Athena Chapter 4: Part 1: The Heaven of the Hidden Goddess

“To know yourself you need to seek the other

Look in a pool and you will see your lover”

Host in Utah: Luis Siva

TEMPLE OF ARTS – UTAH

Elaine: “Thank you, Luis Siva, for inviting us to this wonderful mountain land. I wonder that you need our help so urgently. It is so orderly in your Utah Iseum, with its library and computers.”

Luis: “And so it was until on a fatal journey I made to my old university last year. My father is part Spanish, part Native American, and is set on my obtaining a Doctorate in comparative religion. I know why. Our family blends three traditions – my mother is Hindu. She has had Puja done for me for my acceptance into our Temple here. It is dedicated to the Deities Kali, Siva and Ganesh… Hence my second initiatory name.”

Aiden: “This must give you a keen interest in religion.”

Luis: “Quite the contrary. It has given me a strong dislike of any sort of faith. I am doing the Doctorate in order to bring scientific rationalism to expose cults and religious dogma. I wish to escape from being confined to any tradition that does not conform to scientific facts. My computer is my best friend.”

Aiden: “It is worthy to seek the truth. Facts are the sandaled feet of a statue to Truth. Otherwise religious statues have feet of clay.”

Elaine: “Yet feet of clay bring the Deity down to Mother Earth!”

Deirdre: “Where the fallen statue lies in the mud, there can be no miracles, and as Prophetess I deal in miracles!”

Aiden: “Let us hear your story, and what has happened to destroy your faith in materialist science.”

Luis: “A woman. No ordinary woman. She has ruined my life, destroyed my reputation for sanity, by entirely taking over my life – and all for nothing. What is in a name?”

Elaine: “How did this happen to you? You seem so level headed.

Luis: “None more so. Or so I thought. It happened on the plane journey back to my home in Utah. I was sitting with my laptop working out statistics of the number of cults in Utah, compared with those in California – there are less in Utah, but more virulent because they are underground – undermining logic and known scientific facts.

“Suddenly there came unexpected turbulence which rocked our plane. One of my papers fluttered to the floor, by the feet of a woman who I now observed was sitting next to me. She bent and picked up the paper. She glanced at it and smiled. I don’t know why, but I felt offended; I felt she was laughing at it…. She looked at me.

I was startled. She had “wall-eyes,” one being greenish brown, the other a clear sky blue. Then I felt embarrassed at staring at what was a physical defect. She seemed to reply to my thoughts. “I like having wall-eyes,” she said. “It gives me dual perspective – a dialogue between them! I am earthly, and I am spiritual.”

I should have been wary of getting into conversation, but she had touched on my determination to find facts about so-called spirituality. I found myself inviting her opinion on my forthcoming thesis. She handed me back my paper, and in so doing, touched my left hand. I felt an electric shock shoot through my body, inducing a feeling of ecstasy. For the rest of the journey I was in heaven. She told me of my own native land as a place of wonder, with soaring mountain ranges with undiscovered gorges, and said that below were underground tunnels and a volcano. I remember she told me she had a woman friend who had shared a course on volcanoes in Hawaii and they sometimes worked together. I wish now I had asked where they both worked. But too soon the flight ended. She drew a hand-woven, woollen cloak around her, picked up a Native American bag and …that was the last I saw of her….”

Aiden: “Didn’t you follow, get her name and number on your mobile?”

Luis: “Of course, that is what I usually do. But she went so swiftly and I had to get my own suitcase of books from the luggage hall. It took for ever. Then I looked for her everywhere in the airport and outside. And from then on I have been obsessed. I must find her. Nothing else matters. My mother says I have been bewitched, and wanted me to be exorcised by a Priest of Kali. But I said that would make it worse! A statue now has the effect of making a fire burn within me. I know now why the words “in love” are used and not “I love.” You fall into love for your will-power is gone. Or rather you don’t want any cure. You delight in your very anguish.”

Elaine: “So what did you do?”

Luis: “I broke my father’s heart. I burnt all my papers. I gave my friends my laptop. I presented my father with my mobile and I left home for my search. I brought little with me, only the bare necessities. I even gave up my spectacles! Indeed, my eyesight began to improve and I found I could easily tramp fifteen to twenty miles a day.

At first I enquired her name from the Mormons, who were extremely courteous and called me Brother – but even their extensive genealogical library could not help as I had no name for this woman. They showed me hundreds of photos, but no-one was like her. I tried the Freemasons, but their Women’s Lodge could not trace her. The Witches could not have been kinder – but found no trace of her in their coven records. The Spiritualists consulted their Guides. However, they declared that they did not give away personal details of anyone. Obviously the lady wished to be incognito. I must respect this.

So I made the decision to seek her where, from her words to me, she might be found. So I made a long trek up a mountain in a snowy range, part of the Rocky Mountains. It was divinely beautiful. I found a small resting place in a hut. At first I was overcome by the magic of stars, glittering in wheeling constellations high above the shining snow of the mountain peaks.

But now I became aware of a new sense that had been growing in me since I had received the ‘Electric-like’ shock. It was the Sixth Sense, which before I had denied. I lay down to sleep wrapped in my sleeping bag, before the embers of a wood fire – when I became aware of ghostly faces. There were a myriad of faces of lonely frozen people who I first assumed had perished in the snow. But I became aware that they were captured by icy-cold thoughts without love or hope. They drew near to me as one of them. Around them were diagrams, geometrical shapes, theorems, schedules, systems and ideologies that had brought atrophy of all feelings. I found myself promising them that I would find the secret name of a woman who would save them. I would return. I left them with hope.

I came down the mountain. Below were underground caves. The moment I rested on my dark way – I saw faces. This time they were as distorted as in medieval paintings of purgatory. They were, I thought trapped in some mining catastrophe – but then I found they had been imprisoned in underground tunnels by the most extreme emotions. They let me feel that I could not know their rage, their desire for revenge, their violence against their enemies. I found myself assuring them that I knew a woman who would rescue them – if only I could find her. I needed her name. When I found her I would return.

I made my way back to a motor-way, more dead than alive. Then, at a wayside café, I met a Priestess of Isis who told me of your fellowship. She advised me to write to you. I had no computer so I wrote a long-hand letter. And here you are! You are my last hope. Life without this woman is meaningless.”

Aiden: “Your whole desire is to find love?

Luis: “I seem to have changed. Now I really want to help those spirits whom I never believed in! Their state is infinitely worse than mine. Something must be done and I want to do it with the woman’s help.”

Elaine: “We all agree with this move – so we will try - but only if the woman is willing to reveal herself.”

Please continue to Part 2. Heaven of the Hidden Goddess. The Revelation.

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