Jumping (10 page)

“We're gods to you!” Guy laughs.

“Or ghosts!” one of the men adds.

I look to the person sitting on my left, a woman, and she says, with a slight Australian accent, “I guess that means I'm first!” She laughs. “You can call me Lynette. That's the last name you knew me by.”

She's a short redhead, wearing a kind of gossamer white robe, as are the rest, except for Guy, who looks like he just hopped off a spaceship. She notices me looking at her robe, and she laughs again. “So that's what it looks like to you! Crikey! There's no seeing through it, though!” She laughs once more, realizing what I was unconsciously doing before I do. I blush.

“It just looks very pretty and sort of timeless to me. I forget I'm wearing it. Anyway, we've known each other through many life times, so it's hard to choose just one. Wait, I know! I can tell you of one that we
all
shared—we began that lifetime together and we ended it together. It was a good one that maybe you'll remember.“

The others nod.

“We were monks together, in England, in the thirteenth century. In fact, you can still see the remains of the monastery today, in north Yorkshire. It was perfect for us. We were together, doing work we cared about, in a beautiful place. We lived in community, a self-sustaining community, so we had duties indoors and out, we saw sunrises and sunsets regularly, we ate well, we laughed a lot.”

I have questions, and I know she knows it. She continues, working her answers into her telling.

“We were scribes and we created illuminated manuscripts. In other words, we worked on every phase of producing copies of existing books, from stretching and scraping the parchment from animal hides for the pages, to cutting to the proper size, to planning our layout of the text, to determining which letters and passages would be illuminated. Then we scored the parchment with our design and added the text. Illumination came last, followed by binding, with leather and wood. I had a passion for it, and so did you.

“We worked from an exemplar, an original manuscript approved by the church, but we took it to a new level, burnishing it with gold and silver, to exalt the text. We saw our illuminations as works of art praising God, giving thanks, so our days were spent in creating art that honored and gave gratitude for the creativity of others, in service to God. What could be better?

“And we got to be creative, too. It took much skill, and it could be exhausting work but we were proud of it. We worked closely together, often at high desks set on the edges of the monastery's courtyard, enjoying and being inspired by the sights and sounds of nature. We had all been classically educated, and spent our days praying, talking, reading, writing. We slept well at night.

“Usually, we copied the Bible and books of common prayer or religious commentary, for the monastery's own library, to sell to other monasteries, and for teaching. The illuminations made all of these books incredibly valuable. As it happened, the monastery had an extensive library of early secular works, too, some of the world's greatest works of philosophy, politics, history, and literature. We usually weren't allowed to spend our time in copying these books, but occasionally a wealthy patron, who often couldn't read, commissioned copies of one or another for his private collection, to impress his friends.

“We read and re-read those, as we believed they required a different kind of illumination than the religious books, and we wanted to do them justice. We were much taken with these works, recognizing the expansiveness of their thought and expression and their honoring of the capacities of man, and we even read aloud, trading parts, as we planned and executed their illumination.

“We knew that the church had moved closer and closer to censoring such books, to keep them from influencing public thought. We knew these works needed to do exactly that—have a public life and a chance to gain influence, for the betterment of mankind. So, in reaction, we regularly made plain, private copies of them, in case the originals were allowed to deteriorate or were even destroyed.

“This kind of independently determined activity is considered insurrection in a monastery—an attempt to replace the church's authority with ours—and is punishable by death. By the time the prior and the abbot found us out—and some were happy to report us—we had made too many copies to have a reasonable defense for this crime against the church. They had no choice but to turn it over to the district bishop, and the bishop had no choice but to invoke the highest punishment. All twelve of us—scribes and illuminators alike—were hanged. They hung us together, from the south wall of the monastery on an early spring morning, when the ground was finally soft enough to receive a shovel.” She paused, and then looked at me, reassuringly. “I see what you're thinking, but dying with others, in support of a common cause is a wonderfully exhilarating experience
you yourself
have had more than once. This one was particularly sweet. We had accomplished what we had set out to do.”

Even now, I feel this life on a heart level, more than I know it on a mental level. When she describes working at high desks and the sense of community, sights and sounds and smells come to me. It's as if it has always resided in the storehouse of my memory. She is studying me, to see if I have more questions. I ask why we did it, why we chose that life.

“For fun!” she says playfully, but seriously, too. “For the potential to enjoy all that life offers—food and nature and creativity and each other and work we loved. But, as importantly, for the chance to advance, by addressing a wrong and attempting to right it. Sometimes truth is not relative or situational or optional—not yours or mine, but ours. Sometimes you have to stand up for it. And we
did
that, through our actions. It was great to see what we could do together. It takes a lot of coordinating to have that happen. We didn't betray each other. We hung together. Literally,” she adds with a smile.

A tall man looks at me and then explains further. “It's about the forging of the self through common experience.” For what purpose, I wonder to myself, and his answer follows immediately. “All of this serves to develop and strengthen our authenticity—the ability to not just know but to act on one's own directive, thereby taking a risk. Taking the risk ensures the forging of the self. What else could we be here for except to construct ourselves in this way? Earth provides the challenges, which in turn provide the opportunities, to do this. That's all that's asked of us—to meet the challenges by taking the risk of being and expressing ourselves. Why? Because that's what makes us happy. And ‘happy’ is our prime indicator that we're doing what's right and good for all of us. This is why she told this story—it illustrates exactly this life-giving point.”

Lynette looks at me and says, “He's good at explaining, isn't he? He's still my teacher.”

“And you mine,” he says back to her warmly.

“It's because we come from good,” she says in answer to another of my questions. “It's what we know, how we feel aligned. Think what the world would look like if everyone was feeling truly happy.”

Guy says, reading my mind again, “You're wondering how all of this got started. Maybe the story of the origin of our cohort can be for another time, after you've met everyone.”

I look around and feel such an affinity to this group around the fire. I'm drawn to their sense of it all as fun, as well as work they give their lives for. I'm moved by their honesty with me and each other. I feel as if we are picking up where we left off. I'm exploding with questions but I'm not anxious or mistrustful, as I usually would be. This amazes me.

The tall man is sitting next to Lynette, and as I look to him, he smiles. It's such a warm, inviting smile that I break into a broad smile back. His features are more rugged, darker. He looks Middle Eastern, with piercing, direct eyes, hair combed back from his high forehead. His body is lean and taut, like a runner's.

“My name is Kahil. I'm going to tell a story of how we helped each other, across a long span of time. It was a place that brought us together. And we were both women!” He laughs, enlivening his stern good looks.

“It was post-Civil War, in America. You had journeyed to a teaching post in northern Maryland, near the Pennsylvania border, not twenty miles from Gettysburg. You were a tall, strong-minded woman, and you were proud of yourself for having journeyed alone, all the way from Albany, to take up a position that would make you self-sufficient.

“Your family remained a constant reminder that you were a failure as a woman and an embarrassment to them for not having married. You'd had only one real offer, from a much older man who'd been widowed with five small children, who'd insulted you when you'd refused him. You had passed thirty and found being alone much more appealing, and even satisfying, than marriage seemed. You loved teaching, as you always have, and felt it was important work. You looked forward to being on your own and making your own home. You'd arrived in Pennsylvania to find that your quarters were under repair for the next few weeks because a large leak in the roof had become apparent during the spring rains. The school board had decided that you could stay at the farm of one of the area's largest landowners, who was away on a cattle buying trip with his wife. It would serve him to have his kitchen remain functional and his house kept occupied and tidy while he was gone.

“After getting over your initial disappointment following your long trip, you discovered it was a large house, with rooms upstairs and down, and a spacious porch in the back. He had much acreage and a large pond. The grounds were being looked after by a neighboring farmer's son, so your duties were minimal.

“You were told to stay in a small bedroom on the first floor, but something about the room made you uncomfortable, and you kept smelling something burning in it, though it was much too warm for a fire. So you slept instead on a sofa in the side sitting room, just off the main sitting room. You settled in to the comfortable and well-appointed home, enjoying the cool mornings and the quiet nights, the smell of fresh cut hay, and the sounds of nature all around.

“Now, here's where I come in. One night, a few days later, you were sitting on a sofa in the main sitting room, facing the large staircase that gracefully curved down from the upstairs, its bannisters gleaming in the firelight that you read by. You were engrossed in the teacher's manuals you'd been reading, but suddenly you felt the hair stand up on the back of your neck, and you looked up the staircase. You saw a woman coming down the stairs, looking at you.

“That was me,” he said with a proud smile. “I didn't mean to frighten you, but I did mean to get your attention. You were the first person I felt drawn to in a long time. Most people I avoided. You froze, sensed the woman must be a ghost, even though she looked so real you could see the tiny tucks going down the front of her black dress, the narrow band of lace at each cuff, and the small crystal earbobs showing beneath the dark hair drawn over her ears into a low bun in the back.

“I was well-appointed, too,” he laughed, “and my name was Lucy. I came downstairs and sat in the chair opposite you, and told you my story. And you listened, despite your initial fear. You anchored me with your listening. You can't imagine now how important that was. I had been aimlessly floating in a field of misery, unable to find my way home. Continued trauma will do that to you.

“You were afraid, but you felt drawn to me, too, so you stayed with me rather than fleeing out the door, as so many would have. I told you how my family lived in the next farm over and had arranged my marriage, at age fifteen, to the man who used to own the house you were staying in. My sisters and I expected arranged marriages but always wished for at least a livable match, if not one with romantic potential. We were young, after all, and still felt at home with hope. But this was a man without feeling who valued his hunting dogs more than he did his wife, and I begged my family to take me back, even running away a time or two. But they wouldn't do it because they were afraid of him, too, and they made me go back each time. ‘We made a deal,’ my father said. He'd gained a parcel of land and some cattle and horses, and didn't want to give them back, so he gave me back instead.

“I lived with the man a while, gritting my teeth and bearing it, giving him three children he completely disregarded, growing vegetables to feed us all, and working as a field hand for him whenever he required it. This worked, with me as slave labor, until he became abusive of the children. Then I stood against him, and we battled fiercely, until he decided I was more trouble than I was worth, and he was going to kill me.

“He never doubted he had the right to do so. I was his property, purchased just as his other farm animals had been, and most of
their
lives ended in slaughter. He determined to drag me down to the pond, to drown me. He hadn't so many options open to him—rifles were single shot then, a knife would have been tricky and terribly messy—you get the point.

“I saw what he had in mind, and I fought him. He battered me badly and with his greater strength, finally succeeded in drowning me. I hardly remember the details of it, I was so frantically concerned for the children.

“He rested a moment, after I was dead and he'd pulled my body up on the bank, catching his breath, and contemplated what to do with me. He knew the pond wouldn't keep his secret, and he knew enough to want to keep it secret, if only because mistrust or disdain from his neighbors might affect his standing in the community and hence, his income.

“He decided he'd do what he did with the animals—quarter and piecemeal me, and then he would feed me to the fire. Think of the man it would take to accomplish such a task—to the mother of his children! He couldn't do this outside, because it didn't afford good hiding, so he used the fireplace in the small sitting room, taking his time, being thorough about it, distributing the ashes in the garden.

“It took most of the day and night, but his rage had made the children scatter, and I'm glad they weren't there to witness any of it. When it was over, it left me lost. I was lost in it all—his rage, my helplessness, the loss of my children, my shame and demoralization at believing I was the cause of it all, feeling as in pieces as my body was. I didn't know where to turn, how to get back to anywhere, wherever anywhere was. Time passed, and I just hovered at the house, reliving it all, blinded by it, coming to believe this was my deserved fate.