Rings of Time: The Once and Present Queen

By Michael John

After her miraculous return from the dead and what that meant to those in power, Arina Sophia Meran, well known as professional model, social reformer, fundraiser, mystic, and homeless advocate, becomes the target of assassination and clandestine attempts to silence her truth and eliminate her life.
Arina remembers through dreams and other parallel transcendental experiences while she was dead the life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, a saint that should by birth have been a Roman Empress in the 13th century. She realizes that her present life is an opportunity to restore what was lost in the past including her memories, her mate, her own life giving talents, and her very regal place in the grand order of Life.
The appearance of Elizabeth/Arinas soul mate further develops her intuitive ability to see through her lens of time. As their personal transformation and union evolve, so does everyone else that is fortunate enough to see or hear about her. The collective force of this charismatic wake coalesces into a right-relation, right government, nation-wide occupation that awakens people into democratic behavior and exposes the lies and false faith used to erase care and charity from humanity.
Set in present day California and medieval German and Hungarian castles, England, and at the White House in Washington, D.C. Arinas manifestation of health and unexplainable phenomenon confirm the knowledge that secret forces fear: she is the re-Sourcement and the inspiration that will bring about long over-due personal and political changes.
Will the once Goddess and present Arina ignite a revolution or will the hidden aristocracies of the world end her life?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Nov 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452553665

Michael John

Michael John is a retired Master Mariner. In a full career at sea he commanded a wide range of ships across the world. Isabella is his second novel of three published books. Much of the historical background has been drawn from family records. Michael John has a daughter, twin sons and seven grandchildren He sails his own traditional boat and lives on the river Tamar.

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Copyright © 2011 Michael John

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-5367-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-5368-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-5366-5 (e)

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2012913003

Balboa Press rev. date: 12/20/2012

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

The Waking

CHAPTER TWO

The Dreaming of the Dreamer

CHAPTER THREE

The Androgyny Awakens

CHAPTER FOUR

Refashioning Reality

CHAPTER FIVE

The Garden with the Goddess

CHAPTER SIX

The Journey

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Beginning

EPILOGUE

"Know that this day a star is born in Hungary

Whose brightness will shine upon the whole world!

The Dominion will be upon Her…

…She will be called, Arina, Sophia, Elizabeth,

Beautiful Mother of all,

Weaver of the World,

Goddess of Goddesses, Giver of Strength,

Framer of fiats, Lady Liberty,

Flame of Heaven and Earth,

She shall open the Womb; free men from the tomb!

Given in marriage to the Compliment,

Her affection is the source of passion.

Her grace is the library of human memory.

Acquaintance with Her

Will establish the soul for the eternal experience.

Yet they will deny Her reign and cast Her into shame,

Her power forsaken and her love defamed,

Her spiritual authority unrightfully claimed,

And the world’s order left in complete disarray.

Empress - destined to but shall not be!

She will lose Her children and be cast into the street;

Later to be completely dismembered

From her head to her feet;

Her bones buried in the darkest vaults,

Utterly forgotten, never honored in spirit, nor in deed.

With another turn of the rings of time, She who begets all

Will return with the one; wed the shards of her many scions together again.

Her soul, her Illuminates, and her descendents

Will again unite upon the dark ruler’s stage.

Declared by The Magician and Messenger Klingsohr,

he who is borne by spirit and clouds,

on the third day following her birth in Hungary

to a legion of poets, pagans, musicians and nobility

assembled in Germany at the Wartburg Castle

on the midsummer night of July 7, 1207.

PROLOGUE

1218 AD Germany

Throughout the journeys, from lifetime to lifetime, from castle to castle, the horse-drawn carriages had conveyed her over the old Roman roads many times. This time, as an Emanation of the Original, the Silence had conceived in her a perfect form. And each lifetime, within the crackling imaginal storm on the descending spiral from the high places, she encountered an energy that would if it could consume her and the dream she dreamed.

But was she in the Dream – or was she the Dream dreaming? Which, was often her question? In which world? - was often the answer.

Desiring to know the source of Her creation, She separated herself from the One, Her Consort, and traversed the Immensity without reference to or memory of Her Origin. From a condition of unutterable beatitude she undertook the breathless and senseless descent into the finite world. She arrived with the liberated consciousness, and added link after link to the fetter binding the attribute-less, eternal substance to Her flesh as she animated the one child’s body.

There, the child’s body encountered the limit. Was this one of the hundred thousand lifetimes or a single experience of a future from a reoccurring past? Disconnected from the Creative Aeons this world was often mistaken for the Origin. Dominated by the impressions of the senses, surrounded by the confusion of the world’s pain, sorrow, and greed, she risked complete annihilation, but the Sight was with her. With her from the beginning, One undivided from Her appeared in the world with her. Their union revealed the luminous Aeons that were in their accompaniment. Embodying this re-insouling she knew that her passions were Life’s plan. The more she surrendered individuation, the less she confused cause for effects and the more, in her, Life found perfect integrity of Being.

All affections and intentions, all emotions and perceptions, everything was – this! Aeons were using her passions to re-join the separated and her life to illustrate the way.

She assembled all past and future experiences in a single consciousness and every soul she encountered received the true vision of grace, unity, purpose, and knowledge. A general knowledge of her would lead to a renaissance of human spirit, but those vested in personal security interest would find threat in her. Finding and destroying her and others like her became the work of every Inquisitor.

She was reclined comfortably on the black leather carriage seats; she slept as if a trance were about her. Always, but invisibly, in the color of the sky or the sparkles on the River Danu, the truth was with her.

She was born eleven years earlier in 1207, as Princess Elizabeth Andech Meran, the first fruit of a great harvest, she was the only child of the Hungarian King, Andreas II and his Queen, Gertrude von Meran.

The three-year-old Elizabeth was given for marriage to Louis, the son of Hermann, Landgraf of Thuringia and heir to Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Descendent of the Belgian Count Godfrey de Bouillon and the great-granddaughter of the Emperor Charlemagne and Helen she was the destined world Regent. The granddaughter of the Princess of Antioch, Constance de Hauteville and the troubadour Raymond de Merovee of Potiers she was the spiritual Sovereign.

With family ties to the Kings and Queens of Scotland, France, Hungary, and Jerusalem, Elizabeth found herself familiar with the sacred ways of Diana, the Essene traditions, the romantic Sufi mysticism, intermingled with the imaginative magic of the Celtic Druids and their forbearers the Pics. One of the Genuine, her genealogy was known and recorded from Mary Magdalene to David and back to the Garden of Eden to Eve.

As the common horse drawn black carriage rolled through Eisenach’s gates, it pressed through the traffic and peasants moving toward the Cathedral. As the carriage abruptly halted, Elizabeth stirred, but she was so much in the future-perfect state that neither the unruly crowd in the church square awakened or blemished her absorption in the dream.

Hedwig, the Countess of Poland and sister of Elizabeth’s mother, heavily cloaked in her own magic, made sure her prodigy niece would stay warm by gently tucking a scarf under her chin. The three spirals on her silver necklace sparkled momentarily. She held her hands over the child, whispered a final invocation for her safety, and turned. Then, like a dancer, she pirouetted through the carriage doors, glided down the black and silver steps onto the cobblestone street. Under the feeble crescent moon, she blended with the ivy covered church wall. The only sign of her passing was the flicker of a distant candle as the small back door to the sanctuary opened and shut.

A beam of moonlight feathering through the crack in the curtain illuminated Elizabeth’s dark complexion and curly dark hair. Elizabeth’s eyes blinked open to see hundreds of torches waving above the people gathered at St. Catherine’s cathedral. Then she saw the shackled prisoner fall . . . and the bleeding wounds beneath his tattered old cape . . . the Priest, his ominous crimson robes and lofty cross . . . the black hooded executioners . . . the mob parting for them to pass.

Eisenach, a small village at the base of Wartburg castle, on the northern slopes of the Thuringian Mountains of central Germany was unfamiliar with executions or persecutions. Peasants and privileged alike had been engaged by the new canons authorizing death and torture for practicing magic or the curing of illnesses. For hundreds of years the people had flourished on herbs and practices of ancient doctors and traditions, but the Inquisitor would forever change the simple ways.

As the prisoner’s head raised his bloodied eyes met Elizabeth’s. A light in them came alive. His emaciated appearance changed. People near him stared. Instantly strengthened, he drew back suddenly on the chains, pulling himself upright. In the same motion, he leaned back and pulled the jailers toward him.

He stared at the child’s face in the carriage. In a moment the jailers regained their purchase and pulled him viscously ahead.

As the Priest climbed the stairs, the bedlam in the Wartburg’s parvis reached tumultuous levels.

Limping on the platform, the old prisoner, fresh blood on his chin, was thrown against the stake. They tied his arms to the horizontal beam and his feet to the post. Torches waving, the executioners stood by waiting for the sign.

The Priest’s upraised staff commanded attention. His bellowing voice turned every eye toward him, The hour of judgment is upon you. Sinner repent! Declare your sin. Confess in the name of the Lord God, and I will remit your sins and spare your life.

The prisoner snapped back. And spend the rest of it starving in your filthy dungeons or sacrifice myself to your sacrilegious crusade. The world’s greatest crusader is the one who will never fight again! And the graced life to the soul who gains acquaintance with Sophia.

From every direction, the spectators banter, Renounce Sophia. Heretic. Renounce the devil. Renounce sorcery! Say there is one God.

The prisoner addressed the people below him in the old language, "Sie sind alle Götter. You are all Gods. The breaths of all who have come before us, breathe through us now. There is no separation, no sin, and no death. The Gods, Goddesses, we are one."

With an unqualified conviction the old man entreated his captives, "I am no heretic. Oh contraire. Ich bin beweis, daß Gott lebt. I am proof that God lives. He pointed to his heart. You think you are alive? You have never even once lived. You are dust deceived by the promise of his life everlasting.

Masquerading as life, Jehovah calls himself not God, but The Lord God: the first deceiver, he lusts to be creator. Jehovah lied to Adam and Eve, and then seduced Cain into slaying Able. Can you not see that the life he feeds you with is my life here today. You not him - creating the regime that destroys me. Looking deeply into the eyes that stared up at him, he entreated those near by, "So say you forgive! Yet behold, by your silence, intolerance and participation, you would destroy me.

Parents love their children, but you loathe those who have acquaintance with their creator. Your two-faced Lord God grants mercy when it serves his blood-thirsty interests, but his eternal hell waits for the slightest disobedience.

Silence, Wizard. Confess and I may let you live. The Priest demanded.

Away from me! The old man’s youthful eyes seemed enflamed, he shrieked, Your wretched petitions have no power to save.

The Priest stepped back and tossed his torch into the kindling below, then hurried down the stairs, joining the other clerics in the decorated grandstand.

The elder Priest, his voice quaking, said to the others, Heretics have a power that confounds. Find every witch, monk or midwife that works wonders or knows of these legends. Bribe, steal or torture for information."

The inquisitor Conrad answered, I’ve already dispatched agents to Hesse and the Abbey of Albens. We will find every one; seize their gold, their temples and their talisman.

The elder Priest ordered, Show no tolerance nor mercy, neither to age nor sex. If there are any guilty among them, kill them all . . .

A raven circling the gibbet issued a shrill caw.

Yes, my lord. God knows his own and will raise them again.

Filled with authority, demanding their attention, the condemned voice rang out again, But for you, my Beloveds, love one another care for each other. Be joyful knowing that you live one within the other.

His bloodshot eyes moved across the sky. He continued, "What is my breath but a sign of the spirit indwelling? When spirit lives in you, who gives immortality, but thy own soul?

From this moment you will be my witnesses! Staring intensely, a brightness fell upon the prisoner’s face. He looked back over the crowd, What more could you need when the Mother of all is here? To the priests, She makes herself plain for you to see and this is your offering? No wonder she sleeps and watches!

He looked toward the carriage, drew strength, pointed toward it, and said, The promised return! The Ruah has returned among us.

He denies the Son of God!

The jeering continued, Burn devil.

Stunned by his eloquence and mystified by his continued life, The Priest asked, Conrad, What did he mean? Is he seeing the reappearance? He was directing us toward that carriage. A soft light was about it. Is that a Wartburg carriage?

Conrad nodded yes.

Conrad, find out who goes there. Watch that one. The Priest demanded.

Stunned by the order and the implication, Conrad responded, If his proclamation is true, then all that he has spoken is also the truth and she is . . . the one . . . we have been told to watch for.

The priest nodded yes, and said, She is the one you must watch.

The fire was licking at the prophet through the gaps between the logs. The strengthening wind waved his burning clothes. He spread his hands skyward, flames moving away as he moved. The ropes, fluttering fire, fell off his arms, falling onto the crowd. Roaring, the flames curled around his body. Like a magician he glided to the teetering threshold. The gibbet lurched, but the prophet, his legs consumed by flame, stood tall and strong.

The miracle of his survival silenced the crowd. Looking down at the fire, he continued. I survive and survive again. For this you would slay me, but neither flames, nor time, nor mob can harm this flesh. I am here to tell you, as a child I walked with Iesseus. He told me twelve hundred years ago he also said that I would live to see the reappearance. Seeing the Ruah then I have become however I please. Today, I appear like this to tell you the Consort and the Mother Goddess are together again.

Another priest screamed. Iesseus have mercy. The demon survives!

His form glowed, the flesh on his hands dripped off in flames. I see, he pointed toward the carriage, A stream of ambrosia and light, that no nail can pierce. And yes, I see Her mantle overshadowing us. She redeems her creation. Oh, God, yes finally, finally, fulfilled I am, free. Free.

The love in his eyes, the smile on his face, his utter nakedness spoke through the child, Sophia, guide him to you.

His lips moved, but no sound came forth, he said, Sophia I come. He opened his mouth, bellowed out a high-pitched scream. His face became exceedingly beautiful. The area above his head began to glow. Fire leaped from him like fireworks. The crowd turned and fled. In a frenzy beggars and lords alike raced past her carriage.

Waving his arms up like a wizard stirring his cauldron, he appeared in many forms to those fleeing this transmigration of his soul.

I see you clearly o Spirit. He said, I will see you again.

Elizabeth screamed. The gibbet collapsed. The flames consumed the smiling face. Swirling black smoke coalesced into a light blue cloud that elevated away from the ground and disappeared into the sky.

Hedwig reentered the carriage at just that moment. In a moment the carriage raced alongside the fleeing peasants and sped through the stone arch. Outside the village walls the carriage picked up an escort of Templar knights on a secret mission. With the first light of dawn in their faces, she was still crying softly as the carriage wound its way into the Valley of the Danube River.

Why did they kill him? Elizabeth asked.

He claimed that he had seen Iesseus. Hedwig answered.

Was that reason to kill him? Elizabeth’s voice was measured.

They were afraid of him; he used his own mind to think. The Pope made healing with herbs a heresy. Wisdom contraire to Church Universal’s doctrine is being eliminated. Remember? They crucified Him because His magic threatened their worldly authority. Because he claimed that Iesseus in the flesh promised him that he would live to see the reappearance.

If it was true that he would not die until he saw the reappearance, then why did he perish today?

He had seen what he was promised. Hedwig answered.

But what does that mean? Elizabeth asked.

He had again seen an anointed one. The Ruah is with you. He declared you the grail of holy blood, your life a chalice of overflowing Ambrosia.

Hedwig looked respectfully into the question in her young niece’s eyes and said, You and those that will flow from you will spread this gnosis across the whole earth. Others will want you, want to eliminate you; want to hide you or to keep you for their own.

Elizabeth said, Then I will be the Arena, the sand that receives the of the blood of the fallen. I will absorb it and bring it to life again with remembrance. To redeem those who have forgotten, I will share with them the multiple experience of heavens and earths in these parallel times.

Hedwig said, The prophet has announced…the reappearance to all.

She looked out at the escorting knights, Now everyone knows what the Temple knights have known; the secret of the temple mount has been revealed.

CHAPTER ONE

The Waking

The Goddess personifies

the unity of all things.

She gives creation its essence

and provides Her Substance to all Her scions.

It is She that instills in us a spiritual desire for her,

which even after physical death guides

souls into perfect communion.

The primary quality of Her Grace

is consciousness of Life Itself.

The inanimate becomes animate,

Nature, the creation, and matter acquire

the intelligence, talent, and opportunity to come

into the realms of Knowing and Caring.

It is through this sense, not senses of this body,

that Creatures experience the creator.

Her dispensation will only be complete when

Life is enlightened and the duality

can see itself in the other.

We are not born; we are crystallized light,

replicating and recreating the immortal nature

and cannot be separated from it.

But humans can forget . . .

The dreamer became aware of a blond woman with yellow daisies in her glowing golden hair. Around the woman sat hundreds of radiant people with thousands of daisies coloring the verdant field yellow. With light completely surrounding the blond woman, it is the light of their many eyes that illuminates this dreamland.

The blond woman was speaking, "Radiating light throughout all the dimensions, all beings are one. In the Imaginal, there are neither centers for consciousness nor abodes for souls. Nothing exists apart from this. This singularity constantly communicates this complete nature with every soul.

In the union of passion and form affections arise. Where there are affections, there are appearances of form. The expansion of affection composes the substance and the sentiments for all incarnations. Whenever souls commune in this way they instantly create physical arenas where their common affections can establish the necessary conditions for their mutual illumination.

The dreamer heard the woman speaking in her own voice. "From the first moment the dimensions of Passion, Communication, and Affection are sentient, living energies giving birth to everything in Creation. Human beings dismiss these implicit dimensions because on planetary worlds only appearances can be seen. Consciousness collects and perceives; thought differs in order to identify. Everything that follows diverges from harmony and seethes with separateness. The fracture can only be seen in the clear crystal. Mistakenly when most see the crack they see creation, but you see the clarity and can fill-in the images with the range of your affections.

And the crystal moves according to your will. As you move beyond fear, grief, dissolution, individuality and corruption, appearances will yield to Reality. Ultimately, we are one, and you will have perfect acquaintance with me again.

As she finished speaking the light in every eye brightened, engulfing every flower and every being in luminescence.

She was still dreaming, lying on her right side facing the window, with her arms cuddled around herself like a child. Arina Sophia Meran, with wavy blond hair in a pile of natural curls. Her lips were heart-shaped like a movie star’s and were open just slightly as she breathed. The white satin sheet and comforter was pulled up to her waistline. Her long slender legs, waist, and hips were concealed, but the cross of the rosy red dawn’s light fell on her blue nightie’ illuminating the beauty of her fully developed twenty-six-year-old modelesque figure.

Her flickering eyelids suddenly snapped open, revealing the spellbinding light-blue eyes that radiated grace and beauty. They captivated the attention of any she looked upon.

Laying there she saw neither the daisies nor the hundreds of flickering torches, any black carriages, only questions about the origins of the dreams, and whether they were real or imagined! Always, with the same impending presence the same dark haired girl was in the dreams. Arina stared past the red roses out through the cathedral windows to the Pacific surf. Softly missing intimacy, she pulled the sheets up under her chin cuddling into herself like a child.

The dreams were good, rejuvenating, focusing, and transformative. Always from the luminous point of view of the little brown haired girl! And always the dreamee’s perspective lifted her life into another dimension. Is this who I am? Where did that dream come from? And who was that blond woman? Wow! she thought, and what do the wizard and the Priest have to do with me today?

She turned and looked at the man sleeping next to her; muscular, angular and handsome. Mouthing his name, Trace, Trace, Trace, he stirred and turned toward her, hugging her close to him.

After only several seconds Trace rolled over onto her. His presence and movements set off a wave of disorientation and dizziness. Trace, stop. My head is spinning and I feel like I’m going to throw up again.

He rolled off. Again. Every day now you don’t feel like it. Enough already. He said, Do your thing. He rolled out of bed in blue pajamas and pulled his robe around him. On the way from the bath he hollered behind him, Breakfast?

She slowly rolled over, sat and stood up, reaching immediately for the robe on the dressing chair, suddenly needing to hold for balance against another wave of dizziness."

There are no evil persons, only those who have forgotten their origins. A voice rang through her head. After a few moments she eased the robe off the chair, put it around her and headed toward the bathroom. While passing the dressing mirror resting upon a roll top desk she briefly noted the appearance of the dark haired girl passing the other way. She stopped and looked. Behind the old-fashioned roll-top desk had been two images of her; one she seemed to remember having before she was born. When Arina looked back, there was only her own five-foot four-inches with its blue eyes, blond curls, and sleepy face.

Resting on a roll top desk, she grabbed her purse and went to the bathroom closing the door behind her. She removed the small bag and opened the pregnancy tester from the box. Taking the pencil like tester to the toilet she sat and placed it so her urine fell upon the tip, taking it away, she finished…

After a few moments she held the pregnancy tester up close to her eyes. She saw that it indicated that she was pregnant. Disposing of the tester back into her purse, she stepped into the shower and cried.

Back at the dressing mirror, she lit the incense. She touched the feathers and the necklaces hanging over the ancient frame. Then she held her hands motionless over the collection of objects setting on the top shelf.

She lifted the chalice with the small silver mirror on one side and an image of the young woman on the other. Once filled with water from the sacred spring at Glastonbury, it always remained damp -- even though no one ever refilled it. Trace had stubbornly resisted the idea of having it present in his house.

Despite his objections, her desire had prevailed. She touched it, drew a few drops to her forehead, and wondered again whom it was that had sent it to her.

She picked up the small silver wand with a quartz crystal on its tip and pointed it skyward. A brass bell sat between several quartz and amethyst crystals. A rosary of coral beads, a purse, a knife, a crucifix, and an old pair of gloves finished the assortment of objects.

Around the mirror, like fragments of other dreams the photographs begged her attention. Holding yellow flowers she wore a yellow string bikini while talking with dark skinned children under a yellow umbrella on an white sand beach. High on a steep hill a gold-gilded Buddhist monastery where she was meditating in an orange saffron robe with closed eyes and crossed legs. One was a Navajo country sunset looking across a big mountain. Next to that was an award-winning photograph of her and on the cover of a national magazine. Next to that was a photo of her on horseback, it was signed, Love, Trace. She looked at him. Next to that another photograph showed them both dressed formally; she held his arm and a bundle of roses.

It brought back memories of her time with him at U.C. Berkeley. Barely in her twenties, with him always over her shoulder, she had majored in philosophy/spirituality with modeled her way to a Ph.D. in sociology. Her beauty profoundly affected people as they adapted to the lift in spirit she elicited. As student body president, her presence provided the avenue for students to gain the vote on matters that concerned them. Within a few years, she had founded several charities and foundations while developing respect as a model social reformer, picking up the pieces and putting them together where other institutions had not.

She stood, put her robe back on, and rejoined him in the kitchen. Behind the morning paper, he ignored her while she prepared espresso, set out the croissants, honey, preserves, and cream. Reaching for the coffee cups, there was something to be learned from the one with the Excalibur on its side . . .

She was very dizzy, again. In a blaze of white light flooding through the skylight, unsteadying her balance, she unconsciously slammed the cup on the counter and sat quickly down on the floor and closed her eyes. When the dizziness passed, Trace was holding her head on his knee. Are you all right?

She nodded, yes.

I’ll never get used to it when you space like that. He said.

Well, you can’t change her . . . me, only yourself. You’re just going to have to accept it cause I do that, you know. She got out of his arms and returned to her breakfast.

After awhile, he said, You never go to my church, so why am I going with you to a Personal Freedom demonstration?

Seductively sucking the last of the jam off her finger she said, Hmmm . . . Funny you should speak of church. She paused. Leaning across the table she kissed him. Haven’t been visiting the sanctuary often enough, Baby? She let her hair fall down around her shoulders.

They both laughed; one for one reason, the other for another.

He admired her.

She cared for him. Kissing his fingers she reflected on how she had met him for the first time at a lecture, how often after that he had called her, how many dates they had before she acquiesced to intimacy with him. At first the sex was passionate, but she knew he had not experienced much else. Being her boyfriend was every man’s dream, but dating one of the world’s most sought after models and being with her was not without its difficulties.

Twenty-seven years old, six foot two, with well-tanned skin and a smile that could charm a snake, Trace was in excellent physical shape. Knowing how difficult it was to cope with her attractiveness, she had guided him through those jealous moments. As much as he said he loved her, she thought, only of late had he really begun to feel something real through his engraved thoughts about her.

She took his hand and drew his fingers to her lips, recalling that she had broken a promise to herself to not get involved with a man that was overwhelmed by her beauty. Yet, he made her laugh at times, feel good in some ways, but something important was missing altogether. She made a choice, but the last thing she wanted was to hurt him now.

She leaned toward him and kissed his nose.

Nose to nose, he said, I love you so much. I just can’t stand being away from you for even a moment. I want so much for our lives.

So much illusion, she thought, but there’s truth to that. She smiled, lifted, turned, and disappeared back into the bedroom.

She stepped into her designer ragged blue jeans, pulled a white t-shirt with a red rose on it over her head, and threw on a blue sweater. Hurry. Trace was yelling from the garage, We’ll be late. After a little lipstick, she turned, grabbed her coat and scarf, and joined Trace in the car.

He said, What would I do without you?

Probably get on with your life. She answered.

What do you mean by that?

If you tuned up, you’d know it was caring creating your relation to me and everything else good in your life. Not what you believe! She knew he was hiding something, Trace, tell me what you’re really feeling now.

He placed his hand on her knee, dropped his eyes and said, I just wish you would stop spending so much of your time with those agencies and . . . the rest of your time caring for those street people, and spend more time with me.

I give back to Goddess what is hers and she has kept for us what is for you and me.

He said, as the garage door was opening, I’m sorry. You just look so beautiful but where is your modesty?

The Goddess lives in the revealing of her true nature! And . . . I don’t just look beautiful, I do beautiful, was all she could say.

He started to speak, but held his tongue. She smiled.

Sophia created man/woman in Grace as One,

endowed with free will.

They were not tied to the path which grace provides,

but given choice to detour and learn.

To return to The Creator,

no sacrifice is demanded.

She would rather dismember herself

than lose a soul in her charge.

Her love of life in us guides our minds to her heart.

She does not know death

nor use fear inspired faith to call her children home;

being of her essence we shall remember her.

At the coast, Bodega Bay, California, was one of Arina’s favorite places. They often stopped there to appreciate the wild rose garden and farmhouse at the corner of Bay Hill Road and Highway One. In the black convertible BMW, today they kept driving. Two lanes and still rustic, one took them away from the coast, through old sand dune hills to the rose garden. Passing through the Eucalyptus groves, they turned left on Highway 12 through the orchards and vineyards West of Santa Rosa to Highway 101 and were on the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco before they spoke again.

Everything Arina said had wounded Trace, but every word had been a true expression. She knew that when she had affectionately sat on his lap he wanted everything instead; that when she used ‘her’ in the place of ‘him’ for the pronoun for God, she had insulted his beliefs.