by Smith, Skye
Ajay, at her shoulder, moaned with lust. "I cannot stay near her. It is not proper," he said. Marique stopped him from leaving by grabbing his arm. She felt she might need his help.
"Maya, you must cover yourself," Marique said softly, "You are not being fair to Ajay. That is simple too much tease for any man to endure. Even I feel it." She could feel the lust rising inside her, and felt short of breath as if she were already having sex.
Maya did not move. It was as if she were a statue. One of those Indian statues you see on rude postcards. Marique picked up the burqa from the dusty floor and wrapped it around her friend, then she hugged her, and took control of her balance. The touch seemed to ground her friend and her breathing became more regular.
Maya came out of her trance state, her dream state and looked around the room. "Look, this room is filled with big crystals. Look at the walls." She watched as Ajay took Marique’s flashlight and walked slowly around the room. She spoke again. "This room is like the inside of a giant geode, you know, like those hollow crystal rocks you see in rock shops."
"You are very correct, Maya" he said. "The ends of the crystals have been covered up, hidden by men, using mud made from the dust of the rock." He used his car keys to gouge out some of the mud around the largest of the crystal points. "Yes, you see, I am right. This is man made mud used to hide that this is the inside of a geode."
"How do you know this?" asked Marique.
"At U.B.C. I studied to be a mining engineer. I even worked in my field for five years when I first came back to India. I learned to hate the mining industry so I quit and became a building manager." He poured some water from his water bottle on some thick dust in the corner of the wall to make mud, and then used it to again hide one of the crystals that Maya's rubbing had revealed.
"What are you doing?" asked Maya with some alarm. "This is a treasure. This is the treasure. This room is why this whole temple complex was built here. Can't you feel the magic in this room? We should be digging out the mud, not putting it back." Her voice echoed eerily in the room. She tried to break away from Marique's arms but she was held tight.
"No, Maya, we must cover them again. There is no telling how old this mud is. It could be hundreds or even a thousand years old. Holy men who knew the spiritual value of this geode hid it on purpose. Who are we to uncover it?"
"Why would they hide such a thing?" asked Marique.
"Not just why, but from whom," replied Ajay. "There must be a giant quartz vein behind this room. Quartz veins means gold and other precious metals. They would know that. They probably used the gold that was easiest to mine, to fund the original temple. They would fear that in restless times, godless men would come here and mine and destroy this special place to gain the gold. We must hide it again."
"Wait," Maya said as Ajay stooped to mix more mud. "Not yet. Let me meditate, fully meditate. Please, before you cover it again." Ajay tried not to look at Maya. He could not look at her without his shishn stiffening. He gave a questioning glance to Marique, and she nodded back. "I will wait outside," he said. Maya had already stepped out of Marique’s arms and out of the cover of the cloth of her burqa and was folding it on the ground as a seat. He moaned as he tried to walk with a stiff shishn.
With her two friends safely outside the room again, Maya was free to empower her aura. She sat in the lotus position in the center of the room and facing the biggest of the crystal points on the far wall. She pressed her palms together and pulled her conscious mind back from her aura and tried to think of nothing at all, and the whiteness grew to brightness, and the brightness to brilliance.
At all prior times when she had charged crystals, and had seen this brilliance, she had immediately grabbed her elbows and withdrawn her aura inward. This time she sat surrounded by the brilliance. She gave herself to her brilliance, and was consumed by the brilliance. There was nothing else, no world, no sun, no universe, just brilliance, and then there was none. There was just a gentle drifting feeling of whiteness with a heavenly fragrance of flowers, and a feeling that she was floating above spring meadows filled with white wild flowers.
"Maya," a voice was calling to her from far away. It called again. It was Marique's voice with her Flemish French accent, soft on the fragrance of her mind. She felt a touch to her shoulder and another touch, and again her name. She swam with her arms through the fragrance until she could touch her elbows and then she stilled herself while she came out of her trance and back to the tiny dark room carved out of the cliffside.
"Maya," said Marique, when her eyes opened, "you always warned me never to let it go more than ten minutes at a time. Come back to us Maya." Maya's turquoise eyes usually had specks, just traces, of violet in them. Now they were totally violet. Her pupils were huge. Marique lost herself in the eyes for a moment and then shook her shoulder again.
Marique was of two minds. One side of her wanted to shuck her own clothes and meditate in the nude next to her friend. The other wanted to cover her friend and bring her totally back to earth. The energy in the crystal room was disturbingly lifelike and as if it were breathing. It made her so horny that she wanted to sit down and play with herself but she was too worried about her friend to allow it.
"Ajay, come and help me to get her on her feet." With Ajay's help she stood Maya up and wrapped the burqa around her like a blanket. She walked her out of the room and sat her down in the corridor outside the door. Then she went back inside to help Ajay re-cover all the crystal points with mud.
Maya was returning more and more to herself. The soft cool air blowing down the corridor felt delicious against her flushed skin. She leaned against the carved hole of a doorway so she could see part of the room, and at the same time, look down the corridor towards the main chambers. She occasionally saw the LED light flash out from the room, as her friends carefully worked their way around the room with the mud.
She felt delicious all over. Totally at peace with the world and with herself. The rough corner that she was leaned against did not bother her back. Even rock seemed comfortable. She suddenly realized that the light inside the room had stopped moving. It had been still for a long time.
She heard low voices, or were they moans? She crawled forward clutching her burqa blanket to her chest and peered into the room. What she saw both took her breath away and made her smile. Both of them were naked and wrapped and entwined in each other in a way that could only happen if they were sexually connected. She held a hand to her mouth so she would not make a noise, and then crept back out into the corridor.
This time she sat facing the other way, into darkness, and as her eyes adjusted to the dark she noticed that the far end of the corridor was not actually dark. She could make out a shadow. Since the others were busy, very busy, she stood up and pulled her burqa blanket tight around her and walked slowly and carefully towards the dark end. Every foot or so she touched each side wall hoping for another crystal chamber. There were none.
The end of the corridor was not the end, but a corner. A corner that became very narrow. This was not cut by man. This was natural. The walls were like a sheer face of the rock. She squeezed along it and felt the pressure of the breeze against her cheeks. This was where it was coming from. The narrow passage slowly widened and the floor became more regular and then flat, and there was brightness ahead. Daylight.
She came into the daylight and had to turn her face back into the cave until her eyes adjusted to the dazzling brightness. On her knees, she crept forward and looked out at the world. The passage had come out on a thin ledge that ran almost horizontal along the cliff face. It was hundreds of feet up a sheer rock face, and hundreds of feet down the same face. The ledge did not have a path along it although it seemed to disappear around a corner in each direction.
The view was stunning. She sat with her back leaning against the corner of the hole in the cliff face she had come from, and looked out. Once her mind had taken in the splendor of the view, she noticed the butterflies. Butterflies of all color
s and sizes were being lifted on the thermal winds up the cliff face and out of sight above. They must be using the thermals here to travel over the mountain ridges.
As she was watching them, an orange butterfly landed on the fabric of her orange colored burqa. Then another, and then another, but only the orange ones. She slipped the burqa down off her shoulders and let her aura reach out for them. They ignored her, and kept landing on the orange cloth. There were over a dozen now, and another every few seconds.
And then a white butterfly with golden specks landed on her arm, and then another on her breast, and then another, and another. They tickled and she tried not to laugh because she did not want to scare them, but they were not easily scared. She began to chuckle and then laugh and her breasts jiggled, and the butterflies rode her jiggling breasts and made her want to laugh even more.
Now yellow butterflies were landing in her hair. She was trying to move her head slowly so that she could see the yellow ones, when she heard a whooshing sound like a giant butterfly would make. Very slowly she turned her head the other way. She imagined that an entire flock, was the word flock for butterflies? An entire flock must have landed on the ledge.
Very slowly, something big and white came into the corner of her eye. She kept moving her head until the vision became clearer. It was a big white bird. No, it was bigger than that, all white, and with a flat face like a monkey. Now she was staring straight at it, and it was staring straight back.
She had seen condors in California, and this bird was about that size, but with almost no neck, or perhaps the neck was just hidden by the ruff of white feathers. A vision of a picture from her mother's bird watching book came to mind. A snowy owl. This looked like a snowy owl, but it was the size of a condor, and it was looking at her.
He was easily big enough to drag her from the cliff. Not big enough to carry her away, but certainly big enough to drop her off. It was a long way down. She wondered if this cave hole was his or her home. The bird puffed herself up trying to look big and majestic. The butterflies did not care. White butterflies were now landing on the head of the majestic bird.
Maya couldn't help her self. She smiled and then giggled. The majestic bird looked quite ridiculous with her crown of white butterflies. The bird looked at her one more time, then looked behind her, and then leaped from the cliff and spread her huge wingspan and soared away on the same thermals that had brought the butterflies.
"Maya," a voice called, and then Ajay and Marique's heads peered out through the entrance. For a moment everyone’s vision was blocked by a cloud of frightened butterflies, and then the air cleared of fluttering wings. "What's happening?" Ajay asked.
"Oh nothing. Just hanging with the eagles." said Maya, and pointed down to where giant white wings were stretched out catching the wind. "What kind of bird is that?"
"A big white one," replied Ajay.
"My god," replied Marique.
"Sit down with me you two," Maya said, "and be quiet. I will wrap my aura around us and maybe the butterflies and the white owl will come back."
"We have not time," said Ajay and pointed down to the winding road to the parking lot. They could see just the edge of it and a cloud of dust beyond. There was a line of tour buses chugging up the steep hill. "I think we want to be out of this temple before they get off those buses."
"Yes, I agree," said Marique, "so make yourself presentable, you know, like get dressed."
"You're one to talk," replied Maya mischievously, "you with the muddy hand print on your shirt, over your left breast. Did you have big fun in the crystal room?"
Marique blushed and Ajay looked away in embarrassment. "Very big fun. That was the most fun I have ever had," he said giving an adoring look to Marique.
* * * * *
By the time they retraced their steps through the main areas of the temple and across the parking lot to reach the old Mercedes, Marique was wishing she was under the burqa with Maya. She was so tired of being stared at. The buses were unloading quickly and Ajay suggested that they not change or anything, and just head out. About a half mile down the hill road he pulled into a side track and stopped for a picnic.
The beer was heavenly. The sandwiches made from left over rotisserie chicken with mango chutney were divine. Everything tasted so good outside in the fresh air. "I have to stop living in Mumbai," Ajay mumbled. "It is slowly killing me with the noise and the pollution. An ordinary middle-class villager with a shop up here in the hills, has a healthier life than my wealthy parents."
"Where would you live?" asked Marique sitting so close to him that she may as well have sat in his lap.
"Oh, I don't know. It would have to be close to Mumbai because of my family. Near here would be good because the expressway would make it easy to visit them. A farming village where life is more real, perhaps. Maybe I could get a job as a tour guide in this temple. I would be the only one that knows its secret."
"That secret was worth the trip to India," Maya said in a soft voice. She was still feeling spacey, otherworldly, just floating along. "I have never ever had an experience like that. Not just the crystal cave, but the cliff side, the butterflies, the condor. It was as if a goddess had taken over my body and was walking it around."
"I also have never had such an experience before." Ajay said pulling Marique close to him. "I also was walking with a goddess."
Maya wandered away feeling like a third leg. Give them some space. Their romance would cool down once they were out of range of her aura. She wished she could figure out how to use her aura without making everyone so bloody horny. She was starting to believe that the horniness was just the brain's way of interpreting a feeling that it did not understand.
Just in case they wanted to neck, or something, she wandered to the other side of a big boulder, out of sight, and sat down on a bench height stone. From this angle she could see the old highway far below, marked by the occasional glint of sun off a windshield. The sun was hot, but it was not sticky hot like in Mumbai. There was a mountain tang to the air. The feeling of complete peace inside her was turning quickly into a snooze so she put her half eaten sandwich down beside her on the rock and closed her eyes.
She felt something brush her hand softly, and opened her eyes with a start, half expecting to see a cobra or a lizard. It was the head feathers of the giant white bird with the monkey face. Maybe the bird had touched her by accident while she pecked at the chicken sandwich, or maybe the touch was on purpose. It didn't matter. She was so relieved that the bird was not a reptile that she would forgive her anything. Even forgive her the last of her divine chicken with mango chutney sandwich.
Marique called. She must have taken a breath between Ajay's kisses and noticed that her friend had disappeared. Marique's call scared the bird away. It seemed to skip and jump so that it could unfold its giant wings, and then with one last hop, was airborne. Maya waved bye bye and promised to come back and visit again and blew it a kiss, then went to find Marique.
* * * * *
* * * * *
MAYA'S AURA - the Ashram by Skye Smith
Chapter 11 - Pune (Poona), India
Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into. - Mahatma Gandhi.
The Mercedes had a bench seat in the front, and on the way from Mumbai, all three had been in the front. Maya, being the smallest, sat in the middle. On the way down this hill, Marique had claimed the middle seat. It was surprising that Ajay could even drive, because she was continuously stroking the inside of his thigh.
By the time they reached the big bridge that crossed over the Mutha River into Pune, one thing was for sure. Going by the angle of the sun, this was no longer a day trip. They drove straight to the ashram and Ajay left the girls in the car and went in through the arched gate and into the office to ask questions.
It was too hot to stay in the car, so the girls locked it up and went to explore the grounds of the ashram. If they had not been western women dressed in their travel skirts and shirts, lookin
g all the world as if they had just stepped off a cruise boat, they would never have gotten past the guard at the second gate. Instead they just ambled by him pretending to be too involved in a conversation to pay him the least bit of notice.
Having just come from an ancient temple carved out of mountain cliffs, this place seemed more like an all inclusive resort than a place to study yoga and meditation. They saw the glint of a swimming pool and made a bee line for it. A swim would refresh them.
The pool confirmed that this was an all inclusive resort. It was surrounded by other western women, most of them sunbathing topless in the Euro fashion. They claimed two lounge beds next to each other and took off their shirts and skirts and leggings until they were down to their panties, so that they could join in the fun with the resident sun tan team.
One of the pool attendants came over to warn them about the strong tropical sun and advised them that they should allow him to massage some sun screen into their skin. They were just about to tell him to take a flying leap, when he looked at their wrist strap, or rather the lack of wrist strap, and said accusingly, "You are not guests. You should not be here."
"It's okay, sweetie," Marique said, squinting up at him to see against the still bright, but not so fiery sun. "My husband is just checking us in." He was not convinced, but he decided to walk away instead of shooing them away. The rich guys from Mumbai drinking smoothies at the bar would surely take their side against him.
Maya was not interested in the pettiness of the pool guy. She was watching a skinny, nut brown old man dressed only in a filthy dhoti. He was wandering aimlessly around the pool watering the potted plants. There was something familiar about the aimlessness. There was something about his meandering route that belied a purpose other than watering. There was something very familiar about it all.
