It’ll be published soon. Process,,, processes. Underway, and ongoing.

So here’s a taste,,, the first ten pages of my new novel, set in Northern New Mexico. Characters from my earlier novel ‘The Rug: Step Into the Magic’, join together to follow an impulse and attraction to a formation of stones that looks like an elephant and looks like a priestess and has lived among legends of a magic that the friends have finally chosen to test for themselves.

The Elephant and The Priestess

Choose The Magic

overture

Twelve times they had tried it. Unbelievable. So certain, so certain in the beginning, before the first attempt. Less certain now. But, nevertheless, somehow,,, certain. All the elements are aligned. Each step has been followed, each instruction. Done as has been done, as nearly as can be imagined from the answers that have come. Sometime, they knew, this had been a passageway, and it had been used often. In that sometime, whenever it had been. They were certain of it.

Clues that were so much more than clues, because they caused so much vibration in the body as they were heard and read and fathomed. Not just understood; these hints and sparks wanted to be fathomed, in a deeper part of a person than where understanding takes place. Their bones became sound chambers when the clues were read. Sounding rods. Sound amplifiers. Sound chambers. Echoes and beats of sound. They knew in their bones, in the hollows that their bones formed in their chests and in the cradles of their pelvis bones, they knew, were certain, that they had found the passage, its entrance, its exit. Its portal. Its infinite cosmic multi-dimensional portal. The best words they had found to describe it, as they fathomed it to be.

They would try for the thirteenth time. Face the opening between the two stone formations that had held this place sacred and secret for uncounted rotations of the galaxy. Resting in the hillside, clothed with glowing greened-greyed blankets of mosses and lichens, red brown dry needles from the pinyons and junipers, small white and yellow blossomed plants with orange-black butterflies.

The heavy large rounded boulder stone on the left, supported by foundation on several smaller sibling stones barely visible through the grasses and shrubs under the trees. The large round stone that formed a feeling and a vision of the stomach and torso, with the smaller rounded stone a little askew on the top of it, the elongated and funneled stone lodged on the right side of it, the feeling as if being here beside a seated forest-floor elephant. And on the right side of the gap that was there to the right of the elephant — the gap that allowed a view between the larger stone formations, the slight suggestion of four, perhaps five vertical stones leaning against one another as if purposely arranged, with their left edges outward and their right edges each hidden behind the back of the next slab, stones that could perhaps slide in the hillside — on the right side of that view stood the right portal stone formation, more surface exposed where the lichens clung to the vertical angle, standing like a tall, robed priestess, two-and-a-half people tall, her hair of grasses and Indian paintbrush falling from the top onto both shoulders. More grey-blue lichens clinging, below the shoulders, down in folds like a robe, fully to the ground. Suggestions of uneven breasts under the robe below the shoulders. A beginning of the shape of hips where the stones met the forest floor. Standing immovable, as if a body trunk rooted by its legs deep into the Earth. Or having begun an emerging from the Earth and then chosen to stop. The Priestess upright on the right of the gap and the Elephant seated on the left of the gap, this gap that was open when one really wanted to look, to this potential portal that they had been drawn to for so long.

For so long. And now, for the thirteenth time they would gather inside of themselves,,, each as though a part of the other, in their group of three they called The Triad. Gather inside of themselves as though they were one singular holder and generator, one transducer, one dynamo, one dynamic heart. Gather and create a vibration among them that was their dynamic golden heart intention to pass through this portal for the ultra-dimensional treasure that they were certain thrived and pulsed with cosmic energies there on the other side. To know their own treasures. To know the treasures that belong to all who experience life. Experience consciousness. Are expressions of consciousness. In form or in waves. All of it vibrations, frequencies, waves of the feelings that have been called divine, that have been called love, that have been called the many names of the Creator Love. A physical step through that portal and into the dimensions on its other side would allow expansions of the consciousness of that love as it has been expressing in individuated dynamics and flows on the plane of the usually experienced Earth.

From those expansions would come the choosing of the flow that would follow,,, that would express further. These three in their triad knew that they had prepared and they had found their way to this place, to the elephant that had seated itself beside the priestess who had projected herself from the Earth. The portal, the Elephant and The Priestess.

sonata

They began their Tone, their Triad Tone, voices produced from deep breaths of the air that yes, even the air in this place, felt sacred and charged and alive saying to them that it had always been alive. Voices with air and the sound from the cosmos in the chest, rising as if through the high-heart center then upward to thrum the fibers in the throat and set the frequencies into motion to resonate in the chambers in the head. Holding those frequencies inside closed mouths, inside the chambers of the body, finding the resonance then with the frequencies each one of the Triad with the other two.
It was the sound. It was The Tone, to be found and felt and held and amplified in their bodies’ chambers. Held and sounded and resounded with each succeeding breath within each of them.
The clues had led them to know that The Tone would begin the opening of the sliding portal stones. Some one of the vertical edges of what appeared through the mosses and ferns to be stone slabs standing upright and leaning against one another would move, said the clues. It was left up to them, The Triad, to sound The Tone together, to find together the frequency and to sound it in their chambers in their heads and in their chests and in their bones and in their hearts. Sound it and hold it with their deepening breathing until it could present the frequency to this sacred place for the duration that would set the moving stones into motion.

She was certain that the others were standing with their eyes closed as she was, but she felt the muscles in her legs and hips wanting her to lower her body into a squat. She squatted. Slowly, while sounding her thrum in her throat. And she wanted to open her eyes. She opened them. She lowered herself slowly and felt immediate response through her from the Earth. Her arms spread to her sides and turned her palms downward, feeling, receiving, more from the Earth. Birth. Earth. Receiving and giving at the same time, simultaneous waves of creation energies flowing forward downward into the Earth and feeling responding returns and flowing again, all in the same moving moments, progressing and spiraling stronger, through her hands, and up her arms,,, vibrating her feet and through her legs. Earth. Vibrating the Earth. Earth vibrating her.

From her lower position her eyes saw the bases of the standing stone slabs, thick, heavy against each other in the forest floor; the thickness of the priestess torso of stone, the rounded weight of the elephant stones, the waves of greens and greys and browns and flickers of oranges and yellows and whites of the nestling forest. The Tone in her was quieter but still resonating rhythmic with her breath, in the chambers of bone within her face behind and below her eyes. The energies were strong in her hands, feeling the heart and rhythm and breath of the Earth.

She saw his body standing next to hers, on her left side, that he had begun to raise himself onto the front parts of his feet, that his arms and hands were floating in front of him with the elbows downward and the palms toward the stone structures in front of them.

He felt the Tone in his chest and throat and that he must push on his feet to raise his body upward, turning his hands toward the stones and keeping a loose flowing possibility in his arms, relaxed but knowing their purpose, feeling the reciprocating flows that had begun, as though he and the stones were producing the Tone together using his body’s throat and lungs to give sound to the vibrations. His eyes opened now, and he lowered himself with his feet, and his knees bent forward very slowly. He saw the stones and the forest in front of him, and in his awareness saw that she was squatting down to the right of him. He felt that he now must straighten his legs again and slowly raise onto his toes again, knew that he would be repeating these movements. His eyes were focused forward on the standing slabs, the moss-filled crevices between them, as the Tone was now following the focus and flowing into the crevices. His awareness saw that she to his left had begun to move as if in a dance, her torso turning on stationary feet, slowly from side to side, her knees bending and turning first to one side then to the other.

Her arms were up from her shoulders, weaving in the air in front of her and above her, right arm bent relaxed and weaving high when her torso turned to the right, left arm and hand passing across in front of her chest to the right then raising and circling up and above her head to the left, leading her torso in its turn to the left, the right arm now lowering to follow the torso and to pass across in front to the left side, then rise again when the turning flowed again to the right.

In her dance she felt her breath following the sound of her Tone, increasing the Tone outward as she moved in turn to each side, letting the breath and the Tone soften and move inward, weaving, weaving, as her torso and arms reached the farthest part of their turn to each side, then breath and Tone outward and louder as she passed the focus of her across the space between her and the portal that she knew was there, wanting to open, between the Elephant and the Priestess.

It was there in their feet now, in the bones and muscles of their feet, in the bones in their legs and they could feel it each in each muscle that turned and moved beside the bones, in their thighs, in their hips, in the cradles of their hip bones and up the steps of the bones of their spines, to spread through lungs,,, hearts,,, shoulders,,, arms, to sound deep in their hearts and in their heads.

They could suddenly feel that their tones Each Tone was this time a perfect harmony with the others, this harmony that had only now begun in this thirteenth time,,,. They felt it now among them, waves through them as if together, that they had not felt before, in their throats on their tongues the taste of the stones, sounding in through their heads and chests the one star song of the stones and they could feel the stones with the Earth breathing with them in their rhythms. Ringing now in their heads and bones and in every finger and toe and certain in their eyes, the ringing harmony in layers in harmony with that stand of standing portal thick stone slabs, as their eyes were now aware, that the lichens between the standing slabs were wavering and shaking, some falling to the needle-covered floor, where could be seen in that same awareness the movement of the brown floor grasses and stones, the fallen mosses and lichens as they fell, as the slabs rotated each on some unseen axis.
The slabs in their harmony opening the portal, two slabs on the left near and a little behind the elephant guardian sliding their unseen inner vertical edges to curl backward, into the hillside behind them. The three slabs on the right sliding their visible front edges forward and curving out from the hillside, just behind the priestess guardian, to open the way between.

Sounds now were felt and understood. She who had lowered her birth center to the Earth knew that she would now raise and move to the opening and she began. He whose hands had faced the stones and raised and lowered on his feet, moved by energies felt, moved them now toward the opening. She whose hands and arms had defined arcs and winds and sent them swirling frequencies across the stones stepped in the rhythm of the three of them.

The darkness of black that was black black darkness in that opening was the black of all colors being black inside of them as all colors collected inside of them, that as the three felt themselves in and through the opening there came a feeling that was light in them, it was lightness, their feet and legs were no longer heavy, their bodies were not heavy, their arms nor heads were heavy. They saw light inside them. Light. Inside them. And they saw light outside of them. Light in all that they saw.

They no longer needed walking but they knew where and then that they were moving. Awareness was in their eyes that they saw in their chests and behind their eyes, saw but knew the sparkles of what they had known as air moving in front of them, making woven links of sparkle and glittering threads to draw as though attract them, their new who they were, through the glow that they had entered, felt the vibrating as part of, had become vibrating as part of. No uncertainty now. Only The Knowing.

Moving now, somewhere,,, it must be, there, must be there somewhere through the portal, through where the slabs had opened. Moving somewhere, more like becoming somewhere, some new where, becoming the vibration of somewhere different from where they were, though where they were was still included and in them. Melding to somewhere because vibration experienced became somehow different, but all was still included. If they chose that. They knew they could choose.

She who had served as Mother connection to Mother Earth felt a wish to feel communication with the others, feel communication among their Triad as they had done and established so often and she opened that feeling inside of her to include her sensing of the other two. Seeing them the other two with her eyes was not as she had known it before, all was light variations, variations of light colors and densities and changing in the eyes that she was most accustomed to, but she knew inside her that she had now established a focus on the other two and her old eyes began to understand how the light variations and densities reacted to that focus, to any such focus. Her new eyes, her new way of seeing, though she knew that she had used it before but not like this, she began to understand, was of the third eye, the pineal gland, so often called the third eye, the all-seeing eye, inside the head seeing more beyond using the inner awareness and focus and receiving, also focus and projection, densities and vibrations of light and its frequencies and variations. And sound. There was sound in here too. Each density of light and each color variation sounded in her, as if in her upper chest and throat and head, even around her head and chest she felt the sound of her focus.

She felt herself turn her physical sense toward the other two and her old eyes were aware of the density and color differences there as her new-found newly-remembered all-seeing vision included the two and the sounds changing inside her and the layers of vibrations of light inside her adapted to who they are now the other two. She felt herself project her thought into their densities, her thought of asking “Shall we continue? Shall we return now and understand from there, or shall we continue this experience forward?”

Light and color and densities around the two changed, lightened, and darkened,,, flashed,,, melded,,, formed waves,,, flashed and melded,,, and waves expanded toward her and she knew the feeling and felt the sounds of a want to return to outside the portal, to understand in their more-familiar way of understanding. The two were on her left and the portal then behind them and she was aware of turning left toward the two and they turning toward her and toward the portal which seemed to be floating there where they had left it with no visible floor or walls just a denser part of all of the light.
They moved toward it with no feeling of walking. It opened, sensing their intention, they knew. They were aware that they had not been aware of the portal closing behind them, knowing then that such openings and closings were different on this side, in this realm, not so heavy as with condensed and compressed particles that had weight in gravity. Here were more waves than particles.

They felt the density then again, as they passed into and then through that denser part of the light. Felt again the body of weight and gravity and motion from the walking. With more seeing of each other with those old eyes, wondrous as they are, undeniably different from the seeing they had just relearned. Walking a few more steps away from the elephant and the priestess. Now came the talking again.

But it had to resume with only sounds.

She who had moved her arms and torso as if dancing with winds let “Mmmm.,,,ohhh,,,,” come from her, smiling her head slowly from side to side as she looked at the others looking at her. She who had neared the Earth moved her head down then up and “Mmmm,,, mmmm,,,” came from her, and smiling too. He who had motioned his arms in front of him released “Hahhhh,,,,” and he smiled as his eyes closed. Then opened, and the three were looking smiling at one another not wanting to stop the smiling and the laughing began while they continued laughing and saw that they all three were lowering themselves to sit on the ground facing one another.

Through all the smiles she who had waved her arms became able to form some words “What,,,what,,, “ motioning her head to look from one to the other, “,,, what can we possible say,,, about,,, possibly,,, what can we possibly say about that?!?!” Which brought short laughs from each of the others and he of the forward and upward arm motions added “What,,,” also motioning his head to look from one to the other “,,, yeah,,, what can possibly be said,,, now?” She of the Earth connection also turning her head as if to say no “No there’s no way, now words, hah, I can’t talk words,,, now words, no words, no words now,,,hah, shouldn’t even be trying. No words for,,,for that.” There was only smiling and looking.

Waving arms woman managed to say “It was more than I poss,,, I mean,,, way more than,,, I think,,, I possibly could have imagined,,, anything like that. I had maybe imagined a little something like that, but not ev,,, no,,, no, not even close to what that was.” Forward arms man “No, no, nothing,,, I’ve seen some, sometimes when I’ve meditated, some light fields, some lights and colors moving, you know, I’m sure you’ve seen that too. But nothing like what that was. Nothing like that at all.” And Earth connection woman said, slowly, with distinct sounds, “I,,, we,,, probably have maybe talked about what it might be like over there, through there, in there,,, but no, we never did really ever come close to,,, I guess we each might have expected something very different from anything we’ve ever known before, but, yeah, well, that’s what we got. I know for me,,, huge. Huge difference. Huge,,, like an expansion…. And I don’t think that we’ve possibly felt all of it yet, not yet. It’s gonna be in me for a while more, some days probably, before I really feel settled with it. Yes. A big expansion.”

Waving arms woman, “Yes, absolutely, for me too.” Some quiet then, among them. All were looking at the small area of forest floor that was there between them, where they had just allowed themselves to sit, to rest, to be. Then she said “Yolanda, did you feel any,,, well,,, what do you think,,, or feel,,, was different about how we did it this time? I mean, why did it,,, what made it all work this time?” Yolanda Earth Woman looked up. She looked, just looked at the other woman. Then she looked at the man. The three looking at each other now. “Feelings. Knowing. Knowing and feelings. It took us time to know each other enough to feel each other enough. Feel each other enough to make it work.”

After some moments, the other woman said “That’s probably right.” And a few moments more “Yes, that feels so to me too.” A few more moments,,, then “Newby, what made it work for you? Or, maybe better,,, for you, why did it work now for us?” Forward arms man said “Well, I’m sure, I’m sure that’s right. Yeah, the feelings. We have known each other for a while, a little while, since you” he nodded to Yolanda “came to my house and told us about the ley lines under the rug, under the house. Then we all got interested in this place and have been together for doing,,, well, because we wanted, and want, to do this project. And yeah, then we went through the motions, the movements that we learned of, did those together all those times now, here, twelve times, doing those together. That must have, yeah, couldn’t have helped but make us feel closer together, like doing it as one system, or one being, doing all those motions together.
And so this time, we really got it,,, got those feelings, got them going together, felt them all weaving in together.”

“Right” said arm wave woman. “I’m sure that’s right. Doing those motions so many times together really made them work. All energetically in sync, in the same frequency or something like that. Did either of you ever think how those motions are like the chakras, or not ‘like’ the chakras but seem to be coming from, no,,, more like giving attention to, the chakra areas?” The others were looking at her, slight raising of eyebrows, a bit of head motion to one side. Then noticeably wanting her to explain. “It seems to me that you, Yolanda, being down close to the Earth in that squat position is like giving attention to the three lower chakras, connecting them with the Earth, with all those forces and purposes that those three centers are about and their grounding senses and energies. Then Newby, that part that you did, moving energy forward, outward, out and up, with the lowering at your knees and raising up and directing out,,, that seems to me to have to do with what the heart and throat centers are about. The upper heart center too, now that we know about that one. So three chakras there too. Then what I was doing with arms going up and over and around was connected with the third eye and crown chakras, you know, all around us and above us, going out and coming in. And since there seem to be groups of three chakras, you guys each had three, then the chakras that are above our bodies too, above our physical bodies and into those other dimensions. That gives me three too”, she pointed as she spoke, “Third eye, crown, and all those above.”

Silence,,, until Yolanda said, in her slow and melodic way of talking, of actually saying each word, as if she were honoring each word for helping her, “I’m not so familiar with chakras but I do know about energies. I feel energies. You know, like what’s called energy fields. I usually see them too. And if I think about it, I think you might be right Freya. I was down near the Earth with some of my centers. And I was also knowing about what you were doing, both of you two, seeing what was all around you and around me. All those other times that we did these motions, there was something going on around us, but this last time, it was much brighter and clearer than any time before. And I could see them kind of sparking in with each other. I think we must have found the right rhythms with each other.” She paused a little, looked at each of the other two, then, “Maybe weren’t self-conscious any longer and that freed us. Doing it twelve times before. We were beyond being self-conscious.” Slow nodding smiles from the other two.

They each moved a little then, where they sat, relaxing more into their bodies again, feeling the sun. Each was looking away from their group, finding the world again, reforming their new worlds. After some time, Freya said “You’re right Yolanda. It will be some time before we have really taken all of that into us, each of us. I know it will for me.” She looked into the eyes of each of her companions. “Shall we go back to camp for a few days, stay there a few days and see how we feel each morning? If we want to go in again? Or should we go back home and wait longer?”

Yolanda and Newby looked at each other and Yolanda raised her chin toward Newby, pushing her lips slightly forward. He nodded his thanks to her, then said “I’d like to stay in the camp for a few days. Maybe two. Maybe three. Just see how we feel, yeah, like you say, each morning see how we feel about going in again. Maybe we’ll know after a couple of days that we need to go home and give it all more time. But if we all feel like going in again after a day or two, it would be good to still be here nearby.”

“Okay, and that’s what I would like to do too,” Yolanda did not hesitate. Slow, distinct speaking, “Same reasons. Our camp is a good one and we can be here in the nearness of this place and its spirit in the day and in the night and then we will know more about us, and even if the place wants us to be here longer.” She waited for Freya to speak, but then said “One of my ancestors said it is always good to wait three days for a big decision. But maybe we will know before three days. We made our decision to be here and we came here and I feel that it’s important to stay a while longer.”

“I like that too,” Freya said, bright as the sun. “Yes. Good. That’s what I want too.” She looked at Yolanda, then at Newby, and back to Yolanda. “We can say that we’ll stay for at least three days. But yeah, we might know before then that we want to go in again,,, or that we want to go home and have more time. And yes,” she looked toward the forest and the stones and the ground and the sky. “I want to feel for this place, feel for the spirit here. Feel for a sure acceptance of us. That’s ,,, important.” She saw the others nodding agreeing.

“Yeah,” Newby joined in, speaking slowly. “It feels good that we’ve been able to be here and do what we’ve done so far. And it’ll be good to pay attention to this place,,,” he stood his body up stretched his arms out to the sides palms up, “,, feel for any signs,,, that it could give us,,, that we’re still welcome. That the place is okay with us being here,,, with us doing what we want to do here.” He looked at the others, “I’m feeling good.”

They looked at each other, sensed that the sun on them now was especially good and that each of them would like more of it.