BANANA PATCH FANTASY PRODUCTIONS
FACING SUNRIZE, part II
Chapter 8, page 2
But Sittingjing-gongala and Salanka had said that it was the snake venom that made her see the Owl Woman and the Pyramid of Lost Owls, the tunnels and heard the hooting. How could it be hallucinations. It all felt so real!...even now. Inside her body, her heart was pounding wildly. It frightened Harmony to think of that hallway again...and the frightful drunks that slept behind the garbage cans outside their door. They were broken men....survivors of World War II, unable to cope anymore with the reality of what they'd lived thru...and what they had to do to other boys and men like themselves....in the name of Peace...and blessed freedom! Proud, yet regretful of it all. Now, they slept in their blood and piss, frozen in the time in between. Amnesia would have been a blessing.....but they remembered every meanness that war had brought out in them. So they drank themselves into oblivion. She was terrified to go back there, even in her dreams. She trembled, but knew she'd never have to go back to that time again.
She got up feeling somewhat dizzy now and stepped outside the bamboo dome. She held onto a tree and breathed as slowly as she could until she regained her senses. Remembering the hallway of her childhood unnerved her. Somehow the two were connected. What did it really mean?....Now she remembered...yes, she was on Maui, camping in the jungle with Maji. Her children were in Haiku with their cousins, and she was free for one whole week, if she wanted to be. She remembered now, what the world was like out there...and what it had become...It was the time she was born into...not
transmigrated to or transported from. Maji said she needed to get a grip. But honestly, she was getting a grip...a grip on who she really was. Not who they expected her to be, or decided she was. She was remembering herself. And it wasn't easy facing her snot-nose-kid arrogance. There was something she needed to know, in order to understand herself. She needed to understand the basis of her personality and character. Where did they come from. How did they evolve to bring her into this time and place. Something within was unresolved.
Revenge and thinking about revenge, is never worth the loss of soul," she thought. "But there are still other lessons I must learn." She could no longer go on blindly trying to avoid her character. She needed to know what life and Time was for. She wanted to know what she'd done to offend the Universe. She wanted to know what she could do to turn her Fate around.
She remembered her happy little village and yearned to go back there, but knew she couldn't yet, for she had somehow contributed to the madness that existed in the world. Had she come to this time with a special purpose? She felt like she was actually breaking through. Deep inside her was a sense of knowing she needed to unravel and decipher. Her goal was to consciously know who she really was, and why she was trapped in this eternal wheel of circumstances, endlessly revolving states of drudgery and misery, of poverty and hopelessness. Of broken heartedness....How Fate had tricked her. And this strange, deep
feeling of knowing about herself, made her question whether she had somehow
brought it all upon herself.
She had changed when the Empress showed her the cause of suffering in the world. Why then was she still bound?! Was there more to remember? How deep dare she go to find the Truth? How sincere the inner longing to know? Would she even be strong enough to carry the Truth forward once discovering it?!!! Would it not be better to just linger half-forgetting half-remembering? Couldn't she survive just as well without a conscience?.... Could one escape the responsibility of it that way?
This land they were camping on was a very special place. She didn't know why she felt that strongly about it. There were many spirits living there ...Spirits of the Kanakas. The terraced kalo(taro) beds now fallow, still line the walls of the gorge where it meets the sea. People lived and planted food in that little valley. In winter the river rushes through the gorge, but the lava rock terraces survive. The presence of their spirits provoked her need to inquire of herself, the significance, if any, and purpose of her own individual. Inside, the beauty of everything made her ache. She longed for clarity, but remembering made her queasy. She didn't want to remember really because it hurt too much. She had a foreboding of something dreadful, something unspeakable. Now, alone in the jungle, the spirits of Ancestors and Guardians made it impossible for her to ignore the pertinent questions that a soul must ask in order to define itself...to it's self.
For now it was fun to just go to a certain point, and not beyond. It was an
interesting diversion. But to probe too deeply, to uncover what Time has buried deep in the dna...to face one's self and acknowledge that the Karma is one's own creation...To accept the Truth and take responsibility for our creations...and evolve finally...into the blessed person we'd really like to be...is jumping off into the unknown, un-fabricated future, and it scaird her. She wanted to take the leap...but not yet.
But the jungle spirits knew she was ready, and cast their nets before her. She was still allowing the images to come and go, but didn't understand the story line behind them as they were not cohesive, but irrational. As she was perplexing thus, she heard a moaning sound. It recalled ancient memories.
"Maaaowwwwmiii" it called through the dank darkness of her forgotten mind. Was she dreaming or was someone calling her? The beast raised it's head from the waterfall beside their camp, startling her with it's one big eye in the center of it's prominent misshapen head.
"Maaaaoowwwwwwmmmiii" it called, reaching it's clawed hand towards her, pleading. Then, someone was coming....A beautiful iridescently luminous and almost humanlike female insect with four arms and wings folded by her side, was leading a baby buffalo through the tangled maze of vines, guava, and mango trees to the stream. When they arrived, the birds stopped singing. Lemurlalo, the insect queen, barely had time to step aside, as the cyclops grabbed the little buffalo and tore it limb from limb, devouring it rabidly. Queen Muri looked very much like the Empress., but her luminosity was different. Decidedly, she was not the Empress from the Pyramid of Lost Owls. Now was beautiful insect was running away with tears streaming down her face. The creature in the pool below the waterfall finished feasting. Harmony saw there was blood in the water.
"Oh my God!" she exclaimed, bringing her hand to her mouth in horror. She felt a deep void, and coming through it, an awful painful knowing. She rubbed her palms across her heart and stomach to quell the nausea. It didn't ease the pain. Harmony knew...she...was that woman. But how could that be? The woman was a shining being! She saw what the woman had done...and remembered it now. She didn't want to remember this though. Not this...ever...never! Inside she cried, This was the Truth she denied to herself for so long.
Facing her real self was frightening. She wanted to be beautiful and nice. Where did her understanding of Being warp. How could she ever have been that person....?
All around her the earth was adorned as if for a great celebration, but Harmony was filled with an uneasiness, a foreboding,.....even in all the flowering of Nature. She felt the presence of the Spirits stroking her head and arms and legs. Their presence gave her courage. Soon.... she'd allow it to surface.
Something very ancient within her was emerging. The forest distilled it from her subconscious depths. It was vibrating in the air. This waterfall and the pool, were so connected to her. She had longed her whole life to reunite with it. It too had been a dream. Now it was true. Would the rest unfold also in time? This little waterfall, the one at the top where no one ever goes, was her old companion. But from where and when? She was feeling the way within as if in the dark. She tried to tell herself that she was just being overly dramatic...but she did see x-ray like pictures in her mind of other places and other times....all leading to this extraordinary life as Harmony.

Queen Muri Leads a Baby Buffalo Thru the Jungle
It all fit perfectly as it superimposed Itself upon the landscape as if it were a mirage or hologram. It was as if the images came in on the little breeze that made all the leaves of the forest dance. Someone was watching and tending us always. She felt so perfectly comfortable in Nature, as if the pages of the Book of Time were openly displaying for her. She felt as if she had lived in this little valley for a long time, a long long time ago.
What seemed to be the ruins of temples and abandoned kalo patches reminded her of something somewhere that she dared not admit to herself. If she knew, would she truly sink into madness, or would she finally become a normal and sane person? Could she throw down all her crutches and walk...ever? Or would she always be a neurotic and under-developed emotional wreck!
Please go to: Chapter 8, page 3