Training

I meet Julian the next morning. He again picks me up at the bottom door. Turns out that the doorbell isn’t currently working. He walks me upstairs. My stomach is made out of so many butterflies that it is turning my breath shallow. Breathe, Leia, breathe. There was a clear uptick in the dissolving as soon as I arrived and started standing in front of the door, and another one at the first glimpse of Julian. It’s like my body remembers what happened here last time. Or is it my energy field that remembers? I make a mental note to ask Julian about that. When the time is right. He is making both of us a cup of orange tea. Then we sit down in the arm chairs again.

Even more dissolving starts to happen the moment Julian turns his attention towards me. I feel breathless. The butterflies have started doing tricks in my stomach. The dissolving has a quality of sweetness today. Somehow I can taste it on my tongue. It tastes like one of those German licorice candies my mom likes. The sweetness is almost overwhelming, moving through me and intensifying with every breath. I want to get away from it and at the same time I want more of it, so much more. Part of me wants to get overwhelmed to the point of destruction. Maybe, if I just keep breathing, I will blast apart. The thought of being in pieces is appealing, in a way it definitely shouldn’t be.

“Leia.” Julian says. I can hear him pronouncing the period at the end of his one word sentences now, just like he does in his texts. It’s weighty, and a little bit formal and it makes me feel important. “You came back.” He adds. I start nodding. Then I keep nodding. Somehow my body just wants to nod for a minute or two, and I let it. I’m a little bit past trying to control the weirdness of the situation, the weirdness of my own state. Julian will just have to deal with it. He grins at me. “I’m glad you’re back.” He says. I blush. I wonder how much he can tell about my state right now. The dissolving has become like thick black velvet that tastes like dark chocolate. With a note of cherries. I breathe in and out, tasting it on my tongue. It is delicious in a way that makes real chocolate seem disappointing. Like the deliciousness is soothing something in me that I didn’t know needed soothing. Or waking something that needed waking. Julian chuckles.

“I...”, I say, not sure what the rest of the sentence should be. I want this. I want to know what’s going on. I need something, but I don’t know what it is. I want training in this. It seems to early in the conversation to say any of these things. Julian is laughing outright now. I start laughing too. Something about the situation is incredibly funny. I keep noticing, and laughing. 

“Julian”, I say, after the laughing phase has passed. “How is any of this possible?” He grins. “What are you experiencing?” he asks. “Dissolving.” I say. “Everything is dissolving. Everything wants to be dissolved. Destroyed. I want to be destroyed. But in a good way. And I think, I think I can read minds now.” He chuckles again. “Take a breath.” He says. “Feel your body.” I do so. My body feels like it’s made out of energy. Like everything is made out of glowing fluid where I’m supposed to be solid. I wonder if I still have bones. I try to check whether I still have bones. It seems that I do. As I look for them with my attention, the bones start humming, a deep vibrating hum that is both satisfying and unsettling. “My bones are humming.” I say to Julian. I feel giddy. He laughs and nods.

“Tell me about the mind reading.” Julian says. “What is it like?” I pause. “Right now it’s like I can see thoughts emerging. Like they’re coming from this place that isn’t actually you, but outside of you. But then they get picked up by your attention and that makes them your thoughts, rather than somebody else’s. Like I can tell the moment when you noticing that you have a thought.” I blush. I sound like a lunatic. “What is the place like that the thoughts are coming from?” Julian asks. “It’s a sort of substance”, I say. “It’s black. Or translucent? I… can’t tell which one. It’s like I’m seeing it but it’s not really seeing. I just know what it would look like.” I’m still rambling. Hoping that he doesn’t think I’m lame. Part of me wishes that he would just explain things to me, rather than asking me all these questions. 

“Can you tell me how this works?” I ask. He pauses, as if to figure me out. “It’s different for everyone”, he says. “People use different sense modalities to interact with the field. Sounds like yours is seeing. Or something like seeing.” I nod. “Did you have any of this before we had the session?” He asks. “No”, I say. “At least I don’t think so…?” Somehow it feels really hard to know for sure. Or maybe just really hard to know anything. “Why do I have it?” I ask. “I’m not sure”, he says. “Mara and I have been working on transfering things back and forth. You must be quite sensitive on this dimension.” I nod again, not sure if that’s a compliment. “Would you like to keep working on this together?” I nod solemnly. “Yes”, I say. “Where do we start?”

Back at home I pace back and forth accross my bedroom, trying to clear a space to meditate in. Julian has send me home with exercises. One of them is a concentration meditation where you learn to stabilize your attention on a single point. I’m supposed to pay attention to the breath at the tip of my nose, notice the sensations of the breath. I’ve never been very good at meditating. Something about the state that emerges when I focus on my breath for too long doesn’t feel good. Like it’s too… still. I sit down, trying to let my mind settle. 

About twenty minutes later my timer goes off, in the middle of me musing about Julian and Mara. Are they dating? I remember Mara describing Julian as her friend. But somehow, talking to Julian today, I’ve come to think of them as a couple. I turn the beeping timer off, slightly surprised by how easily I lost my focus. Not the most successful meditation session ever. But, you know. Whatever. They say it gets easier over time. Julian has also send me home with a stack of books to read. Some buddhist texts. Carl Jung. A philosophy book. It’s a lot of books. Thankfully I’m a pretty fast reader. I grab a cup of tea and a blanket, before curling up in my arm chair to get started.