Reincarnation (13 page)

tunic, and laid in a coffin. Ashes are scattered in her loose hair. A wreath of hyacinths is

placed on her head.

Hyacinths.

I think this word has a meaning to me but I am

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forgetting. I can't remember my name, nor my mother or father.

Trying to remember these things, I wander down the sloping Acropolis and through the

streets of Athens. It is not safe for a young woman to walk through silent Athens in the

night. I know this and yet I am strangely unafraid.

I turn down an unfamiliar city street, and at the end of it I come to a river. A flat boat floats, moored to a post jutting from the water. On it, a man in a rough, brown toga stands as

though he is waiting for me.

This must be a dream,
I think, despite the fact that it seems so real.

"I will ferry you to the other side," the man offers.

"What is on the other side?" I ask.

"You will like it," he says.

"I have no way to pay you."

"That gold cord ensnarled in your hair will do."

I pick through my knotted locks, freeing the remaining piece of broken cord. "It's not worth

much," I mention.

"It's enough."

I dimly recall a tale Charis told me as a girl. The story does not return to me clearly, though I

remember the moral. Don't pay the ferryman until he gets you safely to the other side,

otherwise he will dump you in the middle of the River Styx.

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"Is this the River Styx?" I ask.

He nods, and I shiver with fear. This is the river of death. On the other side is the

underworld.

Fearfully, I crumple the golden cord in my fist. "No. No." I back away.

I buckle forward, sure I will vomit. I only dry heave, producing nothing. My eyes tingle with

tears yet remain dry.

The ferryman beckons for me to come. "You will regret life as a spirit," he says. "Such unimaginable loneliness. This is your one chance to cross over."

"I will pay you on the other side," I offer.

He smiles bitterly, shaking his head. "Now they tell even young people that story, I see. Sad to make the young so untrusting. Pay me when you wish."

As I step into the boat, he unties and pushes off with his pole. The silent black river flows

past the home of my parents and brothers. A jar of hyssop water sits at the front door to

show there has been a death in the family.

The river flows along the coast where Artem sits on a rock, the ocean waves crashing around

him. "Don't!" I cry as he hurls the hooked-together earrings into the waves.

"Good-bye. Good-bye," I call to him. He looks up for a moment as though he might have

heard me on the wind or in the surf. Then he hangs his head in despair.

It is dawn by the time the boat reaches the other

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side. As it bumps onto the shore, I hand the ferryman his golden cord. Then he is gone,

nowhere to be seen.

I am soon in a meadow with others. It's full of flowers with a warm breeze wafting through.

We talk and rest. I am aware of being very tired.

Time ceases to be meaningful. I might have been in the meadow for hundreds of years,

maybe hundreds of minutes.

It is all the same to me.

There seems to be a great deal to think about, to sort out, make some sense of. We are

always talking to one another, discussing, wondering if we made the best choices while we

lived:

"What do you think I should have done differently?"

"What would you have done if you had been me?"

"Was I wrong to put aside love for a higher good?"

"Is it so wrong to want to be safe?"

"Did I do that for the right reasons?"

It went on and on ... and on.

We are never hungry but we drink as though parched from the two rivers than run through

the meadow, Lethe and Amelete. I notice that the more I drink, the less I can remember of

the past.

Each time I drink from the river, I sleep a good deal. After one very long, deep slumber, I

awake in the meadow and think:
I would like to try again.

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Then, soon after I have this thought, a column of blinding white light appears. It has a

name that I have heard from the others in the meadow.

It is The Hinge of the Universe.

It hums steadily, vibrating at a very fast rate.

I have seen it before and watched others walk into its light, but it has never before affected

me. Now this day, I am unable to resist its pull; I want to go toward it.

I am in its center.

In a rapid stream, I am shooting downward, through a starstruck black expanse, toward the

earth. I am returning.

I will be done with the world that makes me hang on the whims of men. I will make my own

power. I will serve the mother goddess and draw strength from her.

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(On the Wheel of Rebirth) Canaan, 28 C.E.:

My dear brother, Thaddeus,

It was a line wedding even though the host ran out of wine at one point. It seems that this

Jesus of Nazareth that they're all talking about produced lots more of it somehow after his

mother requested that he do so -- a man after my own heart.

I've got to stop drinking so much wine. It makes these headaches of mine even worse. I also

become too quarrelsome when I drink. For example, some folks were claiming that this

Jesus I mentioned is the messiah that has been prophesied. I quickly argued that this could

not be. According to prophesy, the messiah isn't supposed to come until
after
the prophet Elijah returns from the dead.

So there. I had them on that.

I didn't even know that this Jesus had been listening, but he had. He said:
I say to you that

Elijah has come already and they did not know him.

I told him: "Well, okay, if you say so." But to be honest, this mystified me so I asked around about what he meant by that. The group of twelve men who travel with him told me that

they're fairly convinced that he means that Elijah
was

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born again, this time as John the Baptist. Then, when he had his head cut off, it was more of

that karma stuff we heard about from the Suddha texts. It seems Elijah was responsible for

having some heads chopped off way back when. So it came back to him in his next life.

Elijah reincarnated as John the Baptist and that means it was all clear for the messiah to

come. I can accept that. Reincarnation is certainly not a new idea.

Okay, I say. Fair enough.

I'm definitely going to stop drinking so much, though.

London, England, 1247:

My darling baby Gwendolyn, I give you to these good nuns of the Order of the Star of

Bethlehem since I am too poor to feed you on my own. Hopefully they will raise you to be a

pious nun and to serve God, especially Mary, the mother of God, as they do. Your life will be

plain and holy but you will never starve. You will not have to concern yourself with life's

difficult choices.

It is a good time in England. Edward the First is a good king. Stay true to God and country

and you will never go wrong.

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London, England, 1348:

Rest in Peace, Mother Abbess Maria Regina (born Gwendolyn of Canterbury), leader of our

order who has this day died of the terrible black Death that has taken so many others. Your

devotion to Mary, our divine mother, knows no equal. Your tender ministrations to the sick

and dying will not soon be forgotten. Your prodigious knowledge of Latin and Greek

unlocked a world of learning to the sisters of our order.

Captain's log, 1518:

We arrived on the coast of West Africa today where we dropped anchor offshore for fear of

being attacked or contracting any of the native diseases that so many before us have

succumbed to. My jaw is aching. No doubt I have begun to grind my teeth at night once

again due to the pressures of this arduous journey and the long steamy nights. I pray it is

not lockjaw, as I did cut myself on a rusted nail earlier in the week.

Finally, after three days at anchor, representatives of one of the coastal tribes trading in

slaves rowed out to us in a long boat loaded with men, women, and children. The head

man informed me that these bound captives were from a neighboring inland tribe that were

captured during a raid.

There was much wailing and crying out, especially from mother to child and vice versa, as

we loaded them below the

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decks of our ship, lying them down side by side in order to fit as much cargo as possible.

We paid for them with rum, trinkets, and some swords.

As a gesture of good faith, the head trader of the coastal tribe made me a gift of a finely

carved spear, since, on our last visit, I made known to him that I am a collector of javelins,

lances, and spears. I assured him I was most appreciative of it and would return in six

months' time for additional cargo.

My first mate, an experienced sailor who was undertaking his very first voyage on a slave

ship, had heretofore proven to be a skilled and able-bodied seaman. Upon seeing the slaves

shackled in iron at hand and foot, he claimed to be sickened by our endeavor, saying that

he had not realized it would affect him as profoundly as it did. He proved this almost

immediately by vomiting copiously over the side of the ship. Then he claimed that violent

headaches he'd suffered as a boy had returned, reactivated by his monstrous guilt. They

were of such force that he felt overwhelmed and unable to perform his duties. He asked to

be allowed to go ashore and quit my service.

I replied that once we have anchored at the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, where we will

dispatch the captives to the slave trader who has contracted this expedition, he was free to

leave my employ. Until such time he was duty bound to honor the terms of his employment,

however repugnant he found them. Otherwise I would not think twice about tossing him

overboard into the shark-infested waters.

I will long remember the hatred in his eyes as he lowered

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his head and bowed in compliance. It was with some relief that I watched him back away

since, for the briefest moment, I envisioned him pulling his arm back and releasing a

staggering blow to my jaw. The image was incredibly vivid and I am glad to say it did not

occur.

I will lock my cabin this night, so intense was the loathing I sensed he bore me. I regretted

having to speak to him so harshly, but it is incumbent upon me as captain of this ship to

maintain order, if I do not keep control, uprising and mutiny will follow.

Expedition to the New World under Francisco Pizarro, 6 June 1532:

Today I must make a sad entry in my journal, this
record
of the wondrous things my eyes

have beheld in this moist, lush, gold-drenched new world.

For many years before joining this expedition, I sailed wherever I could find work as seaman.

As a young man I even made it as far as the coasts of western Africa, though those

memories I would rather forget. The Spanish fleets on which I have sailed of late are the

finest in the world, and I have seen much of it in my wide-flung travels. I must say with all

sincerity that the wonders of this strange new world with its exotic foliage, its temples and

carvings, its abundance of gold and jewels, defy my very imagination. The leader of the

native people, the

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Incas, wears a crown beset with hundreds of emeralds. This astounding jewel is mined in

abundance in this land, although the leaders of the people refuse to reveal the pathways

into the mines to Pizarro.

I write today with sorrow, as I mentioned before. One of the most remarkable women I have

ever met has passed away. I must record the passing of the Priestess Acana since her

people, the mighty Incas, though possessing a high culture, have not the gift of writing and

cannot record her life story.

Acana was the keeper of the sacred emerald of her people, which they called Mother of

Emeralds and worshipped devotedly. Her position was one of great respect. She spent her

days fashioning exquisite vessels to be used in sacred ceremonies and singing as she

configured astrological charts. This holy woman was in possession of a voice that could

hypnotize, often she could be seen walking through the jungle, her pet jaguar strolling

tamely by her side.

Acana has today succumbed to a disease I fear has come from our party of explorers. At the

end of her days she labored mightily to save her people who have been dying of the pox in

great numbers. What cruelty that she who had learned the ancient medicines of her people,

who developed new treatments from barks and roots, could do nothing to cure her own ills.

I have been to the courts of Spain and spoken to the wisest men in Europe but never have I

met a person of such learning as Acana.

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From the diary of Abigail O'Brian, 1687:

I guess today is my lucky day. I could sure use one. Seems there has been no luck coming to

me since I foolishly followed my fellow aboard a ship docked in the port of Dublin and

bound for the colonies in North America. He said he adored my bright eyes and red curls

and would be true to me for all my days. I suppose a man will say anything when he's drunk.

More the fool was I to believe him.

The captain told the seventy or so of us onboard that the passage was free. All we need do

is work for a master in America for six or seven years as something he called an indentured