Star Woman in Love (9 page)

* * * *

We caught up with Cassandra and Oscar three days later, at Bobby’s Bar. We wanted to observe their interaction and check on their ability to read etheric signs and communicate with the Earth. Symbols and messages would be sent their way to test their skills in deciphering them when their auras were merged. Cassandra and Oscar were too engrossed in one another to suspect our presence and the fact that they were being investigated. Separately, however, they had sensed us on various occasions in the past. But since the moment they had met, they were far too preoccupied with each other to bother with their spirit guides. That was good.

After a quick pint for the road, they headed for Greyfriars’ Cemetery, the site they were about to explore together. Given its reputation as one of the most haunted grounds in Scotland, this may have sounded like a bleak place for the pair to visit. However, it also happens to be one of the Earth’s power-spots and it’s ripe with sacred knowledge for those who have the heart to see it. Cassandra had often explored the kirk and its graveyard, collecting and interpreting symbols. Oscar had a strong grasp of the Silent Language. Their combined skills might give their visit to this place a different meaning. Their choice of a venue for their date was impeccable. We couldn’t have selected a better place ourselves. These two were starting to make our life easy.

They walked through the gate hand in hand, like Hansel and Gretel. They seldom let go of each other’s grip in the early days. They still had not kissed once, and it would take ages before their relationship could eventually take on sexual connotations. Their bond at that moment was one of perfect innocence and potentiality: two powerful qualities. Cassandra showed Oscar the sights: the Kirk, the graveyard and its vaults. This was a place of death. Many people had been buried there, bodies above bodies, over hundreds of years. The tourists in the kirkyard were feeling ‘the creeps’ that sunny and breezy afternoon. Our two friends, of course, were unfazed by the other visitors’ lower emotions. Love was their armour against negativity. And they were full of love in April 1993.

Cassandra and Oscar were not afraid of death. They understood it was a transformational signpost. They revealed their shared point of view on physical mortality in the graveyard. Such a notion is always the mark of a true initiate. They were now studying a big carved slab on the ground. It was the top of a sarcophagus which had been unearthed from the old kirk. Archaeologists were still baffled as to the meaning of the carvings on this stone. The symbols were marked by simple, almost primitive traits. They looked like Viking sun compasses at the bottom, while the dials at the top were reminiscent of a Celtic cross.

Cassandra was adamant that this had been the lid of the tomb of a Knight of the Temple of Solomon. It dated back to the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th century. However, she didn’t know the true purpose of the slab. As they stood in front of the grave absorbing every carved detail, the secret symbols started to interact with their auras. As they did, their astral bodies were projected like holograms to the Great White Lodge in Shambhala where we, the Ascended Masters, had gathered.

Among those of us in attendance was William Middleton, the very Knight Templar whose physical body had been buried under the magical slab. He had been summoned to the Hall to see what was happening. His tomb was an early experiment in teleportation which had allowed him to transfer his astral body to Shambhala straight after his burial under the slab. The Knights of the Temple of Solomon were proficient in establishing contact with the etheric fourth dimension. The novelty celebrated by the eminent audience, however, had to do with Cassandra and Oscar. Due to the purity of their joint frequency and the power of the love they felt for each other, the Twins, as we called them here, had made a brief appearance among us in the Lodge, as we had anticipated.

* * * *

“Oscar, my darling, you’re here at last! Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you for the last two hours!”

I turned to look at the American woman who was shouting and waving from the other side of the graveyard. She had brought our idyllic encounter with the Templar Stone to an abrupt stop, like a crash-landing in a wasteland. You seemed happy to see her. Still, I thought that there was something dissonant, discrepant about her. She looked older than she sounded to begin with. And she moved with a painful lack of grace. Her redeeming feature was her jovial appearance, a frequent characteristic of seriously overweight people. She lumbered towards us with a clumsy pace. I would have never associated you with someone so unglamorous. As I was starting to discover, your life was full of surprising factors.

“Marina, sorry, you know how mindless I can be,” you said. “I got caught up earlier on I didn’t know how to contact you. Then it totally slipped my mind. And I had arranged to meet Cassandra for lunch... and now we’re here.”

Marina, as her accent gave away, was from Boston. She was in her late thirties or perhaps early forties. Her unnaturally blonder-than-blond hair reached the middle of her back and was in bad need of shampooing, let alone conditioning. She wore Jesus sandals under a multicoloured dress that resembled a tunic or a sarong. The outfit was very unflattering to her ample figure. She had a ring at each chunky finger, on both hands. And she suffered from eczema. From the ego-stance of my flawless skin, shiny locks and perfect figure, my first reaction was one of pity. She was formerly a typist who then became a personal assistant: yours. You two had met five years previously, at the start of your artistic career. She had worked magic to help you promote your work in Massachusetts. Then she took your exhibition to New York. The rest was history. When she finally reached you, she hugged you.

“This is my best friend, Marina,” you said. “And this is Cassandra, my new friend.”

She scanned the very soul of me. “Oscar’s friends are my friends,” she said.

Something was out of alignment in the situation. The affection she was displaying towards me came across as phoney. I knew she wanted to keep you all for herself, like a mother wants to protect a baby from growing up. There was also something out of balance in your interaction with each other. A co-dependency which didn’t seem very healthy from the first time I saw it in action. You were behaving like a guilty schoolboy who’s been found playing truant. She was the benevolent headmistress ever ready to turn a blind eye. Puzzling stuff.

We left the stone and went to sit on one of the benches. We could see an area which had been cordoned off from the public. Inside that precinct there was a lot of commotion: film scenes were to be shot there later that day and throughout the night. People moved to and fro, carrying cameras and lighting equipment. They’d pitched a big marquee with changing rooms, a hair and make-up point for actors and extras, and a chill-out area. Marina pointed to the set. “I’ve already been to see the lovely Layla.” 

She said that name as if she were pushing a dagger through my heart. As though she wanted to hurt me and rejoiced in my pain. I didn’t know why back then. At the time I think I assumed she felt threatened by me. I wasn’t too far off the mark.

You went to talk to someone from the film crew to arrange for me to go in, to see the set and meet the cast. Layla McIntyre was the star of the movie and you personal friend; but Alex Montgomery, the celebrated film director, would be there too. You thought it’d be cool if we’d all meet and talk about the Templars on one of their ancient training grounds.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes. Marina, don’t slag me off while I’m gone!”, you said.

“The boy’s completely unpredictable, I’m telling you,” Marina said. “Says he’s going for ten minutes and may come back in ten hours... But maybe not this time because you’re here, and he likes a pretty lady!” 

She didn’t laugh: she roared. Was she trying to be nice to me or to insult me? She went on to investigate the whereabouts and every detail of how you and I had met. I gave her a glossed-over account. She kept insisting that you were a bit of a skirt-chaser. I didn’t like to hear that. My dislike of her had become fully blown by then.

“I hope you have a strong disposition, my dear,” she told me, “and a firm sense of self. Oscar is a bit of a Casanova, you see, and the champion of heart-breaking.” 

I blushed and hoped she didn’t notice.

“He’s just a fun-loving spirit who can never say no to a bit of that! For all of his passion though, he gets bored very quickly. Thought I should warn you, you seem to be really fond of him and he obviously likes you, pet.” 

She touched the tip of my nose and giggled. “I don’t want to put you off him, far from it. He’s a wonderful, wonderful man. But he has very big issues. They’ll become noticeable as you spend more time with him. Though there is a fabulous reward that he brings to the lives of his friends: pure magic.”

“I have seen his magical side...,” I said. “As far as the rest goes, well, it doesn’t really matter or apply to me.”

Your voice called out from a distance, stopping the progression of my paranoia. You were waving at us from the barrier, indicating that we should come over. In the marquee, we sat with director Alex Montgomery at a richly laid table. He was a handsome man in his late forties who could have easily been an actor himself, solely on the basis of his chiselled looks and sophisticated charm. The impressive wealth of knowledge he possessed on the Templars surprised and impressed me. He had researched the Order not just in depth but also through the most unusual channels. His account of the life and deeds of Joan of Arc was true to the esoteric tradition. He remarked how that the Maid of Orleans had learnt her battling skills from the Knights of the Temple of Solomon stationed in Scotland. His movie was inspired by a legend that reported how Joan was the custodian of the Baphomet, an object which was the source of her knowledge of secret teachings and the reason behind her success in battles.

Alex was also interested in the other popular belief that Joan was a witch who had the gift of prophecy, the privilege to talk to invisible Beings and who was a sort of high priestess of a very ancient naturist religion based on witchcraft, magic and the art of healing. Mainstream books don’t talk about that at all. But he understood the symbolism behind the gestures of the Maid of Orleans and their deeply initiatory meaning.

The real Joan of Arc was kin: she was one of us, a pioneering spirit whose attempt at turning into an angel had been distorted by the era in which she had landed and the customs that characterised it. I was delighted to meet Mr. Montgomery in the flesh. He was fulfilling a very important role in the Plan, bringing secret knowledge into mass consciousness. In years to come, he would become a spokesperson for the Transformation Movement.

Layla joined us half an hour later. Getting out of her character’s armour was a time-consuming activity. She looked like Joan of Arc in real life. Her red hair had been cropped and dyed black for the part. The Maid was renowned for her athletic built and strength, and at six feet she towered over most men of her time. Layla’s body was also statuesque and powerful, and her features were androgynous. She looked much younger than her twenty-two years of age, with a splash of freckles on her nose, and with kind, innocent eyes. She had the endearing mannerism of a clumsy young man. Alex’s casting had been impeccable. She was beautiful in an unusual way. I could see why you had been drawn to have an affair with her.

She still held a torch for you, it was obvious, whatever had since happened between you. You went to great lengths to ensure that door stayed firmly closed: you held my hand all the time and caressed my hair often. How could I believe anything Marina had told me when you were treating me that way?

______________

Springtime had arrived light-footedly. The day was approaching when you would leave me to go to Mexico for four weeks. Up to the second week in May, we’d spent every waking hour together. We’d walked every inch of Edinburgh following the not so random path our hearts had set out on. I showed you all my favourite places, and you made them yours. Now we were going to be apart for a while. I kept sweeping this looming fact back to a remote corner of my mind. The information had somewhat not quite registered even on the day before your departure, which happened to be a warm and sunny Sunday. We met in the New Town and decided to go for a walk in the Botanical Gardens. Falling in love with you was inevitable that springtime.

If I close my eyes I can recall that day in detail, with its scent of cherry blossoms and freshly cut grass. Sunrays streamed through the foliage above us. A soft breeze was blowing. The wonder of spring filled the air around the lawn. A dim melody played in my head. Creation was serenading us. Hand in hand, we stopped in front of a blackberry bush. You fed me its fruit. Its sweetness hit my palate as soon as it touched my tongue. Your fingers lingered on my lips: I half-licked them. Was that the sugar from the berry I was tasting, or the anticipation in your fingertips? I followed your movements with trepidation. We were merging with the atoms in the air, breathing them, becoming one with them and them with us. I’d been waiting for your kiss for days. For my entire life, it seemed. Another opportunity had presented itself and again you didn’t take it. You kept me waiting. I ate the berry. But most of all I wanted to suckle on your soul. I wanted to taste your tongue. I wanted to drink the life sap that animated your cells. I was yours. I was losing the boundaries of my very being in you.