*POP*
The pair appears.
“For everything,” Diana replies.
“Ahh,” I acknowledge, “discernment!”
Janis asks: "Why do you want to know this now, Clara?
I already know that Levels 5 – 8 are for committed students, those with inherent talent or already-existing skills when they join, or those who need the training to become leaders on their planet in the new political and social orders created after joining the MWC. These mid-ESP training Levels include: bi- and tri-location (what Buddhists term “emanations”); precognition, to an accuracy of 75%; deconstructing one’s body so that it may “move through” or impact “solid” objects (e.g., etched drawings or writings on stone or walls); telepathy (both sending and receiving) within one’s own species, mostly with known individuals, with pre-arranged agreements; remote and self-healing; using “Re-set” (more about that later).
Additionally, even though the Communist Chinese government tries to make this illegal early in 2012 (something many of us find hilarious), intentional reincarnation, or Returning, is also included in these Levels. The Communist Chinese don't want to cede control over the next Dalai Lama, who is coming back into a human or other intelligent body, after a death, to a pre-arranged family/circumstances and location, what Buddhists term a “tulku,” after he departs this current form. They do not have control, anyway; Transition occurs and the Chinese government is dismantled. So glad about that.
“When do I get to learn about Re-set?” I request.
I make this request about once a week ever since they first mention and use Re-set. It can’t hurt to ask, is my theory. I know enough to understand that Re-set is the most powerful, amazing part of all the Intermediate Levels' trainings, in my opinion, because it confers upon the user several types of “do-overs.”
A partial Re-set allows one to pick a point in time, one of the billions of “crossroads” or decision/choice points where s/he knows timelines diverge, and "take another road." This taking of the other road(s) doesn’t preclude staying on the first or any of the others, since many timelines co-exist and we have many versions of ourselves living in them. It’s mind-boggling if I think about it too much, so I do not. Robert Frost is correct, though: there are many roads; the one not taken always beckons.
A more intensive Re-set permits particular events or outcomes to be changed both intentionally and collaterally, but only once. When I get to try Re-set, it is a heart-rending, memory-jogging, emotional roller-coaster (I hate roller-coasters).
Here is my first personal and most significant Re-set opportunity. I am allowed to share it now since Earthers know about Re-set to some extent. Re-set works kind of like a time machine experience, so I set it up that way, here.
February 22, 1972, Roanne, Missouri.
I am the piano accompanist with the orchestra for the annual musical in my senior year of high school. It is the night of our last tech rehearsal. Lots of stopping and starting, taking many more hours than the play actually takes when it runs straight through. We get out very late and are kind of punchy with exhaustion and giddy with opening week jitters.
We are trailing out of the school at around midnight. I sit on a car's hood, waiting in the parking lot for Cliff, my sometimes boyfriend, a sophomore but one of the stars in the play, whom I drive home. The car I'm sitting on is driven by an on-again, off-again boyfriend and supporting actor in the play, Fred, a junior. Cliff and two other actors, both sophomores, come to sit on the car with me. We are holding our books, talking, waiting for everyone to come out to the cars.
We get into a serious discussion about whether the lead singer is singing too fast or the orchestra can't follow him. As the rehearsal and now performance pianist, I feel responsible for the tempo. I object to the musicians' being blamed.
When Fred arrives and sees us all on his car, he gets in and turns the engine on. He revs it and laughs loudly, opening the window so we can talk to him.
We turn to look at him through the windshield and laugh, but stay on the hood to finish our conversation. I am wanting them to agree with me so I'm explaining how a singer is supposed to follow the conductor's baton.
Suddenly, Fred releases the brake and scoots the car forward a little.
We are shocked and nervous, giggling. We turn around and yell at him to “cool it" and keep talking. I vaguely think that he's kidding around, but I'm more focused on our subject.
Fred revs the car and moves forward, actually driving the car, much too fast.
As he continues around the parking lot and out into the street, then back into the parking lot, our giggles turn to terror. We are screaming at him to stop, slipping and sliding all over the car hood.
There is nothing to hold onto. I turn around and try to hang onto the windshield wipers, but I'm sliding forward and can’t reach them.
I won’t do a play-by-play, but the original incident’s outcomes are these: Cliff is to my right. He manages to jump off/fall off. He hurts his back a bit, but he is mostly fine. Jill and Donna are to my left. They also manage to slide/jump off and are fine.
I am in the middle, so I have nowhere to go but forward. Terrified and screaming, I slide off the front, dropping my books as I flail to get my balance. I have a terrible vision as I slide, of standing up and having the car run into my back, so I try to curl up as I fall.
I slide to the ground, bending my legs beneath me awkwardly, trying to get as small as possible. The car runs over me but misses hitting me while I'm in the air and miraculously doesn't hit me as it goes over me, either, due to the thick paperback book I drop that the tire goes over, raising the differential just enough to miss my upturned face.
However, when I hit the ground, I twist my right knee and sprain my left ankle. I hit my head on the tarmack so hard that I black out, briefly.
When I come back to the moment, disoriented and nauseated, I realize that I can’t feel either of my legs at all. “Pollyanna," played by Hayley Mills in Disney's film, sprawled underneath the tree, paralyzed, immediately comes to mind. I'm not in pain, though. I'm numb. I feel very removed and floating above it all. I vaguely am aware of people rushing around and trying to talk to me, sounding very far away. I don't want all this attention. I keep mumbling, “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
But, I can’t move. I try, but I can’t get up. I can barely lift my head, which throbs. I close my eyes to shut out all the motion because it makes me feel dizzier.
Shutting out all the noise and people, I don’t know until much later the rest of this scene. Fred, panicking that he has run over my legs when he feels his tire go over my books, runs to the school to get help. Since all of us but the adults have already left, the doors are locked. Fred pounds on the window to get in to use the payphone. He pounds so hard that he puts his arm through the wired window, almost severing his arm.
The teachers hear and see him as they're coming out to leave and call an ambulance for him. They use whatever cloth they can find to put pressure on his gushing wounds as they wait for the medics to arrive. They don't even know about me until they decipher his incoherent cries.
Not knowing this, I think that Fred is riding in the ambulance with me to keep me company. No one tells me anything. I feel as if I'm in a haze, floating above my body in a non-physical existence: no pain and almost no connection to people or time.
I find out the next day that Fred almost bled out in the ambulance. He has surgery on his arm, getting seventeen stitches as they try to repair nerve and tendon damage. He also receives a blood transfusion. Fred leaves with a huge cast the next day. High on pain killers, he performs that night.
Fred recovers almost completely, but it does take a few years.
Meanwhile, at the hospital, I am left in an exam room alone for long periods of time and I am shaking with shock and freezing. The feeling has returned to my legs and both hurt. Although I can get up, I discover that I can’t walk on my right leg much at all and my left ankl
e won't hold my weight, either.
After examinations and x-rays, I am told that nothing is broken. They don't know why my right leg is hurting so much. The doctors say they don’t know what else to do besides wrapping an ace bandage around my left ankle, which is sprained. They send me home with my very scared and, therefore, angry father.
I manage to play the piano for the weekend of performances, hobbling with a cane and crutches, sitting on a pillow to keep the back of my leg from touching the piano bench. The pain killers make me so nauseous that I have to time my taking them so that I can hobble out and vomit during intermission and then return for Act II.
My ankle heals. My right leg does not.