Giovanni paused to look deeply into Alessandro’s eyes, and then into Maria’s to see whether they were in agreement or not, and went on. “This painting captures the Real Presence of Christ, a force that can unite Christians, Jews, and Muslims if enough people see it. This painting shows that Christ’s light belongs to all the people on the planet because we can see his light when Mary is with him. So, to the matter at hand, what can we do for Armando to help bring this to many people?”
These three visitors were the key directors of the foundation, the Medici art collections. If you put the art all together, it is like a gigantic puzzle that reveals the pre-Flood magical arts. When the pieces are identified and assembled, the secrets will be known and the prophesized peace will come. They believed this convergence would occur in the Age of Aquarius, as did Pietro. The foundation had protected the fragments up to this point because the forces of darkness were obliterating precious knowledge, just like what happened to Palmyra. Furthermore, the Medici displayed their precious art to as many common people as possible over the years because comprehension by the people keeps ancient memory alive. Pietro stood by his son’s painting while they studied it more. Then he said in a slow, measured voice, “What I’m about to ask of you is outrageous and may be impossible because of tourists in Michelangelo’s sacristy. Yet, ironically, if tourists from all over the world could see the love between Christ and Mary, more will welcome the return of the Goddess and her consort.
“Tourists come from dawn to dusk to the Medici chapels to see the Michelangelo sculptures in the sacristy that portray the spiritual lives of the Medici. Meanwhile, the nearby Chapel of Princes is large, hardly anybody spends much time in there, its altar is never used for Mass. A few months ago, I had a vision of Armando’s painting in front of the altar with guards blocking any photos. In fact, I think you’d need to take people’s cameras right at the front entrance of the museum.” The shocked faces of the three Medici silenced Pietro, so he nervously refilled Giovanni’s tiny glass.
“The reliquaries, Pietro. We can’t do it because of the reliquary rooms on each side of the altar.”
“I thought you might say that, but there also are reliquaries downstairs. Just think, they might all wake up, saint’s bones rattling to celebrate the sacred love story! This sounds like a joke, but I don’t see why you can’t do it, that is just because of the reliquaries.”
“Pietro, with all due respect, the three of us will have to meet alone to discuss your request. We may have to take it to more foundation members. We may have to ask you to bring the painting to a meeting to have more of them see it.”
Pietro put his hand on his cheek. “I don’t think Armando would do that. He acts like this painting is the Shroud of Turin. Maybe he could bring it to the chapel to set it up in front of the altar so that more of you can see it there. He probably could do that in the middle of the night.”
Alessandro chuckled. “Pietro, are you trying to cause an earthquake or explode the Campi Flegrei supervolcano? Pompeii erupted at the beginning of the Age of Pisces, and everybody knows tectonic stress increases when an age is passing. Campi Flegrei has recently been active again. Just joking, but we could rile up earthly forces we must always respect. Let’s not forget the Medici family crest originally had six red balls that signified slaying the dragon in Mugello where our family originated. As we understand it, our job is to subdue the dragon.”
Pietro replied thoughtfully, “It is time to slay the real dragon, the Church. None of us will survive unless the real story about the marriage of Jesus and Mary is revealed at the dawning of Aquarius. You, of all people, know that.”
They did know. They had been waiting patiently during the last five hundred years since the Renaissance. They’d taken many dangerous risks, such as displaying a multitude of paintings of Jesus with Mary Magdalene nearby in the Uffizi, as well as many other controversial works of art.
When they left, Matilda watched them come out of the tower, and this time she recognized one, her secret for the moment.
Armando and Jennifer were having lunch on the patio, the only cool area of the semitropical house. They were both very tan after going to the beach almost every day for a week. She was feeling flirtatious and he was excited because his father had called to tell him that the Medici committee was considering displaying his painting.
“These times are so weird,” she said in a serious voice. “I avoid the news as much as I can, but I just can’t get Palmyra out of my mind. The fires in California terrify me. I can see that people are afraid everything they have will burn up; imagine that. Do you think ISIS’s ugly energy is fanning the flames? Sometimes I do, sounds crazy.”
“My dear, I admit I do find myself thinking that way at times, but it makes me feel crazy so I try not to, especially here in Majorca. Palmyra’s destruction breaks my heart. I have gone there twice to enjoy its rare serenity. The Romans chose the site because of its exquisite geomantic peace, its spiritual light. Nothing upsets me more than the destruction of beauty. Have you ever gone to Palmyra?”
“Once,” she replied as her mind wandered back to her visit there with Jasmine’s husband. They’d stolen three days just for themselves, and the sex was so outrageous that Jennifer thought he was ready to leave his wife and ask her to marry him. He’d faked a business trip to Jerusalem, but got nervous his wife would try to reach him on his cell phone because the baby was sick when he left. By the third day he was impotent after drinking too much. This was okay with her because she was exhausted, but he freaked out when it happened with her. He thought his wife was the problem because she was always tired. After they got back to Paris, he avoided Jennifer because he was afraid of getting caught. He broke up with her, telling her to never call him again, and she was devastated for months.
“Penny for your thoughts, beautiful one; you are a million miles away. Are you thinking about a trip of your own to Palmyra?”
She jerked, which really made Armando wonder. “Well I, ah, was thinking about when I was there.” Her mind was running a mile a minute because she so much wanted to tell him. Can I tell him? Do I dare? Will he hate me? Will he break up with me if he knows the truth?
“Sweet one, you look like all the cares of the world are on your shoulders, yet here we are having a lovely lunch in Majorca. Is it the fires, the destruction of Palmyra, or possibly you are remembering going to Palmyra with a lover?”
She shook herself as if to get a hornet off her arm and turned to gaze into his eyes. Her smoky, soulful expression upset him. She seemed helpless as he gently stroked her arm wondering what to say next.
“Jen, isn’t it time for you to just be honest? You can tell me anything about your past, since our agreements have been clear from the beginning. Literally anything you share is okay because we have not lied to each other; at least that I know of. Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
Her blood felt like magma rising in a volcano because watching the news of the fires and the bombings had roiled her up so much. Hot frustration burned through the anxiety that encased her heart. Will Simon get out of the Middle East before they kill him? Are we all going to have to avoid crowds and limit travel? Will there be anything to live for much longer? It’s too much for me; I can’t hold back anymore . . . “I was there with a lover for three days. I am not ashamed of that, but he was married and the father of three children. I almost ruined his life. I taunted him and seduced him; he couldn’t resist me. Armando, I almost destroyed a family. That’s what Lorenzo and I have been working on. My guilt made me jealous of Claudia, jealous of her because of what I’d done to another woman.” She paused and cast sad eyes off to a lime green wall looking like she was sixty years old.
Armando bit into his ripe juicy peach. “That’s what you’ve been worried about? Is that the worst thing you’ve ever done? What do you think happens in the life of a beautiful woman who doesn’t marry until she is past thirty?”
She pushed away her plate with a half-eaten h
am sandwich as deep grief closed her throat. “But, Armando, I almost ruined a family, a family with three children.”
“Jen,” he said, rising up from the table to go knead her shoulders. “As the old saying goes, it takes two to tango. He did it too, married guys do it all the time, and he’s probably done it with somebody else since you. You were hot and horny, so was he. Maybe his marriage lasted because he let off some steam.”
“That all sounds very easy, but I would die if I had a child and you did that to us. I did something to another woman that would kill me if it were reversed. That’s breaking the golden rule—do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.”
For him, this just was no big deal. “Look, I want to know why this bothers you so much? Jewish guilt?”
“My father was horrified when I told him. He forgave me, but it was really hard for him to do so. Maybe it is Jewish guilt.”
“Was this guy French?” Armando wondered since she was in Paris. “If he was, European men do it all the time. If you wanted to make sure it wouldn’t happen to you, you shouldn’t have married a hot, sneaky Italian like me!”
Jen looked up to see his teasing smile and rolled her eyes. As he continued to knead her tight neck, she said, “It’s such a relief to get this off my shoulders. It was a long time ago, and I can’t even remember what he looked like. Thank you for being so understanding.”
“I’ll accept your gratitude on one condition. I still want to keep my side of things confidential. Sometimes being open means laying your own guilt on someone else, and I don’t want to do that to you because mine is still too intense. Knowing things about my past might hinder your work on yourself, your work with Lorenzo, and what good would that do? Is that okay with you? I’m really happy that you’ve relieved yourself of this burden, and it sure doesn’t bother me.”
Armando walked around to take her hands and she rose from her chair into his open embrace. “Now I want to go to bed and reenact wild sex with your married lover. I love role playing; you have no idea how many men you actually have around here.”
They went into the warm breezy bedroom. Armando was ready for some fun and Jennifer felt renewed. As she watched him walking around catlike, she realized she’d been holding back from him because she hadn’t told him the truth about something that made her feel so guilty. Armando was wearing shorts and a linen shirt. He turned his back to her, took off his shirt, and then he turned around and said, “Here we go! I am him, whatever his name was; c’mon, baby, do it with me!”
She was wearing nothing except a tiny pink thong, an absolutely gorgeous sight in the eyes of her lover. She watched him with level eyes as his penis started rising. Her heart was light and happy, she felt free. When he came to her ready to make love, he thought about telling her about the Templar goddess rituals and the Black Madonna, since she’d responded so deeply to La Moreneta when they went to the hermitage. Maybe later because when he sunk his face into her crotch, he found the Black Madonna.
23
Barcelona Dreaming
Matilda and Pietro were in the library before dinner, enjoying being alone in the house one last day before Jennifer and Armando came back from Majorca. Subtle fall equinox light was shining into the rows of books lighting up the genealogies on the back wall. Matilda was engrossed in an ancient family tree made in Florence that delineated six generations of marriages between the Sforza, Chigi, Medici, and Pierleoni families. She was curious about this one because it went back to Matilda of Canossa. Many years ago, her mother had told her she was named after her, a very dramatic twelfth-century woman rumored to be the mistress of Pope Gregory VII, one of Pietro’s illustrious ancestors. “Pietro, now that the three Medici have come to see you, I’m more curious about our family trees. I wonder why I was named after my ancestor Matilda of Canossa? I suppose I’ll never know, but I’ve read she was a wild woman. Must have been if she was the mistress of a pope, your ancestor.”
“Dear, when one goes back a thousand years and then comes forward in time, there are countless distant relatives around us if we’ve remained on our estates. My family believes Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and founded a lineage that people have been tracing ever since. If true, then their sacred blood is diluted in the veins of millions today, especially in Italy. I use our genealogies to remember our stories. I am related to Gregory VII, who was a wild pope, so you are my wild Matilda! If there is a bloodline from Jesus and Mary, since our blood is crystalline, perhaps the coming Age of Aquarius means we are royal people? I hope so, because as the Age of Pisces falls away, the chaos and meaninglessness of what people believe in saddens me so.”
Pietro was pacing back and forth with an amber scotch in hand. “Matilda, we’re in the middle of the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since WWII. I thought Angela Merkel was insane in early July when she opened Germany’s borders with very little notice and encouraged more refugees to come. And I was right, the flow became relentless, so she had to shut the borders back down. A million refugees are expected to make it to Germany this year! The European Union is trying to force other European Union countries to take them according to quotas, but the resistance is huge, especially in Eastern and Central Europe where former Communist countries have little sympathy for those fleeing tyranny. They’re not all refugees either; some are people fleeing for a better chance in life. Surely some of them are radicals, even terrorists. This chaos is going to shred the European Union just when we need a united front.”
“Yes,” Matilda responded. “What amazes me is the way they communicate by means of cell phones to figure out what to do, where to go next. This is so much like the fifth century when the barbarians flooded the outer reaches of the Eastern Roman Empire and eventually made it all the way down into Italy, except now they do it online!”
“Yes,” Pietro replied as Matilda sat down in a large leather chair and reached for a martini. “The smugglers lie to the desperate people, telling them jobs and benefits await them if they can just make it to Germany and then take their money. A few weeks ago, global media reported Germany was offering asylum to any Syrian, causing a flood out of Turkey through Greece, and now more are coming up right behind. This is unbelievable! As for Italy, migrants from Africa are making it across the Mediterranean and flooding into Rome; now add Syrians. Our antiquated bureaucracy can’t handle it, so they get stuck in Rome, terrible for tourism. When we go back to Rome later this fall, remember that you must be much more cautious about where you walk because it’s impossible to know who’s around. I don’t think you can walk alone in the Borghese Gardens anymore.”
“I agree, and I won’t be. What upsets me is that everything is going too fast; the pace of events is stressing my nerves. But can we let this unpleasant topic go for a moment?” She paused as Pietro nodded then shook his head as if to clear it. “Sarah called with interesting news. David is taking her with the baby to Barcelona. Simon is meeting them there because he has just finished an assignment in Iraq. She is so excited because they all love Barcelona.”
“Have you thought of having Teresa up here while they go? Teresa adores you, and it’s hard to travel with a child with things getting risky. I think you would enjoy it very much!”
“I did think of that, but I just can’t imagine Sarah doing it. She’s never left Teresa. But, she is used to me and loves this house, and of course I would love it. She just had her second birthday, so maybe it’s possible.”
Matilda called Sarah right after dinner and pleaded with her to let Teresa visit for a few days, using the excuse that her own granddaughters are older and don’t visit much. Sarah was still undecided until Matilda mentioned Jen and Armando would be there to help. Then Sarah surprised her by laughing and saying that Teresa would miss her mom for about one minute once she saw the castle. Sarah was grateful and excited when they finalized the arrangements.
Sarah hopped out of a cab, in a robin’s-egg blue jumpsuit, at the Placa St. Jaume and dragged a small rolling bag hurriedly to the
nearby Neri Hotel. This was the sweetest dream of her life! Guests hanging out in the hotel library by the front entry hall looked up when a very good-looking dark-haired man in a khaki trench coat rushed through the lobby with his arms out wide to sweep a pretty young woman into his arms. Nobody even tried to stop staring. Sarah was crying and Simon screamed, “Oh my goddess!” David, who was standing by the lobby desk, found himself so overcome with joy that his knees almost gave out. Even the desk clerks stared at the happy young couple.
“Where is she?” Simon exclaimed pulling back to look at Sarah while holding her shoulders.
“Don’t worry, at the last minute Matilda persuaded me to bring her up to Tuscany. When I dropped her off she was having so much fun that she dismissed me with a happy wave. Now you and I have some adult time. I don’t know about you; I really need it.”
“Oh damn, Sarah, how great! I have some serious things to share, so even though I can’t wait to see her, this is perfect. How lovely, and you are beautiful, my dream come true.”
As she reached up to wipe away her tears, she became aware of the other people in the lobby. David came over to embrace both of them. “Son, you will never know how I feel right now. You are safe, with your wife, and we are going to La Sagrada Familia tomorrow with the special early tickets that Pietro arranged. After what you’ve been through during the last six weeks, being there will take away the stress. We all need it.”
Revelations of the Aquarian Age Page 23
