And this year, El Niño blew with singular and spectacular premeditation. Like never before. El Niño, the Child born at Christmas. The Child hated by many.
It was time for action.
“I know who Jesus was, but why do we celebrate Christmas?”
Only Deborah could ask such a question and make it sound inoffensive to other people’s sensibilities.
They were sitting at Sacha’s parents’ family table. It was the season of Good Will. Two policemen were stationed at the entrance to the condominium building. Suzy drew the curtains to hide her little gathering from the outside as much as possible. Rather than getting together on Christmas Day, Sacha suggested they might meet on the Eve of Christmas. It was an old European custom anyway and here, in the USA, it assured greater privacy in case the people outside had designs on his presence. They sat to dinner when the first star blinked at them from the darkening sky.
“Do you celebrate Christmas?” Suzy asked just as innocently. She had no desire to hurt Deborah, but frankly she had no idea what religion she practiced. If any. They never talked about it.
“I do whatever Sacha tells me,” she replied.
“And what might that be?”
“To be myself. Not to compromise. But mostly just to be myself.”
Alicia who was listening to this exchange smiled her most surreptitious smile. It only registered in her eyes that grew brighter, more joyous.
“I thought that Christmas was a season of joy,” Alec put in. “We don’t go to any particular church, but at Christmas we feel a stronger link with each other. This in itself gives us extra pleasure.”
Alicia’s eyes approved that also.
“And you Grandma? What is your slant on Christmas?”
“I am of the old guard. I still remember when we all went to church, at midnight, to celebrate the Holy Mass. The church smelled of incense, of burning candles, and just a little of JJ. The Irish whiskey. But the occasion was something I only gave up when Alex died. My Alex. Alec Senior. He was a traditional man. He drew his strength from old customs. He thought that even the lowest of the low got better on Christmas day. Like Scrooge...”
Her eyes reached out beyond time, beyond their little family circle. Alec’s father never saw their Los Angeles home. He was born in England and died in Canada. Still as an expatriate. Poor man, she thought. He’d been so good to me...
“It seemed that Alec Senior celebrated Christmas practically every day,” Suzy mused, the memory invoking a wistful smile.
She too remembered Alec’s father, the tall, masculine man who always treated Alicia as a princess. A little like her father had treated her. She was looking forward to flying next week to be with her mother. Her dad probably wouldn’t recognize her. Four years ago, except for Sacha, they were all here, together. Even the cats. Now dad was dying, mother was alone in Kingston, while Peeka and Boo stayed with Maria. Not quite enough to be joyful about.
Sacha got up and walked up to the window. He parted the blinds a little and peeked outside. What a marvelous thing it would have been if they’d listened to the teaching of the forgotten child. To the teaching of El Niño. If they hadn’t turned the celebration of Christmas into a spending fiesta, but gathered to celebrate his words. Every word the man had spoken applied as much today as it had then, on the sun-baked hills outside Jerusalem.
Buddha, and Krishna before him, had tried their best. There had been others. Many others before them. Jesus wanted to limit his teaching to his own people, but Paul wouldn’t have it that way. He’d spread the word and in doing so had diluted the intensity of the teaching. He adapted it to other people to make it more acceptable. He tried his best.
But it couldn’t have worked.
The teaching sounds like pure theory until it is grounded in the past of the Jewish people. Many prophets had manipulated matter. They had shown the illusion of all that is material, physical, transient by definition. Many had prepared the ground for the man who would show that the only reality is within you. Within your very own self. That whatever you truly believe in becomes real. Your personal, glorious reality. (Be careful what you wish for!) Each one a creator unto himself. Unto herself. Whatsoever you believe in… The objective reality is not of this world, he’d said. He called it his kingdom. And your kingdom.
All to no avail.
Not even the Jews believed him. And those few who call themselves Messianic, they do not create their own reality either—they wait on their Master to do it for them. Like children wafting in the wind. Helpless, resigned to their own inadequacy. Yet the man had said that there would be others who would perform even greater acts of creation. Of manipulating matter and energy by their minds alone. But only if their minds are firmly connected to the universal mind. To the Whole.
I don’t belong here. Why have I dreamt so much in Bardo?
“What is your understanding of Christmas, Sacha?”
It was, of course, Deborah. She was after the truth, not just impressions. She wanted to hear his voice. Lately Sacha spoke on television, in churches and organizations, but at home, he hardly opened his mouth. It was as though he’d already said everything he had to say. As if there was no more. Or maybe he was simply tired. More and more he looked and sounded as though he didn’t belong among them. Even among his own family.
He seemed a stranger in his own home.
“I have no understanding... I’m just trying to remember...” He was still facing the window.
Only then he became aware that all four of his nearest and dearest looked towards him. He felt their eyes boring into the back of his neck. He felt embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “My thoughts took me to a different...” He didn’t finish. What was the point telling them now about Bardo? They were here to celebrate. To be merry. And by an act of his will Sacha had once more come down to Earth.
“Christmas is the time of good will. My grandfather was right. Even Scrooge changed his ways at Christmas. That is the power we place on the word. It creates a different reality. A reality we all long for, but are often too weak to sustain for the rest of the year. But we can always try.”
We can always try. Why can’t I try a little harder?
Deborah was the first to notice that Sacha was under a great strain. He presented a calm enough face, an outward serenity, but his attention was elsewhere. “You are where your attention is,” she remembered him telling her. Deborah wondered where he was. It was obvious to her that public appearances drained him physically as well as mentally. She had no idea why. She went with him a few times. He’d always sounded so composed. So radiant. Even happy. He sounded as though he just opened his mouth and the words spewed out without the slightest effort. But did they really? And was he really as happy as he looked? Or was it all a mask he put on for the masses. Did he present a different mask to the many, and a different one to the few?
“Sacha,” she thought intensively. “Sacha come back... please Sacha...”
He took the five steps towards her and took her in his arms. He’d never done so before with other people around. Except for Alicia. But time was past for the form for form’s sake.
“I’m sorry, my love. It won’t happen again. Promise.”
It didn’t. Sacha was as unable to break a promise as was Deborah. The concept was simply absent from his make up both, as human, and as a Stranger from a Strange Land that he was. For the rest of the evening, Sacha was the soul of the party. He talked freely, he joked, he sang carols in his passable baritone. He even did some party tricks––like lighting candles on the Christmas tree without matches. Suzy always attached a few ‘real’ candles to the branches in honor of her father who’d hated the ‘artificial’ lights, as he’d called them. “It’s all so commercial,” he’d said. It also reduced the number of fires, she mused with a smile.
No matter. She loved her father.
Actually Sacha didn’t actually light the candles ‘by magic’, although he probably could have. What he’
d done was to divert their attention, become invisible, and lit them very fast one after another. By the time they looked at him, he was sitting again in his chair. The human mind usually refused to accept things that do not fit into the established pattern of understanding. Or of that which reaches outside their particular perception of reality.
It really didn’t matter how he did it. He did it mostly for Deborah. She clapped her hands, and was on the verge of performing another exotic jig. Only Suzy beat her to it. She thought Sacha was about to peek-a-boo, and when he, according to her, remained in his chair, she was overjoyed. She got up, spun on her heals, sang out ‘peek-a-boo’ on the top of her voice and dropped back into her chair. The third bottle of wine may have had something to do with it.
“See? I can do it too!” she giggled.
Alec and Sacha knew what Suzy was talking about. Alicia and Deborah both gave her an amused if slightly baffled look.
Only Sacha hadn’t remained in his chair. What stayed behind was his astral body. His projection. Alec would have loved to incorporate this ability into his Information Theory. Subliminally Sacha dropped his father a hint. But the human mind did not as yet invent mathematics for this particular conjecture. In fact there was no theory postulated as yet for any of the powers Sacha had acquired over his short life-span.
Sacha read his father’s mind.
It will come, Dad… It will come.
Alec received him loud and clear.
Sacha thought that manipulating reality was a fitting way to celebrate Christmas. Wasn’t this what Jesus did when he’d changed water into wine? Or walked on water? To Sacha these were party tricks. What mattered was that the motivation for and the results of the tricks met their intended purpose. Even if they just brought joy to the people you loved.
And then the dinner was over.
They left the presents till tomorrow. “Some customs should remain English,” Alec insisted.
Not one of them felt like moving. There was an atmosphere in the house that was hard to define. They were all joyful. At times exuberant. Yet, there was a tenuous cloud making itself known to their inner sentience. El Niño, pounding the window panes, imposed an inexplicable, persistent susurration that every beginning must have its inevitable end. That whatever is born, must die. And the death of the Child born tonight was none too pleasant to contemplate. No one mentioned it. Yet they all knew, with knowledge that can only reach one from deep within, that this was their last Christmas together. There was an air of finality. They sensed, each one of them, that Sacha was with them only in passing. Like a comet that illuminates the sky with its flamboyant beauty and then returns into the depth of space.
Yet… no one mentioned it. No one dared.
Alicia stayed the night with them. She was given the room she’d once slept in, over Christmas, so many years ago. The room that usually served as Suzy’s studio. Alicia didn’t mind. She even enjoyed the smell of fresh oil on canvas. Actually Suzy used mostly acrylic, but it made no difference. Alicia loved whatever it was.
Deborah and Sacha were now accepted as a couple. Suzy wouldn’t dream of suggesting a more traditional, let alone a permanent arrangement. Not after her own peek-a-boo mode of behaviour with Sacha’s father, way back in Montreal. She would never believe that the ‘young couple’ had made love in two successive embodiments––some centuries apart.
Sacha was in two minds about leaving Deborah alone on Christmas night. Later, the decision was taken out of his hands. Since that night they’d met, on rue St-Laurent, Deborah hasn’t drank anything stronger than coffee. Today she had more than three glasses. The moment her head touched the pillow, she’d given herself up to Orpheus’ embrace. Whatever she dreamed about, the smile remained on her lips till early hours. By then Sacha was back. In the meantime, he could not have forsaken those who needed him most on this Special Night of the year. Again he opened a single door at the back of the supermarket. Only this time he took out the provisions himself. People outside carried his bounty as far and as wide as they could. Later Sacha paid for every single item he’d taken from the supermarket with good ol’ American greenbacks. To the last cent. After all, there were other shareholders.
Never had so many celebrated Christmas Eve in the streets of LA.
Later, Sacha walked the street for a few more hours. There were not many people. Even the usual vagrants celebrated Christmas by getting drunk. Each according to his means. He met them, he filled their heart with good will, with as much joy as they were capable of accepting. He was surprised how very receptive people were. It was as though they’ve been waiting for him. Waiting for the magic of Christmas.
When he returned home, he no longer felt like a stranger in a strange land.
It was a very good Christmas, after all.
Chapter 22
First Signs
“Don’t forget, son,” said Alexander Baldwin, Ph.D., speaking as an expert in the field, “that there is a well known maxim among the physicists. It postulates that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” He let that sink in while searching Sacha’s face for the desired effect. Alec was worried about a possible backlash from Sacha’s lectures in which he refused to hold anything back.
“There are areas, Dad, in which we cannot compromise,” Sacha replied, his tone unrepentant.
“And if the same holds for the less tangible aspects of the physical reality,” Alec continued, as though he hadn’t been interrupted, “and mystics assure us that the dictum ‘as above so below’...”
“...or that whatsoever we bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, as well as the other way round, still holds in this day and age,” Sacha continued reading his father’s thoughts before Alec had a chance to speak them, “than I’d better watch my step.”
“I was thinking more of your back, son,” Alec smiled, but his tone was deadly serious.
Sacha had a good idea what to expect. And all he could expect was that equal and opposite to whatever he said or did would be initiated by somebody, and promptly thrown in his face. He was determined to dodge the counter attack for as long as he could.
In the first few weeks following Christmas, Sacha had appeared seven times on local and national TV programs. He’d also made eighteen personal appearances at various gatherings that had been attended to capacity.
He didn’t preach.
He assured everyone who listened that he had nothing new to offer, no new insights, new gospels, nor new catechism. All he was doing was reminding people what had been given to humanity ages ago, reinstated and confirmed periodically by various wise men that we called mystics, prophets, saviors or avatars. That was all. Where he differed from other speakers mounting the pulpits––whom he jokingly called his competition––was that, when called upon, Sacha did not shy away from demonstrating the veracity of his convictions. He put his deeds where his mouth was. Brethren from various sacerdotal persuasions did not look kindly upon his inerrant abilities.
For them, Sacha spelled danger.
When he met doubters he scanned their minds and planted afterthoughts, as to where and how they veered from the straight and narrow. When he was accused of pretending to be a doctor without a license, he denied any such thing, and claimed that while physicians attempt to cure from without, healing always comes from within. He assured everyone that all he did was to help people find the healing power within themselves. He said that if he failed to open people’s minds to this truth, no healing occurred.
Unfortunately for the objectors to his ‘trickery’, there had always been some people around in need of physical help and, whenever possible, he tried to oblige. On a few occasions, but only on a few, the results had been spectacular. The paralytics walked, the dying recovered on the spot, the blind recovered their eyesight. This also involved manipulation of perceived reality, of course, but he knew of no way to explain this fact to people at large. Even on, what he called, a one-on-one basis, it wasn’t easy. And the few healings mentioned alway
s took place following a one-on-one contact. The others just bore witness.
Usually Sacha preferred to open one’s mindset and let nature take its course. It was a little like tuning a violin. No one would dream of playing the fiddle, no matter how well they played, unless the instrument was well tuned. People failed to do the same to their perception of reality. Their minds were badly out of tune.
Once he’d been almost run over by a car driven by a hysterical woman. She wanted to see if he would disappear or otherwise escape her ‘experiment’. After a few weeks in jail and a few months of biweekly sessions on a psychiatrist’s coach she was certified sane. Sacha could have done it much faster, but the result would have been virtually the same. At the time, she’d been whisked away by the men in blue.
During the fourth week after Christmas, the problems started in earnest.
First Sacha had noticed a marked increase in dog collars among his audience. They sat innocently enough, amidst the many, but toward the end of his talk they would slither their way towards the microphones, positioned among the listeners, and begin asking him questions regarding his stand on religion.
The questions had been of the category: ‘Did you stop beating your wife, Sir?’ Dammed if he did, dammed if he didn’t. Whatever he answered could be used against him. The clergymen may have been jealous of his evident following, or simply mistrustful of his confidence. Yet, at the same time, they seemed to be feeling him out to see if he might be swayed to join their particular ranks, enhance their particular sect, and wave their spurious banner.
Only the boys in black cassocks hadn’t shown any interest in captivating Sacha by their dubious charm. They’d laid claim to their own source of infallibility. There was no need for Sacha’s ravings, they’d implied. They as good as insisted that only one authority had the power to heal and that was the power of Jesus. While Sacha refused to be drawn into a discussion regarding the source of healing, he had suggested that some have the humility to act as channels. He enumerated half dozen names including the Brazilian named Jose Pedro De Freitas who had become known as Arigo, the German Bruno Gröning, the American Evelyn Monahan, and the Hindu sage named Sai Baba, as just one example from the Far East. He’d named others as able, if less known, healers from around the world who did not invoke the name of Jesus to accomplish their healing. Belatedly Sacha remembered––what he’d always known though it had slipped his mind at that moment––that the majority of the healers he’d named had been successfully destroyed by the jealous ministrations of the medical profession, with able and enthusiastic assistance from various ecclesiastic authorities.
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