by Lucia Ashta
She leaned her head against his. “Whatever it means, I’m happy you’re here with me.” She looked into the sun and the resplendent colors it painted the sky. “Ti amo.” After all, love was all that truly mattered. Everything else was ultimately inconsequential. “Do you feel up to our pyramid adventure with Sitting Bear today?”
He nodded, determined. He’d been awake in his sleeping bag thinking about it. He’d let nothing get in the way of his divine destiny, and he would especially not get in his own way. He mentally steeled himself to identify his fears. It was the only way he’d be able to release what was necessary. He would become the person he was destined to be—the man who could scale pyramids to touch the magic of thunder.
“I need to do some prayers first though.” He kissed Lena on the forehead and walked away from her. Barefoot, he walked to the other side of the campsite, still within the protective light bubble, and stood, arms outstretched to the sun. He intended on having a very long talk with Creator.
But as it almost always was with expectations, they proved to be wrong. When Paolo opened his lips to speak, he knew in that instant to shut them. Creator knew his heart already. Paolo didn’t need to speak. Instead, Paolo bared his soul. He offered his love, his gratitude, and his desire to serve the world. Every unspoken sentiment was heard.
When Lena and Paolo arrived at Sitting Bear’s cave, it was mid-morning, the sun was bright, and Lena and Sitting Bear quietly wondered whether Paolo would be able to reach the pyramid. But Paolo didn’t.
He knew within his heart that he was fully capable of fulfilling the destiny reserved for him. He knew he was worthy of such a grand purpose, and he had the strength to do whatever was needed to accomplish this goal.
He was an angel incarnate with a constant connection to other worlds. He was the subject of important prophecies in human history because he was capable of transforming the world. Now, the only moment he truly had, was the time for it all. He was a force of light.
Not needing to explain, but wanting Lena and Sitting Bear on board, he ran ahead of them—Sitting Bear had set a slow pace for his sake—and stopped. Paolo turned to face them. Sitting Bear watched him curiously, expectantly. Lena looked back at Paolo with unassuming love. His heart thudded a beat; her love was one of the greatest gifts in his life. He deserved to share an eternal love with her; their bond was a vital component of his destiny.
“Look at me,” he told them. “Look closely.”
He gave them time until he watched their eyes widen in surprise.
“Okay then. Now let’s go.” Paolo took the lead and headed toward the pyramid at a steady pace. There was no moment like the present for destiny.
Chapter 16
Lena, Paolo, and Sitting Bear made steady progress toward the pyramid. As Sitting Bear had instructed, Lena and Paolo carried camping gear to sleep out on the land that night. The twins were preparing to dismantle their campsite when they discovered another, smaller tent among the equipment in their car. Marian had anticipated their every need. So Lena and Paolo left their temporary home mostly intact and took the small tent of quick assembly instead. They packed scant supplies and took off.
Lena and Paolo carried their loads comfortably in external frame backpacks. Lena looked ahead and noticed only a leather canteen strapped across Sitting Bear’s chest, and even the canteen seemed insufficient for her levels of thirst. Sitting Bear had adjusted to the environment in a way Lena couldn’t come close to yet.
It took them several hours to reach the pyramid’s shadow.
“Have you climbed the pyramid before?” Lena asked Sitting Bear.
They’d been mostly silent since leaving Sitting Bear’s cave dwelling that morning. But Sitting Bear was prepared for Lena’s question. He’d been pondering this very thing. He thought it peculiar that he’d never touched the pyramid. Why, when he stared out onto it almost every day, had he never gone past the point where they stood now?
“No, I have not,” he answered, his voice full of curiosity. Perhaps today he’d discover the answer to this mystery that perplexed him almost as much as the mystery of the pyramid itself. It was unlike him not to explore.
Paolo was holding up very well. It was difficult to imagine he was the same man who’d fallen so intensely ill on their last two attempts to reach the pyramid. Whatever prayers he said that morning worked, Lena thought. He looked vibrant.
They stopped to rest and regroup in the shade, the one reliable reprieve from the scorching sun. Lena fanned her face with her hat and redid her ponytail. Even the few strands of hair that had fallen loose felt like too much, adhering with sweat to her neck. But she was happy despite her body’s discomfort. Little invigorated her more than feeling this close to her destiny.
Seated on the ground, Lena looked up into the canopy of a juniper tree. There was something incredibly powerful about these trees. She carried the berry Juniper gifted her between her breasts because it reminded her of the infinite connection between her and all of divine creation.
This juniper provided incomplete shade from the sun because its branches sprouted needles instead of the wide leaves of tropical areas, but Lena appreciated it just the same. The canopy swayed in response to her admiration, its branches moving in harmony with the wind, and Lena’s heart smiled. She wondered if sap would rain down on her as it had last time. The sap the juniper had gifted her stuck to everything, but Lena loved its scent.
She sat under the tree and closed her eyes, her arms holding her legs against her chest. The sun dappled her face as it filtered through the juniper’s needles with different degrees of success.
Sitting Bear observed the woman. Her sun-mottled skin reminded him of a cheetah’s pelt. Watching her now recalled memories of their first encounter. She’d connected to the consciousness of a wild animal then. Coyote’s wily nature made him especially difficult to connect with, yet this woman had linked to him. The bond between Coyote and Lena had been so intense that Lena was only able to break free of it with Sitting Bear’s help.
Sitting Bear had only seen indigenous people do this. Native peoples around the globe connected with other life on the planet through varying traditions, but the practice was most unusual for a woman of Lena’s background.
Now he watched her begin to join with the juniper that offered her shade. Connecting to trees was routine to him, but the intensity with which she did it was extraordinary. She didn’t just feel or listen to the tree; she merged her essence with that of the tree, and that was unusual. There was a mutual sharing.
Sitting Bear’s father taught him to preserve the integrity of his being; that was why Sitting Bear didn’t let anything in. Now he wondered whether it was truly wrong to allow another divine creature to explore his essence. It was humans who were capable of conniving deceit and ill intent. Plants and animals didn’t function that way. Aligned with the flow of creation—everything in nature was a choreographed dance, repeating cycles of life and death. So why should he prevent a tree from connecting with his consciousness?
There was an advantage to Lena’s recent awakening. Because her exposure to ancient teachings was limited, she retained a naïveté that permitted an innate wisdom to guide her. Sitting Bear possessed defined notions of the right and wrong ways, just as his father had, and his father’s father. For the first time, Sitting Bear debated the soundness of this legacy.
As he observed Lena merge with the juniper tree, he was grateful. She led him to reevaluate his beliefs. As a result, he would grow and evolve. In that moment, a faint glow enveloped Lena as she became one with all of creation through her connection to Juniper.
Sitting Bear’s knowing eyes witnessed the glow, and he admired the woman. Her ways were just hers for the time being, and so what she did was exactly right for her. Out of respect for what woman and tree were sharing, Sitting Bear bowed his head and then looked away.
It was a pleasant day. Thom and the twins walked mostly in silence, responding to slight shifts in the winds that
led them. The sun shone brilliantly all day, until it was time for rest, and then the sun went down with its usual splendor.
The twins and Thom made ready to sleep where they were. Asara and Anak spread out their blankets, and Thom laid out his. They were in an open forest glade, surrounded by trees and their inhabitant birds and furry woodland creatures. The setting was idyllic and none of them wanted to disturb it by building a fire. Instead they lay next to each other on their blankets.
They stared at the glowing moon and the twinkling stars, and they pointed out any falling star they saw. Falling stars reminded Asara of how closely connected heaven and earth were. She liked to imagine falling stars as angels coming to earth to begin a life in a human body, and lead humanity in the ways of peace.
Meanwhile, Master Kaanra scoured the night for the doman. Dann’s final prophecy attributed the task of finding it to him, but now that he believed he’d found it, he didn’t know how to retrieve it. He couldn’t see it, he just knew it was right there.
He recited the first half of the prophecy that he’d memorized at Master Sina’s request. There was more to it than his role, and now he needed someone else for the next step.
Master of the isle will follow the stars to it. Master of the forest will cradle it, hidden in the womb of the world.
Kaanra recognized he was the master of the isle. Although he often didn’t feel like a master of anything, he just knew, and he’d lived enough already to trust this knowing. He realized it when Sina first shared the words of the prophecy with him, after she inherited them from her mother. The earth had traveled around the sun eleven times since then.
He also believed the isle of Dann’s prophecy referred to Arnaka—it was an island after all—and so he’d set off in search of the doman, the orphic it of the prophecy. Identifying the doman was the single piece Dann purposefully omitted from the written prophecy in order to protect it.
Oral knowledge of the doman had almost been irretrievably lost. Just when Dann’s spirit was about to release its hold on this world, Dann’s sister reached the shallow graves of her brother and niece. Dann knew how important it was that his spirit remain tethered to his body for just a few moments longer, and that feat was the most difficult of his human life. But he knew he had to stay long enough to see his sister one final time. He placed all of his will and focus on delivering one final message, perhaps more important than any other he’d ever given.
Dann’s sister ran to their graves and immediately began to dig away the dirt that loosely blanketed their bodies. Dann’s spirit began to slip away, despite his struggle to remain. Before she was fully able to uncover their bodies, father and daughter had left their human forms behind, returned to the earth for her use.
But, as Dann’s spirit rose toward the heavens, his message trailed behind. Dann’s sister, connected to the world of spirit as much as her brother had been, heard the echo before it followed her brother’s spirit out of this world. The doman. The doman can save the world.
Dann’s sister passed down the living message of the doman through her descendants until it reached Kaanra’s ears. Now, although unaware of it, Kaanra was the only one left to carry this surviving piece of information. He didn’t know what the doman was, but he knew it was important.
He allowed the stars to lead him toward the doman, just as the prophecy stated. It had been a long time since he’d wandered with nothing more to guide him than the heavens. He enjoyed blissful days of little thought; the stillness in his mind allowed for much peace. The love of all creation was within him now.
Transformed for the better one more time in his long life, Kaanra prepared a bed in front of the tree that marked the spot. He had no idea who the master of the forest was, or what he’d tell him once he arrived, since he didn’t know exactly where the doman was, or even what it was. But Kaanra trusted that he’d done his part, and he settled onto his blanket for a deep and dream-filled sleep.
The forest would speak to him that night. Dancing trees, flowers, fairies and talking animals would inhabit his dreams. Upon waking in the forest, Kaanra would find little difference between his dreams and the reality he was used to, and he would allow the dream and the real to merge, becoming one in his consciousness.
Chapter 17
The adventurers had advanced to the base of the pyramid when Sitting Bear suggested they put up camp. Plenty of daylight remained in the sky, but they set about preparing their sleeping arrangements anyway. In truth, neither Lena nor Paolo had any idea of how to proceed now that they’d finally reached the pyramid, so they agreed with Sitting Bear’s proposal. What the twins didn’t realize was that Sitting Bear made his suggestion for the same reason. He didn’t know what to do in this unique situation either.
It didn’t take Lena and Paolo long to set up their minimalist tent and lay out their sleeping bags, and Sitting Bear did nothing to fix a bed for himself. Instead, he dug out a fire pit and built a wall of stones around it to contain the fire. Lena and Paolo joined him in collecting fallen firewood.
“Let’s rest now. We can begin tomorrow morning with the sun,” Sitting Bear said.
They remained mostly quiet into the evening, all of them wondering what exactly they would be doing the next day. Lost in thoughts and musings of the unknown, the explorers enjoyed the subtleties of their surroundings, until darkness eventually took over the skies, obscuring colors and details.
Lena stared into the hypnotic flames until her eyes grew heavy with sleep. She removed her sleeping bag from the tent and pulled it up to the fire. It didn’t feel right to put anything between her and the stars, not even the thin fabric of their tent. Especially here, at the base of a pyramid that may be the realization of her visions, she wanted to be as open to the murmurings of the heavens as she could be.
Between the crackling of the fire and its mesmerizing flames, the glittering stars, and the pyramid covered in millennia of flora, Lena was primed to receive the message she needed to retrieve from the dream world that night. She did so just in time.
Lena saw herself in a body that was neither hers nor Asara’s, yet she understood that somehow it was them both. A young woman ran playfully through a glade, her red hair twisted in undulating curls all the way down to her waist, where it lost itself in the tendrils of flowers patterning a full skirt she gathered in her hands as she ran. A soft morning glow illuminated the forest that surrounded her.
She’d loosened her bodice so she could breathe easily as she moved through the trees. The corsets then in fashion were insufferable.
Lena felt drawn to this woman she’d never seen before. There was something incredibly familiar about her. Her grace and beauty were genuine. She was at ease with herself.
The woman’s surroundings also liked her. Lena watched trees shift in the woman’s direction; their movement was almost indiscernible, but still, it was there. Birds and animals turned to watch the woman as she passed, and some followed along the sidelines.
The young woman’s skirts were becoming muddied at the hems. When she noticed this, it seemed to delight her.
She now slowed and came to a stop. She looked all around her, as if to make sure a secret were safe. She threw furtive glances to each side. Whatever she was about to reveal was important.
In the sunlit clearing of the forest, she looked around one last time. Then she reached a hand toward the tree in front of her. The trunk, ancient and strong, gnarled with the growth and experiences of life, parted for her.
From within the trunk of the tree, the woman pulled something and shielded it within her arms with the care one took with a newborn infant. She wrapped her arms protectively around it, and her puffed sleeves hid it almost entirely from view.
With a sudden movement, the young woman turned to look directly at Lena.
Amber eyes stared straight into Lena’s and held.
Lena was suspended there, lost in those eyes that were all at once a mixture of power and innocence. She held the young woman’s gaze, unwa
vering, until the woman spoke.
It was the haunting sound of the young woman’s voice that made Lena lose her footing. She could tell the woman had spoken in her normal voice. But because it crossed over lifetimes, dimensions, and worlds, it carried an unsettling echo.
Whispered across time, Lena got the message: “The doman is a treasure of the forest. Look to the heart of the trees.”
Lena’s view of the young woman blurred and began to fade. Just before she vanished entirely, she held up her secret treasure for Lena to see. Even then, Lena couldn’t tell what it was. It appeared to be a large, misshapen acorn. It was clearly an organic form, but what was it? And why was it so important?
Lena released her hold on the young woman’s world entirely when she opened her eyes. It was dark. Only a cloud-covered moon and the dying embers of the fire illuminated the scene. She looked at Paolo. He’d also chosen to sleep under the open sky, and was just a few feet away from her. He slept. Lena searched the area for Sitting Bear. He lay on the ground opposite the fading fire. He appeared to be asleep as well.
As quietly as she could, Lena unzipped her sleeping bag and reached for her backpack. She rummaged carefully until she found pencil and paper. Then she tiptoed back to the fireside, but tripped over a stone and stumbled. Immediately, she looked to Paolo and Sitting Bear to check if they stirred. When they both appeared to sleep, Lena sighed in relief. She didn’t want to wake anyone.
She sat on a stone right next to the fire, tilting her paper so the dim light flickered and illuminated the drawing surface with its orange glow. She drew the doman as best she could since she was unsure of what it was. Beside the sketch, she transcribed the young woman’s words: “The doman is a treasure of the forest. Look to the heart of the trees.”
