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silhouetted perfectly against the sky, like a general surveying the battleground below.
Larry froze, hardly breathing, mesmerized by the most mag- nificent animal he had ever seen—a giant white buffalo. For the next ten minutes, neither of them moved a muscle—Larry, because of numinous awe; the buffalo, because he was made of solid granite.
Eventually, the animal morphed, flickering between life and stone until, in Larry’s mind, it settled on the latter. As the buffalo granted him permission to enter it spoke one word: espavo.
Although Larry’s mind did not understand, his heart did. He continued on, guided only by a soft inner voice. Making his way between large boulders, picking his way up and down rock- strewn hillsides, he walked until he knew he had found it—the place of his next adventure.
He sat for a while in the shade of a juniper, taking an occa- sional sip from his water bottle. He pondered the last twenty- four hours of his life and the way reality—at least as he had known it—was rapidly slipping through his fingers. Again, his heart embraced what his mind could not. Somehow he knew the rest of the journey would be an affair of the heart. Together they would go to strange and wondrous places, meet extraordinary, unpredictable beings, experience delights beyond the ken of rea- son. Yes, Larry and his heart would travel to realms well past the horizon of the mind, and it would be a marriage lasting for all eternity.
“Sounds good to me,” said no one in particular. “What? What?” said the ubiquitous bird. “Huh?” said Larry. “Who said that?”
“I did, of course.” The words seemed to come from the fif- teen-foot tree that was shielding Larry from the sun’s intense
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afternoon rays. “Do you think I’m just here to provide some shade?”
“You can talk?” said Larry. “Though why should I be sur- prised about that? Around here, it seems everything can talk.”
“Everything can, and does,” the juniper replied. “You’ve just never listened before. I gather you’re here to find a treasure of great value?”
“So I’m told.”
“Well, then, you’ve come to the right place. Yes indeedy, you sure have! But first, if we’re going to have true discourse, you should be completely at ease. Why don’t you look around and select a comfortable rock to sit on?”
Resolutely determining to keep reason at bay, Larry surveyed the scene. The sun angled from the left, splitting the bowl-shaped area, scooped out of the hillside, into half shadow, half sun. The talking juniper was rooted right at the line of demarcation, some of its lower limbs already in shadow. The boulders ranged in size from giant twelve-footers down to ones he could pick up if he wanted to. There were a few scrub plants he couldn’t name and a lizard with blotches of color along its back playing among the smaller rocks.
“Actually, I kind of like it right here, it feels good.” Larry was already seated in the middle of the bowl on a medium-sized boulder. “By the way, if we’re going to be talking, perhaps I should introduce myself. I’m Larry Randers. Who, might I ask, are you?”
“Hello, Larry. I know who you are. Zeus told us to expect you. Espavo. As to my name, I don’t know that I’ve ever had one other than Juniperus californica, which has always sounded a bit impersonal. It would be nice, I think, to have one of my own. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to name me.”
Larry was nonplussed. Junie—the first name that popped into his head—sounded so flippant. But what else do you call a talking juniper? His mind raced in all directions searching for political correctness but finding only cul-de-sacs.
The juniper laughed. “‘Junie’ will do just fine. It’s got a nice ring to it. Kind of reminds me of my own.”
“Your own what?” said Larry. “What? What?” echoed the bird.
“Why, rings, of course. I get a new one each year,” said the tree. “It’s my way of recommitting to myself. Most of us trees do it, you know. It keeps us conscious of who we are and why we’re here.
“By the way, you’re sitting in the perfect spot. I’m glad you decided to stay there and didn’t feel compelled to move simply because you were given the option. That’s an important lesson. Well done! As to the other question you’ve been silently mulling over: Espavo is a word from long, long ago within this illusion. It was used for both ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye,’ the way many people now use namaste. Just as the Sanskrit word at a deeper level means ‘I bow to the divine in you,’ espavo also has a more pro- found meaning: ‘Thank you for taking your power.’ Its vibra- tional matrix helps people remember. It helps reconnect them to their rightful place in the Universe.
“You are about to journey into that state of recollection. But first, there are several people you must meet. Without their con- sent and assistance, I’m afraid you won’t be able to travel any further.”
Larry felt a wave of resentment that slowly built to indig- nation, then anger. What kind of craziness was this? What ever happened to Free Will? Who was so mighty, so powerful, so bloody important that they had to be appeased before he could move on? “And who, might I ask, are these omnipotent, omnis-
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cient gatekeepers? And what, exactly, is their price?”
“Quite a performance, I’d say. Ah, the range of human emo- tion—so broad, so sudden, so wonderfully unpredictable. How can mere sounds, shaped into significance by the mind, cause such an immediate, knee-jerk response?”
“All I asked was who is this powerhouse group and what am I expected to do to earn the right of passage,” said Larry, wish- ing he could have do-overs on what he’d said.
“Indeed,” Junie replied, keeping any judgments completely to herself. “I understand you’ve met Rocky, one of the galaxy’s most profound teachers, and that he performed his rap song enjoining you to look into the I’s of infinity. Well, Larry, that’s exactly what we’re about to do. The three I’s—ego, soul, and God—are part of the infinite continuum of I’s. There can be no soul without God—and no ego, or lower self, without soul.
“Imagine yourself as a being expressing itself through all three aspects of the ego/soul/God continuum simultaneously. Try viewing them not in a vertical hierarchy, with God sitting above soul and soul above ego, but as a mélange—a stew, if you will— of three elements, each emitting its own range of color, sound, and energetic signature. Their ratio of activation—or the taste of your particular stew—is simply a function of Awareness. The more your Awareness expands in the egoic realm, the more you can access the sphere of the soul. And the more expansion in the realm of the soul, the closer you are to God, to remerging with All That Is.
“Awareness is like a hot air balloon; it can only rise freely once all the tethers are untied. Then it finds its own way, responding more to the air currents than to the will of its passen- gers or the observers on the ground. Our job is to meet the peo- ple who are keeping your balloon firmly anchored to this reality and see what it will take for them to let you ascend.”
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“You still haven’t answered my question,” Larry said. “Who are these people? And what do they want?”
“These people, Larry, are you. Each one is a different part of you, a subpersonality, holding tightly to a singular point from which it views. As to the price they will exact to release the teth- ers, I’m not able to say.”
“What? What? . . . What? What?” The bird spoke before Larry had a chance. Junie chuckled softly.
“It really isn’t all that complicated. The egoic complex of third-density beings—humans, to you—on your side of the Veil is the sum of its parts. These parts are the many voices in your head that have been directing your life—essentially without your knowledge, and certainly without your conscious consent. They tell you how to react, what to do, and when to do it. Your ‘inner outburst,’ to coin a phrase—the swell of negative emotion when you believed someone had the power to determine your fate—is an excellent example. As soon as you felt threatened, one of your parts—let’s call it your Warrior—stepped forward to defend.
“Larry, you have a host of characters in your employ; all humans do. In fact, you could call these subpersonalities the defining characteristic of human beings. They make up your per- sona. The extraordinary range and diversity of your emotional scale is essentially what separates you from all other life forms on this planet. You and your fellow humans add spice to the cos- mic Consciousness, and we appreciate this beyond our ability to express it. Each of you can be compared to a great orchestra with thousands of talented musicians.
“Your particular array of voices is what makes you unique, what defines how you interact with the world. All emotions are experienced through them. All thought, all belief takes place within them. Let’s meet some of them, shall we?”
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Larry nodded in assent. “You mean all the voices in my head are actually parts of me?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. For example, let’s take a brief flyover of your marriage and subsequent breakup with Marianne.”
“Ouch,” Larry said.
“Struck a nerve, have we? Good. We’ll have some juicy mate- rial to work with. Let’s go back to when you first met her. What attracted you the most?”
Larry closed his eyes. A small smile played across his face. “She was beautiful, incredibly intelligent, and very sexy. No, it was more than that. I liked her drive, her wit, her ambition. It felt great being with her—going on picnics, the movies, making love. It’s like the two of us were perfect together.”
“Okay, then what happened? Why did you split up?” “Interesting question,” Larry answered. “I often wonder about it myself. I guess the directions each of us chose in life sim- ply pulled us apart. She got more involved in her job, writing articles and several books that made it to the New York Times bestseller list. Both of us began to travel. Marianne’s success took her on the promotion circuit, doing the rounds of radio, televi- sion, and magazine features. My partnership at Cresswell, Timmons meant getting more involved with some top-level inter- national clients. At the end, we were speaking to each other on the phone more often than in person. We still loved each other but were no longer in love.”
“How did you feel about that?” Junie asked.
“Wow, talk about voices! Over the past two years I’ve felt a thousand different things. Part of me was angry, resenting Mari’s choosing her career over our relationship. Another part was sad, feeling I’d lost my lover and best friend. Another part made me
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feel like I’d failed completely, that it was my fault, that I wasn’t good enough so she left.”
Larry sat in silence for a while, and Junie made no move to interrupt. “You know, there’s actually a part of me that’s relieved. I have this gnawing sense that I need to be doing some- thing entirely different with my life, and if I was still married to her, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I sense that being here with you and Zeus is part of that.”
“Excellent, Larry,” Junie said. “You’ve got a great grasp of what I meant when I said your psyche is composed of many parts. If, as I said, your egoic complex is like an orchestra, each of your voices is a different instrument. When you listen to the same note played on a violin and an oboe, how can you tell the instruments apart?”
“That’s easy,” Larry answered. “Each makes a different sound. They have distinctive timbres.”
“And so it is with the voices residing in your head. Each one speaks with a unique tone or vibrational quality that is its iden- tifying signature. In your brief recap of your relationship with Marianne, you’ve identified several of these inner voices, some adult, some childlike. For example, one of your child voices was sad and lonely, feeling unwanted and abandoned. The other child was stamping its feet in anger, blaming Marianne for considering her needs above its own.
“Then you introduced the voice of the Critic, who feels that no matter what you do, it never measures up. The Critic always finds fault. Just like What-What, it cannot do otherwise; that’s all it knows. One of your voices sounded almost cosmic in nature, holding the overview of the greater plan. If you listen carefully to the subtleties beyond the meaning of the words, you can distinguish each voice’s energetic pattern, much as you
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distinguish a violin from a cello or an oboe from a French horn, even if they play the same passage.
“Communication within the egoic matrix is quite complex. You assume, when someone speaks, that the voice is coming from them. In fact, it rarely does.”
“What? What? . . . What? What?” The shrill cry, echoing among the boulders, made Junie laugh.
“Am I going too fast, Larry?”
“No. It all made sense until you said that the person whose mouth is moving isn’t the person speaking.”
“I see. Let me try to arrange the twenty-six letters of your alphabet more effectively. In other words, let me try to put it in other words.” Junie broke into a fit of giggling at her own play on words. Larry, still weathering the emotional aftermath of reviewing the pain of Marianne, had difficulty seeing the humor of anything.
“Let me back up a bit,” Junie said, once she had recovered. “All humans are made up of a host of voices or subpersonalities. A handful of these play major roles and dominate the individ- ual’s personality—let’s call these the primaries. The many other voices play subordinate roles—some active, some disowned or suppressed. The primaries are usually formed in early childhood. They’re the ones that worked best to get the surrounding adults to feed or hold the infant or fulfill its other needs, since it cannot fend for itself.
“A primary personality can emerge from the patterning of any one of the subpersonalities—for example, the Pleaser, who gets attention by gurgling and smiling; or the Crier, who com- plains and demands; or the Sickly Child, who discovers that chronic illness brings the care it needs. Once formed, the primar- ies generally stay in charge until the day the person dies. If you
could view vignettes from a person’s life, spaced, say, three years apart, you’d see that precious little changes except their size, the clothes they wear, and their external circumstances.”
“I know,” said Larry. “One of my favorite tricks at impor- tant meetings is to visualize all the people at the table sitting at little desks in their third grade classes. It kind of defuses the ten- sion for me, levels the playing field.”
“Very clever,” said Junie. “Instinctively you know there is more to those people than what they choose to project, and you use this knowledge to advantage. You see, at the egoic level pre- cise communication is virtually impossible. A person almost always speaks through whatever subpersonality is front and cen- ter in the moment. The listener, too, hears through the filters of its active subpersonality.
“For example, from what I understand about your relation- ship with Marianne, I’d bet there were times when she seemed like a reprimanding mother and you played the hurt child.”
“Yes. But not always,” Larry added defensively.
“Of course not always. The two of you no doubt had worked out a well-orchestrated dance with many variations. Sometimes you played the role of judgmental father, and, from what you’ve led me to believe, Marianne would act like a rebellious daugh- ter.”
“You’ve got that one right,” Larry asserted.
“So when Marianne spoke, who was actually talking? And when you listened and reacted, which one of your parts was pushing your buttons? You see, the mouth may move and the words may come out, but that doesn’t mean either party even knows who’s in charge.”
“But if I’m not any of my parts, then who am I?” Larry asked.
“Always remember your ‘tudes and look into the I’s of infin-
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ity,” Junie answered. “You are the sum of your parts and much, much more. At the egoic level, you are every one of the instru- ments in your orchestra as well as an important character you haven’t met yet—the Conductor, your Aware Ego. In a very real sense, your orchestra has been playing on its own while your Conductor is bound, gagged, and stuffed into the bottom of the Conductor’s platform. Their sound may be pleasant enough to get by, but after a while it gets repetitious. Your life assumes a patterning about as diverse and adventurous as flowered wall- paper.
“The Conductor doesn’t play an instrument himself. Instead—when he’s on the platform and in control—he directs the symphony, determining which instrument should play which passage. Every one of your personalities is vital. The trick is never to erase, bury, or change any of them, even the Critic—just as you would never go and bash a cello simply because it played out of turn. Rather, embrace all the voices, blessing them for their gifts. Appreciate that each one perceives from only a nar- row point of view, and that you created each one to cope with certain circumstances. If some of them seem obstructive or coun- terproductive, keep in mind one of your illusion’s operative axioms: ‘Every problem arises as the solution to a previous problem.’”
“Then, how do I untie myself and get back onto the platform with my baton in hand?” Larry asked.
“If I may borrow one of Zeus’s favorite expressions, ‘piece of