When he touched her, her memories went out with the surf.
He was pointing to a sailboat aways off shore.
It shone like a jewel in the water and moved swiftly,
skipping across the horizon.
Although Jzurlea had seen the reed river boats people
in the lowlands used, she had never seen the ocean or a
sailboat. But Harmony knew
what they were.
She had dreamed of sailing all her life.
He talked to her of taking an ocean voyage, and
what they would find beyond the last horizon.
She laughed as they held each other, knowing
that here at the Bay,
with the ocean spray on her face,
in Maji's arms, she already had
everything. This was it!
Out there, the world had gone mad. But here,
together, by the big sea waters, it all made sense.
Lines of energy were aligning the voice
of
the Ancient Self within her. She was reconciling
all the scattered particles and fragments each one of
us
recollects when the animal self begins to ask
pertinent questions of Sky and Nature like,
"Who am I?, Where
am I? and
What am I doing here anyway!?"
Her true Nature was becoming clearer to her
with each
breath she took.
She watched the little boat fade away as it sailed off
into the horizon. Now
her eyes drifted back to the Bay.
On the far side of the
Bay, the grassy pali
gave way to an immense height of rock that burst from
the sea, which wind and rain had
carved exquisitely.
To Harmony the bluff reminded her of a lion's head.
The nose jutted
out distinctly. From antiquity, the
deep set eyes patroled the sea through the locks
of it's
thick craggy mane etched so clearly into the rock.
She thought she even saw a fang dangling
precariously.
"We should take a hike up there soon. Does it look like
an
old lion's head to you?" she said casually.
Maji being
Leo by sign, identified with the rock bluff.
Now he preened and displayed
for her. Taking a deep breath,
he allowed his great chest to unfold and shook his
mane so she would have no
doubt about his majesty.
She adored his bravado and natural regaling.
He never answered her question directly,
but he
was showing her that he did see the Lion's head
and he was the Lion. She was giggling delightedly
as he moved about her absurdly in his Leonic way.
The great Lion's Head had lauhala and guava growing
on it's flanks from the sea to the pali.
The earth was a shocking dark red
beneath the vibrant greens of foliage.
The sun reflected off their waxy surfaces creating
spectrums
of light that reflected and fractured into
rainbows where ever it landed. She could see
bright yellow guavas trying to hide
behind the leaves in the afternoon sun.
The Age of Technology had decended
upon the world, yet there in the shadow
of the massive Lion's
Head, she felt the eternal
moment...the Now. It was a moment
in which everything moved in harmony
from sunrize
to sunrize. Words lost their
meaning, and sounded only like a child's
jibberish....and they laughed and laughed..
because
they could "feel" the connection
between each other and all things.
It was as if orbs of light were radiating from their
joined bodies,
and it was so ticklish.
The Sun was past it's zenith and would be
lowering in the West in a few
hours.
The wind was beginning to pick up too.
"We
better go soon" he said in her ear.
He put his tongue in it when he said
that.
It gave her chills.
"Ooh" she said puckering in
excitement.
He got up and grabbed his pack, the fish and
the bottles.
She had her pack and began to follow
him.
Then she saw it. The little machine the Shining
Brother
had placed her on, sending her here to this time.
She wanted to go check it out, but now
Maji
was heading for the trees, and it was getting late.
"It'll be there tomorrow. I'll check
it out then"
she said to herself, rushing to catch up with him.
The rainy season had past, but the streams
from the
waterfalls in the forest still ran with water.
In Winter they merge into one raging river
that empties into the Bay. But it was Summer now,
and the river had dwindled considerably.
In Winter one could not
stay down there because of the
force of the water rushing through the little gourge
from the land to
the sea.
Mango and guava trees grew where the
sand and
boulders ended. A young coconut palm grew among them.
The mouth of the river widened at the
shore
and formed a pool of fresh clear water which
reflected
the verdant shrubs and lofty trees.
The sky was
luminous on the glassy face of the water as
it trickled slowly into the sea.
One instantly felt pulled into the interior now.
The fragrances
of ginger and mango blossoms
filled the air. The water glided smoothly
over the rocks, dancing in rivulets and spirals.
It sounded like singing. The water laughed
triumphantly as it
faced each bolder head on.
It skipped and flowed, rushing and gushing over the rocks.
It sparkled in celebration of the Light that filtered
through the lacework of leaves and branches.
She had to touch it.
As she entered the water Harmony felt
shocks as the
current licked her legs. She felt electrically charged.
She cupped the water in her hands, holding it up to the
Angel of Water.
She felt as though she was part of
some great pageant marching with the rest of Humanity
and
living beings though Time Immemorial
and many lives to the final purification.
Then one would be as clear as this water, able to
reflect
the Sun as easily as did this little
bit she cupped in her hands like a precious jewel...
able to remember even who she had been,
and what she had done
to offend the Universe.
She felt the weight of her Karma
squeezing her through a tiny portal.
It was
painful and difficult to make this journey.
There was no where to turn back to though, no where to
turn forward,
no where to lean.
All she could do was Be...now, and "feel" her way.
Her eyes were wide open, but
she could not see
beyond today.
This water had come from the sky and it was alive.
It had traveled over this land and under it,
resurfacing in the forest near the entrance to the Bay.
It had been so long in coming, and now it was here.
It began
as two streams upcountry that merged
in the forest to become a river during
the
time of the Big Waters. She raised
the
water high above her head and looked up.
Slowly the water began to drip, and she let it fall
into her mouth, her joyous mouth.
It looked like crystals
splashing on her face.
It soothed her; it cooled
her head.
Then Maji
appeared close. Their bodies touched
shivering and dripping wet. They
held each other
closely for warmth. As they stood now entwined,
the light breeze whipping about them,
wrapped them closer and closer.
The departing Sun reflected
It's Golden Face
in every drop of water that clung to their bodies.
Immerced in that intoxicating Light...they felt the wave.
It was everything
to them as they to each other.
Absorbed in an eternal moment of Time,
they were oblivious to change...
but moments push ever onward.
Now the Sun's
rays slanted inside the forest,
hitting only the tops of the trees.
Shadows deepened and appeared out of nowhere.
Mango
trees 60 to 80 feet tall raised the
forest canopy to an immense cathedral of
space.
The interior was like an ancient Temple
that had been left to Time and became
overgrown and forgotten. Lava rocks
were still piled in terraces making steps up
the sides of the gourge in distinct levels.
They were what remained of the kalo patches
that
had once fed a small community.
They were precious relics now of a time past
that was all but forgotten.
Lichen slowly ate away at their volanic surfaces.
It looked as though a cataclysm had occured there,
but it was just the slow
workings of Time.
Huge bolders kept silent sentry like fabled
cornerstones of once
magestic palace walls.
Laying strewn around now, slippery with mosses and lichen,
Nature's arrangement
artistically draped everything
into it's portrait of colorful mosaic shapes and textures.
Everything
in the forest was attending the feast...
worms, beetles, birds...mongeese.
The forest was alive with birds.
They flew high above, in and out of the lofty boughs,
calling and teasing
each other.
It seemed like a miracle to Harmony that she was
actually in such a lush paradice, after having grown
up in New York City slum apartments
all her life.
Little shrimps skuttered under rocks, peering out apprehensively
at her intrusiveness. Harmony
laughed freely, like she did when she'd
been
a little girl. She felt enchanted. She must be.
How could she
have come to be there anyway?
Her heart ached for she could see the
path
she and all of Humankind was on.
She truly wanted to be part
of the remedy.
She was where she had to be now.
She so needed this time to figure
out how to have
the courage to be real and not a sellout,
just to be accepted
and loved.
That attitude didn't make her socially palatable,
nor did she care to be...if being heartless
and
having no conscience was part of the deal.
If only
she could keep her mouth shut!...
Harmony looked back from where they'd come in now.
She could no longer see or hear the ocean.
The deeper they went into the forest,
the more tropical it became.
The forest had sounds of it's
own...everywhere.
She
had a strange and eerie feeling about that forest.
She had been there before....so long ago.
She had
played there as a child growing up in Lemuria.
...The hair went up on her arms and legs.
So
familiar, yet the images were vague.
She could almost hear the children playing
by the stream.
Again she held the little cup in her hands...
the cup from which all 12 Races of Mankind
grew up out of.
"Tam-ram-rem" she whispered....
She was amused for a moment with her own fantasy
that Maji
was not only Hokami, but he was also
Tam-ram-rem I, King of Atlantis, a lion of a man.
First in his series,
he was of the Blue Race.
She turned to him, but he wasn't there. He was gone.
When she realized
she'd lost sight of him, she quickly
snapped out of her daydreaming.
Maji was bounding ahead so fast she could
hardly keep up with him.
"Slow down," she gasped catching up with him.
"Why? Don't you want to get there before dark?"
he replied drolly. Still inbetween the world Jzurlea knew
and the world Harmony lived in, the words got lost
before she could find and form them in her mind.
She stared blankly at him, distracted by a faint
voice
inside her calling her back to her fantasy.
"Sure I do, but the forest is so gorgeous at
dusk" she
thought. "Why is he rushing?"
"You are really tripping today, ha ha..."
he remarked before bounding over the rocks.
Maji turned over his shoulder briefly to say ,
"We're almost there. Come on!" and then
disappeared into the foliage again.
There was no trail really. They just followed the stream.
It got smaller and smaller the deeper into the
forest they went.
Along the sides of the gulch were sloping banks.
A stand of giant
elephant ears grew there.
She stopped again to catch her breath, and to touch
just
for a moment the splendidness of their being.
The elephant ears with their distinct paisley
shaped leaves, bolted from the forest floor in a
rich spectacle of greens and browns.
She ran her palms over the smooth surfaces of their
enormous leaves. They reminded
her of her
own body, smooth, satiny and alive.
This sameness united them and sent
a thrill of
anticipation through her whole being.
Their pulses were in-sync; they
were communicating.
They both, she and these plants she was handling,
had a longing to be liberated from form...
to just escape all forms.
She wanted
to express something from within
herself but didn't know what it was.
To be rooted
or not to be rooted...that was the question.
When the leaf trembled, she trembled.
She could feel a pulse. It was like a wave
of tenderness and responsiveness.
It came up into the leaf and passed into
her palms and arms, all the way
to her heart.
It was a true moment of intimacy between
beings of different species.
The soul was the same...
always present, watching...feeling.
They stood embracing as she strained to hear the melody
of the music that was ringing everywhere, muffled;
it seemed to be coming from within her too.
It
knew not form. It was all forms...and it
was hard to find and hold,
because it was eternally
intrinsically formless.
It was just a thought in her mind.
Just a reflection of Nature Itself....
wholly one and wholly
many.
It cradled all It's living beings,
mercifully stuffing every
form with It's Life Essense;
infinitely expressing It's nectar and sap through us.
She could hear Maji calling her from afar.
Quickly she withdrew from the tangly maze.
She was running now,
calling him, afraid all of a sudden.
The forest was big, immense...and
darkness was opening it's parlor for the evening.
"Where did you go?" she cried aloud frantically.
Suddenly she was alone. She felt the
coldness hanging on her
hair and back.
"Maji....Maji...wait for me"
But
he didn't answer.
When she came to the fork she stopped running,
and sat on big round boulder that marked
where
the river separated back into two streams.
They both went underground at this point.
The right
one surfaced above the highway.
The left led to a series of step waterfalls
that surfaced a short way through the
tangled jungle.
There was no trail. No one walked that way anymore.
It was a good hike and the waterfalls
were hard to get to.
Tourists preferred to drive and park near where they
wanted to go. The mosquitos alone
were enough
to deter any hardy hiker. But they had no interest
in Harmony's blood. Not salty enough
maybe.
Maybe they'd had enough. They loved Maji.
Harmony listened to the sounds of the forest as
she sat
lingering on the big rock where the stream forked
and moved underground...even
as the waters of
her own mind sought to do.
"Did he recognize
the boulder at the fork,
or did he just keep going right?"
she thought peering into
the darkness in both directions.
"If he
missed it, he'll turn back. I better wait here for him."
Rationally she knew there was no reason
to be afraid.
Why then was she trembling?
Was this whole soul-searching experience getting
on her nerves...back and forth, in and out....
she just wanted
to go home now and check on Gongi.
She knew it was getting late, but was it
the same day, or the next? How would she
ever get
home? She held her head in her hands
and began to weep. Overhead, mynah birds
chattered and scolded each
other for a branch...
or were they laughing at her?
