I had posted this over on The Sorcerer's World when it happened (a little over a week ago now), but was guided this morning to post it here to Soma as well. Not sure why, but perhaps there doesn't need to be a reason. I have noticed lately that there has been some movement within my own circle of friends & fellow warriors. Last night, a woman whom I had counseled for years (my former best friend) came by the house and essentially said she has begun receiving communiations from her double, even though she consciously left the path several years ago. Another young man whom I worked with several years ago resurfaced in email, asking for some information about how to communicate more directly with his own double. In general, I've heard from at least 5 people over the past 2 weeks who are telling me the same thing: their doubles have suddenly become more "demanding" (a word used by 2 of these folks), and so it seems appropriate to share my own experience.
***
April 12, 2008
Escondido, California, USA
Trying to comprehend the machinations of the nagual is rather like trying to catch a shark with tweezers. So, with what said, the event I am going to describe here is simply a description of something that occurred on April 11, 2008 - recorded only in the interests of providing a record so that patterns can be examined over a period of time.
...
It was hot. Too hot. Wendy was sick with a cold and I had gone out into an unfamiliar town to do some errands in preparation for our event this weekend. Found a large outdoor shipping center which had all the things I thought I might need: Trader Joe's, major grocery store, Chinese food for lunch, and a drug store - plus all of the accompanying smaller gift shops and the like.
So I parked at one end of the large cmplex and began my errands. In the Trader Joe's, it occurred to me that people were unusually friendly - several strangers not only spoke to me in a casual manner, but three of them actually started up full blown conversations. I didn't think too much of it, just finished up my shopping and moved on to the Chinese restaurant to order take-out for Wendy, who had stayed in the motorhome back at the event site.
Upon finishing up that little chore, I began walking toward the far end of the parking lot - the equivalent of about 2 city blocks - when I looked up to see one of the shops that jutted out and formed a "corner" was a tuxedo shop. Friar Tux. Cute name, I thought.
But then anything normal was plucked away like so much window dressing, and I found myself straddling some peculiar fence between one world and another. No other way to describe it. I was my normal "della-self" standing there on the sidewalk looking at the tux shop in the middle of a hot, sunny afternoon. And at the same time, I had become a "different" Della-self standing on the same sidewalk... staring at the same tux shop... except to THAT self's perception, it was now dusk, and Orlando had just walked out of the shop, dressed in some incredible tux and looking like a perfect groom plucked from the pages of GQ or some such.
He has always joked with me by saying that when he appears in a tux, "It will be time to dance." (Translated: time to leave this earth, time to fly past the eagle, time to die). And yet, even though I was keenly aware of that, something told me that this was not that time. I had left part of myself in the tonal as a witness, while another aspect of myself had clearly slipped the traditional limits of perception to journey into this dimly-lit-dusk at the edge of the nagual.
So my "normal" Della self is observing this while the parallel Della-self is experiencing it as if it is every bit as real as anything else. Orlando meets my eyes and smiles warmly - a smile of familiarity, affection, gladness. Walking over to me, he places one hand on my arm - the touch is warm, firm,solid. Not a ghostly vision. Not an old woman's fond remembrances. Real. Solid. Whole.
Leaning down close to my ear - so close I could smell the scent of a fine cologne and feel his breath on my neck - he whispered, "I'm still 28."
When I knew Orlando in the flesh, he was 28, so the reference made sense. What it meant was also instantaneously transmitted in the words themselves - I am the eternal aspect of you, whole and never-aging, never-dying. I am the vessel of your immortal awareness, always present. I-AM. That was the message, the download, even though he spoke only those few words, a whisper against my ear. "I'm still 28."
And then, as quickly as I had been displaed in the time/space continuum like so much energetic fluff, I was back in my "ordinary" self, standing there on that too-hot sidewalk, wondering what the hell just happened, while at the same time filled with such an incredible sense of wonder.
My heart was racing. I could barely breathe. And yet... nothing at all seemed out of the ordinary. It wasn't a stroke. It wasn't a heart attack. It was just the nagual having a party on the outskirts of parallel perception.
Upon returning to the motorhome and sitting down at the computer, I talked a bit about the experience on chat, and in the course of that conversation, I began to realize that there had been indicators PRIOR to the actual displacement.
Back in Trader Joe's, the first stranger who spoke to me was an old man, who addressed me in the manner of someone who already knows me. "How have you been?" he asked, and began talking in such a way that I had thought it odd at the time, but hadn't yet put the pieces together. It wasn't "as if" the old man knew me. He DID know me. We spoke only briefly, but it was clear this wasn't just some nice old man and a case of mistaken identity. That's what I had believed at the time, but in light of other things, it now seems unlikely.
The second stronger who approached me at TJ's did so at the bread aisle. Walking up to me as if he knew me, he boldly said, "Isn't it terrible how all the breads in the regular stores are laced with so much sugar?" He might as well have been reading my mind, for that's what I'd been thinking as I stood there reading the labels. He went on to make a comment to the effect, "We're conditioned to crave sugar because it's in everything we eat, but for those of us who are diabetic, it's a huge issue!"
Now, at the time, I thought perhaps he was referring to himself. After all, he was a stranger, and there was no way he could know anything about me or my medical history. So I conversed with him in a friendly manner, and figured perhaps the people of this town had just become unduly friendly over the six months since I had last been here.
At the checkout counter, the elderly gay clerk was so friendly and outgoing, one might have thought I was his long lost sister. "You folks are going to be out at the park this weekend, aren't you?" he asked. Now, my tonal brain being fully engaged, I figured he was someone who had been to the renaissance faire in the past and just recognized me. So I struck up a conversation with him about the weather and the preparations which were underway, but throughout the dialogue, I kept thinking that he was extremely "familiar".
Okay, in hindsight... I can either write it off asw the lunatic ravings of a madwoman, or I can look at these events from the eyes of a warrior, and see that perhaps one of those doorways I've been looking for finally opened a crack, and allowed me to catch a glimpse of some parallel self, some alter-world where I am me but not me, where I seemingly live in this bustling city instead of in the desert - actually not far from where I DID live when I knew Orlando in manifestation.
"I'm still 28."
I've been thinking about that message and what it might mean. What it really seems to be saying to me is that the double is ageless and timeless, and that nothing has changed since he and I were last here in this place where we never were at all when we were walking around together back in the late 80s and early 90s. Inside the hologram - which exists outside of time - he is still 28, and I am the bride to the muse which can never be caught, and everything is unfolding precisely as it should... even if I cannot at times wrap my ordinary-humanform mind around some of these strange twists and turns on the road which exists only after we walk it.
There is no conclusion, for none is possible.
There is only the experience itself, and Rod Serling somewhere in the shadows of that forever-dusk world, reminding us that the world is not only stranger than we imagine, it is often the door to the Twilight Zone, even in broad daylight on a hot afternoon in Escondido.
