top of page
Mystical Tarot Realms
Click on BLOG above to go to other pages.
A Tenant's Dream
findin
00:00 / 04:01
APT. 14
You wake up in the middle of a room next to a telescope. After blinking twice, you notice that the floor is larger than the base of the most massive pyramid, and as you stand up inside the vast room, you lose your balance. When you step to your right to regain your balance, the entire floor tilts, just the slightest bit, accompanied by a loud whirring, as if many cogwheels had suddenly started turning. When you return to the exact center of the room, the floor returns to its original evenness. Ridges in the floor extend in each cardinal direction, at first appearing merely decorative. After you grow tired of standing in the middle, you take several steps, and the reason for the ridges becomes immediately clear. The floor tilts in the direction that you step, and the ridges become stairs that enable you to proceed downward or upward in whichever direction you choose.
You notice a large red button in the middle of each stair step. When you stamp down on one, the floor locks into position, enabling you to proceed either upward or downward. You find that it is easier and feels more natural to go downward, but the farther down you go, the more you experience primal instincts and desires, and after awhile, as you continue downward, you discover that you are attracting strange, unbalanced forces that grow darker and darker, so you return to the middle of the room, where you notice another red button under the telescope. When you step on that button, the floor returns to its original position.
You decide to climb upward and discover that you keep heading into brighter light toward ethereal beings who are so advanced that you feel like an amoeba in comparison. Even so, when you are in their proximity, you manifest higher energies and become more angelic. You find that no matter which way you head, up or down, you enter a different frequency, a different order of existence, the knowledge of which separates you a little more from the rest of humanity, so you again head back to the middle of the room, where, finally, you discover the reason for the telescope: When you peer out of the massive windows into other rooms, you find that you can't locate any other people in the middle, no matter how long you search.
​
(You realize that you are still on the right path because near the telescope in the middle of the room you find an old wooden box with Chapter Five of Rooms that Dream....)
​
Pounding Stone, bottom of Pine Flat Reservoir in a Drought Year
ROOMS THAT DREAM:
CHAPTER FIVE
As soon as Peter stepped through the door, he discovered his mother talking on the phone.
"Uh-oh," he thought as he rushed to his room.
"Peter," she called, "We need to talk, right now!" She opened his door and peered in.
"Yeah?"
"I just got a call from our minister. He said that you were there with that man--that man I told you not to talk to anymore."
"What? I'm not allowed to pray anymore?"
She stepped into his room. "That's not the point, and you know it. I explicitly told you not to talk to that man, and the first thing you do is go talk to him. Is he some kind of fanatic, or something? Is that why you like him?"
"I like him because he's helping me to develop spiritually and mentally, if that's what you mean," Peter retorted.
"Look, I know that you're more spiritually inclined than many of us. I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions, but you have to be so careful these days. I would be happy to invite him over for dinner. Would you like that?"
Peter suddenly imagined how his stepfather and stepbrother might act at dinner. "No," he whispered.
As though understanding Peter's thoughts, she asked, "Then what can I do? How do I know that I can trust him?"
"We're just trying to think of different ways to help people. Can't you at least trust me?" Peter asked.
"Oh, all right. I just want you to tell me if anything strange happens. I want to know more about him. I'm only watching out for you, you know."
"Yeah, I know. Thanks, Mom!"
Peter ran straight to Cashing's apartment after pulling his pack of Tarot cards out of the garbage can. He decided to keep the pack with him wherever he went.
When Peter got to Cashing's apartment, he blurted out, "The minister actually called my Mom. Can you believe that?"
"Here's to the few who don't care what you do!" Cashing laughed, raising a glass.
"I convinced my Mom that you're okay. I can actually talk to you now."
"Hallelujah! Come on in then," Cashing smiled.
"My mom wants to know more about you, though. What can I tell her?"
Cashing looked a little anxious. "Well, you don't want to hear my life story, do you?"
"Only the good stuff."
"Your mom probably wants to know how I ended up in this dump. Well, believe it or not, I used to be a teacher. For many years, I taught several classes a semester at a community college. I was what they call an adjunct instructor. In other words, I only taught part-time. Colleges nowadays rely heavily on part-time teachers in order to avoid paying benefits or salaries. Only about ten percent of the teaching staff has tenure at many colleges these days, and the tenured teachers tend to be the brown nosers. I'm not like that, so I also worked as a substitute teacher. With those two jobs, I managed to scrape by."
"Doesn't sound too bad," Peter said.
"Well, it wasn't, actually. My schedule was flexible. I could write stories and compose music and paint pictures and be an activist. I actually decided that I didn't want to teach full time. The conditions that teachers work in these days are deplorable in many schools."
"What happened?"
"I mentioned that I was an activist. Well, I wrote an opinion piece for the newspaper. It was one of many opinion pieces that I've published, but this was the first one that happened to mention that I was a teacher at a particular community college. Colleges hire adjunct instructors on a semester by semester basis. I didn't discover until two days before the next semester began that the college had not rehired me. After many years of glowing evaluations from students and administrators, I suddenly discovered they didn't want me to teach there anymore. They didn't even bother to tell me--I had to call to find out why my name wasn't mentioned in the schedule of courses. The irony is that I was at the top of my game as a teacher. In all modesty, I had never even imagined when I began that I could teach so effectively."
"That sucks. Are you still a substitute?"
"That's the thing. I never obtained a teaching credential. I had a master's degree. Oddly enough the public school district wouldn't hire me even though I had over sixteen years of experience of teaching at community colleges under my belt--no doubt they wouldn't hire me because I also have a long history as a community activist. Oddly enough, the school district doesn't like to hire people who speak truth to power. I realized that I was never going to be hired full-time, so I finally just decided to throw in the towel. Fortunately I received an inheritance that is keeping me afloat financially. This thirty percent raise in rent is certainly not helping any though."
"God, I know. My family is freakin' out. Everyone's been in a really bad mood lately. My mom keeps saying that you can't trust anyone. My dad keeps pointing out that you can't be weak in this world, and my brother keeps calling me a sissy. It's depressing."
"Maybe we should do that meditation ritual for our landlord," Cashing laughed.
"Couldn't hoit," Peter stated with an affected accent.
Cashing laughed. "Oh, but you know what? I just remembered. I'm going to a meeting on the rent increase in a few minutes. We'll have to do our ritual later. You're welcome to join us. It's just me and a couple of others."
"Naw. I'm not really political," Peter smiled.
"Everything is political, my friend."
"I thought everything is spiritual."
"Okay, everything is political and spiritual. We just have a landlord who believes that one thing is more sacred than others."
​
​
​
​All poems, stories, illustrations, and music Copyright © 2024 by Jim Robbins.
Constellations: Ithuriel's Spears, Fiesta Flowers, Chinese Purple Houses
elevat
00:00 / 05:35
APT. 15
Only when you first turn off the lamp do you notice the tiny lights floating in the room. On closer inspection, you notice the lights have different shapes, some spiral, some with spiral arms extending from a bar across the center, some spherical, and some almost disc-like. Touching the lights causes an unpleasant shock, and since each shape is hopelessly altered by the impression made by your finger, you decide to avoid troubling the lights in any way. Creating an azimuthal chart, you plot the coordinates of each light and then tack the chart to the wall since you cannot see the lights in the daytime. One night, as you lay awake glimpsing the lights slowly whirling, you look out the window. It is a clear night, unusual in the polluted city, and you notice the stars for the first time in years. Only then does the thought occur to you that your room contains a universe. It also occurs to you that each galaxy contains solar systems that are too small to see, each potentially with life forms as significant and complex as your own species, all forms, no matter the size, held together in complex systems by inscrutable forces. For days you cannot move from the bed. Cockroaches and ants scurry over the counters, spiderwebs stretch from ceiling to wall.
​
(You realize that you are still on the right path because near the bed you find an old box with Chapter Six of Rooms that Dream....)
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Pounding Stone and House Pit on Ridge
​
​
​
ROOMS THAT DREAM:
CHAPTER SIX
​
Peter went to his room and closed the door. Fortunately his parents were running errands, and his brother was watching TV. He closed his eyes and cleared his mind. He was drifting, thoughtless, in the void when suddenly he felt a familiar touch on his face, a cross between a scratch and a tickle. Peter envisioned a ridge near Sycamore Creek where he had once found a pestle in a mortar. On that ridge a low rock formed a rough semicircle where the tribe, Peter imagined, had held rituals. Suddenly, a dirt-covered Native American with long, shaggy black hair that hid both face and chest stepped into the semi-circle. The Native American, who carried a spear, wore only a loin cloth, but Peter could not tell if the Native American was a man or a woman. Peter was afraid for a moment, but the Native American seemed to be ignoring him.
"Are you my guide?" Peter asked out loud.
The Native American stood motionless and silent for what seemed like a long time, then placed the spear on the ground, pointing toward the semi-circle of stone, which suddenly resembled horns.
Peter opened his eyes, overwhelmed by an urge to go back to Sycamore Creek. He closed his eyes again, trying to meditate some more, but he soon fell asleep.
When he woke up, he noticed that over an hour had passed since he had started meditating. He headed over to Cashing's apartment to see if the meeting was over.
"How did the meeting go?" Peter asked after Cashing opened the door.
"This is a tough issue. There's not a lot we can do legally since the city has refused to pass a rent control ordinance. The state might pass legislation that limits rent increases to ten percent, but the republican governor probably won't sign it into law. We could try to negotiate with the landlord, but I doubt that he would listen. On a political level, we might stage a press conference and boycott the businesses owned by the landlord. He is a very rich man, by the way, who owns a lot of businesses here in town. There's no reason for him to harm people like this."
"Hey, you know what? When I was meditating, a spirit guide showed me a special place in the woods. We could meditate there, and maybe you might think of a solution to this problem. What do you think?"
"So you have a spirit guide? I might have known. You want to go now?"
"Sure, why not? My parents won't miss me for awhile, at least not till it gets dark."
"I don't want to piss off your parents again, but, on the other hand, I don't have anything planned for today. You're sure your parents won't mind?"
"They know you're okay. Besides, they probably won't even realize I'm gone. They're out running errands. Usually they run errands all day long."
Cashing's old Corolla struggled up the steep inclines, threatening to overheat, but soon they found a place to park next to an unchained gate.
"My, my, talk about coincidence. I used to wander around here on this property all the time, twenty years ago. I can probably even tell you where you're planning to take me. Coincidence just seems all too common for us."
"I'll follow you, then, at least until you start to get us lost," Peter laughed.
As they hiked down the trail, Justin waxed philosophical, "On one level, the 'magician' is a kind of shaman who not only uses symbols and archetypes to connect with invisible subtle energies, but also strives to connect with the subtle energies of living creatures, which requires deep cleansing of the subconscious mind and empathy. The modern shaman is reborn into kinship, relying on the ego as a survival tool but seeing beyond it, through the sympathetic imagination, to the deep connection he or she has with all living things, and seeing beyond also to the possibilities of indeterminacy and otherness. The shaman strives to know the element of Earth as much as any other element, to know living plants and animals as well as invisible spirits. After all, the ability to know one goes hand in hand with the ability to know the other because sympathy is required for both. The modern magician thrives on the adventures of otherness and the creative indeterminacy of Being, which is the mercy of eternity."
Peter nodded his head in agreement.
Cashing was profoundly curious but didn't ask any questions. He wanted to see whether or not Peter had a different idea about where they should go. He led Peter down a crumbling oiled road littered with shotgun shells, dried cow patties, and buckeye seeds. Grass and milkweed were sprouting in the cracks created by run-off from the slopes. Finally they reached a ridge where they could hear a creek in the distance. An old trail ran parallel to the road for a few feet and then curved down toward the creek. Cashing paused.
"So you do know this place?" Peter asked.
"I know it well. Which way do you want to go?"
"Let's head out to the ridge," Peter pointed north.
They crossed the faint trail, stepped over a fallen gray pine, and soon found themselves on a pounding stone overlooking the creek.
"Notice anything?" Cashing asked.
"You mean the house pits?" Peter pointed to five circular indentations in the ground near the pounding stone.
"Precisely. At first I thought cattle had created those holes in the ground, but then, after I explored the area carefully, I realized that people must have made them."
"Do you want to follow that trail down to the creek?" Peter pointed back toward the road.
Cashing, amazed by Peter's knowledge of the area, was tempted to tell him about an experience that had occurred years before. Cashing had first approached the area by hiking east along the creek. As he was hiking, the sun was going down and the air was cooling off, the creek gurgling and crickets scraping out a pleasant song. Cashing had suddenly experienced the sensation that he had been there before and then felt very powerful feelings of jealousy and rage that didn't seem to belong to him. He then knew that he would find something if he kept walking on the stones next to the creek. Soon he came upon a pounding stone right next to the water. He sat down and closed his eyes. He was suddenly sure that he would find a trail not far from the pounding stone. He scrambled up the slope under the low branches of an ancient oak tree and immediately found the trail, which led to where he and Peter were now standing. Cashing, who had contemplated reincarnation as a possible explanation while hiking along the trail those many years ago, had somehow known that he would find a pounding stone on a ridge, even though he had never been there before, and he was right.
Cashing began hiking down the trail. Peter followed silently behind him. Soon they were sitting on the pounding stone next to the creek. "So, is this where you want to meditate?" Justin asked. Then Justin told Peter his story about finding the area and the path to the pounding stone. "You know," he said, "I've read that spiritual people tend to experience coincidences and synchronicities a lot. Maybe we are living proof of that theory."
"This is not where my spirit guide told me to go," Peter replied. "We need to cross the creek. It's just up there," Peter pointed to the top of the hill on the other side of the creek.
The water was high, the rocks were unstable, but they both managed to ford the creek without getting wet. As they were scrambling up the slope, Cashing again had the sense that he had been there before. When they reached the top, Cashing stepped on a pounding stone that was almost completely covered by dirt.
"It's over there," Peter blurted out.
They found the rough semicircle of stone and sat down.
"For some reason, I feel mighty strange. This must be the place," Cashing smiled.
"Yeah, this is it," Peter said. "Let's just meditate for a while and see what happens. I don't feel like thinking about the landlord right now."
Cashing found himself sucked very quickly into the meditative state, because, it seemed, he and Peter had suddenly tuned in to the same mental frequency. After awhile, Cashing envisioned himself before a fire in the semicircle of stone. Faces of elders flickered and glowed in the firelight. Suddenly he sensed that Peter was beside him in the vision, but Peter had a different face, not just because the firelight was flickering. They were both Native Americans, but Peter was older, a young man, not a teenager. Cashing then realized that in his vision he was looking at Peter through the eyes of a woman.
Startled, Cashing opened his eyes. Peter opened his eyes at the same time and turned to Cashing.
"I just saw something strange," Peter exclaimed.
"So did I," Cashing replied. "You go first."
"I saw both of us sitting around a fire," Peter said, "but you were a woman."
"Don't tell me!" Cashing exclaimed. "We were both Native Americans?"
"Yes," Peter said, "and we were both right here."
"I think we should keep meditating, and this time don't stop even if you see something really weird," Peter suggested.
"All right, this is just another one of those things that I'm not going to be able to explain or explain away. Let's do it," Cashing agreed.
Again Cashing found himself very quickly in the meditative state, but for what seemed like a long time, he sat with his mind in the void, trying to keep from thinking. Then suddenly he saw the hill at sunrise. He envisioned stumbling down to the creek as soldiers were sneaking up on the village from the other side of the hill. Suddenly he heard gunfire. Men, women, and children were being shot down as they rushed away from the hill.
Suddenly a man stepped out of his hut with a bow and arrow. He sent an arrow straight into the chest of a soldier. Just as he was aiming another arrow, a rancher who had joined the massacre shot the Native American in the back of the head. Then the rancher turned around. Cashing recognized the dead Native American as Peter.
Cashing couldn't continue meditating. He opened his eyes again. Peter was breathing quietly, his eyes already open.
"I think I was killed here during a massacre," Peter murmured.
"And I think the person who killed you was our friend the landlord--who must have been a rancher in a past life!" Cashing blurted out.
​
​
​
​
​All poems, stories, illustrations, and music Copyright © 2024 by Jim Robbins.
Filled-in Pool
coolbn
00:00 / 04:44
APT. 16
From a dark room above the parking garage, you look out on a series of windows through several rooms where you can finally see the street through a distant window. In one room, a ring is slipped on a finger; in another, a hand reaches up from the floor to touch the dress of a woman ironing a shirt; in the most distant room, a hand is lifted from a coffin and grasped for a long time. Beyond the last room, a man in the street is being chased by a woman with a knife, and as he struggles to escape, he dashes up an escalator that creaks and teeters and takes him toward the clouds; he enters a bathroom and realizes that there are no stalls and that he is surrounded by other men; he gallops away and falls into water and can't move. As you watch, you suddenly realize that each event is actually projected onto a screen from some place in the wall. Some sensations and words keep reappearing like beliefs, layered with associations and feelings; others disappear, perhaps forever. Occasionally you search for the source of the projections, finding only a bright light under the door--and you finally turn back to the screen.
(You realize that you are still on the right path because near the door you find an old box with Chapter Seven of Rooms that Dream....)
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​Pestle next to Pounding Stone
​
​
ROOMS THAT DREAM:
CHAPTER SEVEN
​
Peter enjoyed meditating early in the morning when the others in his family were still asleep or just beginning to stir. In addition to feeling the security of having his family nearby, unbiased in their sleep by the beliefs that they had already established about him, his dreams were still fresh, and he was not in danger of falling back to sleep. Often he would lie still for over an hour before he got out of bed.
As he meditated, he intuited that the minds of some people were focused on the black Calvary Cross. Some, of course, were giving up sin and regret and suffering, but Peter also sensed others were supporting humanity with their emotional, mental, and spiritual energy. Jesus was not the only one taking in negative feelings and thoughts in order to cleanse the collective consciousness. Other people and spiritual entities were also helping. Suddenly Peter had the feeling that he could help too. He wasn't sure how, but he began to focus his energy in such a way as to take some of the negativity into himself and then release it, as if he could be part of an effort to cleanse and neutralize the excess dark energy in the world.
Just as he was filling himself with light to cleanse the blackness in his soul, he heard a commotion in the courtyard. He peeked out the bedroom window and saw the police dragging away the artist who lived in a second story apartment across the way. They were pushing him and nudging him with rifle butts. Once Peter had shown some of his own work to the artist, and the artist had responded with praise and encouragement. Then the artist had shown Peter a work in progress: on a huge canvas one person in thirty different poses in three rows on a bright red background. Though the poses were not contorted, when Peter stepped away from the painting, the figures appeared to be writhing in agony, possibly due to the red background.
The police also brought out the artist's eight-year-old son, who watched his father get into the police car. The artist just sat in the police car looking straight ahead.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Peter yelled through the window. People from all over the complex were gathering in the complex, but nobody responded, so Peter dashed outside. He found Justin in the crowd.
"Apparently they believe your artist friend robbed a 7-11 last night. People around here are getting desperate," Cashing mourned.
"What will they do with his son?" Peter asked.
"They'll probably take him to his mother, if they can find her. I've heard that she's a drug addict who just got out of jail. If they can't find her, the boy will probably just go into foster care."
They watched silently as the police escorted the boy to another police car.
"Can we do anything?" Peter asked as the police drove away.
"I don't think our meditations can help him much," Cashing mumbled, putting his hand on Peter's shoulder. "I wish there was something we could do."
"Can't we bail him out, or something?" Peter asked loudly.
"No one here has that kind of money."
"What if everyone here gave a little money to bail him out?" Peter was no longer talking directingly to Cashing but to what was left of the crowd.
People just started walking away, shaking their heads and mumbling.
Peter followed Cashing into his apartment. "You don't believe that we're doing any good?" Peter asked.
"A famous man once said that the more you know, the more you want to crawl into a black hole and die. I love your ideas and visions. Really I do. I think they're very beautiful. Maybe some ideas and visions are just too beautiful for this world."
Peter stared at the floor.
"Look, I found out something else, and you're not going to like it," Cashing said. "Our friend the landlord owns the place where we meditated the other day. He bought it a year ago from an old lady who doesn't have any family in the area. Apparently he plans to build a subdivision on that land, an upscale housing project with a golf course."
"Oh, no, no, are you kidding? This is way too much of a freaking coincidence!"
"Too much of a coincidence? I thought so too, so I checked it out to make sure. I told you the landlord practically owns this town. I'm not kidding."
"Can't we do something to stop it?" Peter asked.
"How do you think I ended up in this hole in the first place?" Cashing blurted out. "By fighting people like him--that's how. The next stop after this is the street, my friend. Hell, he's probably already planning to evict me. How many fronts do you think I can fight on?"
"I just think that we shouldn't give up so easily. There's got to be something we can do," Peter mumbled.
"Like what? This might sound cliched, my friend, but money talks and losers walk. He can buy off the archeologist who surveys the land for Native American artifacts. He can buy off the county planning commission and the board of supervisors. He can even buy off the judges who preside over the lawsuits. I've seen it happen before, more than once. Just the promise of financial support, hell even just a hamburger and some French fries and a soda are enough to buy the loyalty of the people who make the decisions around here."
"Okay, okay, but I'm not going to crawl into some black hole and die!" Peter blurted out. "We can do something!"
Peter slammed the door of Justin's apartment and stumbled home.
​
​
​
​
All poems, stories, illustrations, and music Copyright © 2024 by Jim Robbins.
Tenant
colum
00:00 / 04:19
APT. 17
In Apt. 17, you hear strange music from some other apartment. As you are falling asleep, you realize that it is the call of the blue whale, and you notice that the whale sometimes repeats what he has sung but combines it with other melodies, as if trying to find just the right combination that will attract another blue whale, perhaps even from hundreds of miles away. You imagine swimming in a vast ocean by yourself with sharks and killer whales and strange creatures all around you, never finding someone who is like you, so you just keep singing, and no one seems to notice that now and then you repeat yourself. The others seem intimidated by you, perhaps because of your shape and size. In fact, you are never quite sure that anyone around you is even listening, so caught up are they in just surviving from one moment to the next. As you fall asleep you become like a blue whale, combining the music that you are dreaming in different ways so that perhaps someday someone in the vast sea will hear you and actually listen.
(You realize that you are still on the right path because near the bed you find an old box with Chapter Eight of Rooms that Dream....)
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Baby Blue Eyes in the Gorge (formerly known as "Squaw Leap")
​
​
​
ROOMS THAT DREAM:
CHAPTER EIGHT
​
The next day, as Peter was getting on his bike in the courtyard, Cashing opened his door and called him over.
"You're not going to insist that we can't do anything, are you?" Peter asked.
"No, no, hang on a minute. I've had an idea. Do you want to hear it?"
Peter got off of his mountain bike and stepped into Cashing's apartment.
"Okay, this is my idea. It's just a stab in the dark," Cashing mumbled, "and it's probably really just a stupid idea anyway."
"Would you just tell me already?" Peter blurted out.
"Okay. We could go door to door collecting signatures from people to protest the proposed subdivision in the foothills. In the process, we could hand out fact sheets, and ask people to call or write their county supervisor. We could also list a few of our landlord's major businesses on the fact sheet. That probably would be bad for his business. We wouldn't ask people to boycott those businesses, mind you, because that might get us in trouble. We just want to imply that people can stand up against this guy."
"Okay, now you're talkin'. When can we get started?" Peter smiled.
"Whoa! Wait just a minute. There are several things to consider before we get started. First of all, you haven't received permission from your parents. We would be canvassing in the evening on weeknights. Secondly, if our landlord finds out, he might want retribution. In other words, he might evict me and your family. We have to do this without letting anyone know who we are or where we live. We would have to be extremely careful."
"Okay, first of all, my stepdad likes nature. He wouldn't want to see that place developed anymore than I do. Secondly, my stepdad hates the landlord, and my parents are planning to move from here anyway. We're probably only going to be here another month or so, from what I understand. And third, maybe I can convince them that the experience would be good for me, get me out of the house, make me more outgoing, yada, yada, yada," Peter laughed.
"You can also mention that I canvassed for three years when I was younger and no one in my organization ever had any problems, and I was asking for money in addition to signatures and phone calls and letters. If someone gets ugly, you can just turn and walk away."
That evening at dinner, Peter told his family about Cashing's idea. Peter's mother was dead set against it, but Peter's stepfather, who knew the area that might be developed, changed her mind. He knew the land was right at the edge of a national park. Peter's stepfather thought that Peter should at least be given a chance. As Peter had predicted, his stepdad thought the experience would help build Peter's character. Peter had assured them that Cashing would always be canvassing on the other side of the street and would intercede if there were ever a problem. Besides, it would be a good way to get back at the landlord. That evening, after dinner, Peter overheard his stepfather's prediction that Peter wouldn't last long on the job, not more than a night or two, anyway.
Cashing and Peter both wondered out loud what they were doing on more than one occasion, but a month later, they were still going door to door, collecting an average of seventy signatures and ten letters a night between them. By the end of the first month, they had almost 1,500 signatures and close to two hundred letters against the project. Since it was summer, they kept canvassing until about nine o'clock each evening. People, on the whole, were indifferent. A few were nice and gave them something to drink. A few would slam the door in their faces, often without hearing what they had to say. Justin and Peter just kept knocking on doors and finding supporters wherever they could.
After a month, though, Justin started getting so tired that he began to suspect something was wrong. He took several days off, hoping that a little rest would solve the problem, but after four days, he didn't feel any better.
Peter meditated on Cashing's illness. Peter mentally scanned Cashing's body and found a streak of black in his lungs. Peter remembered that Cashing had smoked cigarettes when he was much younger. Perhaps now, with all of the stress, cells were becoming cancerous. Peter did not want to label the problem, however. He envisioned draining the blackness from Cashing's lung into a chalice and draining the blackness through a cord under the chalice into the earth, where it was purified by fire. Then Peter mentally filled the tainted area of the lung with blue and yellow and red and brilliant white energy. He had no rational explanation why those colors might be the best energy--he just knew it was right.
When Peter saw Cashing next, he told Cashing to go to the doctor and have his lungs x-rayed. Cashing took Peter's advice, and the doctor found a tiny tumor in Cashing's left lung. The doctor wanted to operate right away to remove the tumor. Peter spent as many hours as possible meditating to rid the spot from Cashing's left lung, replacing the blackness with blue and yellow and red and white energy, which Peter eventually realized were colors associated with the four subtle elements. Before the doctors were about to operate, they x-rayed Cashing's lungs again. This time they found no sign of a tumor in his lung even though they checked and rechecked the tests. Wondering if some mistake had been made, they sent Cashing home and told him to return in a week.
Justin knew that occasionally there were rips in the fabric of reality and odd things would slip in and out, sometimes terrifying, sometimes healing, sometimes downright crazy. He had little trouble believing therefore that Peter could heal him.
Peter had helped Justin to believe in the power of telepathy. Justin had experienced "hits" before, sometimes knowing with great certainty what a person was thinking or feeling, but even though he had opened his subtle senses more than a few times, he did not trust his intuitions and did not know how to harness that power. Justin was more than a little afraid of the power of thought combined with intense feeling, which sometimes unexpectedly inspired groups into sudden, focused action as a powerful thought-form swept through the crowd, making individuals do, for better or worse, what they could not have imagined doing alone. It was the power of the mob, but it was also, as Justin was witnessing, the power that an individual could use to heal or to harm. Since Justin was a well-educated man, he had always doubted his intuition, that small voice in his head. Maybe what he "heard" were like the indistinct sounds that seeped through the apartment walls that he could never really label good or bad. Justin was also afraid that he just didn't have enough faith in the power of the mind or in himself, for the subtle senses sometimes only translate the energy of emotion and thought into thought-forms in the imagination. Sometimes he could not even believe in his own fingers. For Peter, though, Justin was willing to take a chance, if only because it made life feel more like an adventure.
After he got back from the doctor's office, Cashing found Peter waiting for him. "I get this feeling that you've been meditating now and then on my problem," Cashing said.
"Yeah," Peter replied.
Cashing hugged Peter. "Thank you," Cashing said. "I'm sure you helped me even though every one else I know would think that I'm crazy for saying so."
"You need to purify your mind and your body every day through meditation from now on. I can't keep you healthy. You've got to do it yourself," Peter explained.
"I will. I will. I promise," Cashing replied. "Follow me. I have something to show you. I've been debating about the right time to show you, but I think the right time is now."
They ambled over to Justin's apartment. After he opened the front door, Justin motioned Peter inside and opened the door to his bedroom.
"This is the Tree of Life," Justin whispered.
Peter could see a strange structure, about three and a half feet tall, on an alter, with gems hanging from it. "You mean the Tree of Life from the Garden of Eden?" Peter asked.
"It's possible that this Tree of Life came from the Garden of Eden, but no one can prove it, of course."
"Are the jewels real? How much are they worth?" Peter demanded.
"The Tree itself, as far as I know, is priceless," Justin responded. "It has another value, a magical value that far transcends its worth in gold."
Peter squinted at the Tree, "Those jewels aren't really real, are they? You're just messin' with me, right?"
'Yes, they are real, and no I'm not messin' with you. Some of the most powerful forces in the world are contained within those jewels."
"What kinds of forces?"
"The Tree of Life is a symbol of creation representing the different subtle energies within the cosmos and the individual. It symbolically reveals the universal energy field, which is mirrored in each human energy field. The Tree reveals the subtle correspondences between the individual soul and the powers of the cosmos, in other words."
Peter pondered Justin's words for a moment. "You mean that a person can use the Tree to manifest cosmic powers? How is that possible?"
"That, my friend, is the mystery. Only a small group of people know how to charge the jewels with cosmic force. For some reason, my uncle left the Tree so that I would find it. I believe that my uncle was one of the people who knew how to do it, but he died before he could tell me."
"So," Peter drew out the vowel, "how did your uncle get a hold of it?"
"He found it during World War II hidden in a concentration camp, of all places. He showed it to me once when I was a young boy, but he didn't tell me anything else about it. My uncle was eccentric and seemed a little unbalanced sometimes. Everyone thought he was 'cranky' because of the war, but I think now it was probably because of this," Justin pointed at the Tree. "He wanted me to believe that he took it apart after he found it in a Nazi commandant's headquarters and that he wrapped it up and brought it home, and then he put it back together in his garage and kept it hidden there for almost fifty years, but I now think it possible that he simply put it together and charged it with cosmic energies himself."
Peter still looked doubtful. "Why are you showing this to me now?"
"I don't completely understand it on a spiritual level, probably because I have trouble trusting my own intuitions. I understand it mentally, but I don't fully understand it spiritually. I sometimes just feel at a loss when I connect spiritually with people or things. I can sometimes talk a good game, but when it gets down to the nitty gritty, I have trouble reconciling the logic of the mind with the logic of the spirit, which sometimes can be oddly different. And maybe I'm a little afraid of the unpredictable nature of the spirit. You, if you'll allow me to be blunt, are obviously less damaged than I am and more open to the spiritual dimension. I am hoping that you will help me understand the Tree of Life on a higher level. I believe that everything happens for a reason. A wise man once said that you should treat all experience as a confrontation of God with your soul. You are having visions of archetypal symbols that can be found in the Tarot and on the Tree of Life, two symbol systems that correspond in every conceivable way. I think for that reason alone I am meant to reveal this to you."
Peter looked confused.
Justin continued, "It's crucial that the right people take care of the Tree. Try to remember Nazi Germany, for a moment. The Nazis got their hands on knowledge of the Tree of Life and conquered most of Europe, killing millions of innocent people in the process. The Tree of Life is a sacred symbol system revealing different subtle states of being. The swastika, for instance, which is a symbol of the Source of life, is associated with the top Emanation of the Tree, the Crown, the Source of all Creation. The Nazis perverted that symbol, turning it on its side, literally and figuratively. Instead of a symbol of life, it became a symbol of the blackest evil. And, instead of a time of great spiritual awakening, the 20th Century became a nightmare. I'm afraid that the people in power now are more than a little like the Nazis, and if they got their hands on it, they would use the Tree to establish 'full-spectrum dominance' over the world, which is pretty much what they're currently trying to do. You and I are 'off the radar,' so to speak, and we need to keep it that way. Whoever takes care of the Tree must remain humble."
"So you think your uncle chose you to take care of it?" Peter asked.
"My guess is that he could see my rebellious spiritual nature. All I know is that he made me the executor of his estate and must have known that I would remember the Tree and try to find it. Sure enough, I found it hidden on the top shelf in his garage."
Peter gazed at the Tree of Life. "How does the magic work?"
Justin smiled. "The gems are like archetypes in the Tarot cards, except the gems are tangible. With the Tarot cards, you have to allow your imagination to let the forces affect you. With the gems, all you have to do is touch them. When you touch a gem, the cosmic force comes through and stimulates the subconscious mind. In other words, an influx of power affects your aura, and if your brain is in a receptive state, the subconscious mind will present the force to your conscious mind as an archetypal symbol or God or Archangel in the mind's eye. If you touch the ruby, for instance, you will feel the power of Mars, which can manifest as great courage and energy, and you might see an archetypal symbol such as a sword or a warrior king or God in your mind's eye."
Peter touched the ruby and felt a wave of power wash over his sphere of sensation, and in his mind's eye, he envisioned a king dressed in armor and a red cape who was holding a sword and shield. "Dang! Why doesn't everyone know about this?" Peter gasped.
"The force of the gems, each of which represents an Emanation on the Tree of Life, can also be unbalancing. In other words, the force of the ruby, which represents a sphere on the Tree of Life known as Geburah, or Power, can also manifest as cruelty and destructiveness. Each sphere has a 'vice' as well as a 'virtue.' Because of the potentially unbalancing aspect of each path, the stewards of the Tree have only passed on the knowledge to those who are awakened and purified and dedicated. A person who uses the knowledge for selfish ends eventually ends up destroyed by the unbalancing aspect of the forces, but that person can end up harming a lot of people in the process. How the individual uses the power of the forces is his or her own karma."
Peter reached for the sapphire, the jewel opposite the ruby.
"Whoa, there!" Justin shouted, chuckling. "You need to absorb the energy of the ruby before you invite other powers into your life. Give it at least a week. If you become unbalanced in that time, you can invite the powers of the opposite sphere into your aura as a way to balance the forces. The three pillars of the Tree reveal polarity and balance. The two outer pillars represent polarity, and the middle pillar represents the balance of the forces. The sixth Emanation, known as Tiphareth, or Beauty, harmonizes the forces, and is therefore known as the 'Christ Center.' All of these forces can have a life-changing effect on the psyche, so you need to be extremely careful when handling them, especially since each force tends to be at a much higher frequency than we're used to."
"So do people start to think you're strange if you do this? Is that what happened to your uncle?"
"I'm not going to lie to you, Peter. That could happen. Just look at the Tarot card 'The Hanged Man,' which represents one of the paths on the Tree. Most people live within a very limited range of emotional, mental and spiritual frequencies. You have to choose between being considered 'normal' or realizing the potentials of the self, which requires sacrifice. This is one of the most important choices you will ever make."
"I guess I should think about it, but I have a feeling that I already know what the answer is going to be," Peter responded.
"I had a feeling that you might," Justin laughed.
"Before I go, I've got something to tell you, which is the reason I came over in the first place. I've got some bad news," Peter muttered.
Justin furrowed his eyebrows.
Peter continued, "The landlord evicted us. You're probably about to receive an eviction notice too."
"The landlord has eyes everywhere."
"My stepbrother told him," Peter stated.
"Why?"
"Because my stepbrother hates me," Peter sighed.
"Did your stepbrother ask him for money or something?" Cashing asked.
"My stepbrother said he was trying to keep the landlord from evicting my family by telling the landlord the truth. I'm not sure why he really did it," Peter frowned. "Unfortunately, my family is behind on the rent like everyone else."
Just then, the manager knocked on Justin's door. "Consider yourself served," the manager sneered.
The envelope containing the eviction notice also contained a short letter from the landlord. "Why don't we meet tomorrow at three o'clock in my office downtown?" the note read. The address was included in the letterhead.
"The landlord would like to meet with me tomorrow. Hmmm, what might the landlord want?" Justin mused.
Peter ambled over to the Tree and fondled a gem that made him feel incredibly psychic as Justin looked on with concerned amusement. "I guess we'll find out," Peter stated.
​
​
​
​
All poems, stories, illustrations, and music Copyright © 2024 by Jim Robbins.
bottom of page