What Did She Hear 5, cont'd

(We left our story at “She discovered that if you ARE honor (not honorable—honor) it is easy to express honor.”)

Ramey had always perceived honor to be outside herself and learned that as long as she thought that, it would never be natural. She had always performed distasteful tasks through willpower, but this had always been accompanied by some level of resentment. All that out there—conversations, events, accidents, war, all are results, she learned, never causes. Nothing in the outer world causes us to do anything—quite the contrary. Something within us shapes our life. It does not cause us. We cause it. We think life forms us, but it only confirms what we believe life to be.

 When Assembly was over and it was time to leave Colorado, panic (Ramey’s dutiful wingman) set in once more, but this time was experienced more as a state of being “driven” to avoid. She wanted to get out of there fast. She didn’t know what to say to people or how to talk to them so as not to appear dumb. She was sure she would say something stupid. Not taking the time to fold her clothes, she wadded them up and threw them in bags with no order, while all the time feeling she was leaving behind everything safe, everything loving, and at the same time, dangerous and exciting. It was a paradox that “fear of” and “longing for” could exist side-by-side, but suddenly everything she felt made room for its opposite.

 At the beginning of the week, when she had first arrived at the hotel, Ramey seriously thought about turning and leaving on a dead run. Probably the only thing that had kept her there was that she felt a caring from these people she had never experienced.

She had experienced what she would call “caring”. That wasn’t it. This was different. That other caring seemed almost smothery at times. This felt clean and demanding—demanding that she somehow participate in this caring. There was something reciprocal that required the best out of her. Was that why it felt so clean, almost like reverence? She felt what cared for her, here, exuded respect, and recognition of dignity whereas that other “caring” seemed to be because of some departure from wholeness on her part. It seemed to agree with defeat. She never realized how much that had crippled her. In fact, she never realized how many prisons she occupied until she felt what would no longer be contained. Two days after Ramey arrived home after this Assembly, all those pieces of herself that had been blasted free of their moorings would finally settle down and choose their new form, but they would never again be cast in cement. She would embark on a journey of self-discovery that would last her whole life.

 For now, she stood in what they called a love circle that wound around the whole room. Ramey took the hands of the people on each side of her. It was awkward and embarrassing but in spite of that, a warmth spread throughout Ramey’s soul. She felt more at home here than in her own apartment. She would later discover her sense of home would travel with her. It would board planes to other events these people held, walk the streets of New York, and learn to snow ski in Montana.

 On the way back to her room, Ramey decided to pay the $1.00 they were charging for a cup of coffee. At least it did when she arrived. That was a ridiculous price. But suddenly it was free. There was a rumor going around that the man who started this school, name of Thane (the white-haired gentleman so interested in magic), called upon some connection he had with the mafia because suddenly the coffee was free and the service vastly improved. This connection was never anything hidden. Thane, a licensed therapist, had been called to a prison once to counsel a mafia member. Evidently, they were pleased with the results, thus establishing a favorable view they had of Thane.

 Ramey learned that Thane’s influence, reputation and message reached across all sorts of strange and different areas of life. She saw, firsthand, how he walked across all kinds of taboos to be of service. In an invisible hierarchy of society, Thane had connections from top to bottom, from governor’s offices to the streets of San Francisco. He had long ago thrown away society’s measuring stick for who and what is important. And the secret passages traveled only by the most esoteric layer of society were well known to this man--he was "that guy" behind "the guy", the astrologer's astrologer, the therapist's therapist. He was the steadying hand holding up more than one physicist, mathematician, and leader in some area of life, as well as the local jailer and his favorite bartender.

A few month’s after this Assembly, Ramey would be stuck in an elevator for two hours with an older man who began to tell her the most fascinating life story she had ever heard. He had been in prison for killing a man in a bar fight. While in prison, he began to study medicine. When he got out, he went back to college and got a medical degree. He worked as a pathologist until he raised his children. He had married and had nine daughters, most of whom he had raised alone. Once they were out of the house, he quit the field of medicine, sold everything, took his savings and began to follow the gambling circuit. All big cities are on a gambling circuit for high rollers. In a card game, it took $10,000 stake per hand to even join.

While in prison, he also became interested in astrology, He read every book on it in the library, then bought other books online. When he got out, he never stopped practicing or learning about it. And this is where it got interesting. When he asked Ramey what her story was, during the telling, she talked about this organization and the man who had started it, which caused her to mention his name. At that, the gambler stopped her and said, “You don’t mean Thane Walker, the astrologer do you?” She answered, “Yes”. He proceeded to tell her that Thane was the astrologer’s astrologer. He was the astrologer who astrologers sought out. And he had no idea Thane was associated with anything other than astrology or that he was associated with anything spiritual or religious.

 Ramey would have thought that Thane, this elegant, charismatic leader of the disenchanted to have firmly lodged his school in the upper crust of society. But the minute you crossed the threshold of the building that housed this school, society died. It was disconcerting as society’s reliable categories failed to hold up here, even covertly. One young man looked like he had been living in his mom’s basement eating hot pockets and playing video games most of his life. And yet, he taught one of the most effective seminars presented by this school. She had much to learn about her first impressions.

 In later years, whenever Ramey thought of Thane, she always pictured him in white slacks and one of his peacock-colored Hawaiian shirts that, to her, had a very Great Gatsby feel to it, a sort of flamboyant freedom. She thought he loved disrupting solemnity.

(Watch for the continued story next month. You might recognize yourself or a friend. See you then.)