Today I go directly to the staging post...

Today I go directly to the staging post, the space station. Once through the virus screening I find myself in a small interview room with a table and two chairs. Very office-like environment, nothing fancy.

Sitting on the opposite side of the table is a splinter or hologram particle of the presence. It appears as a mobile cloud of blue/silver energy in a vaguely humanoid shape.

I get the impression that I am to take the other chair, so I sit down in it.

“I presume you know why I’m here,” I say to the presence.

“We do, but it always helps if you define your purpose for yourself,” replied the presence, not out loud, but as a voice in my head.

“There are two things I would like to do,” I said, “one is to thank my Aunty Ivy for making contact in my dreams last night, and the other is to re-connect with the indian that I think of as ‘Bright-Face,’ who I met on my first journey here.”

A rectangular box made of grey plastic appeared on the table. It looked like a tablet PC, with a recessed screen. The presence told me to put my left hand on the screen. As I did so it lit up with a soft pink glow. I felt a slight warmth come up my arm and into my chest.

The presence explained, “What we are doing now is making a contract with your heart. You have chosen the path of power and we must make sure that as you move forward on this path that you learn that the path of power is first and foremost the path of heart and that each step requires a conscious decision before you can move on to the next. Are you willing to proceed, knowing what you know so far?”

“With all my heart, yes,” I replied. It felt like my heart was directly in contact with the screen via my arm and hand. The screen enabled the presence to record my heart-feelings.

Now I could feel Ivy, she seemed to be swirling around the outside of the room I was in. She seemed happy, she was smiling, but there was also a sense that communication was somehow difficult.

I said, “Thanks Ivy for sending me the message today. I hope you like the frame I bought for your photos. If there is anything else you would like me to do, please let me know as best you can and I’ll try to help. And if you have any advice for me, I’ll try to listen.”

“I’m worried about Ann,” said Ivy, “she’s making herself sick with grief and it isn’t necessary.”

“What can I do?”

“You could tell her not to be as silly as her mother was. I spent too many years pining for Dave. It wasn’t necessary and only made many of my last years a misery. Tell her to throw away the Yahtze dice, that they aren’t me and that I will always love her and that we will meet again in good time and that she should not waste her remaining years in sadness.”

“Try to get Ann to call me,” I said, “if she does that I will tell her your message.”

“It may be easier to get Jean to call you,” she said, “will that do?”

“If you think that will work, then sure, that’s okay with me,” I said. “But you’ll need to make sure she mentions that Ann is having a hard time and that she is worried about her, without me giving her a prompt.”

Now the scene shifted and I found myself standing on the right side of a brown horse. When I looked up I saw that it was Bright-Face. He leaned down and I reached up and he pulled me up onto the horse, sitting behind him. He kicked his heels and the horse took off at a gallop.

The ride was amazingly smooth, more a feeling of undulation than anything else. I felt the wind blowing past my face. I felt unsure how I should hold on, so I grasped his leather leggings at the waist.

Suddenly we came to a stop, I heard the horse’s hooves scraping on the ground, scrunching into the sandy soil. Before I could think, Bright-Face jumped off the horse, leaving me seated on the animal. He was looking up at me, his features still invisible inside the bright white glow that was his face.

I thought I should jump down too, but he put up his hand to indicate that I should stay seated where I was.

I heard his voice, he said, “How would you control such an animal?”

I looked down. I was seated bareback and there were no reins. For all intents and purposes I was sitting on a wild animal. I leaned forward to grasp its mane but as I did the horse gave a sudden shake of its head, as if to say, uh-uh, not like that, so I held back. I tightened my legs but the response was a nervous sidestep that almost threw me onto the ground.

Bright-Face stood unmoved by my dilemma, then he brought his right hand up to touch the center of his chest.

I remembered what the presence had told me and focused my attention onto my heart, while at the same time thinking of the horse’s heart. I leaned forward until I was laying with my chest along the horse’s back, with my heart as close as I could get it to her heart. Now I knew she was a mare, I didn’t know that before. And she was sweet tempered and didn’t mind me sitting on her back, that I was no weight at all, especially now that we had learned to talk together.

The mare’s heart was enormous compared to mine and I luxuriated in the feeling, the purity of the feeling of this most wonderful heart.

“Now you can go home,” said Bright-Face, “we will talk more.”