Gideon McGee's Dream: Chapter Eight

The Diamond Universe was much like Gideon’s own, but like any twin there were many subtle differences. It occurred to Gideon that he knew the name of the Diamond Universe, but didn’t know the name of his own, so he asked his guide.

“They all belong to you,” Zack replied.
Maybe they all belong to me, but I live in another Universe. What’s the name of the Universe in which I live?”
Zack smiled. “You live in them all, Gideon, but if you mean the one where you lie at the bottom of Round Pond, it is called the Gold Universe.”

A wave of goose bumps crawled across Gideon’s ethereal flesh as his mind struggled with the information he had just received. It was more startling than any of the other surprises Zack had pulled from his magician’s hat. “Are you telling me I’m not the only me?” Flies would have had easy access to Gideon McGee's mouth had there been any to take advantage of its gaping yaw.

“There are as many Gideons as there are Universes,” Zack chuckled, delighted in the effect his disclosure created.
“And I suppose there are an infinite number of Universes.”

Zack smiled again and nodded. “Each one of you in some way influences the rest. There are an infinite number of possibilities that your life could have lived out, and each of these actualizes in another Universe.”

The soul is no puny thing, Gideon remembered Zack saying. “Is that why you said I’m a spotlight of the beam?” he asked.
“But remember, you are the beam as well. Soul lives out all of life’s possibilities in physical reality and non-physical reality. This is why I said the soul in no puny thing,” Zack said after having read Gideon’s mind. “Come! We need not concern ourselves with this right now, but if you will look to your left at approximately nine o’clock you will see a most familiar sight.”

Their speed was slow enough so the heavenly bodies held their form and color. Gideon looked as he was directed, and exactly where Zack had pointed was the planet Earth and its single moon.
“I’m going to wake up and all of this is going to be a dream,” Gideon said. “Is that what I think it is?” Gideon pointed to the planet suspended like a jewel in front of him.

“Each Universe is an image of every other. What differs is the soul activity that takes place within each. What you see is Earth, but Earth as it was in the year 520 BC. The Land of What is Good? What is Bad? will be found in China of that year.”

“And I’ll bet there’s a lesson to be learned there,” Gideon said sarcastically. His tone and words were said out of habit, but his feeling of excitement was new.
“There is meaning in everything, if we but pay attention,” Zack answered. “There are no such things as coincidences or accidents. Every event has meaning if your eyes are open to see, and your ears ready to hear. We will be observers in the Land of What is Good? What is Bad? The people will not be able to see us. It will be like watching a movie except we’ll be interwoven into the scene like invisible thread.”

Before heading for their specific destination Zacharaias took Gideon on a tour of the Earth, as it had been 2500 years earlier. The layout of the planet was much as it is today, with twenty-five centuries being nothing more than a single cosmic breath in terms of geological change.

“Notice anything different?” Zack asked, as they thought-traveled from continent to continent.
“If I had to sum it up,” Gideon said, scratching his chin, and marveling at his heightened ability to think, “it would have to be the effect 2500 years of civilization had on the planet.”
“And what does that look like?”
“The air is as clear as a pane of glass, even on the east coast of North America. And the forests look so different.”
“How do you mean different?” Zack asked, prodding his pupil to answer his own questions.

“The trees are older,” Gideon answered. “They’re so much bigger and taller than the big ones the timber industry cuts down today. They almost seem wise, as though they’ve actually absorbed the history they’ve lived through. Looking at them reminds me of the Gatekeeper, but they’re only trees, aren’t they?”
Zack smiled at the blossoming wisdom his charge was exhibiting.

“What are you smiling at?” Gideon asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Zack replied, regaining his composure. “Describe to me what you see.”
Zack was teaching by asking questions, for he knew Gideon already had the answers deep within him.

“I see paradise,” Gideon said. “Is this what you meant when you said, ‘Paradise is in front of our noses, but we’re too blind to see it?’”
Zack remained still, and in his stillness answered Gideon’s question.

“Does it seem to you that I’m getting smarter?” Gideon asked. “I mean... I don’t think I’d be able to answer your questions before I went to the bottom of Round Pond. I always thought I was stupid.”

“In your Spirit-form you have no hang-ups, as you call them. Your energy flows freely, and you are able to tap into your ancient wisdom. After all, you were there at the beginning with the Creator. This increase in wisdom happens gradually, of course, but I can see that even in the eye-blink of time we’ve been together, you have begun to tap into your source.”

“I thought it was something like that,” Gideon lied.
“I see you are also clinging to some of your old ways, my young friend,” Zack said, referring to the lie. “No matter. This is all quite natural.”
Gideon would have turned red had he been in his physical body. Being caught in a lie was always humiliating for him, and he had lied often.

“Is there an Earth somewhere that is in the future?” Gideon asked. “It would be cool to have my own crystal ball.”
“You pick the year, and we’ll take a side trip after visiting of the Land of What is Good? What is Bad?”

Gideon and Zacharaias finished their Earth tour of the year 520 BC, and headed for central China and the farm of Wu Li. His was one of several small farms in a fertile river-valley that Wu Li’s family had worked for twenty generations. The emperor allowed them enough food to support themselves, and enough profit for Wu Li to purchase the first horse his family ever owned. At forty years of age, Wu Li was growing old, for in the year 520 BC the average life span rarely exceeded forty-five years. Likewise his horse, a gray mare in her twen¬tieth year, was also growing old. Other than his eighteen-year-old son, who was his only living heir, the gray mare was Wu Li’s most prized possession. His wife died the year before, and in those days wives were possessions.

Zack explained all of this to Gideon as they approached Wu Li’s farm under the glow of a full moon. Despite the moon’s radiance the stars glistened brighter than the sun after leaving the darkness of a noon matinee. His heart ached at the recognition that his parents’ generation and the few preceding it succeeded in spewing enough poison into the atmosphere to change the heavens from the brilliance of a 100-watt bulb to that of a 15-watt night-light. Zacharaias drew him out of his thoughts by directing his attention to a small corral where Wu Li kept his beloved gray mare.

The corral was larger than necessary for one old horse, but Wu Li’s love for the mare overrode the more practical considerations of maintaining a lone horse on the Emperor’s land. The more land devoted to keeping the horse, the less land available for farming. When Wu Li built the corral large enough for ten horses his neighbors told him it was a bad thing to devote so much land to a single horse. Wu Li responded by saying, “Who knows what is good and what is bad?”

The fencing of the corral was weathered and weak. Time and its allies, the weather, the sun, and the insects, joined forces to soften the once strong wood planking. Gideon noticed Wu Li’s horse scratching its withers against a single creaking cross-beam that snapped under the pressure. The bony old mare stood there at first, not knowing what to do with her newly found freedom. Once the taller grasses outside her enclosure caught her attention however, she was quick to leave the familiar confinement of her corral.

“Isn’t there anything we can do, Zack?” Gideon asked, surprised at his willingness to help.
“We are here to observe and to learn. There is nothing we can do.”

Wu Li woke with the morning’s light and was quick to discover his loss. To Gideon’s surprise he seemed unconcerned. By mid-day word of Wu Li’s great loss spread throughout the valley, and his neighbor came offering his condolences. Chou Lo was ten years younger than the graying Wu Li, and decades less wise, for indeed, all in the valley considered Wu Li a sage.

“I’ve come to offer my condolences, Wu Li,” Chou Lo said. “Such a terrible loss. Just terrible.”
Wu Li continued working his field in silence, thinking about Chou Lo’s words before he spoke. “Who knows what is good and what is bad, Chou Lo? Surely I do not.”
Chou Lo scratched his head. Certainly, he thought, Wu Li must be losing his mind, for everyone knows that the loss of a horse is a bad thing. He said good-bye, and walked the mile back to his farm.

Wu Li was grateful to have his strong son by his side, for without the old gray mare he would not have been able to complete the day’s work alone. He might have been able to in his younger days, but certainly not now. The hard day’s work was better than any modern-day sleeping pill, and that night Wu Li and his son slept more soundly than ever before.

As Wu Li rose the next morning from his bamboo mat he heard strange noises coming from the recently vacated corral. He shook his son awake, and out they went to investigate. Any other man would have trumpeted Wu Li’s discovery throughout the valley. His son was not surprised at his father’s reaction upon discovering the return of his beloved mare, along with nine wild young horses.

“They must have followed the old mare home, Father,” the son said excitedly. “What good fortune.”
Wu Li turned slowly to his beaming son. “Who knows what is good and what is bad? Repair the corral, my son. There is much work to be done.”

Again word spread quickly through the fertile valley, this time of Wu Li’s exceptionally good luck. Surely the Gods were pleased with Wu Li, they thought, for only the gods could have bestowed such a boon.
The new horses were useless however, until they were broken and trained. To Wu Li’s son fell this most difficult task, a chore he had no familiarity with. However, having great common sense, inherited from his father, he chose the smallest of the herd of nine to train first. But even a small horse is far stronger than a big man. In no time Wu Li’s son was thrown against the corral fence and landed with such force that his right arm snapped on impact. This was a disaster, for Wu Li would be sorely pressed to keep up the farm until his son’s recovery, a fact not unknown by his neighbor, Chou Lo.

As usual, when such events occur, word spread of the disaster that befell poor Wu Li, like burning prairie grass. His neighbor, Chou Lo, once again came bearing condolences.
“Excuse me for being so bold, Wu Li,” Chou Lo began, “but this is most horrendous. Yes, most horrendous indeed. You are old, and now you have no help with the farm. If you cannot keep up your quota, the Emperor’s tax collector will throw you to the dogs. Yes. This is very bad, very bad indeed.”

Wu Li smiled, and his eyes twinkled knowingly. “Chou Lo,” he said, “I have told you this truth before, yet you insist upon seeing everything as good or bad. I will tell you again that it is all mixed together. Who knows what is good and what is bad?"
Chou Lo shook his head and looked at his neighbor Wu Li as though his brains just exited his body through his ears. “If you need help,” he said, “I can spare you my number-three son. You are my friend even though I think you are crazy sometimes.”

“Thank you, Chou Lo. You are a good friend. I will call on number three son if I can no longer do for myself. You must excuse me now, for there is much work to be done by this old man.”

Chou Lo began his trek home, wondering how there could be any good in the broken arm of Wu Li’s son. The answer came the next day. While Wu Li with his two arms and old body, and his son with his one arm and young body were tending the fields they spied in the distance a cloud of dust. Slowly, at the pace of a walking man, the cloud of dust approached the two laborers. By the time the cloud was within half a mile of Wu Li and his son, they knew it was the Emperor’s army on the march. They also knew the army was looking for conscripts to fill its depleted ranks.

A captain of the guard rode up to them on a black steed, twice the size of the old gray mare. He towered above Wu Li and his son, while his mount stomped its feet and snorted his disdain. “In the name of our glorious emperor you are commanded forthwith to present your sons for service in the army of the realm.” With a disgusted look the captain eyed the old man and his crippled son.
“I have only one son,” Wu Li said, “and he stands here by my side.”

“The army has no use for a one-armed man,” the captain said, spitting at the feet of Wu Li, and turning his attention to the corral and the ten horses. “In your son’s stead the army will take your herd of horses. I will send my men to gather them. Good day.”

As the surly captain was about to ride off he hesitated, remembering tales of a sage that had nine young horses and one old gray mare. Knowing that life in battle was at best tenuous he turned back to the old farmer. “I have a question for you, old man, and if you can answer it to my satisfaction you may keep your old nag.”

Wu Li bowed gracefully before the captain who asked, “before I go into battle with my enemies I wish you to teach me about heaven and hell.”
Wu Li looked up at the captain and spit on the ground. “How dare you, of all people, ask me to teach you about heaven and hell. You are a filthy bully, with blood on your sword. You stink. You make me want to retch on the ground from the smell of you. I, teach you of heaven and hell? Why, I doubt that I could teach a lout like you anything. Now get your body out of my sight!”

The captain was stunned that any man would speak to him in such a fashion, let alone such a small and insignificant peasant. His fury rose to a pitch beyond his control. He was speechless with rage and drew his bloody sword and raised it above his head in preparation to slay the wise old farmer.
As his arms began their descent Wu Li looked up and said softly, “That is hell.”

The sword ceased its downward arch as the captain heard and then understood Wu Li’s meaning. He was overwhelmed at the sacrifice Wu Li was willing to make to show him the meaning of hell, and his heart filled with compassion and gratitude. He was finally at peace.

“And,” Wu Li said, about to finish the teaching, “that is heaven.”
The old gray mare was left in the corral, and Wu Li smiled as the captain sped back to his men, who within a fortnight, would all be killed in a bloody battle. “Who knows what is good and what is bad?” Wu Li said as the captain disappeared over the nearest hill.

* * *

“Do you remember the morning after the ice storm?” Zack asked as he and Gideon whisked around the Earth of 520 BC one last time.
“Yes,” Gideon replied. “It seems if I put my attention to it I can remember everything that ever happened to me. Why is that?”

“Because in this form you are no longer bound by your beliefs. In your physical form you believe you are separate and that your knowledge and memory are finite.
“But, getting back to the ice storm, you were complaining to Simon how lucky he was and how unfair life was to you. Do you remember?”

“Yes. Simon told me I always see the dark side of things, and then used the ice storm as an example of how one event, the ice storm, could be both bad and good. He said he almost got killed driving home in it the night before, but that in the light of day it transformed into a thing of great beauty.”

“Sometimes,” Zack said, “the dark side or the light side of an event chooses not to show its face for many years, and only by looking back in retrospect can one see the opposite aspect. You can be sure, however, that if you pay attention there is meaning in everything. Good and bad is relative to the perceiver in the moment.”
“When does the bad rise out of the good?” Gideon asked.

“The bad does not rise out of the good, for everything has meaning within your intent for coming into this physical focus. It is your beliefs that attach judgment to your experiences. Good is as much a judgment as is bad. If you decide to return to your body, pay attention to what you actually do, not to what you think about what you do.

“Now, enough of my jogging your memory for the moment. Would you like to see one of the Earths of your future?”
“What do you mean, ‘one of the Earths?’” Gideon asked.
“Just as your soul or your greater self desires to live out all of life’s possibilities, so does the Creator desire to live out all pos¬sibilities of each Universe.”

Zack noticed a puzzled look on Gideon’s face. “For instance, there is an Earth where the Nazis won World War II. There is an Earth where Jesus was not crucified, but died the natural death of old age. Christianity developed very differently in that world. The possibilities, as you might have guessed, are endless. Each world exists as a projected probability in each moment. The Creator is perfect in that all probabilities are lived out.”

“How about showing me the Earth fifty years from now?” Gideon asked.
“Which one?” Zack asked, laughing.
“How about the one where I didn’t fall through the ice of Round Pond and went on this tour.”
“Hold on then and I’ll have you there in a thought.”

Zacharaias was right, for no sooner had Gideon thought of the Earth fifty years in the future than it appeared before him, but from the vantage point of the moon. The Earth looked as magnificent as it did when Buzz Aldrin, the Apollo 11 astronaut, took his famous picture of Earth rising over the moon’s horizon back in July of 1969.
“When seen from this distance,” Zack said, “the Earth looks like an oasis in the vast void of space. You can see no national boundaries that have divided mankind for centuries. From here the Earth is One. It is only your beliefs that separate. Let us go closer and see what this probable future has to offer.”

It leaped out at him like a soundly hit baseball in a 3-D movie. There was little or no human activity taking place on the daytime side of the planet. “Where is everybody?” he asked.

“In this version of the future, humans took no action to eliminate hydroflurocarbons and believed they would destroy your ozone layer.”
“Hydro what?” Gideon asked.
“Hydroflurocarbons. That’s the chemical agent in aerosol cans that poked a big hole in the ozone layer of your atmosphere. There are several versions of the Earth where hydroflurocarbons were never used, for humans never employed chemicals without a thorough environmental-impact study. In this rendition you see the effect of environmental disregard when you believe that you are victims and not the co-creators that you really are. The ozone is so depleted here that it became fatal to be out in the sun without highly specialized and expensive protection.”

“So human beings have to stay indoors forever in this future?” Gideon asked.
“No. They adapted as they always do in a crisis. They sleep during the day and live their waking lives at night.”
“What about the animals?”

“Many species died off, the rest adapted. Insects, of course, mutated quickly and became more pesky than ever.”
“Gross,” Gideon said, envisioning a world infested with rat-sized cockroaches, and mosquitoes as big as sparrows. “How will humans change if they can’t be out in the sunlight?”

“Well, the evolution of this specific point in time can, of course, go off in infinite directions. External change is always a reflection of your internal subjective state. But, if this branch fails to heed the signs its environment presents then they will eventually develop eyes much like an owl’s. They will be blinded by sunlight, and be driven underground by their increasingly poisoned atmosphere. They will filter their oxygen through miles of Earth to their underground burrows. While they are underground the Earth will heal itself, but by then life in the sun will merely be seen as a childish myth.”

"You mean the Earth will turn into a paradise again?” Gideon asked.
“Paradise is a relative term, but yes, by that time humans will no longer be able to adapt to living aboveground. Their machines will continue to harvest crops grown on the surface, but they will remain in the bowels of the Earth, and live their lives much like moles. All Universes are ripe with possibilities, and the human species is the only one in all of creation that has been given the freedom of choosing its own evolution. In this case the Earth had no choice but to drive humans underground, but ultimately it was the humans who chose this for themselves.”

“How can the Earth have a choice?” Gideon asked, forgetting his earlier discussion with Zack about the living Earth. “Isn’t the Earth just a thing?”
“How quickly you have forgotten, Gideon. The Earth is as alive as you and I. The cosmos is conscious. Our lives and the Earth’s take different forms, but each is alive. The Earth, as a an aspect of the Creator, has chosen to live the creative life of a host and therefore is responsive to its guests. Its primary conscious function is to provide a home and sustain the life that has chosen to reside upon it. You can hardly argue that everything on the Earth was born of the Earth.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it’s alive and can think,” Gideon said, being unable to stretch his mind as much as Zack was asking him to.
“It doesn’t, eh?” Zack asked, arching his white eyebrows. “I’m going to give you the privilege of watching what your computers have only vaguely imagined. You are going to see one billion years of the life of the entity that loves you as much as your own mother. You are about to see the birth, the growing pains, and the constant evolution of your Mother Earth condensed into the span of one half of one hour. Stand back and behold....THE EARTH.”