It was late July, and two months had passed since Lisbeth said good-bye to her two close friends, Ellen and Katie; which had followed their powerfully transformative, nearly catastrophic, retreat weekend together at Lisbeth’s home. Now, hanging up her cell phone, Lisbeth sat transfixed in the breakfast nook of her kitchen. She gazed distractedly out the tall window overlooking the nook’s granite-topped table on which lay the remnants of a Thompson’s tea biscuit, a few orange slices, and an empty water glass. The call had been from Ellen, and images of their retreat flowed again through Lisbeth’s mind – the arrival of her two friends at her home; and, the seemingly fortuitous synchronicity of their ‘in and out’ retreat theme when they approached the threshold of the flowered-bedecked gazebo in the backyard. When the image of Katie struggling in the raging, storm-turbulent waters of Durango Creek passed before her mind’s eye, Lisbeth frowned slightly, brushed a strand of her braided hair from her face, and tugged uneasily at the loose-fitting jersey top covering her linen yoga pants. She reached for her water glass, and seeing that the glass was empty, she settled for sucking an orange slice, then grimaced at its tartness. Sensing her discomfort, Jumper, who had been lounging at her feet, looked up at her – his black eyes alert and intense. Simultaneous with Jumper’s intentional look at her, more images of Katie’s rescue from the Durango by Jumper rose in Lisbeth’s mind, distracting her from the taste of the orange, and these were followed by an image of Katie at dinner the next evening. This last image comforted Lisbeth. She remembered her sense of awe at the deep change in Katie’s demeanor and how it prompted a very meaningful insight for Lisbeth into the overall process of their retreat. At the time, she described this insight to Katie and Ellen and, now, she recalled her words clearly: “We are moon children and we have an incomprehensible struggle to return to our former glory. Our souls are asleep and our wakefulness, in this life, is actually our souls, dreaming. Again, one of my favorite teachers, Kahlil Gibran confirms this idea in his classic, The Prophet, by stating: ‘Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.’ It seems to me that, until we pass through the Silent and the Dark and awaken in our souls, we are fated to creep endlessly up the face of Ellen’s purgatory mountain. And some of us, many of us, keep sliding back down the cliff into that hell.” While she pondered her words, Lisbeth reached down to scratch Jumper behind his ears, sending an unspoken message of gratitude for his ever-present companionship. Jumper’s eyes glistened and his tail thumped the floor in appreciative acknowledgement of her gesture. Continuing to reflect, Lisbeth contemplated the symbol of the moon and its metaphysical meanings for her. She knew that, since ancient times, the moon has been seen as a representation of the feminine principle in nature – open, receptive, genuine. To her, this meant that the moon is no more and no less than what it is – basic and practical and, ostensibly, transparent when full. She saw the moon as a metaphor for authenticity – in a cloudless sky its shine is radiant, clear, and illuminating. She believed this authentic quality was compromised only to the extent the moon’s face was obscured. So, a clear moon – ergo, a clear soul – is obtained when the clouds are swept away. And, Lisbeth believed Katie had a cloud-shattering experience during their retreat that directly revealed to her the hidden light in her soul. Yet, Katie herself, acknowledged that the light she had discovered within herself still had significant darkness to contend with. And Lisbeth knew another name for the Moon card in the Thoth Tarot system she studied, was the Karma card, which meant ‘more work needed to be done.’ For Lisbeth, nowhere was this idea of ‘more work needed’ any more apparent than with her current burden of knowing Jodie was going to die. Following the retreat, she had delayed immediately telling Joe about Jodie; but, two weeks later, Jodie preempted her when she came to Lisbeth and Joe in their bedroom during the middle of the night to tell her parents that she was going home.
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