Jumping (13 page)

“Ah-ha moments are our favorites,” he laughs. “Nudges are the easiest. Remember the Chinese fortune cookie you got once that said, ‘Imagination rules the world’? Nudges can be that simple—a nudge to creativity. In a way, ah-ha moments are easier than coincidences or synchronicities, which require the coming together of people, places, animals, objects. Those can be a challenge to arrange. You know, like a book on a shelf right where you'll see it right when you need to, or even falling from the shelf in front of you?

“Or running into someone in the right moment—think about all the planning that goes into the success of that. When you have one of those, you'll often think back to the steps before that ‘chance’ meeting, amazed at all it took—bus being late, traffic just so, et cetera, et cetera—all to have your paths cross at just that moment.

“Ah-ha moments, on the other hand, can also require a lot, but they're more singular, with internal shifts and readiness on your part that defy logical analysis. No one can fully explain why that A led to that B for that person. Ah-ha moments need a little miracle. Even we, who help arrange them, can't explain it. Suddenly, a light goes on, and you have a new, enhanced understanding. You're changed, in a personally powerful way.”

He looks at me. “You know what I'm talking about. You've had them.”

I look at him with a question mark on my face. I know I must've had them, but in that moment I can't recall a single one.

“For you to meet Reggie, for example. Coincidence
and
ah-ha moment. You knew each other, but you formally met on a blind date, something you always said you'd never go on. You went because your boss arranged it, so it was harder to say no. It was on your birthday, too, so there was a reason for a group celebration to be organized. And hers was just a few days after yours. Harder, again, to say no. Reggie was friends with your boss' daughter—a lot went into that set of connections to make them become part of your ‘coincidence.’ There were a few false starts—then finally it was scheduled.

“This kind of wheels-moving-within-wheels process is almost always behind it when Earth people come together in decision points in your lives. It's not chance. The ah-ha moment was when you two met. You both knew when you met, before either of you had said a word to the other.”

“Knew what?” I ask, struggling to remember the details of that moment. “That something significant had happened?”

Then I remembered it. I couldn't disagree. Reggie and I had just looked at each other and known that we would be together, were meant to be together. It
had
felt magical. I sit back, humbled by all the time and effort that had gone into making that moment.

“Thank you,” I said, never meaning it more. I thought for a moment, then had to ask, “These ah-ha moments sound like they involve a lot of work and worry. Why are they your favorites?”

“Because we meet there. You and us,” he gestures, tapping my chest, then tapping his. “It's tangible—you feel it, we feel it. We're charged by it. These are moments of such alignment, with self, other, and All That Is. That's happiness. We've been able to do something. So these moments are a kind of success for all involved, no matter where the relationship goes. And we never judge it by Earthly standards; it has its own meaning and purpose. And that part is up to you, not us. We just try to create the opportunities, the moments. I will say there's some cheering that goes on here, when we're successful.” He smiles broadly. “It's a great job we have, honestly. None better.”

I have to laugh now, shaking my head. Who'd have thought we had all these beings, these partners focused on us and the state of our spirit? There
they
are, working so hard to provide the proof we're always seeking. There
we
are looking for it while overlooking it, confused about what we should we looking for, wanting miracles, not expecting the miracles we're getting. He's saying what to watch for, and I think it will take some practice to see it as mattering among all the other glamor and noise going on around us.

“That's where you were—caught in the middle,” Guy says, reading my mind. “So you jumped. Every such deviation from the path creates the scars, the bruises, the cuts, the breaks, the bumps that signify a life lived—not denied, endured or handed over to others for the living. Your jumping really did set you free. What will you do now?”

I stare at him, speechless yet again. He's asked me the very question I've wanted to ask him, that I desperately hoped he would answer for me. It sends me reeling, this reversal. Shouldn't he have the answer, in this all-knowing place? What will I do now?

He's enjoying himself. “All that to say, it's not often someone comes to us, especially in the way you have. If people are just existing, looking for their next distraction, they're not trying to reach us and we can't reach them. They certainly wouldn't come here, gathering their Team for a mind-altering performance, such as we're giving now. They might have one to two guides for the rare, maybe even once in a lifetime opportunity to be reachable (surgery, death of a loved one, war).

“None of us could remember another time someone did this. Why would
you
need an answer from
us
?”

I stop and think about this for a moment. I mean, it had seemed like a big deal to me—to make the jump. But if it's a big deal even to them, that's something to wrap my head around.

“Well, more people are approaching us in other ways nowadays, what with the shift and all,” Lynette comments. She had been sitting quietly, listening. “You know, like in what they call lucid dreaming, or in meditation. They come seeking us now, rather than sitting passively, waiting for something to happen.”

“Yes, but not the Void,” Uche says.

“No, not the Void,” Kahil says, looking at me with respect.

“By jumping, you've asked for your larger story. Like the Aborigines say, it's always stalking you. But now you're stalking it. You want to be part of your larger story. So, we've reminded you of some of the things you had to forget in order to be able to live a life. We've kept you spiritually anchored here while you're there, on Earth. And we've done our best to keep you spiritually guided, directed, protected. Loved.”

The veil is being lifted, the boundaries thinned, and I see what they've been doing. So much falls into place. Now it becomes my job, using my own discernment and creative powers, to see if I can do here what they've been doing over there.
Help
.
Serve
. Whoa. Of course.

Guy continues to talk, but its as though the words are silent, or in an unknown language. I can't make them out.

He sees my face and stops. Everyone does.

His voice is clear in my head, almost a whisper. “It's a
point of magic
moment! You're at a point, and you have a choice—not just a choice about one thing in your life. You are looking at making a choice about everything. The
purpose of your life
. It's all coming together and we never know what's going to happen next—this can go beyond even our wildest imaginings, lead to the most unexpected outcomes. Here we go. . . magic!”

“L
ET'S TAKE A BREAK
,” Duncan Robert says. It's late afternoon, and Miles and I have been stunned into silence for a long while now. It feels unnatural to recover our voices, our sense of being, even. I feel as if we've been outside of time, as we listened, some place of suspended animation. We have to step back into ourselves again. Even though I've been taking notes the whole time—I make sure of this by looking down at my note book, and I've covered pages with my writing—I don't remember it. My right hand could testify, however. It aches from the workout.

Duncan Robert asks us what we're feeling and thinking. “You know, it's the first time I've said it all aloud,” he says, smiling. “It is quite a story. I don't know what it sounds like to you.”

I talk first, not knowing I'm going to, as I stare out the open hotel window, the breeze cool on my face. Miles is fixing us all glasses of ice water.

“It reminds me of being hugged by Amma,” I turn around to look at them. Seeing their blank looks, I say, “You know, Amma, the ‘hugging saint,’ from India. I was covering it for my editor, when she came to Boston. Her website says she has hugged more than 30 million worldwide, even the Queen of England. And practically every celebrity you can think of. I had no idea what I was in for. She's quite an organization, with quite a traveling entourage.

“Thousands of people come, you're given a number and a group. When your group is called, you join a double line of people, in chairs, gradually moving forward, like musical chairs. Up ahead, she's dressed all in white, sitting on a sort of low throne, hugging people, one after another—families with babies, the old and the infirm, young people, people speaking different languages. Her attendants move you to your knees a few feet from her, asking you what language you speak. You're sort of dropped into a tight group of frontline attendants, dressed in yellow robes, who are plunging people into Amma's lap and then dragging them out, giving everyone some rose petals and, strangely, a Hershey's Kiss.

“I didn't know whether to laugh or run, feeling sort of claustrophobic in the crowd. Suddenly, it's my turn, and I'm thrust into her arms, with mine moved by the attendants to the arms of her chair, so that I'm not the one doing the hugging, I'm the one being hugged. It's not a joint venture. I'm enveloped by something so much bigger and deeper and more profound than I am. Someone with a much larger story.

“And then I'm hearing her say, ‘My daughter, my daughter, my daughter,’ over and over in my ear, as I'm being hugged by the most loving presence I've ever been around. I remember the permeating scent of roses, which were everywhere. And then falling out of the hug, as her attendants pulled me back to put the next person in. It's quick, but not; intense, but not; profound, but not.

“And now you're a person who's been hugged by Amma. You're not the same you as before. You know you're better for it—you feel that. But exactly how, you couldn't say. Just better. I was charged by that for days after. I'd gotten a picture of her—there's a whole bazaar of merchants at the back of the hall, selling all the memorabilia you can imagine—and even looking at the picture, I could feel the energy of her, the power of her. And it was just good. It was just love. It made me smile. That's what your experience of the Void made me return to.”

Duncan Robert nods appreciatively.

Miles, sitting on the couch, sipping his water, says to Duncan Robert, “Your fall, that sense of falling, is what I returned to. From so many dreams that I startled out of, afraid to hit bottom. So many times I imagined what it must have been like for you—my stomach dropping, knees weak, breath gone. It was like having a fear of heights while standing on the ground. It's falling, but it's flying, too. Exhilarating, but nothing to orient you, to hold on to. Without that, who and what are you? Something, or someone, else.

“Your conversation with your team is like that for me, too. Like a fall—it moves so fast, and there's such depth. I wanted to say, ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute,’ like Babe says to me all the time. Let's go back to birth, or some beginning place, let's explain it from there. Show me how all these connections developed, how they grew. Let me see how meaning and purpose emerged, so I can understand what it's all about, what it's all for. It was a lot to take in, if that's what I've managed to do.” He pauses, looking up at Duncan Robert. “What's it like for you now, in the telling?”

“Like it happened yesterday. And I'm remembering more details, rather than losing them, as I thought I would. It's fresher than if it happened yesterday. And I feel so close to them all,” he says, smiling and looking as fresh as he did this morning when he opened the door to us.

“Are you in regular touch with them?” Miles asks.

“I feel their presence constantly. I wake up with them, I fall asleep with them. It's not like they're right there, in my business. It's more like I feel the force of their love and support, as real as my head on the pillow or my foot on the floor. Or like your Amma presence, it sounds like.”

“But do they talk to you? Do you have conversations with them?” I ask.

“Yes, I do,” Duncan Robert smiles. “Do you with Amma?”

“Well,” I fumble, caught by his question, wondering now why I haven't tried. “No. I guess I didn't think to.”

He laughs. “It's okay. It's a different kind of experience. Just wondered.”

“Did you hear
me
talking to you?” Miles asks, looking at him, clearly thinking about all those dark nights after Duncan Robert jumped.

Duncan Robert looks back. “Yes, I did. I heard your questions and your cries and even your accusations. Did you hear me answering?”

“No. I didn't,” Miles says. “Maybe I wasn't really listening.”

“Well,” Duncan Robert smiles, “sometimes I think you were answering yourself, for me. Other times, it wasn't really me you were talking to. Sometimes it was you talking to you, finding out if you could really go on, if you wanted to. I realize how hard it must have been, after I jumped. I felt it, too. I don't think either of us realized how hard it would be, we were so caught up in the idea of the jump. I was so eager to find something, anything, that made me feel real.

“When Babe came, though, I felt there was a way you could hear me, through her. She was new to it all and open to learning everything, so she was receptive to hearing my voice, too, incorporating it into everything else she was learning. She didn't reject intuitive flashes that came to her or sudden ideas I nudged her towards. After all, she wasn't carrying the burden of my jump the way you were. So, she was often the bridge for me to you. And sometimes, she was the bridge from you to me. Sometimes, when you talked to her about me and the jump, I could feel as if I was getting the gift of your understanding. And maybe even your forgiveness.”

Miles looks at his hands and takes a minute to clear his throat of the emotion lodged there. “I was angry at you. Irrationally, I know. I just missed you so damn much. And it almost came as a surprise to me. I thought I was so cool—in my acceptance and support of your decision. I thought that's where I really was. So, what a surprise, when I cried like a baby, and not just once, either. I might as well have been where Silvia or Reggie were, trying to talk you out of it, asking you not to do it. But, honestly, you don't need my forgiveness. I should be asking for yours. I did work my way through it, though, in my own weird way.”