Soul Dancing with the Brass Band (The Brass Band Series) (24 page)

Mom and I spent the next few days cooking, chatting, shopping and looking in on Buddy. Will and Dad spent their time with his stash of library books spread across the table, constantly talking about states of consciousness, linear time being stacked, reincarnation, the mind’s ability to control…well, everything. They were inseparable until it was time to eat. They never missed a meal because no one in their right mind would ever miss a meal Mom cooked.

The meeting with McCollum was set for the day after Christmas. Dad had been invited to participate in the
daily practices
, which began at sunrise and he was ecstatic.

On one of our daily outings, I asked Mom if she was disappointed that Dad was going to meet McCollum without her.

“Absolutely not, sweetheart,” she answered. “Your father has been looking for an opportunity like this for as long as I’ve known him, searching for someone that sees the world the way he does. Your dad views this world as a place of magic, not the doom and gloom they show on the ten o’clock news. He wants reassurance that he’s not crazy. Your Will can give that to him and I could not be more grateful.” Tears were welling up in Mom’s eyes. “I would have had Terry here a lot sooner if I knew
the gift
Will had to offer him. I’ve never seen him so happy. He’s like a roman candle, just about ready to explode into a fountain of brilliant light.”

“
The gift
,” I thought of what Gilbert said and began to understand.

Christmas came and it was very nice, but not the focal point of our holiday season. The most important day was now the one after Christmas. One evening, while Dad was taking a shower, Mom and I had asked Will what was needed for
morning practices
? We surprised Dad with the items on Christmas morning. He unwrapped each gift with surprise and an abundance of joy. Dad wouldn’t have minded sitting on a ratty old towel, but was touched by the new items. There was a rug that would double as a yoga mat and, when folded, was just big enough to sit cross-legged on, a beautiful meditation shawl with lavender threads intertwining with gold and indigo blue and then of course a pillow and an abundant supply of loose fitting clothes.

“How did you find this stuff?”

“It was easy, Terry. The yoga store had almost everything we needed. We’ll throw the clothes into the wash tonight, so they don’t look brand new,” Mom said as Dad muffled her words with a big kiss.

“This has been a perfect Christmas.” He looked at us with such emotion in his eyes and I understood, without a shadow of a doubt, that my father was starting a
mystical
journey of enormous proportions.

Dec 27, 2010

Early Monday morning Dad and Will returned with George bellowing behind them. They were acting like the super bowl champs returning home after the big win, slapping each other on the back and reliving what had happened the day before, play by play.

We opened the front door and they piled in along with Dad’s yoga and meditation gear, all three of them were glowing or should I say
humming
. The room was charged by their laughter.

“Breakfast?” Mom asked, as they turned and noticed us for the first time.

Dad took Mom in his arms and lifted her off of the ground. Will grabbed me and swung me around in a circle. George was so overwhelmed that he picked up both Mom and Dad.

“So it was a good experience?” I asked, trying to keep my balance as Will put me down.

“Great. Just great!” Dad said with an ear-to-ear smile. And as I looked around, I realized all three of them had that same smile.

Mom went off into the kitchen to cook breakfast as I started to set the table. These three were out of control; maybe food would calm them down. As the smell of bacon filled the room, they started gathering around the table and by the time breakfast was actually served, it was quite obvious they were famished.

Dad was looking more like a teenager than my father as he started to talk about the experience with a mouth full of eggs.

“I’ve never been so high! I was so expanded I had thoughts and understandings that I’ve never had before. I always believed that we were all connected, you know ONE, but yesterday I was ONE with everything! It’s the most amazing feeling I’ve ever had!”

Will smiled and explained, “Every kid in the house can give Shaktipat, so we just helped him along by letting him hitch a ride on our group consciousness.”

“Man, what a ride
!” Dad exclaimed shaking his head almost in disbelief.

“When he comes down, he’ll probably want to sleep for a while,” George added. “I’ve seen this before. That’s why few people come to our house. If you’re not ready for the experience, you can go over the edge,” George spun his finger in a circle at his temple, “but this guy took everything we could unload on him.” George slapped Dad on the back. “I think his crash will be hard.”

“How did the meeting with McCollum go?” I asked Will.

“I think Terry should tell you himself. I was only there at the end and after you and your dad have a talk, we can all get together again. After all, some of the meeting was about you,” he answered mysteriously.

I looked at him, puzzled. “You can’t just leave me hanging, Will.”

“Oh, yes I can. I’m beat and besides I need to go downstairs and check on Buddy,” he smiled.

“We let Buddy go,” Mom said. “He was spending a lot of time looking out the window and he was ready. We didn’t want him to fly into the glass.”

Will looked crestfallen.

“Maybe we can get you a dog,” I lamely added.

“It’s okay. It’s better for Buddy to be free.” Will bent to kiss my forehead. “He was good company, but I still have George.”

George and Will picked up their coats and headed back downstairs, while Dad dragged his bags into the bedroom. All three were probably asleep before their heads hit the pillow.

DAD WAS
not
up with the chickens or the sun. He slept well past 10 a.m. It was the sound of Mom and me talking that finally got him out of bed.

“See what happens when you stay up late partying with the boys!” I said as he walked into the living room. “I have sympathy for ya, Dad. Will wiped me out on our first couple of dates with that
hum
he has going on.”

“You should be in a room that’s full of em. They give you quite the buzz!” he said still out of it.

“Sit down, Terry, and after your first cup of coffee, Hillary and I want to know the whole story.” Mom gave him her infamous one raised eyebrow look.

It was hard to wait patiently for Dad to start. He was drinking his coffee so incredibly slow that I wanted to pour it down his throat, but finally he began.

“Before sunrise, everyone gathered silently in the main temple. It was a huge room with enormous windows that look to the east. The boys came in one by one and sat down to prepare their mind and bodies. Some had already been there for hours, sitting in
full lotus
, without moving a muscle. Will silently directed me to a place on the floor where George could sit on one side of me and him on the other. I thought they were being friendly at first, but as the energy in the room built, it became clear that they were sitting with me to make sure I was okay and to tell you the truth, I was glad to have them there.”

“We sat in silence for an hour or so. It was hard to tell, I wasn’t wearing a watch. Earlier, Will had given me a short initiation, along with a new
mantra
and I already knew enough about meditation to feel comfortable, so I sat on my rug and pillow with my legs crossed. No way I could sit like Will and those kids in full lotus. I’d have dislocated a hip.” He shook his head and took another swig of coffee.

“I started to mentally repeat my new mantra in my mind, just like Will had shown me. When a
thought
came into my mind, I would bless it and let it go and eventually, my mind began clearing until there was nothing but me and the mantra,” Dad explained very slowly, struggling to get things into words.

“Then there wasn’t even me…. or not as an individual. It’s hard to explain,” he said with amazement glistening in his eyes while he relived the experience.

“First, I felt a warmth expand within me and then slowly the feeling moved outside of me, until I became everything and everything was me. I loved and knew Will and George and everyone else in that room, the same way I know myself. We were ONE, but at the same time the experience was beyond that room and contained the whole world…maybe the universe.”

Then somewhere, miles away in the distance, I heard a bell softly ring. The bell meant that I had to bring my awareness back into the room. I had to try and fit
all of what I was
back into my very small body, and you know something?” he said with a shrug of resignation. “It didn’t all fit. I lost pieces along the way. I tried to gather them all up as I floated back, but when I opened my eyes I no longer could remember what I so desperately missed. Will had told me I had to do
an integration
when I returned to my body. It made no sense to me at the time, but after the journey I experienced, I can comprehend the importance. I repeated to myself,
I am so happy, I am so happy, my life is so simple
and was thankful that Will had taken the time to explain everything to me, because the feeling of oneness is so seductive that becoming an individual again is quite a shock.”

“As I sat doing my integration exercise, trying to settle all of the pieces of me back into their proper places, I began hearing what sounded like a hundred bells ringing, all in different keys and at different speeds. It was beautiful and the smell of incense and sandalwood filled my nostrils.” Dad seemed content.

“I opened my eyes to find a procession of young men entering the temple with trays billowing with fragrant smoke. Seven formed a line at the front of the temple, each followed by a younger boy ringing a bell. They rhythmically moved together in a ceremony that overflowed my senses and nourished every part of me.”

“Will placed a little book in my hands, already opened to a specific page. I began reading and chanting the Sanskrit words and when I
spaced out, losing my place in the book, Will or George would help. Those boys are something else. They were so kind to me…I never actually saw the sunrise like I thought I would. I think maybe I
was
the sunrise.”

Mom and I sat silently with tears in our eyes. The man we both loved so much had found his heart’s desire. It was just wher
e he always told me it would be: inside. He just had to find the key.

“When the chanting was done, an older boy stepped forward and silently led us in yoga, slow stretches and deep breathing. It felt good to stretch after sitting cross-legged for so many hours. I was a little cramped up, but didn’t even feel it because of the magic going on around me.”

“At the end of yoga, we laid down on our backs for something called Savasana. Everyone was silent and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but I did what everyone else did. I was there one minute and the next I was gone again, just floating, disembodied.”

“Once again, I heard a bell ring, reminding me to return.”

“Will and George showed me to a room that had been set aside for us. We talked a little, but mostly just relaxed until lunch. It’s hard to find a lot to say after an experience like that.” Dad looked into our teary eyes, “Don’t you two make me cry. I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet.”

As the three of us sat in my living room, trying to regain our composure, I thought of a conversation Dad and I had when I was still in high school. He told me late one night when everyone else had gone to bed, that sometimes he felt lost in this life, that he had a yearning to go back to his
ashram
in India which he knew sounded foolish because he’d never been to India. His confession was to me alone. “
I know I’m here with you, Mom and Kenny for a very important reason and I love you all more than I can say, but when you and Kenny grow up and Mom and I are finished farming, I’d like to go back to India and spend my last years just meditating
.” I couldn’t imagine a time when Dad would ever leave Mom, they were two halves of a whole, but now, as I looked into Dad’s eyes, I understood what he was talking about a little better.