Harry Pond Looks Homeward - Jay Allan Luboff (classic fiction txt) 📗

Harry Pond Looks Homeward:

The Spiritual Adventures of an Ohio Farm Boy

By Jay Allan Luboff

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

FOREST PASSAGE WITH THE GUARDIAN

Searching and searching to find ourselves; one day it happens and we KNOW we are home

With Becky home from work, we spent our days over the next few months visiting the forest and doing the homework given to us by our teachers.

Becky spent more and more time in the forest alone, and though she didn’t speak very much about her lessons, I knew they were changing her. Her body, for one, was becoming more lean as she changed her eating habits. She was interested in vegetable meals and gradually gave up meat in her diet. Her spirit remained as strong as ever, but she became more inward and silent, as if her visits to the forest were somehow helping her become strong and quiet, like the forest itself.

As for me, the Guardian came often. Yet, shortly after Uncle Julius’ visit, something changed in our lessons. I’d now adopted a habit to go to the forest each morning for daily walks with the Guardian. This morning, he’d been speaking about the origins of separate thought from God and wanted to “show” me the results of the separation from the “Oneness,” as he called it. We walked deep into the forest, eventually walking along a small deer trail that ran off the main forest path, to arrive at a clearing encircled by trees.

I knew this clearing well, as I’d come here often as a boy. My father would bring me to this place, and together we’d spend nights camping in the forest. In the middle of the clearing lay the charred rock-remains of the forest campsite that Dad and I had made so many, many years back.

I felt so engrossed with the Guardian’s story of creation, at first I didn’t notice the path we were on, at least not until we arrived at the old campsite. It had been so long ago since I’d been here, but I knew this place, very well! A smile of joy crossed my face as I remembered the nights Dad and I spent under the stars here together.

The Guardian stopped talking as we arrived, giving me a moment to reminisce about the past, but soon continued, “Here we will stay for awhile. Today is a special day. It’s the anniversary of the day your grandparents came to this area and bought the farm and their share of the forest. Your remembrance of this place is important. It’s here that your father chose to bring you to initiate you to the forest mysteries. Many of these have been lost to your memory, but now together we will revive them.

And then, as if by magic, I found myself literally transported back to my youth, to the first time my father and I ever came to sleep in the forest. I saw myself at the age of five as if a watcher of the scenes of my own life. We were just arriving at the clearing. This open part of the forest felt very new, as if it had only recently been cleared. No campsite or charred rocks remained at the site. The forest was thick then with young evergreen shoots. A little creek branch ran across the lower edge of the clearing. As we arrived, Dad put us immediately to work gathering rocks for the campsite. I couldn’t really carry any of the big ones, but what I could carry, I did, while Dad gathered the heavier rocks. These are the rocks that are still present to this very day. As I watched us, I noticed that we weren’t building a round fire pit, but that Dad had a different idea. With my little stones and his larger ones, he had us make a common pile. When we’d gathered all he thought we’d need, he sat down with me and explained what we were going to do. The scene stirred deep memories within, for I had no recollection of it in my conscious mind … until now. Still, as I watched, I had the eerie experience of watching a scene that I had participated in as a child, and at the same time of consciously remembering, in the present, the actual events of the scene. Dad’s words rang in my mind. “Harry,” he said, “we will be coming here for a few years and then we will stop. Our purpose is for you to know this area of the forest. One day you’ll be brought back here and it will start a process of remembering within you that will be very important.” With that he began to explain to me how we were going to build the campfire that we’d use at this spot—on that evening and on the other evenings that we came to be in the forest. “First,” he said, “what we’re building here is an altar, a symbol to the Light, that we will use to keep us warm at night in body and spirit. Though you may not remember this time as you grow up it will come back to you and there will be a time for you to know this place and its importance.” We started then to build the campfire, rock-by-rock. Dad had a plan. He knew exactly where each rock went, and he also seemed to know which rocks he should put down and which ones that I would place. I watched my little hands as they struggled to lift the sometimes too heavy rocks that Dad had me carry, and yet all the while I rejoiced at the effort, for just being him was enough for me, as I loved him dearly.

The little five-year old boy that I was saw it all as fun. I lifted little rocks and bigger ones and alternately ran and stumbled over to the area of the campfire, but eventually the pile of rocks that Dad had us collect was gone. In its place was what looked at first appearance to be a normal campfire, but upon closer inspection it was shaped in a large round heart shape, and in the middle was a rough image of the same fleur-de-lys pattern that I had seen on my first journey with the Guardian, and on the wall of my parents’ bedroom. The leaves of the fleur-de-lys crossed in the middle of the heart, and as I watched I saw Dad begin to build the first fire of this fledgling campsite’s life directly over the point where the fleur-de-lys crossed. I watched the little boy I was and how exciting it was for me to be there with my father. And yet, I also saw the tears that came to my little eyes as the first sparks of the fledgling fire caught. Somehow, even then I knew the importance of this place, and that Dad wouldn’t always be with me when I returned to it.

The Guardian’s voice interrupted my private thoughts about that moment. “We have come,” he said, “to stir your memory about this place; for it’s here that your father told you of the mysteries of Light that are the Brotherhood’s ‘secrets.’ “We know that you’re wondering why you have no memory of this time, and even why your father didn’t speak of these things when you were ever so young. “The answer to this question resides in the rules of the Brotherhood that were given to your father at the time of your birth…and before. Each person, or ‘life stream’, has many contracts with others to help them on their way regarding awakening their consciousness to their own unique Light. Our job in the Brotherhood is to work with both those who are awakening and with those others who’ve made agreements with them to lend a hand on their journey of awakening. “Your father knew of your awakening in this life. Yet, it is a strong tenet of the Brotherhood to allow each individual to choose his or her own pace and time. Had your father raised you to be a ‘child of the Brotherhood of Light,’ you would have found yourself with a great deal of the form of our order, but you may still not have made the choice to pass along the road to ‘our house’ to learn the essence.” He stopped for a moment, as if in thought himself, and said quietly, “To the House of the Light of God.” Then he continued, “So, you were left to grow on your own after only a short introduction to us. Your father brought you here, but as you know, he only rarely mentioned the symbol or the elements of knowledge that encompass our work.

“Your father knew of your awakening in this life. Yet, it is a strong tenet of the Brotherhood to allow each individual to choose his or her own pace and time. Had your father raised you to be a ‘child of the Brotherhood of Light,’ you would have found yourself with a great deal of the form of our order, but you may still not have made the choice to pass along the road to ‘our house’ to learn the essence.” He stopped for a moment, as if in thought himself, and said quietly, “To the House of the Light of God.” Then he continued, “So, you were left to grow on your own after only a short introduction to us. Your father brought you here, but as you know, he only rarely mentioned the symbol or the elements of knowledge that encompass our work.

 “You’re here now, and by your faith, you’ve come to study our life, and be taught what it is you’ll need to know to freely join us. The illusion of separation of man from his own Creator has damaged the very fabric of life itself. It was never meant to be. Our task is to help correct that which went wrong and strengthen the order of things in the service of the Light. The challenge is to help a sleeping “God-Man” and “God-Woman” trust that reawakening a desire within them to regain a conscious connection to the unity of the Light will be not only be safe for them, but will also result in a more joyful and sacred life here on this plane of duality. “The movement of God mind from higher to the lower and more dense vibrations of earth affected humanity’s thoughts and consciousness in ways predictable and unpredictable. The day-to-day realities of being in human form—needing to feed, clothe and shelter the body began to take precedence over man’s direct connection to ‘God-mind.’ Instead, humanity’s ‘Survival-mind’ came to dominate life on earth and with it humankind began to lose its conscious connection to the whole. “And yet, it is a great truth that the struggle to survive within Survival-consciousness can never displace the fundamental reality known somewhere deep within each person’s being, either consciously or not, that they are part of the One—capable of re-accessing and experiencing a purer expression of the qualities of God-mind of joy, light, creativity, love and expanded self-knowledge that are currently available at the higher reaches of the One mind. Still, even though this is the case, conscious knowledge of this truth varies within each person depending on their own personal evolution and growth in re-wakening their connection to their Source. The Guardian then paused, as if conferring with others as to the next thing that I would be shown, or taught. “We must go now,” he said. “You’re needed in town to visit with a certain man named