Gideon McGee's Dream: Chapter Six

As the galaxies sped by, Gideon thought of the similarities between Moebius and Earth. Although he had done little or no traveling, the technological age in which he lived brought the wonders of his home planet to the twenty-five-inch screen in his living room. On those occasions when he was not allowed to watch MTV because his parents were watching NOVA or National Geographic, Gideon forced himself to view the mysteries of his own world.

In the quietness and solitude of his mind Gideon reluctantly admitted that the volcanic eruption of Mt. Kilueha in Hawaii was more spectacular than watching MTV, although both had a place in his life. He was mesmerized by the sight of the Earth’s most formidable species standing helplessly by, while the inexorable slow-motion flow of lava made a meal of everything in its path.

“Why does the Earth have so many bad things happen? I mean, why does it have earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and tornadoes, lightning and fire?” Gideon’s attention was momentarily diverted by a brilliant three-star system that whizzed by just above him. He thought of his asteroid dream the night of the ice storm.

“The Universe is alive, Gideon, just as you are alive. It is pure consciousness, as you are pure consciousness,” Zack replied. “As your body changes and grows, so does the Earth. It is a reflection of you. You have your breath, the Earth has its atmosphere. You sneeze, the Earth has a hurricane. You cough, it tornadoes. You cry, it rains. You lash out in anger, its volcanoes erupt. You cut yourself, the Earth quakes. You have your blood, the Earth has its water. Your arteries carry your blood to feed your body, the Earth has its rivers to feed the land. The Earth is infinitely more than a mere orb upon which you happen to reside. It is your living home. It has given you birth, just as you have given it birth. The Earth is your collective creation. It is a reflection of your own energies.”

“Why do we pollute it then?” Gideon asked as a red dwarf star exploded into a super nova directly in front of him.
“For the same reason you pollute your own bodies with drugs, alcohol and tobacco,” Zack replied. “You are unaware of the sacredness of all things. How can you respect the Earth when you have yet to learn to respect yourselves? Just as the human infant’s awareness is such that it will swallow poison if made available, so too is the awareness of your species at the infantile stage. You are learning, however, to become aware. Look! The door to the Land of the Gatekeeper is just ahead.”

Floating in the black void, spinning slowly like a merry-go-round, was a red door, a door attached to nothing, and apparently opening into nothing.
“Grab the handle and open the door, Gideon,” Zack said, gently nudging his companion toward the opening.
“But it’s just a door floating in space,” Gideon objected.
“And your body is lying at the bottom of Round Pond, and you are here. There are many realities. Open the door.”

Gideon reached for the golden knob, and turned it hesitantly to the right. As the door opened Gideon saw brilliant sunlight on the other side, but none escaped into the darkness in which he stood.

“Go on through, Gideon. There’s nothing in the Land of the Gatekeeper that will hurt you. It is a world much like your own where each soul creates its own reality.”
“Talk English, will ya, Zack!” Gideon whined. “What does ‘create your own reality’ mean?”

“You must discern that for yourself, but if you remember your mother’s words about four billion people and four billion worlds you’ll have a leg-up on the answer.”

With a gentle yet firm shove, Zack pushed Gideon through the portal then stepped through himself. The Twilight Zone was stuff for three-year-olds compared to this, Gideon thought. In every direction, as far as his eyes could see, was desert sand, but not like any desert he had ever seen on Earth. This desert glimmered like welding sparks, and had he been in his body Gideon McGee would have needed a welder’s visor just to keep his eyes open. In his current condition, however, the brightness of the landscape merely heightened his appreciation of its beauty.

“What am I going to learn here?” Gideon complained, sounding like his old self. “There’s nothing here but sand. It’s beautiful, but I’m fourteen. I’d like a little action.”

“Look again,” Zack said. He pointed eastward, and sitting on the horizon, in stark contrast to the blue sky, was an immense walled-city. From his vantage point, some twenty miles away, Gideon saw five crystal spires reaching to the angel-hair clouds a thousand feet overhead. The city was laid out in a square, with one spire standing sentinel in each corner, while the fifth rose out of the center. As they approached the city, Gideon realized it was surrounded by a fifty-foot gray stone wall, and sitting atop the wall was a glass bubble. It finished the job of enclosing the city that the stone wall began. It looked as though the entire city was climate controlled.

“Why is the city enclosed? There doesn’t seem to be any way in,” Gideon said as they thought-traveled around the immense metropolis.
“The only way in is through the Gatekeeper,” Zack said. “Anyone can leave whenever they choose, but all those wishing to enter must first speak with the Gatekeeper.”
“He sounds like a security guard at a bank or something. Does he wear a gun?”
Zack chuckled at how ridiculous the idea of a gun sounded. “Look! You can see him now, off in the distance. Straight ahead.”

Gideon’s eyes followed the line of Zack’s pointing finger. Two hundred yards ahead, in front of a gleaming gold door, as high as the stone wall, stood the Gatekeeper.

“Will the Gatekeeper be able to see us?” Gideon asked.
“The Gatekeeper sees all. Come; let us pay him our respects.”

The Gatekeeper was ancient, older even than Zacharaias. His face was so deeply furrowed with the creases of age that were he to lie on his back during a rain-storm they would have held enough water to quench a thirst. His hair was as white as the down of a gosling. It was drawn tight against his head and tied off in the back to form a ponytail that hung lazily to the center of his back. The old man had bushy eyebrows that came within an ant lip’s length of meeting just above the bridge of his long, bulbous nose. Tufts of long white hair stood atop each ear like antennae.
His body was short, lean and erect, and looked as though it still carried much of the power of his youth. But it was his eyes, as it was Zack’s eyes that drew Gideon in. They were as blue and as deep as the lacquer on a new Ferrari, and seemed to see straight into Gideon’s soul. Everything about the Gatekeeper proclaimed him to be a ‘Wise Old Man.’

“Why does this city have such an old man for a Gatekeeper?” Gideon whispered to Zack, lest the Gatekeeper hear him. “Anyone could get by him.”
“So, you think I’m an old relic, do you, Gideon?” The Gatekeeper’s voice was steady and firm, seemingly uncracked by the weight of life and time.

“Well...You are old,” Gideon stammered, “but...I don’t know... you’re different from all the old people I know.”
The Gatekeeper smiled, and the furrows of his brown weathered face narrowed. “How so?” he asked, learning eons ago that a teacher’s best tool was a well-timed question.

“Where I come from,” Gideon began, “old people look like you... sort of. I mean... their bodies look like yours, but somehow theirs seem more tired and bent, as though some heavy load weighed them down. You have an old body, but you seem... light.”
“Well put, lad. I too have noticed that the aged in your world look old in their bodies,” the Gatekeeper said. His eyes twinkled, and Gideon noticed the trace of a smile, evident only at the corners of his mouth.

“I don’t get you,” Gideon said. “And how did you know my name?”
“Ah, you humans have not yet adjusted to the news rules of your reality, and have so much still to learn regarding your ability to create what you want. Your old people act and feel old, because they place such a premium on youth. They value youth above all else, and see old age as a time of loss and burden. They therefore meet those expectations of themselves because that is what they believe.”

“But what good is being old?” Gideon asked, not getting the Gatekeeper’s point. “They’re forgetful. Some are senile. They’ve lost their strength. Their kids have to take care of them. They don’ look good in bathing suits.”

“Enough!” The Gatekeeper put up his hand. “All you say is true, but it need not be true for all time. Your young people must rethink what it means to be old, or their fate will be that of their grandparents. Old age can be of equal value as youth and all the other stages of life if you believe it to be. It can be a time for reflection and life-review, for it comes directly before your disengagement from this reality. It need not be worse than the stage of life you call youth, but it does need to be different, for what value would there be in it if it were the same as every other stage? If what you value is running fast and looking good in a bathing suit, then of course old age will weigh you down. All experience has value.”

“You still haven’t told me how you knew my name.”
“I heard Zacharaias speak it on your way here.”
“Great hearing!” Gideon said, looking at the long white hairs atop the Gatekeeper’s ears.

“You’re right. I do have good hearing, but I didn’t hear Zacharaias here.” The Gatekeeper pointed to his ear. “I heard him here.” He pointed to his heart.
Gideon turned at the creak of the golden door, and out walked a boy that looked to be his own age. The boy waved and sent a warm smile toward the Gatekeeper then wandered off into the desert. Gideon looked at the Gatekeeper, and when he turned again to look for the boy, he had disappeared.

“Who was that, and where did he go?” Gideon asked the Gatekeeper.
“The young man’s name is Parsifal, and he is off to find another city, another Gatekeeper. He was unable to find what he wanted here, and so will be wandering for many years.”

“There are more cities like this, and more men like you?”
“Indeed,” said the Gatekeeper. “There are as many cities and Gatekeepers as there are stars in the sky, but not all of us are men. Half our ranks are filled with women.”

“But where are the other cities? When we thought-traveled here, we only saw this one. The rest of your world seems to be desert,” Gideon said, convinced of his own perceptions.

“That is because you only see with your senses and not with the other aspects of awareness. Parsifal is off to find his heart and all the aspects of his awareness. When he does he will be able to see. He is like you in many ways.” The Gatekeeper tugged on his chin and looked up as one often does when trying to catch a thought. “I think I would like to invite you and Zacharaias to sit with me for a spell, while I perform my duties. Will you join me?”

Zack looked at Gideon. “Sure,” Gideon said, “but what exactly is it you do?”
As though on cue, a young girl, who looked as though she had only recently entered the mysteries of womanhood, appeared before the Gatekeeper. She was dark-skinned and well manicured, but her walk and her posture belied her beautiful exterior. The girl shuffled over to the Gatekeeper as though her shadow weighed more than her body.

“Welcome traveler,” the Gatekeeper said. “You look as though your journey has been long and arduous. What is it you are in search of?”

She seemed not to see Gideon and Zacharaias, for her gaze went beyond them to the fifty-foot golden door. “My name is Tanisha, Gatekeeper, and you are wise to know that my walk upon this land has blistered my feet.”

“What is it you are in search of, young woman?”
“I search for a city whose inhabitants treat each other with respect and kindness, a city that knows no hatred, and where all people are looked upon as equals.”

“A noble search, Tanisha,” the Gatekeeper acknowledged. “A noble search, indeed. A world where differences are seen without judgment is a noble search. Might there be more you are looking for?”

“Yes, Gatekeeper. I am looking for a place where a stomach never cries for food, where children are treated with more respect than their parents’ cars, and where depression is known only as a dip in the road.”

“You are wise to desire such things, Tanisha,” the Gatekeeper said, nodding. “But tell me. Could you not find these things in the land from which you came? Tell me of the place you left.”

“It is everything my Nirvana is not,” Tanisha cried. “There is no fairness. The rich hoard, and the poor starve. Parents are children, and children have babies. Where there are good people there are always the bad. The chain cannot be broken. Could this city, whose gates you guard, be the one I search for?”

The Gatekeeper shook his head sorrowfully. “This city is not the one you search for. If you were not able to find the things you search for in the city you left, you will certainly not find them through this golden gate. You will find everything you left behind, right here.”

Tanisha sighed and turned toward the desert. A single tear dropped from her eye, and moistened the sand in front of her feet. The young girl continued her resolute march toward a place only she could create. As long as she persevered in the search there was hope of finding what she longed for.

“What kind of city are you the Gatekeeper of?” Gideon asked. He picked up the moistened sand created by the mournful girl’s teardrop, and threw it at the Gatekeeper.

“What kind of city would you like it to be?” the wise old man asked, catching the sandy missile between his thumb and forefinger. Gideon’s reply was cut-off by another traveler. This time it was a middle-aged man, smartly dressed, and apparently in good physical condition. His face was as deeply tanned as the Gatekeeper’s, and Gideon sensed he had been in the desert for a long, long time. He looked vaguely familiar.

“Greetings, Gatekeeper,” the man said excitedly. “Do you remember me?”
The Gatekeeper smiled in his knowing way. “Need you ask, Parsifal? You had just turned fourteen when you left through that golden gate thirty-five years ago. What is it you seek?”

“I seek what I refused to see when I left,” Parsifal replied. “I went from Gatekeeper to Gatekeeper, each telling me their golden door would admit me to a world that was a carbon-copy of the one I left. If I saw fear and hatred in this city, I would find it in the next. If I thought others got the luck, while I got the shaft, that too would I find in every city the Gatekeepers attended, for it was what I believed.

“My journeys taught me much, Gatekeeper,” Parsifal continued. “I seek to enter the gates through which I passed thirty-five years ago.”
“And what do you expect to find that you did not find before?” the Gate¬keeper asked. “How will my city be different this time?”

“If I judge unfairness, I will find it. If I judge fairness, I will find that also. If it is love that I seek, I must first learn to love and accept myself. But should I have hatred in my heart, it is hatred that will find me, for I believe in its power. I enable that which I judge. There will be abundance, and there will be scarcity. Abundance for those who believe it is their due and scarcity for those who believe in it. All these things were present when I left, but I only saw the unfairness, the hatred and the scarcity. My judgment of these things as bad and my non-acceptance of their perpetuators created the reality. The other Gatekeepers were right in telling me that was all I would find in their cities.”

“You have learned well, Parsifal.” The Gatekeeper embraced the younger man, who brought back memories of his own journey scores of years earlier. With the embrace the golden door opened and Parsifal stepped through to the home he refused to see as a young man.

Gideon was dumbfounded. “That man left your city no more than fifteen minutes ago as a fourteen-year-old. How can that be?”

“How can it be that you are here and your body is at the bottom of Round Pond?” the Gatekeeper asked in return, echoing the words of Zacharaias a short time earlier. “You humans have so much to remember. If you decide to return to your body, Gideon, you may want to remember something about Quantum Mechanics. Those who do are beginning to see a different world than the one you see. A new worldview is being created.”

“Quantum Mechanics? Why would I want to learn about working on engines? And how can I remember something I've never learned?” Gideon asked.
The Gatekeeper chuckled. “In a way you are right, Gideon. It is the engine of the Universe, the study of the very smallest of particles, and since the entire universe is conscious, all knowing is available to all. It is not a matter of learning, but rather a matter of remembering and allowing.”

Zacharaias laid his hand lightly on Gideon’s shoulder. “We must be going,” he said. “Is there anything you’d care to ask the Gatekeeper before we leave for the land of ‘What is Good? What is Bad?’’”

Gideon thought for a moment then spoke. “Before I fell through the ice on Round Pond I had a dream of a tug-of-war between white and black circles pulling against a golden center. Could you tell me, Gatekeeper, what this dream means?”

“Your dreams are created by you, Gideon,” the Gatekeeper began, “and it is for you to decipher their meaning. I can only tell you how your dream resonates within me, and if in doing so it strikes a chord in you then for us the dream has the same meaning. If your dream were mine it might be telling me that there are parts of me that need to be united, parts that seem to be opposite, but if reconciled would be turned to gold. Learn the story of the Prodigal son.”

A new traveler appeared, and the Gatekeeper ceased his interpretation of Gideon’s dream. “I’m sorry, Gideon, but as you can see, a new traveler demands my attention. Good luck in your travels with Zacharaias, and remember, the way to self-knowledge is through a narrow gate. The path is difficult, and few will choose it. The wide way is easy, and many will take it, but it will never lead you to your own truth. Your truth is the reality you create. Pay attention to what you do and not what you think about what you do; for the doing will reveal the belief behind it. I bid you a fond farewell.”