The Eagle and the Rose (25 page)
Many times I had read about other people's experiences into the astral planes, and I have been asked lots of times by clients or patients, “Do you believe it?”
Before that night, I was able to answer only that I thought it might be possible. Since my first experience I have been astral traveling many times, and I have always had that same clear vision and knowledge of what is happening to me.
One time, quite soon after this first experience, I woke one morning early. I was at home, in Yorkshire, England, and automatically I searched for the bedside clock, hoping that it wasn't yet time to get up. It was 6:00
A.M
. Oh, good, I thought. I've got a couple more hours. I snuggled down in the bed again. But then I felt that old familiar feeling that told me something was about to happen. This time, though, as my body began to shake and the feeling inside grew like a volcano about to erupt, I determined that I would put a stop to whatever or whoever it was that seemed to be taking me over. Gritting my teeth, my mind screaming out to Grey Eagle for help, and with great effort I managed to retain control of my body. Forcing myself into a sitting position and breathing a sigh of relief, I plumped up my pillows and lay back, now fully awake and alert. I looked again at the clock, which now said 6:15
A.M.
precisely. Only seconds later, however, I was regretting that I had put a stop to what I now felt had been an opportunity to go traveling. I knew that Grey Eagle had been with me and still was, so a little hesitantly but determined for the experience, I said to him, “Okay, let's go. But just remember, I don't want to go too far away.”
I relaxed my body, and before I knew it that feeling began again, like a motor starting up somewhere deep inside me, and I started to shake. This time, feeling safe with Grey Eagle beside me, I allowed the energy to grow. Then I was moving, so fast that I could feel the “flesh” pulled back from my face and my teeth bared as a force of great magnitude drove me forward. On and on I went, seemingly through a long dark tunnel, until finally I found myself standing just inside the entrance to a passage. For just a brief moment I had the sensation that I was a small child around the age of seven years, and I seemed to be blind in one eye; but that feeling dispelled quickly, and I was me again, full and able-bodied, appearing flesh and bone. It took a moment for my mind to comprehend the scene I faced. It seemed too incredible, and I was so excited and amazed that it was all so really real. I looked out upon a marketplace, with market stalls and cobbled stones and people, many, many people, milling about, shopping, chatting, laughing, shouting, just like any ordinary busy market day scene with lots of hustle and bustle. But there were some differences. All the people were dressed in Victorian-style clothes, and the buildings were obviously of the same era; in fact, it was just like stepping into a Dickens novel … with two exceptions. First, everything was clean and spotless. The women's dresses were not muddied and soiled as they should have been. The marketplace was free of litter or any kind of rubbish. Second, the colors were like none I had ever seen here on the earth plane, so bright, so clear and defined.
I stepped out of the tunnel and began to walk slowly through the crowd, turning first to smile at one, then to say hello to another of the people there. None responded to my greetings (did I walk through their world as if a ghost?), but it mattered not to me, for I was so involved in the experience, so thrilled.
As I walked on, my eyes were drawn to a row of shops to my left, and my amazement grew to incredulity. My jaw must have dropped a foot at least as what I saw registered in my brain. A sign above a shop doorway, a sign that read “Rosemary Susan Edwards (Lacemaker),” stared back at me. I knew that I was here, I did not recognize the place, but I knew I was not dreaming. I knew that I had come here via astral travel, and I knew that there was something here to learn. Maybe I had lived here in another life, maybe another time. This was something I had to think about, but one thing I knew for sure was that the shop sign connected with me in some way, for my maiden name was Rosemary Susan Gail Edwards.
Without realizing it, as these thoughts were swimming around in my head I had continued to walk, through the crowd to the edge of the market square. Now I found myself approaching a small arched bridge. On either side of the opening to the bridge stood two ladies. They were dressed totally differently from the others I had seen, and I felt they did not belong somehow. They were very tall, quite large boned, with blond hair pulled back severely from their faces. They wore plain pale gray dresses tied with a cord around the middle.
With some enthusiasm, for my instincts told me that these two would acknowledge my presence, I went forward onto the bridge. The two women followed me, one on either side, and as I walked I asked them, “Tell me, please, can you tell me where I am?”
The lady on my right, in answer to my question, replied, “I'll give you a clue: you are on the A twenty-one.” (In England we have “A” roads, “B” roads, and “M” roads.)
Without realizing it, I had placed my hands on the parapet of the bridge, and as she spoke, the lady placed her hand gently but firmly over my right hand. The shock of feeling
flesh on flesh
—for this was the first time throughout this experience that I had had any sensation of physical contact—threw me off balance. I stared down at her hand on mine and panicked.
“I want to go back,” I called to Grey Eagle, and the next thing I knew I landed with a thud, back in my body, in my own bed, staring at the place I had come from.
Over in the corner of the room, close to the ceiling, I could see what I knew to be the entrance to the tunnel I had just traveled through—a circular moving mass of energy, perfectly round. The only way I can think to describe this energy is for you to visualize a swarm of bees, varying degrees of gray in color, making the buzzing sound that a swarm of bees makes. This is what I saw and heard, and with absolute certainty I knew that somehow I had come from there. I looked at the clock: it registered 6:30
A.M.
The whole experience had taken just fifteen minutes—fifteen minutes, that is, if we gauge time by our standards. But I have learned over the years that time in the spirit world is not measured in the same way that it is here on earth.
I cannot begin to express the excitement I felt about this experience, and I could hardly wait to tell my friends about it. As fantastic as it seems, it really happened, and I have been on many other astral journeys since that time.
Do I understand it? No, not entirely. Do you, the reader? I doubt it very much, but although we may be puzzled as to the way some things work, that doesn't mean they don't happen. Seeing is not always believing, but experiencing things firsthand is. I believe!
It would, of course, have been unthinkable to leave Egypt without visiting the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, so I flew down from Cairo to Luxor for four days.
Never have I visited a more fascinating place, and I discovered there, through my research, just how important the ancient Egyptians considered the afterlife to be. So many of their beliefs tied in with my own that I felt a compatibility grow between us, stronger than time and space, born of a likeness of mind.
It was in Luxor that I began to understand what my guide Grey Eagle had meant by “power”—his answer when I had asked what he thought I had gained by visiting the Pyramid.
I had been staying at the palace of the old King Farouk, which many years ago had been turned into a hotel. My bedroom was large and comfortable, and the view was magnificent. Tall French windows opened onto a small balcony overlooking the river Nile, and across the river, almost close enough to touch, were the great and mysterious-looking hills, behind which lay the burial grounds of the ancient kings and queens of Egypt I had come so far to see.
Often during my short stay in Luxor, I had stood on the balcony outside my bedroom window, looking down on the river below. It fascinated me to watch the boats, some large, some small, and most of them in need of repair. The “floating hotels,” which took tourists on their trip of a lifetime, looked as if they would sink if one or more of their passengers sneezed too hard. But it was the little sailing boats, the feluccas, that really drew my attention. I decided that come what may, I would have a trip on one of those before I flew back to Cairo.
Now this sounded like quite a simple thing to organize, and listening to the young boys who sailed the feluccas, I should have done it on my first day. They wanted only the tourists’ money, my money, but what they didn't tell you was that there was no wind, and no wind meant no sailing. For four days all the little sailing boats lay idle, by the riverbanks. The young boys became more and more desperate, pestering any and every tourist they saw, making it impossible for visitors to take a quiet stroll along the river.
Then came my last day in Luxor, and wind or no wind, I felt I had to keep my promise to myself. The two boys I approached, both of them only in their early teens, couldn't believe their luck and hurried me aboard their small vessel before I changed my mind. For twenty very boring minutes one of the boys pushed the boat along with the aid of a long pole, while the younger of the two pulled us along by grabbing hold of the many boats moored by the side of the river.
“This won't do,” I eventually grumbled to myself, and asked the boys if they would put up the sail and try it that way. After all, there was nothing at all exciting about being pulled and pushed along the Nile.
With exaggerated patience, the older of my two “sailors” explained in broken English the uselessness of a sail without wind, adding with polite assurance that if he could make the wind blow, of course he would, but alas, he could not.
“Well, that's it, then,” I stated quite confidently, adding without a thought of what I was saying: “If you want the wind, then I will make the wind.”
Immediately I became still and spoke to my guide, sending up a silent request to Grey Eagle, positively asking for a wind to blow through the sails on the little boat to make it dance across the water. Silent and still I sat, gazing ahead to where my guide was, and I concentrated all my energies toward helping him. Not once did I doubt that my request would be granted, and sure enough, about ten minutes later I began to see results.
At first I felt a gentle breeze, lightly touching my cheeks, and then fingers playing through my hair. Then the river began to sing as the wind, stronger now, skimmed through the water like stones. Suddenly a gust of wind caught at the sails of our little boat, which had been loosely furled, and they struggled to break free. Seconds later, for as far as the eye could see, the river came alive. With shouts and yells of glee, the natives brought their vessels into the water. Laughing, waving, they called to each other. The waiting was over, Allah was good to them, and they could work again.
The sails now up and blowing full and free in the wind, we went out into the middle of the river. It was glorious and exhilarating, and I chuckled as I watched the busy scene, everyone noisy and happy.
But my crew were silent, a look of doubt and uneasiness on their faces. The older of the two turned a searching, questioning gaze upon me, and I answered his silent inquiry. Looking directly into his eyes, smiling gently, I said quietly: “You wanted the wind, I gave it to you.”
For the remainder of the excursion they were subdued, talking to each other only when necessary, every now and then sending furtive glances my way. And difficult though it was in the confined space we had, forced as they were to struggle for control of the sails, they made sure not to come within three feet of me, at least.
Much later, when I was alone in my room, I thought hard about what had happened and began seriously to contemplate the power and energy it takes to create this kind of phenomenon. In the Pyramid, Grey Eagle had told me that I had gained power, and I hadn't understood.
I think what he really meant was that I had gained knowledge of the power that I already had—the power that all of us possess, the power of the mind. It was up to me now, with his help, to harness that power and to use it in the best way possible—to do God's will. To help me in my daily life and to help me to help others.
Above all else, it must be remembered by all those who have learned to harness such power as this, myself included, that respect of this power is all important.
There is no doubt that through the ages there have been men and women with great power, their own power, people who have used and abused this to control others. It is more than possible to control or influence another's mind, especially if that mind is weak, and it is also possible not only to be constructive and creative, but to be destructive, too. History tells its own tales, of powerful and cruel men and women, kings and queens, holy men, tyrants and rulers, who have used their strength in negative and destructive ways. It also tells of powerful men and women who have been creative and good. All these people have one thing in common: they know their own power, they have known how to use it, they have understood the power of the mind … the most powerful and creative possession we all own.
The power I possess, combined with the power of the universe, enables me to be what I am, to dare to be, to dare to be myself. I have made a vow, a promise to God, to the universe, to all of those in the spirit world. I made this vow a long, long time ago, and it is this. Whatever you may call it, this power that I have, this gift to see, to hear, to communicate, to travel, to heal, I will use this power for good and in the way that the universe demands is the right way—in a way that will heal and ease hearts, bring joy and light and, I truly hope, enlightenment.
H
aving talked of astral travel, and of the power within us, I will now talk of how using that power enables me to see—and to see the future.
But how do I begin this chapter? Knowing that this aspect of my gift is such a curiosity to so many people, knowing that there is a need for some kind of explanation, how do I begin?