Tantric Coconuts (7 page)

It suddenly became very clear to Ted exactly what his dreams meant. He did not need Angel to tell him. It was obvious. It was the same thing his grandfather had told him. The same thing his ex-wife had told him. He didn’t want to hear it, but now even his dreams were telling him the same thing. His attraction to Angel was the final nudge Ted needed. He stammered, “I understand what the dreams meant. Angel, is
that offer of yours still open? Argo and I could join you and No Barks. You could be my teacher.” While not sure it was possible, he wanted the arrangement to be fair. “I’ll do my best to help your aunt Lilly, but no promises. If that doesn’t work, I can afford to pay you. I’ll help with gas and food too. That’s no problem.”

Angel was excited to have her very first client, her first soul to heal. Still, she wanted to make sure Ted was sincere in his interest. “This work is not easy. Are you sure?”

“This is what my grandfather was trying to tell me. That’s what you’re trying to tell me. I think that’s what my dreams were saying too. Maybe it’s time for me to listen. I am willing to try it.”

“I agree. The dreams are auspicious signs of your willingness to engage in the work we do. If you’re ready, we can start.”

“Someone is filling in for me for about two weeks. Is that long enough?”

“I’ve been working on this material for more than ten years. Two weeks is really just an outrageously short period of time, but if you’re willing to work hard, you can make considerable progress.”

Angel had been driving around in Bertha for a month hoping someone would call her. Now that she finally had a client, she realized that she needed to develop a curriculum, fast. She thought of Father Chuck, one of her favorites from her little spiritual group. He was always so organized. She hoped it would rub off on her. “Ted, meet me at five o’clock at the Benedictine monastery in Pecos, New Mexico. We’ll talk
more then.” This would give her an hour or two to meet with Father Chuck before Ted arrived.

Ted hesitated. He wanted to tell her that he needed answers first—before he drove halfway across New Mexico. He also knew that if she was going to be the teacher, her pupil needed to trust her.

“Say that again? Where do you want me to meet you?” asked Ted, searching for the address in his GPS.

“The Benedictine monastery just outside of Pecos. My friend Chuck—he’s a priest—he’s on a retreat there. He’s part of my group and I wanted to visit him anyway. I’ll be waiting. And Ted …”

“Yes?”

“Nothing personal, but please drive carefully.”

After he hung up, he battened down the hatches on the Chieftain and prepared to get back on the road. Why should Spirit Tech with Angel be different from any other academic study? There was no need to worry. Was there? He hesitated again. Was he choosing the course work because it was of interest or because the teacher had very nice legs? Perhaps, for now, it didn’t matter. Some attraction was pulling at him.

Turning the key in the ignition, Ted brought to life the 420-cubic-inch engine and said aloud, “Grandpa, here we go! Just like you told me. Adventure on the open road!”

A few hours later he found Angel standing next to Bertha in the monastery parking lot. She was talking to a priest. It had been a hurried discussion. Father Chuck encouraged Angel to find a structure but to allow the instruction to
unfurl in an intuitive way. They also discussed three possible obstructions that might impede Ted’s progress: lack of intellectual ability, lack of desire, and fear of change. When she waved to Ted, the priest turned and walked away, apparently busy with his own matters. Angel waited for Ted to join her and wondered if the two of them were up to the task before them.

Ted sat on the meditation pillow—a brown corduroy cushion that felt like Velcro on wolf fur—and waited for further instructions. Getting comfortable in his new surroundings was a tall task. Bertha’s interior was a rather strange hodgepodge of steel, animal skins, incense, candle sconces, calendars from the last century, bones from some archeological dig, old bookshelves, a metal librarian’s desk—still anchored to the driver’s side wall—blankets, pillows, clothing, tools, towels, and items that generally appeared to be broken, discarded, and evidently of no further value to the civilized world. Most of the bookshelves had been removed from the walls, but some of the mounting brackets remained. Also on the wall of the driver’s side was one remaining set of floor-to-ceiling shelving. On the shelves were just under a hundred of Angel’s favorite books. Between the driver’s seat and the passenger seat was an open space where No Barks liked to perch.

Angel began her first lesson by pulling from the shelves and tossing in Ted’s direction paperback copies of what she considered to be classic spiritual texts. He glanced quickly at the first three titles that rained down at his feet—Stephen
Batchelor’s
Buddhism Without Beliefs
, Richard Rohr’s
The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See
, and John Neihardt’s
Black Elk Speaks
. Editorializing on her selections, Angel said, “These books may seem inconsistent, and yet, in their own way, each finds the same truths about why we are here on this planet and our life purpose.” She finally stopped tossing books and concluded, “Reading may not be a substitute for doing, but it’s a start.”

Angel walked away from her bookshelf and began to shove some of her belongings into a pile toward the front of Bertha. “For now, you take the back and I’ll take the front. We’ll do some work here together at the monastery first. Later today we can drive up into the mountains. Father Chuck and I have an exercise in mind for you. You’ll love it.”

When Ted tried to inventory his surroundings, what struck him as most strange about Bertha was not what was there but what was missing: there was no bed, no proper kitchen, a very inadequate bathroom, no microwave, no dishwasher, no refrigerator, no sound system, no flat screen, no iPhone docking station, and only one electrical outlet. Ted sighed. If he’d paid for this school, a tuition refund would be in the works. This vehicle was ready for salvage.

Once Angel finished dealing texts to Ted like playing cards and reshuffling her belongings, she grabbed a pillow of her own and sat down close to Ted in the open area of Bertha, just behind the driver’s seat. “Ready for your first class at Spirit Tech?” she asked.

“Let’s start.”

“Father Chuck and I believe that there are some preliminary lessons you should complete before you’ll be able to do any serious work. Each of the three preliminary lessons—we call them realizations—will have two parts: instruction and practice. I could try to introduce all three realizations to you today, but it’s a great deal of work and it’ll take at least several hours. Are you up to this much work after a long drive?” Angel gazed at her student intently.

Ted looked around the bookmobile, still having major misgivings about Spirit Tech on Wheels. His dog, however, had no such problems. Argo, nestled in by No Barks, gently licked the wolf’s ears. If Argo was comfortable with the wolf, Ted decided that he could get comfortable with a Lakota spiritual consultant teaching from a dilapidated bookmobile. “Let’s push ahead.”

After a few moments of stillness, Angel began. “Let’s start where we left off earlier this morning. You passed out before I could finish the instructions for the first realization.” She leaned closer to Ted and again took his hand in hers. “Do you remember what happened when I did this earlier today?”

Ted was starting to get nervous and hoped he would not lose consciousness again. He more asked than answered, “I fell asleep?”

She put her other hand on his wrist and gave him her condolences. “I’m afraid that it is more serious than that, Ted.” She pulled both of her hands away from him and placed them back on her own lap. She sighed a little louder than she intended to and looked at No Barks as if seeking guidance from
a wolf. When the wolf said nothing, she finally asked aloud, “How can I best say this?”

Ted wondered what humiliating things he might have done while in his trance. An embarrassing list of possibilities raced through his mind before he asked, “Was it that bad?”

“Like most people, Ted, the bulk of your available consciousness has been asleep on the Tarmac. It’s time for you to take off—so you can be truly alive, alert, healthy, and whole.”

There was something rather condescending in her tone that put Ted on the defensive. “I might be more awake than you think.”

“To be clear, Ted, by ‘awake,’ I don’t mean your eyes are open. I mean something quite different.”

“Like
awaken
to the possibilities?” he asked.

“No. That’s not it, either. For most of us, only a small fraction of our mind is actually conscious. So by ‘asleep,’ what I mean is that your unconscious mind is in control and your true self has not yet actualized. It’s sitting quietly at the back of the auditorium with no voice.” Angel’s voice became more excited. “Now is the time to get it front and center, at the podium and in control. That’ll be the essence of our work together. This can be very exciting for you.”

Ted shrugged, not yet clear why waking up would be such a good thing, and wondered how Angel could sit so naturally and comfortably in that awkward cross-legged pose. If he sat like that, he would surely come crashing down like a poorly stacked pile of stones. “All right, then, sound the alarm and wake me up!”

“Some of the things I am about to say might not quite make logical sense at this point in your journey. Don’t worry about that. You’re a smart guy; it will sink in with time.” She again took his wrist as if she were offering him her condolences. “Just listen for now. Do you mind doing that?”

Ted took another long look at her, and while he found the proposition of listening without trying to understand both strange and implausible, he tried to be agreeable. “Sure. I’ll try.”

“Good. We’ll start at the beginning. We call it the first realization.”

“
We?
” Ted asked.

“Yes, me, Father Chuck, and the rest of my friends. The study group I told you about.”

“I remember.”

“After we discuss the first two realizations, we’ll drive up to the trailhead to the lake, and along the way I’ll give you your first training exercise.”

“I have to do exercises?”

“Yes. There is a difference between grasping that a bike can be ridden and actually climbing on it and taking a ride; it takes time and practice to train the brain.”

The afternoon sun reflected off Angel’s black hair so that it sparkled with thousands of points of light. Ted’s hesitation about the curriculum did not apply to his tall, dark, and confident instructor. He flexed his muscles as if he were doing arm curls with thirty-pound weights and said, “I don’t mind exercises.”

“What if I told you that you could wake up and operate from your fully conscious or true self. Would that be of interest to you?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Good. Do you know how the word ‘Buddha’ translates?”

Ted had no clue. “Hindu slang for ‘Buddy’?”

“Not really, Ted. It means the
awakened one
.”

“So was the Buddha more awake than the rest of us?”

“A better way to help you understand the concept of waking up is to view consciousness as variable—existing on a hierarchy of awareness from a deep coma at one end of the spectrum to a fully awakened, enlightened being at the other end.”

“I take it you see me on the wrong end of the spectrum? Pretty much a zombie?” Ted asked.

“Not just you but most of us. Me too. This first realization—we are not awake—is simple to understand. You must accept this realization or nothing else we do together will matter or make much sense. A spiritual quest is always about transformation, increasing awareness.”

“I get the concept: some people walk through life in a seemingly more conscious way than other people. Still, I’ve got to ask a few questions before I’m all in.”

“Fire away.”

“Is what you are describing Maslow’s concept of self-actualization?”

Angel stood up, walked to the shelf of the bookmobile, handed Ted a book from her mobile library, and sat back
down.
^*
“You’re close, Ted. The absence of consciousness is the absence of a fully actualized life.”

“So what’s the difference between spiritual work and psychological work?”

“This is my take on it. Psychology focuses on working with what you’ve got: how to have the healthiest ego possible. Spiritual work asks you to step away from and transcend the ego entirely: to let go and become egoless. It’s probably best seen as progression. You first need a healthy ego before you’re strong enough to leave it behind.”

“Okay, Angel, I’m with you on this first realization. How do I fill my life with more awareness? Should I double my caffeine, buy a saffron robe, or chant a mantra in a Himalayan cave?”

“I wish it were so easy! To answer your question, we’ll need to turn to the second realization, but first let’s walk the dogs and stretch our legs. I want to check out the bookstore too.” She stood up. “A-plus on the first realization. One down and two to go. A spiritual vacation is not all bad, is it?”

Angel started to exit Bertha with No Barks before Ted
could answer. The posterior view of Angel was remarkable. Ted removed his yellow legal pad from the kitchen drawer of his mind and sketched Ted’s First Total Undisputed Realization: Angel Two Sparrow was hot.

He nudged Argo. “Get up or they’re going to leave us behind.” He gave the dog’s collar an affectionate tug. “Day one and you’re already licking that she-wolf’s ears. Very impressive. Do you think there’s any hope for me and Professor Two Sparrow?”