the other side of the portal was downtown Mexico City. I have never been there physically but I recognized it right away. Also, even though I was dreaming at night, in my dream it was bright daylight. We drove along a busy street during rush hour and we got stuck in traffic. How beautiful and colorful and real it all was! And there was so much to see! People were walking along the street shopping. I could even see inside the windows of the shops. I saw all the merchandise, the salespeople and the customers. It was a happening world! I turned to Bobby and, this time, I could see him fairly clearly. Oh, he was handsome all right, and for some embarrassing reason, I just reached myself over and put my hand right in the crotch of his pants! And I did not come up empty-handed, either. We started kissing and caressing right in that pick-up truck, stuck in a traffic jam, in downtown Mexico City. What a dream! In all the excitement, I awoke. I guess all lovers are not standard issue, especially if you call for them with Tarot cards! He wasn't physical, although he felt totally physical. But he definitely was real. I guess I'm gonna be number 401.

The next night I went to Mexico again, only this time I didn't go in a truck, I walked through a portal out in the jungle and onto a sidewalk. I materialized myself into the home of a family of well to do South American Indians. Not that they had a big house or a lot of furniture, but that they seemed like royalty. There were four young sons, and I was to marry one of them. The boys were strong and physical. They had just come in from playing ball. Their mother was encouraging their ball game competition. I really liked her, too. His mother showed me the picture of her son I was to marry, like a driver's license picture, and he was definitely an Indian. But he was too young, only nine, and I told her I didn't want to marry a kid. Then, with someone beside me and a little behind me, I walked through another one of those portals and I saw a great man in an amphitheater. Several hundred Indians were milling around and talking, and thousands were in the hills behind me.

With all these scary looking Indians everywhere, instead of feeling lucky to still be alive I just felt lucky to have a place to sit. I was barefoot and sitting cross-legged on the ground in an upper level area. I was sitting with some people who were strangers to me. When the Great Person came out, the crowd stood up and roared and cheered and yelled in honor of him. He was like a god to them. He walked through the parting crowd and everyone got back! No one dared touch him! He walked through the bleachers up to my level. He walked through one of those portals and came straight towards me like he knew me. He stood in front of me and held out his hand to me.

I thought he was going to help me stand up, so I held out my hand to him. When I did, he pushed aside his loincloth and he put his hard dick right in my hand! Holy Erections! I flipped out inwardly, but outwardly I was very cool about it! It's a miracle I didn't wake up. I didn't get angry or offended, like you would in "real" life, or threaten to whack his pecker off if he ever did that again. (Karate really does give one skills for emergencies like this.) And, I'm proud to say I didn't snatch it off his body either, which I might have perservely done, given my earth personality, and waved it in the air, saying, "Check your loincloth, dream dude, I've got your dick in my hand!" The truth was, I was fascinated by how real it felt. I mean, I knew it was a dream dick, I just couldn't get over how real it felt. Plus, I had the impression he was bragging to me, like he was saying, "See. I can be your new lover. I've got one of these to prove it!" Was that Bobby putting the moves on me like he might do in a dream to make me number 401? I think he's a shape-shifter.

Then I thought, "Maybe he's really an Indian chief and this is how he chooses who he will sleep with. Mr. Real Important Indian, whoever he is. And these confused Indians think he's conferring some kind of honor on them when he selects one of their daughters this way. What a jerk!" I politely withdrew my hand from his private parts, and he lost interest and continued on his way.

But then, something extraordinary happened. As he walked away, I just stood up and magically called out to him, as though I knew him and even knew his name, "Pacal!" He turned around and looked at me, and when he did I gave him a signal. With the fist of my right hand against the center of my chest, I pushed my fist straight out in front of me to arm's length and I moved my fist and arm foward in three circles, like casting a fishing rod three times. I asked him, in a loud voice, just like I knew what I was saying, "Don't you remember me?" As I was doing these weird things, I was wondering why in the world I was making those circles. I felt silly and I offered a lame explanation of my actions. I said, "We used to go fishing together." I couldn't imagine any other reason why I was doing this fishing signal and talking to this man as if I knew him or something.

But it didn't matter what I was thinking, because when he saw me give the signal, he was so surprised he stumbled back a couple of steps. Then, he walked toward me and studied me closely like he was making sure I was who he thought I was. He took me by the hand and led me gently down the stone steps. His eyes never left mine, as though he thought that by staring into my eyes he could hold me there and that I wouldn't suddenly disappear. Just as he was leading me down the steps, I looked around me and I saw that I was surrounded by hundreds of South American Indians. Were they Inca or Aztec or Maya? I didn't know, and they did not appear to be "after" me, but I panicked, anyway.

The next instant and poof! I was standing outside my apartment, still in the dream, at the flower embankment. I looked at the sidewalk, at the lighted street, and at the parked cars. Then, poof! I woke up in my bed. I went straight to the bathroom to look at the portal and to see if my ponytail bands were on the floor. They were not. But I stood there for a while and marveled that on the other side of that bathroom doorway was not just my bathroom but Mexico. I wondered where else I might go by walking through that portal.

The next day, I went straight to the library to look up anything on Central and South American Indians, to see if I could figure out where I had been. I looked through several books until I saw it: The Sarcophagus of Lord Pacal. This 5-ton stone slab covers the coffin of the great Mayan king who died in 683 CE and whose sarcophagus has yet to be deciphered. At the center of this carving is the man I called "Pacal," the man I made the signal to, the man I asked, "Don't you remember me?" He has been dead now for 1,310 years, but I can say without doubt that he is not very dead. Not only that, but I had the definite impression I was going to marry him.

I decided to trace the sarcophagus to get a better idea of it, like maybe tracing it I could understand it somehow. So I xeroxed the page in the book and brought it home and got out the prismacolor pencils my Mom gave me that I have never used before. You know, it's not a bad idea to do something like this when you are trying to open yourself up spiritually. There's no telling how the color helps and just tracing the lines of something might open up a portal in the subconscious mind.

Reading further, I learned that he was a Mayan king who lived in Palenque, Mexico. He has a nice palace with a tower, and opposite his palace he built a 75-foot high Temple of Inscriptions, where he was buried in 683 CE. In 1952, after three years of work removing the rubble and boulders that had been pushed down the tunnel, archeologists found his sarcophagus in a 30 x 13-foot burial chamber at the bottom of the tunnel. Inside the vaulted tomb was a "fantastic, ethereal sight, a huge magic grotto carved out of ice, the walls sparkling and glistening like snow crystals. Stalactites hung like tassels of a curtain, and the stalagmites on the floor looked like the dripping from a great candle." These visual effects were created by the lime dripping from the walls and ceiling. When archeologists lifted the slab from the coffin, they saw his body covered with a thousand pieces of jade.

"The great man--he was probably a priest--had no gold ornaments, but here were quantities of jade objects--beads, rings on every finger, bracelets, ear ornaments, and exquisitely carved figurines. These were in the form of flowers, little gourds, bats, snake heads, and human figures with the characteristics of certain Mayan gods. The buried man had a jade ornament in each hand and another in his mouth; his neck and shoulders were covered with a huge collar and breast ornament of jade beads. On his face were the remnants of a mask of jade mosaic."

Also found were the bodies of a woman and four men, apparent sacrificial victims. Plaster portraits of Lord Pacal were found in the chamber, along with one of his son Chan Bahlum, who became the king when his father died at age 80.

You know what? I think I know what some of the inscriptions mean on the sarcophagus. For example, the first thing I noticed is that Pacal, who is at the center of the lid, is holding his hands in the shape of the lemniscate! Wings of Love. Oh, got to run. I hear my landlady knocking at my door. Wonder what she wants? Write soon.

Dear Claire:

Tony went to South America several times, but he had to buy plane tickets and reserve motel rooms. I much prefer your method of travel, so much cheaper. And, you don't have to stay in strange motel rooms. This makes a wonderful vacation package, doesn't it? "Visit Central America but spend the night in your bedroom at home!" And what a nice, sexy partner you have. I like a boy who knows what's really important--sex and pick­up trucks. I am so pleased to learn they have pick-up trucks in the afterlife. I do so love them. How awful to die and find out you have to drive a Japanese import instead of a Ford truck. This is heartening news. Was it a Ford or a Chevrolet, or did you happen to notice? These little details are very important, so please try to pay closer attention to them. I admit I looked rather askance at your letter. I wonder if I will be able to take up the veil to the extent of believing the Mayan civilization still exists somewhere in time? However, the part about the pick-up truck warms me to the idea.

What about that signal you gave Lord Pacal? I have to remind you, Watson, that you have spent nearly your whole life fishing. That you would cast a fishing rod in your dreams doesn't surprise me, but I don't think you should use the motion as a qualifier. What would you have done if he hadn't recognized your fishing signal? I wonder what signal you would give for those other sports you have engaged in, like boar hunting or deer stalking? How about coon running? I hope you get your signals right or next dream you might find yourself knee deep in a swamp and gigging for frogs.

We have a new dog named Molly. Cassie and I found her starving out in the woods on my way to Kris' place. We fed her Ritz crackers 'til we got her home. She's about a year old and 40 pounds and willing to let Cassie saw her in half, and she has gone from living in the woods to living in the house. She chases the cats a little, but not enough so that she might get thrown out, no matter how that hateful Emil baits her. She's white with dark spots, has a brindle head and looks kind of like a bulldog, among other things. Lots of other thing. Probably a Pit Beagle.

Poor Molly. I can see that her life as only dog is going to be awful, awful hard. Cassie adored Hah-yo. And although I explained to her that Harlow was very old and very sick and that she had died, I don't know how much of it she caught onto. But I bathed Molly and brought her inside so that she can stay with Cassie, since they seem to love each other so much. And when I asked Cassie what she wanted for breakfast, she said, "Sheese and cwackers." And when I asked her why she wanted such a strange thing for breakfast, she replied, "Molly like." She has read a story to Molly and doctored her with all her medical instruments from the Fischer Price Doctor Bag. I caught Molly trying to sneak off while wearing a cast on her leg. Now Molly is asleep and Cassie keeps going over and prying her eyes open.

Cassie thinks Molly's name is Molly Heel, from my trying to teach Molly to heel. I let Molly Heel out, and she went through the fence and chased some children (she was only trying to play with them, but they didn't know it) before I could catch her and bring her back. I've often thought of keeping aquarium fish rather than dogs. At least they never get out of the aquarium and chase the neighbors' chirren.

I spent part of the day playing with Moore and I feel wonderful. Horses are very basic. Hay. Oats. Brush. Run and play. My soul is renewed when I play with horses. Dogs are not the same. If a dog is happy, he goes to sleep. A cared-for horse stands around looking so pleased with you and himself. It is impossible to please a cat.

Moore has adopted Sarah as his own baby calf and herds her along with him everywhere he goes in the pasture. She is never allowed out of his sight. Molly decided to chase Sarah, and Moore taught Molly never to do that again. Moore banged his leg in the stall the other night and was real lame on it, and so I put a clay poultice on it and wrapped it. That was big juju to Cassie. The next morning I had to talk her out of going out there with the medical kit and taking his blood pressure. I tied him to a tree so I could clean his stall, and when I looked up from what I was doing, Cassie was over there wrapping his leg. She was doing a pretty good job, too. She had the right leg and she had the quilt wrap on, but she was having trouble getting the standing wrap started. Moore is so careful around The Princess, I can't believe it's really him. He treats her with all the care and deference that he would give to anybody who is stealing her mother's golden delicious apples and smuggling them out to him daily.

According to Emil's new vet, who will probably refuse to see him again, Emil is losing his hair due to a nervous condition. I am losing my hair due to the plumbing. I have been trying to clean up my language. Any profanity Cassie is going to learn from me will probably contain the word Emil.

Spring is enthroned here with its infinite shades of green. We have mourning doves and cardinals and flycatchers and towhees, bluejays, hawks, mocking­birds, and owls. And by September, the biggest spiders I've ever seen. And scorpions of the terribly painful but non-deadly variety. And more roaches than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio. Florida has 28 varieties and now there is a new one from Haiti. I can hardly wait. This morning I saw a huge Pileated Woodpecker pecking on one of my trees, and last week, when I was out at the hole full of cattails by the barn, I flushed a pair of baby Great Blue Herons. Only their bodies had the blue feathers. Their heads and necks still had pinfeathers, and they were so new to flight I thought they weren't going to make it to the Oak tree. They were squawking to each other in absolute terror. What a great sight! And here I had been thinking the cattail hole wasn't good for anything.

I guess I had better close. Miss Manners says that anyone who writes letters longer than three pages should be observed for other signs of insanity. But I have never been able to contain myself to three pages without great effort. I feel that I am more interesting than the average person. As for your letters, they are epistles of which St. Paul would be envious. Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

Well, I give up on trying to slow this thing down. I sure over-invoked in that spell to speed things up, and I can't find one that slows things down. Not that I really want to. The direction of my life is changing so fast, and it is bringing a new sense of identity and self-confidence that I never had before. Oh, I was aggressive before but that's not really the same thing as self-assurance. And I feel like I am taking up a "life's work" where before I was mostly involved in life's play. Everyday I go to the library to research Lord Pacal and his sarcophagus.

My Heavenly Partners are making new sounds. I no longer hear those mellow appliance sounds but instead I hear raps, taps and ka-thunks. Most of it is encouragement from my partners as I work on the sarcophagus. The way they encourage is interesting. If I get on the wrong track, I heard a loud ka-thunk in the kitchen. If I write something about the sarcophagus that is incorrect, I sometimes hear the loud ka-thunk. I take the ka-thunk to mean, "No." When I get it right, I often hear pleasant taps, which I think mean, "Yes." At first, the taps were in the other room but they began to get closer and closer to me, until they were on the wall behind me. Soon, they were on the side of the computer. That computer tapping was a little disconcerting at first, but I got used to it. I also hear the ka-thunks from the other room if my sentence structure is poor--an editorial ka-thunk. When I do really well I hear a loud bell sound like an oriental gong. This is an astral bell, according to Madame H.P. Blavatsky, a 19th century mystic and writer who had Heavenly Partners. She said her partners were Mahatmas (Great souls). I guess she got the high level ones. Mine start with an "Ma", too but end in "ya" instead of "hatmas." Almost rhymes...

All day long I work on the sarcophagus and all night long I go to Palenque. Before I returned to Palenque the third time, I did a Tarot reading. The cards indicated that I must accompany the Guide, Wind Brother (Air, Page of Swords, Jack of Spades). The Wind Brother card means Sun Warrior. Now, this is a scary looking partner! I bet he has a hard time getting any human partners to go anywhere with him, looking the way he does. On the card, he's a dead man, a skeleton who is vibrantly alive and swinging a sword. He has a skull for a face and a skinless, musculoskeletal body. He's wearing a black cape and is definitely dressed for trouble. I refused him at first because of how he looks, but the cards asked me why I didn't like him. They also said that I have to accept him before going back to Palenque! I finally decided that, well, he must be a guardian angel but he sure doesn't fit my concept of how they are supposed to look. He's like a heavy-duty guardian angel dude. But guess what?! If you happen to be travelling in astral body to the world of Central American Indians, this is a handy angel partner to have. No one messes with him. They just all get back away from him. In his company I fear nothing! I think the Wind Brother is my Heavenly Partner, Lord Pacal, King of the Maya, who shape-shifted from Bobby/Baba in the pickup truck! And comparatively speaking, their dicks seems to be the same size and shape and condition, although I don't know if I should trust physical science while dreaming.

Pacal and I went back to the spot where he was trying to lead me down the steps of the amphitheater. I looked down at my clothes and saw that I was wearing a 20th century style wedding gown, white with a hoop skirt. Pacal led me down the steps to an altar that looked like it was in a cathedral. I looked around to see if I could tell which cathedral I was in. It looked like a gothic cathedral, but since I cannot tell one gothic cathedral from another I can't say which one it was. I also can't tell a Ford pick-up truck from a Chevrolet. I know that distresses you, but I have never been as fond of trucks as you have.

In this cathedral I married Lord Pacal who thankfully was full grown and not a nine year old child. He was in his Mayan feather chieftan outfit. The ceremony was complete with wedding guests. I couldn't see their faces clearly and they appeared hazy and white. After the wedding they congratulated me and called me "Pacal's Bride." Soon after the wedding, I awoke. I checked the Tarot cards and I received The Sun card (Major Mystery, Divine Child). It means Divine Union and Rebirth, and since I married the Sun Warrior, I guess it all makes sense, somehow.

Now when I sleep, I dream I am in Palenque in our palace. I have my ruler, my pen and some cigarettes with me and I spend all night long drawing and measuring. Men are there with me. I think they are Mayan astronomer-priests. We are working together designing the Sarcophagus of Lord Pacal. Even though we are working together I don't get the feeling that they like me and I don't like how they look at me, suspiciously. When they do that, I get a kick out of getting right up in their faces, taking a big drag off my cigarette, and blowing the smoke up their noses. What's really wonderful is that I am queen of the place, and everything is mine, the palace, the stuff in the palace and anything I want. I can go anywhere and I do whatever I want to do. I can't remember all that I do, but I do a lot. Everyone calls me "Pacal's Bride."

My partners teach me Mayan symbols and words. In a dream, I learned the meaning of "wacah chan." One night, I flew through my spirit tunnel and popped up somewhere in Palenque in a small house where three people lived, a grandmother, her daughter and her granddaughter. The daughter told me about wacah chan. She said it was something everyone had, like a medical condition, and that they were all anxious about it because they didn't understand it. She told me it happened every night. She said they would go to sleep and get wacah chan. I asked her how wacah chan felt, and she said it was trembling. I knew right away what she meant! I have wacah chan sometimes just before I fly down my tunnel. I checked my book on astral projection to see what it says about leaving the body. The book says that some people tremble before projecting. I I think this is what the Mayan lady means by wacah chan. Archaeologists say wacah chan means the World Tree. Maybe they should change that to the Trembling World Tree.

One night in a dream I walked through a portal and went to a place the Maya call "wacah chan xaman waxac na." Archaeologists say this means "World Tree House of the North built by God 1." I don't want to throw out what archaeologists say about these words, because their translations are helpful to me, but they don't know the deeper meaning of this language. It is more of an experience than a language. For example, I went to World Tree House. When I got there I was invisible. (Now that's an amazing experience. Think about being in a dream and knowing you are dreaming, and then looking at your body and not seeing it, or seeing you are invisible!) I saw I was invisible and I heard a voice behind me say "och chan," which I took to mean, "You are invisible and it's OK." Archaeologists say och chan means, "becoming the sky." I walked straight through all the walls of the House of the North. That was cool! Then, I walked outside and directly to the World Tree, which looked like a thick Oak tree. It was too thick to walk through, even if I was invisible. So I studied it and then heard a voice say, "wacah chan." I just KNEW what that meant. I looked around and I saw some Mayans gathering and sitting down under the tree to have a ceremony. You know how you just KNOW things in dreams? Well, I just KNEW this ceremony was for me.

The Mayans told me they were glad to see me. They said they had been waiting for me for a long time. I felt like I was one of them, a journeyer who had finally come home to my family. They encircled me and together we walked past some people who were seated in modern folding chairs like card table chairs. We walked past those people and through a portal. Just as I was passing through the portal, I looked behind me. When I did, one of the people, a man seated in a folding chair, stood up and asked me, "How did you do that? How did you pass through? I've been waiting here all this time." I didn't answer him because I didn't know how I did it.

On the other side of the portal was another group of Mayans. We joined with them in an initiation ceremony held for me. At the end of the initiation, I was given a symbol, an up-pointed triangle. According to a book I'm reading, The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the symbol means "the Gift of Divine Reason." The up-pointed triangle is the sign of the Philosophus grade in the Hermetic Order. The Philosophus grade is associated with The Moon card (Major Mystery, The Subconscious) which means "stay on the path" and "journey further." The Moon is the veil of mystery and has a Hebrew letter attribute of Qoph, which means "back of the head" (and perhaps "back of the mind"?). The Moon also tells of the dangers on this journey. What those dangers may be, I sure don't know at this point and I am not really concerned either. After all, I've got Wind Brother and his wicked sword to protect me. He is my Shield. In fact, I read that the name Pacal literally means, "hand-shield."

The second Tarot card associated with the Philosophus grade is The Star, which means Inner Partner. The Star indicates that a great mystery will be revealed. The third card associated with the Philosophus Grade is The Tower (Major Mystery, Blast of Light), which means a series of electrifying insights. It also means a sudden reversal. I keep having them both!

At wacah chan xaman waxac na, I knew that I had become an initiate at a higher level. I also knew that the Mayas at Palenque planted corn and hoed yams by day and then went out of their bodies at night to gather in the astral planes, where their souls pathworked toward spiritual growth and where they held ceremonies and awarded symbols.

Wind Brother has told me about his life when he was King Pacal. He gave a series of visions that told his story. This was not while I was sleeping but while I was meditating. When he first fell in love, his mother opposed it. She thought his bride-to-be was socially and spiritually beneath him. The Maya took pride in their level of spiritual awareness. It was what established them socially. Can you imagine if we had a value system like this? Wouldn't it be awesome?! Fortunately for Pacal and his fiancé, his mother Lady Zac-Kuk could be distracted with chocolate. (So what else is new?)

When Pacal's fiance and family came to visit him in the palace, they always brought a small, round pail on a little hanger. It was a bucket of spun chocolate filled with air bubbles. (Hershey's Krackels?!) They gave it to Lady Zac-Kuk to appease and distract her while Pacal made love to their daughter. It worked and the marriage took place. His wife died sometime later and he led a long and happy life of interesting sexual liaisons. I guess you could say he's still doing that. He's pretty interesting, sexually speaking.

But his great sadness is how his life ended. When he was 80 he was in wonderful physical condition and he might have lived for many more years had not his daughter-in-law plotted with his son's mistress to kill him. This brings tears to his eyes to tell this episode of his life. He loved his son Chan Bahlum so much, and he wants only to be reassured that his son had nothing to do with his murder.

Chan Bahlum's ambitious wife and his greedy girlfriend had Pacal murdered. I guess they got tired of waiting for him to die. They must have imagined he wasn't ever going to die, and maybe he was going to live a lot longer. He was an alchemist and thus prepared to live a long life. These women hired some corrupt Mayan thugs to hijack him in his palace and bludgeon him to death. Poor Pacal. He ran from them, terrified, but they overtook him. When Chan Bahlum learned of the murder and of who was involved, he exacted a cruel revenge. He buried his father at the bottom of the Temple of Inscriptions and he executed his girlfriend and the thugs that did it. He laid them inside the tomb where they would have to serve Pacal in the afterlife and work off their karma. This explains why archaeologists found bodies that they guessed were war captives sacrificed at the passing of a great king. This kind of sacrifice was not a part of the Mayan burial ceremony, but still they reasoned that the man in the sarcophagus must have been a great ruler and thus required it. Well, he was great ruler but this is not why the bodies are in the tomb. Those bodies are all but one of the conspirators and murderers. Chan Bahlum's wife was not executed because she was royalty, but she was exiled from the palace forever.

Chan Bahlum became a priest and dedicated the rest of his life to the glorification of his father's memory. He built a temple to him, Temple of the Sun, as would a dutiful son who lost a much-loved father.

All these experiences stretch my mind so much, and as my mind stretches, the incredible experiences continue. Here is what I can now accept about myself that I would not have even imagined a few months ago. From the 20th century I went back to the 7th century and made some of the history that I am reading about in the 20th century. When the hieroglyphs on Pacal's sarcophagus were deciphered, archaeologists learned he had recorded the event of the appearance of a woman who "materialized" when he was 9 years old shortly after his father, the king, died. According to the 4 glyphs, this woman, a stranger to them all, "materialized and crowned herself." Archaeologists say she is portrayed as "an exotic bird with smoke coming from her mouth."

When Pacal's Bride materialized, Pacal's mother immediately ceded the throne to her. They thought she was Matawil, Divine Mother. They thought she had come as divine intervention to help hold the Mayan throne for Pacal until he could claim it at age 12, according to their laws. They gave her everything she wanted, the palace, the grounds, the temples, and the run of the place. The mysterious stranger reigned as queen for three years until Pacal could legally take the throne as king at age twelve. His mother crowned him with a feather crown.

Lady Zac-Kuk crowns her son Lord Pacal as King

When Pacal became king, the mysterious woman went the way she came--she de-materialized. As myself-not, I KNOW I am that mysterious woman and I am here to tell you, time is not linear. And after smoking for all these years, I think I'll stop. Imagine making history in Mayan hieroglyphs by being portrayed as a smoker! (I wrote this years ago and, yes, I stopped smoking because of it :) Whatever works, I guess hehe.)

I spend hours at the library reading about myself in Palenque and I spend nights going there in my dreams. I am a Time Lord (Time Lady?) and a woman in alchemical transformation. I am solid matter in the 20th century, solid matter in the 7th century and subtle matter in between them both. In spiritual Alchemy this is called "solve et coagula," dissolve and combine. I have mastered this power of transmutation, this shape-shifting - how I did it I don't know but I have a lot of help from Spirit - and I received another symbol, a vortex, in another initiation ceremony. It looks like the fishing circles I signed at Pacal. This is my reality now, but still, I have the mundane in life to deal with. Everything changes but nothing ever really changes.

Jeanette wants me to move in with her and her housekeeper so I can look after her house while she travels. Her parents are taking her to the Florida Keys and to Mexico to get her mind off Mike's death. She's afraid to leave her housekeeper in the house alone since Mike died because the housekeeper is very superstitious. She told Jeanette that Mike died because Jeanette dropped an hors d'oeuvres tray on the floor and shattered it! I guess that's what you might expect to hear from a spooked Catholic housekeeper from the Philippines. Write soon.

Dear Claire:

I'm glad the remark I made about long epistles and St. Paul didn't affect you. I was a little worried it might. I see it only inspired you. I think moving in with Jeanette is a fine idea because I certainly do think you should forsake your career of teaching Bridge in favor of solving ancient mysteries - solve 'at mystery. And it's good you have Jeanette. I bet you are feeling removed from the "real" world these days.

Cassie has been watching Un-Dog. I was so delighted when Nickelodeon began showing Underdog again. Remember Simon Bar Sinister? A bar sinister is a bar bisecting a coat of arms diagonally from left to right, identifying the owner as illegitimate. I always thought old Simon to be the king of the cartoon villains. He has marvelous eyebrows.

I just had to stop writing because the sun poked through the clouds and Cassie wanted to get in the pool, so I laid out there all greased down and read The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan while Cassie played. I don't have a long enough cord to get my typewriter out there. That little plastic pool is the best money I ever spent, except that Cassie wants to get in it every day. I could dredge out our real pool but I hate to kill the little tadpoles. Her swimming lessons start Monday, four days a week for two weeks. If we lived in China I could let the amah take her. What a great writer is Amy Tan. Comparing her to other writers is like comparing meat to marshmallows. The Kitchen God's Wife is just as good as The Joy Luck Club. I'm sending it to you as soon as I'm done because I know you haven't read it. You would have told me if you had. It's that good.

We came inside because the changeable weather is now blowing up a real frog strangler outside. Cassie is really funny about storms. Thunder, yightning, rain, everything comes under the heading of "de wain." It is all de wain. She doesn't get scared no matter how hard it starts to pop outside, and the only time she does not like de wain is when it interferes with de pool or de barrin.

Yesterday at dusk, immediately after cheering and applauding Cassie's tinkling in the potty where it sits close to the TV, to quote my daughter, "Yightning bwow up telebision!" Fortunately, Cassie had already risen from the potty or her potty training could have suffered a monumental setback. As it is, it was sad enough because the pixies had just been kidnapped, along with Baby Smurf, by some horrible, slimy creatures, and now we may never know their fate. The telebision repairperson/idiot comes tomorrow, only because I had already scheduled an appointment since yightning had already damaged the picture a week ago before deciding to come back and finish the job. Who was the saw-spouting fool who said that lightning never strikes twice in the same place? Instead of typing this, I should be clearing out a path to the television, but I hate to waste my time on such dreary pursuits. The living room looks like the railroad depot after the battle of Atlanta.

I don't know what possessed me to break for a paragraph. The run-on paragraph is one of my main afflictions. I need a typewriter with a paragraph mark.

Butch and Yvonne, my friends from Louisiana, are coming with their kids on their annual pilgrimage to Disney World. Yvonne used to have a cleaning service, and you probably have an idea how I keep house. The house is really not the problem. I can whip it into shape. It is the yard. I picked up all the stuff that the animal menagerie had strung around (feed bags, flower pots, beer cans, missile-type things) and got the immediate yard ready to cut (something I swore I would never do). But when I pulled the lawnmower out from under the porch, where it's been for the winter, it looked like Lot's wife. The crank rope wouldn't even come out, and this place looks like a jungle. Yvonne loves spiders, by the way, and says that when you see spider webs, you know you don't have any flies. What an optimist.

I am taking a break from cleaning the refrigerator. It is half done and I am all done. I am very slovenly about that appliance and a lot of others. There was something in the back in a plastic container that the National Geographic would have come in and photographed.

Molly is lounging on the floor and sends her love. She is so relaxed and at home these days. I think she was Nefertiti in a former life.

Well, the nice repairman said that lightning knocked out the timer and that it would take two weeks for him to get back with the part. The good news is that he isn't going to mention the lightning, since lightning isn't covered in my maintenance agreement. I was trying to play dumb and act like I just came home and the blooming thing wouldn't work. And the whole time I was playing dumb, Cassie kept saying, "Yightning bwow up telebision. Yightning bwow up telebision," over and over. I kept trying to distract her with puzzles and dollhouses and everything else, but what could compare with all the neat things that are in the back of a TV set, underneath the cover? And I called the cable company and gave them a right ballocking for not having their bloody cable grounded. They are coming tomorrow to ground it properly, although lightning will probably not kill an already dead TV.

I just pulled the roll-front map chest out of the bedroom and put my old Webster's on top, along with a lamp, and the rest of my reference books behind the roll-front. A real know-it-all center, my enemies might say, parked beside my typewriter. I am about to buy a TV for the bedroom, the tube of the one we had in there being possessed of a brilliant horizontal line and sound and that is all. I just dusted the bedroom, a major and infrequent ordeal. And as I was coating everything with Pledge I thought, why clean when I can just go through with the can of Pledge and use it like a room spray? I can also dump Pine Sol in the toilet so that the air will be filled with the impression that maybe I was cleaning something, in case company comes.

When I came in from the barn, Cassie had "sun bwok" all over her and she will not tell me what she has done with the bottle. I know she has stashed it somewhere neat like the middle of the bed, like she did with my lotion. In defense of Lubriderm, it did not leave a greasy spot when I wiped four ounces of it off my quilt. So I must close to go search out the disaster before it happens. You forgot to send me your new address. Be sure it's in English when you send it. My Mayan's a little rusty. Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

With about 3 weeks left on this month's rent, I have yet to move. I spend most of my time during the day at the library, and when I come home, I work on a book I've begun writing. I don't have time to do anything else.

Well, something new is happening, as usual. It's getting kind of hard to keep up with all that's happening. My partners have begun to touch me. They twinkle me. I call it twinkling because it's a light, pleasant touch. They twinkle the tip of my nose; they caress my cheek and twinkle my fingers and toes. When they want to interrupt my reading, they do a slightly stinging twinkle. They're able to produce some kind of electricity that looks like a spark and that flies through the air in a spiral and lands on me. When it lands it stings a little but it's pleasant and interesting to watch, and I can see it coming and I can predict where it will land. Sometimes, they surround me with little sparks that land all at once, and that's some fun! When they all land at once, it really feels good. It's a swarm of little sparks.

My partners love to meditate. When I sit and think for long periods of time, so do they. Occasionally, they float across the room as gossamer haze. I say, "I see you doing that," and they zip away and disappear. And I see them in my dreams. We go all over the world and all throughout time via the portals. They're fun to travel with and they have a great sense of humor. Sometimes, I wake myself up laughing and I can even remember what it was they said that made me laugh. My partner tried to take me deep inside a cave the other night, but I saw a spider and wouldn't go. I told him to kill the spider. He said, "No! It's a beautiful spider." I said, "They don't make any beautiful spiders. Kill it." He said, "I won't kill it." I became frustrated and woke up.

My partners are shape-shifters who can appear in any form and any dress. They don't have to look the same way day in and day out like we do. In dreams they're teaching me how to shape-shift. I'm in dream school getting a Ph.D. in walking through doors, sliding through crevices and materializing objects. My partners are with me always, all day and all night. We are never apart, and I am very, very fond of them.

Sometimes, I'm in a classroom with other people. I once sat at my desk and took a test with several questions. I was required to perform some of the answers, such as picking up tiny objects. I heard someone having a conversation and I was required to remember what she said and to identify who said it. I was required to show proficiency in drawing and painting and in materializing objects. I complained there were too many questions, but the nice man administering the test told me to "just keep going." The people sitting beside me asked me to be quiet so they could concentrate. I nearly aced this test, missing only one question.

I'm learning to read in the astral planes and to do math, which is like trying to work Chinese arithmetic problems in Chinese. And I never play Bridge anymore, except in the astral planes, and I call it Kooky Bridge. In this Bridge game, my aces don't win tricks like they're supposed to because my partner manufactures cards that beat them, like the Ace of Tree Trunks. So if I want to beat his ace I have to materialize a card, like the Ace of Flowers. I played War with my partner the other night, not in a dream but sitting on the bed. I explained the game to him and turned his cards for him, but his card was always higher than mine was. By the time the game was nearly over, I had yet to win a single war. I don't enjoy being blitzed, not even by a Heavenly Partner, so I told him cheating was not allowed and that it should be beneath his dignity to cheat. I explained to him he didn't have to win every single card to win the game, just most of them. After that, I won all the rest. Fun and games! Write soon.

Dear Claire:

You are beginning to remind me of Evector, Mork's friend on Mork and Mindy. He had an invisible entourage that followed him around and he was always telling them, "Y'all get back!" But he never mentioned anything about being twinkled. Perhaps you need a live boyfriend, one full of the flesh and the blood and the bone and the marrow and the guts. How strange it must be to live in the world without all those things.

I have been a busy girl but I have thought of you often. The Painting Muse is upon me. Unfortunately, it's the House-painting Muse, one the Greeks didn't know about. I found out that every wall in this little house of decorating horrors could be painted so that all the walls would be one color, even if they were all still totally different materials. And I have undertaken to do just that. So far, I have done the hall (a pale, creamy yellow called Mayonnaise) and half of the living room (two walls and a ceiling in Old Lace). I am going to pickle the knotty pine walls. Pickling is paint thinned with mineral spirits painted on and then wiped to give a light, bleached look to the wood. And this weekend I am going to paint this dining room wallpaper. I think the next time the walls need washing I am going to bring the water hose inside (the hose pipe, I meant to say) and wash them with it!

I should be doing my workout, but Cassie will be up in a few minutes and I overslept and am loathe to begin. What lame, fat girl excuses. Now I will have to ride Moore this afternoon, but I was planning on that anyway. There is no workout routine that does for your inside thighs and hamstrings what riding does. Even though I Jazzercise every day, well almost, when I ride, my legs kill me the next day.

My friend Vicki just found out she's pregnant. She also just went to Nutri System and lost 25 pounds for only about $1100. Losing weight is always a dangerous thing to do where fertility is concerned, and I mention this only to warn you. But Vicki wanted another baby and is very happy.

This morning, with the Housecleaning Muse upon me (another Muse the Greeks weren't aware of) I went through one of my closets and loaded up two huge garbage bags of clothes for Goodwill. They are hideous clothes from 1972 that I have saved for 20 years and wouldn't be caught dead in. If Andy Warhol were still alive he would probably buy them, but I don't think anyone else will.

The man who put this house together was a complete and utter madman, but he certainly did put it on a gorgeous piece of land. I spent two and half years hating this house because it wasn't pretty like my old one, when it dawned on me that, yes, this is an ugly old house and, yes, I have never done anything to try to make it look any better. Having all the walls of a similar appearing substance is my first step. I just wish I had never asked the boys at the paint store about pickling; first you strip the wall. This wall is about 25 x 18. How big is the Sistine Chapel? And why didn't you go to the University of Paris when your parents wanted to send you? I thought about adding "you idiot," but that would have been rude. If you had taken them up on their offer, you could have toured Europe. The normal way.

I rode Moore today for the first time since Friday. Moore needs exercising more than Linda Blair. He has recently gotten terribly out of shape, so that he has changed into the shape of a sphincter. He bolted and ran when he thought I wasn't paying attention (I wasn't), and today he worked all right but he got all lathered up. It was 78 degrees and when we finished he had lather everywhere a horse can have lather, and my legs were on the verge of collapsing. While I was hanging the hose pipe back up in the tree, after hosing the lather from between his thighs, Moore bumped it. The spray nozzle came down and whacked me across the eye and the mouth, and I have a huge welt, a loose front tooth, and probably a black eye. It wasn't the horse's fault; it was my fault for trying to hang up a water hose with my left hand while holding a 1400 pound animal with my right hand.

I have been shopping for a horse blanket for Moore ahead of the season, and so far they are all ugly in the extreme. I had hoped to find him one resembling an Elvis cape: long and white and fringed and beaded, with a high pointed collar and a sequined Thunderbird design on the back. Something Moore thinks he richly deserves.

My truck is losing water from the radiator into the cab of the truck, from beneath the heater. "Broken water hose pipe," I diagnosed. From the auto parts store I bought a water pump and some hose pipe but I may not need to install them. After I put them on the front seat, the truck was miraculously cured. And I thought about all those simple-minded people out there who take their vehicles to the mechanics before they try psychic healing. I must get this into the mail post haste as I am hoping the sooner you get it, the sooner I'll hear from you. Write soon.

The Shape-Shifter Bobby

Dear Meryl:

Today, I found something at the library that took my breath away. I needed Cassie to come take my blood pressure! I saw a painting called "Anonymous 16th Century Gentleman." The Italian gentleman is wearing a coat and a vest patterned with Solomon's Knots, symbols of fusion that are supposed to mean, "divine inscrutability." Bartolommeo Veneto painted the portrait in Italy in 1519. But here is the incredible thing! The Anonymous Gentlemen is the image of my Bobby Guide in the pick-up who took me to Mexico. And guess what else? In the portrait he is doing the same signal I did to Lord Pacal! His right fist is in the center of his chest, just the way my right first was, and he is ready to push his fist out to arm's length and make forward circles. But to show that motion, the artist painted a vortex on his chest, (the vortex symbol was my third ceremony award) so that his fist is resting at the center of the vortex. So I was not making fishing motions, I was making vortex circles. I can see why Pacal was astonished. What if a mysterious woman materialized in the middle of your amphitheater and made vortex circles at you and then said, "Don't you remember me?" I see now why he stumbled backward. My breathing stumbled when I saw this portrait.

In this same trip to the library, I found a book with a picture of my marriage cathedral, Chartres Cathedral in France! The cathedral also has a vortex, a huge one in the entrance hall. Pilgrims really made good use of this vortex. Traditionally, when they entered Chartres, they started at the outermost circle of the Vortex and spun around and around in circles ever inward until they reached the center.

In the interior of Chartres is the great aisle I walked down on my way to the altar with Lord Pacal. I recognized it in the picture! When we were married, we entered the cathedral through a portal that sizzled when we passed through it. I think this portal is beneath Chartres, where there is a dolmen (a megalithic tomb of two standing stones supporting a large, flat boulder - that's the portal) and a well, called the "Well of the Strong," The Druids are supposed to have built them. Until the 18th century, each pilgrim took part in a ritual involving descent to the dolmen, where they were blessed with the water from the well. So, they would enter the cathedral, spin around and around in the vortex-labyrinth, go into the cathedral on their knees, and then go down below, where they walked through the portal and were blessed at the well. I love this vortex material. I hope I'm not boring you with this stuff, but I just love it! Write soon.

Dear Claire:

I am certainly not bored, but I feel you may be in need of human, male companionship. Oh, I retract that statement. On second thought, a boyfriend would just complicate your simple life. Even an invisible husband might make trouble, especially one with a sword, if you tried to take on a boyfriend.

Today, the plumber is here but the plumbing is not. He materialized in the middle of my kitchen and said, "Don't you remember me." Boy, do I ever! He has to keep returning because he never fixes it. Then he gave me a signal, his bill, causing me to stumble backward.

Oh, it is a glorious day today! It was cool last night, and this morning when I went out to feed the menagerie, I almost stepped on the big Florida Indigo Snake (protected, but he seems to do okay by himself.) He must live under the house, because I have seen him right by the back steps several times. He must have thought it was a great day, too, and he was sunning himself. He is not as afraid of me as I am of him. What a gorgeous creature he is: big and bad and so blue that he is only about two shades away from black, and so shiny that when he slithers along, the inch of his underbelly scales that I can see look as Mediterranean blue as that roof on Ft. Denaud Road. I thought about him several times and hoped he hadn't frozen during the cold weather. Molly either doesn't see him or pretends she doesn't see him.

I have already rearranged the chicken pen, i.e. moved the nests out from under the pole where they roost at night, for reasons of esthetics and sanitation and because Cassie was refusing to gather the eggs. "Yuck Mama. Doo Doo." Well, today the chickens started to hatch. How exciting! This morning at 7:30 Cassie and I got to the incubator and the brooder just in time to see two chicks come out of their shells. Cassie was so thrilled. She was yelling, "Hey, baby chicks," at the top of her voice and probably scared the poor little things to death, them being pretty chicken anyway. I was only slightly more contained; I've never seen anything else come out of its shell, either. (Except Rodan at the theater when I was a kid and that was not the same thing.) There are yellow ones and black ones and speckled ones. So far, we have 11, although one of them looks like he has something pretty wrong with his back end.

I rigged the brooder with 3 light bulbs and a dimmer switch so we can control the heat, and it was a good idea, because when Cassie and I came back from town today, all the little biddies were laying down with their wings spread out. (According to the books I read, that is a sure sign of overheating, something chickens are highly susceptible to.) I am now a Chickenologist.

I heard sad news from Tam today. Dial A Bid, her $25,000 stallion, the one with the big blaze face and the belt around his neck, twisted a gut and had to be put to sleep. The funeral is tomorrow. I don't expect you to come, of course, but I thought you would want to know. The backhoe man comes and digs a hole. When you can get him.

Dial A Bid was a fine horse, one of the best. And so competitive. Horseracing is a cruel business under the most humane conditions. Horses are run to death, broken down, and filled full of all kinds of vitamins and other stuff to make them racy. It also makes them crazy. There used to be a horse at Tam's farm that was noted for biting off thumbs. He got 4 or 5. Then he would throw it up in the air and stomp it, throw it up in the air and stomp on it. Can you imagine watching that happen to your thumb? One of the vitamin mixtures is Red Cell. If you mix it into the oats with your hand, you wake up in the middle of the night burping vitamins (with your neck arched and your tail cocked).

Breeding horses is interesting, also. When a valuable brood mare is about to foal, someone sits up with her all night doing "foal watching." In Islamic law, two men must witness the breeding of blood Arabians. According to the word of Mohammed, the mares should never leave his realm because one once saved him from dying in the desert by putting down her head so that he could hold on and she could drag him to an oasis. From the time of the adaptation of the Koran until the 1930ies, the rule stood - great stallions were routinely smuggled but no mares. The rules for good mares have never much varied.

When Rapsodin was bred, the embryo was transplanted to another mare so the mother could continue to race. Rapsodin is a $250,000 horse and the darling of the farm. Last year, when her mother Seseka died, she was cremated and her ashes spread on the training track.

16 new biddies at this writing. I just peeked in on Cassie, and she has her little bear sitting in a chair at her little table and is feeding him crackers and brushing his teeth. I'm so proud. My child the prodigy. When I saw other people's children doing things like that, I was impressed but I never remember interpreting it as a sign of genius, the way I do when Cassie does it.

Cassie has a new hairdo. Remember Pebbles Flintstone, with the little ponytail sticking straight out of the top of her head? Well, it may look a little dorky but it keeps the wisps out of her eyes. I am quite proud of it because she looked like Sinead O'Connor for such a long time, bald and pretty, and I don't want to have to cut her any bangs, so I guess this is the only way out.

57 (A message from kitty Sandra Dee. Rather cryptic, don't you think? She is not only beautiful but good with her paws as well.)

Cassie has been trying to leave home. The other morning while I was doing my Jazzercise tape, Cassie woke up and went right on out the back door. When I discovered that she was gone and that the back door was open, I nearly died. I know the neighbors think I am a nut case. I was running around crying and screaming her name and nearly throwing up. I checked the pool for her little limp body. I checked the horse barn for her little broken body. I crawled underneath the house where the giant Indigo snake lives. I thought about the Lindbergh kidnapping. And way out in the pasture, almost beside the fence, I saw this little magenta-clad figure coming toward me babbling her head off and pointing down at the "frowers" and up at the "frees." Barefooted. I thought that her little feet would be all cut up from the sticks and stickers. Ha! The girl has Georgia blood running in the veins that supply her feet.

I started using the screen door latch with the little spring lock that I put on the back door months ago. And then I caught her with her stool beside the door, standing on top of it trying to reach the latch. So I got her down and told her not to do that again. Then, about 20 minutes later, she had the broom trying to reach the latch. I left Cassie inside for only a few minutes and went outside to catch Moore to put him up and was walking him back to the barn just in time to see Cassie hotfooting it across the back yard. The girl is fast. I just put another latch on the back door. Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

I have now moved to Jeanette's. It was almost traumatic. As I was packing to move, it occurred to me that it might not be as easy to move Heavenly Partners as it is to move a computer. I'm only moving from Midtown to Sandy Springs, but what if I lost my partners in transit? The thought of such a terrible thing happening terrified me and I sat on the bed and cried. My partners tapped on the computer several times, taps that mean to me, "Turn over a Tarot card." I shuffled, cut and flipped up the 6 of Cups (Water, Six of Hearts). In your deck, that's a man handing a woman a bouquet of flowers. In my deck, it's a card with "Faith" written on it.

My partners tapped again and I turned up 3 cards: Flood--The Mind--The Hanged Man. (These are the actual words written on the cards.) In your deck, they're the 4 of Cups (Water, Four of Hearts), the 7 of Pentacles (Earth, Seven of Spades) and The Hanged Man (Major Mystery, Mirror Image Reversal. The Hanged Man is the card we use to designate the Anonymous Gentleman, not that he was ever hanged.) I went outside and sat in the garden, and my mind was flooded with a mental image of his portrait as it was being telepathically transmitted to me. I began to feel much better. I was thinking that if I could get the partners into my mind, then surely I wouldn't lose them somewhere in Buckhead on the way to Sandy Springs. I was relieved to find, upon arriving at Jeanette's, my partners were still with me. Jeanette asked if they had made the trip OK, and I said I felt that they had. That night her cook prepared for us a wonderful oriental meal while Jeanette packed to leave the next day for the Florida Keys.

The next morning before Jeanette left she had a message for me. She dreamed, "Tell Claire--Guede." She thinks it is an Italian word. We decided it might be Italian for guide. Later, I found the word "guide" in the Italian-English dictionary at the library. Guida is Italian for guide. Her pronunciation was much the same. She thinks the Anonymous Gentleman's name is Guede. She had another dream for me, one she forgot. Then, I dreamed Guede's last name is Cosmo. That's Italian for cosmos. Guede Cosmo, Cosmos Guide!

My room here is quite nice, and I have a private bath. All the raps, taps and ka-thunks are coming from the bathroom here. Jeanette has two cats, and one of them likes to sit in my bathtub. Jeanette said she'd never known the kitty to do that before, and I said she'd never had an enspirited bathroom before, either. Cats are psychic, you know. Something really funny happened with that kitty. I set my computer on the floor beside my bed. Then, the kitty came into the room. Just as she walked past the computer, my partners tapped on it and the kitty jumped aside with her tail pointed straight up and puffed. She snuck up on the computer to sniff and inspect it, and just as she did, they tapped again, and she jumped back again and said, "Fssssffft"! Then, she went on her way into the bathroom to sit in the bathtub.

The partners made the move just great and are fully in my room. They fill the room with a gossamer haze, and I keep hoping Jeanette will walk in and see it. Yesterday, I was lying on my bed daydreaming when something amazing happened. At the foot of the bed, against the wall, is a large chest-of­-drawers. It's about 6 feet tall, and on the top of it are two brown teddy bears. There was a crack of electricity at the top of the chest, and a flash of white light, and then one of the teddy bears jumped right off the top of the chest-of-drawers onto the floor in front of me. Jeanette said they were Mike's teddy bears.

In my research at the Sandy Springs library I've uncovered some mysterious things that are all related, among them the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, the Shroud of Turin and the Book on the Sapphire Stone. In a legend of the primitive Jews, Adam, the first man, was said to have received a Book on the Sapphire Stone. The book is supposed to have taught him advanced technical stuff, such as his anatomy and how it works, the weather and how it works and the solar system and how it works. Now where would Adam have gotten a book, and who taught him to read it? He passed this book on down to his descendants: Jared, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Aaron, and Solomon.

Jeanette's cook is sating me with a variety of good Filipino food. Jeanette prefers Chinese, so that's what she prepares for her, and it is also very good, but I've had Chinese. I'm interested in this cuisine of the Philippines. Write soon.

Dear Claire:

I bet Eve taught Adam to read. If we took a census, how many men do you think we would find who would admit Eve taught Adam to read? If Adam passed that book down to Solomon, it must have been a shambles when Solomon received it, considering it had survived not only time but also the Great Deluge. Perhaps it was passed down genetically?

It should be another impossibly hot day today. I forget from summer to summer what they are like down here. I try to ride at Kris's place twice a week (except that my horse trailer currently is full of plywood), but it's really been too hot for the last few weeks anyway. Cassie and I have been to the local libraries a lot lately, and the first things we try to find in a new library are the Juvenile books and the ladies' room. Cassie is so nice now in the library; I can almost forget how awful she was in her "terrible twos." Sometimes, she pitched such a fit when I was trying to check out books. She did everything but turn her head around around. I was mortified by the way she was acting, but once I've told her she can't do something, I can't relent no matter how many disapproving glares I get from on-lookers.

Another thing she used to do that completely destroyed me was to lie down on the floor when she didn't get her way. And she relapses occasionally to her old ways. Yesterday, when I found out she had refinished the table with cheese flavored Molly McButter, I popped her little leg. She flew into the living room with a horrible scowl and turned around and hissed at me like a cat, "Fssssffft"!

Cassie likes to play, "Let's do this until Mama gets so sick of it she leaves the room." I fear that she has all the combined assertiveness' (assertiveness?) of her Aunt Claire and her Mama. And I fear that it is too late to swap her for a docile little child who will do my every bidding and be a comfort to me in my old age. Not that she doesn't have manners. I especially like it when she says "Thank you" and gives me back the little broken pieces of something that she knows she was not supposed to have but got hold of and tore up, anyway.

677 (Message from Cassie)

You really do need to read Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins. It is the story of a painted stick and conch shell, from the temple of Astarte in Jerusalem, who team up with a can of beans, a spoon, and a dirty sock to follow a young artist and her husband to New York. In order to prove himself worthy of the young artist, the young man takes his parents' Air Stream RV and welds wings and drumsticks onto it so that he shows up to claim his new bride driving a giant silver turkey. Someone once said that Tom Robbins writes like Dolly Parton looks. And his books, Still Life with Woodpecker, Another Roadside Attraction, Even Cowgirls get the Blues, and Skinny Legs et al are very beautiful, very bizarre and very, very funny.

I've been reading the cards to see if I can foretell my future financial horizon. I fear I may be wasting my time. The only way I could see out of my present, pressing financial difficulties is for me to win the Lotto this weekend, but since it is only a 3 million-dollar jackpot, it wouldn't help me all that much.

What do you think? We have added a new dog to our collection, a beautiful, full-grown, 160 lb. Great Dane named Hooch. A recently divorced lady, who says she stays away from home all the time, partying and generally misbehaving, gave him to us. She says that she feels guilty about leaving Hooch alone in her condo. After a long romp out in the pasture chasing Moore and his adoptive cow-child Sarah (Moore and I can assure you, he won't do that again), Hooch is relaxing on the kitchen floor and sends his love. (White with a few spots and blue eyes.) Molly is about to pop, having eaten all the food so that Hooch won't get any and so that she won't starve to death with a new dog around eating her food.

Oh, and last night the PVC fitting going into the pump blew apart, so I have to fix the water. There are leaks in several of the fittings, and I think Moore has been rubbing on it or something. And sure enough, I saw Moore hanging out by the pump yesterday after I unloaded the horse feed. Moore thought I should immediately feed him his supper, even though it was only 3 p.m., because he could smell the sweet feed. Sweet feed is a mixture of oats, cracked corn and molasses, and it smells better than a cake in the oven. That horse is the Prince of Darkness. He can think of the evilest things to do to the one person on this earth who loves his hateful self and who is sitting here with no water.

I just killed a strange sort of a fly, like a blowfly with a long stinger-looking thing like a bee. I listened for a few seconds in case it was screaming, "Help me!" Help me!'" but I didn't hear anything so I delivered the fatal blow.

Moore has been a big, bad horse the last couple of days, so we are having school again. This afternoon when I went to get him out of the pasture, I took a length of PVC with me so that I could whack him when he tried to crowd me. I used to carry a plastic baseball bat from time to time whenever he needed a little refresher course, and what a good little horsie he would be. A plastic bat is a wonderful horse tool. It won't hurt them, but it makes an awful racket and even a horse Moore's size (if there is another horse on the planet Moore's size) is certain that he has been slain.

We went out to the barn last night to watch the space shuttle take off. What a neat thing to see. I tried to explain the significance of the big light to Cassie, but she was equally impressed by all the other little lights.

Cassie wiped out in the bathtub a few minutes ago. Her feet slipped out from under her and she busted her cheek on the side of the tub, right where the bone circles the eye. It burst a little blood vessel underneath, which immediately popped up, and when I tried to hold ice on it, she acted like I was trying to rub salt in her eyes. So I guess she is going to have a shiner. I don't know who cried the worse, her or me. Usually I am standing right beside her when something happens to her and I am still powerless to stop it. You cannot imagine how horrible it is to watch even the tiniest, most mundane little accident befall your child. She is fine now and I still need a large rum drink.

I just heard Cassie's primal scream and went to save her and found her with both legs jammed through the little holes in her shopping cart, where the doll sits. She already has a bruise underneath her eye where she wiped out in the bathtub, and now she may have a bruise on her leg, too. She got her feet stuck in there because her feet are so big, and I've given up the idea of having them bound. So I guess she will have to have "big flapping feet" like Spring Moon's mother warned her about.

And if I don't go brush some of the burrs out of Moore's forelock he is going to call HRS or the SPCA on me. And when are you coming to see us? Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

This is a short letter because I'm on my way to the library. Speaking of the ladies' room in the library, the last time I was there, I learned its location the hard way. Deep in thought, I was on my way to the bathroom and walked right into the men's room for the first time in my life. When I came back out of the stall, a man was standing there with his back to me, using the urinal. Thankfully, I made my escape without his ever seeing me, and I went back to my table and telepathically instructed my obviously male partner that when we have to go to the bathroom, we have to go to the ladies' room not the men's room. Even so, it was a liberating, almost exhilarating experience. First the men's room, next the world! Alchemically speaking, when the androgyny appears - and I take it that this was the appearance of it - the Great Work is progressing nicely even 'tho sexual confusion may be the initial symptom. I feel no gender identity issues at all, though. When I see the male version of myself-not in dreams, when I see Bobby and Pacal and whoever else, I feel heterosexual in relation to them. I wonder how many people experiencing this place on the path are misinterpreting the meaning of it and thinking they have an sexual identity crisis?

I have been researching the Philosopher's Stone, along with everything else that has suddenly become of interest to me. I was recently given the Philosopher's Stone in an initiation, so I thought I might try to find out more about it. How it happened, I was again in a mystical initiation ceremony in the astral planes, where a stone was dedicated to me. Written on the stone was my new name, which no one knows but my partners and me. They supplied the first and last names and I supplied the middle name. In this quote from the Bible about the stone, I changed the "hims" to "hers" and "man" to "one" and "he" to "she." If someone were to go through the Bible and rewrite it with non­sexist language, how long do you think that would take?

"To her that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give her a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth saving she that receiveth it."

I also found a reference to the mystical experience of "the light too bright to behold," like the one that went bang in my biofield the night of the seance. "Within the deeper esoteric traditions of the Hermetic art there is a suggestion that with the blinding flash of illumination that heralds success comes a tremendous change in the adept, both spiritual and physical." Well, I know that's the truth! What a tremendous change to have partners who are everywhere and nowhere at once, including inside any head, and to have partners who massage my legs from the inside and make my headaches disappear. Never have I been so happy as I am now and I feel a sense of wholeness I never felt before. I have finally found all the parts of myself and am at last complete.

That wholeness and completeness I speak of is unfortunately occurring physically, as well. Jeanette's cook has been sating me with Filipino food to the extent that I am gaining weight. Everything she cooks is delicious except for one thing she wanted to me try, and that was dried fish. I think they dry it by hanging it on a string on a clothesline, like in those pictures you see in National Geographic. This stuff smells really bad, and people who hate anchovies should get a whiff of this. It makes anchovies seem like marshmallows.

By the way, I have stopped wearing make-up. Twice my make­up tray leapt, under it's own power or under some invisible, magical power, from the bathroom sink onto the floor, scattering the Lancome everywhere. I interpreted it to mean to stop wearing make-up, something I'm willing to do since I never enjoyed wearing it, anyway. Write soon.

Dear Claire:

I am devoted to wearing make-up. Had my make-up tray leapt from the sink onto the floor, I would have interpreted it to mean to change brands from Lancome to Clinique.

Today was Story Hour at the library. I colored a cow and cut it out and pasted it on a paper bag to make a puppet. Danielle pushed Cassie down and made her cry, and by using great restraint I kept from breaking Danielle's legs. My cow puppet doesn't look much better than my kitty puppet did last time. The little kid who was coloring across the table from me made one that looked much better than mine, but he kept his eye on me so I couldn't trade with him while he wasn't looking.

A new kitty has taken up with us. It is a little, skinny tabby tomcat that I think belongs to the Frenchman behind us. I remember the old man telling me how expensive cat food is, and his cats have been coming over here to eat dog food or whatever else they could scrounge, and they are all skinny. After several days of watching him eat the scraps I throw to the chickens, and never leaving earshot of the back door, just in case it opens and I come out bearing something to eat, I put him a dish of cat food under the edge of the house where the rain would not get it, and he thinks he is in heaven. He lies out in the rain to be near the back steps, and if he is in danger of drowning, he gets on top of whichever of my truck tires is nearest the back door.

That little tomcat is a neat little tabby and eats like a dog. He nips when you're petting him, although it is a very light nip, and he never comes close to breaking the skin. Cassie didn't much like it that he has done it to her a couple of times. But she does love the kitty, and I thought I would explain to her the concept of names and I wondered if I had gotten through to her when I asked her what she wanted to name the kitty, and she said, "Biting Kitty." I guess it's like an Indian name. But, I think Cassie is beginning to understand names and how they work. Yesterday she came into the kitchen to tell me she had changed her name--"Mama. Name Flipper."

I am trying to type between assignments as plumber's helper, which I have found to be a really hateful job. Plumbers deserve every dime they over-charge. If I have at least part of a letter to you on disk, my conscience will be somewhat eased, and I function quite well with a partially eased conscience.

I need to re-read A Confederacy of Dunces. I gave my copy to Butch in Louisiana because I thought he would appreciate the book, and he quotes from it constantly. He told me when his Ford place was about to go under, that he was thinking about trying to save it with the religious angle - Our Lady of the Dealership.

Cassie has lost all of her baby look and looks like a little girl now. It's scary. It is like she is on fast forward. Oh, it is much easier before they are potty trained. Back then when they were wet, you just changed them instead of becoming acquainted with every grimy bathroom everywhere, which she merely wants to examine. And handle. And she is learning to say "A, B, She." Nearly every bathroom we go into has graffiti on it somewhere, put there by some whacko, and Cassie points and says, "Look. A, B, She's." And she wants to touch everything. No wonder you have to teach them to wash their hands.

You need to read Clavell. You can't claim to know anything about China without having read Clavell. When you finally get on Clavell, you will want to read everything he has ever written, and so you need also to read King Rat, which was his first, and is at least semi-autobiographical, since he was in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. Whirlwind was not nearly as good as his other books, such as Shogun and Tai-Pan, which I can't bear that you haven't read, but then Whirlwind was about Iran and Iraq. "Insha Allah." Because you haven't read Clavell, I can't refer to Cassie as Empress Lady and expect you to get the full impact of it. I know you have an interest in the eastern mentality. Your Brown Belt in Karate proves it. By not reading Clavell you have overlooked the Faulkner of the East. You need to be aware, also, that the Samurai are going to wind up owning everything because of their duty and their intricacy.

Miss Manner's Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior is another one of my all-time favorites. I am concerned that you are not reading fiction, anymore. That you haven't read Rita Mae Brown makes me fidget. You should at least read Six of One.

You remember Roy Rooster who I renamed stretch? He is now Emperor of Chickens. His adoring hen harem has grown, and the other day when I changed their chicken feed, Stretch called up his hens to show it to them, just as if he alone were responsible for it. "Look what I found for my precious ones!" And he stretched his neck up and down gloriously, bobbing his head and showing them where to peck. I guess I'd better close. Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

Did you think I had given up on reading fiction? Surprise! I just finished the last Lovejoy book, by Jonathan Gash. These are my favorite books that I have been meaning to tell you about. They're mysteries about antiques, and I know how you love antiques. You and Lovejoy are so much alike. He went out of business too, the way you did and for the same reason. You would buy anything anyone brought you and refuse to sell anything anyone wanted to buy. Ya'll are collectors, not dealers, although Lovejoy tries a little harder than you did to sell something. Made for each other! And it also gives me great pleasure to hobble you by quoting from one of your favorite writers, Rita Mae Brown, who says, in her writer's manual Starting From Scratch, "If people refrain from telling what they know, how long before they actively lie? Is there not a subtle and corrosive connection between withholding the truth and lying?" With that in mind, here goes.

I am happy to inform you that there is sex in the afterlife. If people were really honest about it, how many would admit they would prefer to go to a heaven where there's sex? Here's the deal, as I understand it, and this only represents my experience. My Heavenly Partners are invisible and they seem incorporeal, but they still have bodies and they have the ability and sense of touch. They can touch me on the inside and the outside. I have found a lot of literature about this sexual alchemy, but most of which is cryptic in the extreme. The way the literature is designed to work, unless you are in the midst of this process you cannot ever appreciate the written words about it. But I will show them to you, anyway. Of sexual alchemy, Basil Valentine in his Twelve Keys says in his "ambiguous commentary on the 5th key:"

"Moreover, as iron has its magnet which draws it with the invisible bonds of love, so our gold has its magnet, vis., the first Matter of the great Stone. If you understand these my words, you are richer and more blessed than the whole world."

See, I understand that completely but I also know there's no way I can explain to you what it means. And it is saying more to me that I'm willing to explain, and that's Alchemy, through and through. No one involved in it will ever tell you the deepest secrets of it. That's one reason it remains occulted - it's supposed to be. Some of it's just flat out Top Secret. Asclepius, about 300 CE, writes:

"Therefore the mystery of intercourse is performed in secret, in order that the two sexes might not disgrace themselves in front of many who do not experience that reality. For each of them (the sexes) contributes its begetting. For if it happens in the presence of those who do not understand the reality, (it is) laughable and unbelievable. And, moreover, they are holy mysteries, of both words and deeds because not only are they not heard but also they are not seen."

I believe fully that sexual alchemy is the key to my spiritual union with the Heavenly Partners. Sexual alchemy is like the spiritual equivalent of Tantra Yoga. It involves Swadhisthana chakra, by which our minds become fused. I think this is possibly the meaning of the symbols of fusion on Guede's coat. I think it is because of this fusion with the partners that I can see the hidden realities and visit the nonspatial realms of the Heavenly Partners. I think the Maya knew this spirit world as Otherworld, so it has many names depending upon the cultural perspective. Otherworld is a very good name for it. My partners and I have overcome the dimensional barriers of time and space to enjoy an expanded life together.

It's funny to me, but the entire world thinks sex and orgasm are all about making babies. I think most people have missed out on this higher function that involves the chakra system and the stimulation of Swadhisthana chakra at the genital region. This is the chakra that the disciples of Tantra Yoga concentrate on. They say that all alchemy stems from their religion. I think they are right. With the world's overpopulation, now would be a good time to learn a new use for our sexual energy.

The ancient, oriental alchemists said the partners are "inner plane beings," and that they are the result of an internal alchemical process that manifests them. The process involves the psychic energy centers of the physical body and begins with a blinding white light and the taste of ambrosia. You can imagine how glad I am to be finding information like this! In the inner alchemical laboratory of my subtle body, the circulation of energy begins when the Swadhisthana chakra is stimulated, releasing ching or sexual energy. Ching combines with chi, at the heart region. Finally, Ching and chi meet with shen in the head. When this happens, the "ambrosia flows like saliva in the mouth" and the "gold and silver lights" are seen. The psychic inner lights of the Heavenly Partners, now manifest, can always be seen. Alice Bailey called experiencing the guides on the outside of the self "externalization of the hierarchy."

I have collected some good illustrations of the Heavenly Partners as depicted by various cultures at various times, and I will describe them to you. The Toltecs symbolized the partner as the "Smoking Mirror" at the back of the head of the Toltec god Xipe Totec. Near this area is the fontanelle/soft spot at the top of the head, which the shamans say is the entrance-exit point of Spirit, by which they mean how the partners go in and out of me.

The Statue of Prudence at the tomb of Francois II in Nantes Cathedral shows the Divine Androgyny, which I interpret to be the Heavenly Partner and the human being. The statue shows an old man residing at the back of the head of a young woman. For the Taoist alchemists in China, Shau-lao is Tao god of longevity, who gets to a very old age by the healing powers of alchemy. They also believe alchemy brings the reward of immortality. Shau-lao is wearing a Heavenly Partner on the top of his head, and the partner looks just like the magical flying dog in the movie, "The Neverending Story."

In modern Christian lore, the Heavenly Partners are depicted as the Doves of the Holy Spirit. The dove is shown descending to a chalice and paten, a symbolism also used by the Gnostic Catholic Church. The Dove descends to Jesus on the Jesse Tree. The Dove of the Holy Spirit descends in modern Hermeticism. The dove is seen descending on the Tarot card Ace of Cups (Water, Ace of Hearts). This dove-as-spirit symbol is like the hawk-as-spirit of Horus. The Pharaoh Kephren believed his Heavenly Partner was the supernal Horus, son of Isis and Osiris. The most famous image of Kephren shows the Horus hawk residing at the back of his head, sitting right on that chakra. The dove sits on the crown chakra in an image from "Spirit Speaks" magazine.

When the Heavenly Partner or Holy Spirit merges with the individual and resides in the head, seven gifts are conferred upon the individual, symbolized by the seven points of the heptagram. From Olde England, the gifts are:

ye gifte of Wisdom
ye gifte of Pite
ye gifte of Strength
ye gifte of Consaill
ye gifte of Understandynge
ye gifte of Connynge
ye gifte of Dreede

My researches have taken me to Feng Shui, the Chinese Art of Placement, and I've discovered a well-kept secret about Feng Shui having to do with "mirror image reversal." To know about the reversal is to know about the secret knowledge of the Feng Shui masters. I think my research of China has awakened for me a past life memory. It happened in a dream.

One night, after a long day of researching China, I dreamed I was Chinese girl, Lin Po. I lived in a poor village somewhere in China. We were starving and we were all standing in line to get a goose. The Red Guard herded hundreds of white geese into a fenced-in compound, where we could look through the fence and point at the goose that we wanted. By the time I got up to the fence to get my goose, the Red Guard went on break on a blistering hot day. They didn't water the geese at all, and the precious geese were slowly dying. Through the fence I watched them fall, one by one, but I couldn't say anything about it or the Red Guard on the other side of the fence might hurt me. Then, I realized I was dreaming and all I had to do was go och chan (invisible) and walk through the fence, like they taught me to do, and water the geese. Just as I thought to do it, a Red Guard holding a rifle appeared on the other side of the fence. I looked at him closely and, although he looked Chinese, I knew he was my partner. I decided to leap over the fence, karate-kick him down, take his weapon away and then water the geese. Just as I thought it, 3 more Red Guard materialized behind him, and the partners outnumbered me. There was nothing I could do except stand and watch the geese die. They fell to the ground, covering it like white dogwood blossoms. I stood in sympathy and in honor of their passing, and I felt compassion just about burst my heart. Just as I awoke, I had a vision of big snowflakes falling and covering the ground like white dogwood blossoms, and I wondered what it all meant. Write soon.

Dear Claire:

I hope the Feng Shui Ninja don't come get you should you ever divulge their reversal secret. And I've wanted to tell you so many times how much you have changed and how peaceful you have become--you have a new wa. However you achieved it is acceptable to me.

Your letter about the dying geese came the same day I found Stretch's body. I didn't actually find his body, just some bloody feathers that I recognized. And I also found Bobcat tracks. I have just purchased a Bobcat trap. Stretch's harem is nearly inconsolable, as chickens go, running around cackling and looking for him. But they still eat, grief-stricken or no. Chickens are so defenseless, especially when they sleep. They were roosting on the ladder I leaned up against the shed for them, and the Bobcat just snatched Stretch down and ate him. He could have eaten all of them in their sleep because, when they sleep, they are really unconscious. Perhaps they were all dreaming they were geese in China.

Poor Stretch. He was my favorite rooster. When you raise chickens, you begin to think of them as pets. I've raised too many roosters. The Arracona rooster, Emperor Number Two, has realized Stretch is no longer around and is trying to acquire his harem. But Stretch was a big, fine Rhode Island Red, not a South American pretty boy. The hens may know the difference.

Finally I have outlasted Cassie, and the Empress is asleep on the floor. Thank heaven. Cassie thinks that I am never done taking care of what she perceives to be her needs and I perceive to be her wants. And she certainly never considers that I might need some time to myself. I believe she thinks she was born to rule. I can see why Paregoric was outlawed. I can also see that when Cassie is 17, this place is going to be stacked from floor to ceiling with old, broken, dusty toys. She won't let me get rid of anything that is hers, no matter what condition it is in. She acts like it is a piece of the ark. She once followed me out on the porch and retrieved the bottom portion of her toy weed eater, the handle long since broken off, with an "Oooo, weee" that denoted total reverence. And since I didn't want to appear to be a dragon-lady type mother and since I couldn't figure out how to explain broken and no good, I let her bring it back in.

Several days ago, Hooch had one of his gorgeous jaw teeth extracted, the size of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic, due to a lingering complication of rattlesnake bite. I guess in a few months I'll have to get him a little partial plate--at least that's what the vet said, who recognizes a whacko animal mental case when he sees one. Now Hooch is lying on the sofa, which I've made up into a lovely little hospital bed. I know that everybody thinks their dog is Rin-Tin-Tin, but Hooch really is.

Cassie fell asleep on the floor a little while ago and woke up like a grizzly poked by a sharp stick. What a mean little girl. Everything I have done since she woke up has been wrong. I just stopped her from painting on her blackboard with a straw full of coke. She thinks of the most bizarre things to do. Day before yesterday, she opened the bathroom door and got the bottle of bleach and water that I use to clean the tubs and sprayed the cushions on the sofa. The sofa was already ruined by un-declawed cats, but whatever possessed her to do such a thing? Before I could discover what she had done with the bottle I had just wrested from her, she closed the sliding closet door on her thumb, and while I was carrying her around comforting her, I kept smelling bleach. But I failed to notice that her jeans and her red socks were getting lighter and lighter, and so were the sofa cushions.

While I was mixing up the Nutri-system Hot Cocoa and Whipped Topping (very good), Cassie got in the cat room and mixed up about ten cups of cat food in their water bowl. I lost it and swatted her on her bottom a few times, but not enough to make her cry. Then, while I was trying to clean up the awful mess, she was standing around holding out her hands looking all distressed because they had wet cat food on them. She can't stand for her hands to have anything on them. You should see how she acts if she gets sand or a dead bug on her hands. Irene Reilly was right when she said, "Mothers is got a hard road."

Now she keeps telling me "We go," and she is wearing her sunglasses and standing with her hands on her hips, which means that she wants to go somewhere, but I do not. She has also taken to admonishing me with her finger when she wants to really play empress. At first I thought, "What a bossy thing for a child to do." Then I realized that I do it to her when I am really serious about what I don't want her to do. Of course, after she wags it at me a few times during one of her trying moments, I want to grab her by it and sling her around my head. She also does it to the cats and the teddy bear.

Cassie just took another short nap and we are both refreshed.

A few weeks ago I had the truck re-shod. I bought the super redneck mudslinger deluxes with big words outlined in white. I found wires the length of curb feelers sticking out of my old tires. It's a good thing I got the mudslingers, because that's what we have here, now. The rain here has been torrential. Four inches last night, 12 inches this week, 8 inches last week. Some areas are being evacuated due to flooding. The water is lying over our place like a sheet of glass, and we are luckier than most people. Most people can't get in and out of their houses. Allyson has gotten stuck pulling out of her drive in a dually one ton pick-up. Kris can't pull off the lime rock road into the pasture to go around a group of heifers staging a sit-in demonstration.

We are expecting another 5 to 8 inches if the tropical storm does not reach hurricane proportions. The local news here is a trip; all the Nawtheners (read Yankees) barking and whining about high water. Almost anybody except Nawtheners knows not to buy a place with cypress trees in the front yard. If people are determined to live in a place that God intended to be a swamp, then they should be prepared to contend with high water. And it is pouring down outside as we speak. I think I just saw one of the chicken pens floating past the back door. Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

What in the world is a wa?

Today, as I studied the image of the Anonymous 16th Century Gentleman, I heard the bells of Rome or perhaps Florence ring in my bedroom for about five seconds. It was a beautiful thing to hear, and I said, "How did you do that? Do it again." And he did it again. And when I was at the library with my head in the Renaissance, I found another fascinating puzzle and an account of a "dazzling light." After I read this, I wanted to buy a crystal ball and start gazing.

When Queen Mary, Bloody Mary, imprisoned her half-sister Elizabeth in a nice country estate, Elizabeth was never sure that she would live to adulthood. In 1551, she met the renowned scholar, traveler and astrologer John Dee and she asked him for a horoscope. Dee correctly predicted Elizabeth would rise to a high place in the kingdom and live to old age and that Queen Mary would die childless. When Elizabeth gained the throne, she made Dee court astrologer and a wealthy man.

In 1581, Dee had an experience in which "there suddenly glowed a dazzling light, in the midst of which, in all his glory stood the great angel, Uriel." [I wrote this in 1992. My addition to this in 2008; the female counterpart Uriel is the Archangel Ariel, the version I received of this Great Soul.] Uriel told Dee that if he would obtain a "shewstone" (crystal) and gaze into it, he could communicate with otherworldly beings. Dee complied but he never could see anything, so he hired a series of scryers (try getting a job crystal-gazing these days!), all unsuccessful until he hired Edward Kelley, an alchemist and Hermeticist. Kelley wrote Theater of Terrestrial Alchemy, which I would love to read and which included a drawing of the Philosopher's Egg. It looks kind of like a floating chicken egg.

I have seen several books lately in the bookstores about the Keys in the Enochian Language. The design is considered to have applications in magick, and everything we know about it so far comes from Dee and Kelley. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn devotes numerous pages to it. This book defines scrying as "traveling in the spirit-vision." This is a good description of what I am learning how to do. [Additional to this 1992 information is that I discovered in a book a picture of the Phaistos Disk at about that same time.I was able to solve this part of the Phaistos Disk enigma by looking at the Keys design while connecting with lines the Shield pictographs on the Disk. A hidden pictograph emerges.]

But I don't need to travel in the spirit-vision to have a great experience. Sometimes, the experience travels to find me. A few nights ago, we had an awful electrical storm with bolts of lightning (yightning) flying everywhere. I fell asleep and dreamed I was a teenager again in my old house in Jesup. I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror styling my hair as the radio was blasting the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who were singing "Give it away now." Suddenly, it seemed a bolt of lightning hit me and, in my dream, I thought it came through the window. It hit the top of my head and sent an electrical current down to my feet and back up again. It didn't hurt me but I awoke, angry with my partners because I knew they had caused it. I sat up in bed and said, "Don't ever do that again! If you want me to turn down the radio, just say so. Not everyone likes the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I understand that, but there's no need to shock me just because you don't like rock music." My Partners were caressing me on my wrists and ankles, calming me down.

Then I thought, "They wouldn't do that for just no reason. It must be something alchemical." I modified my instructions to, "Don't ever do that again without telling me first." I looked back at the cards I had laid out just before going to sleep, and there it was in the reading (these words are the actual words on the cards, Tarot of the Spirit deck) - "Courage­-Transformation-In Dreams-The Tower-Lightning Path." In your deck these cards are the 7 of Wands (Fire, Seven of Clubs), Death (Major Mystery, Transformation), 9 of Swords (Earth, Nine of Spades), The Tower (Major Mystery, Blast of Light), and 8 of Wands (Fire, Eight of Clubs).

After recovering from my indignation, I admitted the shock sensation had not been unpleasant. I read later that in the Middle Ages up to the 19th century alchemists experienced the deafening noise as trumpets, rather than rock music, and they believed the electrical shock to the top of the head to be lightning. This experience really reveals one meaning of The Tower card, that the transformation afforded by Death is preceded by the blast of light afforded by The Tower. It's a lot of little deaths or transformations of the existing individual culminating eventually in a great big death that provides the major evolution and the ultimate transformation. And then later on after that, much later I'm hoping, the actual physical death occurs. Write soon.

Dear Claire:

Wa means internal peace and happiness. If you would read Clavell, you would know that. And you are the only person I have ever known to enjoy being shocked, unless you count Dr. Fu Man Chu, but he was just a fictional character. He must have been some kind of alchemist, though, considering his old age of 168 and the craving he had for Elixir Vitae.

Cassie is a horsewoman now. She has been riding Paige's pony and Shasta's pony. Kids here learn how to ride about the time they learn how to walk. And yesterday, while we were at the drive-thru at CandS, a tree frog jumped out from under the dash and scared the you-know-what out of me and delighted Cassie, who was yelling, "Fwog! Fwog!" all the time I was trying to catch it. No telling what all the other Saturday morning bankers thought to see me jumping all over the truck. Finally, I had it and I had to get my money and drive off one-handed, while the little tree frog filled my hand with wart-laden tree frog urine and while Cassie was still yelling "Fwog! Fwog!" Then, I didn't know what to do with it that would not result in its immediate demise, so I drove over to McDonald's and turned it loose in one of their cute little landscaped McIslands, with Cassie crying "Fwog! Fwog!" and looking at me as if I had thrown her little bear out the window. I tried to explain to her that the truck was not a very fwog-safe place, not many bugs to eat and real, real hot.

Cassie just sat down on my typewriter cover and cracked it and I lost the moral of my fwog story, if there was one.

3 hm

Cassie never gives up. She loves the keyboard.

Today was Cassie's birthday and her party seemed longer than my labor. This was the first party where other children were invited, and all the child books I have read (and verily I say unto you, I have read a bunch) have said that the number of the guests should be the same as the age of the child. Well, Cassie has watched too much Batman (Fram! Whap! Thump!), and if there had been more than one guest, then there would have been more than one mother wanting to spank my child. She rapped Paige with her broom, her chicken feed bowl and her hands several times. Now, as a mother I can see all the things that Paige does to aggravate Cassie, but she has to learn to live in the real world where she is not allowed to crash-cripple-smash the opposition, or even her friends. If there is one thing I have found out about motherhood it is that no matter what your child does to another child, you do not want anything done unto your child. "Mother's is got a hard road."

I was thinking about cutting Cassie some bangs but I'm not going to do it. Bangs are forever. I have always wished that Cassie could have her Aunt Claire's curly locks, which I would have known what to do with. The more I reflect on it, the more I realize what a good mother you would have been.

Pre-school starts tomorrow. Three days a week kills me. I don't know how I will ever manage five. Maybe I can keep her on a three-days-a-week schedule and let her graduate from high school at age 24. Cassie just came in here and said, "I want to taste some water. You are tasting wine. I tasted some wine one time and yuck-a-do." It's remarkable how well she expresses herself when she disapproves of something I'm doing.

I salvaged as many little creatures as I could find out of the pool. I just dumped the second treatment of ten gallons into the pool, and you should see it. It is blue. I also got a great lecture on the shelf life of chlorine, which I am delighted to pass on to you. It is sold to the dealer fresh at 15% and is sold to the customer a week later as 12%. If the customer rides it around in the back of her truck for 4 hours, it reaches the pool at 6%. All that K-Mart and Wal-Mart carry is about 5%, because it has been trucked around for 3 months, and even under optimum conditions which include refrigeration out of the sun, it is only good for one to two weeks. Now, is that all you ever wanted to know about chlorine, or not?

And here it is only 7:05p and I have to go take a nap, after getting my chile into her jammies and picking the appropriate little animals for her to sleep with. I know this letter is short, but your daughter is not pulling dishes that you think are worth the earth out of the piesafe and stuffing them into the Fischer Price Laundry Center ($28.95). Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

I am so complimented that you think I would be a good mother, because I think you a wonderful mother. What a beautiful childhood you are giving Cassie. You mother her but you don't smother her. I think you must instinctively know, "Seed corn must not be ground." It can't be right to produce from little children a lot of grown-up, profitable professionals rather than personable people. Have you ever seen the profitable professionals satirized by Nicolas de Larmessin, in late 17th century, in his engravings of trades? You would love to have the originals hanging round about your know-it-all center. The professionals are all clothed from head to toe with the tools of their trades, and that's the totality of their personality. I think I am clothing myself like his version of the astrologer.

You are more The Empress card (Major Mystery, Maternal Instinct) than any other card in Tarot. The Empress is the two-way door to life and death and, like The Empress, you preside over things being born and things dying. It's very clear to me how you came to be a maternity room nurse, and now you are giving your lucky animal menagerie a chance at a wonderful life on McMeryl's Farm. I would have said old McMeryl's Farm, but I didn't want to rile you. I'm sure you would tell me you live on McMeryl's Ranch, not farm, as you have yet to plant anything on your property.

Here's my big news. I am moving back to Jesup as soon as Jeanette returns from Mexico. I will surely miss her. She has never doubted anything I told her, and I have told her some strange things. I love Atlanta but it's what you do first in life that your insides are made of. I look forward to living once again in the low country and sitting on the back patio watching the Great Blue Herons winging it across the pond like blue pterodactyls. I think reading your letters is bringing on this nostalgia. I miss the squirrels and the hawks, the hummingbirds and the rabbits, the mourning doves, the quail, and the swamp. Reminiscing about the place, I wrote a poem about the Altamaha River swamp. A swamp is a beautiful place, once you overcome the fear of it. Being raised on it helps. We spent our youth there, you and I, fishing, skiing, wading and swimming, partying on houseboats and camping. This poem will take you there in your mind.

Flow me now, deep river, to a paradise I know,
Long cool summer water, take me easy and slow.
Never swift and shallow, rushing sudden downstream,
Just sleepy and drifting, like this place in my dream.

Where dawn's early light, sweet cool sunbeams make,
Yellow gold brilliant white, in green pine tree brake.
Tiny sparrows, finches flitter, they circle, away fly.
Quails rustle dry brush, black crows callous cry.

Bristly boars root and snort in palmetto bush near.
Look, into the river leap three whitetail deer!
Armadillos scurry by, squirrels scamper up trees.
Possums rabbits raccoons Spanish moss and oak leaves.

Bright and bold sings the sun its fiery orange tune.
When day sunshines hot, hawks soar at high noon.
Woodpeckers tap rat-a-tat on distant hollow trees,
Bluejays and redbirds chase dragonflies and bees.

On far slippery shores of light and dark river,
Moccasins nap sunning and then away slither.
Willow tree branches are dripping green snakes.
They wriggle, then drop, on an otter's furry face.

Scorpions spiders snakes, here deserve our forgiving.
They're honest and brave, trying to make a living.
Mosquitoes gnats chiggers have over us some power,
Yet measure their lives by the minute, the hour.

Early evening 'bout dusk in fishy graveyards,
Crunchy white bones of beached alligator gars.
Swollen river rolls by, water gargles and gurgles.
Bobble half-swallowed logs toting green turtles.

Down under the water, buttery catfish play.
Blue cats swirling sand in the bottom channels stay.
River up, redbreasts swim in an old cypress knee.
River down, fishes trapped in the stump of a tree.

Who! Hoot owl evenings, sweet honeysuckle dreams,
Blackberry bush thickets, far away panther screams.
Here two yellow moons, they both ripple and shimmer,
Twinkling firefly night sky in a black river mirror.

Lie back on cool grass, see that shooting star above?
Love gave us all these we were born just to love.
We're made of inside of what we do in life first,
And our birth foretells our death foretells our birth.

In my latest dream outing, I saw and heard John Lennon sing the best song he ever wrote. I was in a crowded pub in Ireland, and people were strumming guitars, singing in Gaelic and drinking ale in pint glasses. Everyone was very excited, and I turned to the man beside me and asked, "What's all the excitement about?" He answered, "We're going to hear John Lennon sing his latest song." Then, we all walked through a portal, one of the many times I've walked through with this happy group of spirit-people who I first met in Jeanette's hallway.

The other side of the portal was a theater, like an opera house, and a man led me to a front row, center seat. An orchestra materialized on the stage and began playing the most beautiful music I've ever heard. John Lennon walked onto the stage and sang his best song ever. I told myself to remember the song and I tried to materialize pen and paper to write down the lyrics but I became caught up in his wonderful performance. He sang only one song and got a standing ovation.

I was never really a big Lennon fan when he was alive, so it surprised me that I would see him, of all performers, in concert. I would have preferred Jimi Hendrix playing "All Along the Watchtower." Wouldn't that have been wonderfully eerie?! Oh, by the way, I'm enclosing part of a poem I found at the library. It's called "An Anatomie of the World." John Donne wrote it in 1611 but it could easily have been written yesterday. I just love this!

"And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out;
The sun is lost, and th' Earth, and no man's wit

Can well direct him where to looke for it.
And freely men confesse that this world's spent,
When in the planets, and the firmament
They seeke so many new...

Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone;
All just supply, and all relation:
Prince, subject, father, sonne, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinkes he hath got
To be a phoenix, and that then can bee
None of the kinde, of which he is, but he."

I guess some things never do change. Write soon.

Dear Claire:

Have you seen Elvis? (I just had to ask you that.) I'm glad that you are moving back to Jesup. Even Adam and Eve were happier in the country. I taped the Keys in the Enochian Language above Cassie's little dining room table and chair for her to ponder. Maybe she'll have an insight into it or, hopefully, Madimi will appear and begin instructing her in her A, B, She's.

Cassie and I just went for a walk in the backyard, which ended abruptly when she announced, "We go inside and get cold water." After the way she dawdles, she has her nerve. She wanted to lay up on the sofa and watch cartoons and be a couch potato, but we went back out and I loaded in seven more barrow loads. I am for sure through, now. (Ooooo. I just noticed I have a blister.)

It's unseasonably hot here--94 outside--and I don't think I'll go back out there until it cools off a little. I need to give Moore a bath, but not yet. It may just cloud up and rain and then I won't have to. Moore is busy wandering around mapping out a new route for his occasional stampede. I was intending to go out to the barn and put fill dirt in the stall, but it's too hot out there to consider doing much of that. One wheelbarrow full and it was time to go. I can only hope that it will keep me from having upper arms like Kate Smith. The only immediate result that I can see is that it makes me have brown, dusty stuff all over my person.

I actually expected medical science to find a cure for old age syndrome before I became afflicted with it. Miss Med-Sci has let us down once again.

It has started to really rain, thank heaven, so I don't have to wash that fool horse or shovel my fool self. Cassie is practicing her anatomy on Kitty Emil. "Ear." Jab. "Eye." Jab. Emil seems to really love it, being the perverse kitty that he is. I just put Fern Gully on for Cassie. We went to K-Mart earlier today and got her the movie and some "fip fops." We had been looking for a good pair, and the ones we found today don't have a between-the-toe piece but have a little strap for behind-the-heel. They are gaudy pink plastic with Minnie Mouse on them and perfectly hideous. And Cassie is so proud. Cassie is going to cripple herself with these fip fops because she keeps them on the wrong feet.

I was just struck with a flurry of housecleaning zeal, which was fortunately short-lived. It was a cleaning frenzy, but like most of my frenzies it didn't last very long. I'm almost out of Direct, so that's about when the fat lady will sing. Here is some trivia for you. Trivia is Latin for "three roads" (tri-via) and came to its present usage because anywhere three roads converged, the Romans put up a bulletin board of sorts with all the news and little bits of information.

Believe it or not, I just did a Jazzercise workout, and this is going to be a short letter because the new exercise routine leaves me without enough energy to type. Whew! I try to get Sandra Dee to work out with me; Lord knows she needs it, but all she is interested in is trying to get petted while I am doing the floor exercises. If Friskies doesn't come out with Friskies Light, Sandra Dee is going to pop.

I found a huge lump on my side the other day; it was really scary until I figured out that I had one on the other side, too. Hipbones.

I guess I had better go out and catch Moore. There isn't much catching to it. When I go outside, he comes up to me hoping that I will feed him. I had to have shoes put on his front feet Saturday. He had a small split on one of his hooves, but it was all the way through the hoof wall, so it would only get worse. He will have to wear them for about 12 weeks (two trims) and then he can go barefoot again. Write soon.

P.S. I guess I didn't love that swamp as much as you did, or maybe it's just that I still live near one and you don't.

Dear Meryl:

A real short letter this time. I'm running out the door to the library. Remember my dream about being in the Aegean during a disaster? Turns out that dream was very accurate. Crete was destroyed that way in only one day and night by fires, earthquakes and floods, and so was Atlantis. And that's not all. Lately, my life is all about the number 4. Like Carl Jung before me, I am besieged by number 4's. Joseph Campbell said Carl Jung spent a lifetime investigating the mystical significance of the number 4. I'm tripping over 4's these days. Every time I research something really mystical, I find the number 4. It's not easy to explain, it's more experiential than anything else. I call it "convergence." Jung called it synchronicity, "the concept of a meaningful coincidence of two or more events, where something other than chance is involved." Another name for it is "magic." Got to run. Write soon.

Wotcher, Claire!

Your letter came the same day as Jimmy with my load of fill dirt for Moore's stall. I left the letter unopened, went outside and saw a blank piece of white paper, about the size of a big napkin, that was lying on the front of the dirt pile. I picked it up, turned it over and there on the back of it was a big number 4. Just a 4, nothing else. Then I read your letter. Convergence?

You'd howl if you could see Cassie. She looks like Isadora Duncan. She's in the living room all by herself, in her shorts and tank top and a length of gingham wound around her waist, doing the Jazzercise Super Session. She asked me if I would put the tape on for her. I ought to be in there myownself instead of having my girth parked in front of this typewriter. Right now she is trying her best to do "Pivot, pivot, trip-o-let." I just saw her on my way to get a glass of wine, and she was checking her target heart rate. Attagirl.

I hope Jesup doesn't upset your wa. I only say that because it is the only place in the world where I can run into someone I haven't seen in 30 years and the first thing they will ask me is why I think my parents got a divorce. Six or seven years ago, while I was in a restaurant there, I ran into someone from high school. And although I hadn't seen her in 20 years and she didn't speak to me when we were in high school, the first thing she asked me was why did I suppose my parents got a divorce. My parents were both dead. Could she imagine that I wanted to discuss something that old and personal and painful with someone I hardly knew? And yet they can't understand why I won't come to the high school reunions.

While you are in Jesup you could take a day or two to solve the mystery of the gorilla on Bald's Island. If you can decipher a sarcopohagus, I know you can solve this mystery. Ball's Island is somewhere on the Altamaha River, and there is supposed to be a gorilla on the island. Several reliable people swear they have seen it, and one even said he saw the gorilla sitting on a log reading a newspaper. Not that I believe it, but if there is a newspaper-reading gorilla on the island, I think it's important I know about it.

The other day I came in and caught Cassie with my checkbook out of my purse and everything in my purse spread all over the floor. When she saw me and thought I might be mad, she grabbed up my driver's license picture and started kissing it. A little phony, but quite effective. I couldn't fuss for laughing. When I tell her "no" about anything, she kisses me. It gives me a sinking feeling to know that she isn't in grammar school yet and is already on the con.

I demand to know why you didn't tell me sooner about Jonathan Gash. I just finished Jade Woman and The Great California Game. Lovejoy is my new hero, and a right peach. Is that Lovejovian enough for you? I am planning on moving to England to divvie antiques. I suffer from a longing for old glass and dishes. And jewelry. And yightning rods and cemetery fences and other things too numerous to mention. I have also called the cable company and given them a right ballocking for not carrying A&E so I can watch Lovejoy. "Ere! Where's me Lovejoy?"

The weather has cooled off and the dragonflies are gone. (So are the dragons.) It is just a beautiful day. It was cool this morning but it has warmed up. I always think that Fall is my favorite time of year. I think that until Spring comes. We met Paige and Allyson at Centennial Park today for a fun afternoon of chasing the kids. It is really a nice park with lots of neat things for Paige and Cassie to climb on and fall off, but it is right beside the Caloosahatchee River, which makes me nervous as a cat. I never knew fear until I had a child; now I am constantly horrified that something is going to happen to her. Cassie and Paige were all flushed while we were there, but it could have been from chasing around and bullying all the other kids. I swear, they remind me of us when we were young. They go in a place and take over. And act the fool.

I have been sewing for 3 days on a little sewing project that was ill conceived. I hope I have enough material left over to make myself a straight jacket. I've also started some renovations. I'd send you a tile sample, but I suppose it would be a little expensive to mail. I wish the renovation elves would do this place while I am asleep.

I have been reading Oscar Wilde again, and he said all kinds of shocking things heavy with implication. "To love oneself is a never ending infatuation." And, "I am a man of simple taste. I am always satisfied with the very best." And my very favorite, "It is only a fool that does not judge by appearances." And, "When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers." "A poet can survive everything but a misprint." "I can resist everything except temptation." "We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars." "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." "I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train." "They say, Lady Hunstanton, that when good Americans die they go to Paris." "Indeed? And when bad Americans die, where do they go to?" "Oh, they go to America." Ouch.

What a day. I have been throwing up and lying in state back in our bedroom with the door shut, and Cassie was banging on it and calling "Mommy, Mommy!" Next, she came in and tried to pry my eyes open. I could have gotten more rest if I had gone out to the mall and laid down on one of the benches. I guess I had better close so I can go barf again and then start supper. Write soon.

Wotcher, Meryl!

As it happens, I have already investigated the gorilla on Bald's Island, back in high school. My findings? Ain't no gorilla. Sorry. Oh, I am so excited! When I was researching ancient Crete, I found a picture of a piece of pottery called the Phaistos Disk, the most famous undeciphered artifact in archaeology. At the top of the page in big block letters was the question, "Who can read the Phaistos Disk?" Of course, I think I can read it. After about three hours or trying to read it like hieroglyphs, I played connect-the-dots with it and got a design I could recognize, a pyramid. Then I spent about a week on it and got some other designs this way, the constellation Argo and the Hermetic Star! This is an Hermetic artifact! I am now about to figure this thing out. I'll let you know what it says. [Only took 32 years :)]

I have been researching cave art and how beautiful it is! One night, after spending an entire day with my head in the cave art of the cavepeople, I dreamed I lived in a community of truly primitive people who were barely able to survive and who were always in danger of being attacked by one animal or another. I have seen a lot of water moccasins in my life, but these two in my dream were the biggest I've ever seen. A voice behind me told me their names were Ida and Pingala, which is funny because that's a reference to the chakra system, the metaphysical system that facilitates astral projection or traveling in the spirit-vision. But even with the cute names, the snakes were terrible, and I would never have guessed I was being awarded those snakes. Ida and Pingala comprise part of the Caduceus, the symbol awarded The High Priestess. The essence of The High Priestess is water. And these snakes were in a pond.

As I was making haste to distance myself from the snakes (I was running flat out), a little, vicious mammal began chasing me, and I couldn't outrun it. I finally whacked it with my Caduceus to keep it and it's sharp teeth off me. The Caduceus empowers me as a healer, so maybe that sharp-toothed beastie was an infection I cured myself of in my sleep. Just at that moment, one of my female partners appeared wearing really attractive sandals that fit her feet so pretty. I looked down at my feet and saw that I had materialized ill fitting, clodhopper sandals, some that were way too big for me. So I gave my feet a pair of big, wool socks, which looked equally bad but were meant to fill the over-sized sandals. My socks and my sandals were full of sand. As I was pondering what to do about it, my considerate partner changed her pretty sandals to match my clodhoppers.

My partner led me to a group of cavepeople who were ejecting from their midst a young man who had a lisp and a stutter. They expelled him from their community, an early method of natural selection by humans, for no other reason than his speech impairment. Just as I was about to object to their treatment of this person, he told them he would do better without them and that he was sick and tired of the way they were treating him. I was still verging on interfering, but then he said he was going to go to Miami Beach and learn to play professional baseball. (It's also a good place to play money bridge.) When he said he was going to Miami Beach, I thought, "That sounds good to me. And these people will be stuck here with Ida and Pingala while he plays ball."

The Caduceus is portrayed on the II of Cups (Water, Two of Hearts), a card meaning Heavenly Partners. The Caduceus symbolizes the chakra system, which is key to the partnership of the angel guide and the human. The Caduceus forms the leminscate (figure 8), a symbol formed by the Phaistos Disk, as well. Shortly after I got the Caduceus award, I received another award, the Star of David, in a mysterious ceremony. The Star of David symbolizes "the par excellence of the Work and of the production of the Philosopher's Stone." The Star is composed of two triangles, one pointing down, symbolizing water and Mercury--the Heavenly Partner--and the other pointing up, symbolizing fire and Sulphur--the physical person. The alchemical Great Work cannot be completed without the "union of fire and water" and "the intimate union, the conjunction, of sulphur and Mercury." Write soon.

Wotcher, Claire!

How refreshing to find a letter with no window in my mailbox. Your letters are almost as wonderful to get as my alimony and child support checks. Your letter really pulled me back from the abyss. I am quilting you a Phaistos Disk quilt, in honor of your forthcoming decipherment. I wouldn't expect the archaeological community to be happy about it, if I were you. They'll probably be just as delighted about it as Jonas Salk would have been to receive a recipe hint from Heloise for the polio vaccine. Pay no attention to them, however. There was no doubt a fool on the ground at Kitty Hawk screaming, "It won't fly!" when the Wright brothers took off. If you unearthed a 4th pyramid, something they couldn't easily ignore, then they might consider your work. (And did you overlook the big lemiscate of the II of Pentacles?) (Earth, Two of Spades)

I keep my barn so nice and my housekeeping is so bad. I think I am more psychologically attuned to a dirt floor. I've always known that I kept house like a buffalo hunter, but I have learned not to despair over it. 20,000 years ago, can you imagine what my cave would have looked like? I would also have worn my animal skins too tight and rubbed charcoal on my eyelids. I changed the burners and the sockets on the stove this morning before I cooked breakfast. I had been struggling along with only two burners that worked full time, and yesterday morning I thought, "Well, what about those poor cavewomen who had to cook over a campfire." And then I thought, "Okay, so I've got one more burner than them." That's when I changed the burners.

I have not been real thrilled with Moore lately. He ran along side my truck when I was leaving for town and got excited. He started bucking and he kicked in the passenger side door. Perhaps I should take Moore to the taxidermist and have him stuffed. That way, when I want to ride him I can put him on roller, hitch him to the back of the truck, and someone can pull me around on him. I could also save a lot of money if I stuff him because I won't have to feed him nearly so much.

Kitty Sandra Dee is mad at me right now because I won't let her sleep on my 1957 Webster's New International. Sandra Dee is fatter than Henry VIII. Since she had her operation, she has really let herself go. She looks like a fur covered bowling ball with a head and a tail. Her belly swings between her legs when she walks. I tell her to be careful jumping down off of things, that she is liable to hurt her little feet.

Well, Cassie is getting out of the tub and I had better go dry her off and get her dressed. We have to go see what the library has to offer and check out more Lovejoy. I'll continue when we get back.

We're back. (Short trip, huh?) The Robber Baron Rural Electric Company estimated my bill this month $700 too high because I was in the shower while Molly and Hooch were outside, and the meter reader was afraid to come on the property to take a reading with them barking at him. In the middle of my making whatever it is called when you make a spectacle of yourself on the telephone, my regular meter reader came to read the meter for this month and explained the accursed new policy and the additional $20 rereading fee. He also told me that if I would draw pictures of the clocks with the arrows pointing to the numbers (that is, if I wasn't able to learn to read the meter) and hang it on the gate, he would take that.

In the face of all this, our house was awarded a five star energy rating. I said, in my hatefulest voice, "You mean this is the cheapest it's ever going to get?" They told me to do boring things like vacuum my refrigerator coils and change my heat pump filters and put a jacket on my hot water heater, things I already hate doing. Homeowning is a real chore. It also includes yard work. But I don't want to get you down. Now I know why people become terrorists. These are dangerous times, Watson. We must chronicle them.

Have you ever had red beans and rice? I love Louisiana cooking, and all other kinds, too, but RB&R is one of the things I crave most in times of deep depression.

We are having them for supper.

Cassie had the cordless phone and I just had to threaten to write another letter to Santa Claus. She doesn't even listen to my threats with a serious look on her face; maybe I need one of those hockey masks like Jason wore.

My renovation is coming along nicely. I just finished urethaning the window trim for the bathroom. What icky stuff. And I just noticed that I ruined my shirt. Staining wood is almost pleasant work; the stain just sinks in and doesn't run everywhere and the results are immediate and gorgeous. (You know how I love immediate gratification.) I put the linoleum down last night. I picked out a pedestal sink. Now all we need are nice aluminum Doric columns for the front porch and some plastic flamingos. And a mailbox like a little bitty front loader. The bathroom really has turned out better than I could have hoped. Incongruous with the rest of this house. Remember Lisa's bedroom in Green Acres?

When I redo the kitchen I intend to salvage these decent, but ugly, cabinets with new pulls and pickling stain. And a new countertop and walls and floor and ceiling. I can see now that all I need is thousands of dollars and I can make this house almost all right.

What excitement here on the ranch! Moore colicked last night. In a horse, that is a case of severe abdominal pain caused by gas. Horses do not tolerate pain well, and Moore is a bigger sissy than most. The vet got me for $124 before Moore began to think that he might survive.

I took Cassie to the rodeo. My friend Mike is a bulldogger--a very good one, about third in the state. A bulldogger drops off a horse moving 35 miles per hour onto the horns of a steer going the same speed and tries to twist its neck and get it to fall down. A strange pursuit. We also went to a Dave Morgan rodeo in Lorida (Low-ree-da), which is really a strange affair. Dave furnishes the stock. When Mike was a kid, his daddy had Dave put on a rodeo in Naples and told Dave to bring his bad bulls. Dave looked at the arena where it was to be held and told Mike's dad that that arena wouldn't hold his bad bulls, that he would have to bring his medium bad bulls. Mike said the bulls he brought were so rank that Dave couldn't chase them out of the arena with horses because they hooked horses. After every bull ride he had to chase them out in an old beat up and bouncing Bronco with holes all in it, no headlights and a pack of dogs.

"/fcfccldffg.kggv,,v,c.c.c. This last is a message from Cassie. Decipher it if you can.

Don (Daffy Duck) dropped by with his latest girlfriend. She seems like a very nice lady and not his usual girlfriend at all. She has two boys, 5 and 10, and lives with her parents and bakes brownies and muffins for a living. (I wonder how many brownies she had to bake to buy the gold Rolex.) They have known each other forever. Ages ago, he took her to the Junior High Prom and she spilled barbecue sauce on his crotch.

This morning I worked all morning rearranging the cats' room and cleaning it up, vacuuming all the litter and cat food out of the carpet. While I was in the shower, Cassie re-carpeted the room with kitty litter. I'm hoping I can catch a nap soon.

Lightning ran the phone line to the Fax, and Hewlett has to go back to the store for an exchange today, so I must close for now. Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

Last week my brother Bill asked me to come to his home in Columbus, Ga., to help him sell one of the homes he and my Dad built over a year ago. The housing market in Columbus is depressed, so there's really very little they can do about an unsold house except offer the home at a reduced price, which they did but it didn't work. They are desperate to sell the house.

I took my cards, some incense and a candle, and sat with Bill on the living room floor of the house. We called upon Fire, Water, Air, and Earth, in the forms they take in matter, and upon the Creators of the universe to help us charm the house. Charming will make it charming to prospective buyers. We thought it would work, considering the house is already pretty and designed well. Using a five-card layout--X of Cups (Water, Ten of Hearts), IX of Pentacles (Earth, Nine of Diamonds), II of Cups (Water, Two of Hearts), Ace of Pentacles (Earth, Ace of Diamonds), and X of Pentacles (Earth, Ten of Diamonds) --I called upon the spirits to help the house to sell. With all those diamonds and hearts, it should work, the idea being they would love it so much (hearts) they would spend their money (diamonds) to get it. That was on Tuesday. By Friday, it was under contract. If I had the time, I would stay in Columbus for a while and do house charmings for money.

While I was there, I visited my cousin Andy and his wife Mary, two of my favorite people, at their home that they built a few years ago in Harris County. When they bought their beautiful piece of property, they noticed circles of rocks all over their land. I think the circles are the work of Mound Builder Indians. Andy says it might have been the Cherokee. In either case, I believe they built their home on sacred ground.

Andy told me several months ago that when he sits in his lounge chair in the den, he sees fleeting shapes out of the corners of his eyes, but when he turns to look, he sees nothing. And he tends to watch the hallway leading from the den to the bedroom because he senses something happening there. A few days ago, as he sat in his chair in the den, someone invisible moved past him toward the hall and caused a cool breeze. Mary said Andy jumped up from his chair and said, "Did you feel that?!" Mary felt nothing.

To the right of Andy's chair, and next to the window, I found a portal. It wasn't as intense as Jeanette's portal, but my scalp tingled when I stood in it. Andy and Mary felt nothing when they stood in it. The pleasant, tingling sensation I felt while standing in it continued as I walked a straight-line path from the portal to Andy's chair. When I sat in the chair I continued to feel the cool tingling. When I walked directly from the chair to the middle of the hallway, I felt the tingling sensation again. In the middle of the hallway the tingling became a cool breeze, which we all felt, and I turned right to follow the portal path but the wall stopped me. On the other side of the wall was the master bath. Mary said it's always cool in the bathroom and that they have considered putting an electric heater in there.

Back in the hallway we measured a 3 x 4-ft. parameter of the cool spot. When I located the center of the portal Mary told me their cat, Bubba, sleeps on that very spot. On that spot I placed five cards arranged in the shape of a cross to symbolize Way of the Cross. We walked to the end of the hallway and looked down it toward the bedroom. Suddenly, I said, "I see something!" Mary said, "So do I!" She saw "black lightning." Andy said it must have been a crack in the portal. I saw flying sparks like big pieces of dust. Then Andy grew very silent. As he stood between us, looking down the center of the hallway, he asked, "Do you see him?" We said, "See who?" He pulled me directly in front of him and asked, "Do you the big shadowman?" I saw a shadow fill the hallway, but I didn't see it was shaped like a man. Andy said the man's head touched the ceiling and he was wider than your arms can stretch. He stretched out his arms to demonstrate the width, so that he stood in the shape of a cross. I thought, "Way of the Cross."

We sat around the cards in the center of the hallway and touched fingertips. With our eyes closed we called on all those same forces I always call on--Fire, Water, Air, and Earth and the Creators of the universe--and I asked the spirits in the hallway to become more physical so we could see them better. When we opened our eyes, Bubba the cat was lying on top of the cards. We petted him a little before Mary put him in the bedroom. Then, a surprising thing happened, something I never expected.

We walked back to the end of the hallway to look down it toward the bedroom, as we had done before, to see what we could see, but we could see nothing. We went back to the center of the hallway, only to discover that the cool breeze sensation, the tingling sensation, and the shadows had all vanished. Andy and I could feel nothing at all unusual about the hallway. The master bath, too, was no longer cold. Andy called to Mary to come see. While she was in the bathroom, Andy and I stood in the bedroom and looked down the hall and chatted about how "they are gone, now." "Where did they go?" I asked. I didn't want them to leave, I wanted them to get physical.

Then we realized Mary was still in the bathroom. She walked slowly into the bedroom, rubbing the back of her neck. "I feel kind of cold," she said. "My neck feels clammy and cold." I felt her neck and it did feel clammy and cool. Andy and I had the same realization at the same time, and Andy said, "They're on Mary, now."

Mary sat in the hallway and shuffled the Tarot cards and cut three times. She turned up a card--the II of Cups. Her movements were in slow motion. She sat in the Yoga lotus position, with her head bowed, and began to describe how she felt. "I feel so peaceful," she said. "I feel like I'm moving away from my body, moving upward." Andy and I watched the hallway grow longer and fill with a slight haze. We talked about it but Mary didn't seem to hear us. I thought Mary looked smaller and further away, and I asked her to cut a card. Still moving in slow motion, she cut The Hermit. She said, "I feel so small." Andy whispered to me, "Look at her face." All the color drained from it. Andy said later that, as the color drained from Mary's face, the right side of my neck turned beet red. At the time, my arms turned red and itchy and I felt very warm. I showed Andy the whelps on my left arm.

Mary sat quietly and after a moment, I asked her to cut a card. It was The Moon. "The card of the psychic," I said. "It means "stay on the path.'" Then the color began to return to her face. She said "I feel warm. I feel electricity all around me. It's very pleasant." I asked her to cut a card--the VIII of Swords, a woman surrounded by swords. She was shielded!

Mary began to slowly return from her trance, saying she felt peaceful and pleasant. We sat down beside her, and Andy said, "It was spirit possession." I agreed. Mary and I both put our right hands on our right ears at exactly the same time. She did it because her ear was warm and beet red. I did it because someone tickled my earlobe. Andy laughed and said, "They're saying, 'We're still here!'" I cut a card from the deck--the Wheel of Fortune. In the corners of the card are angels, representing the four elements. The human is Air, the eagle is Water, the bull is Earth and the lion is Fire. Two Nile sentients--Anubis, Egyptian god of time, and the Sphinx--rule the elements and the Wheel of time and fatality. On the Wheel is written TARO AROT ROTA OTAR TORA ORAT RATO ATOR.

Later that night, after Mary's spirit possession, I dreamed of being in an ancient Egyptian temple. Within the dark interior of the temple the incense burned, leaving behind piles of ashes high atop tall, brick altars. Floating in the haze was the peaceful chanting of two priestesses. People in long robes and brown sandals came in from the light of the outside world to pray and burn incense in the smoky interior. I could hear their sandals scuffing on the stone steps and floors as they moved about the temple. They bought incense from priests in hooded robes. The priests were dark, solitary forms standing against the walls like deep shadows. The people placed their incense in copper and bronze ladles. Reaching out with the long handles, they piled their fragrant offerings atop the brick altars.

As the procession of the faithful continued, a sacred book belonging to the High Priestesses materialized in my hands, and I read the words, "Element-Fire. Regarding Element-Fire, follow the Rules of Congaylia." As the beautiful chanting filled my ears like a lullaby, I feel deeply asleep. When I awoke, I was the new High Priestess of the ancient religion. So many wonderful things have I done and seen!

Interesting, isn't it, Omar's description of the soul as being separate from the self. As I understand it, consciousness functions independently of the brain and has two aspects: Ida and Pingala. Pingala is the immortal consciousness to which Ida is joined after death. By disengaging from Ida and identifying with Pingala, a person can cease identification with the physical body and transcend the earth self before death. If one allows the soul true freedom in exploring the astral planes, it is not necessary to have a near-death experience in order to get a good idea of heaven. Heavenly Partners guide the individual's soul into the higher, inaccessible planes.

"The heaven you go to will be appropriate to your condition...Your own psyche has a kind of specific gravity that carries you just to the right heaven. If you are ready for rock and roll, it won't assign you to a chamber music concert." (Joseph Campbell) But it will give you John Lennon when you think you want Jimi Hendrix.

My experience of heaven is that it is stratified and that the lower levels are the astral planes, the natural home of the astral body, of the individual minds of those who have died and of the astral bodies of dreamers. There are different areas on the astral planes like theme parks for different people who enjoy different things. These levels are "those of erotic delights of one kind or another." (Joseph Campbell)

I have seen roller skaters on the astral planes. The skaters in Piedmont Park in Atlanta would love this place, and maybe some of them were there. The astral skaters are not bound by limitations of time and space and do back flips off hills and skate backward and other stunts. I saw them skate across the long top beam of a tall suspension bridge. They were not at all concerned about falling. I was invited to skate up there but my earth self interfered with my soul's freedom--in short, acrophobia got the best of me.

There is a party-down heaven where people are having the time of their lives at a great bar and are being bussed back and forth to parties by a vehicle that hovers and is impossible to describe. They reminded me of the celebrants of Bacchus of ancient Rome, only they were dressed in contemporary clothing. In another heaven, I saw people who were deeply involved in church religions in life and who now spend their time worshipping in church, a place full of glittering religious icons. They enjoy this idolatry. For them it is an erotic delight. It was there that I saw Jesus on the cross. These people are in the astral planes but they think they're in the ultimate heaven. I suppose they'll stay there until they begin to feel dissatisfaction with their condition.

I visited a heaven where all the people were anatomically and linguistically different. They think that is heaven, where the very different finally come together at last. In this heaven, aliens from all over the universe get together to meet each other, as they've always wanted to do. I once saw Jeanette's husband Mike standing under a portal, with his right hand raised and holding a fish. I recognized it as the Mayan fish-in-hand glyph, which I think means rebirth.

These are the astral planes, peopled by both the "living" and the "dead." In the astral planes of higher vibrational levels than the physical plane, I've met people who are alive like me and people who are "dead." I have learned to tell the difference, and it was the "dead" who taught me. Ironically, many people who are "dead" fear people who are alive, just as many people who are alive fear the dead. The "dead" were afraid of me, as though they thought they might catch my disease of being alive. The last thing they want is to be alive again, which goes a long way to explain why the living don't hear back from the dead very often. The "dead" are having the time of their lives with their erotic delights and are quite happy in their heaven. So the alive don't want to be dead and the dead don't want to be alive. Ironic, isn't it? Michelangelo once said, "If life pleases us, death, being made by the hands of the same creator, should not displease us."

I surprised some dead people once and one of them asked in alarm, "Who are you!?" Then they glanced quickly at each other in the sure knowledge that I was alive and not dead, and they took off running in the opposite direction. The dead in the astral planes can't stay there; they must go either up or down. But while they are there they do everything possible to stay there, which is foolish, but people are often foolish. It seems that wherever we are in life, we do everything possible to stay there, resisting change until the end.

On my astral journeys I meet many dead people who really have their act together. I met the famous alchemist Maria Prophetissa, who took me on a tour of an alchemical laboratory. Maria Prophetissa is supposed to be the reincarnation of the prophetess Miriam, the sister of Moses. The tour was like stepping into one of those pictures of an alchemical laboratory. It was filled with antique alchemical equipment. Maria got impatient because I was so fascinated by the equipment that I hardly listened to what she was telling me. The Bain-Marie is the water bath named for its inventor, Maria Prophetissa.

I once met the great Cabalist Moses de Leon, who explained to me a game that he called "Secret Bridge." I sat mesmerized as he told me the details of the game. He said there was a secret bridge, an invisible bridge, and that I would become the bridge, When I first met him I thought he was Moses of the Bible, but then I learned he was Moses de Leon, the greatest kabalist of the Middle Ages.

I met Jack, an early 20th century psychologist, who told me that when he was in graduate school he wanted to do his thesis on Jung. He was, perhaps, the first Jungian psychologist. He wasn't allowed to do it because Jung was considered a crackpot at that time. I think many psychologists and psychiatrists still think so. I met Sufi Shaykh Ash-huerla, my partner who is an expert on Gnosticism, a subject I find fascinating. Shaykh Ash-huerla died a miserable death screwed to the cross, not nailed, by Christian Crusaders. I met Pigeon, a silly girl from Colonial Salem, who only wanted from me a description of nail polish, about how we buy it in little bottles made especially for it. Before nail polish, women used paint, which "slagged up," to quote Pigeon. When I told her I did not use nail polish, she said I was missing a great opportunity. I also learned from these travels that before toothbrushes, people washed their teeth with wash rags.

Higher above the astral planes are the accessible and nearly inaccessible realms of heaven. Ascension to these realms is a nice experience--the heavens open up and the angels sing. I was floating pleasantly on a cloud in my last visit to the place. The angels I saw didn't have wings but they favored white clothes and white light and were the purest, shiniest people I've ever seen. I was in the plane of philosophical contemplation when I met a man who wore a round-brimmed straw hat, as though he had just come out of his garden. He was eating almonds. He quietly contemplated me. I couldn't bear the pressure of his presence. He seemed to look straight into my soul, which made me feel inadequate, soul­wise. But I have a natural right to that particular realm of heaven, because I live there all the time. Philosophical contemplation is what I do, it's "where I'm at." The man in the straw hat was in a bright, beautiful and colorful world, so bright that, the next day when I was sitting on my back porch in the full sun, I wondered why it was so dark outside. "We live in a dark world," I lamented, "lit only by fire, the pathetic imitation of The Boundless Light."

Several times I traveled to the Pleiades in the constellation Taurus, where there is a space station of such immense size it qualifies as a Free World, a bountiful and colorful manufactured planetary system, bound to no star and free to move about in the universe. The Free World is a kind of floating, galactic heaven.

The Free World is built upon the principles of Sacred Geometry. It consists of 13 planetary ecospheres held together by 4 horizontal planes of electromagnetic attraction-repulsion, with the structural integrity provided by 42 vertical and diagonal planes. Some of these planes are enclosed highways with conveyances that move passengers along at rates of speed sufficient to produce G force effects. Inside the Free World is wonderful technology not so different from ours, just much more advanced. Many of the beings there are human and humanoid--plain, friendly people accustomed to extraterrestrial travelers like me. Hidden and floating far above and away, the Free World tours the universe, establishing life on planets capable of supporting life and keeping an eye on the progress of that life.

These astral plane and heaven experiences are all part of the alchemical Great Work made possible by my Heavenly Partners, who prepare a kind of shared field of sensory experience for me.

"This field acts on the observer and puts him [her] in a privileged position vis-a-vis the Universe. From this position he [she] has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy. This is what we call 'The Great Work.'" (Fulcanelli to Jacques Bergier)

In alchemical literature there is the constant use of erotic imagery, serious attempts on the part of the alchemists participating in the Great Work to describe the secret, sexual nature of it.

"Take the living male and the living female and join them on order that they may project a sperm for the procreation of a fruit according to their kind...you must produce one thing out of two by natural generation." (Novem Lumen Chemicum, 1604)

Sexual alchemy is essential to the Great Work. The Partner, who initiates it, is symbolized in alchemical language as Mercury.

"Blessed be the All-Highest who has created this Mercury and given it a nature, which nothing can resist! For without it the alchemists would have worked in vain, all their labour would have been useless." (Gerber)

When I was last on the heavenly plane of philosophical contemplation, I sat cross-legged reading a book of dialogues. Three bright, white lights came flying towards me at eye level, each close behind the other. They were about the size of my hand and glittering spectrally. As I looked directly at them, they flew one after the other straight into my head through the pupils of my eyes. These beings of light are called Archangels of the Thrones and the Third Choir. They are described in Jewish lore as the great "wheels," called Ophanim or Galgallin. The Hebrew Galgal has the double meaning of wheels and "pupil of the eye." In Ezekial 1:13-19, they are described as wheels that have the appearance of burning coals of fire or like lamps. Enoch refers to them as "the fiery coals." In The Golden Dawn, they are "the three supernals."

When they entered my head, my mind shook for a few seconds and then I was launched into a much higher plane and into a room of people who were casually chatting with each other. A smiling man appeared in front of me and I recognized him right away as Jesus, the Master of Compassion. In a mellow, nonaccusatory but conversational, voice he said to me, "There are many people in the world who are in pain. You can take away their I pain. I don't understand why you won't do it." As I was thinking about my response, I faded away and struggled to focus. When I faded back in, he was in mid-sentence so that I missed out on what he said. I asked him, "What did you say?" He looked at me and smiled serenely and said, "Hindu." I asked him, "What does that have to do with what we're talking about?" He smiled, turned, and walked away. Interview over.

He went into a room, where people seated around a big table were waiting for him. Someone closed the door behind him. I followed him as far as the closed door and stood and debated whether to open the door and go in. I wanted to stay with him.

At the library I checked out some books on the Hindu, and in one of them I recognized the face of my partner, Wind Father, shown practicing Hatha Yoga. In your deck, he is represented as the King of Swords (Air, King of Spades). He is the spirit of the man who once was Swami Dayananda Sarasvati. The Swami was the founder of Arya Samaj, a movement dedicated to reforming the Hindu religion so that it more closely adheres to the ancient Vedic texts (the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita). He believed himself to be the reincarnation of a Tibetan Mahatma. Can you imagine the joy of creating at this spirit's level of being?! When I was in the library I also found this wonderful Aztec poem.

I believe that at the moment of death, when Ida consciousness recedes, we withdraw within:

"By birth and growth the spirit­architect expands into this mass of which we consist, spreading outwards from the heart. Thither again it withdraws, winding up the threads of its web, returning by the same path along which it advanced, passed out by the same gate through which it entered. Birth is expansion of the center...Death contraction to the center." (Giordano Bruno, 16th c. CE) Bruno was burned at the stake for saying heretical things like that. What freedoms we have now!

When we withdraw, we enter a dark spirit tunnel and travel toward the Light. The tunnel is long, winding and indirect like a maze. It is best to proceed slowly, staying more to the right than directly in the center. The tunnel leads to a strange world, a dreamy realm of metaphor and myth and a strange landscape of metaphysical doors and avenues. Unless we become distracted by this world, we continue until we reach the Light, join with it and become the Light.

When traveling in the afterlife and in the astral planes, avoid taking obvious short cuts and always go up, never down. Even if the light may appear to come from below, go up. The light will always come from above. Go to the right and up, never to the left and down. Left and down leads to the abyss and the frightening sensation of falling.

"For this reason, when the blackness is seen, have faith that you have been on the right path and have kept to the right way." (Hermes Trismegistus, italics mine)

In my last initiation and ceremony, I received the Silver Star of the High Priestess and of the Hermetic and the alchemical Great Work. The Silver Star "reflects the light of the One Light or One Life, the light...too brilliant to behold." This shimmering star is the Star of Isis on the Bronze Age Phaistos Disk, revealed by dotting and connecting the 15 "hand-shields" (Pacal) on the disk. Isn't this a nice initiation and award for faithfully doing one's spiritual pathwork? I get to discover a major symbol on the most famous undeciphered artifact in archaeology!

"Only [the Hermetic Star] indicated the science of its owner by this characteristic sign of the Work, the one and only star. All those who undertake the Work seek to obtain the Star." (Nicholas Rollin, 1447 CE)

From all these, my travels and my experiences, I have gained knowledge of the highest order--when the human mind joins with that of spirit, a consciousness is created higher than both, and the essence of this higher angelic self is creativity. Write soon.

Dear Claire:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful Christmas, and it sounds as if you did, too. My friend Tony gave Cassie the Fisher Price Marching Band. When she unwrapped the present and opened the box and found a band helmet and a drum, I thought, "Well, this won't be so bad." But then, you take the top off the drum and there is the rest of the band: cymbals, flute, mariachis, and glockenspiel. And it all attaches to the outside of the drum. What a rig. It was retaliation for all the years that I bought Shasta microphones and noisy toys. The whole time Cassie is serenading us, I was plotting my revenge. I've come up with some pretty good ideas, the meanest of which is to buy Shasta a real clarinet. With lessons. Tony has started a war.

Cassie also got some great shoes from Santa, which she picked out herself. They're hot pink, high-top, cat-head tennis shoes with Tweety Bird embroidered on the side and "That's all, folks" on the soles. She insisted on wearing them out of the shoe store and was in danger of running into something all day as she walked along admiring her feet. (A friend of mine once left a shoe store that way and, while staring down at her feet, ran her head into a parking meter hard enough to rattle the change. I always wondered if that wasn't what was wrong with her.) Cassie also got a shoulder bag that is pink trimmed in aqua with a shooting star on the flap.

Cassie is taking a nap after a hard day of cooking and cleaning the Party Kitchen and riding Neena (don't ask) and drawing on the easel and driving around in the car and too many other things involving too many other toys to enumerate.

What a great Christmas present I bought myself! Tam had an old bridle and breastplate with the only real conchos I've ever seen. Twenty-two on the breastplate and seventeen on the headstall and everything that buckled had the Lone Ranger style belt buckle and belt guard and tip. I dreamed about them one night last week and interpreted it to mean to go buy them from Tam for far more money than I can afford. Trigger never had a rig like this. Santa brought presents for all the animals, even Emil, who received a gift from Mrs. Santa even as she was was threatening to throw him out into the cold (about 84 degrees).

But it was really cold last night. By really cold I guess I mean 50. It just seems so much colder down here. The awful thing about south Florida is that it never gets cold enough for jackets, and I love winter clothes better than summer clothes. Moore's coat is getting thick. It is already thicker than it was this time last year, and he is worse in a fur coat. Horses are wilder in cold weather. I have never been thrown in short sleeves.

Last night, Cassie and I went out for a wonderful steak dinner at an unusual restaurant. The appetizer was a bucket of roasted peanuts. I liked what you did with the empty shells--you threw them on the floor. Cassie ate so much I thought I was going to have to stand her in a cool stream.

I should be vacuuming but Cassie is now awake and watching Clyde Crashcup, and Gumby is next, followed by Beetlejuice, the cartoon, so I guess there just isn't any time for such tiresome and trivial pursuits. Perhaps I will just go read the last few pages of Body of Truth by David Lindsey, a novel about modern day Guatemala. That is one scary little place you can cross off your list when you tour Central America, no matter what Mayan ruins may be there and no matter what Lord Pacal says. Tell him the neighborhood has gone downhill since he was there.

Isn't it time for you to come see us? Not meaning to be flip, but if you can find your way to the Pleiades, you can find your way to Naples, Florida. Cassie is growing so fast that if you stay away for too long, you'll miss several inches. I think you should just pack up the computer, the invisible entourage, the books and whatever, and come on. We have good libraries here and I know you will be able to find something here that you can't find there. Cassie keeps asking, "When is Care coming to see us?" There's fruit here just waiting for you to pick. The oranges are ripe, the navels are much more plentiful than they were last year, and the grapefruit are dragging the branches down to the ground.

By the way, I loved your description of people being either alive or dead, depending on their residence and point of reference. My Dad, who was bald and overweight, divided people into those he liked and those he didn't like, according to their hair and weight. He said there were only two kinds of people he didn't like, people with long hair and real skinny people. I personally have always divided the world into two categories, the people who love me and the crazy people.

Did I tell you we have a new dog? Another one of my rescues. Otis is a Catahoula Leopard Dog, a breed once used to hunt leopards but now used as a cow dog. They were very good at their first job, and I'm told they're excellent at herding cows, but Sarah, the cow, herds Otis, the cow-herd, all over the place. Of course, Sarah is something of a disappointment in the disposition department and she pretty well chases everything around here. She runs amazingly fast to be so fat, and I think it is a very good thing that she does not have horns, since she runs up behind Moore and butt-kicks him while I am riding him. Moore doesn't seem to notice the hateful things his adoptive cow-child does to him. Anyway, Otis has a very short, fine coat which does not shed, and he is the color of a mud puddle with black spots and he has a thin, whippet-like tail. Molly Heel, overeating because she is convinced that with additional dogs she will surely starve, is so fat that if she belonged to PT Barnum, he would be exhibiting her as a rare Legged Harp Seal. Mr. Moore is his same charming self. He tries to train at least one of the dogs a day. So far he has taught both Molly and Hooch not to walk behind him, and he is laying for Otis.

Kris brought over her nine baby guineas for me to keep in the brooder until they get big enough to be outside. Her husband seemed really pleased; she just got a jackass, too. All that braying and squawking must not rest easy on his ear.

Just before Christmas, I bought Cassie the Palomino named Neena that she fell in love with. ("Ooooo, what a beautiful horsie!" she said over and over.) Neena has been ridden only by children and stops and waits if the child drops the reins or if anything odd happens. She is a veteran of horse shows, and just after New Year's Cassie rode her in one. She won a ribbon for riding Neena from one end of the arena to the other as fast as she could. (Thankfully, it isn't nearly as fast as Cassie thinks it is. Fast is when Moore gallops.)

Cassie and Neena and their little friends are so cute riding off together, and what a wonderful influence they've begun to have on Mr. Moore. He stamps his feet, snorts, and bucks a little if those little girls and their well-behaved horsies leave him behind. Miracle of miracles, Moore is beginning to conform.

Cassie told me today that the family of one of her little friends at pre-school was told to move to Tennessee. When I asked her who told them to move, she said, "Her mother's psychic told them to move." Unbelievable! Cassie is watching Maya the Bee on Nick, so I guess I had better go and get her some French Toast started. Mother's work is never done. Write soon.

Dear Meryl:

Just a quick letter to let you know my partners and I are on our way to see you. My partners are a lot of noisy houseguests who take up no room at all, and you need not cook for them. I eat on their behalf. You've heard of eating for two? I eat for twenty, at least. The partners are complete beings, having all the qualities we normally associate with a human body but which really belong to the soul. Although it seems contrary to all we know and believe, sense perception is centered in the soul, not the body. Remembering the spell I cast, it seems so long ago, it looks like I got everything I asked for, all the extra sensory perception and even the boyfriends. Well, I only asked for one, but life is bountiful!

I enter the temple.
I unlock the invisible doors to the spirit world.
I enter that world of metaphor and myth.
Since time began, esoteric knowledge has been held just for me.
All that was hidden is no longer hidden
But is now brought forth into my understanding.

I begin to know all the secrets of the Spirit World.
I see with spirit eyes.
I hear with spirit ears.
I feel with spirit feelings.

When my partners first became manifest in my plane of reality, I tasted sweet ambrosia. When they touch me, I feel the pleasant caress. When they ring the astral bells, I hear the beautiful, resonant sound. When they release the lovely scent of Spring flowers into the room, I smell the aroma. When they float across the room as gossamer clouds, my eyes follow them. Through sense perception, my partners and I bridge the great gulf of dissimilarity of form.

When I was last at the library, I found "Ancash-Tica," a beautiful Inca poem. It is very special for my partners and me. When we first read the poem, my partner caressed my cheek and then tapped for me to cut a card. It was The Lovers. On the card, a physical man and a spirit woman hold each other close, like Tristan and Isolde, despite the sword that separates them. They are happy in love because they have bridged the Limit, the absolute and impossible dimension between their planes of existence. Here is their poem:

"May God dwell in your camp, may Spirit protect your gates, and may the mind of divinity protect the walls." (The Teachings of Silvanus, 2nd c. CE, Alexandria, Egypt)

A

Anubis
Archangels of the Thrones
Aristotle
Astral bells
Atlantis
Aura

B

Bene ha Elohim
Blavatsky, Madaine H.P.
Boundless Light, The

C

Chakra system
Chan-Bahlum
Chartres Cathedral
Cheops
Clairaudience
Clairsentience
Clairvoyance
Cosmic Ocean

D

Dee, Mike
Dohnen
Doves of the Holy Spirit
Dragon's breath
Druids

E

Eden
Eve

F

Feng Shui
Fontanelle
Four elements

G

Great Work

Grigori

H

Hermeticism
Hermetic Star

I

Inner Guide
Isis-Sothis

J

Jesus
Jung, Carl

K

Kelly, Edward
Keys in the Enochian Language

L

Lady Zac-Kuk
Laying on of Hands
Lord Pacal

M

Mahatmas
Map for the Afterlife
Maria Prophetessa
Maya
Maze of Daedalus
Moses de Leon
Mound Builder Indians
Mt. Harmon

O

Osiris

P

Pacal, Lord
Phaistos Disk
Philosopher's Egg
Philosophus grade
Pleiades
Psychic healing

R

Root doctor

S

Scrying
Sexual alchemy
Spirit Tunnel
Silver Star
Sirius
Solomon's Knots
Sphinx
Spiritual Guide
Spirit Tunnel
Spirit World
Subtle body
Swami Dayarianda Sarasvati

T

Tantra Yoga
Temple of Denderah
Temple of Inscriptions
Therapeutic Touch

V

Voodoo
Vortex

W

Watchers
Well of the Strong

Andrews, T., How to Meet & Work with Spirit Guides St. Paul, MN 1992

Asimov, I., Extraterrestrial Civilizations , New York 1979

Berg, P., Kabbalah for the Layman , Jerusalem 1988

Campbell, J., Transformations of Myth Through Time , New York 1982

Eakins, P. and I., Tarot of the Spirit , Maine 1992

Fulcanelli, Le Mystere des Cathedrales , Albuquerque 1984

Godwin, M., Angels: An Endangered Species , New York 1990

Harner, M., The Way of the Shaman , New York 1980

McKnight, G., A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism , York Beach, Maine 1991

Mead, G.R.S., Thrice-Greatest Hermes , 3 vols., London 1964

Morgan, C., Fortune Telling , London 1992

Plato, "Timaeus," vol. 7, Great Books of the Western World, Hutchins, R., ed., Chicago 1952

Plotinus, 'The Six Enneads," vol. 17, Great Books of the Western World, Hutchins, R., ed., Chicago 1952

Powell, N., Alchemy, The Ancient Science , London 1976

Read, J., Through Alchemy to Chemistry , London 1957

Regardie, I., The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn , St. Paul, MN 1989

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Spinden, H., A Study of Maya Art , New York 1973

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