Movement in the canyon caught my eye. I glanced at the creek and then beyond to a lone tree two hundred yards away which had already lost most of its leaves. It was now covered with what looked like large crows; several flew down to the ground. It came to me that these were the same crows I had heard earlier. As I watched, they suddenly all flew and dramatically circled above the tree. At the same moment, I could hear their cawing again, although, as before, the loudness of their cries didn’t match the distance; they sounded much closer.
Splashing water and hissing steam pulled my attention back to the camp stove. Boiling stew was overflowing onto the flame. I grabbed the pan with a towel, turning off the gas with the other hand. When the boiling subsided, I returned the pan to the burner and looked back at the tree in the distance. The crows were gone.
I hurriedly ate the stew, cleaned up, and packed the gear, then headed into the canyon. As soon as I passed the bluffs, I noticed the colors had amplified. The sage seemed amazingly golden, and I noticed, for the first time, that it was peppered with hundreds of wildflowers—white and yellow and orange. From the cliffs to the east, the breeze carried the scent of cedar and pine.
Although I continued to follow the creek running north, I kept my eye on the tall tree to my left where the crows had circled. When it was directly west of me, I noticed the creek was suddenly widening. I made my way through some willows and cattails and realized I had come to a small pool that fed not only the creek I was following but a second creek angling off farther to the southeast. At first I thought this pool was the one I had seen in my mind, but there were no waterfalls.
Ahead was another surprise: to the north of the pool, the creek had completely disappeared. Where was the water coming from? Then it dawned on me that the pool and the creek I had been following were all fed from an enormous underground spring surfacing at this location.
To my left, fifty feet away, I noticed a mild rise on which grew three sycamore trees, each more than two feet in diameter—a perfect place to think for a moment. I walked over and snuggled in among them, sitting down and leaning against the trunk of one of the trees. From this perspective, the two remaining trees were six or seven feet to my front, and I could look both to the left to see the crow tree and to the right to observe the spring. The question now was where to go from here. I could wander for days without seeing any sign of Charlene. And what about these images?
I closed my eyes and attempted to bring back the earlier picture of the pool and waterfalls, but as much as I struggled, I couldn’t remember the exact details. Finally I gave up and gazed out again at the grass and wildflowers and then at the two sycamores right in front of me. Their trunks were a scaly collage of dark gray and white bark, streaked with brushstrokes of tan and multiple shades of amber. As I focused on the beauty of the scene, these colors seemed to intensify and grow more iridescent. I took another deep breath and looked out again at the meadow and flowers. The crow tree seemed particularly illuminated.
I picked up my pack and walked toward the tree. Immediately the image of the pool and waterfalls flashed across my mind. This time I tried to remember the entire picture. The pool I saw was large, almost an acre, and the water flowing into it came in from the rear, cascading down a series of steep terraces. Two smaller falls dropped only about fifteen feet, but the last dropped over a long, thirty-foot bluff into the water below. Again, in the image that came to mind, I seemed to be walking up to the scene, meeting someone.
The sound of a vehicle to my left stopped me firmly in my tracks. I kneeled down behind several small bushes. From the forest on the left a gray Jeep moved across the meadow heading southeast. I knew that Forest Service policy prohibited private vehicles this far into the wilderness, so I expected to see a Forest Service insignia on the Jeep’s door. To my surprise it was unmarked. When it was directly in front of me, fifty yards away, the vehicle stopped. Through the foliage I could make out a lone figure inside; he was surveying the area with field glasses, so I lay flat and hid myself completely. Who was he?
The vehicle started up again and quickly vanished out of sight in the trees. I turned and sat down, listening again for the hum. Still nothing. I thought about returning to town, of finding another way to search for Charlene. But deep inside I knew there was no alternative. I shut my eyes, and thought again of David’s instruction to maintain my intuitions, and finally retrieved the full image of the pool and falls in my mind’s eye. As I got to my feet and headed again toward the crow tree, I tried to keep the details of the scene in the back of my mind.
Suddenly I heard the shrill cry of another bird, this time a hawk. To my left, far past the tree, I could barely make out her shape; she was streaking hard toward the north. I increased my pace, trying to keep the bird in sight for as long as possible.
The bird’s appearance seemed to increase my energy, and even after she had disappeared over the horizon, I kept moving in the direction she had been flying, walking for another mile and a half over a series of rocky foothills. At the top of the third hill, I froze again, hearing another sound in the distance, a sound much like water running. No, it was water falling.
Carefully I walked down the slope and through a deep gorge that evoked another experience of déjà vu. I climbed the next hill and there, beyond the crest, were the pool and falls, exactly as I had pictured them—except that the area was much larger and more beautiful than I had pictured. The pool itself was almost two acres, nestled in a cradle of enormous boulders and outcrop- pings, its crystal-clear water a sparkling blue under the afternoon sky. To the left and right of the pool were several large oak trees, themselves surrounded by a multicolored array of smaller maples and sweet gums and willows.
The far edge of the pool was an explosion of white spray and mist, the foam accentuated by the churning action of the two smaller falls higher up the ridge. I realized there was no runoff from the pool. The water went underground from here, traveling silently to emerge as the source of the large spring near the crow tree.
As I surveyed the beauty of this sight, the sense of déjà vu increased. The sounds, the colors, the scene from the hill—it all looked extremely familiar. I had been at this location too. But when?
I moved down to the pool and then walked around the entire area, to the edge to taste the water, up the cascades to feel the spray from each of the falls, over atop the large boulders, where I could touch the trees. I wanted to immerse myself in the place. Finally I stretched out on one of the flatter rocks twenty feet above the pool and looked toward the afternoon sun with my eyes closed, feeling its rays against my face. In that moment another familiar sensation swept across my body—a particular warmth and regard I hadn’t sensed in months. In fact, until this instant, I had forgotten its exact feeling and character, although it was perfectly recognizable now. I opened my eyes and turned around quickly, certain of whom I was about to see.
REVIEWING THE JOURNEY
On a rock above my head, half obscured by an overhanging ledge, stood Wil, his hands on his hips, smiling broadly. He appeared slightly out of focus, so I blinked hard and concentrated, and his face cleared somewhat.
“I knew you would be here,” he said, nimbly climbing off the ledge and jumping to the rock beside me. “I’ve been waiting.”
I looked at him in awe, and he pulled me into an embrace; his face and hands looked slightly luminescent but otherwise seemed normal.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I stammered. “What happened when you disappeared in Peru? Where have you been?”
He gestured for me to sit facing him on a nearby shelf.
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said, “but first I have to know about you. What circumstances brought you to this valley?”
In detail I told him about Charlene’s disappearance, the map of the valley, and meeting David. Wil wanted to know more of what David had said, so I told him everything I could remember about the conversation.
Wil leaned toward me. “He told you the Ten
th was about understanding the spiritual renaissance on Earth in light of the other dimension? And learning the true nature of your intuitions?”
“Yes,” I said. “Is that right?”
He seemed to think for a moment, then asked, “What has been your experience since entering the valley?”
“I immediately started to see images,” I said. “Some were of other historical times, but then I began to see repeated visions of this pool. I saw everything: the rocks, the falls, even that someone was waiting here, although I didn’t know it was you.”
“Where were you in the scene?”
“It was as if I was walking up and seeing it.”
“So it was a scene of a potential future for you.”
I squinted at him. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“The first part of the Tenth, as David said, is about understanding our intuitions more fully. In the first nine Insights, one experiences intuitions as fleeting gut feelings or vague hunches. But as we gain familiarity with this phenomenon, we can now grasp the nature of these intuitions more clearly. Think back to Peru. Didn’t intuitions come to you as pictures of what was going to happen, images of yourself and others at a specific location, doing certain things, leading you to go there? Wasn’t that how you knew when to go to the Celestine Ruins?
“Here in the valley the same thing has been happening. You received a mental image of a potential event—finding the falls and meeting someone—and you were able to live it out, bringing on the coincidence of actually discovering the location and en countering me. If you had shrugged off the image, or lost faith in looking for the falls, you would have missed the synchronicity, and your life would have stayed flat. But you took the image seriously; you kept it in your mind.”
“David said something about learning to ‘maintain’ the intuition,” I said.
Wil nodded.
“What about the other images,” I asked, “the scenes of an earlier time? And what about these animals? Does the Tenth Insight talk about all this? Have you seen the Manuscript?”
With a gesture of his hand, Wil waved off my questions. “First, let me tell you about my experience in the other dimension, what I call the Afterlife dimension. When I was able to maintain my energy level in Peru, even when the rest of you grew fearful and lost your vibration, I found myself in an incredible world of beauty and clear form. I was right there in the same place, but everything was different. The world was luminous and awing in a way I still can’t describe. For a long time I just walked around in this incredible world, vibrating even higher, and then I discovered something quite amazing. I could will myself anywhere on the planet, just by imaging a destination in my mind. I traveled everywhere I could think of, looking for you and Julia and the others, but I couldn’t find any of you.
“Finally I began to detect another ability. By imaging just a blank field in my mind, I could travel off the planet, into a place of pure ideas. There I could create anything I wanted just by imaging it. I made oceans and mountains and scenic vistas, images of people who behaved just as I wanted, all kinds of things. And every bit of it seemed just as real as anything on Earth.
“Yet in the end, I realized that such a constructed world was not a fulfilling place. Just creating arbitrarily gave me no inner satisfaction. After a while, I went home and thought about what I wanted to do. At that time I could still become dense enough so that I could talk with most people of a higher awareness. I could eat and sleep, although I didn’t have to. Finally I realized that I had forgotten about the thrill of evolving and experiencing coincidences. Because I was already so buoyant, I had mistakenly thought that I was maintaining my inner connection, but in fact, I had become too controlling and had lost my path. It is very easy to lose one’s way at this level of vibration, because it is so easy and instantaneous to create with one’s will.”
“What happened then?” I asked.
“I focused within, looking for a higher connection with divine energy, just the way we’ve always done it. That’s all it took; my vibration rose even higher and I began to receive intuitions again. I saw an image of you.”
“What was I doing?”
“I couldn’t tell; the image was hazy. But when I thought about the intuition and maintained it in my mind, I began to move into a new area of the Afterlife where I could actually see other souls, groups of souls really, and while I couldn’t exactly speak to them, I could vaguely pick up on their thoughts and knowledge.”
“Were they able to show you the Tenth Insight?” I asked.
He swallowed hard and looked at me as though he was about to land a bombshell. “No, the Tenth Insight has never been written down.”
“What? It’s not part of the original Manuscript?”
“No.”
“Does it even exist?”
“Oh yes, it exists. But not in the Earthly dimension. This Insight hasn’t made it to the physical plane yet. This knowledge exists only in the Afterlife. Only when enough people on Earth sense this information, intuitively, can it become real enough in everyone’s consciousness for someone to write it down. That’s what happened with the first nine Insights. In fact, that’s what has happened with all spiritual texts, even our most sacred scriptures. Always it is information that first exists in the Afterlife, and is finally picked up clearly enough in the physical dimension to be manifested by someone who is supposed to write it down. That’s why these writings are called divinely inspired.”
“So why has it taken so long for someone to grasp the Tenth?”
Wil looked perplexed. “I don’t know. The soul group I was communicating with seemed to know, but I couldn’t quite understand. My energy level was not high enough. It has something to do with the Fear that arises in a culture that is moving from a material reality to a transformed, spiritual worldview.”
“Then you think the Tenth is ready to come in?”
“Yes, the soul groups saw the Tenth coming in now, bit by bit, all over the world, as we gain a higher perspective that comes from a knowledge of the Afterlife. But it has to be grasped in sufficient numbers, just as with the first nine, in order to overcome the Fear.”
“Do you know what the rest of the Tenth is about?”
“Yes, apparently just knowing the first nine isn’t enough. We have to understand how we will implement this destiny. Such knowledge comes from grasping the special relationship between the physical dimension and the Afterlife. We have to understand the birth process, where we come from, the larger picture of what human history is trying to accomplish.”
A thought suddenly came to me. “Wait a minute. Weren’t you able to see a copy of the Ninth Insight? What did it say about the Tenth?”
Wil leaned toward me. “It said that the first nine Insights, have described the reality of spiritual evolution, both personally and collectively, but actually implementing these Insights, living them, and fulfilling this destiny requires a fuller understanding of the process, a Tenth Insight. This Insight would show us the reality of Earth’s spiritual transformation not just from the perspective of the Earthly dimension but from the perspective of the Afterlife dimension as well. It said we would understand more fully why we were uniting the dimensions, why humans must fulfill this historical purpose, and it would be this understanding, once integrated into culture, that’ would ensure this eventual outcome. It also mentioned the Fear, saying that at the same time a new spiritual awareness was emerging, a reactive, polarization would also rise up in fearful opposition, seeking to willfully control the future with various new technologies—technologies even more dangerous than the nuclear menace—that are already being discovered. The Tenth Insight resolves this polarization.”
He stopped abruptly and nodded toward the east. “Do you hear that?”
I listened but could hear only the falls.
“What?” I asked.
“That hum.”
“I heard it earlier. What is it?”
“I’m not sure, exactly. But it can be
heard in the other dimension as well. The souls I saw seemed very disturbed about it.”
As Wil spoke, I clearly saw Charlene’s face in the back of my mind.
“Do you think the hum is related to this new technology?” I asked, partially distracted.
Wil didn’t answer. I noticed he had an absent look on his face.
“The friend that you’re looking for,” he asked, “does she have blond hair? And large eyes… very inquisitive-looking?”
“Yes.”
“I just saw an image of her face.”
I stared at him. “So did I.”
He turned and looked at the falls for a moment, and I followed his gaze. The white foam and spray formed a majestic background to our conversation. I could feel the energy increasing in my body.
“You don’t have enough energy yet,” he said. “But because this place is so powerful, I think that if I help, and we both focus on your friend’s face, we can move fully into the spiritual dimension and maybe find out where she is and what’s happening in this valley.”
“Are you sure I can do that?” I said. “Maybe you can go and I can wait here for you.” His face was fading out of focus.
Wil touched my lower back, giving me energy, smiling again. “Don’t you see how purposeful it is that we are here? Human culture is beginning to understand the Afterlife and grasp the Tenth. I think we have the opportunity to explore the other dimension together. You know this feels destined.”
At that moment I noticed the noise of the hum in the background, even over the sound of the falls. In fact, I could feel it in my solar plexus.
“The hum’s getting louder,” Wil said. “We have to go now. Charlene could be in trouble!”
“What do we do?” I asked.