Sudden awareness, where there had been none before…. she was stunning; the perfect figure revealed/concealed by the gown that wrapped loosely around it. She is standing maybe 20 feet away from me, maybe 30, but there is no ground, no earth solid and familiar under our feet. No. There are bright stars all around us, we seem to be in a starfield somewhere…. suspended…. Where it is I do not know, except that it seems strangely familiar, somehow. All this taken in in a split second- a very short moment. The woman dominates the image, but it is not her body beauty that has my attention; only much later do I realize the extent of her beauty. No, the eyes have it, all of it, totally and completely. And they have me. In their sights. Storms there, lightning, thunder and nightmares, and in a chill of recognition- the realization that those storms were intended for me!

Recognition in my awareness, though I do not know how. She was not someone who I’d been previously acquainted, at least that I was aware of, but as she stared across the short distance of space at me, it took no intelligence at all to realize she had less than pleasant ideas for me. Remarkably unpleasant, even. These moments seem to contain no passage of time at all….

Realizing my grave danger, but with no further thought, I pulled my slingshot out of my back pocket, and with a form that any great gunslinger would have been proud of- pulled back, aimed and fired, in one motion, with seemingly no time elapsed. The shot hit her in the left knee, and she went down, first to the other knee, then to her hands and that good knee. And, long after, studying the memory, the interesting sense that we were on some sort of “surface” even though it was not perceivable, at least to me- she fell to some surface, she (we!) didn’t plummet to the nearest star. But again, her remarkable eyes dominate the image; her look of stunned confusion and astonishment, and that lightning still in those eyes, as she looked at me across that space….

But all that was much later; in moments of rapid motion and decision, details may be taken in but not mentally remarked upon until later examination. In the “now”, right behind the woman who was now on her hands and knees, another woman was revealed, obviously her sister, not her twin, but so close as to be unmistakable. There was no time for any observation or contemplation beyond that, because she throws a card at me, which travels like lightning and hits me in the chest before I can move at all. It hits with a jarring impact, strangely not painful, but it knocks me backward and suddenly I am falling…. into the chasm behind me which I am astonished by- I would have sworn that it had not been there before….

And I fall….

And it is dark now and the stars are gone, they might as well never have existed. As I fall, free and tumbling, disoriented; my hand scrapes something and closes on it. Gripping as tightly as I can, the motion of falling slows and then stops as I hang on for dear life to this…. what is it? A branch?? And I seem to be rising now as the branch returns to its’ former position. I hang there, only the branch keeping me from continuing the long fall…. breathing hard, trying to gain any kind of control over my existence in this moment.

And as I hang there, by one arm, the urge hits me to climb the tree. To climb the tree? I really did not question it at the time, each moment seemed to demand its’ own separate, different action. Hanging by one hand, in the dark, in this moment I did not move fast. I brought my other arm up; it seemed to have been damaged somehow- later I thought the card thrown by the second woman might have hit a muscle that controlled it, but that thought did not occur to me at the time. In fact, the whole sequence was characterized by very little thought and almost complete action. The various details only became clear to me later on as I went over the memories of the remarkable sequence.

Slowly, carefully, I began to climb the tree. In the dark. Complete dark. Like darkness that had never been violated by the light of day, or any other light, for that matter. I was way out on the edge of the tree at first, so I slowly made my way toward the center, or at least what I thought was the center. Later, this was another thing that I was not sure of- how I knew which way to go to get up the tree, unless the tree itself was giving me directions, so to speak. This I did not think of in the tree, only long after. Feeling for leaves, branches in the way; even though my eyes were telling me nothing at that moment, I held them in great value and desired that no harm come to them.

I reached the center of the tree. That is how I thought of it, the center. Not the “trunk”, but the center. Later, as I looked back, it seemed like a long time, but in that moment there was no apparent time, which is something that continues to intrigue me. I felt around me for hand and footholds so I could climb, and found some easily. And so I climbed. There was a palpable sense of interest, of a goal for reaching the top. Again, I have no explanation for this, or anything else in this sequence in later times. I climbed for some time, my attention taken entirely in the act of finding a handhold, grabbing, finding another, grabbing with the other hand, careful that there were no smaller branches in my path, then footholds, and slowly up the tree. At some point I noticed a very slight increase in the feeling- which now became an urge to get up this tree. In fact, I never really “saw” the “tree”, so this is just one more area of unknownness- was it really a “tree”, in the typical sense of the word, in our normal understanding? All I can perceive from this in a later time is that I felt it was a tree and never questioned beyond that.

I could sense that I was getting close to the top: the branches were getting much thinner, they were having trouble supporting my weight; I was grabbing 2 or 3 at a time to pull myself up. And then, I broke through. Completely unexpectedly, I just got to the top and almost fell back down in my surprise and wonder at what I saw there. I broke through the top to see a gorgeous sunset, the likes of which I’d never seen, and I was known for dropping everything and running for the highest hill/viewpoint at sunset. It covered the whole sky in blazing colors: reds, yellows, oranges, blues; and clouds running across the sky in graceful long lines in all directions. “Inside” the tree, there had been nothing! I couldn’t believe it! The tree had completely blocked out all light, it had been like being in a cave. And then to come out of that into a wondrous sunset was almost too much for my senses to take.

I stared for long minutes, looking in jaw dropped wonder, as I hung there in the top of the tree. I was in the highest spot in a great forest, which went on as far as I could see. And then, as the sun began to near the horizon and the end of its’ path for that day, I had a strange idea. I didn’t think it strange at the moment, but I certainly have since. Now being able to see the top, at least, of the tree I was in, in addition to the thousands more around me, I began to break branches from the top of the tree and fashion a very primitive bow. Again, there is no thought here, just action; things like reasons are only to be pondered upon much later.

I had the bow ready in short order; the sun was on the horizon by that time. I broke off one last branch, a very straight one, fitted it to the bow, aimed at the sinking sun and fired. The arrow leapt away as if of its’ own, or something elses’ accord, travelled swiftly over the forest and right into the center of the lowering sun. With a terrific hiss, and a strong puff of hot air, the sun dropped from the sky and crashed violently into a sea somewhere beyond the forest. This was evidenced by a very tall and powerful wave which rose up over the forest in that direction and fell down on that edge of the forest. But then something happened which filled me with fear- or was it fear from another agency, the forest itself? Another question likely to never be answered.

As the water far away from where I was broke over the trees closest to the edge there, everything began to catch fire. And now, the fire of the sunset was replaced by the real fire of the burning forest. Which rapidly spreads toward the point where I am, where I can see everything as it is happening; to my horror! Very soon the flames are at the branches of the tree I am in, and I am suddenly overcome by the wrenching feeling of having someone I love very dearly die suddenly and unexpectedly.

It is in this state, not so much fear now, that the flames reach me. They begin to lick my feet, then my legs, and soon I am on fire with the rest of the forest. I feel the heat, but no physical pain, which I later find to be exceedingly strange, but I do feel intensely the emotional pain of the sudden loss of a loved one. At the point where I feel I will expire, suddenly the tree throws me into the air. High into the air. And I sail up, up, above the burning forest, above that earth, into the blue sky, the deep blue sky of dusk and evening. And slowly I cool, the burning sensations begin to quiet. As do the sharp emotional pains of loss of loved ones. Now, a deep calm envelopes me, as I float through the evening sky, flying feeling as natural to me as if I were a great bird.

Suddenly, with jarring abruptness, I’m standing on a street corner in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. It has to be mid summer, the sun is raging in the sky, right above my head. It literally feels like it is raging. I am aware of this. The marquee on the corner says it’s noon and 110 degrees Fahrenheit. A feeling of mortal fear descends upon me, and I look around the crowded street to see if anyone else shows signs of the same. But really, they all just look hot. And I shrink a little, knowing that the sun is looking for me, perhaps aware of me here in this place, and there may be a repayment to be made for the slaying of its’ brother. I duck quickly into a dark restaurant and take a seat as far in the back as possible. As I put my arms on the table I’m sitting at, I feel a vague, but very real dismay when I see that I’m wearing a very red coat. Somehow it seems so wrong and so portentous. And perhaps it is, because almost at that second there is a muffled roar behind me, and a door blows off its’ hinges, and a burst of flame explodes out from that room- the kitchen, I realize. Immediately, there is fire all around me. Again.

As tables, chairs, curtains, carpets and anything else around all burst into flame, a shape forms in the middle of the flames. Somehow I am not surprised when I recognize the woman who my contact with had started this strange sequence of events. If possible, she is even more beautiful as a fire being, but the lightning is still in her eyes, and she comes to me and envelopes me in what turns out to be a cold flame, and suddenly there is darkness and quiet.

The next moment of awareness, I am back in the “starfield” where I had first confronted the two women. And now, there is a circle of beautiful, terrible women ringed around me, all with lightning in their eyes, all throwing fireballs at me. Every one scores a direct hit, each time a fireball hits my body, there is a flare of light in that body part, but I feel nothing. And this is a matter of great concern to me. At once relief, because I can tell that this is very high powered stuff; but also worry, because I cannot feel anything, and in fact, I feel a detachment that seems very odd, all things considered. I observe the women for a time; oddly, this moment seems to contain time, where most of the others did not, or, at least, they contained a much more fluid concept of time. As I watch them, I begin to feel a sense of at first longing, and then actual love for these beings. They’re throwing the stuff of stars at me, and I’m falling in love with them. The oddity, the discrepancy of this idea was totally lost on me in that moment; again, it was only later that I viewed the memory images with more than a little astonishment. As the women circled out there in the starfield, I also began to feel more powerful, in addition to being in love with each one. And yet, somehow having an understanding that they were all one and the same, just different images.

And finally, as one…. goddess she would have to be called…. threw a fireball directly in front of me, I reached out and caught it, and with its’ energy, I reversed its’ flow, but instead of throwing it back, I pulled her slowly closer to me. I felt no resistance from her at this, in fact, she seemed very gladdened by it. The others became non existent, they melded into one, outside my visual perception, but very clearly in some sort of knowledge awareness. I pulled her closer and as I did, I felt the love I was feeling increase, and a joy as well, and knew somehow that she felt the same. And then, a contact- the most wondrous sensation I have ever known- joy and harmony, love and beauty, and a playfulness which I had never felt but which seemed so familiar somehow. And then, we were light, and energy; leaving trails through the starfield, smokescreens for hiding and seeking. And then we were a river of light, washing through that starfield, flowing endlessly, shifting, changing, mingling together, then apart and finally together again.

There was nothing but our river of light.

I knew nothing else, I cared for nothing else, the joy that we WERE was like nothing I had ever felt, and eclipsed all that I had known before. And it seemed to go on forever, so different and yet so familiar.

And then, a different moment of awareness….

I sat on the bank of a river, the sun setting in the late afternoon throwing sparkling lights across the water, the rippling breeze playing with those lights, sending them here and there in almost random patterns, a joy of dancing lights going on not quite forever, but close enough. And then the sun set, and a stunning light show followed its’ departure; long lines of clouds streaking across the deepening blue sky- first white, then pink, then orange and deeper colors, culminating in a true symphony of color in the sky, and my heart was filled with a joy that I rarely knew. And finally, the stars came out, and took my breath away with their beauty. And I sat for a long time on the bank of that river, reveling in that rare joy, and then, the aurora came out. Very rare in that part of the country, they swirled across the sky, rivers of light again, and I knew, I recognized and remembered her, and I laughed and laughed, and said: “And a very fine hello to you too, my friend!”

And then laughed some more, for the sheer joy of it.