She Knows

Harp, "You won't come and cut my wood?"

"Sure I'll cut your wood, but not on Sunday!"

"Well, I'll just get your dad to do it, then. He's not the bloody hypocrite you are!"

But Jack doesn't give in, and Harp's wood gets cut over two Saturdays. Jack is surprised - there's no significant resentment or any unpleasant repercussions. He finds yet again, it's not at all difficult to deal on an even footing, even to manipulate, adults. Strange, that such a thing should be possible. Adults do not seem very adult. He wonders where his self-assurance comes from. It seems almost outrageous that he feels justified, sometimes almost compelled, to question and even face down grownups, whom he should regard with respect, who should by all civilized standards and force of instilled custom, dominate him.

And he ponders his origins. Who were his parents? What was his mother like? What sort of person was his father? And why did they abandon him. Are they alive? What is happening in Bhutan. Did Brother Andre locate his monks? He wishes he could find out some of these things. He should write that letter!

/// "Hello, Jack." It's that lady in blue with long dark hair again, in the same park. Deborah, right. "Oh, hello Deborah. How are you?" "Great. And you've been doing better, Jack, at being yourself and not fretting about what name you use. It's a bit awkward having people call you Vick and thinking of yourself as Jack, isn't it? But you can handle it. The experience of working with the men building that barn has been good for your sense of self and for your self image, both." "You know about that. Yes, I guess so. It worried me a lot at first, but it got better after a while, when I could tell they weren't going to be difficult about it." "So, what's on your mind?" "What's on my mind?" "Yes, what brought about this meeting?" "But I didn't ask for a meeting! Not that I don't want one, of course. The talk we had before was very interesting. Although I'm not so sure very much of it came with me when I woke up." "You asked for this meeting. You asked for it by being very concerned about something, to the point that your questions brought me here. I got the message, you see, I'm not sure how. As to not remembering what we talk about when you wake up, that's also part of the way this is designed. The new knowledge and the better attitudes are in your mind, and they're available to you below consciousness. They will become conscious as you search for them, and as you make them real or realize them, in your waking and self-aware life. But don't worry too much about it, they play their part in your thinking whether you know it or not. They'll always be there for you." "I'm learning in spite of myself? Without knowing it?" "In this state, as in any state, you learn if you want to learn, and you jolly well know it, too." "I guess so. Sorry." "That's okay. Let's see, you were bothered by the treatment Tonto receives, overshadowed as he is by the superior Lone Ranger. And you were thinking about farmers, here and in Bhutan and in Holland, about how independent they are. Two opposite cases of self development. Right?" "Yes. That's it exactly!" "Someone in Tonto's position, which is like that of a child in relation to his parents, is overwhelmed by the superiority of the dominating person, and his development of self is affected in one of two ways; he either rebels, and forms an extra strong identity, or he submits and hardly forms one at all. Now Tonto is not a very good example, being a fiction to begin with; he achieves very little reality. But with children it's more apparent. As a child gets older and enters the teenage years the choice of rebel becomes easier to make because of the growing awareness and increasing influence of alternate models in the peer group and in the local culture's heroes. And that's the way it should be. Parents complain about rebellious children, but the rebellion is often a sign of a healthy growth, be it ever so annoying." "I can see that. But what about the farmers?" "Farmers the world over spend long days by themselves in the fields. They carry on their interior monologue the whole day long with virtually no opposition. After they arrive at a point of view, what they mostly do is just develop it and justify it to themselves in ever greater detail. The result is that a different world view emerges with each farmer; they are eccentric, the way older persons often are, and for the same reason, the absence of a countervailing opinion. With the farmers, because they work alone, so no one is there to disagree, and with the older persons because no one much bothers to talk with them anymore. As a certain wit put it, their inconsistencies sharpen with use. In either case, the self that emerges is not well balanced, and will not likely inspire much confidence for any luminous wisdom, but there is often so much strength in the integrity, consolidated as if by long relentless sedimentation, that we still admire this sort of person, and we typically use words like doughty, dour, stoic, and staunch to describe the farmer." "We do, don't we? But this discussion, interesting as it is, doesn't seem to me so critical. Am I missing something?" "No. You have some struggles ahead of you yet in this regard, and hopefully this little talk will help." "I see. But what about you. I keep wondering, while you're talking, who or what you are and why you're doing this. Also, how do you know the things you tell me, and how reliable are they? Can I always put my faith in what you tell me?" "Well, that's quite a tall order. Let's take one at a time. I can see that thinking of me as Deborah helps only a little. I am an incorporeal being whose function it is right now, for both our sakes, mine as well as yours, to provide this teaching service. So don't feel uncomfortable about taking up my time, or imposing on me in any way - we both benefit from these encounters. Okay? How do I know the things I teach about, and how reliable are they? I know what I teach the same way you know what you know. I have some advantages in not being quite so restricted by time as you are, but by and large the process is the same. No matter in what state or from what history, all created beings learn in essentially the same way, by adding to and refining more or less rudimentary beginnings, even though such beginnings can vary tremendously from one situation to another. I expect you're wondering if what I tell you has some sort of infallibility. I admonish you, it does not. The notion of infallibility is a sort of echo from alchemy and astrology. There are elements of truth and adumbrations of greater things, but no absolutes. This side of Paradise, from our point of view, there are very few absolutes, and that applies especially to the three dimensional worlds of space and time such as this one." "You mean there's other kinds of worlds?" "Yes. Many other kinds." "What are they like? And where are they? Can we see any of them in the sky at night?" "I think it would be premature for me to say a great deal about that, Jack. Partly because you're not ready, and partly because I don't know very much about it. If this becomes very important to you, someone else with more of the needed knowledge will come to explain those things to you in this same way." "You said you're an incorporeal being. Does that mean you come from another type of world?" "That's a good question. And the answer is going to be confusing to you. I come from a world like your earth, but I've been working or growing my way towards Paradise since that time, and that does involve long sojourns on such other worlds. But here too we are straining the outer bounds of my mandate with you. It may be that we're almost done, you and I. It'll depend on what may trouble you in the near future." "Do you teach others this way?" "Oh yes. Many. That's one reason I try to put as much as possible into each of our sessions; I can only see you when the need is great enough. But don't let that give you the idea that we have to hurry, or that what we say is seriously critical, that we might miss something. All this is under good management, and nothing is ever lost. What isn't done now, if it needs doing, can be done later. Will be done later. If not by you and me, then by you and another helper. You understand?" "I think so. Tell me, though, what sort of being are you? You say an incorporeal being. Why would I not expect that? I wondered before, what would happen if I tried to touch you. You seem to be solid, your feet push the grass, and your dress moves with the wind. Please tell me something more about incorporeal beings." "If you tried to touch me," reaching out and putting her hand on his cheek, "you would find I have a body like yours." "But you said you were incorporeal!" "Yes, but you see, that's the interesting part. Right now and here, you are also incorporeal. Your body is asleep in your bed. The part of you with me here is something like your mind, or your soul. And the same goes for me, except that my three dimensional body has gone to dust ages ago." "You're an angel?" "No, I'm not an angel. In some ways I'm a bit like an angel, but angels are not evolutionary in origin the way we are; they never had bodies such as ours. What I am I cannot put to you in a simple word because your language is almost totally time-space determined, and has no word that will serve the purpose." "If you came from a world like earth, but it wasn't earth, how is it you're speaking English to me?" "Good point, Jack. It takes time to learn a language, and in this long journey ample time is available for any purpose we need it for. I speak English to you because you speak English. I learned it so I could speak with you, and with others who speak English. So you see, there isn't anything mysterious about it." Sighing, "I guess not. Thank you for your patience." "You're welcome. Tonight my patience was exercised. But that's how we all learn, isn't it? Good night, Jack." "Good night." \\\ With his increasing height and the growth in his legs, Jack notices that at school his right knee pries up against the bottom of the desk while his left one still swings free.