Heavenly Partners 3 - Sudden Death

HEAVENLY PARTNERS - P3/13
THE MYSTICAL MARRIAGE OF THE PHYSICAL WITH THE SPIRITUAL Page 3 - SUDDEN DEATH

Dear Carol:

Of course I am not mad at you! I haven't written because I have been spending time with Susan. She has suffered the worst disaster. No sooner did she and John 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 5 or 6 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 Susan distraught, confused and angry.

I thought I had plenty of time to meet John. 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? Susan 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.

Susan said when John 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 John 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.

A HOLE IN THE WALL

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. 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, Carol, 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.

CRYSTAL WOMAN

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 card itself is supposed to mean that we live in two realms, the temporal plane of matter and the timeless realm of spirit. In my case I think it indicates my evolution into myself-not, a crystal woman who is just someone who fully exists as she created herself and who is in the process of becoming much more than she is by 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.

SPIRIT TUNNEL

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, "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.

Greek Warrior

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 tho.

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 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 there 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 John. Be sure to tell Susan 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 Jessie when she was a baby. Dressing her was so much fun. One day she was Lieutenant Uhuru Jessie, and the next she was Spring Moon Jessie, and the next she was Clay Basket Jessie. When I gave her a bath I would wrap her up in a bright towel, and she was Malama Jessie or Esther Williams Jessie. 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 Jessie, 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 Susan to buy a toy telephone, in case John 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, Jessie'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 did not quit messing with their nests, they were never going to lay right. Every time they got 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 séance-disbelief chatter affect you in any way. If you can contact John, I definitely want you to do it and tell me about it. Write soon.

NEXT - THE SEANCE

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