Love Story: In The Web of Life (2 page)

I noticed Paul Jefferies, one of the senior
partners in my law firm, and his young trophy wife, Elaine, had
joined us.

Interrupting Tina, I made
introductions.

"Please continue with your description," said
Paul, "it is interesting."

Tina moved over to another case, leaned over,
pointed and said, "By contrast, this jar is from Athens, about 500
BCE. Notice how the black figures portray Theseus battling the
Minotaur in the labyrinth on the island of Crete. These figures
over here are the youths that were to be human sacrifices. Most of
the jars in this area are decorated with scenes from
mythology."

Paul seemed more interested in looking down the
front of Tina’s dress than noticing the Minotaur.

"This one, over here, depicts Hercules, wearing
the skin of the lion he slew, delivering a mortal blow to Kyknos.
These people standing around at the side are their
relatives."

Paul seemed very interested in skin.

"Very interesting, thank you," said Elaine,
looking very threatened by the interest Paul was giving to the
lecture, and to Tina. She led Paul away.

It had been a wonderful evening.

A slight desert breeze came up as I continued
to walk, nipping on my water.

I continued to muse, 'Maybe contrast makes good
relationships. I am a patent attorney dealing with hard scientific
facts. She is a high school teacher, dealing with ideas. If only
she would leave this New Age mumbo jumbo alone'

I got back to the sailplane and looked out
across the dry lake. There were still wavy mirages in the distance.
It was mysterious that all thermal activity had stopped in this end
of the lake.

The air in the Mojave boils like water in a hot
pan during still summer days. Streams of bubbles rise from the
surface and form into columns of rising air called thermals.
Sometimes they join together to form dust devils, small dirty
tornados that suck up everything smaller than a person, often
rising to ten, sometimes, fourteen thousand feet. I have seen pages
of newspapers floating at ten thousand feet, apparently migrating
to wherever newspapers go to die. Somehow, this area of the Mojave
was set on
simmer
today.

I placed my emergency pack on the ground as a
pillow in the shade under the wing, and lay down for a nap. I
closed my eyes and started to drift off to sleep.

Then, I heard a voice that startled
me.

It said, "Take me to your leader."

I wondered if I was hallucinating and, if so,
why did I have to do it in a cliché.

I looked around and said, "Who is
there?"

"Over here," the voice said. "The speck of
light."

A few yards away, lying at the border between
the dry lake and the shore was a broken clear glass bottle, maybe
an old Mason jar, from the days when people canned their own food.
Inside the bottle was a very intense bright speck of light, like
the spot a welder makes when he is arc welding two pieces of metal
together. It was a brighter version of the flashes of light I had
been seeing this afternoon while flying.

I was shocked. It took me a few moments to
respond. "Am I supposed to let you out or something? You want me to
take you to what leader?"

"No," it seemed to chuckle, "We were only
making what we think you would call a joke. We thought a burning
bush would be too cliché. We were afraid that if we spoke directly
into your head we couldn't have what you call a conversation. This
spark is only a convenient focal point."

"A conversation?" I asked, wondering if the
desert had dehydrated me and I was hallucinating.

"Come over and sit in the shade of this bush
and relax. We apologize for startling you," said the speck of
light.

I got up, wanted to run, but I walked over to
the shade of a bush, sat down, took several long drags of water
from my bottle, paused, and noticed that I felt a great sense of
peace as I relaxed.

"Now, lets start from the beginning." I said,
"If you are not a hallucination or a mirage, who or what are
you?"

The speck of light shimmered, "We understand.
With your scientific background and belief system, you will have
difficulty understanding who we are and how it is that we are
communicating with you. We are communicating with you from another
place outside space-time that you do not yet
understand."

I grew more uneasy and then asked, "We? Who are
you?"

The speck shimmered as it seemed to chuckle and
said, "You may think of us a group of friends who have formed a
group consciousness that is communicating as one voice. We have
never had bodies. We are un-incarnated intelligences who want to
have a conversation with you. "

"Are you like angels?" I asked.

The speck of light replied, "That is sort of
the right idea. However, in your civilization you have pictured
angels as incarnated into bodies with wings and halos and draped
them in flowing robes. We don't have bodies to hang wings on. You
have also made angels employees of your various, shall we say,
tribal Gods. Think of us as freelancers."

"Freelancers? Are you some sort of bounty
hunter? Am I going to abducted?"

"No." The light blinked. "We come in love and
peace. We only want to communicate with you."

"What do I call you," I asked

"We don't really have a name or names as you
think of it–you can address us as 'Uriel' if you wish."

"OK Uriel, but where are you?" I
asked.

"We have a very different view of reality than
that earthlings hold." Said Uriel. "We are outside space-time as
you know it."

"You say 'earthlings.' Does that mean you are
from another planet?" I asked.

"Not really, we think of 'earthlings' as a
viewpoint, not as a place. It is what you might call a state of
mind."

I wanted to run, call 911, or something. This
must be a dream or a hallucination. 'Am I loosing it? Is this a
desert madness of some sort?'

"Why are you talking to me? Am I supposed to
become a prophet or something?" I inquired with some
trepidation.

"No we don't want you to grow a beard and go
around carrying a sign saying 'Repent! The End Is Near.' We want to
explain some limitations of what you call science and expand your
view of reality. We wish you to communicate these ideas through
ways you understand."

"Carrying on a conversation with spirits about
physical science seems a little inconsistent," I observed in a
lawyerly way. "You are nonphysical and science deals with the
physical."

Uriel replied, "We want to help you understand
that much of what you consider outside your science really obeys
the laws of your physics. That misunderstanding is constraining
whole fields of endeavor, such as healing, interpersonal
relationships, and even politics. But, that understanding is a goal
and not the starting point. Let's start by discussing limitations
on what your schools teach about physics. We can build on those
ideas"

"OK, but I am confused," I mumbled, thinking to
myself, 'I really should run or something.'

"First we will talk about what you already only
partially understand, the ideas of space and time," said
Uriel.

"Oh, I don't understand all that stuff about
Einstein's Theory of Relativity. I really don't want to go through
all of the math and those weird concepts. One time, I had a patent
case that involved Relativity and I had to search for a technical
expert. I could never understand him, all I learned was that
Relativity wasn't germane to the patent case," I said in a lawyerly
voice.

"Einstein's mystique is part of the problem.
People on your planet are reluctant to think much about space-time
because Einstein raised the mathematical hurdle so far. He had only
part of the answer. His mathematics professor, Minkowski, was
closer to the answer with his theory of eight
dimensions."

"I have never even heard of him," I replied.
"If I don't understand Einstein's mathematics, how am I supposed to
understand what his professor couldn't teach him?"

"That is what we would ask for you to find out
about," said Uriel.

I said to Uriel, "I think you have the wrong
person. I am a patent lawyer with a science background. I have no
idea what you are talking about."

Then, I heard the distant sound of the Pawnee
tow plane engine, my rescue, guided by GPS satellites, buzzing out
to tow me back to CrystalAire. I was using technology as an
antidote to my indulgence in flying an airplane without a motor. He
saw me, cut his engine, and passed over me in a wide circle to
check the landing conditions. I took off my tee shirt; held it
above my head, let it flap in the gentle breeze to show him the
wind direction. He wiggled his wing in acknowledgement, added some
throttle, flew a landing pattern, touched down, and taxied toward
me.

I turned to Uriel. The speck of bright light
had disappeared. I went over and picked up the broken bottle. It
was only an old piece of glass. I dropped it thinking, 'no point in
taking this with me.'

The pilot turned off the engine, opened the
cockpit side window and stepped out onto the wing. It was Dan, a
man in his thirties, wearing jeans, a white t-shirt, and a cowboy
hat over ear protecting earmuffs. His face was wrinkled and dried
like an old man, from years of living in the desert. He greeted me
with a big smile but without a comment on my plight, pretending he
couldn't converse with his ear protectors. He drew the tow cable
from the reel in Pawnee out to its one hundred and fifty-foot
length and then handed the end to me. I latched it in the tow hook
on the bow of the glider, gave it a jerk to make sure it was
latched. He gave me a silent thumbs up and walked back to the
Pawnee.

When we were both strapped into our cockpits,
and I had gone through my brief checklist I gave him a thumbs–up.
He started the engine, edged the tow plane forward until the tow
lie was taut and waited for my signal. I moved the rudder from
side–to–side, the signal that I was ready to go. We accelerated,
and in about one–hundred feet I was airborne, flying a few inches
above the ground, waiting until the Pawnee reached flying speed.
Then, the Pawnee rocked back, and started a steep climb. I pulled
back on the stick and followed him as we climbed a few hundred feet
and started a gentle turn toward CrystalAire.

I felt relieved. This little hot, sweaty,
thirsty, and disappointing incident was over.

At altitude, I relaxed a little bit and started
to think about my contact, if that is the applicable term, with
Uriel. 'Maybe I am going to have to take some time off from flying
until I get this sorted out. Light flashes and hallucinations may
indicate some sort of neurological problem or a brain tumor. I'll
make an appointment with a neurologist and maybe get an MRI to be
sure. Flying is unforgiving of pilot error. I can't afford any
lapses in judgment. What else was there to know about space and
time? Hadn't all that been worked out by science?'

After I landed and rolled to my sailplane's
parking spot, I got out, stretched, and began tying the wings down.
I heard a cheery voice say, "Welcome back."

It was Tina who handed me a tall, cool can of
Coors, walked over and, gave me a big hug and kiss. She was wearing
tennis shoes, tan Bermuda shorts, a white tank top, and a ball cap
with her red ponytail sticking out above the back strap. I
delighted in seeing she had nothing on under the tank top. She
opened her piercing light blue eyes and said, "I heard the tow
plane come in and knew you were back." She observed, "Is something
the matter? Is landing in the desert that serious? I sense
something else? A big disagreement? Are we O.K?"

"Something strange happened," I said, my arm
around her waist. Having her near was making me feel
better.

We started to walk down the now deserted
airfield to the country club trailer park. The airstrip is a mile
long, paved for the middle half of its length, the rest is a
sandstone colored swath bulldozed in the desert, strewn with small
rocks, and bordered by desert chaparral and an occasional Joshua
trees. My desert refuge is next to the airstrip, at the outer
boundary of the country club.

"Right after I texted you, I took a nap in the
shade of the wing. I was startled by a speck of light in a broken
mason jar that appeared to be talking to me," I said
incredulously.

"A what?" She replied.

I stopped and faced her: "I was taking a nap
and then I heard a voice. It appeared to come from a broken Mason
jar, the kind of garbage you find all over the desert where people
have camped." I repeated, "
There was a
bright speck of light in the jar and a voice coming out of
it
!"

"You must have been suffering from
dehydration," she said with a laugh. "It takes forty days and forty
nights wandering in the desert to get mystical visions." Then
impishly added, "You have always been a quick study." She looked at
me for a long time and then said, "You're serious. This is really
upsetting you."