Shards The Next Chapters

Darryl: Willa is another future self of mine but whereas Bashar is on a different planet, Willa is actually a hybrid 700 years in our future. So inspired by the general ideas of what she is experiencing in her life, I am in the process of writing a series of books about that as a story. Now, it’s inspired by a lot of the things that she’s experiencing, but it’s not a literal transcription of her life. So it is a science fiction fantasy novel — I just want to make that clear so people when they hear this don’t think that it’s actually literally everything in here is happening to her. Um, but it’s very inspirational, it’s a fun thing to do, and it does contain, you know, a lot of the experiences that she’s having.

The book, the first book in the series of five books, is basically done and we’re just editing and tweaking it at this point, and then we’ll be getting it to a publisher. But what I’ve brought tonight are the first few chapters that I will enjoy reading to you if you would enjoy hearing them.

So pretend that there’s a crackling fireplace somewhere — we’re having just sort of a little fireside read, okay? The five books are indicative of the different phases of training that she is actually going through in her life. The first phase is called Cryptic, the second is called Nocturnal, the third is called Shape Shifter, the fourth is called Sage, and the fifth is called Wraith. This is a training, a mastery, that many beings in that time frame go through to help connect them to different and higher and higher levels of creation, and express those kinds of energies and abilities on the Earth.

Our story begins when Willa is just entering the training to become a Cryptic, so it’s at the very beginning when she’s 13 years old. The series will end when she’s somewhere around 17 or 18 — similar to the idea of the Harry Potter series, but with a female lead.

So we will begin here. This series is called Shards of a Shattered Mirror. This is Book One: Cryptic. Chapter One: Three Rock Mountain.

At the beginning of every chapter, so you understand what’s being read here, there are excerpts from fictional books that are actually part of their future history. So just so you understand — when you hear me read a quote from a book and say that it’s an excerpt from something — that’s what’s happening. It’s not so much part of the direct story, but it forms an understanding of the reality that they live in, and books and other things that had been written at that time. Is that pretty clear?

Excerpt from A Hybrid History by Holly Cotton

After open contact occurred between humans and extraterrestrial hybrids, technology was introduced to Earth that proved the existence of parallel realities. As humans and hybrids mingled over time, their offspring exhibited the ability to perceive these alternate realities directly with their natural senses. With further practice and training, our human-hybrid ancestors developed the skill into a science that gave rise to the Cryptics, Nocturnals, Shape Shifters, Sages, and Wraiths that exist in our society today, 700 years after the landing.

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Chapter 1: Three Rock Mountain

If time is an illusion, isn’t time travel an illusion too? Willa prodded in her soft Irish brogue.

Willa Hill, a slender, blossoming 13-year-old human-hybrid, sat on soft meadow grass, legs crossed. Her larger-than-human butterscotch eyes gazed up at her mentor, Holly Cotton, who was also a descendant of the hybrids that came to Earth in the dimly remembered 21st century. Actually, Willa was staring at the back of Holly’s head, which was capped with long silver-white tresses that gleamed in the late afternoon sun.

Holly turned away from the nanoglass computer screen that floated in the air in front of her, glanced at Willa’s eager elfin face — which was framed by a wild cinnamon mane that always reminded Holly of fox fur.

“So,” said Holly in an accent far more ancient, “you’ve been listening all along.”

“I listen,” Willa protested, “but to what things?”

“There are many things to ken in the forest besides the sound of my voice.”

Willa cocked her head toward the dense grove of willow trees at the edge of the meadow. “Birds, insects, winds in the leaves, water rushing over rocks,” Willa offered.

Holly humphed. “You still hear so little, Willa.”

Willa bristled. “What else is there?”

“Listen,” said Holly.

Willa stared at the largest willow, perched on the bank of a meandering stream. A section of loamy soil had eroded away, exposing a tangle of roots that reached toward the life-giving water as it burbled by, just out of reach. Willa knew that her great-grandmother had been named after the willow; the tree was also Willa’s namesake, but it had taken only four generations for the name to evolve — as names often do — from Willow to Willa.

Most off-world hybrids had adopted a name from nature after the landing, 700 years ago, and the custom eventually crystallized into tradition.

Willa’s attention snapped to Holly’s ice-blue eyes. “Daydreaming isn’t a lesson you need to learn,” Holly remarked.

Willa straightened her posture. “I was thinking about how different Earth must have been before the landing, before deconstruction and restoration. Thorne told me most of the world was paved in stone, concrete, and cement.”

Holly corrected, “The world wasn’t exactly covered with it, but well, it might as well have been, I suppose. Cities of concrete and steel sprawled over deforested ground, connected by a web of hard black roads that stretched for thousands of miles in all directions. Once off-world tech was gifted to the human population, it all began to change. Now, Port Paris, Port New York, Port Beijing are mere villages compared to what they once were. But this isn’t a history lesson, little fox. We were talking about listening to the trees.”

“Actually,” said Willa, “we were talking about time.”

Holly smiled. “So we were. Let’s see what else you recall. What are the five levels of mastery?”

Willa sighed, resigned to the lesson. “Everybody knows that. Cryptic, Nocturnal, Shape Shifter, Sage, Wraith.”

“Oh, everybody knows that, do they? Well, don’t they?” Willa said, wondering if this was one of the trick questions Holly often used to test Willa’s grasp of her lessons.

“The titles are obvious,” Holly said. “The skills that go with them, not so much.”

Willa nodded, accepting the challenge. “Cryptics can communicate with nature — with elementals, trees, and even rocks. Nocturnals can see alternate realities and learn things about them. Shape Shifters can, well, change their shape. Sages are like the ancient human idea of wizards and witches — they can alter physical matter. And Wraiths are kind of like living ghosts.”

Holly gazed at the tall yew trees that lined the edge of the meadow and slowly shook her head.

“Isn’t that right?” Willa said, slightly annoyed by Holly’s cool demeanor.

“You make the skills sound like magic tricks,” Holly said. “They’re much more than that. They require a deep understanding of the nature and structure of parallel realities, of space and time, of existence itself.”

Holly shifted her gaze to the sun, low in the sky. “And speaking of time, let’s call it a day.”

Holly tapped the nanoglass screen three times; it shrank to the size of a marble. Holly snatched it from the air and tucked it in one of the many pockets in her flowing, knee-length tunic.

Willa stood and stretched in the golden sunset light, and then ran to catch up to Holly as she strolled across the meadow.

“What do you hear when you listen to the trees?” asked Willa.

“Stories,” replied Holly. “Stories of the past, the present, and the future.”

Willa cupped her ear in the direction of the grove. “I don’t hear any stories, except the tall one that you’re telling me now.”

Holly smiled. “Then you’re listening with the wrong ears.”

“I only have two,” Willa said, “on the outside.”

Holly said, with the same enigmatic smile, “You need to listen from within.”

“Why are Cryptics always so cryptic?” Willa said.

“My job as your mentor isn’t to answer your questions, dear Willa, but to teach you how to answer them yourself.”

They walked along the bank of the stream, listening to the rippling water as it coursed over smooth stones. Willa tried to match Holly’s gliding stride without looking conspicuous.

“I suppose the stream has a story too,” Willa joked.

“Everything does,” said Holly. “For example, I know that in your story, you like Thorne very much.”

Willa stood dead in her tracks, thunderstruck.

Holly kept walking as though she had commented on nothing more important than the weather.

Willa shook off her surprise and ran to catch up. “Well — yes, of course I like Thorne,” Willa sputtered. “You met him yesterday after sunset, in this very grove. And the day before that, and the day before that.”

Willa’s face blushed red as her hair. “No one knows.”

“The trees know,” said Holly.

“You’re saying the trees told you that?”

“Trees can tell you lots of things,” Holly said, “if you know how to listen.”

They walked in silence until they crested a small hill with a mass of large gray boulders on top — three of which rose above the others, bestowing the name Three Rock Mountain upon the area, since long before the landing.

Holly and Willa strolled down the gentle slope toward the Shadok: a spiral structure similar to Stonehenge, but fashioned from large, shimmering blocks of nanoglass. There were ten wide gaps in the upright slabs, spanned by thick lintels. Nine of the spaces rippled with transparent rainbow hues, like oil on water. The tenth was empty, a simple passage that allowed entrance to the center of the spiral.

Willa followed Holly through the entry passage.

“Tomorrow then,” said Holly.

Willa nodded, afraid to speak lest Holly raise the subject of Thorne again.

Holly favored Willa with a reassuring smile, stepped through one of the shimmering portals, and vanished.

Willa exhaled with relief, collected her wits, turned, and disappeared through a portal on the opposite side.

Change of Scene

Ashgrove Cottage was more accurately described as a large ashwood arbor that served as a scaffold for thick vines, blooming with violet cathedral bells that swayed gently in the evening breeze. A soft, warm glow emanated from several luminaria globes that floated in the air outside the arbor.

Rowan Ashgrove regarded his younger brother Thorne with the large, velvet-black eyes that ran in their hybrid family. Though he was only 17 and a mere two years older than Thorne, Rowan had worn the mantle of adulthood ever since their father, Kale Ashgrove, vanished a year ago on an exploratory mission to the Orion Nebula — the third such mission to vanish without a trace. Several of Rowan’s classmates had begun calling the region the Orion Triangle, and the name stuck.

Had Earth been in a less enlightened age, many would have considered the Ashgrove family to be cursed, due to the fact that Kale’s absence mirrored the mysterious disappearance of Rowan and Thorne’s mother, Celandine Ashgrove, three years before.

“So that’s where you’ve been going every night,” Rowan said to Thorne in a soft tone, when he learned of his secret trysts with Willa. “Do Willa’s parents know?”

“Willa and I haven’t told them. Neither will you,” Thorne said.

Rowan caught the hint of a nervous plea buried in Thorne’s imperious tone. He would never betray his brother’s trust. “Of course. But that doesn’t mean I can’t tease him to within an inch of his impetuous young life.”

“Just her mother, then?” Rowan said, suppressing a mischievous smile.

“No!” Thorne shot back. The plea was more evident this time.

“I wonder what father would have thought,” Rowan mused. “His own son wanting to learn to be a Cryptic — and a Nocturnal, at that. We’ve been a family of explorers for generations.”

“I am exploring — just not out among the stars. I think father would be proud and happy that I’m following my dream.”

“And yet you don’t want anyone to know.” Rowan fixed his obsidian eyes on Thorne. “Is it your dream, or is this more about Willa?”

Thorne averted his brother’s bottomless gaze. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing,” Rowan admitted. “You may be making the right choice — but is it for the right reason? The path of a Cryptic isn’t for everyone. What if it’s Willa’s path, but not yours?”

“Willa and I can still be together, Rowan.”

“Can you? Do you understand what it really means to become a Cryptic, a Nocturnal, a Shape Shifter, a Sage? What if Willa chooses to go further than that — will you still be together if she becomes a Wraith?”

“That’s just a myth,” Thorne said.

“Many myths contain the seed of truth,” Rowan said. “I’ve heard stories: sometimes a Sage who becomes a Wraith can forget who they once were, and transforms into a Banshee — trapped between the world of the living and the dead.”

“Oh, you’re making that up,” Thorne said, though his confidence was beginning to waver.

“I’m not saying you can’t have a life together,” Rowan said, more gently. “Just that you’d better understand what that life would be. I’m sure father, wherever he is, would be happy and proud that you’re following your dream. But in father’s absence, it’s my job to make sure your dream doesn’t become a nightmare.”

Rowan selected a blue nanoglass bead from the download dimple on the countertop. He tapped it and expanded it into a tablet, did a quick check of the data, tapped the tablet again — it shrank back to a bead — and Rowan headed out.

“Where are you going?” Thorne asked.

“We finally starting First Contact simulations tonight. In three years, I’ll be wearing the sigil of a First…”

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Discussion: Principles of Reality & Self

…got it. If you invalidate the idea that that thing is in your life, you’re only adding and reinforcing the negative energy that it might represent — and that’s what makes the negative stick around, because you’re not using it in the way it was intended for you to use, in a positive sense.

“Yes, got it. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah. This is simply nothing more than an expanded version of what we call the Fourth Law: which is, what you put out is what you get back. It doesn’t mean it’s always a one-to-one reflection of who you are. It means that’s what you need to see, to go through the process, to live the theme you chose to explore, and to learn more of who you are.”

“Yes, yes — because it doesn’t really matter what the circumstances are around you. Please remember, all of you: the true measure of change is not that the outer world looks different. The true measure of change is that you choose the state of being that you prefer, regardless of how the rest of the world looks. That’s how you prove you’ve changed — because it shouldn’t matter what’s going on around you, because that’s not what determines the state of being you are in.

And when you truly prove you’ve changed by not really caring whether something around you looks positive or negative — that’s the paradox that allows you to experience more of what you prefer, because you have allowed what you don’t prefer to be equally valid and neutralized. Make sense?”

“Yeah, yeah. Does that help you?”

“It does.”

“Is that sufficient, or is there something else?”

“And so now I’m starting to feel like I’m meeting my brothers and sisters — and just the metaphor that we use is like, oh, ‘from the same planet’.”

“Yes, we understand the metaphor. But again, please remember: it’s not that you’re from anywhere but Earth, but you have connections to many other civilizations as the being you chose to be here. Yes. But you can use the metaphor — it works, if you understand that it isn’t necessarily meant to be taken literally.”

“Absolutely. Does that help?”

“Yes. I, on the other hand, am from another planet, obviously. Nevertheless, does that work for you?”

“It does. I had another question, but I can’t remember right now.”

“Oh… I oftentimes will show up as not different people, but sometimes I have access to a lot of me, and other times I don’t have access to a lot of me.”

“It depends on the fluctuation that is necessary at the moment. It depends on what access is necessary at the moment, of course — you’ll fluctuate. It depends on what is needed at the moment. Okay? You can have a positive definition of that cyclic experience.

Yes — you will have access when you need it. When you don’t need it, why should you have it? It would be simply overcomplicating things, wouldn’t it? To have more than what you need at that moment.

Do you trust the way your life unfolds in synchronicity?”

“Every day more and more.”

“All right then — trust that what is there is what needs to be there. What isn’t there, doesn’t need to be there. Got it? And you will move forward much more quickly by living in the now. Does that help?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Thank you for being there.”

(Applause)

“Guess what time it is? Time to draw more questions… I don’t think there’s enough time to ask anymore.”

“Oh well — just trying to trick you. I was really wondering about that.”

“All right — we like to play. Is it time for you to take your break and set up for your Holotope Meditation?”

“It is.”

“Then please, all of you, take a very short break. We will resume this transmission and crystallize the ideas we have discussed here today through your meditation.”

(Applause)

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Holotope Meditation

Let us continue this transmission by allowing each and every one of you to become very relaxed, yet comfortable. Let go of all your concerns, worries, questions — just allow yourself to breathe.

And as your lights dim and the lights on your holotope come up, and your music begins — keep your eyes focused on the center, and then from there, let them wander where they will, throughout all the different images on the holotope. But allow yourself to breathe deeply, gently, easily, effortlessly.

Allow your body to become more and more relaxed. Letting go, letting go, letting go. And as you allow yourself to breathe and feel yourself drifting deeper within your being — nestled in the arms of your greater self, nestled in its loving energy that exists at the center of your being, relaxing in the arms of all that is.

Drifting and dreaming, dreaming, dreaming — yourself into a new dream, a waking dream, a lucid dream. Allow yourself then to unfold within your inner mind, and in your imagination, the following journey:

Where you allow yourself to travel 700 years into your future — into the world in which Willa lives. The green grasses and forests of the place on your planet you know as Ireland. The rolling meadows, the babbling brooks, the green of the trees, the flowers, the animals. The sights, sounds, and smells that surround you and spark your senses, into the fresh, clean air.

The seas have risen and lap upon new shores. Villages are suspended by bridges over them, over streams and rivers that course through the land, that enrich the soil and that create a completely new lifestyle. A magical realm where there are the blendings of the past and the future, in the charming villages that exist of wood and stone that blend also with the future technologies of glimmering nanoglass — that shimmers and shines, containing the ability to capture energies from the Earth and transform them into miraculous acts that can transport you anywhere in the blink of an eye, over the face of the entire Earth.

Through the Shadoks that stand like glistening glass stone henges, gleaming in the sun or shimmering in the light of the moon — that casts its cool colors over the landscape that is fresh and clean and green.

And as you walk through those forests, you begin to sense the depth of the life, the richness of the Earth that has been reborn, that is thriving — 700 years in your future. And yet, as all things are simultaneous, it exists right now, right here.

And in all the patterns of light, color, and sound that you may experience in this reflective mirror of the holotope, that open up new channels within you, new avenues of understanding within you, new doorways of access within you — you begin to float in this world, and hear sights and sounds not only of what you typically think of as nature, but the deeper vibrations within the Earth, within the rocks, within the water, within the trees, within the sky.

The deeper vibrations of intelligence, of consciousness, of sentience and awareness.

So that as you walk through these ash and yew tree forests, listening to the babbling brooks, listening to the songs of the birds, listening to the scampering sounds of the animals that live within — you feel a part of this nature, for you are a part of nature. You are never apart from it.

And it invites you in, and opens to you, and surrounds you, and caresses you, and loves you, and supports you. For you are a child of nature, a child of all that is. As beautiful as the trees, as soft as the grasses, as colorful as the flowers, as fluid as the streams, and as solid as the rocks and the mountains. As indestructible as the energy that flows between all things, that is life itself — that permeates this new reality.

Upline from your timeline, as you navigate through all the different versions of the parallel realities of Earth, navigate through the time streams. Allow yourself to drift, carried by the currents of space and time, to this reality — this version of Earth that you call 700 years in the future — that is full of magical beings that travel not only the Earth, but between the stars of space.

Exploring, stretching out even as they explore within. The macrocosm and the microcosm. As above, so below. The inner and outer realities begin to blend and merge, so that you know that what is without is what is within, and that physical reality is a simple dream — a beautiful dream, a dream of life from another point of view, from another perspective.

And that all the lines and expressions, that all of the various differences, combine to make a beautiful whole. And unity and harmony comes from this validation of all of these differences — all the different angles, all the different reflections.

Each and everything, and each and every one of you — being aspects of all that is — are what are referred to, 700 years in the future, as the Shards of a Shattered Mirror.

For it is endless reflections that you see when you walk among the trees. For they are all you. As are the rocks, as are the animals, as are the streams, as are the flowers, as are the grasses, as is the sky. For you are all one — different expressions of the One, different angles of the One, different perspectives of the One.

You are constantly looking in a series of mirrors — a series of shards of the One Mirror that has shattered itself to produce all of you, all of us, all that is. So that it may see itself from all the angles it is possible to experience itself.

From the shattered mirror and all of its reflections, it goes on to infinity. It will never end, because it never began. It simply is that it is.

It is existence itself, and needs no reason to be other than that. That is its prime quality: to be. For it knows no other state. And time and space are subject to it; it is not subject to space or time. It is all that is, and that is all that it is, and that is all that it needs to be.

And you are, and forever shall be — no matter what form you take, no matter what level you see yourself from — you exist, and therefore are above time and space in your true, timeless form, as all that is.

And in this version of you, as an individual aspect — as an “I”, one of the infinite numbers of “I”s of all that is — that it has to see itself with, in all the reflections it has created itself to be, in all of the shards it has shattered itself into. So that it knows itself.

For without an “other”, there is no “self”. So consciousness is simply that it is the reflection of all that is to itself, from all the different points of view.

Awareness. Knowingness.

Know yourself. Be yourself. Be true to who you are. That is all it takes. That is all that is required. That is all that is necessary.

Allow yourself to breathe easily, deeply, gently — taking in the fresh air of the forest, of the grasses, of the flowers, of the streams and the sky and the clouds. Breathe it in, and crystallize the reality for you, so that you may steer your rudder in that direction as you chart a course through the various parallel timelines that make up what you know time to be — what you experience time to be.

Time and space are your projections. Chart a course through them. As you change yourself, it changes the direction of your rudder, of your tiller, as you sail the seas of the parallel realities that make up your experience of the waking dream — the lucid dream that you call physical life.

Guide yourself thus. With the wind in your sails, for you will forever sail these seas in some form or another, throughout all eternity. For all eternity exists in this moment, right now.

Breathe deeply and gently, and make this truth your own. And open up to receive what you need to receive, so that you know you are always supported in whatever you believe to be true for you.

Allow your lights to soften. Allow your music to quiet. But know that the lights and the music and the holotope are always within you — for everything that appears to be outside is nothing but a reflection in a mirror.

Your true self is here and now.