One day, at four in the morning, Mary Sparrowdancer was awakened by a Light Being, who took her on a journey into the Light, leaving her physical body behind. Over the next nine months he appeared to her frequently, asking questions, questioning answers, leaving small white stones as evidence of his visits. Here, Mary Sparrowdancer describes one of those visits:
That night, I went to bed with a sense of great anticipation in the hope that I might meet with the man again. I awoke the following morning with an equally great sense of disappointment. Nothing happened during the night – other than comfortable rest. I did not realize at the time that this was an important and carefully observed portion of the plan. Rest was as important as exhilaration.
On the afternoon of the next day – or perhaps it was even the day after that – as I stood in the kitchen looking into the refrigerator, I became aware of an exotic fragrance. I wondered for a moment which food had suddenly taken on this subtle scent of myrrh and spices, and then after finding the fresh bread dough I was in search of, I closed the fridge and walked to the stove. The fragrance was still present.
Maybe I had left a jar of spices uncovered, I reasoned, and turning around to begin a search for the source of the fragrance, I found myself looking directly into the eyes of the man from the light. He smiled, and so did I. I was thrilled to see him, and was immediately filled with a massive sense of love, and of happiness.
As I stood in front of him, I noted that he was about six feet in height. I also noticed that his white garment appeared to be a sort of sun-bleached linen with glowing threads. Along with the fragrance of myrrh and spices, he smelled like the faint ozone of a thunderstorm, and like clean sheets dried by the sun. He smelled wonderful. I breathed it in, deeply.
‘It's a good day to take a trip,’ he said, ‘would you like to go for a ride?’
‘Oh, yes!' I replied immediately, wondering what sort of vehicle we would be using.
‘We'll take your car,’ he said.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To the beach – St. Marks.’
Reality hit me. ‘Well, actually, I can't,’ I said. ‘My children are taking their naps right now, and I have no one to stay with them.’
‘Their father will take care of them,’ he said. He was still smiling.
‘No, he's at work.’ The man glanced over at the kitchen telephone. Somewhat reluctantly, I phoned Craig.
‘Hi,’ I said, ‘can you come home and mind the kids for a few hours?’
‘Why?’ he asked.
‘I have to go to the beach,’ I answered.
‘What do you mean you “have to go to the beach”?’
‘I just do. I have to go.’
‘Have you been seeing things again?’
‘No.’ Actually I was answering truthfully, because ‘things' suggested plural sightings, and I was merely seeing one singular ‘thing’ – the man who was standing next to me as I made the phone call.
I was somewhat surprised when Craig immediately agreed to come home. He arrived shortly.
During our wait for him, the man and I sat in silence in the living room. He appeared to be deep in thought. This was not an uncomfortable block of time to sit in silence, and I did not feel compelled to fill it with meaningless dialogue. It was a peaceful silence. He graciously pretended not to notice as I took this opportunity to once again stare shamelessly at him.
When Craig arrived, the man and I walked from the living room to the kitchen and I studied Craig's face for any sign that he was able to see the man standing next to me. There were no signs that he could see anyone other than myself as I left for the beach.
Cause and effect
The drive to the beach took approximately forty-five minutes, and as we neared the coast, I became aware of the many butterflies that were lying as casualties in the road. September is the month of their great migration, and they always seem to prefer the openness offered by the roads and highways, innocently oblivious to the fact that those highways had been constructed for vehicles whose weight was measured in hard tons.
Entering the St. Marks refuge area, the man spoke.
‘Go slowly, very slowly,’ he said. ‘If you are going too fast, you will not hear the answers to your own questions.’
I slowed the car down, thankful that we seemed to be the only ones – other than the butterflies – bound for the beach that afternoon, but the man insisted that I slow down even further until we were barely moving at all.
The road was bordered by the large trees of the National Forest. The grey asphalt stretched out in front of us, dotted the whole way with a rainbow of colours formed by the tattered wings of those whose journeys had come to an abrupt end.
‘Stop and gather each butterfly,’ he said. I did as he asked, travelling only a few feet at a time, stopping the car, jumping out and retrieving handfuls of bodies and wings. Soon, the console between our two front seats was filled with a mound of yellow, orange, blue, and iridescent black butterflies, some still quivering as they clung to their small, but individually treasured threads of life. When we reached the beach, I stopped the car near the lighthouse, and sat for a moment looking at the dead and dying butterflies.
‘They are beautiful creations. Gentle. They have harmed no one. Yet they have all been killed,’ he said.
‘Wait a minute,’ I protested, ‘they weren't killed on purpose! No one deliberately killed them!’
‘Nevertheless, the outcome is the same. They have been killed.’
‘But it was by accident!’
‘Intent does not necessarily alter the law of cause and effect,’ he said. ‘The butterfly does not die because he is being punished for trying to use a road that he does not own. The butterfly is loved unconditionally. He dies because he cannot survive the impact of a car – cause and effect. Should the deaths of the butterflies result in a decrease in pollination, the crop loss would not be upon you as a punishment from God for having killed the butterflies. You are loved unconditionally. The crop loss would be upon you because of cause and effect. Come with me,’ he said, his voice gentle and inviting.
Time to evolve
We walked down along the beach. The tide was low, and the beach was fragrant with the tidal scents of salt, seaweed, and an occasional horseshoe crab drying in the sun. Small waves barely larger than ripples splashed in quiet laps onto the sand. Sandpipers waited for the shallow waves to retreat, and then ran down quickly on stick legs to probe the wet sand for morsels. As each small wave approached, they ran quickly back up to the dry sand again to wait – piping tiny sounds the whole way. It was as though the object of the afternoon's game was to run as fast as legs would carry them, back and forth along the shoreline, all the while keeping their feet dry. We walked in silence for a while, watching them, as they sometimes ran ahead of us on the beach, piping, stick legs barely visible with speed. Seven pelicans glided by just over the waters, sailing motionless on low air currents in a soundless V formation.
‘It is time,’ he said.
‘Time for what?’
‘Time for man to evolve.’
‘But I told you, we are not a primitive society, we are evolved.’
‘Then give me an example of a primitive society,’ he said.
Without hesitation, I answered, ‘The ancient Aztecs.’
He stopped walking and looked at me, puzzled, ‘The Aztecs?’
‘Yes. Primitive societies like to live in jungles. They can still be found there.’
‘How, then, does a primitive society differ from your own society?’
‘Their concepts are tribal and unsophisticated,’ I began. He nodded, listening.
‘Their religious concepts are bizarre, and based on folklore and myths – they believe they can appease their gods by carrying out strange rituals. They even kill children. They wipe out other villages. They...' I talked uninterrupted for several minutes listing many points that set a ‘primitive’ society apart from my own. He did not once interrupt me, nor did he comment in any way.
When I finished talking I realized that in naming all of the differences between a primitive society and my society, I had named all of the similarities between the two. I had, in fact, given a strong argument favouring the Aztecs’ moral and spiritual sophistication over that of my own society.
Walking once more in silence, I wondered how he had tricked me into concluding out loud that I was a member of a tribal society that was not only primitive, but was also powerful, warlike, ritualistic, and out of control. Then I realized that he knew how to use silence as a tool for teaching.
‘It is time for you to evolve,’ he said, ‘and to heal the Earth.’
‘Heal the Earth?’ I asked.
‘The Earth is in need of healing,’ he said, ‘are you not the caretakers?’
‘Well, yes. I guess we are, but this is too much of a mess to expect us to do anything about it at this point. We can't possibly heal it ourselves. We need some outside help.’
‘Yours is a society that over-consumes,’ he said in a quiet tone that had no judgmental sting, and therefore did not cause me to rise up defensively. ‘The by-product of over-consumption is waste. The Earth is suffering from the effects of waste.’
‘But how can we do anything about this?’
‘Stop wasting.’
We turned back now. He was looking down at the sand, his hands clasped behind his back as we walked.
Begin it now
‘When you return from the desert, gather together a small group of people,’ he said, ‘tell them to select one day of each week, and to select a time on that day to sit quietly and consume nothing but the air they breathe – use no water, burn no candles, consume nothing. They do not need to meet as a group in order to do this. They can do it in their own homes, and select their own times. It does not have to be a long time; any time will do. Tell them to use this time to think. Think about the good things that bring them joy and happiness. Think of ways that they might fill their lives with joy, and ways to help heal the Earth. Tell them that if they will do this, a healing of the Earth will begin.’
This struck me as being quite humorous – overly simple – and a short laugh escaped.
‘First of all,’ I said, ‘I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I don't do public speaking. I'm not into that. Plus, I wouldn't have a clue about how to gather a group together – I wouldn't know who to gather. Second, there's no way I can tell anyone that a handful of people can begin a healing of the Earth! It would be – well, it would be misleading.’
He stopped walking and looked at me. ‘If you suffer a wound – an injury,’ he said quietly, ‘is it not the effort of a few tiny cells that brings about the healing of the wound? What would happen without the effort of those few cells?'
I had never thought about it that way, but he was correct. His sudden focus on something extremely small doing a job so very large and important caused another shift in my perception.
‘Well, yes,’ I said, ‘that’s right – just a few tiny cells.’ The job was not merely large and important. At a basic level, life itself depended upon a few tiny cells coming forward to do it.
‘Do you not have capabilities at least as great as a tiny cell?' he asked.
‘Yes,’ I answered, barely audible.
He nodded.
We stood for a while and looked out into the Gulf at the sparkling water, or, at least I looked out into the Gulf at the sparkling water. When I glanced at my teacher, I saw that he was standing there with his eyes closed. He was looking at something else entirely.
Opening his eyes, he began walking again at an unhurried pace, and I followed. ‘When you return from the desert,’ he said, ‘a small gathering of people will be waiting to hear what you have to say. Tell them this,’ he said. With that, he vanished, and I was left on the beach alone with the pipers, the low tide, and sunlight glimmering in jewelled flashes on a quietly moving sea. A laughing gull cried in the distance.
I walked back to the car, then drove home accompanied by the butterflies that filled the console.
As the miles passed, their silent presence filled my mind with thoughts about unconditional love, cause and effect, and the importance of small efforts.
From The Love Song of the Universe, copyright 2001 by Mary Sparrowdancer, published in the USA by Hampton Roads Publishing Company.
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