I call and call to my inner child, but I think she has abandoned me just as I abandoned her.
“Suzi, Suzi,” I call down into the cavern inside of myself. “I so want to share your experience. In fact, I wish I too could go down into the cavern, out through the opening, and into the wonderful land of Faerie.”
“You can’t do that,” I finally hear Suzi’s response. “Adults can’t be here. This place is just for children.”
“That’s not fair,” I wine, sounding like a child myself.
But it is fair. Adults aren’t welcome here because they always want to change things. They want to dam up the waterfall, cut down the tree, and pick all the flowers. Everything here is supposed to stay the same for everyone to enjoy. Adults always want to ‘own’ things just for themselves.”
“Yes, Suzi, I can’t ague with that. But, I don’t want to own anything. In fact, I don’t even want to be there as an adult. Why have we adults forgotten the simple joys of childhood? Why can’t we just sit under a tree or watch a waterfall. We are always working and trying. I wish I could just play!” I say sadly as tears well up in my eyes.
Then I feel a small invisible hand on my shoulder. Suzi has come back up through the cavern to comfort me.
“Maybe if you hid inside of me. I mean, Faerie is the land of imagination isn’t it. If you imagined that you wre hiding inside of me, wouldn’t that be true then?”
“It is certainly worth a try,” I say, cheering up. “You have been hiding inside of me since I ‘grew up’. I don’t see why I couldn’t hide inside of you now. But, aren’t I too big?”
“Adults! You guys have lost all your imagination. You can pretend that you are any size you want to. Just pretend that you are littler than me.”
“You are right. I forgot, but I haven’t ‘pretended’ since I was a child.” But, you are a child. You are me, right?”
“Y..y..yes.”
“Well then, just close your eyes and see my feet as your feet, my hands as your hands and my body as your body.”
Even though I am a bit embarrassed to be instructed by a child-my child-I do as I am told. I close my eyes and look down at my feet with my ‘imagination’. Sure enough, they are quite little and I have on Mary Jane paten leather shoes with white ruffled socks. My legs are short and I an wearing a blue dress with embroidery on the bodice. I reach up and find that my hair is in ringlets.
“Well, I guess I’m you now,” I say to my child-to my self.
“Good,” I hear her voice from inside me. “Let’s go back to Faerie. I want to fly.” “Me too!!”
Hey, it worked! I’m back in Faerie. Somewhere inside of me I feel my adult self. I hope she stays hidden. I wouldn’t want to get thrown out of here because I brought an adult. Haw, that’s funny. I remember on Earth, there are lots of places where kids can’t go. I ‘m glad to be in a place where adults can’t go. No one can tell me what to do. I think I will fly some more.
I fly and fly for a long time, but I am beginning to realize that it is not as much fun without my fairy friends. I wonder how they are doing. I miss them. It isn’t as much fun to learn to do something new if there is no one to share it with. Oh well, I’ll just let my mind be calm and I’ll see where my heart takes me. The sun is very warm and the sky is as blue as my dress. Below me are pretty, green hills covered with trees and flowers. Sometimes, I see a small stream or tiny lake.
I hear a rumbling in my stomach. Hmm, I realize that I had not eaten since I first got here. I am afraid, though, to eat anything because everything is alive. On Earth, I could eat some fruit or vegetables, but what if I started to eat something and it talked to me? How can I eat something that talks? Since there aren’t many real people here (in fact, I haven’t seen even one, thank heavens), I can’t ask them what people eat. Maybe if I could find something to drink. The waterfall did not seem too attached to his water.
Look, is that a rambling brook over there? I’ll fly over there and see. I think how nice it would be to get a drink and, sure enough, I fly in that direction. I land beside the brook on cool grass. Oh, I can smell the clear water, the damp earth, and the many flowers growing around the brook.
“My, My, My,” says the brook, in a very maternal voice (It must be Miss Brook). “A real live person child and one who has learned to fly. You must be very special.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I am feeling pretty ordinary now. In fact, I think I am hungry.”
“You must be mistaken,” Miss Brook laughs. “There is no hunger here. Perhaps you just need to fill your cup.”
“But, I don’t have a cup!”
“No, dear, I mean your inner cup. The place within you in which you hold the ‘Flow’.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what the Flow is, but I’m sure I need some of it. I am beginning to feel very empty.”
“Well, just look into me, dear child, and feel my life flowing into you. The cup is usually in your heart, but the Flow will often come up from your feet and down from the top of your head. If you look very closely you may see it. It is brighter than the Sun and feels like small stars coming into your body.”
“Yes,” I say. “I think I feel it now. My, this is wonderful.”
“You can look into your heart and see your cup. See the stars entering the cup and filling it until it begins to overflow. You will know you are filled. Then just say ‘thank you’ and it is done,” instructs Miss Brook.
I imagine the Flow and find that I am able to do everything that the brook said.
“That was wonderful,” I say. “But now my heart feels very heavy. Why?”
“Sometimes with love comes sorrow,” replies Miss Brook. “It is, of course, a different kind of sorrow. It is the sorrow of compassion. Once you become accustomed to carrying Unconditional Love in your heart, then compassion will not feel heavy. However, when you first begin receiving Unconditional Love from the Source, you may feel the suffering of all the worlds. That is the beginning of empathy. When you are able to release the sorrow of suffering, you will live in a state of Unconditional Love and Compassion.”
“That sounds very nice,” I say, “But how do I release the sorrow of suffering?”
“When you have released sorrow from your heart it will no longer serve as a magnet to attract more.”
“But I can’t release my sorrow. I wish I could, but it is like an anchor in my heart and I don’t know how to free it.” I began to cry.
Miss Brook’s babbling sound is amazingly comforting and feels like someone is holding me.
“You must travel down the chain of the anchor and find out what your sorrow is hooked on,” says Miss Brook in a loving voice. “Knowledge of the dark places within yourself can release sorrow and suffering-if the knowledge is held in Love.”
“But won’t my heart flow away without its anchor?”
“Oh my dear, I love that you are so honest. No, my darling, your heart cannot flow away from you. But then you may no longer be able to control it. When the anchor in your heart is free, then you are cast adrift on the Sea of Life and the Winds of Spirit shall show you the way.”
“Won’t I get lost then?”
“You will get lost if you don’t free yourself. You cannot chart your course unless you have a map. But it is not the kind of map you humans are used to. When you loosen the anchor of your heart you will be led by the Compass of Truth.”
It sounds very beautiful and I don’t want Miss Brook to feel bad, but I’m afraid that I don’t understand much of what she has said. Maybe if I sit real quiet beside her I may begin to understand the true meaning of her words.
I curl up in a ball at the edge of Miss Brook, but sitting by the brook makes me feel lonely. I don’t know who, or what, or where I am missing, but I feel a tug on the anchor in my heart. As I feel this tug, a vague memory crosses my mind and touches my heart. It is a memory of the Sparkly One that is sort of a part of me but isn’t really me, except in my imagination. I remember how I called the Sparkly One to hug me and kiss me goodnight when I was on Earth. Her face would feel just like a cloud when she would gently kiss me. The Sparkly One would also wake me up when I had bad dreams.
I wonder if that part of me is here? I think I will ask Miss Brook. But, first I think I need a drink. I mean, the flow was really nice, but now I really feel like I need to drink some water. Because I don’t have an outside cup, I lean way over the brook so that I can hold some water in my hands. But, wait, something happens when I lean out over Miss Brook. I don’t feel like Suzi anymore. Thank heavens, I don’t feel like the adult hiding inside of me either. I feel more like the Sparkly One. I fill my cupped hands with the clear, cool water of the brook. I feel a need to wash my face with this water. When I do, my face feels like the Sparkly One’s face.
I look around with my new face. When the water touches my nose, I realize that I can smell everything around me very strongly. I smell the brook, the damp ground, the small flowers and ferns, the breeze, and the flowers and trees. Wow, this is GREAT. I lay down flat on the ground and suddenly I feel like I am a mouse. I roll around in the wet grass and smell the plants release their aroma as I squash them with my body. My mouse self digs down into the ground and I feel each grain of dirt and small stone with my tiny paws. Now I feel like an earthworm and I feel the comfort of the dirt along my body as I tunnel through the darkness. I dig back up to the grass and climb onto a blade of grass. I am a small grasshopper and I feel the dew upon my hind legs as I jump through the morning grass.
Wow, I want to feel this water on my whole body. I take off my Mary Jane shoes, white socks, and blue dress and lay my body on the cool stones. I feel the water bubble over me like I am one of the stones beneath me. I look up into the bright blue sky and watch every individual ray of light from the sun bounce off the earth. As the Sun’s rays penetrate my body, I feel my body gradually lifting into the air. But wait, it is not my body that is being lifted into the air. It is me, but without my body. At first I am scared, but then I remember how the waterfall was able to release his water as it moved on to its destination. Now, I too can release my body while I journey on to another place. I float higher and higher into the air. The sound of the brook becomes more and more distant and is now replaced by a sweet melody that seems to be coming from an invisible flute.
I am entering a very special place that feels safe, and free. Oh my, now I don’t have any body. I am like the Sparkly One. The world around me wavers like the reflections on the Pool of Kindness. I see my body, now far below me. It looks dense and hard like the stones in the brook. The form that I am in now is soft and fluffy like the clouds that are floating next to me. I look up and see the vague glimmer of another world. I really want to go there, but I feel my body in the brook calling to me. “I’m cold,” it says. “Please take me out of the water.” I don’t like the thought of returning because I love it up here, but I know I must obey. I float back down to my body, but as I reach out to drag it onto the earth I find that my hands go right through it. This is frightening. How can I move my body if I can’t grab on to it?
Again my body calls me, “You must enter into me.”
I don’t much like that idea. I like being in this cloud body, but my physical body is starting to turn blue. I guess I had better take care of it. I will probably want it again later. I lay down onto my body and feel as though I am sinking into it. However, when I reach my arm towards the nearby grass I see that there are two arms, a dense one, and a light one. Now I am getting really scared. What if I can’t get back into my body and I die? I really like Faerie, but I may want to go back to earth someday. I may even want to be an adult again.
“Listen to me,” says the brook. “My sound will bring you back to this world.”
I follow the brook’s directions and my body begins to change. It feels heavier and I find that it is indeed very cold, but I still can’t move it. I stare hard at my hand and see the struggle as the finer hand tries to control the coarser one. My light body gradually becomes denser, but it was not yet inside the body in the water. I am cold, very, very, cold. What can I do?
I know I will call to the Sparkly One to wake me up again into my physical body. “Help! Help!” I cry. Sure enough, just like always, I feel the Sparkly One gently pushing my cloud body into my physical body. The Sparkly One whispers into my heart. “Dear one, where your attention is, there you are also. Place your attention on the world that your are entering instead of the world that you have come from.”
I feel my two bodies become one at last and I know that I must warm myself at once. I drag myself from the brook. I use my dress to dry me before I put it on. I also put on my shoes and socks and find a flat rock close by that is bathed in sunshine.
“My, that was an adventure you had,” I hear Miss Brook saying. “I was becoming worried about your physical body. I am glad you were finally able to reclaim it. Tell me, how did you enjoy your trip into the higher dimensions of Spirit?”
“Is that what that was?” I say. “I didn’t understand any of it and thought it was very frightening. But I did like being my cloud body and feeling the Sparkly One again. I would like to do it again, but next time I want to know how to get back. Do you know why I had so much trouble?”
“Well,” answers the brook, “part of the problem was that you didn’t know the rules.”
“What are the rules?” I anxiously ask.
“As you found out, my dear, the first rule is to put your body in a safe place.”
“Yes, I did learn that. But now I am confused. How can I have two bodies?”
“Oh, my dear,” says Miss Brook. “You actually have many bodies, just as a flower has many petals. Each petal can be separated from the flower, but it will not live very long on its own. Your Spirit body is like a flower and each petal is a different ‘life’. Unlike the flower, you can separate from your spirit body and survive quite a while. However, eventually you will return to share your life adventures with the flower of your Spirit. You can also visit your Spirit Flower when you do what humans call ‘sleep’.”
“But how do I know how to return in my sleep, or when I die?”
“Although you were unable to see it, there is a fine cord that connects all of your bodies so that when you separate, you can again rejoin. If that cord were to break, then it would be like a petal separating and you would have a difficult time rejoining into the whole again.”
“I see, I think I am beginning to understand. Is it another rule to be careful to not break the cord?”
“Oh yes, that is a very important rule. Another important rule is to know your Guides. They will help you greatly and keep your attention on the Light.”
“My guides? Do you mean like the Sparkly One?”
“That is very likely. However, I cannot be sure since I did not see your Sparkly One. There are many visions that come from the inside when you decide to see, but usually, only you can see or hear them.”
“Do you suppose that my Guide could help me travel down the chain in my heart to release its anchor?”
“I don’t know why not,” answers Miss Brook. “But you must ask for yourself. First, please take another drink of my water. Your body needs some extra care now. Then perhaps you can find a friendly tree to sit under so you can talk to your inner Guide.”
Again, I lean over Miss Brook and use my hands to hold some of its clear, fresh water. This time I decide to stay inside my body. Maybe after I have released my fear, I will float again and see what is in the higher dimensions of Spirit. Umm, the water is the best taste I have ever had. In a very few swallows my thirst is completely gone and I am full of life and warm all over. Now I am ready to find that friendly tree.
“Goodbye, dear Miss Brook,” I call, as I walk away. “Thank you.”
“Goodbye, Love,” Miss Brook answers. “Come back whenever you need to be replenished. I am always here.”
“I will, I will! I have learned very much from you and I promise I will soon return.” I walk away determined to find a way to remove the anchor from my heart. I see an especially nice tree just at the top of the hill. Perhaps it could help me. As I walk towards it, I can feel its glow.
“Hello, Mr. Tree or are you a Miss?”
“Why, hello there dear flying human. I am known as Mrs. Tree. If you look around you will see my many children.”
“How do you know I can fly? I walked over here.”
“Dear Suzi, I know everything about you. You see, my birds tell me.”
“Your birds?”
“Yes, there are many birds that live on me.”
“Did your birds tell you what happened to me at the brook?”
“Yes dear, and I also know that you want to release the anchor in your heart.”
“I definitely do. Can you help me?”
“Perhaps I can, but first I need to know what your anchor is hooked to?”
“I am not sure, but I know the anchor makes me feel heavy and sad. Maybe my anchor is hooked to sadness. Is that possible?”
“Everything is possible. If your anchor is attached to an emotion, then you must go into that emotion in order to release it. You know anchors are used so that the boat does not get lost in the sea while the Captain rests. Do you attach yourself to sadness in-between your journeys?”
“I never thought about it, but I know I usually don’t feel sad while I am journeying, but sometimes I begin to feel sad when I rest. I think though, that that is because I start thinking about my problems when I am not active.”
“Tell me, young living one, are you on a journey now?”
“Oh yes, in fact this is one of my very best journeys ever.”
“Do you feel sad now?” asks Mrs. Tree.
“No, but when I rested by the brook I felt sad.”
“Well it appears to me,” Mrs. Tree proudly proclaims, “that your anchor is hooked to sadness. Therefore, you must go into the feeling of that sadness so that you can heal it.”
“But I don’t want to go into my sadness because it hurts me too much,” I say, fighting back my tears.
“Dear child, just as there is a part of you that is sad, there is also a part of you that is happy. There are many parts of you-and of me. I have many different limbs, branches, twigs, and leaves. Each of them is different. Some are young and healthy and some are old and ready to fall to the ground, but I love them all. You can learn to love all the parts of yourself. Even your sad parts!”
“I don’t know how I can love a part of me that hurts,” I say, almost to myself.
“Often there is a portion of me that hurts,” says the friendly tree,” and when this happens, I must travel through the core of my trunk and branches to find out what is wrong. Sometimes I find that that part of me is sick or injured and needs extra love and attention. Often that portion can be healed, but there are times when it needs to fall from me so that it can be reabsorbed into the soil around my roots. That part has then died, but it has contributed to the health of the entire tree by fertilizing the soil so that new parts can grow.”
“I don’t know if I really understand what you are trying to tell me, so maybe I should rest here underneath your branches and listen to your words again in my mind. Thank you for helping me.”
“Certainly child. Just relax in my shade and listen to the breeze as it moves through my leaves. That will help you feel at peace. You see, dear child, each leaf is separate from the next, yet it is connected to the Source. Each leaf is totally an individual, but at the same time a member of a greater whole. A single leaf would not provide much shade, but as a group they provide a beautiful, comforting shade. And, as you can see, no separate leaf is doing anything. It is just sharing itself with the others so that their joint contribution can be enjoyed.”
I hear the tree’s words with only the corners of my mind because I feel myself quickly falling asleep. Gradually the shade becomes a warm blanket that covers and protects me. A warm breeze caresses every leaf and me at the same time. I am starting to float into my light body, but I am not afraid this time. I know that the body under the tree will be safe. The rays of the Sun gather around me and begin to form into a glow. The glow becomes a luminescent figure with a vaguely human shape. I can see no face behind the shape’s golden light, but it feels like the Sparkly One. No, it feels like many Sparkly Ones.
“Welcome to the Inner Land of Blissful Joy and Radiant Splendor. We are your Guidance. Do you remember us, dear child? We held you when you were frightened, soothed you when you were sad, and listened to you when you were angry. We are of the One and we have loved and protected you forever and ever.
“You have been very busy, dear member of the One. You have been very brave and have learned many lessons. You have helped and loved and listened. Do not be concerned if you have not understood all that you have heard. The words will rest in your heart and mind like small seeds thrown upon fertile soil. The Truth has the tone of a pure bell and will return to your ears when you need to recall it. We are very proud of you!”
“Remember us, Dear One.
Remember this place, and most of all,
always remember the child that you are
deep within your Self.”
The child is asleep now. She sleeps safely beneath the tree somewhere between the lands of Faerie and Spirit. But, I am awake. I am awake to the child that lives within me and to the mysteries that she has remembered for me.
Thank you dear child. I will stay awake to the truths that you have saved for me.
But, when I do sleep, I will visit YOU.
