“Then I advise you to do it, now,” she hissed.
She closed her eyes; I did the same. As soon as I closed them, I saw him—right in front of me, in my mind’s eye. I snapped my eyes open, and saw only the trees in the distance and the gravestones in this small clearing. I closed them again, and there he was, staring at me with a fierce but somehow loving expression—a large man, wearing some kind of ceremonial Hawaiian headdress. He looked as if he could embrace me or wipe me off the face of the earth. I was reminded of Shiva, the Hindu god—the changer, the transformer, the destroyer.
Silently, respectfully, I asked for his permission to be there, explaining my search. All this happened in a few seconds. He smiled, nodded, and faded out of my vision.
“So be it,” I heard Mama Chia say.
Almost immediately, the atmosphere changed. I was bathed in a warm breeze, where before the wind had blown cold on the back of my neck. I opened my eyes.
Mama Chia nodded. “He said you are welcome here,” she said. “I think he actually likes you. That is a very good sign.” She reached behind one of the gravestones.
I relaxed. “I’m glad to hear th—” I stopped abruptly as she slapped a shovel into my hand and led me to a bare spot in the earth.
“Time to dig.”
“What?” I did a double take.
“Dig here,” she said, ignoring my reaction.
“Dig? Here? A hole? Are we looking for something?”
“A grave.”
“Look,” I said. “I’m a grown man; I make responsible choices. Before I start, I’d really like to know what this is about.”
“And I’d really like you to stop talking and start digging,” she responded.
“What you are about to do is necessary—based on a Tibetan ritual that involves facing all your fears. If someone who chooses this way is unprepared, it can result in permanent psychosis. I feel you’re ready, but there is no way to be certain of it. Are you willing to go ahead?”
There it was: Do or die. Or maybe: Do and die. Socrates once told me I could “get off the bus” anytime I wished—if I was willing to let it pull away without me.
“I have to know now, Dan.”
I jerked my head toward her as if I’d been slapped. “Oh, uh, well—” I paused to take a breath, and decided to follow the course I’d always set for myself: When a challenge was there, I went for it. “Y-yes,” I stammered, “R-ready as I’ll ever b-be.”
This was about facing fear, so I started to dig. The earth was soft, and the work went faster than I’d expected. As Mama Chia watched, her arms folded, I started with a two-foot-wide channel and lengthened it to about six feet. The hole deepened to three feet, then four. I was sweating profusely now. The deeper I dug, and the more it got to looking like a grave, the less I liked this. And I hadn’t been all that enthusiastic to begin with.
My fear expanded, then turned to anger. “No,” I said, climbing out of the grave. “I don’t have to do this, and I don’t want to play mysterious games in graveyards without knowing what it’s about. I’m not some puppet! Who is this grave for? Why am I doing this?” I demanded.
Mama Chia stared at me for what seemed like a minute, then said, “Come here.” She led me to a nearby gravestone and pointed to the epitaph written there. I peered at it.
The writing was old and faded; I could just make it out:
Remember, friend, as you pass by,
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, so you must be.
Prepare yourself to follow me.
I looked over at her face, dead serious. “I think you know who this grave is for,” she responded.
I stood and faced her. “I have a choice here,” I said.
“You always have a choice,” she agreed. “You can start digging, or catch the next surfboard home.”
I didn’t think she meant it—about the surfboard—but it was clear that if I wanted to continue as her student, I was going to have to see this through. I had come this far. I had to see where it led. Managing a wan smile, I said, “Well, since you put it so nicely.” I climbed back down into the grave, and continued digging until she said, “That’s deep enough. Hand me the shovel and come on out.”
“You mean I’m done?”
“Yes.”
“Whoa, I have to admit—that was pretty frightening, all right,” I said, climbing up out of the damp grave and laying the shovel nearby. “But all in all, it wasn’t too bad.” I stretched my weary muscles.
“Lie down here,” she said, pointing to a sheet she had placed on the ground next to the open grave.
“Another massage? Doesn’t this strike you as a little strange?” I asked.
She wasn’t smiling, just pointing. I lay down on my stomach.
“On your back,” she said.
I turned over and stared up at her, standing above me. “Now do I play dead, or what?”
She gave me a fierce look. “Sorry,” I said. “I guess I’m just a little nervous.”
“This is no game; if you offend the spirits here, you’ll have a lot more to be nervous about.”
Trying to relax, I said, “Well, I could use a rest.”
“A long rest,” Mama Chia said, picking up the shovel, and bringing its blade down. I threw my arms up protectively, thinking for an instant that she was about to stab me with it, but she planted it firmly into the earth beside the grave. Then she knelt down behind my head, on the edge of the grave, and closed her eyes.
Lying there, I gazed up at her face, upside down in my vision, and pale in the moonlight. For a terrible moment of paranoia, I felt I didn’t really know this woman at all. Maybe she wasn’t the one Socrates sent me to; maybe she was the Enemy.
She began to speak in a voice that resounded through the burial ground. She spoke an invocation, and I knew this was definitely no game.
“Great Spirit, called by many names,” she intoned, “we ask to be placed in the Light. We ask for your protection for this soul. In the name of the One, and with that authority, we ask that any and all evil be cut off and removed from him, sealed in its own light, and returned to its source. We ask that whatever may come be for his highest good. May thy will be done.”
The metallic taste of fear rose in my throat. Then Mama Chia slowly began pressing, with her knuckles, along my collarbone, chest, and arms—gently at first, then with increasing pressure. I saw flashes of light again, then heard popping sounds. Then she grabbed my head as Socrates had done, years before. My teeth started to chatter; then the curtain of darkness descended.
I HEARD THE WIND, felt the dust blow in my face, and saw the tower directly in front of me. This didn’t feel like a disembodied vision, with my awareness merely an observer. I looked down and saw my body. I was here.
Then I was standing in the doorway. The huge door swung open, like a gaping mouth, and I entered, stepping into thin air. I fell, somersaulted, and landed in a heap. I quickly stood and looked around, but barely made out anything in the darkness. “This must be the first floor—the basement,” I said. My voice sounded muffled. My clothing clung to my skin, and the dank air and fetid smell of decay was somehow familiar. Find the lights, I said to myself. Be willing to see.
Before, I had only looked through the windows of the tower. Did I really want to see what lay inside me, in this, the lowest realm?
“Yes,” I answered out loud. “Yes, I want to see.” I proceeded forward slowly, reaching out in the darkness. My hand felt something—a large handle, a switch. I pulled it, heard a humming sound that changed to a soft whoosh, and squinted as dim lights slowly began to illuminate the scene in front of me.
Why was it still so dark? As my eyes adapted, the answer came. I had entered the tower and fallen to the first floor, but it somehow contained the night itself and the same burial ground—the graveyard of the kahunas. But this time, I didn’t feel welcome at all. And this time, I was alone. I saw the gaping hole of the open grave nearby. My body began to shiver; my
mind crossed the border of nervousness, over the raw edge of fear as I was pulled by an unseen force toward the open grave. I turned and twisted, levitating in the air. Then my body became as stiff as a corpse in rigor mortis as I floated down on the sheet next to the grave.
I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move. My lungs started pumping, breathing deeper, faster, deeper, faster. Then I heard Mama Chia’s voice, from far away: “Your Higher Self is your guardian angel; whatever happens, remember that it will always be with you … .”
“Why can’t I feel it with me?” I cried out. “Why do I feel alone?”
In answer, I heard Mama Chia’s recent words echo back to me: “Before you can see the Light, you have to deal with the darkness … .”
Then something pushed me. Paralyzed, I had no control; I couldn’t resist. I fell, tumbling down in slow motion, landing on my back with a soundless thud in the open grave. A sheet was wrapped around me like a shroud. Then, in a moment of absolute terror, I felt shovelsful of dirt rain down onto me. My heart began to pound wildly in my chest.
I heard the sound of distant thunder. Flashes of lightning exploded in the darkness. Then, as dirt covered me, I heard the voice of Jesus. But he wasn’t speaking to me as he cried out from the cross at Golgotha as lightning flashed: “Why hast thou forsaken me?”
Then I realized that I was calling out those words. It didn’t matter; no one could hear me. The shower of earth had covered my face completely, blotting out any remaining light and muffling the sound of my screams.
Wait! I thought. I’m not ready! I can’t! Stop! I’m not dead! my mind shrieked.
The earthfall ceased. I felt a stillness and silence more complete than any I’ve ever known. All I could hear was my labored breathing and pounding heart, like a kettle drum. Alone in the cold earth. Absolute blackness. Isolation. Frozen, gut-ripping fear. I was buried.
An instant of rational reflection: Why did I let this happen? Then that, too, was smothered, and I fell over the edge of madness. My hands, clawlike, desperate, pushed upward against the impossible weight. Soundless screams. Just as the earth began to crush the air out of my lungs, the ground beneath me suddenly caved in, and I fell into an underground tunnel. Clawing wildly, gagging and choking, spitting dirt out of my mouth and nose, I fought my way free of the moist earth.
I began crawling, slithering like a snake, on my belly, up or down—I couldn’t tell which—through a long tunnel. I had to get out. Out! Out, out, out, out … repeated itself in a rhythmic babble of dread. I could only squeeze forward; there was no way to turn around. Soon, terrified, I noticed the tunnel was getting narrower, tighter, until I could scarcely move.
Once, as a child, bullies had stuffed me into a burlap sack and threatened to bury me. Instead they stuck me in an old storage trunk. Trapped in the blackness, I went absolutely berserk—drooling, wetting myself, hysterical. My crazy screams must have worried them, so they let me out.
Ever since then, I’d had recurring dreams about being trapped in small dark places. Now my worst nightmares had been realized; I felt sheer, unendurable terror. I was so afraid, I just wanted to go unconscious, to die.
My eyes stinging with sweat and dirt, I fought on, narrowing my shoulders, but it was no use. I could go no farther. Noises of desperation, fright mixed with cries of anguish, were quickly extinguished. I was stuck, suffocating; I started to scream again, to whimper.
But—was my imagination playing tricks?—I thought I saw a dim light somewhere ahead. I managed to squeeze a few inches more and saw around a slight curve in the tunnel. The tunnel opened slightly, just enough. I inched my way, sweating, with dirt falling in my eyes, toward the light.
Now it was imprinted deep in my body’s memory: Whenever I could go no farther, I would remember—just a few more inches, just a few more minutes, just a few more seconds …
I looked up through clouded vision, and thought I saw an opening ahead. Yes, I was sure of it! I reached it and tried to squeeze my head through. I was stuck! Too tight! My head felt crushed by a thousand hands. Desperately, I pushed. The opening started to give, then, suddenly, I burst through. Space! Freedom! Like being born.
Blindly, I pulled the rest of my body out, then fell into an abyss. Below me, impossibly, I saw the gaping mouth and fangs of a gigantic serpent, and I plummeted.
THE NEXT THING I REMEMBER, I was sitting in a room I’d never seen before, huddled in the corner, gripped by paranoia. Outside, the Enemy was waiting for me. All of them. No one understood. I was alone, but I would survive. They wanted what I had—a nearby storage freezer with food. I’d kill the bastards first! On a small table next to me lay cases of ammunition. Surrounded by a variety of carbines and semiautomatics, I wore a shoulder holster with a Glock nine millimeter, its clip holding nineteen rounds, inserted, the safety off. Cradling an AK-47 in my arms, I stared fixedly at the door, waiting for them. They would not take what was mine. I’d kill them first—I’d kill them all.
A canister exploded through the window, and suddenly the room was aflame. In an instant, I was engulfed by searing heat. The air was sucked from my lungs and my skin started to melt. That moment, I remembered a past life as a young girl, hiding in a trunk, hiding from the Huns, burning to death in a room full of flames rather than being raped and enslaved.
The flames shot up and I saw the beginning of the earth: volcanoes exploding everywhere, burning lava searing everything in its path.
And in the heat, the burning heat, I relived every nightmare of my childhood, every fear that had ever visited or forced itself upon me.
I OPENED MY EYES. I was lying on my back at the bottom of my grave, on a sweat-soaked sheet. But I wasn’t covered with dirt. Realizing where I was—and that I was holding my breath—I let it out with one huge gasp and began to calm down. Exhausted and disoriented, I was glad to be alive. It was a dream. It was over. I would sit up and climb out. But my legs wouldn’t work; neither would my arms.
I heard something above me. “Mama Chia?” I called weakly. “Is that you?” There was no answer—only a soft, padding noise. Someone, or something, was approaching from above.
I heard a soft growl, then the face of a tiger appeared above me. There are no tigers in the rain forests of Hawaii; still, this was a tiger, looking down at me. I stared back; I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I’d seen tigers in the zoo—so beautiful, like big pussy cats. This one was so close I could smell its breath. Oh, please, I said to myself. Let this be a dream.
Completely helpless, I played dead, until it reached down and prodded me, giving me four deep test gashes. I gasped and uttered a brief, stifled cry.
The tiger reached down, clamped its jaws on my arm, and dragged my limp form up out of the grave, then began ripping me apart. I’d felt pain before—searing pain—but now I understood agony.
I tried to go unconscious, to leave my body, to dissociate. But I was attached enough to experience fully the beast tearing open my chest and abdomen, and chewing on my organs.
Shock-borne adrenaline poured through my body. I fell screaming into a cauldron of terror as the huge cat ripped my chest asunder. Then, clamping his jaws around my face and head, the beast tore away part of my face in a seesawing motion, and began to pull my head from my shoulders. Fear is the ultimate pain. It filled my universe, then exploded.
Instantly, the fear, the pain, the tiger, and the universe all vanished. What remained was the deepest peace I had ever known.
CHAPTER 13
Realm of the Senses
God gave us memories
so that we might have roses in December.
—James Barrie
I LAY CURLED ON MY SIDE, next to the grave, my head in Mama Chia’s lap. The sheet, soaked with sweat and maybe tears, was twisted beneath me. I sat up, unable to speak, my eyes wide, staring at nothing. I rocked back and forth, hugging myself and shivering. Mama Chia embraced me protectively, stroking my matted hair. “There, there,” she said, “It’s over now. It’s really over.”
/>
A few more moments passed. Slowly, I realized I still had eyes, and a face, and a body. I was safe, here in Mama Chia’s arms. I relaxed; then my chest heaved, my breathing came out in gasps.
Panting, I gripped her hand and stammered, “It—it f-felt like a tour of hell.”
“Only your hell, Dan—we each create our own. You just toured the first floor, the realm of isolation and fear, of mindless instinct to survive at any price.
“Warriors confront their demons head-on; by doing so, you’ve dissolved them,” she said gently.
My breathing finally calmed, and I fell into an exhausted sleep.
WHEN I AWOKE, the sky was light. “Is it dawn?” I asked weakly.
She stood, pointed around us, and said, “What do you notice?”
I stood slowly, drained of all tension, and looked around. A bird landed on a gravestone and began to warble; its song carried up into the blue sky. Lime green lichen and moss decorated the stones; a feeling of peace and reverence pervaded the scene.