CHAPTER 7
Ilyana:
After what feels like an eternity of silence and staring at the clouds, I sit up. I was trying to allow Levi plenty of time to recover from our run, but I can’t just sit here anymore, not when there is so much I don’t know. I catch Levi’s eyes as I begin to stir and he quickly sits up “Where’re you going?” I don’t bother to turn and look at him as I had for a stair case to run on “I am on my way to train, we didn’t come out here just to sit all day and we are wasting daylight.” He grabs my elbow and laughs softly, I want to be frustrated with him but I just can’t so I await his reaction. “What did you think we were training on today, Ilyana? I know my strapping appearance and bulging muscles may be deceptive, but my powers are not physical, we are working to get you centered enough to access your spiritual gifts, we can run and fight all day, but until you can access and control your powers at will, you are a ticking time bomb.” He waits for me to laugh or smile but this time all I have are questions I start to ask him one and he holds his finger up and gestures for me to wait as though he was talking to a small child. I roll my eyes and wait for him to continue “I know you have questions, but you won’t always have time to wait for the answers, I don’t want to be tough on you, but time and your lack of training is working against us. Come sit with me and we will begin practice, when I am satisfied with today’s training we will stop and you can ask whatever you want, but only while we are here. I have a feeling the counsel will be watching us more closely than ever and I don’t want my words used against me. However, I don’t think it is fair that you remain left in the dark. If you make time to train my way, I will make time to answer your questions. Deal?” I think about it for a moment and realize I am in no position to call the shots as is so I respond “Deal.”
I follow him through the training arena to what appears to be a small garden, it is overgrown and beautiful and reminds me of the kind of garden I always imagined I would have one day when I was a little girl. He sits down and awkwardly folds his body into a meditating position and gestures for me to do the same. I notice that the ground is mostly clear and around us and I wonder if he comes here to meditate often. I do as he does and wait for further instruction. Just as I am about to ask what’s next he begins to speak in a soothing and uncharacteristically serious voice. He reaches over and grabs my arms as if to make me relax my shoulders “Until you learn to shut your mind down completely, you will never be able to focus all of your energy into manifesting your gifts, I know everything around you is new and exciting, but you have to learn to shut down and deny your minds urge to wander.” I already know this will be a losing battle, for years in school and church I could never just sit and focus, my teachers wanted to put me on medication and when my doctor tried it we quickly discovered it was of no use “Levi, I can’t do that. I have tried before. But, I just can’t. With all that is going on, how am I supposed to just shut down?” he gives me a look of complete understanding “Just because you haven’t before, doesn’t mean you can’t now. It is different for everyone, some people have to shut their eyes, others have to breathe through their nose, I’ve even seen some that have to bite their own lip until it bleeds to slow down their own thoughts. It won’t always be this hard for you, a time will come with practice that it is perfectly natural. Instead of trying to access your gifts today, we will see if you can perhaps access mine, all nephilim should be able to sense powers – I can sense yours and even though I can’t quite get a pulse, I can tell it is something incredible and stronger than any I have ever sensed before.” I look at him and decide to really try – I don’t want to hurt my mouth to hone in and focus, so I decide to start with the basics, I shut my eyes and try to think of nothing, then remember I need to ask about a store to find Sasha her favorite foods, then I wonder if Levi has a washing machine I can use or if I will have to learn to hand wash my new clothes, my eyebrow creases as my eyes are closed and he laughs “That’s not what a blank mind looks like at all.” I exhale and open my eyes, already feeling defeated.
“Try again, Ilyana. But this time when you shut your eyes I want you to picture a strip of light switches being turned off. Picture all of the heavy thoughts weighing on your mind as a light switch, think hard about each switch and then turn it off and move to the next until you don’t have any more to focus on.”
I do what he says and am shocked to find it is working, all the insignificant thoughts about washing machines, and what Sasha is doing right now go into one switch and I find that if I focus hard enough, I really can move on to the next thought. The next thought is not so easy. It is all of my insecurities and feelings of inferiority. It is the way I was never good with boys and I never made very close friends, the way I got dropped from every team I ever tried out for and the way I never quite knew how to apply my make up just right, then I realize how juvenile those concerns are and I quickly decide I am done thinking about that switch and I flip it.
The next switch is even harder than the first, I think about Ephraim, how he embodies every quality I wish I did and how he makes me feel when I am around him, I think about the kiss that never was and all the conversations that seem to be cut short, I think about how scared and ragged I felt when I first met him and realize I never knew if it was a fear of them, or a fear of him. I think of when he shielded me from Levi last night when we first awkwardly met and how protective he was, I grow frustrated as I strive to decipher my own emotions towards him, as beautiful and dark and fierce as he is, I still manage to be drawn to others – to Levi, not in the same way, but there is something similar about the connection, he excites me and makes me laugh, he pulls me out of my own emotions and thoughts and makes me enjoy the little things more, I find him attractive as well, but not in the intense, drowning way I find Ephraim attractive. I realize I have been thinking about this for far too long and I haven’t come up with any answers so I shut the switch off – for now.
When I come to my last thought I start to feel light until I realize the heaviness of it, I think of my Mother, how kind and gentle she was with me, all the teachers she had to meet with and all the schools she moved me to while insisting I was not the problem, that my teachers or the other students just didn’t understand me – she knew all along and yet she never seemed to resent me, I think about the way she would play with my hair and let me draw on her notebooks at church, the way she would take days off of work to take me out of school to have a girls day from time to time, we would usually get manicures and pedicures and then she would suffer through the bookstore with me, so long as she had a coffee in hand she would spend hours looking with me and feigning interest in all of the books I loved and the many series’ I would get drawn into. Then I think about her end, her untimely, unfair end, the thing I hate the most about it is that in spite of the sadness that sits at the pit of my stomach every time I think about it, there is also an anger, an anger that this woman that loved me and snuck bowls of ice cream to me for breakfast on Monday mornings before school, the woman that brushed my hair and spent hours picking out clothes for me, that woman, would lie to me my entire life and then leave me at a time like this to face the things she was supposed to prepare me for. I realize that some loose ends will never get tied and while I am not ready to dismiss it, I am ready to stop thinking about for now. I flip the final switch and before I know it my mind is a blank canvas.
I am completely relaxed and fear even moving might disturb it so I just sit and allow myself to be shut down, no anxiety or fear or excitement, then suddenly Levi begins to speak, barely above a whisper “You are doing well, something in you has shifted – I can sense it. Now I want you to picture all the calm that is inside you pouring out, not like a bucket until it is empty, but like a water fall, I want you to push your centeredness outward towards me and see if you can sense anything, you may want to open your eyes slowly.” I attempt to picture what he is saying and reach out to the best of my abilities, I am surprised to find that it is fairly easy and alm
ost tangible the feeling of it moving through me, I slowly begin to open my eyes and at first the world around me looks different, like looking through a heat sensing camera lense or a fuzzy ultrasound photograph, then color starts to spring through and the surprise and excitement of it makes me completely lose focus.
I groan and throw my fist on the ground “I was so close, everything looked different and then my focus snapped and I lost it all!” I feel like a child pitching a fit, he gets a huge smile on his face and grabs my hands “You did it though! You have to walk before you can run, that was fantastic! Try it again.” He pushes me on, but the results are just not the same I have a headache and I can’t seem to pull my mind through all of the ugly thoughts to get back to my own center. After trying a couple of times, I explain this to him and he nods in understanding “Then I guess I am satisfied with your training for today. You made more progress than I would’ve anticipated your first day. You can ask me your questions now.”