The Ballad of
Lily and Jane:
Songs From The First Wave
by Kathereine Vik
SOLSTICE
Then, one by one, over a million people, in the space of a few hours, vanished. One by one, and in groups, people just sort of blinked off, present one moment, gone the next.
The networks didn't report on it. No one reported on it but the new age blogs. That blogosphere was more than ready for this eventuality. A network of helpers and communicators activated, and everyone who needed to know what was happening was informed. That's why God invented phone trees and internet message boards.
Within a week nearly all of the people who vanished had returned to their lives. Not one of them gave an explanation, and not one of them experienced problems from taking their break. Seamless integration, the ascension blogs proclaimed! Miracles abound! Wake up, people!
This is how it began. An under reported anomaly, a weirdness so singularly weird that it went largely unspoken.
THERMOPOLIS
“Scootch over, I want to do some driving for a while.”
“Are you up to it?” Lily asked, smiling in her indulgent way.
“Here is my raspberry iced tea. Here is my Slim Jim. Here are the car keys. My bladder is empty, my mind is full, and I just did a nice fat ball of hash. I am driving.” Lily barked out a laugh, opened the passenger door and slid in.
We were headed to South Dakota, because Lily had gotten bit by the idea that it would be awesome to yodel from Theodore Roosevelt's forehead. I explained to her that this would not be possible, since all the president's heads are off limits to the public, owing to the fact that the treasure of El Dorado is tucked away inside that mountain, but, since I didn't have any plans, I agreed to the quest.
We were in a Conoco station outside of Thermopolis, wind whipping around us as we made our decision about who was driving.
As high as I was beginning to feel, I was also feeling the benefits of my morning meditation, with waves of magenta stillness enveloping me now and then. It felt good, and I felt right, sitting behind the wheel of our 1973 El Camino. I'd bought it two weeks earlier, then had it gutted and rebuilt for this adventure. It ran like a charm, a real muscle car.
Lily turned on the lecture we'd been listening to by Delores Cannon. Dolores had sent out a CD for all her graduates, filling us in on a new technique she'd just stumbled upon. It was fun to listen to, because we'd just gotten off the phone with Delores at breakfast time.
Overlooking a forlorn wheat field somewhere between Colorado and Wyoming, Delores called Lily asking for some advice. We'd studied with Delores for over a year, she'd called us her artists in residence. She'd rented us a cabin on her property. It had been a good year. A happy year.
Delores called to rehash the interview we were in the middle of listening to, but also to tell us about a session she'd just had with someone whose SC (subconscious/superconscious/ higher self/ oversoul) had informed her of split time, a concept she was having a devil of a time understanding. Each of us had a go at what it could mean, what the ramifications could be. Dolores left our minds still just a little hazy, but it was good talking to our old friend, as we sat in our old car, letting its wheels do what wheels do best, putting distance between points A and B.
We look like two grandmothers. There is our bag of peppermints and here is our bag of lemon drops, here is our well worn Thermos filled with green tea. If someone were not observant, they would recognize us as boring old friends out for a Sunday drive. Only the astute, and the open, would come to know of the singularly ridiculous and happy reason we were headed north on a strip of road just outside of Thermopolis.
EDDIE
“Hey, you guys, I really think we should pull over. I gotta pee.”
Lily looked at me, I at Lily, and then both of us turned to look at our old friend Eddie.
Eddie is mine, he is a visitor who has been with me throughout this lifetime, and he is a bit of a headache.
It was only after the winter solstice of 2012 that I could actually see him. Before that, he was just a force in my life, a voice in my head, a trickster and an imp, a mischievous, loving entity whose only job is to lighten me up. Thank God Lily didn't mind him. There were still some days I couldn't stand to look at the sucker.
“What is it, Eddie?” I asked.
“What Jane meant to say, just then, is, 'It's such a pleasure seeing you again, Eddie! What is it that you have come to give us today?' That's what she meant to say.” Lily said.
“Well, I see you are on the road. The yodeling, that was all you, Lily, but the Theodore Roosevelt's forehead image, that's a hard one to shake, and we made it that way on purpose.” Eddie announced.
“So, what can you tell us about what we should be aware of? What is it we are to accomplish, who are we supposed to be meeting up with?” Lily asked.
“What Eddie will now say,” I interjected, “Is this: I am not here to give you an itinerary. I'm here to give you slidy, slippery, surprising, obscure directions. Like a treasure hunt.” I caught Eddie's eye in the rear view mirror, “Right, Eddie?”
“Oh, you know me very well. But, no, my dear, I have pretty clear directions today.”
Lily poured herself some coffee and offered Eddie some. Eddie smiled, materialized a chipped and stained pink Fire Kind mug, and let Lily top it off. The dark fluid he'd materialized in his Fire King smelled suspiciously like Kahlua.
“You are to go see a Dee Wallis in Rapid City.” Eddie leaned forward, and said in an his unnecessarily dramatic voice, “She's waiting for you, although she, of course, is unaware of this”
He settled back onto the polyester seat cushion, smiled and said, “OK, that's about it. Anything I can do while I'm here?”
I winked then, and said to this impish sliver of my higher self, “Dee Wallis. Rapid City. Stealth Mode. Thanks for the direction. I was beginning to think this road trip was just for pleasure.”
Lily playfully touched my arm and reminded me, “Dear, they are all just for pleasure. You know that, right?”
I smiled, cranked down the window, and got a lungful of Wyoming air.
MOTEL SIX
We had not been able to find our favorite hotel, La Quinta, so we instead settled on a nice, clean Motel Six right next to a Wal*Mart. Being the veteran road trippers we were had brought a consistency and predictability to the unpredictability which is road tripping. Wal*mart based Motel Sixes were always good, ranking high on the convenience scale, while ranking low on aesthetics. We are not picky, and we are not fancy. Pretentions were the first thing we gave up when we came together.
After our bedspread picnic, we googled Dee Wallis and found that she was an interior designer for the boutique hotels and tourist destinations around Rapid City. I found that very impressive. Whenever I meet someone who has created life work that is highly specific, this is a fascination to me.
“What could we possibly be doing for Dee?” I asked idly, readying for the shower.
“Oh, you know, it's the same old thing. You know we won't know til we get there. I think this is so much fun.” I looked at Lily and found her face had taken on an angelic glow. She was in the flow, no doubt, really hooked in to Source. I felt myself at 50% at best.
“I can tell you need some fluffing,” Lily said, “So when you're done in the shower, I'll have the candles lit. Let's clear the room and then let's meditate.”
I winked. I giggled. And then I went to Lily, bent down to kiss her tangled white hair, and I told her I loved her. What else could be said?
MISSIONS
Lily always seemed to know that she would lead the life, one day, of a modern missionary. A wandering monk. And I always knew, from the time I was a little girl, that being on the road was the only place for me.
We both did wonderful jobs of tying ourselves down to simple third dimensional existence until the solstice.
At first, the whole thing was not very clear, and each of them struggled with how to interpret their missions. But soon enough, with patience and eagerness, each saw in the other's walk the road they knew they would walk together.
The details were thankfully easy, miraculously easy, and within three months, they were living together, in the house Jane's dad had left her. She suddenly had enough money, from the estate, to free herself from all her debt, she was a homeowner, and something new was forming, a new raison d'etre. Both of them knew it, just not how it would flesh out.
And then one night, sitting in their living room reading, there came a knock on the door. Lily answered it to find Eddie and a beautiful woman named Sabrina.
What you must remember is how limited our awarenesses had been prior to the solstice. We didn't understand that our lives, these things we consider so very important, well, they are just holograms, just projections, just slippery tricks of the light. And the portions of ourselves that know this, and know how to navigate these tricks, we'd grown unaware of. Unable to believe that there is more than one of us, and more help than we can imagine, we'd become accustomed to never having the answer to every question ever conceived. Eddie and Sabrina kick started the removal of amnesia which had hobbled the two women entertaining these unusual, physical, metaphysical entities. Their visitors taught them that this awareness is available within every breath we take.
So here came Sabrina, a manifestation of Lily's higher self, and Eddie, my manifestation. We'd never seen them before, had never smelled or touched them. Standing on our front porch as they were, we took them to be passing travelers who needed a hand. We rarely got visitors, as countrified as we'd become.
I got up and shook their hands, asked them to find a seat and get comfortable, and offered them up some of my chili and some coffee. They graciously accepted, and enjoyed the spread with gusto.
While eating they made light conversation, about everything and nothing, just gaining our trust, establishing familiarity.
Back in the living room, the sun setting, our two guests clearly coming to something important, working on introducing something big, we waited, in the last glimmers of daylight, for the real purpose of their visit.
Each of us had found, over dinner, that these guests were very well versed in metaphysics. It's what we kept coming back to over our food and drink, but it was all theoretics and hypotheses and concepts. It was amazing, but it wasn't the reason for the visit. Once we were comfortable, confident, then the purpose was revealed.
What they shared changed each of us so fundamentally, I think it deserves its very own chapter.
THE LOW DOWN
“You understand that the solstice changed everything.” Eddie announced, like a physics professor announcing that you are sitting on space and space alone. That everything is energy. It's sort of pointing out the obvious, but something so obvious to be mind shattering. And here sat Eddie, confirming for us what we already knew.
The winter solstice of 2012 was a big event, but a mixed one for most. Many had built it up and had expected a ton of gold bricks to fall on them. There were many who really had a hard time grappling with what things wound up looking like and what they had come to expect. But, for everyone, there was no disappointment, no let down. Everyone got their share of gifts once the solstice came around.
Those who'd been in training, deep, deep training, had energetic shifts which made visits like this one possible.
But they didn't necessarily know it at the time.
When Sabrina and Eddie first visited us, spring had come to the earth, and the light coming onto the planet was a particularly benevolent one.
As a peculiar quiet held that little group on that odd spring night, Sabrina started to sing.
She had a voice from the ethers, the voice of an angel.
She sang a song to each of us, one for Lily, and one for me, and then she sang one for the two of us. Each of her songs were achingly beautiful, so holy and full of reverence and joy. The music seemed to never end, yet once this beautiful voice became still, her gift hung in the air, turning into sparkling life. Breathing this charm in and out, renewing and refreshing everything with every breath, we were then suddenly ready. We understood through song that our lives were now turning, taking a turn, heading toward a road as new and as ancient as we had ever contemplated.
Eddie took over.
“We are here to tell you of the agreements you two made. We know that as soon as we bring it into our full consciousness, you will remember your contracts. We ask you to prepare. This is the big one.” He grinned foolishly, cleared his throat, and gave each of us eye contact which could not cloak his other worldliness. He was doing a very nice job of focusing, but looking into his eyes, it was clear he wasn't from around here.
Jarred as we were from the view from Eddie's eyes, we allowed ourselves to be held in this expectancy, this before-and-after vibe.
“We have a job for you,” Eddie began. “Each of you spent many lifetimes as nomadic teachers. It's not my bag, but we know you love this kind of thing. Do you remember any of this?”
Lily and I looked at each other blankly, then turned back to Eddie.
“Jane, you remember that lifetime with your mom, when you died in the desert. You were an ascended master. You came into full consciousness on the road. You died because you felt that was totally fitting to that lifetime, although it surely was not necessary. You remember that, don't you?”
I got a grin, because as he began describing that lifetime I had physical sensations, and a deep heartfelt love for the entity who had played my mom that lifetime.
“Of course, I remember that.”
“Well, then, good. And Lily, you may or may not have conscious memory of one particular lifetime which has been lighting you up that last year or two. Do you remember the french countryside, and selling herbs? You were a traveling medicine woman, an elder stateswoman, known throughout the old lands. Do you remember, dear one?” Eddie asked with great gentleness.
Lily's face changed from one of concentration to easy happiness. “Oh, yes!” she exclaimed. “I remember an island that is now under the water, up by Scotland, isn't that right?”
“I was told you were a quick study,” Eddie smiled, glancing at Sabrina.
With a nearly imperceptible nod, the baton was passed from Eddie to Sabrina.
“We are deeply gratified that you have chosen to bring your lives together. We knew you would need a little time to gather yourselves, establish some comfort in the routine of a new life. We are a little ahead of schedule, actually. And I am not entirely sure,” Sabrina said warningly, “which of you thrills over that last statement more. We know you both to be so steely willed, there was a bit of discussion whether you'd even be willing to make the compromises necessary to come together. We are aware that each of you came in only wanting to wake up.”
“Consider yourselves fully awake.” Eddie said.
“And here you are,” Sabrina went on, “as fully conscious as you will ever be. Now it is just a matter of percentages. You have achieved full consciousness, each of you, at times. And now it is really just a matter of getting really good at it, practicing it, and having a lot of experiences as fully conscious beings.”
“So we have brought you a task.” Eddie interjected. He then went on to perform the God-Gives-Monty-Python's-King-Arthur-A-Task skit.
They all indulged him, enjoying his impersonations. Sabrina then folded her hands daintily on her lap, grinned, and continued.
“So, these traveling lives you once had, they may come in very handy now, Sabrina concluded. “How much of this, dear one, do you recall now?”
Lily looked altered, abstracted, and in a state of ecstasy. She said, “Well, correct me if I am wrong, but what is coming to mind now is that we have agreed to work cooperatively with you, and have agreed to be sent on missions, errands. You'll give us the ideas, the situations, and then we are to go there and assist.”
Sabrina got Eddie's attention, cocked her head and smiled. She always knew her girl would come through.
