“Claudia?” Jennifer whispered to Sarah.
Sarah had forgotten that Jennifer had not yet met Claudia. “Oh yes, she is our friend in Rome. She and Armando used to date a long time ago. You will meet her soon.”
Sarah felt very drawn to an odd shell-shaped drain that was opposite the Fonte Gaia, a lower area where the long white lines pulled together like the bottom of a fan, the lowest point in the piazza. She stared at it and had a vision of the drain expanding into a huge shell, and then a tall nude goddess appearing in the shell. Then she heard Armando say, “Now we go to my family’s meeting place for the Palio.”
They left the piazza to walk down another narrow alley to a heavy and large rounded wooden door. Armando continued. “Now we come to our contrade, the Cantata of the Caochinio, the snail.” He opened the heavy door with a huge iron key and inside was a small museum and a simple chapel. Heraldry was displayed in cases by the side of a complete suit of medieval armor and a helmet. “Other contrade are, for example, owl, caterpillar, panther, wolf, unicorn, and so on, real and mythological animals. On the surface, this is ancient tournament symbolism; however, to us it is deeply esoteric.”
“What exactly do you mean, Armando?” Sarah broke in. “Please tell us the secrets!” Jennifer studied Armando’s intense black eyes.
“Well, just a few months ago, I would not have been able to answer you because my father has only recently shared the secrets with me,” said Armando. “He says the time for telling the truth has come, that all the secrets must be revealed, so I will do the best I can. We believe this ancient piazza is a great shell based on perfect stellar geometry that protects all species, all of nature. For example, my family is the keeper of snails. There are seventeen contrade, which is a very complex number that relates the species to the stars, and the shell connects us with the Pleiades. People go crazy here because this place pulls conduits of stellar light down into the inner Earth. My father says the people used to see balls of blue light come down from the sky before they removed the original statues. My father also says life will go on no matter what happens, which is deeply reassuring to me.” Jennifer watched his catlike body language while he spoke, thinking, I feel I will marry him.
“Ah, there is so much to say,” Armando continued. “I suppose what matters to me is that Pietro finally shared the knowledge with me. The secrets are not given to anyone who is destructive, since here we protect life.” Simon, who had been observing his sister as she watched Armando, felt reassured by the fact that Armando’s father had now chosen to trust him with these family secrets. Clearly his father was convinced that his transformation was indeed genuine.
“The door there in the back goes into our chapel, yet we cannot go in there today because it is only opened when we bring out our candle on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. In 1348 the plague killed half our population, and we believe the power of nature saved us. Claudia has been teaching us about the meaning of the end of the Mayan Calendar, things we can tell you all about sometime if you want,” Armando said as he turned toward Jennifer, remembering that she didn’t even know who Claudia was. “Briefly, all of us think something has actually changed in our world, some kind of restart button. My father says the Etruscans had a complex stellar religion going way back into the Paleolithic, a religion that related the landscape to patterns in the sky. This knowledge is lost, but my father says these forces are in play whether anybody knows about them or not. And he says his father told him the ancient knowledge comes from the swan, and he hopes I will figure out what that means someday. He said that our symbols are encoded with stellar information, and he hopes I will be able to decode things he has never been able to understand. I hope I will be able to do that, but meanwhile the shell shape still connects the stars to Earth forces that protect the species. Siena is a nature temple.
“And despite the removal of the stabilizing statues in the Fonte Gaia, the forces under the piazza correctly emanate energy to the higher dimensions guarding our planet no matter what anybody changes. Siena is the place where people can trust evolution’s unfolding, the reason I will always live here.” Then he deliberately looked into Jennifer’s eyes. Sarah felt a strong quiver in her abdomen and felt her child move. “Now we go to Siena Cathedral—Cattedrale Metropolitana di Santa Maria Assunta—the high point of our day because more esoteric wisdom is still visible there than in any other Catholic Church in the world; it is alchemical.”
Coming out of a narrow street, close ahead they saw the looming west façade of Siena Cathedral. The complex mixture of French Gothic and Romanesque architecture took Jennifer’s breath away as she aimed her camera at the tall black-and-white striped bell tower on the right side. The exterior walls made of large alternating black-and-white marble stripes and the front façade by Giovanni di Agostino were exquisite. Jennifer took photos of Simon and Sarah with the cathedral in the background while they were immersed in the beauty around them. Sarah was beatific and Simon was enthralled. Jennifer was thrilled to capture their radiance.
Armando led them to an unfinished back section of the cathedral. “The 1348 plague halted the construction of this section, which has been protected to be a reminder of how fragile life is. Now come with me because we are going to climb the bell tower to eat our sandwiches on top.” As he unlocked the door at the bottom of the black-and-white striped tower with a large iron key, Jennifer photographed him for the first time because his face was reverential. That is a photo I will cherish. A tightly curving stone circular staircase carried them up inside the tower. Since the tower was much taller than the cathedral, they wondered how high they’d have to climb. Armando took up the rear behind Simon and noticed a big and menacing spider on the rough wall. This time it lives. What are they? Wolf spiders?
They made it to a top terrace. Sandwiches were unwrapped and lemonade poured, while they sat on stone benches to enjoy the view of the city’s sloping terracotta roofs way below. The sun felt marvelous on Jennifer’s face, giving her a feeling of peaceful serenity; everyone was smiling.
Armando stood up. “Now that we have eaten and have energy, let’s go down to visit the cathedral.”
They strolled into the nave where the effect of the black-and-white stripes intensified, dramatizing the haunting great Moorish-looking space, which was charged with palpable energy. “Here we see black and white emphasized, the colors of the Siena coat of arms inspired by the black-and-white horses of our legendary founders, Senius and Aschius, the sons of Remus. This connection to legendary horses draws the thread way back to the Paleolithic era because the contrasting layers stimulate our inner knowledge of the phases of time. These elements contain ancient secrets; for example, my father thinks the alternating layers remind us subliminally of the cycles of creation and extinction. Four twisted marble columns with writhing horses being killed by huge lions at the bases support the pulpit, a symbol that fascinates me. When you learn how to read them, a complex story of evolution emerges. Our city literally balances the dark and the light, especially in this cathedral, which accesses high spiritual realms.
“Now let us study the marble floor. When we entered, we walked over a curious marble mosaic that portrays Hermes Trismegistus. Yet why is the famous Greek/Egyptian magus here? On both sides we see marble mosaics that portray all the sibyls of the ancient world.” Sarah walked closer to the mosaics, examining them with great interest. “Yet why are they here?” Armando asked. “Notice the huge statue of Artemis up high by the left side of the front entrance. These are all pagan magical symbols! The church was built mostly between 1215 and 1263, when medieval art successfully brought spirit down into our world, an alchemical synthesis that is returning now. Notice the capitals at the top of the columns where we see allegorical animals emphasizing the protection of all species.” They were all looking up to the beauty of the high dome as they walked out of the nave, Sarah only reluctantly leaving behind the mosaics portraying the sibyls.
He led them closer to the pulpit to an in
triguing red circular mosaic in the floor. “This is one of the most beautiful early mosaics showing the She-Wolf of Siena nursing Romulus and Remus in front of the tree of life. Siena is the mother teat of Rome! All around this center are the totemic emblems of the major cities, which links nurturance with our politics. Claudia says the She Wolf is Sirius, a stepping-stone into the Milky Way Galaxy. My father says the Pleiades were the stepping-stones out of the galaxy in the Paleolithic times. Consider the paintings, the panels, and I know you, Sarah, were especially intrigued by the mosaics we just looked at that depict the various sibyls from pagan cultures all over the world—the Delphic, Cumaean, Hellespontine, and Persian Sibyls. They are here to remind us that Gnostic wisdom was global for thousands of years before Christianity. This is a remnant of ancient knowledge because still in medieval times we had a wonderful balance between our pagan background and the Church. This great synthesis was destroyed by the Inquisitions, yet fortunately this incredible pagan art was not tampered with here. Everything you see in Siena is very pagan and earthy. Now we go to the Piccolomini Library, my most favorite place in the world.”
Mosaic of the She-Wolf of Siena
They filed into the library, looked up, and were stunned by the frescoes, detailed portrayals of late medieval and early Renaissance scenes. “These are by Pinturicchio based on Raphael’s designs, and they tell the story of my ancestor, Siena’s favorite son, Cardinal Enea Silvio Piccolomini, who became Pope Pius II. We see Enea at the various stages of his career, here launching a crusade, there visiting the court of James II of Scotland, and over there canonizing Catherine of Siena in 1461. These are wonderful portraits of an important life that are filled with realistic details of fifteenth-century living.” Everybody was leaning way back to view the ceiling. “Ah,” Armando said, “this incredibly beautiful ceiling of complex mythological symbolism is a great example of the pervasiveness of arcane knowledge.”
“Armando,” Simon said, “how far back does your history reach?”
“Thank you for asking that, Simon. Of course, there is a lot we don’t know. We have always thought we may go back to the Etruscans, and we probably actually do in our blood. Or possibly we were among the Franks who came down to establish power bases here called contado. The furthest I can go back for sure is to the twelfth century in our chapel records of our family offering wax candles to the Madonna on August 15, and later records of when we furnished the Palio with the silk banner for the winner. We go back to the beginning of everything here.”
“It must be reassuring to be so consciously aware of your past,” noted Simon.
“This is very true, yet we are all part of the stream. It is just easier to find the threads in Siena.” He paused and said dramatically, “Maybe someday Jennifer will decide to share these threads with me.”
Despite Armando’s exaggerated boldness, everyone knew his words carried an undertone of the truth.
The library was airless as they stopped breathing and turned to Jennifer, who was staring at Armando with a thunderstruck expression that illuminated the room. Grandly as if she were in a procession, she walked over to Armando and put her hand in his, saying, “Only the Sibyl of Cumae knows, don’t you agree, Sarah?”
“Yes, I agree. It really is that simple. Everything else is as complex as these exquisite portrayals of the past. Thank you, Armando, for showing us all of this.”
Simon’s cell phone rang while he stood in the bedroom looking out at the early evening view. Sarah was down in the library with Pietro before dinner. A large star brightened as the light waned, and he wondered if it was Jupiter or Venus or a bright star like Sirius. “Simon, it’s Dad. How are you all doing? I had strange dreams about Jennifer last night. She is visiting you, right? Is there something I should know?”
David’s psychic attunement always amazed Simon. How does he know? “Well, yes, something remarkable is going on with her. We are all here visiting the Pierleoni villa in Tuscany, and Jennifer is falling in love with Armando!” He heard his father catch his breath, since he hadn’t told him about the great change that had come over his new friend.
“What? You are all there at Armando’s house? Are you insane?”
Simon explained about the change in Armando and how their friendship was slowly growing as he was beginning to trust that Armando truly had changed. David said, “Are you sure about this, Simon? In my life I have never seen such a radical change in any man. Things like that don’t happen. I dreamed a dark shadow of a huge bird came over Jennifer and she was lost in mist.”
“I don’t really think you should be that worried about her,” Simon replied. “She seems to be very taken with him, and he is clearly falling deeply in love with her and doesn’t mind showing it. But, Jen can hold her own, you know that. Sarah was right that his parents are lovely and Jen seems to like them. Who knows, maybe the new Armando will end up being the right man for her. Never thought I’d say that, but I suppose stranger things have happened.”
“Simon,” David said. “I am coming to Rome immediately to meet him. Is Jennifer staying long enough for that? I can be there in two days. Your mother doesn’t have to come because she’s very busy right now, but I must meet Armando.”
Simon said, “Jennifer will be here four more days, so come! We’d all love to see you!”
42
La Sagrada Familia
Claudia called Armando at the castle. She wanted the four of them to discuss Pope Francis some more because she’d never seen someone walk such a razor’s edge between the dark and light. Armando asked if they could include Jennifer, but as they talked about it, they realized they’d have to explain too many things. Armando used the meeting as an excuse to accompany Jennifer back to Rome because he didn’t want to let her out of his sight. After they were all back for a day, they gathered at Simon and Sarah’s apartment while Jennifer enjoyed a quiet evening alone at her hotel.
Claudia spread her arms wide at the table. “Every time I do anything, I either get blocked or I manifest something in an instant, like the way the conclave picked Francis. The patriarchy is definitely collapsing when all cardinals can do is bet on a dark horse! This has to happen, but it is so intense! I wonder if we can survive it? I take one step forward and then three back.”
She paused to catch her breath, then continued, “I used to think I understood how things work, but the proverbial rug has been pulled out from under me! Sarah,” she said, turning her pensive gaze toward Sarah, “we must discuss the amazing visions you had of the timeline under the Vatican. What do these visions mean to you considering the shocking changes in the papacy?”
Sarah put her fingers over the ruby, closed her eyes, and went very deep into her mind. Simon watched her aura pull inside her body, like watching the halo around an angel suck in. She does that every time she’s asked a direct question. Where does she go for those answers?
After a few moments, Sarah said in a strained and scratchy voice, “I am here fifty thousand years ago, a Neanderthal woman. A spirit penetrating my brain makes me watchful. What is it? Who is this? It is silvery and light and makes me feel cool. It whispers to me, ‘I am your future self. You will not exist forever. But I exist! I draw you forward to me; you must trust the flow of time, which is all you have.’ My Neanderthal self does not comprehend this message, but I understand what it means in my time, so I will explain,” she said, screwing up her face a bit as if she were attempting to become more herself. Simon watched her intently as her eyelids fluttered.
“Comprehend this!” she ordered, addressing the other three in a loud voice. “Forgive my time complexities! The being I was then as Neanderthal did not continue, but she is in my past. Armando’s bloodline is similar: some have died out, yet he still knows about them because of his heritage. My Neanderthal self does not exist because her cultural pattern was obliterated, her cerebellum atrophied, and nobody remembered her until very recently. Possibly soon her heritage can be recovered, since she is being remembered; she is in our
DNA, especially in Jewish DNA.”
Sarah turned to Claudia still speaking from her place of meditation. “Regarding how you feel these days, intelligence from the deep past is waking up in your cells that does not resonate with what is around you; this will soon alter radically. Pope Francis knows he doesn’t know what is going to happen. For him, the crafty Jesuitical side of him is waking up along with the kindly saint! You can see this in his wise eyes. We live in a hall of mirrors composed of a sphere of twenty triangular facets that reflect all the evolutionary stages. We know we can’t live as we have before, yet none of us knows what the next stage will be. The old ways are fading away, yet we don’t know what our new habitat will be. Deep inside, we are all scanning the time lines seeking images in the misty facets that could conceivably save us, give us a sense of direction. All paths led to December 21, 2012, which the Jesuits anticipated from the information they found in Mesoamerica. That is why this pope is a Jesuit.”
“Excuse me, Sarah,” Claudia broke in. Sarah’s trance-like state remained unchanged as Claudia spoke. “In the visions we observed simultaneously, we watched a timeline of human events under the Bernini altar. Even though the cultures—Neanderthal, Magdalenian, Etruscan, then early Christian—were different, each scene was a ritual, such as a burial or an act of sexual abuse. I want you to tell me now whether the papacy uses these rituals to influence, shape, and control the world. This includes the Masses on the four directions going on down there twenty-four hours seven days a week—24/7. The priest who told me about it was also a Jesuit.”
Revelations of the Ruby Crystal Page 44
