A Beautiful Dreamer by Barry Daniels - HTML preview

 

Harry looked. “You have a scar there. Faint. Looks very old. It runs right up into your hairline.”

 

“I do have such a scar. I got it when I fell from a horse as a young man. But I didn’t tell you about it, or show it to you. So how do you know it is there?”

 

“I see it.”

 

“What with? Your eyes are in your body, over there by the tent, and they are closed, Harry.”

 

“I see it with…….with…..”

“With your eyes, Harry. With your spirit eyes. We are standing here talking to each other, looking at each other. You see me; you hear me. Do you want to touch or taste me? Come closer and smell me!”

“Don’t be revolting!”

“Let me try it this way: What would it take to convince you that you are alive, alert, and fully functioning quite apart from the physical body which lies out there beside the tent.” Elias drew from his belt a wicked, long bladed knife which gleamed under the bright sun. He moved over to Harry’s sleeping body.

“What if I killed this body, Harry, and yet you continued to live? Would that convince you?”

Elias put the edge of the blade to the throat of the sleeper, and Harry reflexively leaped forward. Elias raised his hand and Harry ran into a solid wall of air which held him as though he were bound by ropes. Elias sheathed his blade and stood. A wave of his hand released Harry’s bonds.

“Please know that I would never harm you; not here, and not in the waking world. My temper does not improve with age. But believe me, Harry, if someone came into the clearing while you slept and cut your head clear from your body, you would continue to exist exactly as you are now. I’m at a loss as to what will convince you. Can we just leave that issue, for a while, and move on to the LifePath?”

“Eli, I don’t mean to be hard on you, it’s just that I see no point in agreeing with you for a quiet life when in my heart I can’t accept what you say. But yes, let’s move on then.”

“Do me a favour, just listen to me for a minute. I swear to you that everything I say will be the absolute truth. If you still need proof, we’ll come back to that later.”

“OK.”

“Your spirit came into existence many thousands of years ago and has been evolving ever since. It has grown and developed by several means, but by far the best and most effective of these is earthly incarnation. You have lived on earth several times. You have been a great leader, a powerful warrior, a renowned teacher and a man of science. You have always chosen to be male. You have learned much, but have missed one very important lesson. Before you were born to your present life your Guardian Spirit met with the Great Council on your behalf to determine the course of your time on earth. She had already discussed with you the kind of life you wished to live, and meeting with the Council was, in your case, pretty much a formality. It was agreed that the most useful life you could live this time would be as husband and father. You had no further need to study the use of power or the leadership of men. Yet despite all of your experience you had missed out on the most valuable of all life’s lessons; you did not know how to love, or how to be loved. So a life was devised for you which would give you the chance to learn. Love for your parents, your children, your friends – even your pets. Love for all of humanity -- though few can succeed at that! But above all, love for your wife, Liz. You had known Liz in previous lives, but not as a lover or a wife. It was decided also that your career would be less than successful in order that you may learn something of humility – a quality which you do not possess in quantity, Harry! That was to be the pattern of your life.”

“But …… sorry, Eli, I know I said I would not interrupt, but where is the learning in this, if I do no more than follow a script? As a character in a play, where is my free will?”

“Free will is everywhere! The outline of your life was planned in order that you could encounter situations you needed to face in order to grow; but how you deal with those situations is entirely up to you. You could have treated your friends badly – as indeed you have in recent weeks. You have caused your friends much pain lately, Harry. You could have said ‘goodbye’ to Liz on the night you met, never to see her again. Or you could have known her as a lover for a short time and moved on to other women. You could have married her, and then fought and feuded for sixty years. You could have abused your children, or neglected them. You could by now be estranged from your entire family.

“And if I had made such choices?”

 

“Then you would have needed to repeat the lesson. Until you got it right.”

 

“And I failed?”

 

“Do you love Liz?” “With all my heart, and without qualification.”

 

“And do you allow her to love you?”

 

“Allow it? Her love is the most precious thing in the world to me.”

 

“Then how can you have failed, Harry?”

 

“But you say that I have left my path?”

“That is not to say that you have failed! But yes, you have wandered from your path; from your life-script. It was written that you would succeed to the position of Chief of your organisation. Many trials were planned for you there. You would have been required to bring hardship to your friends for the sake of company profits. Your career and personal life would have come into great conflict, and ultimately you would have had to choose between your career and your wife.”

“No contest.”

“Not now! And that is the root of the problem. Somehow you have seen through to the shallowness of many of your earthly pursuits. You now count your career as of little value. How can you be placed in a learning situation by being forced to choose, when one of the two choices has become valueless to you?”

“But how did this happen, Eli? I don’t understand it myself! Less than a year ago I would have killed for the CEO job. Right up to the time I got it, I thought it was the most important thing in my world. What happened to me to make me see it, now, as such a trivial thing.”

“We don’t know Harry. Honest to God, we just don’t know. And the question we move to from there is, under the circumstances, is there any point in your continued earthly existence?”

“What do you mean? That I could….. I could die?”

“Physically, yes. Exactly that. Why plod through another thirty years of a life which has lost it’s meaning? Drifting from day to day like a sea anemone, with no purpose except to exist? What is the point of such a life? You will face no hardships; you will not be tested; you will not learn or grow in what is left of your earth-life. It would be the easiest thing to arrange for your body to die, here and now. A sudden, unexpected heart attack. A passing hiker would find your body a couple of days from now. Or that same hiker could kill you in your sleep, for the credit cards in your wallet and the few possessions in your back-pack.”

“But Liz…….”

“Would be heartbroken, yes. And facing that would be, for her, a valuable lesson in itself. Just as your children would have to face losing you. Your friends, too. For all of them, their life patterns would be disrupted, but much could be salvaged. All of this could be arranged, but we come back to the central question: What is the best option for Harry Murphy?”
“Are you asking me? Are you asking me what I want?”

“In a way, yes. Your wants and needs are more important than you can know. Where do you want to go from here, Harry?”

 

“I don’t know. You’ve shown me one possibility; what other choices do I have?”

“You could forget everything. We could erase every memory of every dream. Better yet, we could leave sketchy memories of shallow experiences, so that you would think your experiments in dreaming had come to nothing, and would experiment no more. We could re-script the remainder of your life. At least that way you will grow old with the woman you love; you will have the chance to support each other through age and illness. There are still some lessons to be learned by such a choice.”

“Then if you can do that…….”

“But we cannot undo the events that have already taken place, and we cannot - we will not - tamper with your essential soul. We will not change what you have now become. You would go back with a clean bill of health to your AGI, cured of your ‘mental illness’; but would you still want the job? I think not, now. Then what would you do? You have an expression which I’m not sure I understand – a ‘loose cannon’. That is what you would be, I think. A loose cannon. Free to make choices. And depending on your choices, the paths of many people close to you would hang in the balance. Would you become a Christian Missionary to some remote location? Doubtful, I suppose. Would you go back to University, study medicine and find the cure for some dreadful disease? Or make some important scientific discovery? Or turn to a life of crime? All of these are possibilities, and all are unknowns. Then, to fit in with the changes to your lifescript, we would need to change the scripts of many of the people close to you, affecting the lessons which they went to Earth to learn. We could never be sure that it would be to their advantage, to make such changes.”

“Or?”

“Or you could start over. We could erase all memory of this life and send you for rebirth to live essentially as you lived before. As always at re-birth your memories would be washed clean, but your character would remain exactly as you stand before me now. ”

“And Liz?”

“If you wish to relive your life together, we must wait for Liz to complete her time and ask her whether she wishes to live again as your wife. The wait would be small on this side of the veil, and from what we know of the two of you I feel certain that……”

“Would we go back to the same time period? Or be born into the twenty first century?”

“We can’t move your time backwards but we could recreate the circumstances quite precisely. You could both be born to the same parents and live under similar conditions as before. The things that truly matter would be the same.”

“I don’t know, Eli. I need more time to think.”

 

“Take all the time you need, Harry. We can make this day last for a hundred years if you need so long. Let’s walk a little, shall we?”

Elias turned and walked along a small path into the woods. Harry followed with Mutt at his heels, and found himself in a primeval forest of huge sequoias, twenty feet thick at the base and towering so high that their tops were lost in cloud.

“I was here before,” Harry said. “I received my sword here. That was you, wasn’t it? You brought my sword to me.”

“No, not me. A good friend of mine. His name is Running Elk, and he is my Spirit Guardian. He thought that you might have some use for it against the Dream Riders who were tormenting your mother.”

“It was indeed most useful. Thank your friend from me when you see him.”

 

“He hears your thanks. He has watched you closely these last few weeks.”

They walked on along the path, which wound around the huge trees and through marshy ground. Foot long, bright yellow slugs crawled slowly along the side of the path.

“I know this place.” Harry said. “This is the rain forest of the Pacific Rim. Liz and I visited it when we were in British Columbia. Those creatures are called Banana slugs.”

“There are such places along the coast of Vancouver Island” Elias said “But this particular stretch does not exist any longer; except in our dreamworld. In your real world men have cut down these trees for lumber. But in this world they it will live forever. Listen to the silence.”

The two men walked and listened, while Mutt raced back and forth in ecstasy, surrounded by a canine paradise of new sights, sounds and smells. Harry thought he could hear the sounds of the ocean, very faintly, in the far distance. His mind raced as he tried to come to grips with the facts which Elias had offered to him. What should he choose? If he ignored the whole situation, would Elias and his ‘Council’ choose for him? Would he awaken in his ‘real’ world to some situation not of his choosing and far from his liking? Or would he simply awaken, returned from a complex dream to the world much as he had left it? In the end, he could not choose.

“Elias, I could walk in these woods for a hundred years, and still not come to any conclusion. I need more help. I need to understand and come to terms with what has happened to me. I accept now that what you have told me is true. I accept the reality of my immortal soul, and I accept the transitory nature of life on earth. But I still have a thousand questions, and I still need time to let this new awareness sink in. It’s still all too new to me, and too strange. I want to know more. I want……… I want to know…..I want to know everything!”

* * *

In a place which was not a place a thousand beings who had once been human met to discuss the future of one small, undistinguished man. Their discussion made no sounds which could have been heard by human ears, if there had been such ears present, and took place at the speed of thought. On the fringes of this meeting a being who was still human observed the proceedings. Sky Reader had made his report to the council and had been granted permission to remain. In this place of eternal peace and contentment, Elias was ill at ease and definitely not happy. He had known Harry Murphy for only a short time as earth hours are measured, but had come to like and admire the man. Harry had a good heart and a strong spirit. By rights, his present earth-life should have been penultimate. One more lifetime on earth should have given him the spiritual strength necessary to progress beyond the need for earthly incarnation. His present life had been intended to teach him how to love and be loved, and in this he had made excellent progress. Apart from a few relatively minor trials related to earthly employment, Harry had been considered home and dry. It had been intended that in his final days Harry would be required to nurse his beloved wife through a hard battle with cancer, a fight which she would ultimately lose. A tough test, but one taken by many loving couples at the end of long lives spent together. Harry was expected to face his ordeal with courage and compassion, and in so doing he would have developed considerable emotional strength and spiritual power. All in all, a very profitable life-script for the Murphys, and one which should have produced a highly satisfactory outcome for both of them.

And now where were they?

Sky Reader had reported to the Council, through his Guardian Running Elk, that his efforts had failed. He was unable to offer a solution which Harry could accept, and reluctant to force a solution onto the man.

The Council had accepted his report without comment and in doing so had taken to themselves the responsibility for resolving the problem. Questions and comments filled the ether. One question, if it had been expressed in earthly terms and in a human language was “Does anybody yet have an answer to how this situation came about? Why did this man’s character suddenly take such a radical about-face?”

“His studies of dreams surely caused this,” came an instantaneous response. “He achieved a high degree of knowledge and competence in an incredibly short time. We could not have known that he had such aptitude.”

“No,” another ‘voice’ cut in. “The dream studies were incidental to the attitudinal changes. The fact that they occurred at the same time is coincidental. We should be asking ourselves, rather, what caused the deviation from the scripted life-path? The man did not choose to make such deviation, it was thrust upon him. His newly acquired ability to re-focus awareness was the mechanism of the deviation, not the cause of it.”
A new ‘voice’. “I am his Spirit Guardian. Let me speak to this.”

The new speaker had no image in this place, but her personality was very clear to all participants. The strength and love flowing from the being was almost overpowering to Elias, who remained on the boundary of the proceedings. He knew that, in past meetings with Harry’s Guardian, she had appeared to him as a woman in her fifties, handsome rather than beautiful, knowledgeable and wise in the ways of the human race. He doubted that Harry would have recognised his Margaret from the description, though they were one and the same. Her thoughts came clearly to Elias, as to all participants at the meeting.

“I have lately come to believe that the deviation may be linked to an intervention which I made when the man Murphy was very young. A minor variance occurred which resulted in death by drowning of the young boy, and it was necessary for me to correct this imbalance. For reasons still unknown to me the boy died instantly upon immersion. He should have survived without difficulty for long enough to be rescued by his friends, who were nearby. But his spirit drifted. I had to pursue and capture him, and then re-infuse his life-essence into the body. While separated from his body Harry achieved awareness. This, too, was unexpected and should not have happened. In order to prevent a life-path deviation at that point I suppressed memory of the experience. It was far too early in his life for him to become aware of his spiritual qualities. I now believe that this suppression caused a severe inner conflict which smouldered for almost forty earth years: What he knew to be true, subconsciously, he believed, consciously, to be impossible. This inner conflict finally exploded into Harry’s conscious awareness in his late forties when he attained the ability to examine his subconscious mind by way of his dreams. He very rapidly obtained a waking knowledge of his spiritual existence which was incompatible with his planned life-script. The situation was then further complicated when he insisted on suppressing his new knowledge by conscious reasoning. What he knew to true be just couldn’t be true. And this drove him mad.”

“Yes,” from many ‘voices’. “This could be. But it does not help us towards a solution.”

 

“No, it does not. But I think, perhaps, that our council is missing the key ingredient necessary to determining the best solution.”

 

“What ingredient?”

 

“The mind of Harry Murphy.”

“He is unready. He does not have the intellect needed to function at council, and will not possess this for at least one more incarnation. How could he be brought to us to participate except through your representation?”

“I will prepare him. He has told Sky Reader that he has many questions, and that if answers are supplied he, himself, will make the decision regarding the remainder of his planned earth-life.”

“What does he want to know?”

 

“He wants to know “everything”. And I intend to teach him.”

 

* * *

Harry awoke as from a dreamless sleep, and for the first few seconds was dazed and disoriented. As the world came into focus he realised that Elias Sylliboy was leaning over him while Mutt licked furiously at his whisker-covered cheek.

“Come on back, Harry,” the old man said. “Wake up now!”

 

Harry sat up. “What happened?”

“Oh, not much” Elias told him. “You slept for a while, is all. Six hours, actually. I expect you’re pretty hungry by now. I’ve a stew in the pot over there, but I’ll be leaving you and your pal here to enjoy it alone, if it’s all the same to you. Now your dog has been showing remarkable self restraint, but if you don’t get up pretty soon I think he’ll reach the end of his control and just tuck into that stew all by himself.”

“You’re leaving, Eli?”

“Yes, Harry. I’ve done what I can, though it was little enough I could manage for you. Your future is in other hands now. Capable hands, and loving hands. I’m sure that it will all turn out well. But I must be away now. I’m an old man, and there’s not much juice left in me. I’d as soon be back to my bed now as spend another night on pine needles. But let me say this to you. You are a man of great heart. A good man. I admit freely that I didn’t want to come to help you, but as it turned out it has been a rare privilege for me to share your path for a few steps. We will meet again, Harry Murphy, but not in this world. Goodbye now.”

Harry sat up, intending to thank the old Mi’kmaq for his help, or at least for his good intentions, but the man had gone. “Goodbye, Sky Reader” Harry called to the trees. “I will remember you as I last saw you, with hair to your waist and the muscled body of a young warrior. Goodbye my friend.”

He did not sleep that night, but sat outside the tent with Mutt curled at his feet, listening to the night sounds from the woods at his back and the eternal roaring of the Gold River on its wild journey to the sea.

* * *

By sunrise of the following morning Harry and Mutt were once again on the trail and heading west. They had retraced their steps along the banks of Gold River and climbed back up to the trail. At Western Shore, a coastal village a few kilometers further west, they left the trail to replenish their food supplies. At a local hardware store Harry picked up a new propane cylinder to fuel the small camp stove which he carried in the backpack. The pack now seemed a fraction of its original weight, and the abrasion at the shoulder straps had become no more than a minor annoyance. The trail wound south-west, passing through a series of small settlements, and away from any sight or sound of the ocean.

As Harry walked on the days and nights fused together into a seamless continuum in which time had no meaning. He slept little, and dreamed not at all. As often as not he made camp simply by dropping the backpack onto a convenient patch of ground and covering himself with the unzipped sleeping bag. By fortune, the nights remained cool but not cold, and little rain fell. His dog would station himself between Harry and the passing trail, standing guard until his master roused himself to resume their quest. When Harry called Liz to give his nightly report she asked him why he seemed so sad. This surprised Harry, who was not at all sad. When he thought about it, he was not especially anything. He walked through an emotionless void, an empty vessel ready to accept whatever emotion were to be poured into him.

On the morning of the thirteenth day of his journey Harry rose with the sun, strapped on his backpack, threw a handful of energy bars to Mutt, and walked to the trail. As far as he could calculate he was half way between the picturesque town of Mahone Bay and the ancient settlement of Lunenburg. He had visited the latter several times, and liked the feel of the old town, which was preserved pretty much unchanged from the time of its inception as a sailing and shipbuilding centre some two hundred years ago. With a little imagination Harry could walk the streets of Lunenburg and persuade himself that he was a mariner of the last century, about to take ship and embark on a voyage to unknown parts of the unexplored globe. He strode out briskly, turned a sharp corner and almost walked into a young girl in a white dress who stood, smiling, at the centre of the trail.

“Hello Harry. I am very pleased to meet with you.”

 

“Hello, Margaret. Am I dreaming, then? I could have sworn I was awake.”

“You are asleep and awake. Neither and both. The distinction was always a matter of mental focus; do you look at the window or through the window? You learned how to focus your awareness, to do either, and now you are able to do both. You can see the glass and you can see through the glass.”

“Those odd children at the beach said much the same thing. Abram and another boy, and the girl Juleen. They told me that there was only one world, and that what we saw in it depended only on our mental focus.”

“So Juleen is back with her brothers now. She was male when I last saw her. I hope that she remembers well what I told her I will do to her when we next meet. But in this, at least, they did not lie to you. I see that you have bested them again, and probably for good. After your last meeting I doubt that they will come to you again. They seek weaker prey; more pliable minds.”

“Elias said that you appear to him as an older woman. Why do you come to me always as a child?”

“When we first met you were very young, and I took from your mind an image which you found unthreatening. I have kept it, but we can change my image at any time.”

“Young? It was earlier this year when we first met. But then, I am told that you are older than the hills, so I suppose that forty seven is…….”

 

“No, that’s not it. But let that pass for a while. Would you prefer me to appear as I do to the Sky Reader and his Guide?”

As Harry watched Margaret transformed into a woman of Harry’s age, perhaps a few years older. Her expression was kind, but Harry thought it might be a very bad idea to cause that expression to turn to one of anger.

“No, Margaret. I find the situation confusing enough. Leave me what little stability I can find in it.”

The young girl was back. “As you wish, my sweet Harry. Come on, then. Come with me. Put your pack by the side of the road. I will place wards at this spot and nobody will disturb your dreaming body. Your new friend will stand guard against the chance that my wards should fail.”

Harry did as instructed. He made himself comfortable at the side of the trail and stepped out of his body to stand with Margaret on the path. To anyone passing, an elderly tramp was taking a nap at the side of the trail, with his mongrel dog standing guard as he slept.

“Come with you where, Margaret? Where are we going, you and I?”

 

“Where you asked to go, Harry. I’m taking you to school.”

 

* * * BEAUTIFUL DREAMER

 

Chapter 9:

 

“Take my hand, Harry.”

The land fell away rapidly, and Harry found himself soaring through the air, hand-in-hand with his Guardian Spirit. Far below, the coastline of Nova Scotia shimmered with haze and blurred with distance. Thin cloud gradually obscured the view, and, without a point of reference by which to judge, the sense of movement ceased.

Very soon they began to descend, and Harry saw the outline of a great city far below. A warm, golden glow seemed to cover the entire city, and as they came lower he could see that each building contributed its own inner light. Flying over the rooftops Harry felt a strange stirring within him, as though some memory of this unearthly place were trying to surface to conscious awareness.

“I think I have been here before, Margaret.”

“Everyone passes twice through this place Harry, or one very much like it; once on the way to rebirth and again on the return trip. It is a way-station of sorts, but for you it will serve as a school, at least for a time.

“Is this an earth place? An earth city?” “It has an earthly counterpart, but if you visited it you would see only a few scattered villages and a large monastery. An unimpressive place, and one which draws few tourists.”

“Where is it located on Earth?”

 

“See, we have arrived at our destination, and here is your teacher to welcome you.”

 

“Why did we not travel here directly? Why was it necessary to fly through the sky to get here?”

 

“Too much traffic. See, your instructor awaits.”

They stood on the flat roof of a tall building which stood amongst many even taller structures. Like all of the surroundings, this construction gave off a light of its own. Walking towards them was a man of medium height and build, dressed in a one-piece loose fitting robe. He greeted the new arrivals warmly.

“I know you, don’t I?” Harry asked. “You’re my science teacher from my third year at Grammar School!”

“Does this appearance suit you?” the man asked, looking concerned and a little agitated. “We thought that the image of a respected teacher from your earthly schooldays would be appropriate. If it does not suit you I would be pleased to change it. I have little experience of the assignment I have been asked to undertake. Would some other image be more appropriate?”

The last question was directed to Margaret, who smiled at the man and reached out to touch his shoulder. “Harry is much concerned with appearances, Malek. He makes many associations between appearance, ability and intention -most of which are wrong. Your choice of image will suffice well.”

Margaret turned to Harry. “This man will instruct you in the functioning of the afterlife. You may call him Malek, which is the name by which he was known during his last earthly incarnation. While he instructs you in each aspect