Transformations: Paradise Next Time

By William Russell

TRANSFORMATIONS is a fantasy-adventure-love story. This highly imaginative novel presents a people who long ago had become gradually transformed from self-reliant warriors into harmonious, peaceful villagers. But the modern impulse to bring about fundamental social change threatens to disrupt the security of the traditional Way of Life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491862964

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TRANSFORMATIONS

Paradise Next Time

William Russell

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

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Copyright © 2014 William Russell. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse    09/10/2018

ISBN: 978-1-4918-6294-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-6295-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-6296-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014902485

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

PART I

The Loss of Eden

PART II

The Invasion of the Barbarians

PART III

The New World

SUMMARY

When the Ancestors came down from the Dark Mountains after barely surviving the struggle with Animal-Man, they founded what they hoped would be a paradise-village of peace and contentment. To ensure domestic tranquility, they established behavior-rules that concentrated total attention on sameness among companions and ignored any differences. So long as the rules were in effect, village life was harmonious. But then, one of the village males realized that total attention to interpersonal identity did not allow for complete realization of self. Individuals could only allow themselves to become personally aware of the extent that they were identical with their role-definition. As a result, they could not realize the fullness of themselves as particular individuals. When he introduced this idea of limitation on self-discovery and self-realization, the Eden-village of peace and contentment began to collapse.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I want to acknowledge the following major influences on my novel:

•   Hindu philosophy [especially as presented by Yogi Ramacharaka]

•   My self-realizing experiences with first Charlotte and then Annette

•   The encouragement and editorial insights of my three children—Bill, Cathy and Craig.

PREFACE

As a man thinks, so will he grow to be.

White Eagle. Spiritual Unfoldment The White Eagle Publishing Trust, 1961. Page 99.

When I started writing this novel, I intended only to explore the unusual interactions and adventures of an ideal group of tiny, isolated villagers. But soon it was clear to me that some of the villagers were not content. They wanted to find out more about themselves than their beautifully structured society allowed. And so, as you will see, two individuals initiate social breakdown by challenging certain parts of their tranquil Way of Life. As a result, their paradise Garden of Eden is lost.

It gradually became obvious to me that, among other things, my novel was exploring the results of one of my own seemingly disastrous and life-changing experiences. Happily, I discovered (like my novel’s modern villagers and their ancestors) that apparently destructive and irresistible events can gradually lead to highly positive, even personally fulfilling results. It all depends upon how we understand and respond to what is happening to us. This novel (and my life) led me to the conclusion that all major challenges, however frustrating, can have life-enhancing, even self-transforming consequences of great personal value.

In brief, how we think about what we are experiencing can come to define the ultimate quality of their impact on us. At best, we will discover what about ourselves caused unwanted results and how we must change to prevent such consequences in the future. If we make these changes in ourselves permanent, we will emerge a more successful manager of our own lives. We will have experienced what may be called Self-Realization (of our strengths and weaknesses), Self-Actualization (of ourselves with our weaknesses replaced by strengths), and Self-Transformation (into positive thinkers and effective problem-solvers).

INTRODUCTION

At first, Chapter One immerses the reader into a detailed introduction to the tranquil life of a small village community of diminutive natives. Judging from their social behavior, the Ancestors clearly intended for the males and females to be kept separate as much as possible.

The focus of social life for young males is the ceremony of hwrling with other males. An example is shown at the beginning of Chapter One. Female social life is primarily restricted to bearing and raising children, cooking and cleaning, and keeping the day-to-day village life running smoothly. From time to time, a brief coupling-ceremony is held. Afterwards, the couples are not to continue this relationship.

The Definitions provided below clarify character-roles, group terms and behavioral strategies. These clarifications will help explain the consequences of the social impact generated by a few of the non-conforming villagers. Their behavior threatens to end the opportunities for peaceful self-development that the traditional, idyllic Way of Life seemed to offer.

Each Definition-entry is listed according to the clarifying page or pages of its first appearance. You will find these definitions useful for understanding and keeping track of narrative developments.

Pages

3-5   The Ancestors (also called The First People)

These survivors from the old world created a well-disciplined New-World Paradise for their descendants.

3-5   The Dark Mountains

This great barrier between the Ancestors’ old world and their new world was an almost insurmountable challenge. Their successful crossing brought out the best in them.

4-5   Globor and Treyhorn

These two villagers are almost ready to undergo the Traveling Initiation (see below). As a result, they both would be responsible for maintaining the order and continuity of unchanging village life.

5   Traveling

All fourteen-year-old males are required to undertake this life-changing initiation in the caves. This consciousness-altering experience over several days is to give them the understanding they needed to be village adults responsible for maintaining tradition.

5   Clear Ones

The males, after they returned from Traveling, are the senior members of the village and called Clear Ones,

5   Protectors

After their babies are weaned, all the mothers are called Protectors and give the same loving attention and care to all the village children.

6   Coding

The villagers translate into code-symbols their vivid experiences while hwrling (see below). Their translations are presented at the Heart-Sharing Festivals.

6   Hwrling — Hwyling

Each day, young adults look forward to experiencing and translating ranges of details that express a vivid sense of identity with a companion. This coding experience, called Hwrling, is memorized and presented to all the villagers during a regularly-held Heart-Sharing ceremony. The Hwyl is the core of the Hwrl. This way of life does not encourage noticing the individual differencing among villagers.

9-11   Processing

While walking, instead of being aware of self in the usual way as dynamically moving through a stable environment, the walker shifts consciousness to experiencing self as static and the environment as flowing by.

13   Guardians

These were the early generations of senior members of the village (see Clear Ones, Page 5) who created the Rules of Life (see First People, Page 3-5) based on decisions made by the Ancestors.

15-16   Sharing

This logical way of exchanging information-details was invented by the Ancestors as a battle resource. In this way, they maximized their mental advantage over Animal-Man. From their earliest years, the village children are taught to analyze, memorize, and convey in precise detail their visual, emotional and intellectual experiences.

15-16   Spider Web

The abstract spider-web design structure that the Ancestors invented to share battle-information details quickly and accurately is shown on Page 2. Torgul’s use of this standardized structure to capture specific details of an actual spider web is shown on Page 15. Web design steps are presented on Pages 15-16

15-20   Discrimination Games

Each day, students are expected to learn how to analyze, code and memorize complex visual phenomena using the detailed symbolic spider-web design (see Page 2) taught by their teachers. Then the students are required to play Discrimination Games. In pairs or groups, the students coded the same complex visual pattern. The teachers then compare the coding success of each student and determine the most accurate and successful coder in each of the student pairs or groups.

19-21   Tree of Life

When pairs of villagers Share (see Sharing, Pages 15-16). they begin by mentally forming the spider-web design (see Spiderweb, Pages 15-16). The empty web center is filled in by inserting the standard multi-dimensional Tree of Life. Next, the Self and Partner coding is inserted and interconnected by the branches of the Tree. Finally, the coding can be brought together by the tree trunk into a distinctive structure of symbols entered at the top of the Tree. This structure is made up of symbols chosen by the couples to show the distinctive features of their enhanced feeling-state.

38-39   Transmission Sessions

This kind of communication session was held between the villagers and enlightened beings not in manifestation. These sessions gave access to higher-level sources of knowledge that could help the whole people make better-informed decisions.

TRANSFORMATIONS

Paradise Next Time

The essence of warriorship, or the essence of human bravery, is refusing to give up on anyone or anything.

Shambala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior. Written by Chogyam Trungpa. New York: Bantam Press, 1984.

PART I

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The Loss of Eden

SPIDER WEB

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This is the spider-web design that the village children memorize. They use this web to explore in detail their close relationships with each of their age-group companions.

(Chapter One shows how the children learn to make use of this web.)

Chapter One

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Words of the People

The Dark Mountains // Bleak, unyielding

Path of sorrow // Mother of us all

Yet to remember // Her loving-kindness

Flayed of our skin // We found our true path!

From Chronicles of the First People

Come, Treyhorn, tell me! Is there more of together than we now share? Is there more than one?

Nay, Globor, one is all. There is no more.

They spoke the ancient words and bowed gravely to one another. Automatically, they began hwrling: coding the distinctive features of their heightened sense of shared, personal identity.

The afternoon was hot but clear. The brilliant sun was occasionally masked by broad white wisps of clouds, and a faint but steady breeze now blew from off the river. Muted but distinct, the sounds of the village came drifting over the edge of the bluff: the voices of the teachers—purposeful and calm against the cheerful outcries of the students . . . the noise of the children on the river bank . . . veering toward the river, the high-pitched voice of one of the mothers calling over and over the same three syllables. From the female section of the village, the muted strokes of the wooden mallets on the bark cloth produced a simple, steady beat.

Globor and Treyhorn sat cross-legged and faced each other beneath an old, wide-branched tree that had managed to grow near the edge of the root fields. The ceremony that they performed was ancient—a ritual that originated with the resourceful Ancestors. The traditional words now sounded harsh, were barely intelligible. But such remaining bits and pieces of that complicated speech of old reminded the villagers each day of the brilliant achievements of those who came before. The Ancestors had survived the destruction of their old world. The savagery of their struggle with the invading barbarians still lingered in the old stories, but now the villagers experienced only the abundance of the new era. Through all the ages since the First People came down from the Dark Mountains in triumph over those they called Animal-Man, living had been gentle and kind.

Globor and Treyhorn were in their fourteenth year of life and therefore part of the older generation. Since the time of the First People, none of the villagers breathed past their twentieth year. The Ancestors began to change as they crossed the Dark Mountains. The First People were still giants—almost half again as tall as the modern villager. But gradually the people became a diminutive, dark-skinned race—without domesticated animals, the wheel, weapons, tools beyond the simple stone and wood stage, or any art form other than the Stories of the People. They wore no body ornaments or markings, and their everyday clothing was a simple black-dyed skirt, tied with a graceful knot on the right hip.

Globor and Treyhorn belonged to the group known as Waiters or Those Who Wait. The younger villagers would have said they held this title because they were males and did the fishing and farming. The older members might explain that the name signified they were learning the preliminaries to traveling—the ancient initiation ceremony into the rank of village elders.

They had no other village identity except for the distinction of their names and their group membership. This mode of identification was true for all the villagers. Those younger than six were known only as children. Beginning at age six, the children became identified as youths. At age twelve, the youths were recognized as males and females, took on village adult responsibilities and began close relationships with individual members of their age-group companions. All males were called Waiters and all females Mothers-To-Be. After the males returned from traveling, as village elders they were considered the Senior Authorities and called Clear Ones. The females were called Mothers beginning when their bodies started to show signs of new village life and ending when they ceased suckling their young. After the babies were weaned, the mothers came to be called Protectors and gave the same close, loving attention to all of the children. There was no recognition of permanent family relationships.

*     *     *

Globor, almost fifteen and thus the older by nearly a full year, smiled at his companion as he leaned his head back against the base of the ancient Bratverk tree. Then he looked up and noted the vivid intensity of the intricate branch patterns against the brilliant sky. Globor readjusted his sitting-position and watched attentively as the dust swirled and resettled as he shifted the placement of his legs. He glanced at his companion, then gazed out toward the Dark Mountains and mused peacefully:

I can do it so quickly now: code ranges of details, select the precise patterns of detail values and build elaborate mental structures. All these things, after much practice, come easily and naturally!

A feeling of exhilaration suddenly welled up within him and he grinned happily to himself. Gracefully he interlaced his long, almost delicate fingers and rested them lightly on his knee.

He was acclaimed the best hwrler in the village—the finest coder of his own enhanced identity-experiences with his companions. Twice in a row he had won first place at the Festival of the Sharing of the Heart, and the Clear Ones had praised the creative way the core of his hwrls modeled the richness of his interpersonal relationships. No one had ever won twice in a row before.

But what have I accomplished? What does hwrling tell us about who we really are?

A dark look began to pass across Globor’s face, but with a shake of his head he gave himself over instead to a feeling of excitement and pleasure. Even as a child, when he was struggling to achieve mastery of coding, he had felt that hwrling was to be his art. He had been certain that he would leave his mark on the Stories of the People by the skill of his hwrls.

He glanced again at Treyhorn, who with a look of steady concentration was still coding details of his enhanced feeling-state. Globor smiled as he began to contemplate transitional code sequences based upon the vivid branch patterns overhead and the way the dust had redistributed when he shifted his feet.

*     *     *

I am ready, said Treyhorn as he lifted his large, slightly ruddy face to gaze at his darker companion. They rose together, and Treyhorn looked up contentedly at the heavily-browed, deep-set eyes of his friend and broadened his sense of sharing. Rapidly he valued and coded the contrasts between his own squat frame and Globor’s angularity and striking height. Like the rest of the villagers he appreciated his flair, his particular brilliance, and wondered at his destiny.

Clearly he was leaving his mark on the Stories of the People, a distinction that Treyhorn never dreamed of for himself. His own hwrls, in contrast to Globor’s detailed, elaborate structures, were too spare and plain to win awards. But he did not really wish for applause at the Heart Sharing Festivals. He was content to stand out of the way and watch Globor’s impulsive, unpredictable antics and extravagant displays of creativity. The villagers laughed and applauded, and Globor loved that applause. He seemed almost trapped by his own talent into a constant effort to satisfy the villagers’ love of the unusual. Treyhorn respected his friend’s hectic world, and hoped that Globor’s recent behavior came directly out of it and not from the villagers’ ideas about him.

"Shall we go now to the hwrling-place?" asked Globor abruptly.

Treyhorn frowned at this sudden interruption of his thoughts and turned his head to glance across the root fields. He focused on a large black butterfly that hovered erratically over a patch of wildflowers—tiny, brilliant clusters of purples, oranges and yellows. Suddenly the butterfly lurched out across the open field, the red splotches on its wings beating wildly around the pale-yellow streak on its back. Treyhorn turned again to Globor and smiled at the impatient look in his eyes.

Let us go, he said at last and they both changed their ordinary way of experiencing their surroundings. They instantly switched to what the Ancestors called processing—watching the earth flow by!

*     *     *

Globor made the shift to processing-perception and wondered whether all this preparation was really necessary. Of course, hwrling provided an important social function—the life of the people was clearly centered in a sense of mutually supportive fellowship that the hwrls expressed. But there was so much ceremony, and surely not every part of it was to be taken seriously.

Globor glanced at Treyhorn and smiled at the look of complete absorption on his friend’s face. Now, what is the purpose of this altering of perception? Does it add anything to the hwrls? Am I so accustomed to it that I no longer appreciate its value?

Certainly the children enjoyed this way of seeing. It was always possible to tell when the youngest were making the shift to processing-mode. First their expressions would be unnaturally earnest. Then they would take a few tentative steps. Gradually, by the growing look of pleasure on their faces, it would become clear that as they walked they were no longer experiencing themselves as moving across the earth. Instead, they were stable and the earth was processing—flowing beneath their feet!

Globor became more attentive as they walked alongside the fields. Rather than simply noticing an unmoving bluff as they passed, he experienced the earth as flattening then leaning into the encircling cascade of rough grass and pale-green fruit bushes.

Yes, it is extremely interesting to see the ground in motion. It makes the world vivid when the trees slowly rotate in a kind of solemn dance, when the massive features of the landscape turn and extend and run steadily by. Perhaps this way of perceiving makes things less familiar and gives them back their mystery and power. But only the youngest children seemed delighted when processing. Does Treyhorn still see the world as a child? Well, I for one could give up processing-mode and feel no loss!

*     *     *

Treyhorn suddenly looked up and wondered at the strange expression on Globor’s face. Then he closed his eyes and began to reflect, as was his habit, on village life.

What is really essential to hwrling? What did the First People intend hwrl-building to accomplish?

The old stories offered too many answers. Every child knew by heart the three traditions. One tradition placed the entire development of hwrling within the new era and said that the hwrls expressed the villagers’ desire to celebrate the village life. Another tradition placed the beginnings back in the earlier interim period, when living was hazardous. This tradition claimed that the hwrl arose from a desire to experience completely a world that was constantly in danger of slipping away. A third tradition spoke of a rebellious youth with the strange name of Trank. He was one of the Ancients who grew up in the old world, taught his way of experiencing to the children and rejoiced as that old world passed away.

Ah, yes, the little ones! Treyhorn nodded and grinned as his attention turned to the much-loved children . . . the pride of the people and the future of the village! In the late afternoon while waiting out the supper preparations—how often I did the same when I was young!—the male children would surge into the jungle for turbulent and inventive reenactments of the Trank-story. The female children preferred less noisy dramatizations from the life of Kraagelon—the one called Power Woman and Maker of Events. The old stories claimed—could one person do so much?—that in addition to establishing the first Energy Circles of Protection, she had invented the Discrimination-Games.

Well, what is hwrling? Did the Guardians, that early generation of Clear Ones who created the village rules, truly preserve the discoveries of the Ancestors? Or did they simply complicate them?

Treyhorn felt instinctively that hwrl-building was a profound and simple act of sharing that belonged happily to all of the people. It could not be the complex art form of which Globor was the master. Or could it be? Globor was really very good at hwrling. Treyhorn wondered if he would think differently if he were an acknowledged master-coder. Perhaps he was wrong or perhaps, as the Clear Ones would say, he was right and he was wrong, whatever that really meant. At any rate, he appreciated his friend and would keep his not-very-clear thoughts to himself.

*     *     *

Torgul watched their approach. He had followed Globor and Treyhorn when they left the village. As they began memorizing and coding their shared feeling-state, Torgul had quickly climbed a tree at the head of the path so that he could see every detail. Now as they passed below, he held his breath so they would not notice him and send him back to play the Discrimination-Games. He had reached the age of ten, and the villagers seemed to think he should spend every waking moment playing the games!

Are they processing? Yes, he could tell by their expressions. When he was older he would process just the way Globor did, would do everything just the way Globor did. I too will be the best of the villagers!

Torgul turned slowly as Globor and Treyhorn started down the path. They cannot hear me now! He swung around on the branch and watched them diminish in the distance. They disappeared down the final sharp slope and he waited impatiently, rocking back and forth and kicking his heels rhythmically against the tree trunk. Suddenly they reappeared, smaller now, and he watched motionless as they turned away from the village and began crossing the open, rocky ground to the riverbank. Soon they became indistinct, fused with their own shadows—set into relief by the pale-orange stony earth then hidden by the gray-blue rocks and sudden drops.

Torgul glanced down the winding path that led to the village, then looked again out toward the hwrling-place. He rubbed his left ear with his open hand and decided not to relate his world to Globor’s any longer. Instead, he would return to see the new shelter again!

He started down the tree, then stopped when he saw a brilliant outburst of delicate colors. The sun had glanced off a large, circular spider web that stretched between two narrow branches just above his head. Golden threads, intermingled with purple and blue, radiated out in triangular sections from the center of the web, and rippled and shimmered in the light breeze. The center, a clear drop of sparkling light, seemed fixed in place by two unmoving threads—one thread, light-green and pink, dropped straight down and the other, clear-silvery, reached up all the way to the top of the web. A light-grey thread spiraled out from around the center in larger and larger circles until it reached the outer limits of the web. The center was thus immobilized and timeless within the fragile, grey-golden undulation.

Torgul stared up open-mouthed and gradually let the web suffuse his consciousness. Then, as he had been taught, he memorized the entire web design and inserted code to describe the flowing pattern of colors. Wonderful! The Clear One will be pleased when I share this web during our next class session.

Torgul’s generation had reached the time when their teaching Clear One took up the demanding task of preparing the youths to share with each other. The teacher explained that the Ancestors began to develop sharing when they realized Animal-Man would win every battle if victory depended on physical strength alone. The only advantages that the Ancestors had were their mental skills and their resourcefulness in quickly identifying effective fighting tactics. To maximize these advantages, they developed as battle resources the language of coding and the spider-web design for showing code relationships.

The language of coding began at first as names for strategies and strategy relationships. The web-structure helped the people memorize, organize, then communicate combat information quickly. When this approach became more elaborate and detailed, symbols from the natural world were used to group together strategies and sub-strategies. As a results, leaders could call out names, and the symbols and symbol interconnections in the memorized web structure would clarify and coordinate fighting responses.

To strengthen village identity, the Guardians decided to convert the warrior coding language and web structure into resources for peaceful sharing. The new language that the villagers must memorize included names for symbols and symbol relationships. Symbols were defined by mental processes and states as well as physical objects, relationships and changes. The teaching Clear Ones insisted that each student master the entire coding language! Then the students were required to take turns whispering names to each other, identifying names with symbols, and translating these symbols into mental and physical structures and processes.

I wonder if I will ever be able to master the entire language of coding!

Torgul smiled as he focused his attention once again on the spider web in front of him. Each day the teacher would discover a large spider web like this one. Then, as they had been taught, the youths would eagerly search for a sturdy pointed stick and clear a space for themselves on the ground in front of the web. When everyone was quiet, the Clear One would begin calling out the web design steps. Torgul had heard these eighteen steps so often he had memorized them.

The first four steps had taken several sessions for the students to master:

1.   With your stick, draw a line straight down in front of you—long enough to show the entire depth of the web.

2.   Next, draw a line straight across through the mid-point of the down line—long enough to show the entire width of the web.

   [The web is now divided into four large triangles.]

3.   Place the point of your stick on the straight-down line—just above where the two lines intersect.

4.   Without letting go of the stick and moving the point to your left, loop repeatedly out then down then up and around the center point of intersecting lines—creating seven ever-larger circles that enclose the entire web.

   [The curved line, if it ends at the top of the straight-down line, will divide the four triangles into seven sections each.]

The first two steps were not difficult. The two straight lines needed only to be long enough for the web to hold the final hwrl-structure. But the circular line opening out from the intersecting point of these two lines required practice. The line had to be continuous—never crossing itself and keeping the same distance between the constantly enlarging circles. And when the line reached the outer limits of the web, there could be only seven circles! At first, the teachers would hold the student’s hand that grasped the drawing stick with its point resting just above the web center. Then, very slowly, the teacher would guide the student’s hand in ever-larger circles around the center of the web until the seventh circle enclosed the length and width of the web. After several attempts on their own, the youths became fairly skillful at performing this step.

The teacher would not go on with the hwrl-design until all the children were able to draw a web quickly with two intersecting straight lines and a single curved line. Only then would the teachers recite the steps needed to prepare smaller triangles within the four large triangles made by the long straight lines:

5.   Starting at the center of the web, draw short straight lines that divide each of the four web triangles into two smaller triangles of equal size.

6.   In each of the four large triangles, label the enclosed small triangle on the left as S for Self and the companion small triangle on the right as P for Partner.

7.   Starting at the center of the web, reserve the first four sections of the Self and Partner triangles for separate coding.

8.   Continuing outward, reserve the last three sections of each Self-and-Partner pair of triangles for combined coding.

Steps 5 and 6 completed the design work for the web. The short straight lines divided the four large triangles into eight smaller triangles. The curved line, by looping out from the center, divided each of the eight smaller triangles into seven closed sections for coding.

Steps 7 and 8 described the coding instructions for the four large web triangles. Each large triangle would hold side-by-side and combined Self and Partner coding. The combined coding—called the hwyl—would show how the day-to-day feeling-state of the Self had been transformed by the sharing experience with the Partner.

The next four instruction steps identified the coding information that the villagers were to enter into the Self-sections of their four large web triangles:

9.   In the upper right web triangle, identify your particular feelings for the river and the sea

10.   In the lower right web triangle, identify your particular feelings for the Dark Mountains and the forest that surrounds us

11.   In the upper left web triangle, identify your particular feelings for the Ancestors and the village

12.   In the lower left web triangle, identify your particular feelings for the companions of your generation as a whole.

The villagers must determine Self-entries before they hwrl.

Torgul rubbed his left ear as he recalled the close companionship he could see in the way Globor and Treyhor walked together below him as they passed the tree. Then he remembered his teacher explaining how when couples like Globor and Treyhorn share, they begin by mentally forming the spider-web design divided into sections and subsections. Then, taking turns, they each whisper code-instructions into their Partner’s ear. As they whisper, starting at the upper right web triangle each mentally fills out the previously identified Self-sections in the visualized four large web triangles. While listening to the companion whisper, each fills out the Partner-sections in the triangles of the visualized web. When the Self-sections and the Partner-sections are completely filled out, the companions stop whispering. Then they each silently fill in their combined Self-and-Partner sections by mentally choosing and inserting code symbols that accurately express their particular experience of the day’s sharing.

His teaching Clear One needed several class sessions to explain, slowly and patiently, how to create and fill out the web design. First, sitting with each student in front of a web outline drawn in the dirt, the teacher made sure each student understood the structure of the four large sections. Then the teacher called all the students together to show how to prepare a hwyl: the core of the hwrl that was to be memorized and presented at the Sharing of the Heart Festival.

First the teacher drew an extra-large web in the dirt with the lines for separate and combined Self-and-Partner entries. Next, the teacher developed a sample web model by filling in all of the sections with demonstration symbols from the language of coding. Then the teacher wiped out all of the separate Self and Partner entries—leaving only the combined entries surrounding an empty center of the web.

Now came the most difficult part of the students’ training. To learn how to prepare the hwyl for festival presentation, each student must fill in the empty web center by inserting the standard multidimensional Tree of Life. The students had spent many class sessions memorizing the model for this Tree structure!

The last six web-design steps showed the students how to transform the mental web structure into a hwyl:

13.   Erase the center of the sharing web, leaving only the outer Self-and-Partner combined code entries

14.   Insert the memorized Tree-of-Life structure into the empty center of the web

15.   Working up from the bottom, arrange the Self-and-Partner code along selected branches of the Tree that show the buildup of the particular feeling of the sharing experience

16.   Replace the topmost point of this Tree with code that summarizes the particular sharing experience revealed by the selected branches

17.   Erase the Self-and-Partner coding surrounding the Tree

18.   Memorize this final Tree for presentation at the next Sharing-of-The Heart Festival.

The teacher patiently demonstrated again and again how combined Self-and-Partner coding can be interrelated by the branches of the Tree of Life! Then the teacher helped pairs of students develop combined Self-and-Partner coding and choose branch patterns that will reveal the distinctive feeling-state of a sharing experience. Finally, the teacher suggested various ways that coding can be brought together by the tree trunk into a distinctive structure of symbols entered at the top of the tree. This structure must be made up of a combination of symbols chosen by each student to show the distinctive features of the enhanced feeling-state! Training was complete when all of the students could share successfully with a Partner and explain the steps they used to prepare the Tree of Life.

Gazing at the spider web in front of him on the tree, Torgul quickly reviewed all of the steps for building the web. When he was sure he could explain and demonstrate each step, suddenly he stretched out his hand and almost touched the web center. Then he grinned and started down the tree again.

Torgul stopped and frowned as he attempted to shift to processing-mode. He began again and stopped, thoroughly exasperated with himself. Slowly, slowly, now it is beginning. Yes, this is it! As he performed the operations of descending, he could experience himself as stable—as processing the tree trunk past himself, the treetop away from himself. He was drawing up the ground, bringing the earth to his feet! Torgul leaped away from the tree, and began jumping up and down and laughing happily to himself. If only Globor were here he could tell him! He had really done it—better than he had ever done it before!

Torgul sat down quickly against the tree trunk and began tracing patterns in the dirt. Suddenly he looked up and peered down along the field to the tree where he had seen Globor and Treyhorn. He brought to mind as much of the hwrling-scene as he had been able to store and arranged himself in positions that were characteristic of Globor. Then he gathered up his legs under his chin and stared solemnly out over the open ground.

Torgul was frustrated by his apparent lack of hwrling-ability. It did not matter that the villagers praised his coding skills. Yes, he had learned the symbols for a wide range of shape-and-color differences as well as physical objects and mental processes. And he had almost mastered the structure and power of the spider web and come to understand the interrelationships of the features of village life. The teaching Clear One made sure that the students entered this information accurately when they prepared the Self-and-Partner sections of the four web triangle.

Also, his teacher seemed content with the entries in the Self-sections of his personally defining village experiences. But the entries