12

MAIDEN

“Sisi, where are you going?” Fikile called after me as I shot off through the field.

“To the Point!” I yelled over my shoulder, as surprised as she was, running as if my legs belonged to someone else. The prick of the grass on my feet was intense as I picked my way across it. The small canopy of trees, the last bastion, lay between me and the beach, and I picked up speed and dashed through the Mangrove trees.

Surprise! I tripped and landed on my hands and knees in the sand, and I felt it again: small, almost imperceivable pulses on the palms of my hands, the tap, tap tapping, the muddy Morse code from the earth. I leaned in low, listening for the beat. My connection faltered. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, and with my palms flat on the ground, the pulse strengthened.

A little birdy orchestra carried through the canopy of the mangroves, birds singing and syncopating with the Morse code rising from the ground, tap, tap, tap. I heard it with more than my ears and felt the resonance in my body. I heard squawking and opened my eyes to see three crows land in the trees above me.

My FoV had increased dramatically since the manifestation of my code. I noticed a difference between the coding in the dimension here and the city. What appeared to be a gridlike design in the cities was a more flexible web here in nature. The structure made allowance for adaptations and evolution, just like the spiderwebs that glimmered, their variables holding just the right amount of tensile stress.

The golden thread shimmered and shone much more visibly here in nature too. I saw it everywhere around me, effortlessly. Everything I perceived around me, maybe even all of existence, was cradled in this glittering golden web. I had never seen leaves so green, a vibrance that seemed to shine through from another dimension.

The butterflies flitted with a magical radiance. I thought about the Butterfly Effect. Weather is just one example that you can see every day. Seth would know that Climate change is another. Warming climates are impacting alpine butterflies in North America. The Butterfly Effect also lead to chaos theory, the idea of trying to predict inherently unpredictable things. People are so predictable.

As if playing a new level, the Golden Ratio, Fibonacci’s Sequence appeared in a dozen different life forms, with a matching dinging sound effect, as if communicating score and point values to me. The number of petals in the pink and yellow flowers appeared in the bushes around me, consistently following the Fibonacci sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, and so on forever. There was Phi in the petals of a flower; each petal at 0.618034 per turn (out of a 360° circle). It was glorious!

It struck me: This sequence is a built-in numbering system for everything. Its emergent patterns and ratios are from the micro to the macro. The concept of communication is in the design of nature. I witnessed a representation of wholeness and a model for the organizational structure of life itself, a cosmic diagram that shows the relation to the infinite and the world that extends beyond and within various minds & bodies.

This information just wanted to share itself. It only wanted to propagate, spread, evolve, change, and survive. Such arrogance to think we humans have a monopoly on intelligence.

“I think my main job is literally picking you up when you fall,” said Will, scooping me up and breaking my connection.

“You're probably right," I said, mildly annoyed. I noticed how much bigger and stronger than me he was. I looked up at him, his red hair smudged into bronze edges as the setting sun cast a golden glow behind him. It took him seconds to spot the path to the point, and he dashed down it. "Come on, I can smell the sea!"

He waited for me on the point. I did a three-sixty-degree turn, taking in the bay, the lush hills on either side and the forest at my back. To the left, the beach shimmered in a golden ribbon extending to where the estuary slithered glistening veins of fresh water into the sea. To the right, the slate grey boulders rose in an invitation to explore prehistoric life. Resurrection by the tides.

“Race you down!” said Will as he took off down the hill without waiting to see if I would follow. I wasn’t comfortable on a beach, but I was comfortable in competition, and besides, if I fell, Will would pick me up.

We collapsed in a panting heap onto the warm sand. The golden glow stretched across the horizon and smudged through the tree line behind us. The ocean gleamed like a silver platter offering us the setting sun like a hearty meal I never ate.

“Will,” I said, as the pools in my eyes spilt onto my cheeks. “Thanks for showing me my first Sunset.”

Will’s Field expanded towards mine. “Thanks for showing me your second.” He said.

Every living thing glowed, including Will. Like Genetics, it’s a code, and someone somewhere was writing it. All of it.

MOTHER

“Shalom,” he said again.

“It’s a Hebrew word,” I said. “Meaning peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquillity, and idiomatically can mean both hello and goodbye,” I said as if revealing my hand in a game of Texas Holdem.

“Helloh!” He said, smiling with a cheeky glint in his eye.

“It can refer to either peace between two entities," I said really finding my rhythm, "(especially between man and God or between two countries), or the well-being, welfare or safety of an individual or a group of individuals.”

He grinned.

I grinned too, his joy infectious. No one ever geeked out with me about language.

“The word shalom is also found in many other expressions and names. Its equivalent in Arabic is salaam, slime in Maltese, shama in Syriac-Assyrian, and sälam in Ethiopian Semitic Languages.”

There was a beat, and we burst out laughing. More butterflies flitted around us as if drawn to our joy.

“Regan, you are remembering yourself.” He smiled with affection, touching my cheek. I leaned into it and sighed. Shalom.

He knelt, and a gecko made its way onto his iridescent blue hand. It brightened and matched his skin perfectly. He lifted the gecko toward me, and its blue hue deepened.

“Your Ka calls, Regan.” I felt my little bubble of Shalom shake. Now level with me, he looked into my eyes, held the gecko up, and passed it to my shoulder.

"You mean the child?"

He nodded, palms at his chest, then greeted each little beady eye and fluttering butterfly as he spoke. “A time of great power and transition approaches.” He explained absolutely nothing and ploughed on. "The boundaries are in flux as you Coalesce.”

“Like the Force in Star Wars?” I asked.

“Yes, like the Force in Star Wars.” He smiled broadly, and I felt it in my bones. The butterflies began to disperse as quickly as they came. He closed his eyes and let them butterfly kiss him.

"The first Force has been summoned, and together you will open the First Gate." He nodded briefly towards the geckos, and they too, began to depart as my anxiety woke from her nap.

“I didn’t come here to have things expected of me.”

“Why did you come?”

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What had Thando called it? “Medicine!” I said. “I came for medicine!” I took a couple of steps into the start of a pace. The Blue Man just nodded as he communed with a butterfly.

“This is good.” He said. I blinked, sure that this was not good. Not good at all.

“Who are you even?”

“You know who I am.” He placed his hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. "We have done this many times before.”

I breathed.

He smiled. “We are all here to guide you.” A butterfly landed on his hand. He nodded as it flitted towards my shoulder and hovered behind me. He looked up at the geckos on the wall and lifted his hands to pray at his heart. He stood up and began to fade away.

Who am I? Snow fucking white?

***

I headed down to the point to clear my head. A little birdy orchestra carried through the canopy of the mangroves. I heard it with more than my ears and felt the resonance in my body. I heard squawking and noticed that my friends, the three crows, were following me.

Regan Grace, said a voice. We have been anticipating you. I felt the sentence pulse from the ground through the soles of my naked feet and then blossom into my mind. Look, as you know, voices were hardly a new thing for me.

Who are you? I asked as I found myself encircled by trees.

We, replied the voice, are the Ecclesia; We are Trees and Mycelium. We are Custodians of Information, Knowledge, and History of Matter. I felt a hum through my feet. It was a very gentle, pleasant current of electricity.

You are a Fractal of the Arche. All cellular memory in your bloodline is connected and lives, whether manifest or in pure potential. There was a pause. Your awareness will strengthen as you Coalesce. We are here for you. Everything living contains information, they said. Open your eyes and see.

I had never seen leaves so green, a vibrance that seemed to shine through from another dimension. The butterflies flitted with a magical radiance. The golden thread I had only seen in my imagination shimmered and shone everywhere. It was as if some hippies had thrown a party in the forest. But not just the trees. Everything I perceived around me, maybe even all of existence, was cradled in this glittering golden web.

“Your name, the Ecclesia, is a collective noun, but am I talking to someone in particular?”

We are what we are together. The singular is valuable as part of the whole. There was a pause. There is much for you to grasp.

“Understatement of the century,” I mumbled.

We use a language you perceive as English, but this is an idea you are exploring with us.

A layer of reality peeled away: I saw the roots of trees stretched deep underground. They were surrounded by and connected to glowing networks of fibres: the Mycelium. The Mycelium operates like fibre optic cables. Their thin filaments penetrated the ground and wove through the mass of roots, sharing information with the trees, and me, exactly like the MIST, or what used to be known as the World Wide Web.

Listen with more than your ears, said the Ecclesia. Information and communication pass between every living thing in the ecosystem; birds, bees, bugs, butterflies, flowers, and trees. Their well-being is intrinsically connected to yours and what remains of the human race.

I glanced down and saw into myself: A root system grew from my pelvic floor and wrapped itself around the skeletal system that shaped the pelvic bowl of my womb. My lumbar spine and coccyx, to the back, my pubic bone to the front, the curve of the hips and their joints to either side. The roots reached into the ground through my legs. I knew I was connected to them, and not just to them, but to the Earth.

Your body is encompassed by an energy field that extends as far out as your outstretched arms. It is both an information centre and a perceptual system. Electrical pulses travelled through every root, channel, and fibre that my naked eye could see and that my physical body could feel.

You are in constant communication with everything around you. What you experience emotionally and physically in this realm becomes the physical body that you occupy.

My roots sprouted green leaves and knitted themselves into and around my bones. It took me some moments to identify my feelings. I wanted to freak out, but my body told me a different story.

I felt rooted and connected.

I felt incredibly safe and secure: grounded.

The truth is, I had never felt safe and secure.

Tears slid down my cheeks.

I had never felt safe.

Ever in my life.

The tree held me up and let me be.

My tears grew to torrents, and my heart broke open.

I sobbed until my ribcage ached.

Then I wept quietly until my cheeks burned.

I leaned back on the tree nearest to me.

The sunset over the canopy of trees until the moon promised to kiss me goodnight.

***

Thando was fishing on the rocks. He spotted me coming down the dune in the moonlight and packed up as I walked toward him. He smiled, took me in his arms and squeezed me until I thought I would burst. He pushed me away, still holding onto my shoulders and looking deep into my eyes. He wiped my cheeks with his thumbs and asked, “Amatongo?”

For your continued understanding, he uses his language, and we use yours, they said. I nodded, still a little teary and tender. It was no surprise that he knew them.

“It’s time,” he said, taking me under his arm and turning to his beloved sea. The moon rose, a silver crescent in the sky.

He walked me home. The path that had seemed so prickly to my city feet and invisible to my naked eyes could never again be unknown. Guided by the moon and the Ecclesia, the soles of my feet found the way. Even with a quarter of its light, the moon shone so brightly that it kept the shadows at bay.

At the kitchen door, he said, “Eat well. Sleep well. I know you like coffee, but drink plenty of water.”

“So you won’t come in for coffee now?” He smiled, shook his head, and said, “Regan, imagine you are about to give birth.” I raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t like where this metaphor is going.”

He laughed. “The work of creation is often invisible. Just as a child is knitted together in the womb, hidden until the obvious signs of growth appear: the base of the flower developing into its fruit. The curve of creation, I call it.” His eyes wandered back and forth between mine, seeking my understanding. “The point is, you need to support the cosmic change happening in the macro realm with the micro realm: your body. Self-care is critical at this moment.”

“How do you know all this?” I was incredulous.

“Nothing has changed.” He grinned. “So many questions.” He ruffled my hair. “Tonight rest. Soon you give birth." He walked away, but stopped and said, “Oh, and write it down tonight.”

“What?” I raised an eyebrow.

“The dream.”

MAIDEN

The long hand ticked twenty-three minutes past eleven on Eleanor’s analogue watch. I had dug it out of her jewellery box and was very careful. I could hardly carry around my father’s enormous old clock radio, could I?

I ran my finger along the little curve. It was a delicate silver wristwatch with intricately braided links. It wriggled on my wrist as if it had tiny vertebrae and a life of its own. In the glimmer of the moon, I saw something else. There was something in the light. A quality. A timelessness.

The silver glow flashed again. I looked into Olivia McKenna's eyes. I never met my maternal grandmother. She died of cancer when Eleanor was pregnant with me. As the experience expanded - I experienced Eleanor’s memories as if they were mine. I could even smell Olivia's overly sweet perfume and feel the silk of her scarf.

It was Eleanor's sixteenth birthday. Olivia gave her daughter the watch I was telling the time with now. It immediately struck me as ironic that she gave Eleanor the gift of timekeeping but had no time for her. Even I knew that.

Eleanor Grace idolised her mother, but when she reminded me of my privilege, she compared it to her childhood. Olivia McKenna sent Eleanor away to boarding school when she was only six, to remarry and start a new life without her.

The sun glinted in my eyes, and I was back looking at the moon. I pulled the curtain back and gasped. The starlight arriving in my retina after millions of light-years of travelling was incomprehensibly beautiful.

I heard Gran coughing. Long-wracking coughs as if her engine refused to start. Will and I were not allowed to see her when we got home from the beach. She had gotten sick in winter, and the recovery was slow. It was emphysema. She refused to stop smoking those damn cigars. The next thing we knew, she had this guy, Zee, move in. Tata called with the news.

I checked ‘Zee’ out, obvs, and he was legit, a qualified nurse and caregiver, particularly those on their deathbed. His limited online presence seemed mysterious but legit.

It was still but not silent. Birds cawed outside the window. There were other night sounds that, like the beach and the sunset, I had been oblivious to until now. A Frog croaked. The breeze caused the wind chimes (made out of recycled glass and fishing gut, hideous in my opinion - who made them even?!) on the porch to twinkle. Blue did not come.

MAIDEN - MOTHER

I dreamed about Child-me: The sun sparkled off the gift wrap as an ocean breeze drifted in. Will was in his PJs, and Fikile beamed at me.

I woke with tears coursing down my cheeks. I sat up and reached for my notebook and pen to write my dream down, as Thando said.

I remembered my Gran’s last breath in the hospital, the cancer swallowing her whole. Like a ghost in the room, I watched her thin lips stretch tightly over her jaw as she sucked the air out of the room. I felt like a ghost in my room now.

I found writing it out cathartic. Writing syphoned it out of me. Ouf of my mind, out of my body, so the memory could loosen her grip on me. It was at that moment, at 11:11 pm when my grip loosened on the pen. I must have been dozing off.

It slipped out of my sweaty fingers and rolled under the bed. I knelt to reach for it, tapping my fingers around, but my fingers found something else: a red box with a gold bow.

It was huge and surprised me with how light it was when I got a grip. I parted my legs wide and pulled the box between them. “What the fuck is this?”