Chapter IX
Hanged Man
I spent some of the most remarkable times of my life, visiting my friend Marcella’s House, and spending the night.
For a long time, I have been
making a voyage to Columbus, and normally I would stay with my friend Marcella,
whom I affectionately renamed Esmeralda the day I met her. That alone is a story to be told, in part, as
my honoring of a dear friend.
That morning I woke up, at Marcella’s house, only Marcella wasn’t there physically anymore, she passed away. I was staying with her husband Rob, who was still very depressed over the loss of Marcella.
I met Marcella at one of my herbal class retreats, in Athens, Ohio. A friend of mine, MO, told me she needed to reroof her porch, and I told her I could help her.
The grey mist draped the day, while the sky cried off and on,
unsure of just how sad she and all of us were.
Sitting at the kitchen table, after finishing the roof, I was having a cup of
tea and the warn out kitchen door opened and in walked this waif of beautiful
human whose expansive energy field washed in long before she did, with long, wavy, India-Ink hair, deep almond eyes, and a wry smile.
She sat down after our mutual
greeting, which was a simple; ‘nod and a hey’, as if we just expected each
other, our souls knew they promised to meet up at just this time, down on the
farm. That’s just how some people are
when you meet, it’s tacitly understood as if you talked the night before and
planned on the when, where, and how, and just arrived, right on time.
We spent hours at that table,
discussing the classes, people, telling jokes and laughing. It was the beginning of a wonderful adventure
every time we conversed and shared any time together.
Esmeralda was married to Rob, who
had long, bushy grey and white hair that he somewhat attempted to tie back, but
his electrified hair was emblematic of Rob, going everywhere at once and not interested in
being controlled ~ except by Marcella.
They were married for several decades by the time we met.
Rob would appear out of the
basement (his office and workspace as an antique collector and art dealer),
with several pairs of glasses hanging around his neck and a pair on his
face. He was a fit and lean man, like
his wife.
The house was very Frank Lloyd Wright, Usonian style Mid-century
modern, tucked back in their woods with the addition of a basement. Otherwise, it was an open-style home, with
antiques of all variety’s, paintings, books, objects of every different
elemental medium, ceramic/clay, stone, wood, and metals.
One of my favorite things was Marcella’s vintage teapot collection. Brown Betty, Japanese Tetsubin Iron Kettle’s,
a handmade Katsuhisa Sato teapot, metal, porcelain, were just part of the
collection. Having tea with Marcella was
ceremony.
Plants happily claimed their positions with joy as several cats
negotiated their way and claimed theirs.
Everything felt as though they were rewarded with some territory in this
home, among the natural teak woodwork, stone fireplace, and floor to ceiling
windows wrapping the corners and opening light into the walls barely encasing the
home, and yet it felt as private and secluded as a cave in some mountainous
hollow.
Just after dawn, this particular morning, trying not to disturb
Rob who was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking his coffee, the cats, or the
watchful spirits, I grabbed my things and crept quietly into the bathroom to
take a shower.
The small olive-green bathroom trimmed in broad planks of teak wood, had floating leaves of cyclachaena xanthiifolia unevenly painted in ochre with coagulated edges and lines, randomly silhouetting the walls. I let Marcella’s brushstrokes wrap me like the perfect house guest.
As it happens for me, a song was on repeat, playing in my mind and
eventually found its way out of my mouth, as I sang softly; ‘Just walk away
Renee’.
I dressed and came out to the kitchen, going for a cup of coffee myself and Rob was gently crying. He looked up at me, and asked me: ‘Why were you singing that song? That was Marcella and my song’, he said.
I hugged him, apologized, and explained, that is just what happens to me, while I let my open-heart comfort him, Marcella clearly there with us, streaming through.
We spent some time together that
morning, talking about Marcella and then I went out to my car, to drive to the
convention I was presenting at.
When
I started up my car, the song that came on the radio was: ‘Take a Walk on the Wild
Side’ which was the first song, Marcella played when we went out for a night on
the town together in her relatively new Jaguar
I nodded to her, the universe and backed the car out, continued to
go to the convention.
I massaged the creams onto hands and arms, gave sinus treatments and helped ease away headaches using Arc of the Ancient’s Headache roll on.
In the middle of this, a shaft of light streamed down and into me, and using my 3rd eye, I looked up through the crown of my head and could see a ‘ME’ looking down at me, but it was a golden hued version of me, which I took to be my Higher Self. I was immediately awestruck by this vision and version and thought, wow! That’s me!
A me I have not lived into yet. Will I during this earthly walk in this vessel as Gloria? I am not sure, but I sure hope so. I really liked her. This is my crude ability to use photoshop and create the image that I saw:
Some weeks
later, I was back in town and talking to Rob, and I asked him if he met Renee
yet? (Something that was whispered inside of me to ask him) He shook his head and asked me:
‘How do you know about Renee?’
Again, I just shrugged and said: ‘Why do you think Marcella and I were friends,
we could talk to each other’.
Then he responded that he had in fact met Renee online and thinks he already messed up, and why. (He lied about his age a wee bit and said he was younger).
I told him that he hadn’t messed up at all, that was not the biggest deal and gave him a pep talk suggesting what he might
do to overcome this faux pas.
He did as I suggested, and in an email, I asked him: ‘So, when are you getting
married?’ He called me on the phone and asked me again, ‘How do you know we are
getting married?”
Marcella left this earthly world on July 22nd,
2007. That is Mary Magdalene’s Feast
Day. Of course, she would leave on one
of the most important days in the year for me.
All these years later, Rob and
Renee are still happily married. I am
happy for them, and for any help I may have been in making sure they partnered
with each other.
But it was Marcella that played the song, ‘Just Walk Away Renee’ from the Left Bank in my head that morning, the song on the radio in the car, streamed the sunlight directly on my booth and was the inspiration for the words that poured from me into a gathering crowd for that magical experience. It was all transcendental and I wasn’t TRYING to do any of it. The magical formula is that MY HEART WAS OPENED. THAT'S IT. THAT'S THE MAGIC.
Marcella
came to me a year or so after all that happened, float standing in my living
room, entertaining me, even from the other side, she is hilarious.
She wanted to thank me and let me know she was grateful that I could help her,
replace her in the best way possible, for the man she loved and cared for so
many years. She told me many years
before she passed, that she was afraid of how Rob would get along in life,
without her. ‘Gloria, I don’t think he
could, it scares me’ She said. He was and
is, brilliant, kind, cute and funny, but in some ways, not here in the real
world. I think it depends whether he
finds the right pair of glasses to look through, at the right time for the
perfect perspective.
Marcella/Esmeralda, I am sure we
will see each other again, some long way into a future world somewhere,
somehow, of that, I’m sure. At least, it
is a prayer.
You are one
more incredible human/soul, who because you were so special and consciously
aware, it helped awaken me, I am grateful and blessed that you crossed my life
again and helped me find my way. I feel
the grace that heaven has gifted me with, You and the other souls, lights, that
I am so fortunate to have experienced, known, walked with for a time. My heart
hurts that I won’t see you again in the physical world in this life, never get
to hug your tiny frame and worry I could break you in two (I can see her giving
me one of her looks now, like: ‘Oh, I won’t break, believe me!’) You were and
are exquisite, just the best. Thank you
so much for gracing my world.
A Hanged Man is upside down and
enlightened. Looking at things from the
‘other side’ in a ‘reverse’ manor and finally can SEE THE TRUTH THAT IS ALL
AROUND HIM, IF ONE HAS THE EYES TO SEE’.
Please take time and have a cup of nice tea for yourself now, think
about.
What a treat, a treasure, and a gift you were and remain to me.
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