“Oh, hi,” Kai apologetically winced, “I didn’t realize…I was just hoping to get some information about this place. What is it?”
The lady’s eyes gleamed, “I’m so glad you asked dearie, this is a sanctuary for the special; a reunion ground for old souls who aren’t satisfied with mediocrity.”
Woah! That was an answer that Kai would have to have rehearsed a hundred times before an interview to get right! Such penetratingness, such resonance with Kai’s assurance that he was special - a level above almost everyone else on this planet.
“What do you guys do here?” Kai threw out, in reluctance to get an answer that would disqualify the divinity of the encounter thus far.
“We merge. There are large gatherings and small ones. What draws you in?”
“Actually it was a dream I had in which…”
“A dream you say?” she interrupted, raising the pitch of her voice at the end of the sentence like a magician about to pull a rabbit from a hat, “Well then I know the perfect person to get you in touch with. His name is Ray, and he holds an intimate meeting on Thursday nights at 7. Would you be able to come back then?”
Kai blended rationality and impulsivity into a jittery word collage: “Well I’m not sure really. I mean, well, ya ok, sure. Do you have his phone number?”
“No I don’t dear. Not his phone number, no. Just bring your little self along on Thursday you hear. Ok? Then it is set. Oh he will be thrilled!”
“Alright cool, I’ll be here! Thank you.” Kai injected a dose of regular societal interaction to close off a random encounter so as to introduce at least some conventionality that the rational part of Kai’s mind could get a grip on. She hadn’t even asked for his name. And he didn’t know hers. No handshakes. No formalities. It was like he was almost hypnotized; mesmerized by the other-worldliness of her persona.
Is he going to go on Thursday? He almost just agreed so as not to seem confrontational to an unexplainable power. The same kind of thing as putting back the business cards in that Christian place. In fact the two encounters bore a similar out-of-this-world hue, although he could sense they were two vastly different frequencies below the surface. He had been granted two seemingly divinely inspired invitations for exploration within a week. Would he accept either? Which one? Kai had never been one to commit exclusively to one thing. He’d just have to see how he felt later in the week.
CHAPTER 10: THE CIRCULAR O DISH
CHAPTER 10.1: The Circular O Dish– A Direct Channel to Ohm
Kai’s ingrained patterns of response quickly provided a seemingly win-win solution to his dilemma. He’d do both! He’d have a buffet smorgasboard of spirituality – the Spritualist Church, and conventional Christianity. This strategy had always seemed to work decently with girls, why not with spiritual relationships?
He wanted to try the Spiritualist Church first because it seemed more exciting. Conventional Christianity? Been there, done that. He’d get around to it when he had a chance.
Thursday evening rolled around and, despite the mild sense of dread that accompanied almost all appointments, especially new meetings, Kai had resolutely decided that this was an opportunity that was worth not passing up. It may, after all, be the work of God himself! An introspective drive later, and Kai found himself standing in front of the same enchanted building, this time aglow with dusk luminescence.
The old, over-sized wooden door was slightly ajar, unnoticeable from far, but as inviting as a secret entrance way in a mystery novel. A push initiated a conspicuously loud creak, betraying Kai’s presence in the midst of his attempt to conceal it. Inside, dim light fell on velvet blue carpets, with archaic-looking paintings of people, mostly old ladies, perched on the walls. They seemed to be scrutinizing newcomers. Muffled voices pitter pattered their way to Kai’s cold ears. He felt a sense of his ears warming up as he couldn’t help but feel like the murmuring was about him.
“Hello?” he squeaked out bashfully.
“In here,” came the tinny reply. It was a man’s voice.
Kai followed the voice through the corridor tunnel and into a room on the left. There, seated around a crimson-covered oak table was an idiosyncratic flurry of individuals whose presence confirmed Kai’s entrance into the world of the Lord of the Rings. There were about 6 or 7 of them, and their eyes shone up at him from varying heights as their muttered conversation instantly ceased. At least one or two of them had a gleam of suspicion in their now slanted eyes, which ignited the suspicion in Kai’s own mirror neurons. They looked more like an assortment of dwarfs, gnomes, wizards, and witches than Homo sapiens, and Kai felt tangibly more ape-like and plain.
“Hi guys, is one of you Ray?” Kai broke the silence with a shrill resonance.
The looks softened and a number of them smiled mildly. One dwarf-looking creature bore his teeth as he smiled, and Kai was torn between wishing he hadn’t, and retaining a laugh.
“Yes. I am.” A tall, lanky figure elongated himself from the apex of the table. He looked like he was in his mid-50’s and was well dressed in a grey suit with a pink collared shirt blaring confidence from underneath. His silver hair was sleeked back with black streaks creating the same kind of contrasted effect that his bright shirt and dull suit made. His face was worn, aged, but bright blue eyes shouted youth from their sunken sockets.
“I assume you’re here for our group. Please have a seat.” No introductions, no handshake? Kai realized that he was going to have to abandon all conventional etiquette at the entrance way to this place. “What brings you here?” Ray asked as he reclaimed his seat and assumed an interrogation posture, hands folded with elbows on the table.
“I’m not sure really,” Kai felt increasingly uncomfortable, “this lady I met said I should come here because I’m into dreaming.”
The dwarf-looking creature seated immediately on Kai’s right startled him with his unmoderated volume as he gurgled, “Dreams, yes dreams! Dreams…” and then faded into a quiet murmur.
Kai whipped his head around and paused for a moment, not knowing if this outburst needed a response or not. He turned back to Ray, whose interrogation glare had eased slightly.
“Very good,” he nodded, “you’re in the right place. We were just about to begin.”
Everyone in the circle closed their eyes simultaneously. Kai thought that the hippy lady opposite might have winked at him as she closed her eyes, but he couldn’t be sure. At least now with her eyes closed he could look at her. She wasn’t bad at all. Maybe older than his typical age group of interest, but he could see she had an above average figure, and her blonde streaked hair waved seductively across the table. Maybe Kai would enjoy coming here after all.
“Divine consciousness, higher self, we request your presence in this room.” Ray’s authoritative voice, and pause at the end of the sentence, seemed to usher in a lowering of the lights, although the room was solely lit by candles, and so Kai reasoned this couldn’t be possible. Kai closed his eyes half in an attempt to hide, half to make sure he wasn’t missing out on what everyone else was experiencing. ‘Jesus please protect me,’ he stamped in his mind distinctly, on top of Ray’s now melodic voice.
“Feel the Kundalini rise from your base chakra through the increasing vibrations of red…” he paused and breathed in audibly. A mutual meditation! Ok, Kai could go for that. “Orange…” Ray continued, “Yellow…green…blue…indigo…and gold. Now feel your energy exit through the top of your head.” Kai got the sense that these words were directed at him, and so he did picture the various chakras, impressed with himself now that he realized that he had been doing a similar meditation at home for months now anyway. “Now let your consciousness embrace this room as the vessel of your body can no longer contain you.” By now Kai was feeling slightly larger than his head. He felt like his body was made of lead and his head was a rising hot air balloon. And this sensation dawned on him much quicker than it ever had before. “Now feel yourself expand as you imbibe the whole town…now this country…then the whole planet…til space itself can no longer confine you.” Kai did feel an expansion, but it remained trapped a couple of inches above his head.
Silence.
“Who is there?” Ray broke the stillness to ask commandingly.
‘Who’s he talking to? Am I supposed to answer?’ Just as the silence was preparing Kai’s vocal chords to ease the expectancy, the pretty hippy made a sound. Kai had to open his eyes to make sure it was her talking, as the voice didn’t sound suited to her petite figure. It was groany, almost masculine, elongated as if drowsy.
“I’m here,” she reverberated.
Ray asked her to clarify her name.
“Samuel,” came the flat monotonously toned reply.
‘Samuel?’ Kai pondered, ‘Oh my word, is this chick channeling a spirit? This is intense!’
“You’re welcome here Samuel,” Ray assured the spirit, “do you have any messages for us?”
“You old soul laboring amongst the young”, she projected words at the wall with eyes flickering behind closed eyelids. “Don’t be afraid to fall head first down the hole. But in order to fall, your guard needs to too.” The sound tapered off into the ether, echoing uncomfortably as Kai was left assured the message was for him. He felt like an old soul! The rabbit hole? Alice’s rabbit hole had always intrigued him. And he literally labored amongst the young in his work with kids. ‘I guess it could be a metaphor for people in society with fewer incarnations too.’
Kai knew that esoterism held fast to a belief in reincarnation. He wasn’t sure what he felt about it himself. It did make sense on three levels: 1) It accounted for the strange stories all too often reported of past life memories in their various formats that were later externally verified. 2) It explained the apparent different levels of consciousness among individuals of the same species. And 3) It tied evolution with free will in that the constant betterment and increasing complexity of the natural order depended on decision making and character building. It made him feel like he was advanced anyway, despite there remaining some serious reasons to discount it.
He didn’t know what to do with this lady’s utterances. Was Samuel a dead guy? Well then howcome this spirit hadn’t been reincarnated? And what reserves did heaven bust out to account for the population explosion? Had this Samuel chap achieved Nirvana in the Buddhist sense? Maybe he was an angel, or worse, a demon. What defenses was he/she talking about? Ever self-conscious, Kai didn’t want to make it all about him so he waited for any viable cues he could read from the assortment of characters amassed around the table before he responded.
“Samuel, are you still with us?” Ray enquired.
“It’s just me Ray,” answered the suitably feminine voice of the hot girl, seemingly tired now. All of the sudden she was appealing again. But not that appealing after what he had just witnessed! Kai thought that his current girlfriend was a complex case; he was suitably put off of taking a complication upgrade. No one said anything for a few moments.
Then the gnome guy piped up, “I felt like that was directed at me.”
…
Back in the conventional world, Kai pondered the experience, questioning the authenticity increasingly as time went on. But he remembered on a theoretical level that he was convinced at the time. He couldn’t sleep properly that night. When Kai would wake up between sleep cycles, the room was filled with transparent people casually conversing, seemingly oblivious to Kai’s presence. Every second night, a giant spider sinisterly descended towards Kai’s head before vanishing in a luminescent flash about 3 seconds after Kai opened his eyes. After he opened his eyes!
CHAPTER 10.2: The Circular O Dish - Enlarging the Circle
Kai couldn’t wait til the next Spiritualist Circle. He wanted someone else to come with him though as both a safety anchor to the rational world, as well as someone to share this inner journey with. The guy who lived next door to him, Jordy, also smoked weed and was self-reflective and open during their bong sessions. As their acquaintanceship developed into a friendship through their stoner, party and surfing escapades, Kai had been able to increasingly discern the pattern of light and dark clashing in his life. He seemed like a man caught between two worlds, and Kai was increasingly able to relate to the feeling of doing the splits between realities.
Jordy wasn’t as flexible as Kai. He was a rugby player who had been deeply initiated in the testosterone-fueled chest thumpings that the Alpha male world involved. During the times that he came out drinking with the crew, Kai noticed a much coarser character emerge from the usually gentle giant. As alcohol gave his central nervous system a chill pill, subconscious forces snuck through cracks in the cortex’s concentration. It would start with him swearing more. Then it would move toward an unjustified suspicion that people were bumping into him on purpose. Finally Mr Hyde would come out of hiding swinging – literally. He would purposeful seek out fist fights. That was always the point where Kai made use of having the taxi company on speed dial. He knew all too well what a large percentage of aggressive English lads operated under these same base-chakra impulses on their nights out. They would looking for adrenaline in whatever forms it could be found: first attempt: drinking; second: girls; third: fighting. Kai had a couple of scars to show for it. And also some guys’ shoe that he had yanked off in the midst of the mayhem when he had been jumped by 8 guys on the bus. Now the shoe is a testament to the fact that pack syndrome results in lads becoming bare-footed like the dogs they aspire to be. It’s funny what animalistic impulses alcohol will bring out in people. Kai liked to think that he was the exception. He was unadulteratedly hilarious when he’d been drinking. In the interim he was content to sweep drunken regrets under a rug the next morning and save spring cleaning for a different season.
Kai mentioned his Spiritual Circle experience to Jordy on Friday night while he and Jordy were letting their guards down in direct proportion to the downing of beer. Kai tried to be casual, at least as casual as you can be when you tell someone that you were kicking it with dead peeps the previous week. Jordy was intrigued and agreed to come – confirmation that he was searching too.
Their mutual intoxication and excitement about the circle paved the way for an epic party night. For the first time, Kai began to feel a sense of homeliness from England. He realized how many people he knew already, all with English accents, most of whom had never left their county. He got a surge of confidence when he thought about his colorful past. The colors of the night progressively blurred into each other, as did the handshakes, and the animated faces that would sing alongside Kai’s to the songs they all knew in the town’s nightclub.
Kai’s drunken mind appreciated the power of the artform of music. It unites people across cultures and ages, all of whom use their subjective experiences of a song to empower a mutually shared objective one. Kai laughed to himself about how ridiculous dancing is, imagining the room full of bodies gyrating and swaying with the lights on and without the music.
Kai had learned to dance in a way that caught people’s attention. It took years of intentional practice to perfect appearing unintentional. Kai would move himself hypnotically around sections of the dance floor that he had chosen for their girl-to-guy ration. He’d never lock eye contact with a girl for more than a split second. By doing this he got their attention unobtrusively, so as to avoid making them feel self-conscious or cornered. He’d then continue rocking out with the boys. This served two functions: 1) it was a blast! 2) it was an outward testimony to everyone that this guy knew how to have a good time! And he certainly did! It was hard not to have a good time after a blood alcohol concentration in the double digits! When he was extroverted, he was extroverted!
Additional motivation came from the fact that his girlfriend was playing similar strategy games. He would never have initiated these disloyalty antics, but at this phase in his life was intent on outplaying people at their own games. He had easy and mature self-justification – she started it. He kinda saw it as a best of both worlds – he got to subtly flirt like a single guy, and go home like a boyfriend. He hadn’t learned yet that he couldn’t have his cake and eat it. Eating…it was the only consoling factor that minimized the disappointment of closing time. Stomach full of kabob, vision spinning slightly, Kai settled down to cross one more night off the calendar in his countdown to the Circle.
…
As Jordy and Kai cruised the Cornish curved roads together on the way to the meeting, Kai couldn’t help feeling proud of himself. He couldn’t wait to expose these new worlds to all of his friends, starting with Jordy. These kinds of discoveries were the adult equivalent of a kindergarten kid who gets kudo credits for unearthing some comical crevice.
Jordy was greeted with the same suspicious look that Kai was initially met with, and it only now occurred to Kai that he should have checked the etiquette as far as bringing someone along. He guessed that since he was a stranger and was welcomed, well kinda, the philosophy must be the more the merrier. The suspicion dissolved when Jordy told the group about how he has been interested in spirituality, but not religion, for years, although he had never meditated or anything. It seemed like the interest in these realms was a pre-requisite for being one of the gang. An excitement filled the faces of the Circle motley crew. They seemed to enjoy new exploration vicariously, as a traveler enjoys taking someone who’s never traveled before along for the ride.
It was a ride that transcended space and time, and that transcended the English conventionality that Kai found so dampening. Yes, that conventionality had led the British to conquer empires, converting them all to a respect for Christianity and crumpets. But dull tradition was darkening individuality in the clouded country, and that frustrated Kai. Now, however, he was stoked to have discovered a place within the Motherland where idiosyncrasies certainly weren’t shunned. The darkened cavern of the Spiritual Circle, which dismissed the light of the Enlightenment Age, seemed like the perfect place to seek a deeper kind of enlightenment. The darkness welcomed two more ‘free-thinkers’ to their number.
“Christ consciousness,” Ray began, “fill this room with your vibrations.”
Everyone, including Jordy, closed their eyes.
‘Jesus protect me,’ piped in Kai inaudibly.
Ray again led the group through the expanded awareness, and left an expanse of silence at the end for an spirits to make their presence known.
To Kai’s disappointment, and partly embarrassment, no spirits rocked up. Kai felt bad for dragging Jordy all the way there. In consolation though, the silence lent credibility to last week’s encounter. Kai had previously wondered whether the channeling experience had been faked to impress new people. But now the group’s refusal to put on a show convinced Kai about the authenticity of the whole thing.
The room remained still. Open. The presence of each of the gathered heterogeneous crew was now more tangible as an individual consciousness than people are in everyday interactions. Kai opened his eyes hastily to see what Jordy was doing. He still had his eyes closed. ‘Good, at least he’s going with it and isn’t completely bored.
Ray drew the session to a close and regular animation returned to the smorgas board of human entities in the room.
“Who would like to share?” Ray offered expectantly.
‘What is there to share? I had a glamorous session in the dark behind my eyelids,’ Kai taunted in his mind. As usual, not much extraordinary confronted Kai in his meditation session. Typically he noticed his mind calm down to one to two wispy thoughts a minute. His body and hands would feel heavy and, on the good ones, he would feel like he was sitting a few inches above and behind his body. This time he hardly even had any of that happen.
Lame.
“Actually yeah,” came Jordy’s unexpected voice from next to him. “That was well mental mate!” He looked around the room quickly as if to assess for their reactions. Eager eyes beamed back and he continued, “First off, right, I felt someone step on me foot. Then I felt like they…like…hugged me from behind and rubbed me face. I had me eyes closed, but looked down at me ‘ands. There was this blue light and, like, lightning electricity around ‘em. Next thing I know mate, I was lifted out of this here room and was flying above Canada. Bloody flying mate! And all these faces were flashing past me.”
‘Wait, what?! This had actually just happened to Jordy?’ Kai was washed over with a wave of mystery tinged with slight confusion. ‘Was there something wrong with my technique? Am I not as spiritually advanced?’
The odd squad met Jordy’s story with a look of success, of a victory shared.
“Very good Jordy, you’re a natural. I could tell when you walked in here based off the angle that you stood at and the way the tea leaves in my cup arranged themselves. You had an Indian with you too,” Ray bragged, trying to share in the glory. Well the glory was all theirs. All of theirs except Kai’s, and he went home perplexed, intrigued, and proudly validated in his decision to bring Jordy along.
Needless to say, Jordy was Kai’s Thursday night companion for the next 2 months. Each of the strange characters at the circle came alive and seemed more normal as time went on. Kai had some fascinating conversations with various members of the group. They seemed to be aware of a level of knowledge that lay hidden from those who ran about flustered by conventional society.
Everyone, including Jordy, would receive insights about the others in the circle during their meditations. These insights were almost always confirmed by the other party. Impossible things to know. Dharma knew that Jim was having construction done on his house; Jim knew that Ray’s cousin had just died.
Becka and her sister Kylie both looked like witches. They were extroverted and forceful when sharing their visions, but when the Circle was not in session they would avoid eye contact and mumble. Kai didn’t understand the drastic transition.
Becka wowed Kai one day. She told him that she had received a series of names that are relevant to him. She went on to name his ex-girlfriend, Mom, brother, and cousin. When she got confirmation from Kai she went onto some more abstract revelations. She said that she had seen two tennis rackets in her third eye screen. One wasn’t will