Leopard's Kin

by Becky Norman

  Lori did just that and slid it shut behind her, looking at her friends as they sat on the now-empty trailer and took a break.

  “I want to thank you guys again for doing this for me. I don’t know what I would have done without you,” she said humbly.

  “I think we got it, Lori,” Jeret replied sardonically. “That’s, what? The tenth time today you’ve thanked us?” He laughed with his head tipped back and Lori noticed that again his ears had appeared to fold in on themselves a bit. His strawberry-blond hair was sticking out at awkward angles from his exertion and his inability to tuck it behind his lobes.

  “Okay, I’ll shut up,” she answered with a grin. “I’m just grateful, that’s all.”

  “Eleven,” Jeret said with a wink.

  There was a lull in the conversation then as people drank from their bottles of water or rubbed a dusty hand over an aching neck.

  “There’s one other thing I should mention about what you asked earlier, Shannon,” Noel said softly after a few minutes. “You wanted to know why bad things don’t happen to people every time somebody else thinks them.”

  Shannon turned to look at Noel on the trailer and nodded.

  “There’s another important element to why it doesn’t always happen – even when someone fixates on harming another. And that’s because both parties have to agree on the event.”

  Lori felt as though Noel had knocked over a gong in the midst of the group – everyone froze, absorbing the disturbance of his words. After a few moments, Shannon cleared her throat.

  “Are you actually saying that the child who was raped chose for that to happen? You’re not actually saying that, are you?”

  Lori remained silent, fervently hoping that’s not what Noel was saying, as well.

  “I know it’s hard to hear. I do know that. And it’s especially hard to hear if you’re one of the people who’s been a victim in such a way,” Noel confirmed. “But hear me out. I mentioned before that people live subconsciously. We are all of us – all the time – creating with our thoughts. We can’t not create. The minute we think something, we’re creating it.”

  Noel slid off the trailer and moved to a spot where he was visible to everyone. “So the question is: do we direct our thoughts? Or do we just let them come and act on them without exploring consequences? Or perhaps a better question would be: do we create from our soul or from our mind?”

  Mark raised a sketchy eyebrow at that. “Come again?”

  Noel shifted slightly to address Shannon’s husband. “Every moment is an opportunity to create ourselves anew. Every minute, our actions and thoughts define who we are. But sometimes we just do things by rote – it’s part of our daily routine, you see?”

  Noel took a few steps towards Mark, getting excited about his topic now. “Have you ever been driving in a car, Mark, on a long trip and realize you’re in a town that you thought was a lot further down the road? And you don’t even remember how you got there?”

  Mark nodded mutely.

  “You go past landmarks and don’t even see them because you’re so busy thinking about something else, you’re not paying attention to what you’re doing,” Jeret added, seeing where Noel was going with this line of thought.

  “Yes,” Noel agreed, looking at his roommate. “You got where you were going...but you weren’t doing it consciously.”

  “Or maybe you didn’t get where you were going,” Lynta pointed out. “Maybe you got lost along the way because you weren’t paying attention.”

  Noel nodded enthusiastically. “Ah, yes. Exactly, Lynta. We’re all of us travelling. But are we paying attention?”

  Shannon made a movement and took an inhale of breath as though she was going to speak, but Noel held up a hand, forestalling her.

  “To get back to what you asked, Shannon,” he intervened, “Sometimes bad things happen to people...and they ask ‘why me?’ Maybe the answer is that they just weren’t paying attention to the road signs that were telling them it was going to happen.”

  Lori grew still; this was hitting home in no uncertain terms. She shook her head subtly, whether in denial of Noel’s words or her reluctance to take on responsibility, she wasn’t sure.

  “I have to say something here,” she stated quietly and the whole group turned to look at her. “I’ll admit I haven’t always lived consciously in the way you say, Noel. I’ve created things and not realized I was doing so. But I don’t think it’s fair to say something like Cody dying in a plane crash was created by either one of us. That’s a bloody awful thing to say, as a matter of fact.”

  She was trembling from the force of her conviction and because she had disagreed with him, who had been such a help to her these past couple of months.

  Shannon – trusty, feisty Shannon – immediately came to her defence. “I agree,” she said with an edge to her voice. “Lori certainly didn’t choose to have Cody die...and I’m sure he didn’t choose that for himself, either. Who would?”

  The little pixie lifted her chin and stared down Noel in confrontation, but he didn’t rise to the challenge by getting angry or defensive. His words remained even and full of compassion, which caused Lori to falter again in her thinking.

  He turned to look at Lori, that same reassurance warm in his eyes. “I know neither one of you consciously chose it – you probably didn’t even subconsciously choose it,” he said softly to her. “But there are thoughts – and consequently, creations – that stem from the mind...and then there are those from the soul. ‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.’”

  Lori blinked at the quote from Ecclesiastes and looked doubtfully at Noel, unsure what to say.

  “We may not know why, Lori, but I believe there was a purpose to Cody’s passing. There may actually be thousands of reasons why Cody chose the passing that he did. And I do believe he chose it – not consciously, or subconsciously, but with soul-thought. He may actually have chosen that death long before he came to earth.”

  Shannon snorted and slid off the trailer herself. “This is getting way too deep for me,” she said lightly. “We should get going, anyway – we’ve still got chores to do at our own place.”

  Lori glanced at her friend, but was drawn back to Noel’s black eyes. “Explain that to me,” she whispered. “Why did he go?”

  Her voice cracked on the question and Noel instinctively reached up a hand to steady her. She didn’t want to be touched, though, and pulled back, just out of reach.

  “Shannon’s right,” he said softly, dropping his hand to his side. “This is involved. Shall we talk later? After you’ve gotten a chance to say good-bye to them?”

  She nodded and turned to her friends, but all of her focus was behind her, on the man who had dropped a bomb into her bubble of a life.

  **********

  Lori insisted on making supper for Lynta, Jeret and Noel, even though it was an awkward business with limited use of her right hand. After they ate, they all moved to the living room for tea and a cheesecake Lori had purchased, and that’s where she insisted on an explanation from Noel.

  “I need to know,” she stated bluntly. “I need to know why you think Cody would have chosen to die so young, in a plane crash.”

  She had chosen a chair this time, one on the opposite side of the room from where Noel was sitting on the loveseat. Distance was important. Lynta and Jeret sat on the couch between them, silent participants in the debate.

  “Lori, I can’t answer that in the way you want me to,” Noel said with mild frustration. “I didn’t know him – if you were married to him and didn’t know his soul’s intent, how would I?”

  “But you said earlier there could be a thousand reasons – give me something, Noel.”

  It might have been the desperation in her voice or the pleading look she gave him, but he sighed softly and looked down, thinking.

  “It could have been anything,” he finally sai
d. “Maybe it was for the financial security you would have if the lawsuit comes through. Maybe it was because he missed his father on a subconscious level and wanted to see him again – you said that he lost him early, right? Or maybe something happened on the plane and by that group of people sacrificing their lives, some other people will be saved. Or maybe it was just because he’d accomplished all he wanted to do in this particular life.”

  Lori shook her head at that one. “No, we had so many plans yet...so many things we never got to do...” She trailed off and fell silent, thinking of all those unfulfilled dreams.

  “Maybe it was because you had to meet Noel,” Jeret put in discreetly from the couch.

  Lori jerked her head up at that. “What? What does that mean?” she demanded, thinking wild thoughts of Cody wanting to fix her up with another guy. Thankfully, Jeret had something else in mind.

  “Well, think about it,” Jeret pondered. “If Cody hadn’t died...and his cougar friend hadn’t shown up looking for him, you’d never have met Noel. And there is something going on here – we all know it. These cats are trying to bring us together for some purpose that’s yet to be determined. Maybe on a super-conscious level, Cody’s part was to bring us together.”

  “Well, no offense,” Lori said, sitting back deeper in the chair. “But I’d rather he’d come up with some other way for the introduction.”

  Jeret and Lynta said no more and when Lori looked around at her new friends Noel was giving her an inscrutable look from across the room.

  Chapter 18

  “I would like clarification on another point, Noel, if you don’t mind,” Lynta said, lessening the tension in the room. “You told Shannon earlier today that in the end, we always choose love and I’ve heard you say that before. But you made it sound as though the opposite of love is fear.”

  Noel nodded at Lynta’s words, but still kept her eyes on Lori. “Yes,” he confirmed.

  “Why isn’t the opposite hate? I would think that’s the antithesis of love.”

  Noel finally released Lori from his gaze and turned to look at the tall Senegalese. “On the surface, that may be. Hate and love are powerful emotions so it seems natural that they would be on opposite ends of the spectrum. But I encourage you to look deeper. Behind every feeling of hate is a deeper emotion: fear of something. People who hate may not even be aware of it and will deny it to your face that they’re scared, but if you look to their core, you’ll see the answer.”

  Lynta cocked her head, thinking. “A dictator who slaughters his own people?” she challenged.

  “He fears loss of control, Lynta. If he can’t make a certain race or religion do what he wants, they could take away his power. That’s fear, but he manipulates it into hate for them and gives reasons why others should hate them, too, so that he creates allies...but ultimately, he fears loss of control.”

  Lynta nodded, seeing the logic.

  “What about a daughter who hates her father’s murderer? Doesn’t she have a right to be angry?” Lori asked more harshly than she intended. She was irritated with Noel tonight for no good reason, but it felt good to take out her bitterness on someone.

  Noel watched her again for a few moments with his impenetrable eyes then answered. “Nobody has made any judgement about whether or not a person is allowed to feel what they’re feeling, Lori. I’ve only said that behind every feeling of hate is really the feeling of fear. So you tell me – what would a daughter be afraid of in that situation?”

  There was a buzzing sensation in her head as Noel turned the tables on her and challenged her to come up with the answer. She was in over her head and he was calling her bluff. She knew it...and so did he.

  “And while we’re on the subject,” he said as she thought about his question, “being angry isn’t the same as hating someone. Anger occurs naturally and if it’s expressed in a constructive manner, it can actually be helpful. It’s the bottling up and holding onto it that turns it into hate, which is incredibly self-destructive.”

  “Well, if my father were murdered,” she started, “I’d feel hate. And I guess that would stem from the fact that a criminal had taken him from me...so there would be fear of loss, I suppose.”

  “Yes,” Noel said. “And?”

  “And...fear of the unknown: how would the rest of the family survive without him? And...fear that it could happen to me, that I’m not invincible,” she conceded.

  “Oooh,” Jeret murmured. “That’s a good one.”

  Noel smiled at him and the atmosphere seemed to lighten a bit.

  “So how can you possibly only ever choose love?” Lynta asked. “You’ve said before, Noel, that the masters who have walked the earth have only chosen love, in every situation. If it’s wrong to choose fear, then why do so many people choose it...and how do you stop?”

  “Wait, Lynta,” Noel said, sliding forward on the love seat a bit. “I never said fear was wrong and love right.”

  “But if the masters only chose love – ?” she started to ask, when Noel requested her silence with an upraised finger.

  “The masters only choose love because they know ultimately that love is all there is. It’s our highest thought about something; it’s our recognition of God. Our problem as humans that are less-evolved than the masters is that we continue to make judgements about things, calling something ‘good’ or ‘bad’ when in fact, everything just is.”

  Noel looked urgently at the group, wanting to be understood on this point. Lori felt her pulse speed up at his enthusiasm of the subject.

  “The Masters know that their thoughts, words and deeds create their reality. So if they think something is bad...and call it bad...they are going to make it bad. So they simply avoid thinking it’s bad because they choose not to experience that. Do you see? I’ll give you an example. Two people go camping and there are a lot of mosquitoes around their tent at night. One of them spends the whole night commenting on how awful it is and slapping at himself; the other acknowledges that there are, indeed, a lot of mosquitoes, but doesn’t think more about it and focuses instead on how many bats there are, flying around, eating those mosquitoes. Who do you think wakes up in the morning, happy to be in nature? Who do you think goes back to work the following Monday and says he had a good weekend?”

  Lori gave Noel a reluctant grin; she knew people like that and could identify with his example far too well.

  “They both went through the exact same experience. One created an awful incident by focusing all his energy on the negative; the other let it go and moved on to something that was positive.”

  Noel looked at each person in turn, drawing them in. “We each of us have the ability to make a heaven or a hell here on earth, simply by how we view life. But think of it this way: life is just a rhythm, like a heartbeat. The beating of the heart is a pushing out and coming back. That is the polarity of all life – it goes out and comes back. Out, back. Do you think the going out is good and the coming back is bad? Or vice versa? It just is. The same with all of life – everything goes out to fear and comes back to love. One is not good and the other bad – both are necessary. It is just the heart beating.”

  **********

  Lori swallowed thickly. Noel made everything sound so logical...yet it went against everything she’d been taught and thought she believed up to this point. He had asked her before to just try thinking differently and see if it changed things; she seemed to fluctuate between wanting to believe him and feeling she was being duped by a con artist. And she knew what Noel would say to that, too: feeling duped was a product of her fears and until she chose love over fear she’d never get to the level where things would change for her.

  She made a low growl of frustration in her throat. This was far too complicated. Why couldn’t things be simple? Why couldn’t there just be a flat-out, black-and-white answer?

  She looked up to see him studying her again from across the room.

&
nbsp; “Why do you keep looking at me?” she asked in humorous exasperation.

  He lifted his chin slightly, as though he were bracing for her response. “Because you’re angry with me and I don’t know why.”

  She gave an uncomfortable laugh. “I’m not angry with you.”

  He ran his thumb and forefinger over his beard at that. “You are. I’ve touched a nerve. Why?”

  Lori glanced at Jeret and Lynta but they remained silent on the couch. Jeret shrugged slightly, cocking an eyebrow that said more powerfully than words, wish I could help you out on this one, but you’re on your own.

  “Alright,” Lori said, sitting back deeply in the chair, “if I’m angry I guess it’s because I didn’t like what you said this afternoon about Cody and me choosing his death. I did not want him to die and you can say that he chose it at a higher level but it doesn’t make it any easier. I’d give anything to have him back.”

  “Lori, how much do you know about snow leopards?” Noel asked out of the blue.

  Lori blinked in surprise. “What? Not much, I suppose.”

  Noel gave Jeret a look for confirmation then went on, “What you see at the Toronto Zoo isn’t how the cats would behave in the wild. Snow leopards are notorious for being loners. They hunt alone and spend roughly 98% of their lives hunting and living independently. They only meet up with others to mate and then go on their way again. Self-reliance is a powerful force with the snow leopard.”

  “What does that have to do with Cody’s death?” Lori asked softly.

  Noel was silent for a moment and Lori waited impatiently for his answer. “Maybe he had to go, so you could learn to make it on your own,” he finally said, with a tenderness in his voice that softened his words.

  When she didn’t say anything, but instead remained fixed in space, staring at him with sorrow pouring out of her eyes, he continued. “Think about it, Lori,” he urged. “Since you were a child, haven’t you been surrounded by people who looked out for you, protected you?”

  Lori thought about the question and immediately faces came forward in her mind’s eye of those who had looked out for her: her father and mother, older brothers, Cody, Shannon and Mark...even Jesse, Rick and Rita had made her feel included and sheltered at times.