Voice of the Elders

by Greg Ripley

  Rohini still had a way to go to rival Jane’s level of marksmanship, but Jane could tell she had the potential. Whether in their hand-to-hand combat training on the mats, their movement training on the obstacle course, or their firearms training on the range, Rohini had shown a high level of coordination and physical awareness. She was a quick study in more cerebral ways as well.

  In between their physical training Jane had been exposing Rohini to various types of awareness training. She felt this would be critical to laying a foundation for anything that came after. Rohini was bright, there was no doubt about that, but at times she could lose focus or miss out on important details. At other times she could be too hyper-focused and miss the forest for the trees.

  “Have you ever practiced any meditation, Rohini?” Jane asked one day.

  “Not really,” Rohini replied. “I’ve started it a few times but never developed a habit of it. When I was in college I’d hear about various meditation teachers coming through town and I’d check them out sometimes. I always enjoyed the events themselves and found them inspiring at the time, but I was never able to turn that into a consistent practice.”

  “That’s the most challenging part.,” Jane said. “As I’m sure you discovered, most traditions of meditation are deceptively simple. The hard part is sticking with it. And, of course, the everyday part of your mind you are most familiar with loves variety and distraction. It gets bored easily and loves moving immediately to the next thing. A practice like meditation can become boring or monotonous in no time if you aren’t able to turn that part of your mind off.”

  “Yeah, I’d go see these teachers and be so inspired, then I’d try to replicate the experiences of contentment and happiness at home and just get bored and restless,” Rohini replied.

  “It’s tricky,” Jane said. “One of the best suggestions I can make is to observe your mind when you’re in those states, when you’ve found your happy place. Try to feel that feeling in your whole body and remember what it feels like. If you can do that, you will find it becomes easier and easier to remember it. When you remember that feeling, you bring that feeling into your consciousness of the present moment. It begins to feel like you are flipping a switch and turning on the neural pathways for that experience.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it like that, but now that you mention it, when those guys tried to kidnap me, there was a moment when time slowed down so much for me it practically stood still. It wasn’t a blissed-out kind of feeling, like I remember from meditation, but it was somehow, still… I don’t know… peaceful. Does that sound strange? It doesn’t make any sense, my life was being threatened, someone was pointing a gun at me and yet, if I think back to that moment, it was almost enjoyable in some strange way.”

  “It’s not strange at all, Rohini. I know exactly what you mean. I’ve had that experience many times in combat. Your senses feel heightened and your sense of time gets wacky. It can slow way down and then speed way up, or else it can feel like you are moving lightning fast while everything around you is moving slow, like it’s moving through water. It’s a type of flow state. You took some psychology classes, right? Was it all pathological conditions or did you get into positive psychology at all?”

  “Not much. I feel like I remember something about flow, though. Wasn’t it that guy with the unpronounceable name?” Rohini asked.

  Jane smiled. “It’s not as hard as it looks, but yeah, Csikszentmihalyi,” she said. “The other big name in positive psyche is probably Maslow, but there have been others since.”

  “I didn’t study positive psychology much,” replied Rohini. “The thing I identified with the most was Ecopsychology. I love being in nature so much, I could totally relate to the idea that our relationship with the environment affects our psychological wellbeing.”

  “Yeah, I always could too,” Jane said. “It intuitively makes sense. I mean, we evolved in nature, so it makes sense that removing ourselves from that setting would have a negative impact on us. Although, then I think about the fact that we are always continuing to evolve, so maybe some people are adapting to being in more of an artificial environment.”

  “Maybe,” Rohini ventured, “but even though most people live in cities their whole life, their health suffers if they stay inside all the time. And there is more pollution and stress from noise and who knows what else. If it wasn’t for Central Park, I don’t think I could have handled living in New York for too long. The park was like a sanctuary for me.”

  “True. Anyway, getting back to meditation, I’ve noticed that you often have very good focus when we’re doing something physical. You do a great job getting dialed in when we’re training hand-to-hand or on the obstacle course. I want you to try to notice that feeling when you are totally focused and in the moment and try to bring it to bear in silent, still moments,” Jane said. “Why don’t you try that now?

  “Close your eyes and imagine yourself balancing or doing something else we’ve been practicing. Really feel yourself there and think about how you feel in that moment. Now try to take that feeling and hold on to it, so to speak. Not too tightly, or you’ll get tense and anxious. Too loose, and your awareness will wander off. Got it? OK, now try to keep that feeling in the background of your awareness as you focus on your breathing. You can do the tactical breathing pattern or breathe naturally, whatever feels more comfortable.”

  Rohini recalled her time balancing on the obstacle course, that was a good suggestion. It was one of the things she most enjoyed on the course, and one of the things which got her the most focused. Jane is perceptive, I’ll give her that. After thinking this she realized her mind was wandering and she brought it back to her meditation.

  After a few moments of visualization Rohini grabbed onto that feeling of focus and concentration and brought it to her current surroundings. She was sitting upright on her bed in the dorm room she and Jane shared at the Academy. Her legs were crossed, and her hands were on her knees.

  Little was happening—she was simply sitting and breathing, but the moment gained that intensity, that vibrancy that she remembered feeling a few times when she had meditated with some Buddhist teachers who had passed through DC in her college days.

  Rohini started to get that feeling of bliss which had been so fleeting in her own aborted attempts at establishing a regular meditation practice. She held onto it for a few minutes and then realized she had begun to think about the feeling, instead of just experiencing it, and before she knew it, it was gone.”

  Rohini opened her eyes and looked at Jane, who had been watching her. “That was one of the best meditations I’ve had in years.”

  “Great. I thought that technique would work well for you,” Jane replied. “You don’t have to sit for hours, especially if you’re just daydreaming the whole time. Just try to bring that feeling into your awareness, then keep it as long as you can. If you lose it, try to get it back. Even if you can only keep it for a few minutes at a time, it will do wonders for you. It’s the best way I’ve found to decompress after a particularly stressful assignment.”

  “Like this one?” Rohini quipped.

  “Well, it has had its moments, especially that first night, but no, overall this one has been quite un-stressful, compared to what I’m used to. I’ve actually been enjoying the time we’ve spent here.”

  “I have too, Jane. This place has almost come to feel like home somehow. It kind of reminds me of my time with my aunt and uncle on their farm in New Mexico.”

  Rohini recalled the year she had taken off to stay with them on their organic farm, becoming lost in thought for a moment.

  “Hey, you still with me, buddy?” Jane asked, snapping her fingers in front of Rohini’s face. “I thought I’d lost you there for a minute.”

  “Sorry, I was just remembering when I spent time in New Mexico with my aunt and uncle and then my mind started wandering. I used to go meditate in a kiva
there, but it was a totally different kind of experience than this kind of meditation. It was more like a trance or something. I’d lose awareness of my surroundings, and I’d even hear voices sometimes.”

  “Were you by any chance smoking something at the time?” Jane asked, only half-jokingly.

  “No. I’ve tried a few mind-altering substances in my day, but not then.”

  “No history of schizophrenia or anything in your family?” Jane continued.

  “My mom thought my dad was nuts,” Rohini quipped. “But, no. Nothing real. Nothing certifiable.”

  “So, what did these voices say?” Jane asked.

  “I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I never remembered much. It was like when you wake up from a dream that you can’t quite remember. I had this vague recollection that I’d heard a voice—or voices—talking to me. Even now, I feel like I can almost hear it, but I can’t quite make out the words, like when you hear someone talking through a wall. But I feel like at the time, I could understand it. I always figured it was my subconscious talking to me or something.”

  “That makes sense. I wonder if it was something special about the place itself or if you could repeat the experience somewhere else?” Jane mused.

  “I’ve often wondered that myself.”

  * * *

  While Jane kept up Rohini’s training six days a week, they had for the most part taken Sundays off. Jane felt certain their location had remained a secret, so one day she took Rohini off-base for the day, thinking she could use a change of scenery.

  Jane hadn’t told her where they were going as they drove north on I-95 briefly before turning west on Highway 234. At first Rohini thought maybe they were headed into the city, but when they turned she really had no clue. They passed through Manassas before merging onto I-66 and continuing west. Once they turned onto I-81 and started into the mountains Rohini figured out it.

  “Are we going hiking?” she asked.

  “Nice job, Nancy Drew,” Jane quipped. “You figured it out.”

  They continued for a little longer, winding up into the mountains past Woodstock before parking at Wolf Gap Recreation Area. Climbing out of the car, Rohini took in a deep breath of fresh mountain air and sighed. “This was a great idea, Jane,” she said. After gathering up the daypacks Jane had prepared, they headed to the north end of the campground and the trailhead for the Mill Mountain Trail.

  The first three quarters of a mile or so was a bit of a scramble, but nothing they had any trouble with. Rohini had always been a bit of a mountain goat, even if she had gotten a bit out of shape in the last few years. She still had the mountain walker’s stride she’d picked up in Nepal when she spent the summer with her aunt Shanti. Many of the rural villages they visited with her aunt’s NGO required more than a bit of hiking to access, some so remote that foot traffic was the main form of travel. Even when villages were accessible by road, many still only had a single bus passing through each day, and once off the bus it was all on foot.

  As they gained some elevation—taking the right-hand path at a fork—the trail started to follow the ridgeline, and they began to catch glimpses of picturesque vistas opening up on both sides of the trail.

  “Wow, this is a great spot, Jane,” Rohini remarked, as they neared their destination, the rocky outcropping of Big Schloss. “I bet you can see into West Virginia from here.”

  “This ridgeline actually marks the border, so we’ve been straddling it the whole time.”

  They only encountered a few small groups of hikers coming down the trail and there was no one at the top when they arrived, so they had it to themselves. Rohini took off her pack and spun slowly in a circle, taking in the panoramic view.

  “I packed some food, if you’re hungry,” Jane said.

  They ate mostly in silence as they took in the peaceful atmosphere. To the west, a lone turkey buzzard circled, effortlessly riding a thermal updraft, rising higher and higher until it was almost out of sight. To the east, some low misty clouds hung in the valley, partially obscuring the view. Rohini had always loved this kind of scenery. It reminded her of Chinese landscape paintings, especially the sparse minimalistic ones where so much of the image was implied and much of the canvas was taken up by empty space. That void somehow always felt full to her, pregnant with possibilities, like almost anything could be hiding in those mysterious clouds.

  Rohini recalled one of her favorites, a scroll painting from the 11th Century called Nine Dragons by Chen Rong. She’d seen it once while on vacation with her family in Boston where it hung at the Museum of Fine Arts. The scroll, which was almost thirty-six feet long, depicted the nine sons of the Dragon King from Chinese mythology, writhing through swirling clouds, white-capped waves, and churning whirlpools. It had left quite an impression on her. She could almost see the dragons now, flying through the misty clouds in front of her, while she sat silently on that rocky ridge along the Virginia border.

  After they’d eaten and enjoyed the view, Jane said she had something she wanted to show her and took Rohini down the trail a short distance.

  “I’ve been thinking about the experience you had in that Kiva. Part of why I chose this hike was because of this spot over here,” she said, as she led Rohini to a flat area which was partially protected by a semi-circular rocky overhang.

  “This would make a great camping spot,” Rohini said. As she looked around, she saw signs that it had been used as such before, probably many times: some trampled brush and some boot prints scattered around, and more obvious signs, like the ring of stones marking a fire pit. A few charred ends of blackened logs protruded from the muddy center of the fire ring, indicating that the last campers must have been there fairly recently. There hadn’t been any rain in the area for over a week.

  “I thought you might try another meditation here and see if we can recreate your experience in the kiva. You’ve gotten me intrigued with your story about the voices,” Jane said.

  “I’d be happy to give it a shot,” Rohini replied as she slowly walked around the site. “This looks like a great place for it.”

  She found a spot that spoke to her, and made herself comfortable below the deepest part of the overhang. It seemed like the most appropriate place to sit. She couldn’t have articulated what it was specifically about that spot, but she let her intuition guide her.

  She took a few deep breaths, shrugging her shoulders a few times to release any tension, and turned her focus inward. Slowly at first, then more quickly, the outside world around her, the world of her senses, receded until she was barely aware of it. She began to lose track of where her body ended and the earth below her began, feeling a sense of losing herself, yet the loss was actually a gain, as suddenly, she felt like she was a part of a much larger whole.

  Faintly at first, then more and more clearly, she began to sense, it seemed, rather than hear, a voice. It had that familiar quality to it that Rohini recalled from her meditations in New Mexico, sounding at first like a muffled voice heard through a wall, then suddenly she heard it, crystal clear. She was so startled that she was immediately thrust back into her senses. That peaceful place she had experienced, so vast and expansive, was suddenly a tiny human body of flesh and bone. Her senses felt so acute that the light was almost painful as she blinked her eyes, and she felt intensely every tiny rock beneath her in what had been a smooth, comfortable place to sit moments before. She tried to get up but found her limbs sluggish as she tried to stand.

  “Whoa, take it easy there,” Jane said, putting a hand on Rohini’s shoulder to steady her. “Don’t rush it. You were under for a long time.”

  “What do you mean, how long was I sitting for?” she asked. She looked around and realized the light had totally changed. There were lengthening shadows all around her and the sun was low in the western sky, the clouds beginning to take on the first rosy hues of dusk. When she had sat down to meditate the sun h
ad still been high in the sky.

  “It’s been almost three hours, Rohini. What happened? You were so quiet, I thought you might have fallen asleep, but you stayed sitting bolt upright the whole time. Then you jerked and gasped so suddenly, you almost made me jump.”

  “I went deep. Really deep. Like I did in the kiva,” Rohini responded.

  “Did you hear the voices again?”

  “I did,” Rohini whispered, her voice barely audible.

  “And? Do you remember anything this time? What did they say?”

  “I… I only remember one thing,” She began, hesitantly. “It said, ‘Rohini, we’ve been waiting for you.’”

  16

  The Simms Estate

  Westchester County, New York

  Bartholomew Simms was in his office, pacing back and forth. He was so full of anticipation for what was about to transpire that he couldn’t sit still. He went down to his exercise room that morning, something he rarely did anymore, thinking that some time on the treadmill might burn off some nervous energy. But it was no use. He spent a good forty-five minutes there puffing away to no avail.

  After showering and a light breakfast of fresh baked croissants with butter and blueberry preserves he had shipped in from Maine, he sat sipping coffee and reading the Journal in his mansion’s conservatory. He had no particular fondness for nature, but his mother had loved to spend hours here every day tending to her plants, especially her treasured orchid collection which featured specimens from every corner of the globe. The conservatory reminded him of her, so he had taken to eating his breakfast here most mornings. As he flipped through the paper he could hardly keep his mind on what he was reading. He was too preoccupied with the day’s coming events.

  Simms was rescued from his futile attempt at reading by his assistant. “Sir, you have a phone call. It’s Mr. Gruber,” she said. “Would you like to take it here or in your office?”