The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision (20 page)

As he began to fade from view, I could make out aspects of the process he was seeing. First the group of seven would begin
to remember past experiences with each other and to work through the residual feelings. Then the group would consciously amplify
its energy, using the Eighth Insight techniques, and each would express his or her particular Birth Vision, and finally the
vibration would accelerate, unifying the soul groups of the seven individuals. Out of the knowledge gained would come the
full memory of our intended future, the World Vision, the view of where we’re going and what we have to do to reach our destiny.

Suddenly the whole scene disappeared, along with Feyman’s group. Wil and I were left there alone.

Wil’s eyes were animated. “Do you see what was happening?” he asked. “This means that Feyman’s original intention was actually
to perfect and decentralize the technology he’s working on. If he realizes this fact, he will stop the experiment.”

“We’ve got to find him,” I said.

“No,” Wil replied, pausing to think. “That won’t help, not yet. We’ve got to find the rest of this group of seven; it must
take the pooled energy of a group to bring in the memory of the World Vision, a group that can work through the process of
remembering and energize themselves.”

“I don’t understand this part about clearing residual feelings.”

Wil moved closer. “Remember the other mental images you’ve been having? The memories of other places, other times?”

“Yes.”

“The group that is forming to deal with this experiment has been together before. There will be residual feelings that
must
be worked through! Everyone will have to deal with them.”

Wil looked away for a moment, then said, “This is more of the Tenth Insight. Not just one group is coming in; there are many
others. We’ll all have to learn to clear these resentments.”

As he spoke, I thought about the many group situations’ I’d experienced, where some members of the group liked each other
immediately, while others seemed to fall into instant discord, for no apparent reason. I wondered: was human culture now ready
to perceive the distant source of these unconscious reactions?

Then, without warning, another shrill sound reverberated through my body. Wil grabbed me and pulled me closer, our faces almost
touching. “If you fall again, I don’t know if you can get back while the experiment is operating at this level,” he shouted.
“You’ll have to find the others!”

A second blast ripped us apart, and I felt myself release into the familiar swirling colors, knowing that I was heading back,
as before, into the Earth dimension. Yet this time, instead of tumbling
quickly into the physical, I seemed to linger momentarily; something was pulling at my solar plexus, moving me laterally.
As I strained to focus, the surging environment calmed, and I began to sense the presence of another person, without actually
seeing the individual’s form. I could almost remember the character of the feeling. Who makes me feel this way?

At last I began to discern a blurry figure thirty or forty feet away, which moved closer, gradually, until I recognized who
it was. Charlene! As she closed to within ten feet, I sensed a shift in my body, as though I was suddenly relaxing more completely.
Simultaneously I noticed a pinkish-red energy field that encircled Charlene. Seconds later, to my amazement, I noticed an
identical field around myself. When we were about five feet from each other, the relaxation in my body grew into an increased
sensualness and finally into a wave of orgasmic love. I suddenly couldn’t think. What was happening?

Just as our fields were about to touch, the shrill dissonance returned and I was jolted backward again, twisting out of control.

A
s my head cleared, I gradually became aware of something cold and wet against my right cheek. Slowly I opened my eyes, the
rest of my body frozen in place. For a moment the half-grown wolf looked at me and sniffed hard, his tail bristling, then
he dashed into the woods as I jerked back and sat up.

In a tired stupor I retrieved my pack in the fading light and walked into the thick trees and raised my tent, afterward virtually
collapsing into the sleeping bag. I struggled to stay awake, intrigued by my strange meeting with Charlene. Why had she been
in the other dimension? What had drawn us together?

The next morning I awoke early and made oatmeal, wolfing it down, and then made my way carefully back to the small creek I
had passed on my way up the ridge to wash my face and fill my canteen. I still felt tired, but I was also anxious to find
Curtis.

Suddenly I was jolted to my feet by the sound of an explosion toward the east. That had to be Curtis, I thought, as I ran
to the
tent. A wave of fear passed through me as I quickly packed and headed toward the sound of the blast.

After about a half mile the woods ended abruptly at what appeared to be an abandoned pasture. Several strands of rusty barbed
wire hung loosely between the trees in my path. I surveyed the open field and the line of trees and dense bush a hundred yards
beyond. At that moment the bushes parted and Curtis burst through and headed in a dead run straight toward me. I waved, and
he immediately recognized who I was and slowed to a fast walk. When he reached me, he carefully climbed through the barbed
wire and collapsed against a tree, breathing rapidly.

“What happened?” I asked. “What did you blow up?”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t do much. They’re running the experiment underground. I didn’t have enough explosives, and I…
I didn’t want to hurt the people inside. All I could do was blow up an outside dish antenna, which hopefully will delay them.”

“How did you get close enough to do that?”

“I set the charges last night after dark. They must not expect anyone to be up here, because they have very few guards outside.”

He paused for a moment as we heard the sound of trucks in the distance. “We’ll have to get out of this valley,” he continued,
“and find some help. We don’t have any choice now. They’ll be coming.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I think we have a chance to stop them, but we’ve got to find Maya and Charlene.”

His eyes widened. “Are you talking about Charlene Billings?”

“That’s right.”

“I know her. She used to do some contract research for the
corporation. I hadn’t seen her for years, but I saw her last night going into the underground bunker. She was walking with
several men, all of them heavily armed.”

“Were they holding her against her will?”

“I couldn’t tell,” Curtis said distractedly, his ears tuned to the trucks, which now seemed to be heading in our direction.
“We’ve got to get out of here. I know a place where we can hide until dark, but we’ll have to hurry.” He looked back toward
the east. “I set a false trail, but it won’t sidetrack them for long.”

“I’ve got to tell you what happened,” I said. “I found Wil again.”

“Right, tell me on the way,” he said, walking quickly. “We’ve got to move.”

I
looked out of the mouth of the cave and across the deep gorge to the opposite hillside. No movement. I listened carefully
but could hear nothing. We had walked in a northeasterly direction for about a mile, and as quickly as I could, I had told
Curtis what I had experienced in the other dimension, stressing my belief that Williams had been correct. We could stop this
experiment if we could find the rest of the group and remember the larger Vision.

I could tell that Curtis was resisting. He had listened for a while, but then began rambling about his past association with
Charlene. I was frustrated that he knew nothing that might explain what she had to do with this experiment. He also told me
how he had come to know David. They had become friends, he explained, after a chance meeting had revealed many common experiences
in the military.

I told him it was significant that he and I both had an association with David and that we knew Charlene.

“I don’t know what it means,” he had said distractedly, and I had dropped it, but I knew it was further proof that we had
all come to this valley for a reason. Afterward we had walked in silence as Curtis searched for the cave. When we had found
it, he backtracked and erased our tracks with dead pine branches and then had lingered outside until he was convinced we hadn’t
been seen.

“This soup is ready,” Curtis said from behind me. I had used my camp stove and water to cook the last of my freeze-dried food.
Walking over, I made us both a bowl and then sat down again at the mouth of the cave, looking out.

“So how do you think this group can build enough energy to have an effect on these people?” he asked.

“I’m not sure exactly,” I replied. “We’ll have to figure it out.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think anything like that is possible. Probably all I did with my little bit of explosives was
to irritate them and put them more on guard. They’ll bring more people in, but I don’t think they will stop. They would have
had a replacement antenna close by. Maybe I should have taken out the door. God knows I could have. But I just couldn’t bring
myself to do that. Charlene was inside and who knows how many others. I would have had to shorten the timer, so they would
have gotten me… but maybe it would have been worth it.”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “We’re going to find the other way.”

“How?”

“It’ll come to us.”

We heard the faint sound of the vehicles again, and simultaneously I noticed a movement on the downslope below us.

“Someone’s out there,” I said.

We crouched down and looked closely. The figure moved again, partially obscured by the underbrush.

“That’s Maya,” I said, disbelieving.

Curtis and I stared at each other for a long moment, then I moved to get up. “I’ll go get her,” I said.

He grabbed my arm. “Stay low, and if the vehicles close in, leave her and come back here. Don’t risk being seen.”

I nodded and ran carefully down the hill. When I was close enough, I stopped and listened. The trucks were still moving closer.
I called out to her in a low voice. She froze for an instant, then recognized me and climbed up a rocky slope to where I stood.

“I can’t believe I found you!” she said, hugging my neck.

I led the way back to the cave and helped her through the opening in the rock. She appeared exhausted and her arms were covered
with scratches, some of them still bleeding.

“What happened?” she asked. “I heard an explosion, and then those trucks were everywhere.”

“Did anyone see you come this way?” Curtis asked with irritation. He was up and looking outside.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I was able to hide.”

I quickly introduced them. Curtis nodded and said, “I think I’ll take a look.” He slipped out through the opening and disappeared.

I opened my pack and took out a first-aid kit. “Were you able to find your friend with the Sheriff’s Department?”

“No, I couldn’t even get back to town. There were Forest Service agents along all the paths back. I saw a woman I knew and
gave her a note to take to him. That’s all I could do.”

I applied some antiseptic to a long gash across Maya’s knee.
“So why didn’t you leave with the woman you saw? Why did you change your mind and come back out here?”

She took the antiseptic and silently began applying it herself. Finally she spoke: “I don’t know why I came back. Maybe because
I kept having these memories.” She looked up at me. “I want to understand what’s happening here.”

I sat down facing her and gave her a sketchy summary of everything that had happened since we parted, particularly the information
Wil and I had received about the group process of moving past the resentment to find the World Vision.

She looked overwhelmed but seemed to accept her role. “I noticed your ankle no longer seems to be bothering you.”

“Yeah, I guess it cleared up when I remembered where the problem came from.”

She stared at me for a moment, then said, “There are only three of us. You said Williams and Feyman had both seen seven.”

“I don’t know,” I replied, “I’m just glad you’re here. You’re the one who knows about faith and visualization.”

A look of terror crossed her face.

A few moments later Curtis came back through the opening and told us he had seen nothing out of the ordinary, then sat down
away from us to finish his meal. I reached over and served another plate and gave it to Maya.

Curtis leaned back and handed her a canteen. “You know,” he said, “you took a hell of a risk walking around in the open like
that. You could have led them right to us.”

Maya glanced at me and then said defensively, “I was trying to get away! I didn’t know you were up here. I wouldn’t even have
come this way if the birds hadn’t—”

“Well, you’ve got to understand how much trouble we’re in!” Curtis interrupted. “We still haven’t stopped this experiment.”
He got up and stepped outside again and sat behind a large rock near the opening.

“Why is he so mad at me?” Maya asked.

“You said you were having memories, Maya. What kind?”

“I don’t know… of another time, I guess, of trying to stop some other violence. That’s why all this is so eerie to me.”

“Does Curtis seem familiar to you?”

She struggled to think. “Maybe. I don’t know. Why?”

“Do you remember when I told you about seeing a vision of all of us in the past, during the Native American wars? Well, you
were killed, and someone else was with you who seemed to be following your lead, and he was killed too. I think it was Curtis.”

“He blames me? Oh God, no wonder he’s so mad.”

“Maya, can you remember anything about what you two were doing?”

She closed her eyes and tried to think.

Suddenly she looked at me. “Was a Native American also there? A shaman?”

“Yes,” I said. “He was killed too.”

“We were thinking about something…” She looked me in the eye. “No, we were visualizing. We thought we could stop the war…
That’s all I can get.”