I was just lying back looking up through the branches when I heard Mama Chia’s voice behind me: “Do you recall what I said before … about shape-shifting?”
“Uh, you didn’t really say that much about—” Just then, startled by the loud chirping of a bird, I turned toward her, but she had vanished, and in her place, near where she had been standing, on the low branch of a tree, sat a bird, staring into space, perfectly still, as if waiting for something. “It can’t be!” I said aloud. “You’re not …”
The bird fixed me with an unblinking gaze; I stared back, waiting for a sign, when Mama Chia’s grinning face peeked out from behind the tree trunk. The moment she saw me gaping, her smile turned to laughter. “Dan, I wish I’d had a camera; your expression was priceless.”
She stepped forward and winked at the bird; it flew to her shoulder. “So, you thought I’d become a bird.”
“I’ve seen stranger things,” I said.
“I expect that you have,” she replied. “And many everyday miracles go unnoticed. But people don’t physically turn into little birds. Shape-shifting involves the transference of consciousness, a form of deep empathy. Nothing more, nothing less. You feel your way into ‘bird awareness.’”
She stroked the little bird, smoothing his bloodred chest and white belly feathers, as he chirped. “This is an ’apapane bird. He’s sort of a pet, and follows me occasionally,” she said, touching his curved beak. I call him ‘Redbird.’”
“Is he tame?” I asked, recovering from my embarrassment. “Can I hold him?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”
“What am I supposed to do—whistle in bird language?”
She shared a look with the bird, who appeared to roll his eyes in his head as if to say, “Who is this guy?”
I reached out slowly, and the semiwild ’apapane allowed me to stroke his belly.
“I have to admit, that was a nice trick. You had me fooled.”
Her expression darkened, like the sky overhead, and she stood. “What we are about to do tonight is not about ‘tricks,’” she declared, taking the small bird into her hand. “It’s about life and death.” Suddenly, she closed her hand tightly on the bird, squeezing him until he lay still and limp in her hand.
In shock, I stammered, unbelieving, “How could you?”
It’s also about death and life,” she interrupted, tossing the little bird up into the air, where he spread his wings, flew up into a tree, and started to sing beautifully, undisturbed by a sudden drizzle, and apparently no worse for wear.
The rain would soon pass, but would this sense of dread?
Mama Chia, unperturbed by my concerns, lay curled up like a mother bear, her eyes closed, her breathing slow and deep.
I rested for about fifteen minutes but couldn’t sleep; I was too full of anxiety about whatever waited for me ahead.
When she finally stirred, then stretched, I asked, “Where are we?”
“Inside the boundaries of Kalanikaula, a sacred kukui grove.”
“Sacred?” I said, sitting up and looking around.
“Yes. Can you feel it?”
I looked up into the gray bark, light green leaves, and white flowers of the beautiful trees, then closed my eyes and realized that the beauty wasn’t so much the look, but the feel, of the place. “I feel … a kind of fear—no, not exactly fear, but … awe.” Then I added, “Why did we come all this way?”
“You go to a sacred place for a sacred teaching.” Abruptly, she stood. “Come. It will soon be dark.” Erasing any signs of herself, she turned and walked into the forest. I stood quickly, and followed her example.
“You want to tell me what this is about?” I asked, walking swiftly through the trees, trying to keep her in sight.
“When we get there,” she called back.
“Get where?”
Though muffled by the trees, the sound of her voice carried clearly enough. “The burial ground,” she said.
“Burial ground? Tonight?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up—a clear message from my Basic Self that something was coming—and I had no fondness for burial grounds at night.
CHAPTER 11
Tower of Life
Symbolically, then, a tower was originally conceived
as a vehicle for connecting spirit and matter … .
The gods must find a way to enter—by force if necessary.
—Sallie Nichols, Jung and Tarot
BY THE TIME I LOOKED UP, Mama Chia was already twenty yards ahead. I jogged to stay close to her. As we climbed out of the kukui grove, over the narrow ridge on the way to the burial ground, the forest changed. As far as the eye could see, in the silver sheen of a half-moon, lay miles of withered forest—trees that were once the proud o’hia and beautiful koa, now gaunt skeletons scarring the ridges above Wailau Valley. “Deer were introduced here to satisfy the hunters who kill for sport,” Mama Chia explained. “The deer eat the seedlings, so young trees never grow. Most of the older trees are dying of dry rot and choked with sticky grass and vines even the deer won’t touch.”
We walked upward, over the ridge, and downward, passing these gnarled patriarchs, the last remains of the dying trees. In the moonlit forest, Mama Chia began to speak, and her words, like a powerful magnet, drew me into a new vision of reality. “The human body is like a tower of seven stories,” she said. “This has been known for centuries by inner explorers who have mapped the subtle bodies and energy centers. The Indian mystics called these seven levels chakras. Here, let me show you.” She stopped, reached behind me into her backpack for a pen and notebook, and, squatting down, she drew a diagram:
THE TOWER OF SEVEN FLOORS
7: TRANSCENDENCE
Pure Spirit; no self remains.
6: UNITY
Pure Light; communion with Spirit.
5: MYSTICAL REVELATION
Pure Inspiration; inner eyes turned toward Spirit.
4: TRANSPERSONAL LOVE
Open heart; ego no longer center. Primary emotion: compassion. Issue: How best to serve.
THE GREAT LEAP
3: PERSONAL POWER
Primary emotions: Anger (tension). Issues: Discipline; commitment; will.
2: SEXUALITY/CREATIVITY
Primary emotion: Sorrow; weakness. Issues: Reaching out; embracing life; energy and relationship.
1: PERSONAL SURVIVAL
Primary emotion: Fear (paralysis). Issue: Looking out for self alone.
As Mama Chia finished, she tapped the diagram with her pen. “This conveys the essence of what you need to know for now,” she said. “The tower of life is within you. And each floor has distinct qualities, and each, from the lowest to the highest, represents a more expanded state of awareness.
“The lowest three floors, survival, creativity, and power, are the domain of the Basic Self; it is neither interested in, nor responsible for, the higher floors. Clearing the lowest three floors and dealing with the issues there strengthens the Basic Self.
“On the fourth floor, the realm of the heart, you first make contact with the Higher Self.”
“What about the upper three floors?” I asked. “That’s where I want to live.”
Mama Chia looked up from the diagram, and said only this: “Unless the roots of a tree are deep, it can’t blossom; unless the tower has a strong foundation, it will crumble. You’ve got to clean up the basement before you move into the penthouse. The upper floors are not yet your concern.”
I didn’t agree, but I let it go for the moment. “What do these words mean, here in the middle?” I asked, pointing to the diagram. “The Great Leap?”
“It refers to the most difficult and wonderful leap any human being can make,” she said, “up out of the personal concerns of the lower three floors, into the heart. Once you get to the fourth floor … the rest is an elevator ride.
“All our external goals and dramas reflect this universal inner quest, and every human being will eventually ascend these s
even steps to the soul. The only question is when. For you, I believe it is possible now, in this lifetime.”
She started to say something else, but stopped and came around behind me. “Sit down—that’s right, get comfortable.” She started to rub my shoulders.
“Hey, this is really nice, Mama Chia. If you want, after, I can also give your shoulders a—” Just then my legs began to twitch as she pressed her fingers into a point on my neck. I saw flashes of light.
“Relax as much as you can,” she urged, as she pressed her knuckles into my temples—harder, harder. Her voice began to fade as I heard her say, “There are archetypes within the deepest recesses of every human mind … .” I felt my eyes closing, then heard the sound of a faraway wind.
I OPENED MY EYES and blinked as clouds of dust blew across a gray plateau, stark as a crater on the moon, stretching for miles in every direction. The wind gusted again, moaning, howling, across the vast expanse. Then my attention focused on a distant object, still too far to distinguish clearly. Was it a tower? Yes, a white tower. And I knew I must go there. By an act of will, and without effort, I felt myself drawing closer. The tower grew larger, until it loomed above me.
Overwhelmed by a wonderful, terrible sense of awe, I found myself outside a window at the base of the tower—the first floor—and I sensed that this floor and those above it were each cluttered with the debris of lifetimes: unexamined issues, symbols, and fears—hidden artifacts in a dusty basement.
As my awareness penetrated the dim light inside, I saw a desolate, empty world, a dust-blown plateau populated only with opponents and enemies.
I soon discovered that each window of each floor offered a different perspective on the world, because inside the second-floor window I viewed a brighter realm of trees and streams and grasses, where couples were engaging in every kind of pleasure, and I was filled with desire.
The third window revealed a world of order, architectural balance, and beauty, where structure rose in a creative crescendo, and people stood straight and tall. On this floor, I spied the gray robot, the Conscious Self, looking out through the window of the senses. And somehow I knew that the Conscious Self had its tiny office here, because this was the highest level it could maintain, in my case.
My awareness then rose to the fourth window, through which I saw all the people of the world, of every color and culture and belief, clasping arms, loving and helping one another and singing in harmony. Feelings of compassion washed over me, and I heard the voices of angels.
My awareness rose swiftly, then, through the upper three floors and, in a wave of rising bliss, I felt, saw, heard, tasted, and smelled far beyond the range of everyday senses, beyond the veils, as I tuned in to subtle energies, to other dimensions and realities, and then—ah, the Light!
In the next jarring instant, like an elevator falling, my awareness dropped down, distracted by alarms from the lower three floors—and I knew that my Conscious Self would be drawn down, again and again, to the issues of fear, sexual energy, and power, until those issues had been cleared.
I remembered, then, with intense longing, that in peaceful, expansive moments of my childhood, I had been invited to the higher floors by angelic energies. I wanted so much to return, because part of me had always known that above the tower, in the place of Light, lay home.
This was my soul’s task, my sacred journey: As a Conscious Self, beginning on the ground floor, I needed to find the lights on each rising floor and turn them on, seeing the issues and artifacts there—dealing with them, clearing them. But this would only be possible if I were first willing to see and accept what is, rather than clinging to dreamlike illusions.
Returning to a vantage point out on the dusty plain, I once again saw the tower standing before me, stretching up to the heavens, a swirling mist of violet, pink, and gold, and a light shone so brightly above the tower that I couldn’t fix my attention there for long.
The next thing I remember, I was sitting, leaning against a tree. My eyes were wide open, but I still saw the tower; then it dissolved as I came back to normal consciousness and saw only the leaves of the kukui tree, blowing in a warm breeze.
I sat, unmoving. Even after all that Socrates had put me through during our time together, I never got used to these revelatory visions. They were not like watching a movie, but rather, like being in the movie, which then became a reality more intense and real than my waking life. Filled with wonder, I took a deep breath and turned slowly to see Mama Chia sitting quietly, not far away. Her eyes were closed.
Finally, I was able to speak. “Whatever you did, I—I understand now, about the tower.”
“No, you don’t—not yet,” she replied, opening her eyes. “But you will.” Slapping the notebook shut, she stood, and started down the path. I jumped to my feet, grabbed her backpack, and followed.
“What do you mean, ‘not yet’?” I called out.
Her reply was almost lost in the wind. “Before you can see the Light, you have to deal with the darkness.”
CHAPTER 12
The Jaws of Fear
Imminent hanging sharpens a man’s wits.
—Samuel Johnson
“SLOW DOWN, WILL YOU? What’s the hurry?” I called out as I followed on the moonlit trail.”
“You’ll know when we get there,” she said. Her tone was dark, and her answer gave me no comfort. Dodging vines and bushes, I followed as best I could.
Years before, when I practiced gymnastics, fear had been my friendly adversary. Nearly every day, I attempted risky movements—performing twisting somersaults, soaring from the high bar or on the trampoline. I could handle that fear because I knew exactly what I was afraid of, and I was in control. But now, a formless terror spread like a chill inside my chest and belly, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. Like my first roller coaster ride as a young boy, I remembered being pulled clickety-clack up the steep ascent, where there could be no turning back, where giggles turned to screams, as we rounded the top. Then the bottom dropped out, and my nerves shredded into terror.
Mama Chia spoke with an urgency I hadn’t heard before. “Follow me—this way!” she commanded, turning at a sharp angle. As we headed down, nearer to the burial ground, my mind raced. What could a graveyard have to do with the tower? Filled with foreboding, I fought the urge to run away.
“Walk exactly where I do,” she said, her voice muffled by the thick air. “Do not stray from this path; do you understand?”
We broke into a clearing. I saw gravestones ahead, and my solar plexus started cramping as if I’d been punched.
“Why are we doing this?” I managed to say. “I—I thought you were teaching me about the three selves.”
Mama Chia took a deep breath, turned to face me, and gestured for me to follow. Her expression was somber, and another wave of fear passed up through my abdomen and chest. This increased my confusion, because I had been in cemeteries before, but I didn’t remember when I had ever been this frightened. My Basic Self was petrified, my body numb, as we walked through the ancient burial site. I wanted to tell her, “I don’t think I can do this,” but I couldn’t even speak. I didn’t consciously know what was frightening me. But my Basic Self knew; that much was obvious.
The night was warm but my teeth were chattering as I followed Mama Chia on a narrow path through the graveyard. Some of the tombstones stood upright; others were tilted slightly askew. I tiptoed carefully over the graves, until she stopped by a vacant space, and turned to me.
“We are here to confront the darkness of the first floor,” she said, “the realm of survival, isolation, and fear. This is a sacred site, protected from the eyes of outsiders. Only kahunas are buried here. Can you feel the power of the place?”
“Y-yes,” I stuttered.
“Lanikaula, the guardian, is here, with us now—behind you,” she pointed.
I whirled around, but saw nothing, at first. Just an overpowering presence, a force that made me take a step backward. My body turned t
o ice. It wasn’t evil that I felt, but something that could turn me into ashes in a moment without batting an eye—an energy of great compassion, but no mercy.
“He was, and is, a powerful kahuna, and has been here, watching over Molokai, since his death, four centuries ago. We need to ask for permission to be here,” she said with great reverence.
“How?”
“Have you ever asked permission to enter someone’s home?”
“Yes—”