The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision (3 page)

“Yes. There you can discover the perspective of the Tenth Insight, but to find these places you must understand the true nature
of your intuitions, and how to
maintain
these mental images. Also watch the animals and you’ll begin to remember what you are doing here in this valley… why we’re
all here together. But be very careful. Don’t let them see you enter the forest.” He thought for a moment. “There’s someone
else out there, a friend of mine, Curtis Webber. If you see Curtis, tell him that you’ve talked to me and that I will find
him.”

He smiled faintly and returned to folding his tent.

I wanted to ask what he meant about intuition and watching the animals, but he avoided eye contact and stayed focused on his
work.

“Thanks,” I said.

He waved slightly with one hand.

I
quietly shut the motel door and eased out into the moonlight. The cool air and the tension sent a shiver through my body.
Why, I thought, was I doing this? There was no proof that Charlene was still out in this valley or that David’s suspicions
were correct. Yet my gut told me that indeed something was wrong. For several hours I had mulled over calling the local sheriff.
But what would I have said? That my friend was missing and she had been seen entering the forest of her own free will, but
was perhaps in trouble, all based on a vague note found hundreds of miles away?
Searching this wilderness would take hundreds of people, and I knew they would never mount such an effort without something
more substantial.

I paused and looked at the three-quarters moon rising above the trees. My plan was to cross the stream well east of the rangers’
station and then to proceed along the main path into the valley. I was counting on the moon to light my way, but not to be
this bright. Visibility was at least a hundred yards.

I made my way past the edge of the pub to the area where David had camped. The site was completely clean. He had even spread
leaves and pine straw to remove any sign of his presence. To cross where I had planned, I would have to walk about forty yards
in plain sight of the rangers’ station, which I could now see clearly. Through the station’s side window, two officers were
busy in conversation. One rose from his seat and picked up a telephone.

Crouching low, I pulled my pack up on my shoulders and walked out onto the sandy flood wash that bordered the stream, and
finally into the water itself, sloshing through mounds of smooth river stone and stepping over several decayed logs. A symphony
of tree frogs and crickets erupted around me. I glanced at the rangers again: both were still talking, oblivious to my stealth.
At its deepest point, the moderately swift water reached my upper thigh, but in seconds I had moved across the thirty feet
of current and into a stand of small pines.

I carefully moved forward until I found the hiking path leading into the valley. Toward the east, the path disappeared into
the darkness, and as I stared in that direction, more doubts entered my mind. What was this mysterious noise that so worried
David? What might I stumble upon in the darkness out there?

I shook off the fear. I knew I had to go on, but as a compromise,
I walked only a half mile into the forest before making my way well off the path into a heavily wooded area to raise the tent
and spend the rest of the night, glad to take off my wet boots and let them dry. It would be smarter to proceed in the daylight.

The next morning I awoke at dawn thinking about David’s cryptic remark about
maintaining
my intuitions, and as I lay in my sleeping bag, I reviewed my own understanding of the Seventh Insight, particularly the
awareness that the experience of synchronicity follows a certain structure. According to this Insight, each of us, once we
work to clear our past dramas, can identify certain questions that define our particular life situation, questions related
to our careers, relationships, where we should live, how we should proceed on our path. Then, if we remain aware, gut feelings,
hunches, and intuitions will provide impressions of where to go, what to do, with whom we should speak, in order to pursue
an answer.

After that, of course, a coincidence was supposed to occur, revealing the reason we were urged to follow such a course and
providing new information that pertained in some way to our question, leading us forward in our lives. How would maintaining
the intuition help?

Easing out of my sleeping bag, I pulled the tent flaps apart and checked outside. Sensing nothing unusual, I climbed out into
the crisp fall air and walked back to the stream, where I washed my face in the cool water. Afterward I packed up and headed
east again, nibbling on a granola bar and keeping myself hidden as much as possible in the tall trees that bordered the stream.
After traveling perhaps three miles, a perceptible wave of fear and nervousness passed through my body and I immediately felt
fatigued, so I sat down and leaned against a tree, attempting to focus on my surroundings and gain inner energy. The sky was
cloudless and the morning sun danced through the trees and along the ground around me. I noticed a small green plant with
yellow blossoms about ten feet away and focused on its beauty. Already draped in full sunlight, it seemed brighter suddenly,
its leaves a richer green. A rush of fragrance reached my awareness, along with the musty smell of leaves and black soil.

Simultaneously, from the trees far toward the north, I heard the call of several crows. The richness of the sound amazed me,
but surprisingly I couldn’t distinguish their exact location. As I concentrated on listening, I became fully aware of dozens
of individual sounds that made up the morning chorus: songbirds in the trees above me, a bumblebee among the wild daisies
at the edge of the stream, the water gurgling around the rocks and fallen branches… and then something else, barely perceptible,
a low, dissonant
hum.
I stood up and looked around. What was this noise?

I picked up my pack and proceeded east. Because of the crunching sound created by my footsteps on the fallen leaves, I had
to stop and listen very intensely to still hear the hum. But it was there. Ahead the woods ended, and I entered a large meadow,
colorful with wildflowers and thick, two-foot-tall sage grass that seemed to go on for half a mile. The breeze brushed the
tops of the sage in currents. When I had almost reached the edge of the meadow, I noticed a patch of blackberry brambles growing
beside a fallen tree. The bushes struck me as exceedingly beautiful, and I walked over to look at them more closely, imagining
that they were full of berries.

As I did this, I experienced an acute feeling of déjà vu. The surroundings suddenly seemed very familiar, as though I had
been here in this valley before, eaten berries before. How was that possible? I sat down on the trunk of the fallen tree.
Presently,
in the back of my mind rose a picture of a crystal-clear pool of water and several tiers of waterfalls in the background,
a location that, as I imaged it, seemed equally familiar. Again I felt anxious.

Without warning, an animal of some kind ran noisily from the berry patch, startling me, and headed north for about twenty
feet and then abruptly stopped. The creature was hidden in the tall sage, and I had no idea what it was, but I could follow
its wake in the grass. After a few minutes it darted back a few feet to the south, remained motionless again for several seconds,
then darted ten or twenty feet back again toward the north, only to stop again. I guessed it was a rabbit, although its movements
seemed especially peculiar.

For five or six minutes I watched the area where the animal had last moved, then slowly walked that way. As I closed to about
five feet, it suddenly sped away again toward the north. At one point, before it disappeared into the distance, I glimpsed
the white tail and hind legs of a large rabbit.

I smiled and proceeded east again along the trail, coming finally to the end of the meadow, where I entered an area of thick
woods. There I spotted a small creek, perhaps four feet wide, that entered the stream from the left. I knew this must be the
landmark David had mentioned. I was to turn northward. Unfortunately there was no trail in that direction, and worse, the
woods along the creek were a snarl of thick saplings and prickly briers. I couldn’t get through; I would have to backtrack
into the meadow behind me until I could find a way around.

I made my way back into the grass and walked along the edge of the woods looking for a break in the dense undergrowth. To
my surprise, I ran into the trail the rabbit had made in the sage and followed its path until I caught sight of the small
creek again. Here the dense undergrowth receded partially, allowing
me to push my way through into an area of larger, old-growth trees, where I could follow the creek due north.

After proceeding for what I judged to be about another mile, I could see a range of foothills rising in the distance on both
sides of the creek. Walking farther, I realized that these hills were forming steep canyon walls and that up ahead was what
looked to be the only entrance.

When I arrived, I sat down beside a large hickory and surveyed the scene. A hundred yards on both sides of the creek, the
hills butted off in fifty-foot-high limestone bluffs, then bent outward into the distance, forming a huge bowl-like canyon
perhaps two miles wide and at least four long. The first half mile was thinly wooded and covered with more sage. I thought
about the hum and listened carefully for five or ten minutes, but it seemed to have ceased.

Finally I reached into my pack and pulled out a small butane stove and lit the burner, then filled a small pan with water
from my canteen, emptied the contents of a package of freeze-dried vegetable stew into the water, and set the pan on the flame.
For a few moments I watched as strands of steam twisted upward and disappeared into the breeze. In my reverie I again saw
the pool and the waterfall in my mind’s eye, only this time I seemed to be there, walking up, as if to greet someone. I shook
the picture from my head. What was happening? These images were growing more vivid. First David in another time; now these
falls.

Movement in the canyon caught my eye. I glanced at the creek and then beyond to a lone tree two hundred yards away which had
already lost most of its leaves. It was now covered with what looked like large crows; several flew down to the ground. It
came to me that these were the same crows I had heard earlier. As I watched, they suddenly all flew and dramatically
circled above the tree. At the same moment, I could hear their cawing again, although, as before, the loudness of their cries
didn’t match the distance; they sounded much closer.

Splashing water and hissing steam pulled my attention back to the camp stove. Boiling stew was overflowing onto the flame.
I grabbed the pan with a towel, turning off the gas with the other hand. When the boiling subsided, I returned the pan to
the burner and looked back at the tree in the distance. The crows were gone.

I hurriedly ate the stew, cleaned up, and packed the gear, then headed into the canyon. As soon as I passed the bluffs, I
noticed the colors had amplified. The sage seemed amazingly golden, and I noticed, for the first time, that it was peppered
with hundreds of wildflowers—white and yellow and orange. From the cliffs to the east, the breeze carried the scent of cedar
and pine.

Although I continued to follow the creek running north, I kept my eye on the tall tree to my left where the crows had circled.
When it was directly west of me, I noticed the creek was suddenly widening. I made my way through some willows and cattails
and realized I had come to a small pool that fed not only the creek I was following but a second creek angling off farther
to the southeast. At first I thought this pool was the one I had seen in my mind, but there were no waterfalls.

Ahead was another surprise: to the north of the pool, the creek had completely disappeared. Where was the water coming from?
Then it dawned on me that the pool and the creek I had been following were all fed from an enormous underground spring surfacing
at this location.

To my left, fifty feet away, I noticed a mild rise on which grew three sycamore trees, each more than two feet in diameter—a
perfect place to think for a moment. I walked over and snuggled in among them, sitting down and leaning against the trunk
of one of the trees. From this perspective, the two remaining trees were six or seven feet to my front, and I could look both
to the left to see the crow tree and to the right to observe the spring. The question now was where to go from here. I could
wander for days without seeing any sign of Charlene. And what about these images?

I closed my eyes and attempted to bring back the earlier picture of the pool and waterfalls, but as much as I struggled, I
couldn’t remember the exact details. Finally I gave up and gazed out again at the grass and wildflowers and then at the two
sycamores right in front of me. Their trunks were a scaly collage of dark gray and white bark, streaked with brushstrokes
of tan and multiple shades of amber. As I focused on the beauty of the scene, these colors seemed to intensify and grow more
iridescent. I took another deep breath and looked out again at the meadow and flowers. The crow tree seemed particularly illuminated.

I picked up my pack and walked toward the tree. Immediately the image of the pool and waterfalls flashed across my mind. This
time I tried to remember the entire picture. The pool I saw was large, almost an acre, and the water flowing into it came
in from the rear, cascading down a series of steep terraces. Two smaller falls dropped only about fifteen feet, but the last
dropped over a long, thirty-foot bluff into the water below. Again, in the image that came to mind, I seemed to be walking
up to the scene, meeting someone.

The sound of a vehicle to my left stopped me firmly in my tracks. I kneeled down behind several small bushes. From the forest
on the left a gray Jeep moved across the meadow heading southeast. I knew that Forest Service policy prohibited private
vehicles this far into the wilderness, so I expected to see a Forest Service insignia on the Jeep’s door. To my surprise it
was unmarked. When it was directly in front of me, fifty yards away, the vehicle stopped. Through the foliage I could make
out a lone figure inside; he was surveying the area with field glasses, so I lay flat and hid myself completely. Who was he?