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Searching for Shangri-La (Part III)
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Subject: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Peter T. Date: 03 Jun 01 - 09:12 AM The extended story of Searching for Shangri-La continues from here! |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Peter T. Date: 03 Jun 01 - 09:17 AM Just as the sky warped and twisted through the auroral dementia emanating from the thwarted power of the Black Master, so time warped and opened, and moments became aeons, and aeons moments. Curioso felt the slumping of the Princess, the panic in the eyes of Annette, the sweep of her arm, and his human terror and the flood of intense shock through his being as the knife hit, and over her shoulder the eruption of the Black Master into the room. A veil of redness washed over his face, and in the instant before he fell, and his mind screamed, yes, you are dead, he saw Annette fall, and Tirseng at the edge of the circle like a sailor at the bowsprit on a ship into hell, the evil rolling off in the high red waves of a raging storm around the protected perimeter, and a strange last thought came to him: I wonder who is going to clean up all my blood off this floor? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "No, No, you are unable to enter, through the power of Shri Devi, " cried Tirseng, continually chanting the warding mantra, OMRULURULUHUMBHYOHUM, against the intense field of entrainment the Black Master, now fully revealed, hurled over and over at the circle within which the Princess lay, fallen in the lioness death pose, Curioso, roiled in his own blood, spilling out over the floor, and Annette unconscious but holding to the Princess' feet, the rope taut across the expanse to where Tirseng held the circle. The room heaved and split into a myriad fragments, the Princess' subjects fleeing and falling as if huge earthquakes were breaking up the earth. "Sherpa, murderers, you have murdered, we are witnesses, you have murdered the Princess and my brother," howled Dominic, "I call the Yama Dharmaraja deities filling all the world, the 58 Heruka, the Yama Lords of Death to punish the suicides and the murderers alike!!!" And wraithlike forms, animal headed figures, fanged and winged, began to fill the room. Tirseng buckled to his knees, under the deep pull of the energy force being whipped up, reality crashing like a thousand thunders. Annette came back into a half-consciousness swimming back up through whirlpools of dread and she felt the tautness of the rope tugging her away from the Princess, and she looked up away from the horrible scene in front of her, to the fierce wildness screaming and swirling around the outside of the circle. "Tirseng, Tirseng!!!!" she yelled. "I have you, I have you." And he looked, and saw that she had anchored herself against the low platform, and dug in her heels. And then he saw something that he would remember all his life, more even than the erupting of the demons melting and forming in vortexes overhead. Stained in blood and holding firm to the rope, Annette hurled defiance at the Black Master and his realm, with a kind of wild intoxication. She howled imprecations at him, vowed his doom, mocked him even as the surges of power intensified. And now the Black Master began to change shape, his body splitting into multiple faces, multiple heads, ablaze with flames, and a crown of skulls appeared on his head, limbs of bodies like garlands festooned along his waist and thighs. He grew in immensity, spinning himself into webs of hate, roaring with anger, and the surrounding fierce deities transformed themselves into pinwheeling snakes, writhing and circling around the Black Heruka. Tirseng fell back in terror, and then felt himself becoming overcome. "No, Tirseng, No, do not waver, " cried Annette through the noise, stifling her own panic, shaking her fist at the vast fierce deity beyond. And then she became possessed with fury and laughter: "He is nothing, he is a windbag, it is a light show, we have him on the run!!! Heruka, I call on you!!!! You are beaten!!! Do you not know me, Do you not know me???" She pointed to herself, and cried: " I, I am Krodhishvara, I am the Consort of the true, I wield the power of the female against you, I mock you, I drink the blood out of your skull!!!! Heruka!!!!!" There was a slight wavering at the edge of the circle, and then, as suddenly as it had all happened, everything came back down to earth, the Black Master disappeared, the deities evaporated, and the room subsided. There was a long moment of quiet, and Annette and Tirseng took a breath, and looked at each other. Tirseng breathed deeply, and said in a frightened voice: "Who are you?" Annette shook herself and replied in a hushed voice: "That wasn't me or not much of me, it was the Princess, wherever she is. I was infused for a second with some goddess from one of those realms, it took me over. We are all bound, in this realm and the next. Wherever they are." And the two of them looked back at the bodies of their dead companions. Annette said: "We are fighting in two realms now. This is only the beginning, we are only in the foothills."
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Amos Date: 03 Jun 01 - 10:33 AM (Oh, gods and goddesses!! What a power stirs the Cat!!! I am awestruck at your beauty, just awestruck!) A |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Peter T. Date: 04 Jun 01 - 05:08 PM Wind. Wind piercing. Bend against the wind, the wind hits face full on like prairie days towards school. Icefire and blowing hard and everything rushing away, wheeling away along the wind, and then his face begins to unravel in the wind, and everything begins to peel back in the wind, and he crazily tries to hold onto his face as if it were a hat, and then the skin reels away in a gust and then the muscles rip off and the bones fly away and then out over the high bright sky and below what was his body and another body and a wild war of tiny figures and then all his past lives like pearls on a thread of wind whistle. And for a moment openness, emptiness, naked sky. It is a cold winter night and he is walking over the moonlight snow and he hears the sheep bell and the muffled sound of sheep in the barn over the low hill, and he stops and feels the icy wind poking up into his nostrils and he thinks, what will I be when I am grown, when Dominic and I are big and jostle like Dad and his friends, and laugh late into the night when we are supposed to be asleep and really wondering if Dad has a lucky streak going at poker again, and he will be happy in the morning, and the full moon says nothing. And we promise always to be brave and strong and help each other, even cheat to help each other at poker as long as no one ever ever tells Dad. And in that moment, the luminously silver ground spreads, and he knows that he is not on the farm, and that the past is barred from him, and the present, and that future, and that end of past, present, and future, because he is in search, bound still into the next between, and what is left of him sloshes through another endless luminosity, silvered like the moon, like the hush of the farm in the January night, a moment of slanting silver light off Annette's body, one moment when she got up out of bed in the night, and turned slightly away, and he caught the whole presence of her flesh and muscles, like some exquisite lunar landscape. And he caught and is caught, and caught and is caught, and hurtles into some net of karmic desire, the lattice of moonlight and shadow curving over her body endlessly, and compassionately, this is what light is for, that is what it always is for, light is for her body, and he falls into a spray of myriads of fragments of enlightenment, and he calls out, and there is a spark of time and it is gone, spiralling out of reach, and he is tracking like a comet across the indescribable cycles, and a shimmering blue, white, yellow, red, all-encompassing field of gold spinning in all directions, and then there is a pressure, a sensation of something almost about to happen, and he bends down and witnesses all Eternity coiling around him, and then there is a moment of pause, and then over the horizon of his mind, there is Beingrise, and he gains some semblance of knowing and looks far down and at the far end of billions of aeons and endless landscapes distant, he sees another, another who has collapsed back into being like a tent with its ropes cut, and the other being was his child or his mother or whatever he was tied to by this umbilical chord which is a rope and he suddenly hangs on to the rope and remembers why they had to re-enter the net of existence and away in the farthest reaches of the gathering confusion of betweenness he sees the Princess. |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: GUEST Date: 04 Jun 01 - 07:05 PM and, and, and? |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Amos Date: 04 Jun 01 - 10:32 PM (Easy on, guest....I can say from hard experience that to write half such a passage as Peter just gave us can leave you sprawled on the windowsill of existence for days, trying to catch your breath and remember the reason for using it.....A.) |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: JenEllen Date: 04 Jun 01 - 10:57 PM (You got it Moose, not to mention leaving everyone else breathless on windowsills...nice goin' 'hits)
The room fell silent. With the flickering candles long since extinguished, the only light in the room fell from the heavens above.
Annette, bloodstained, with the knotted rope yet around her waist and the knife in her hand, left the safety of the circle for hide-and-seek. She ran the corridors of the strangely silent palace, making no secret of herself, alternately bellowing "I love Paris in the Springtime, I love Paris in the Fall" and screaming for Dominic.
"The gods are not interested in your piddly little numbers, woman. They want your heart!! Where is the sport in numbers? The action is in lust, betrayal, lies, and MURDER...You have already given me all of these things and more, Cherry. You have already opened the door for all of them to return to the land that never dies!" Dominic turned to her, and slowly revealed the true face of Monotek. He seemed to slide across the floor to stand in front of her, "Where are they? Where is my brother?"
Furious, Dominic grabbed her by the neck. She could feel the crush in her throat, the pressure behind her eyes, and he asked her again. "Where ARE THEY??" As he shook her, the knife fell from under her robe and rattled to the floor. "What? Coming to slaughter me Cherry? See? You get a taste for it, don't you? It gets easier and easier.." With that he dropped her to the floor and she landed, gagging and gasping for breath. She raised her head to see him kneeling before her, his robes pulled open to bare his chest, mocking her. Dominic forced the knife into her hands, whispering to her, "Do it, woman. Take away the earthly tether and I go free!" Annette used what little strength she had left to hurl the knife away from her. Dominic growled, and swatted her again. She fought to stay awake amidst the sparkling lights, and focus on the demon standing above her. "WHY are you so stubborn? I would rethink if I were you, Cherry. Your numbers have been seriously reduced...You think a woman and a sherpa can put up any kind of fight against ME?"
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: JenEllen Date: 04 Jun 01 - 10:58 PM okay...you can add 'double-punching' to the list as well..LOL ~J |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: katlaughing Date: 04 Jun 01 - 11:42 PM What in the world?she thought, What is happening?. Dearly Beloved awoke to see the door of her cell standing wide open. The very walls were quivering, or she had a concussion. Unsure, she pushed herself up, reached out for support and felt the wall twist and give way. Just as her heart lifted with fear, she was gently deposited on a cushion of air which bore her up and over the doorsill, landing her in a poof near the balustrade overlooking the Prince's Chamber. All around her lay destruction with toppled relics, wall carvings broken, split and fallen to the floor. Tapestries hung askew, some damp-looking, dripping a fine red liquid, as if their very denizens had lived and died, again, in the heroic battles they chronicled. Indeed, out of the corner of her eye, she caught glimpses of movement, yet when she looked full-on all was still. Glancing over the railing, she gasped at the scene below; a low wail rose in her throat. Wondering how she could ever have loved him, she saw the Prince for what he was; saw the fiesty Annette braving him in a desperate srtuggle to save her beloved and with him, the entire world. Drawing in a deep breath, filling her tan chien with Life Force, Dearly sent a circle of Light to Annette, connecting it to her own bubble of protection. I am here, brave tigress, truly it is I, and I mean to help!she willed her thoughts on wings to Annette. With a placid face of blind obedience, she flowed down the stairs to the side of Prince Monotek and asked, Master, I am here. How may I serve? Her heart trembled with fear, yet at that instant, she knew she was meant for this moment. In that fleeting instant of distraction, Annette saw her chance and silently thanking Dearly for her sacrifice, she... |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: JenEllen Date: 05 Jun 01 - 04:09 AM Annette lay crumpled on the floor. "Je suis parmi le mort," she thought to herself, adding the silent plea, "Mère de dieu, me libèrent." Through blurred eyes, she saw the face nearest to her on the floor. The tiny sherpa who had first summoned her to Tashalan, lay with his neck broken, his eyes open to nothingness. She choked back a sob when her eyes finally focused to see Monotek seated once again on his throne, watching her bemusedly... They were with him now. She did not know how she knew them, but they were there, death and destruction. Monotek sat, in true form, flanked by the Dala Kadavara and the Bhutadarma. To his side stood the NewlyBeloved as well, Tirseng's friend, the betrayer. Behind them surged the hordes, the Citipati and Dakini, ready to claim this land as their own. The walls of the palace lived, screamed, and bled in response to their arrival. She pulled her legs protectively beneath her robes, and slid as close to the wall as possible. Monotek laughed, "Cherry....you have another chance....." he lightly tapped the throne at his side. From the corner of her eye, she startled to see the gri bo gnyis, the knife demons, toying with the discarded dagger on the floor, and in reflex, she snatched it away. The kataputana were inviting the corpses of Tashalan's court to dance, bowing low and sweeping the dead into their arms, careening around the room, twirling close enough to steal her breath from her body. Annette covered her face and screamed.
She did not know how long the show went on, as long as the demons played, she screamed. Time had no meaning. When the horrible music of their conquest finally stopped, so did she. Monotek laughed quietly, as did the NewlyBeloved at his side. Annette kept her face buried in her hands, cradling the frayed piece of rope at her waist, and prayed. "Cherry....you can't be serious?" he asked her, with the slightest hint of reservation in his voice. Annette caught it and hung on to it for her life, that slight pause in judgment was all she had. She looked at the Beloved, and could see she knew that as well. She tried to stand, careful to not touch the bodies littering the ground, and stand steadily in front of him. To waver now would certainly mean her death. "NGAN!" she screamed at him, "Black devil! Do not trifle with me, false prince!" She covered the distance between them at a dead run. "You are too fond of the throne at your side, You who dares to anger the Dhupa with this insult to her land! Why do you need a mate, You who seeks to usurp the Adidharma and the Bhrkuti and douse the light of the female truth? So far you have shown me nothing but smoke and mirrors, little prince, nothing befitting the honour of a queen." She leapt over the fallen, in an effort to reach him before it was too late. Monotek had expected nothing like this, this wild creature, shrieking at him, invoking the Heruka with one breath and cursing him with the next. Annette reached the throne, but as she grabbed for Dominic, he was gone.
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Peter T. Date: 05 Jun 01 - 09:39 PM What had been Tashalan and what had been Curioso hurtled towards each other, turning and grappling hand over hand, lifespan over lifespan, as realities and existences folded and unfolded and enfolded amongst them, seas of patterns of instinct and manifestation, buffetted by the winds of the between, and realms and Buddhalands held in suspension like drops of rain englobing and dissipating. He groped towards Tashalan as he groped towards remembering, remembering what Geshe had taught about the realms between, about what would happen, and as they wove towards each other ravelling, Beingrise mounted and all space dawned full of azure oceanic light, and there were small misting clouds and then in his bewilderment there came to him unbidden fragments of phrases, the strength of certainty, the strength of the Dharma, the strength of merit, the strength of the tiger, the strength of the sun, and something in him coalesced, and he coasted towards Tashalan and the azure light and the white light were mingled, and then he saw that there were an infinite array of Tashalans rolling towards him, like millions of frames of film, Tashalan after Tashalan through lifetimes as animal as deities as women as men as parades of beings trailing existences hurtling past, and he turned to witness the panoply of Tashalans and as he did he saw that he too was trailing behind him endless lifespans of Curiosos spiralling away far into the origins of things and he twisted back around to the front like some high diver scything into the pool of existence and realized in a wild moment that his first insane task was somehow to intersect the flashing comettrain of endless Tashalans with his own comettrain of proliferating selves at the exact moment in time just before the tiny cluster of cells in the Tashalan's body in the lifetime that he was groping towards had begun to replicate out of control and dragged his Tasha, the Tasha who laughed at mountains, and sang in the high winds, down into the winds of the unravelling death realm, and at that precise instant of recognition the realm through which they were coursing towards each other in arcs of potential selves scattered into droplets of the intensest green light, blinding him and then like a blade of being, and his vortex of lifespans broke into the vortex of Tashalans past, present, and to come ---- and now waves of Tashalans rushed through him, crashing over him, and he was sucked and pounded down into the undertow of Tashalans that overwhelmed him, and twisted his own Curiosos vortex so that he tumbled wildly backwards through his own infinite selves and almost lost the thread of himself, but recovered, and fought back through the flickering crowds of Curiosos into the intersection point where now in blinding alternation, like alternating figures in an infinitely receding set of barbershop mirrors, Tashalans and Curiosos fluctuated across each other's torque of time, and then he caught a glimpse of a young girl rushing out to gawk at the strange new arrival from the West, and it was the moment they had first met and he held himself back, held himself back, and called out to the ultimate compassion of Avolokiteshvara, help me, oh lord, help me please lord help me catch her at the right moment, before she rushes by forever, and he pressed closer, and infinite Tashalans blurred by, oh help me oh help me oh help oh help and with a supreme effort he reached out, like someone rescuing a child hurtling helplessly over a high falls, feeling the tug of time roiling him, drowning him, he lunged and grabbed into the wild churning river of being and caught Tashalan, and the two lifevortexes finally collided and smashed into each other, and a vast explosion tore through the fabric of nothingness, and they fell, holding each other, Tashalan and Curioso, falling and writhing together towards the fierce unspeakable realms of hell.
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: katlaughing Date: 05 Jun 01 - 11:28 PM In the deep vortex of the Universe, spinning upon spinning, light and dark, evil and good continued in a never-ending kaleidoscope of struggle. Among the rubble ringing the darkest core of evil, there sparked a tiny light of a small soul reaching out, willing the fierce tigress which enveloped all goodness to save it, as all of the other souls which sought the light reached out..breaking free of the ebony which reflected nothing, which stunk of putrid rot, which tore at bodies and souls leaving nothing but skinned skeletons abraded by the howling winds of hell... |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: JenEllen Date: 06 Jun 01 - 05:38 AM She was too late. Morning had come to the village. He had gone. The blackness enveloping Monotek pulled at her briefly, but she held tight to the abandoned throne and watched in fury as it vanished before her. Dearly Beloved saw her as she was, an animal. The silver in her dark hair, and the blue of her eyes, like the white tigers of India. When the howl escaped Annette's bruised throat, Beloved could have sworn it was a roar. She watched as the tigress' eyes flickered back and forth across the throne, pausing for a moment, then turning slowly to fix on her. The predator had found prey. "You." growled Annette as she strode towards Dearly Beloved "You, ma soeur, need to give me one reason, right now, as to why I should not kill you where you stand!" Beloved stepped back fearfully, and softly whispered, "Tirseng." Annette stopped short, glaring at the woman before her. "If you give me any reason to doubt you, try to stop me, or slow me in any way. The next knife is yours, Chèrement." With this she grabbed Beloved's arm and pulled her through the maze of the dead towards the door.
When they reached the hall, Annette paused again, and turned. Was this the door she had entered through? The walls were tarnished from the dark invasion, blasphemous in their closeness. Annette stood puzzled for a moment longer before Beloved tugged her sleeve. "Ask him?" she said. Annette peered down the dark hall to briefly see the robes of a small monk as he opened the door to a room down the hall.
The monk sat at a low table, a large book opened in front of him. Annette walked quickly towards him, stopping quickly and giving him a brief bow.
"What...what are you doing here?" she fell to her knees in front of him.
Annette jumped to her feet, and paced back and forth in front of the table, her knuckles to her lips. "This is what he said the gods wanted, non? Certainment....the murderer? C'est moi." She turned to Beloved, "The betrayer, c'est toi...." Beloved gave her a concerned shrug, and moved out of the path of the pacing tiger.
Annette grabbed Dearly Beloved's arm and ran from the room. They sped through the halls, and careening around a corner, crashed into Bierce. He stopped, with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. He quickly looked up, "What the hell happened to this place?"
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: GUEST,AMos Date: 06 Jun 01 - 11:43 AM Holy fucking Moly, guys. Ca, c'est plus vif, plus reele, que tous les mots du monde Chretien jamais dits! J'suis completement etonne!!! Bouleverse!! C'est absolument baisant!! To wit, wow! A |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Lonesome EJ Date: 06 Jun 01 - 01:14 PM and I, like Tirseng, am speechless at this juncture! |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: JenEllen Date: 07 Jun 01 - 03:34 AM Annette ran from the palace. She reached the main road of the village, dodging people and animals, her robes hiked above her knees and her feet furiously pounding the earth. She ran through the hard breaths, through the pain, through the people, with her gaze fixed on the temple. She ran as well, through the open doors of the temple, with the low chanting of the monks filling her already fuzzied head with an otherworldly resonance. "Tirseng!" she yelled "Where is Tirseng?!?" a young man in initiate's robes, pointed her towards the chamber across the courtyard. She reached the door and saw them. Tashalan lay on a table, still in her bridal gown, with her hands folded on her chest. She had been draped in a long gauze, and lay still. On the far table, in the shadows, lay Curioso. He had kindly been washed, but no gauze covered him. The Snowleopard had not allowed it. Beside him, on a small stool, sat Tirseng. He tenuously held to the rope that tied them together, while he held watch over his friend.
He looked up when he heard her, straightening on the stool, but the look of his raw, red eyes told her everything about his vigil. She went to Tirseng, and fell to her knees before him, embracing him as she broke into tears. "Lizard..." he sighed, patting her back as she cried. Slowly, she looked first to him, and then to Curioso, as Tirseng sighed again, "He was a good man..."
She looked down at the frayed rope in her hands, and asked Tirseng for a moment alone. The Snowleopard gently touched her shoulder, then left the chamber. As Annette watched him leave, the tears welled again. She lowered her head to rest on Curioso's outstretched hand. "Please, please, please, chere" she whispered, "Don't let her do this to us. If you fail, we are lost. I was not ready to lose you, and I am not ready to die..."
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Peter T. Date: 07 Jun 01 - 09:51 AM And then he was walking over a red desert, waves of hot anger rising from the hot sands, waterless, salt pans cracked surfaces, blinding light. He was carrying Tashalan in his arms. Through the shimmering heat he could see what looked like mesas and weird shaped buttes, and they appeared to move and then he saw that they were immense multi-limbed giants and giantesses, gods of the Yama realm, laughing, watching , waiting. It was quiet, brooding, seething fierceness, and every step pressed the heat through his bare feet. Tasha weighed almost nothing, and he bore her along as if he had never done anything else, held in his arms, naked, wet. He thought, we cling to each other like newborn orphans, and then she looked up at him, finally, out of her daze, and saw him and said with a shock: "Shinturnam?" "Hello, Tasha," he said, "Welcome to hell." "What --" In the distance, a sandstorm began moving towards them. "Remember the teachings, the fierce realms, the turning from the light, we are both dead, you won't remember your dying because it hasn't happened yet." "I was, where was I, in some turbulent stream?" The hot wind rose around them, and sand, which was not sand, but particles of torment, began to whip over them. There was no shelter, no dunes, just implacable hate. "Life, Tasha, I brought you out of life into death, to save you." She looked up at him, murmured, "Shinturnam," smiled strangely, and nestled her wet body into his, the sand clotting over her skin, hitting them both now, hard. And the sand began to choke him, and there was howling sand everywhere, and he bent into the karmic wind, staggering, stumbling. His eyes and mouth were pitted with grains of sand, hitting him from all sides, and then he saw into each particle of sand, and in each particle he saw infinite forms and faces in terrible convoluted tortures of the damned, and each particle now expanded infinitely and everything opened into crystalline spheres of punishment that scratched against his eyes, his skin, his face, gritty tears coming down his sandchoked face. He turned his face this way and that, but could not escape the sandstorm, and then into his eye one of the grains of anger opened and in a redinflamed distance he could see a tiny group of figures clustered around a tiny body, and a tiny woman rushing into the room, demonic, and then the grain grew to the size of a world, and he could see this woman bending over the body, and there was a tug of memory, and then another, and then he saw the woman expand, her body splitting into multiple bodies, her head into multiple heads, a necklace of skulls proliferating around her neck, and she began to dance around the body, and there was a great blackness behind her that tugged his memory, and then he saw that it was the Lord of Death and She was His Consort, and His Consort was someone he had known when he was in that life, and she was someone he couldn't remember who, and he howled down at Tasha and said Tasha, Tasha, look, and Tasha lifted up her head against the sandwind and looked and cried, Oh Shinturnam it is your body, and the woman who murdered you, and he looked, and it was, it was his body, and the demon woman towering over the body now bent down over the body, laughing, and then he saw the woman rip off the skull and add it to her necklace, and then she began to tear off one of its arms, and start eating the flesh, and laughing, and chewing, and then she tossed that aside, and tore off a leg, and propped herself over the remnants of the body, and gnawed it down to the bone, ripping the flesh deliciously, and sucking the marrow out of the bone, and patting her belly in satiation, and then she took the leg bone and dug around like a soupladle into the bowels and entrails of the body, and then she picked up the entrails and brought them to her Lord, the Lord of Death, and the two of them laughed and feasted, and Curioso saw them embracing and he knew that he had been betrayed and he cried in rage, the sand sputtering out of his mouth in swirls and he clung to Tasha as his only protection against the sandstorms of delusion and torment that engulfed him in the realm of Death. And there was a pause in the storm, and the wind subsided, and he could just make out rising ahead of him a vast mountain, a vast Black Mountain, and it was a mountain he knew, the mountain he had been moving towards all this time, the mountain of his brother, the Lord of Death. And Tasha shifted in his arms, and she began to grow weightier in his arms, and he slipped in the sand, and as he rebalanced, he suddenly noticed that he had a rope around his waist. What was he doing with a rope around his waist? What was that for? And he could not remember. And he struck some solid footing in the sand, and he began to climb the Black Mountain.
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Peter T. Date: 08 Jun 01 - 02:50 PM He knew this mountain, knew every crevasse of it, except that now it was inside out, black on white, and as he climbed it moved like living sand under his feet, making his movements laborious. As he moved up the mountain, Tasha became heavier and heavier, and after he stumbled a few times, she looked up at him, with a worried look on her face, and said: "Shinturnam?" And he said, "What, Tasha, what?" And she said, "Will you leave me here upon this mountain?" and he said, "No, I will carry you up" and she smiled and said: "Where have you been all this time, why did you not return to me?" And he climbed, and he said: "I did come back, later, but that has not happened yet," and she said, nuzzling his neck, "Oh, Shinturnam, the first time I saw you my insides leapt, and though I was but a child, I was vanquished," and he said, "And I watched you grow, and you made me proud to have known you," and she said, "And you loved me?" and he said, "Yes, but not in the way of women and men," and she said, "Is there any other way?" and he said, "I will not leave you on this mountain," and they came out onto a rippling plateau, made of obsidian, which began to cut his feet. And she became heavier and heavier, and he struggled over the shiny broken shards of rock. At the end of the plateau, the mountain rose again, and now he could see that it was not a mountain at all, but the flanks of a great being, and the spiked rocks and promontories were the split arms and legs and heads of the being. The being heaved up around him, like a volcano under eruption, and he slid with Tasha in his arms against an outcropping of living hot rock, and the being rose, and it was as if he were a fly upon its forearm, toppling over. And he tumbled over the palpitating rock, and just as he and Tasha were about to be flung off into the demon realms in perpetuity, the rope about his waist snagged onto a small tree poking out from the outcrop, and they hung there, swaying in the storm of rage that ensued. The mountain, many times larger than Everest, now stood, its multiple arms and peaks and ridges looming. And it could not shake off the little party that clung to its side. A great voice bellowed so loud that Curioso could barely withstand the pain of hearing: "Fall, fall, brother, fall, let go!!!!" And the mountain of anger shook and swayed. And the scene disappeared, and he was a child again high in a swaying tree, far above the farm, so far that for the first time in his life he could see the lake, peeking up over the distant trees, rich in autumn colours, and that was how he had gotten up there, his brother had egged him on, and they had climbed together in the late afternoon grey twilight, and though he was frightened, he would not let his big brother see, and when they got to the top, and they looked out over the world of farms and forests and fences and roads heading they knew not where, his brother started back down; and Curioso took one look down at the ground, and he froze. His brother went down to the ground, and looked up, and started laughing. And went away. He could not move, he shook with fear. He looked out at the high world spread out around him, and took his child's courage and set foot on a lower branch, which broke from under him, and he nearly fell, but swayed back against the trunk of the tree. The wind was picking up in the late afternoon twilight, and he began to get cold, his windbreaker flapping in the wind. He clung to the tree, and began crying in fear, and in spite of himself, cried out loud. And no one came. He became so frightened he wet himself. He could see darkness engulfing the world spread out in all directions around him, and he kept trying to get enough courage to descend, but it would not come, and the wind whipped him. And lights came on in the farmhouse, and then a door banged open and shut, and his brother loped down under the tree again. "Are you still up there?" he laughed. "Help me, Dominic, help!!" And Dominic shrugged, and said," You are such a baby, I should just leave you up there, what kind of climber are you going to be, you baby!" and then he shimmied up the tree, and got to a few feet below. "The branch under you is broken, " Dominic said, "You have to come down so I can reach you." "I can't, I can't" Curioso screamed. "You baby, you have to," "I can't, I can't." "Then you have to let go, so I can catch you. " And Curioso shook his head. "You left me here, you will drop me, you want to kill me." "No, no," said Dominic, "I was just playing, you have to trust me, I am your brother, I would not drop you. Fall, fall, brother, fall, let go!!!" "I don't - I don't trust you." "Then stay up there, see if I care." And Curioso struggled with his fear, and his broken trust in his brother, and then he dropped, and his brother caught him, and carried him down out of the tree, and when they reached the ground, he ran, he ran as far as he could into the woods, and lay down and he threw up and lay in the pool of vomit and shook with endless crying that convulsed his child's body until he became exhausted. And he found himself again hanging for dear life from the side of the reverberating giant mountain. |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: JenEllen Date: 08 Jun 01 - 06:43 PM The three peered in the door at the grieving woman, sitting, head bowed, praying to Adidharma. They sighed almost simultaneously, and then turned again to each other. "She has the four days." muttered Tirseng. "Anything more is wasted." In the streets outside the temple, voices could be heard singing and chanting. The sounds rolled in to them on the soft chiming carpet of the tingshas. "He hasn't told them, has he?" asked Tirseng. Dearly Beloved and Ambrose looked at each other, then shook their heads 'no'. "The palace is done up to the nines, old friend. White carpet and all..." said Bierce. Tirseng grimaced, closing his eyes
Dearly Beloved took her leave of the men, and entered the chamber with Annette. She gently stroked Annette's cheek, and then jumped back as Annette flew into consciousness with waves of shock, anger, and finally sadness, coming to rest on her face.
"Ladies....you might want to see this...." came the voice of Bierce through the open door. The four came to stand in the doorway, peering through the hall, and out into the street in front of the temple. In the distance, they could make out the form of a man leading a white horse in the direction of the temple. "Looks like we're getting a visitor."
As he left, Tirseng quickly turned to Annette, already anticipating the outburst to come. He swiftly handed the packages to Dearly Beloved, and barely caught the tornado as she sought to tear past him.
Annette rode the white horse through the streets to the palace. Without pause, she urged the him up the steps and through the door of the palace itself. As she loped up the halls, the palace appeared deserted. The walls were freshly painted, and the largest room appeared ready for the banquet. She left the hall facing the lake, and proceeded to the back of the palace, the one facing the mountain itself. The corridors were deserted as well, save one. She saw the two guards leaning against the door, talking and laughing, as she slipped from the horse and walked up the hall. As she neared them, she spoke "Are you gentlemen not invited to the wedding?" They told her simply enough that they were told to guard Monotek's treasure during the festivities. They would be well compensated, and besides, they had heard that the Princess was in failing health anyway, so what was the use in trying to get a look?
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Peter T. Date: 09 Jun 01 - 12:38 PM There was a shudder, and a great splitting sound that reverberated through the fiery realm, and the mountain broke into two, black splitting white, and for a brief moment in the splitting, revealing the dark knotted guts of the giant and then closing up into a second mountain, and at long last Curioso succumbed to exhaustion and panic at the endlessness of the trials, the multiplying of mountains and giants and burdens and knew he could not go on, that the only thing keeping him from hurling himself and Tashalan off the pulsating side of the black mountain was the frayed rope about his body, still snagged over the small tree. At that moment a shout came from the new white mountain opposite: "Brother, brother!! It's me! Dominic! Don't panic, don't panic, I will rescue you." A moment of insane relief came over him. His brother was here. It would all be alright now. His brother. Curioso looked down, and far below him he could see whirlpools of death, figures churning and crawling and grasping like burning snakes, and he was gripped by the horror of it. He looked over at his brother, who was on a small plateau opposite, waving and smiling. Curioso shrunk back, and as he did he brushed Tasha against the outcropping of rock and she shrieked in pain -- the rock was becoming red hot to the touch. He clutched Tasha tightly to him, and shouted back: "No, no, you cannot rescue me, I don't trust you." And he became bewildering to himself. He did not trust the Lord of Death? The mountain of anger he was clutching to above the whirlpool of infinite torments? A spiritual vertigo possessed him, spinning through him "I'm going to throw a rope over to you," his brother said from the other mountain, the white mountain of hope. "Catch it and tie it down, and come to me hand over hand! " And Dominic fantastically opened up his body, and pulled out his intestines, and fashioned them into a rope, and flung them across the chasm. And the rope of his entrails fell over Curioso's face, and he reached out as if hypnotised, and caught it, and looped it around the tree. "Hooo!" said his brother, "Look, brother, I am doing the same!!" And he cut his intestines with his teeth, and looped the rope around another rock, and the rope pulled taught. Curioso cried out," You are insane, it is all insane, we stay here." "Brother", said Dominic, "You have no choice. For your mountain is becoming to hot to handle." And it was true. The black mountain was becoming unbearable. Curioso struggled with his panic, and the insane illusions that were possessing him, and he began to chant the supreme chant, OMMANIPADMEHUMOMMANIPADMEHUM, because he had nothing left to fight with, and each syllable was like his last breath, his last words in the world. He knew that the end was upon him, that he had failed. He found some strength somewhere, and he said to Tasha: "We are on the Mountain of Death, below us is the River of Death, and our lifeline is flung to us by the Lord of Death, so cling to me lightly, Tasha, we are going to meet him." And she smiled strangely, but still said nothing, in a kind of stupor, and hung about his shoulders, and Curioso shifted away to the disgusting slippery tightrope, and grappled hand over hand slowly across the chasm, denying at every second that he was doing what he was doing, hot winds rising to meet him, full of the stench of what was far below, awaiting. When he was nearly halfway across, he felt a weight on the rope, and he saw that his brother had begun to walk on it, towards him, laughing. And for an instant, Curioso's sanity slipped, and he thought that insanity was the only help, the last relief. And then Dominic, who had begun to dance a little as he came, pulled a little pipe out of his pocket, and began to play a mocking, haunting little tune. Instantly the tune transported Curioso in memory to a tower and his hands not gripping a tightrope but gripping the edge of a window, and in his mind he turned and he saw Annette. The shock almost made him let go of the tightrope, now bouncing back and forth as his brother skipped towards him, swaying and pirouetting, mocking. Curioso saw at last, and for the first time that it was all a lie, that he had been played upon like a pipe, that all his compassion, all his hope to save his brother, save Tashalan, save Tibet, save Annette, save all beings, had been engorged and warped, and that he could not save anyone, that none of his vows could ever be fulfilled, and that it was all mocked. And his brother came to a stop over his trembling hands, and squatted down like a toad, and laughed and said: "Well, little brother, this looks like the end." And Curioso looked up at him, his arms weary and tired, with Princess Tashalan dangling like a heavy weight around his neck, and he said, the words choking in his throat: "I can't save you, I tried, but I can't. " And Dominic looked down at him and said, smirking: "What made you think you could?" "I thought love could do everything, but it cannot," he said quietly. Dominic crouched lower and tickled at his brother's fingers, gripping the tightrope, and whispered. "No, brother, no. It can do everything. It can move mountains. It can save your brother. It can bring Tashalan back to life." Curioso cried back: "No! I see that I believed that, that greatest lie. It cannot do any of those things, it is part of your insanity, part of this insanity I am part of, these mountains of anger I know so well, that love will change everything, power will change everything, everything that has ever gone wrong will be healed, that you will come out to me in the woods and sit down beside me and say, forgive me, I was wrong, it was a mean thing to do, to leave you in that tree, and you were right to keep me from dying with Mallory on Everest and you saved me in Kathmandu and you were the only one, and I don't know why I went mad, and here is Geshe returned to us. No. It will not. Love cannot even take the silver streaks of grief out of my beloved's hair. That is not what it can do, and that is what you want me to want it to do, and what I wanted it to do. That is what I got wrong, I knew obscurely, all this time, all this terrible time, trying to rescue death into eternity. It is all an illusion, all, I cannot bring you back down off the mountain of your own despair, no matter how many realms I enter, you are trapped here, you have no power anymore on earth, because it was all from me, it was all my desire you feasted and lived on, but that is done now, it is over, what is broken is broken, and what is whole is whole, and there is no Tashalan burdened around my neck, and I have not heroically saved her at the last to be plunged into the realms of death below, and left to your mockery. But -- but -- there is this rope of love around me and I take it with me, for whatever it is, it is all I have, and I leave your rope of death to you, brother, and may you find some peace at last. " And Curioso said a prayer, and sighed, and opened his hands to fall at long last to his death. His brother swiped down to try and catch him, caught Tashalan instead, who cried out, but Curioso plummetted past out of reach, gathered speed and fell, and fell, and fell, and fell, and as he fell, he fell back into existence, and fell back into his body, towards his beloved, she with the silver streaks of moonlight in her hair, wherever she was, once again in the realm of life.
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: JenEllen Date: 09 Jun 01 - 04:44 PM Ambrose Bierce steadily held his pistol on Monotek's guards as he carefully stepped back to look inside the vault. Annette's paled hair and face were like the moon staring back at him. His pistol wavered slightly as he looked once again to the guards. "Get out of here." he said, "If you have any family, take them, and for god's sake get out of here." The guards scrambled past him, and the horse, on their way out of the hall.
"Ambrose," Annette called, "I cannot move him!" They quickly walked through the streets and out of town. The villagers prepared yet for the wedding, and the smells of cooking coming from the homes reminded Annette that she was absolutely ravenous, but with the wetness oozing from the open sores along the man's back seeping through the blanket onto Annette's arms, she resisted both her hunger and her urge to fling him from the horse. His eyes were locked, in their drunkard's gaze, on her face, and she quickly pulled the blanket up over his face. The rolling storm clouds gathering in the hills worried Bierce, but to Annette, they seemed to be the gods laughing at the little comedy laid before them for their amusement. The thunder and the darkness, and the villager's chorus of the wedding on the Sacred Mountain.
In a short while, they reached the cabin. Bierce helped Annette down from the horse, and then proceeded to draw a bath for the man as Annette tended to his wounds. She found Bierce's lonely razor, and cut the man's hair. It stood in oddly uneven spikes across his scalp as she set to shave his beard. She said nothing, the entire time she worked, and the man's eyes never left her. She stood, gathering her things, and pulling the blankets up around the man. She walked from the room, taking Bierce's arm and leading him to the kitchen with her. "Something is very, very wrong, mon ami." she started, "He is alive, but he is not alive. As if he was being held prisoner in his own mind. He looks at me, like I should know something, and I do not. Little things, like the fluttering of wings in a cage, but that is all." Bierce looked down to her, concerned, protective. She firmly patted his shoulder. "Or perhaps I am just very hungry and very tired? It will be fine, American. Go."
Bierce had been gone but a few minutes, long enough for Annette to stretch and think of food, when the door to the cabin opened. Annette was startled to see Bierce come back in, followed by Tirseng. "What is going on?" she asked, "Where is Cherement? You left Curioso?" In that instant, intense searing pain shot through Annette. She howled as she doubled over onto the bed. Tirseng and Bierce jumped up beside her, pinning her arms to her side as she clawed at them. She looked at the man, awakened now, and staring at her with the same blank gaze. The prisoner in the world of his own making, Dominic had briefly slipped the tethers of Monotek. The terror inside her was complete. She collapsed, sobbing. "That horse was not for me, Tirseng. It was for Tashalan. It is not a sky burial, it is a sky wedding." |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Peter T. Date: 09 Jun 01 - 06:13 PM Curioso coursed back into Curioso, and he felt the weight of existence hit him, drag him down into the world, and then the pain of breathing opened through his frame, and he was lying down in a room somewhere, scents of death and incense, and the world. He sat up, and his body sat up with him and they melded. With a shriek, Tirseng stood up, his eyes wide: "Curioso!!! Is it --" and he hesitated for a moment, and then rushed forward. They embraced, Curioso weak from his endeavours, and slow, but grateful. Across his naked chest, a deep scar had puckered and stayed. Tirseng said: "What?" And Curioso shook his head: "My brother is gone, Tashalan is gone, they are in the cage of Death. I am only escaped by your faithfulness" -- he touched Tirseng's forehead with his own, and pointed to the rope around his waist -- "And love." Tirseng said, "It should have been me, I should have gone." Curioso said, "No, only I could have saved my brother." Tirseng looked down and said, "I did not speak all the truth to you, brother. Not for you alone, for her." And he looked over at the bier upon which what remained of Princess Tashalan rested. And Curioso stopped and said: "When?" And Tirseng said, "That day. That day in Llhasa when I danced before her. Since that day." Curioso held him and said, "Not even you, you who are the only brother I have now, my real brother. Love can do much, but it cannot do everything. It is fragile and sometimes frays and breaks, and tough and sometimes it will last far beyond what we can imagine, but it is part of life, and not different. I pulled her free for a moment in delusion, and then lost her in the realms of Death." Tirseng stiffened. "And--" Curioso moved over to the bier upon which the Princess Tashalan lay, and stood. "Where is she, where is Annette?" he said. "She has been at war with Prince Monotek, since the moment you died. She embodied Khrodishvara, and bloodied his kingdom." Curioso put his hands over his face, and faltered for a moment. Amoghasiddi and Khrodhishvara!!! And then he laughed at his own foolishness. It was over. And he said: "Where is she now?" "She has gone to the palace, to the treasure store of Monotek." "Come, let us find her." But at that moment, an array of priests entered the room. The lead priest, acolyte of Monotek, stepped back in dismay. Curioso said firmly: "What are you here for?" "We are here to bring the Princess to the sacred plateau." Tirseng moved forward. "My brother, can we not wrest her free from him, so that she may move back into new life, as she wished, as the bird she wished?" Curioso looked at him, and quietly said, "I am sorry I did not know of your love for her. I brought her out of her path into the Death Realm, though she wished it upon herself. So it is my responsibility still. Love can do much, my beloved knows that. Tirseng, go to Annette, tell her that we have gone with the Princess to her burial. She will know what to do." And then he smiled and said,"If I could carry the Princess in the realms of death, I guess I can do it again." And he reached over and picked up the Princess one last time, and carried her past the protesting priests out of the room.
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: JenEllen Date: 10 Jun 01 - 05:11 AM Annette, Tirseng, and Ambrose Bierce left the wide-eyed husk of Dominic on the bed as they went to the kitchen. Once again, they circled the table to form their battle plan. "It is what he wanted." Annette spoke. "The only thing giving Monotek any access to this world is the fact that Dominic's body is still alive. He used all of Dominic's pain, hatred, and memories to bring all of this to pass..." "We'll do it." agreed Tirseng. "I'll take him." "I'll go with you." spoke Bierce, but he was waved away by the sherpa. "There is no time. If I take him, and the horse, I can make it up the mountain much faster than three of us on foot carrying him." As much as they wanted to disagree, the two knew he was right. They helped him to bundle Dominic, and carried him to the horse outside. Tirseng grimly accepted the bundle, and quickly spurred the horse towards the sacred mountain.
Tirseng rode with Dominic to the plateau. At the very edges stood Curioso, Dearly Beloved, and the priests, praying over Tashalan's coming journey. Curioso looked up from his prayers, and saw Tirseng. Amazement crossed his face as he helped his friend from the horse, and saw the contents of the blanket he was carrying. "Yes, friend. It is he." sighed Tirseng, as he quickly explained the path they were to follow. They walked single-file down the path from the plateau, the priests, followed by Curioso, then Tirseng and his steed. As the path forked, the parties split, without so much as a glance to the other. All were lost in prayer for what little lives they had left. As they passed through the town, they prayed for the people, blissfully unaware that there was no wedding, much less a monarch left among them. As they passed the temple, they prayed for the monks they saw spinning prayer wheels and chanting, and for the mother cat and her kittens that played at their feet. As they passed Mallory's cabin, they prayed for their fallen comrade, and every traveler that crossed the mountain's passes in the search for the sacred mountain.
Curioso and Tirseng reached Bierce's clearing, and saw the American sitting bundled just outside his door, waiting for Tirseng's return. He looked up at them, grateful to see Tirseng and shocked to see Curioso. He covered the ground between them quickly, looking at Tirseng. "It's done then?" Tirseng stared hard at the ground and nodded. Bierce then turned his attentions to Curioso. He quickly brushed at the scar on his chest, "It's really you then? I'll be damned...Tirseng never told us..." He then embraced the two men, and hurried them inside to find some warmer clothes for Curioso. He chuckled as he handed him a shirt, "Well, lucky for you, women like battle-scars. Although I don't know one who would believe this story.." |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: katlaughing Date: 10 Jun 01 - 10:25 AM As the wheel turned, so did souls' journeys. Dearly Beloved glanced around her, feeling a bit awkward in her new body. She could see the Temple and hear the monks chanting as before, but her faculties were much more acute. She suddenly had a desire to roll on her back and bat at the air with all four paws, while her siblings tumbled and played round their mother. In a moment, she rolled back, quieted down with her front paws tucked under her chest. Ears twitching, listening, she looked very studious and fierce, even if she was just a few weeks old. One of the monks glanced at her and chuckled. That one will grow to be a fine Temple cat, he thought. |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Peter T. Date: 10 Jun 01 - 10:55 AM Curioso went off in search of Annette, the light snowfall glinting in the return of the slanting sun through distant clouds. As he came down the path towards the river, he was confronted by a cluster of figures, who as they approached turned out to be a group of travellers, finally entering the valley. They were obviously weary, but hailed him with a kind of jovial determination. "Hello, hello!" shouted the leader. Curioso went down to meet them. "Welcome," he said. " You must have had a hard time of it." The military looking figure at the head of the party said: "A bit. Name's General Jordan, appointed as British liason to the region for the duration, I guess." "The duration of what?", Curioso asked. "The duration of the war," the General replied. "What war? We have been in the mountains for some time." "You don't know? September, last month, Germany invaded Poland, war underway throughout Europe and the Commonwealth. You are isolated up here! Corporal, are we still carrying the old copies of the Times around?" and the corporal rummaged about and pulled out some papers. General Jordan smiled and said: "What do they say in America, eh? Read all about it!!" "Is America in the war?" "Not yet. It'll come. General Pershing will come and take all the glory again, you'll see." Curioso took the papers, and at that moment Tirseng came up to the party. Curioso told him what had happened, and Tirseng looked at him, and Curioso shrugged. "Could you lead the party to the guest place, Tirseng, and then come and find us? " Tirseng nodded, and led the party away. Curioso moved away down towards the river. He saw her at last, no one else sat like that, and he saw the silver streaks in her hair, and the emotion came straight up into his chest, and he could hardly breathe for it. She turned around, and saw him coming, and stood up, quietly. He came up to her, and looked at her, and touched her hair, and said: "Your hair went silver." And she said: "And yours has gone white." "Really?" he said. "I didn't know." There was an awkward pause. She looked at him and said: "What was it your teacher said? 'When you meet Death for the first time, you never breathe the same again'. That is what I feel about all this, and it is hard. I saw things, and did things that have shaken me. " He said, quietly. "I know a better truth. When you meet Love for the first time, you never breathe the same again. And that was true the first time I saw you, and has not changed. If it weren't for you, I would have died over and over again on that Black Mountain, and the other mountain, and the truth is that without you I wouldn't have cared. You held me when I fell, the only one." She said," I am sorry, I am different now. I don't know how, but I am. I did not want you to die, and you died, and it was -- was so hard -- " And she started crying, and couldn't stop. And he took her in his arms, and they held each other while she cried.
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They sat by the river, looking at the river, holding each other close, as if the other one might be snatched away at any moment. END
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: katlaughing Date: 10 Jun 01 - 03:27 PM BRAVO!!BRAVA!! |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: Peter T. Date: 10 Jun 01 - 04:07 PM Pretty snazzy graphics for a temple cat.... yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: CarolC Date: 27 Nov 01 - 02:06 AM Epilogue for Liza and Ezra, Part I
The ice cave was cold and a little damp. Liza could hear her father's uneven breathing close by. The snow of the walls and roof glowed with a strange but etherial blue light that dimly illuminated the cave.
Lying on her back, Liza stared up at the roof of the little snow shelter. In the excitement over getting the shelter built before the worst of the storm hit, her senses became hightened from the adrenalin flooding her system. The crunch of snow underneath moving bodies crackled in her ears. The cold air made her skin tingle, and it was heavy with moisture from the breath of her fellow travelers. And as they breathed, the steady rythm of it lulled her consciousness into a state of deep calm.
As she stared, she saw the purple light. It pulsed very slowly... getting brighter, then fading, and then growing even brighter than before. This light had life, Liza knew. She could see it. It looked more alive than anything she had ever seen before.
And then she felt the warm tingling sensation going up her spine that she had felt the first time she saw Mr. Po. Her senses expanded even further. Her breathing deepened, and she felt that she was breathing in the universe. The walls of the cave became an extension of her body and her awareness of herself took them in and blended with them.
And she heard the music. The music of the ages. The music of the universe. Her soul ached with the heartrending beauty of it. All of life, all of creation, an infinite multitude of tiny sparks of divinity, each expressing itself in form, sang out to her and took her in. And she knew she was home. |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: CarolC Date: 27 Nov 01 - 02:08 AM "At this point in your understanding of yourself, your consciousness is focused in only one plane of existance at any given moment." Liza didn't hear these words, but she could feel their presence in her mind. She knew them. But she didn't know why. "It is possible to shift the focus from one plane to another. And it is possible to be aware of elements of one plane while your consciousness is focused in another. You must learn to become aware of those times when elements of a different plane make themselves apparent in the one in which you are focused. Eventually, you will be able to occupy more than one plane simultaneously. And then you will understand many things that are a mystery to you now."
Liza thought a question in her mind. "Where are these thoughts coming from?" she asked.
"You are a multidimensional being," was the response. "There are aspects of yourself of which you are not consciously aware, but that are just as much a part of you as the part that you think of as 'Liza'. 'Liza' is just a very small part of the aspect of consciousness that makes up the whole of who you are. You are a mighty being, with many more forms of expression than you could possibly comprehend within the framework of the reality of which you are currently aware. So, you 'know' these things. They are a part of your larger reality. Eventually, you will know them without requiring such a drastic shift in consciousness as the one you are experiencing right now. Everything will come in time."
"Right now, you are in need of assistance. Your situation is precarious. It will be necessary for you to remain calm. When you are calm, you will be in a better position to recognize important information when it comes to you. You will need this information in order to get yourself and your companions out of the predicament in which you currently find yourselves."
At that moment, Liza realized that she could hear the howling of the wind outside the snow shelter. She shivered. She thought, "But what if I don't and everybody dies because of me?"
"You will not let them down. And you will not let yourself down. Whatever you do is a part of that which needs to be. Each step leads to the next step. And you will learn many things along the path. Be patient with yourself. Otherwise, it will be difficult for you to remain calm and centered."
Liza wondered what 'centered' meant, and at that moment, physical reality intruded on her awareness in the form of her father shaking her shoulder.
"Liza," said Ezra. "We need to go now. The storm has lifted for a little while and we can't stay here. There's danger of an avalanche." Liza was shaking her head and wondering if she had really just been having a conversation with herself in her head, when her pack was lifted up onto her shoulders and she resumed her climb up the mountain. |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: CarolC Date: 27 Nov 01 - 02:10 AM The thin mountain air was a problem for Liza, and it was made more of a problem because of the challenge of trying to keep up with the rest of the party. The guides were breaking a path in the deep snow, and her father, walking directly ahead of her, stomped the snow down as much as he could.
But Liza was smaller than even the smallest of the guides, and what was an easy stride for the others amounted to two or three difficult paces for her. And she had to lift her legs much higher in relation to the rest of her than they did. It was slow going, but they had to hurry. They were vulnerable out in the open, and the guides were convinced that another storm was on the way. And there was the avalanche risk. All in all, things seemed to be about as bad as they could possibly get. Liza comforted herself with thoughts about her warm bed back at home in Maine. This was the first time on the trip that she missed it.
As she let her mind wander around summertime Maine, it took her to a place where a woman stood on a rock extending out into the little bay near the boat house. In her mind, Liza approached the woman. The woman turned to face her. Liza could see that the woman looked a lot like her. She felt comfortable in this woman's presence, like she would with an old friend. The woman spoke:
"Liza, you don't remember me. You were very young when I left your world. But we are still together, you and I. I am always aware of this. You know it sometimes, even though you don't realize it. If you want, you can ask for me and I will make myself more apparent to you. But you must remember to ask. It will not happen by itself."
"Who are you?" asked Liza.
The woman answered, "You know me by many names. Most recently, you knew me as your mother. But we have been much more to one another than just mother and daughter. We have played together in the world of things many times. And we have played together in the world of dreams, as well."
"You are in trouble, Liza. There are many hazards that wait for you, and you must tame them before you can return here to your beloved little island. You will do this. And I will help you if you ask me to. But you must remember to ask."
The woman became somewhat transparent as though she was losing her physical substance. Liza realized that she could see through her. She could see the waves breaking on the rocks just behind her.
"Liza, there is one more thing," said the woman. "There is a crevasse just up ahead of you and your party. You must warn the lead man. And you must do it now. It is urgent. Now. Don't wait." And with that, the woman faded away into mist, and Liza's mind was back in the snow-filled hell from which she so wanted to escape. |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: CarolC Date: 27 Nov 01 - 02:11 AM Liza struggled along behind her father. The wind whipped up little snow crystals that stung her face and drove themselves down the neck of her parka and up her sleeves. Her fingers and toes had lost feeling hours ago. She trudged along, almost in a trance. She had lost track of her legs... they must be moving by themselves. She watched them pumping up and down, wondering to herself who was making them move like that.
As the awareness of her surroundings became more immediate to her consciousness, she remembered her mother's warning. Liza shouted to her father.
"Father," She said. "Father, stop! I've got to tell you something!"
Ezra looked back at her. "Not now, Liza" He said. "We've got to keep moving."
"No Father! We have to stop! We have to stop right now!" She was shouting as loud as she could, but the wind seemed to carry her voice away from her and her father. "Father, please listen."
Ezra stopped and looked at Liza. She was clearly very agitated. He Signaled to the guides to wait, and he went back to speak to her.
"Liza, what's the problem? What's got you all worked up like this?"
"Father, there's a crevasse just up ahead. If we don't stop right now, we'll all be killed. We have to find a way around."
"How do you know this, Liza?" Asked her father.
"Father I know you are not going to believe me," Liza said. But I just had a conversation with mother. In my mind. She told me."
A pained look came over Ezra's face. He thought about it for a little bit. He said, "You know, Liza. I've had a few talks with your mother myself since she passed away. I don't know if that sort of thing is real or not, but I do know that I did what she said, and I was glad I did afterwards."
Ezra shouted to the guides. They all gathered around Liza and her father, looking puzzled.
"Liza tells me there's a crevasse just up ahead. She said we have to find away around it." The guides looked at each other uneasily. They spoke together in their own tongue, and then they spoke to Liza and Ezra. They looked frightened, not from the physical danger, but, it seemed, but from the knowlege of what had happened to Liza. It was a new experience for Liza and her father, but it was nothing new to the guides... |
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Subject: RE: Searching for Shangri-La (Part III) From: CarolC Date: 27 Nov 01 - 02:13 AM Liza waited until the guides had settled down. She couldn't understand their unease. Addressing the head guide, she asked, "What has you so concerned?"
The guide replied, "We know of these things. We know that you have been speaking with one who is no longer in the body. We sense that this portends something bad for all of us. The spirits who inhabit the other world do not seek out one such as yourself unless the need is great."
Liza had no idea what the guide was going on about, but she was glad that she had his attention. "There is a crevasse just up ahead. I don't know how far, but if we had continued much longer, we would have been killed. We have to find a way to get around it before we can continue."
"How can we do that?" Asked Ezra.
"I don't know," Said Liza. "But I know we can't go this way any more."
And as she said that, a rumbling and crashing sound came to them from the direction in which they had been headed. And they could see a plume of snow powder blowing up from where the path led, not more that one hundred feet ahead of them.
Liza said, "I need some time. I need to think for a minute."
Liza remembered what her mother had said about asking for her if she needed help. She felt pretty sheepish about doing something as outlandish as that, but she didn't see any other way. She closed her eyes and thought about her mother. She could see her in her mind. "Mother," She said. "Will you help me? We need to get past this crevasse. I don't know what to do."
The woman glowed with a faint golden light. She smiled and said, "All will be well, Liza. Let your father take you by the hand and let him help you get around obstacles. But you must break the trail. I will lead you. You must keep your eyes closed and follow me."
And with that, the woman turned and began to move away from the party. She looked back briefly and smiled to Liza, and then continued on again. Liza knew she had to start walking again. She didn't know how she could possibly accomplish this task. Her legs were barely holding her up, and now she had to break the trail herself.
As she began walking, she realised that she felt lighter than she had before. The going was still rough, but she felt bouyed somehow. With her eyes closed, and holding her father's hand, she followed the golden apparition.
The party made it's way slowly up the mountainside and away from the path on which they had been travelling. Liza was barely able to lift her legs above the snow on this hillside. She stomped the snow as much as she could, but it was slow going. As the party approached a steep rock face, the woman suddenly disappeared. Liza's heart jumped in her chest. How could this be? She had led these people into this wasteland in the middle of nowhere, and the only thing that could help them get out of it was suddenly gone. Liza began to panic. Everyone was going to die, and it would be all her fault.
And then she heard the voice. It was her mother's voice. "Liza," She said. "Liza, you must be calm. This will not work if you are not calm. I am still with you. Come just a few more steps and you will see me."
With a great effort, Liza took a deep breath and calmed herself down. She continued on in the direction in which she saw her mother go. Ezra said, "Liza. The cliff face is right in front of you. You can't go any further that way."
The woman's voice said, "Liza, you must continue. This is the only way. It's not much further."
Ezra said, "Liza. What in the world are you doing? You can't keep going this way. There's nowhere to go. There is a cliff face just ahead of you."
Liza was stricken. She was in an impossible position. What if she was just imagining her mother? What if the woman was just her brain playing tricks on her in the thin air? She wanted to give up and just sit where she was until the cold took her and put her gently to sleep. And then she heard the voice one more time. "Liza. Take ten more steps and then look directly to your left."
With an immense effort of will, Liza shifted her despondent soul and her tired, aching body for one last push. She said, "Father, there is no other choice. This is the way to go. Please help me."
Ezra shook his head and wondered what had happened to his daughter. She appeared to have lost her mind. But his love and his compassion for her were immense. He would take her where she wanted to go, even if it meant they would have to stand at the bottom of the cliff until Liza decided to do something else.
The last few feet were an eternity. The snow had piled up much deeper just at the bottom of the cliff face. Liza and Ezra were digging into the massive mound of snow. They dug snow with their hands and kicked snow with their feet. The guides watched uneasily a few feet away. Liza shoved her arm into the snow bank just to the left of where she had been digging with one last mighty effort. Her arm kept going. Suddenly, where there had been an impenetrable bank of snow, there was now a hole the size of a window. And Liza could see a golden light glowing softly on the other side of the hole.
"Father," Said Liza. "Come look at this."
Ezra stopped digging and stood next to his daughter. The astonishment on his face was almost amusing. Liza stifled a chuckle, but she was relieved to see that her father was able to understand the importance of this discovery. The pair resumed their digging in earnest, and now the guides even joined in. In just a few minutes, there was a hole big enough for the largest of them to fit through. Liza closed her eyes again, and with her father holding her hand, she thought of her mother, and began to walk. As she passed through the opening, she saw the woman glowing softly a few feet away. They were in a small cave in the side of the cliff face. This place would be safe for them to stay until the approaching storm was no longer a threat, and it would protect them from avalanches.
"You have passed through a test, Liza," Said her mother. "Your party is safe for now. But the important thing is that you did what was needed. And you did it despite what your outer senses told you, and what all of the people around you were telling you. This is a very important thing to learn. And you have learned it well. This place will shelter you and your party until it is safe to move on." And with that, Liza collapsed onto the floor of the cave and gave herself over to blessed unconscousness.
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