A Voice In The Night (11 page)

Chapter 24

He started early the next morning, top down, cool enough to wear a jacket and hat. As he neared Sedona he began see the red sandstone cliffs that surrounded the area all around the town. It was spectacular. Like driving along the bottom of the Grand Canyon, only better. He and Eileen had missed this on their trip out. The town itself was small. And there, parked nose in on the main drag, was a pink Jeep. He pulled in next to it and walked to the shop advertising “Jeep Tours,” in the front window.

“Hi. I’m looking for the lady who drives the pink Jeep.”

“That should be made into my Indian name. It’s what everybody calls me who doesn’t know me. I’m Marion Hartly. You interested in a tour? It’s a lot more than you’ll see just driving along the town roads. Plus I tell you a lot about the native people, show you where they lived, their beliefs. And we even go to some anthropology sites where people lived here thousands of years ago. It’s really cool.” She had on a long tie-dyed dress, down to the top of colorful hand- beaded and carved cowboy boots. She wore a short fringed leather jacket and a collection of silver and turquoise jewelry, all topped with a well-weathered western hat. She was in her early forties and quite beautiful despite a total lack of makeup. Suntanned and freckled, a bit of grey in her wild, un-fashioned hair and blue-green eyes, combined with a genuine smile made an unforgettable impact. She was a person you would always remember.

“Yes, I’d love to take the tour but I’m also here for something else I’m told you might be able to help me with.” He told her the story of him and Eileen, Bishop Noonan, space and time. It all tumbled out of him in a rush; but she stood and listened intently. Luke went on. “A nice guy – part Navajo – helped me a lot with how to find Eileen again but he said you had been a physicist and knew all the science about this space and time, many worlds idea, and could explain it to me.”

“Well, I’ll probably be more useful in telling you what science
doesn’t
know. That’s what made me leave that work and come out here. Twenty years of teaching undergraduates and graduate students what we
didn’t
know finally got to me. Eight years ago I came here on vacation and never left.” Marion smiled then stepped through a door behind her. “How about some tea? They’re not breaking the door down for Jeep tours today – not quite our season until June or so – glad to tell you what I can that might help, and steer you to some people in town who are more into the spiritual side of things, like meditation and vortexes, spirit mediums and all that. I’ve been out here long enough to know the good people from the tourist traps.”

The tea was good. Perfect for the minor chill that the Healey ride from Flagstaff had produced.

“First. What’s your name.”

“Oh, sorry. Luke Trimble.”

“Luke Trimble. Why does that sound so familiar? Trimble, Trimble. Oh. Right, you’re the guy on the radio – the whole higher plane thing. Okay. Got it. But you’d better keep that to yourself around here or they’ll put you in a cage on Main Street and sell tickets to the tourists.

“Let me give you a quick course on the science.

“Einstein died before he could complete his ‘theory of everything’, a unifying theory that would explain how everything in the Universe works. One of the many things that troubled him and all physicists was that all the mathematics performed perfectly until the instant before the Big Bang – the beginning of the universe. That tiny instant is called ‘The Singularity.’ And right there is where most of the science and math fall apart – it just doesn’t work. For me, the singularity is God. It’s as simple as that. I think the singularity is God pushing the start button.

“It’s just my interpretation. But back when I was in physics I saw that the more my colleagues worked on this, the more religious many of them became. Turns out, they came to the same conclusion, that ‘singularity’ is a pretty good name for God. Now the attention is turning toward the idea that there are many universes in different dimensions and space and that’s where the higher planes thing fits right in, especially since the word came directly from your visitor on the radio, and the miracles – all of it.”

Luke shook his head as though all of this was too much for him. “So Eileen is in a different universe?”

“But that universe can be just millimeters away from where we are right now. We just can’t see it. And there could be another one right next to it, and others in different dimensions that we don’t even have theories about.”

“Which makes it infinitely harder to reconnect with Eileen,” Luke frowned.

“Maybe not. This all fits perfectly with the higher plane thing, in fact there could be an unlimited number of planes. And it fits with many of the more widely held religious beliefs, like reincarnation. Another thing is, now the top physicists are talking about holes or tunnels between these unseen universes or dimensions. So you might be able to reunite that way and be together. . . .  But remember, this is all theoretical, and math that makes some assumptions. It could all be wrong. Maybe you or someone else on an even higher planes can see if it works.

“Because you’ve gone to the second higher plane, you can go anywhere and know a lot more than the people who stayed with their everyday kind of life. You just have to turn your mind loose. Let it go where it will. Stop trying. It’s just creating static that’s blocking you.

“Come on. Let’s take a jeep ride. It’s warm enough now. Tomorrow I’ll set you up to work with someone who can free up your mental channels, clear out the static.” They climbed into her Jeep as she eyed the Healey parked alongside. “If you can go anywhere just by, like, wishing it, why the sports car ?” she wondered.

“Because something told me to go back home the way we’d come, that’s all.”

“That’s perfect. See, free your mind and go where it takes you.”

Chapter 25

The trip up into the hills was bone-jarring and beautiful. The Jeep took them up to overlooks that revealed the expanse of red sandstone cliffs around Sedona and reaching out for miles. “You see that valley out about five miles? That’s where the local native people believed that man first began on Earth. I guess they didn’t have the Bering land bridge in their oral history.” Luke took a few slide shots with his Nikon. It was really spectacular from their lookout. A couple of wrenching miles more took them to another site, the remains of a log cabin, only about four or five logs high. “This is where some men tried to start a cattle ranch back in the early 1900s but it didn’t work out because there isn’t any regular source of water up here, at least not enough for a herd of cows. They had to haul the water up by truck in 60 gallon drums. Luckily they didn’t get any appreciable snow in the winter to block the road. It gets up into the 60s during the day. The story is they just got tired of hauling water, and moved down closer to the river.

“But there’s a lot more here. See how the ground inside the cabin is dished out? Archaeologists studied this site and dug down to really ancient tools and bones. They said native people lived right here about eight to ten thousand years ago. The diggers also found fossilized wood that suggested there was a pretty big structure here. You can see that the depression in the ground extends out far beyond the log cabin. Those cowboys had no idea. This just seemed like a good, hollowed out spot to build.”

They walked a few yards back down toward the Jeep, and Marion stopped, kneeling down to show him a big limestone rock that had a noticeable circular depression in the top. “This is another big find they made here. The Indians lived on a hunting and corn-based diet and they used this like a mortar and pestle to grind the corn down. The problem is the limestone is soft so tiny fragments of it got into the corn meal and wore out the people’s teeth. The bones the diggers found showed that most died before the age of forty because their teeth were gone and they could no longer chew. So they died of slow starvation, plus disease. And they must never have made the connection with the limestone.” They continued on to a few more overlooks then she stopped at a viewpoint, got out and beckoned Luke to follow.

“From here you can see where most of the vortexes are. I think that they really are holes or tunnels – pathways to other planes, dimensions, universes that we talked about. Tomorrow I’ll have you meet Mike Smolen. He knows the most about them and he can bring you out to one with a little teaching thrown in so you’ll get the most of it.”

They arrived back at Marion’s shop. “What do I owe you for the tour,” Luke asked. “No charge. It’s out of season. Besides, I make a fortune on the tourists June through October. At $50 per-person with three or four on each trip, it adds up. I work seven days a week in those months and make much more than I ever did at the university. Plus I get to live here and have half the year off. But you can buy me dinner tonight if you like. Pick me at the shop?”

“I’ll be there. 6:30?”

“Seeya then.”

Mike Smolen turns out to be unlike anything Luke had expected in a spirit guide and vortex expert. He was a big and hearty type whose handshake was like a death grip. “Hey, any friend of Marion’s – well, you know.

“She filled me in on the phone last night – your whole story – and I think you’re in the right place with the right guy.

“Different people experience the vortexes here very differently. Some people get nothing, others say it’s life changing, Personally, I think preparation and learning beforehand make all the difference so let me show you the main thing – Transcendental Meditation. I prefer to call it silencing the mind. It brings you inward beyond thought to the most silent and peaceful level of consciousness. To make a vortex work for you, silencing is the most important thing.”

Mike then sat Luke in a simple chair, both feet on the ground, hands in this lap, eyes closed. Next he got him to relax all of his muscle, head to toe.

“All right. Here’s the biggest thing. Slowly clear your mind by focusing on one sound. I like to use the sound of my own breathing. It’s very Buddhist. They call it ‘mindful breathing’ It’s a way to keep you right in the present moment, but it’s also perfect for silencing, because breathing is always available, right?

“So I going out from some coffee and you do this until I get back. Be patient, though. It’s not something you can master in one attempt. But I think you’ll be pretty surprised.” At first, Luke couldn’t prevent single thoughts from seeping into his consciousness. But he stuck with it, locked in lightly to the sound of his breathing, shallow now and effortless. When a thought came slipping in, he let it melt into his breathing. He began to feel something entirely new. Peace. Calm.

“Hey wake up.’ Luke startled as Mike came through the door. He’d actually dozed off. Now he felt wonderful, as if he’d had a great night’s sleep. “That’s a terrific start. Man you sure have a knack for this. Not many people Z-out the way you did. Cool. Here, now you really need this coffee.

“Now do this a couple of more times today for maybe 20 minutes each. Tomorrow I’ll take you up to show you Cathedral Rock. I think it’s the best vortex around because it’s hard to get to, so most people don’t go there. Nice and quiet.” Luke couldn’t hold back. “Do you think I’ll be able to cross through to Eileen up there? Mike thought for a moment. “Sedona is known for these vortexes but they exist everywhere. Maybe you’ll connect here or somewhere else. I promise you, you’ll know how to spot them before you leave here. And because you’re on the second higher plane – so am I, by the way – you’ll have much more sensitivity to them.

“Another thing I can tell you for sure is that I’ve been present when one of our spirit mediums had sessions for people to try and reach a loved one that had died. I gotta tell ya it was for real. These spirits – people – were really present. In one case we could actually see this woman’s husband who had passed a few months before. He looked a little blurry but the things he revealed and what he told his wife were legit. There’s no way the medium could have known any of this or used some kind of optical trickery. I know her pretty well and she’s the real deal.

“So Eileen is here, or somewhere. I’m sure of it.

“Another thing is it’s fine to meditate anywhere, even pulled over at the side of the road. You won’t get down as deep but you’ll be covering a lot of ground from what Marion told me and it’s all about space and time. Route 66 will give you plenty of both, so use your trip to seek her out anywhere you happen to be.”