The Power of Magnificence by Kate Everson
r of Magnificence
By Kate Everson
Copyright 2011 Kate Everson
The Power of Magnificence is beyond measure.
In terms of spirituality, Magnificence is the highest goal we can attain. That means complete union with the Highest Power. Self realization. God realization. The ultimate achievement of many incarnations as humans, gradually evolving with learned life lessons, becoming stronger, meeting challenges and eventually offering ourselves totally to the will of the Universe. Creator and Creation become one.
A lofty goal. But more valuable than any other.
What is the price? Is it more than we are willing to pay?
Joshua pondered these thoughts as he walked along the river near his home one late summer afternoon. The goldenrod were now in bloom and they brightened the already fading grasses along the shoreline. Fall was coming and he had already seen some leaves turning red in the maples.
“What is life?” he asked himself. “What is it all about?”
He had just left a good relationship after 25 years to find out what he really wanted. To make a break and seek his soul. He felt he had to do it alone. Rebekah was a good partner, but he needed to find this path himself. She would only hold him back.
It wasn’t like they had a bad marriage. It had been wonderful. But there was always something lacking. He had been seeking fulfilment all his life and never quite finding it. There had been small satisfactions along the way, but they only lasted awhile, then he was left with an unquenchable thirst for something more.
As he walked, he watched the water. It had always been solace for him, a soothing of the soul. But he felt like he needed to be in the water, underneath it, to feel it running through his body like blood in his veins. He stopped and took off his shoes and walked in. The water crept over his head and he kept walking.
That night, the police came looking for Joshua. All they found were his shoes.
Rebekah was inconsolable. She had loved Joshua all those years and never understood why he had left her. She ached for him now, even though it was too late.
“What could I have done to save him?” she asked herself over and over. “What was lacking in me that he had to seek outside our marriage?”
For days, weeks, and months, Rebekah wandered around like a lost soul. She tried different things to ease the pain, but there was little comfort. There were no answers.
One day, she went to the little church across the river. She hadn’t been to a church since she was a child, and there was some comfort in just being there. Rebekah did not know exactly what she believed in, if anything, but hoped there was some answer here.
“Who am I?” she asked. “And why am I here?”
Nobody at church really could tell her, but she still liked to go there and feel the sanctity of the hard pews and taste the life blood pouring into her from the eucharist. It was something.
“Why?” she asked over and over again, about Joshua. “Why?”
She often wandered by the river where they had found his shoes, and later his body, but there were no answers written on the shoreline. The fall had turned to winter and ice was forming in crystals by the reeds. Soon the snow would be blanketing the landscape and she would be closed off more than ever. Perhaps it suited her mood more anyway.
Rebekah felt herself slipping into a deep depression. She talked very little to the neighbours or the people at work, just did what she had to do and stayed at home a lot. Her friends tried to get her out, but she would not go.
“I can’t go,” she told Sue, her closest friend. “There is nothing for me out there any more. It’s all emptiness.”
Even when she was invited out for supper she refused to leave the small house, preferring her own miserable company to that of others. She could not laugh. She could barely smile. Rebekah was sinking lower and lower into despair.
But one evening she got so fed up with shows on television she went outside and looked up at the stars. It was a clear night, and she could see more than usual. A falling star shot through the sky.
And that changed everything.
Suddenly, she felt a presence beside her. She looked around but no one was there. She peered into the darkness, wondering what it was. A cat? A raccoon? Hopefully, not a coyote!
But it was not a menacing presence. It felt light. Rebekah felt a tingling on her skin, and her heart began to race.
She saw in the dim starlight a form standing beside the honeysuckle bushes. It was almost human, but not quite. Not an animal. What was it?
“Hello, Rebekah,” it said.
She jumped. “Who are you?” her voice quavered.
“I am Erasmus,” the voice said softly. It stepped out in full view. A man form, but more ethereal, like a ghost or a spirit.
“What do you want?” Rebekah whispered, terrified.
“I have come to take you home,” he said simply.
“Home?” she declared. “I am home!”
“No, you’re not,” Erasmus said. “Far from it. You are in a bad space now, Rebekah. We need to get you Home.”
And he held out his hand to her. Rebekah reached out and she was taken up to the sky, into the light of a million stars. There she looked down at her earth home and saw everything clearly. She saw her house and the river and place where Joshua had died. But this time it was illumined. She saw it now with understanding.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I see it, the way it really is. Uncluttered by my mind. The truth.”
And there was Joshua standing beside her now, looking down at the earth. He smiled and touched her hand. “It’s okay, Rebekah,” he said. “Everything is just the way it was meant to be.”
Rebekah did not even have to ask him why. Suddenly, she knew. She could see it so clearly. And it all made sense. Not earth sense, but illumined sense, in the greater perspective of the Universe. And she knew what she had to do next.
She slipped back to earth, under the guidance of Erasmus and fell into a deep sleep. When she awoke, she did not remember much about the night before, but she knew she was a changed person. She felt happier inside. She could smile now. And she was on a mission.
“I need to show the world how to see,” Rebekah said.
The first place she went to was her little church. She stood up and spread the light of her presence throughout the whole congregation, not in words, but in her amazing emanation. She radiated Light.
Next, she went to her friends and spent time with them, sharing stories, visiting, having lunch, whatever they wanted to do. She had no words to describe what had happened to her, but she knew she was changed. And so did everyone else.
“What happened, Rebekah?” Sue asked. “You are so different.”
“I see clearly now,” Rebekah said. “There is no confusion, no despair. I have seen a greater world than the one we live in. It showed me the whole truth.”
Each day, Rebekah grew brighter and brighter. She began to shed all the bad habits of her life, the overeating, the greed of always wanting more, the selfishness of not sharing, and even the untidiness of her house. She gardened more and worried less. She talked with strangers as well as friends. Rebekah felt like a shining light.
One night she went outside again to watch the stars. She wondered if Erasmus would show up. He did. She smiled. This was her special friend, whatever kind of being he was, sent from the Universe to help her.
“Thank you!” she said. “I have been through so much, and now am a new me.”
But Erasmus warned her this time. “Rebekah, it is not so easy. Others will come and be jealous of your light. They will try to take it from you. The enemy is not so easily defeated.”
Rebekah was shocked. What enemy? Who? Where?
And almost immediately, the enemies started to form around Rebekah. They came from everywhere. In a matter of weeks, she had been attacked five times. Sometimes physically. A tree almost hit her. Sometimes verbally. A friend of a friend made cruel remarks about her. Sometimes psychically. She felt the bad vibrations from strangers who resented her. The enemy was everywhere.
Even in her little church, a few of the members talked about her and said unkind things. But Rebekah forgave them all. For she knew she had to be strong.
So Rebekah went to a healer, a woman who had been trained as a Hedge Witch from the old days and knew many things. She offered Rebekah two stones, an amethyst to bring in good energies, and a tiger’s eye to scare off the evil ones. Rebekah wore them around her neck. She kept a little pouch of herbs and potions in her purse at all times.
But she needed more. Like birds gathering for migration, her enemies seemed to be gaining strength for an attack. She had to be ready.
Rebekah found an ancient cave built thousands of years ago and crawled inside. She sat there all night, listening and talking to the spirits of ancestors.
“Oh Great Spirit, hear me. I need your help,” Rebekah said. “I offer my self to you in obedience. Lead me to a safe place. Protect me from my enemies.”
Suddenly, she saw the spirits in the cave. There was an elder Ojibway man with long gray hair, chanting. Beside him was a younger man, his son, with war paint and strong arms. Nearby a Medicine Man shook his rattles. All the time she could hear the soft pounding of a drum.
“Help me,” she asked them. They nodded silently.
They circled around Rebekah and danced, chanting and singing, while the drums and rattles echoed throughout the cave. At the entrance a large black bear appeared. It stood on its hind legs and stared into the cave. Rebekah shrieked. But the men kept going around in a circle, ignoring the bear. Rebekah cowered in a corner, not sure what to do, or where to hide.
Then the Medicine Man stopped rattling and reached out for Rebekah’s hand. She took it timidly, eager for some comfort. He led her towards the bear.
“Oh, no!” she cried.
But the bear went down on his four paws and the Medicine Man put Rebekah on top. He told her not to be afraid.
“Trust the bear,” he said. “It will carry you. It is your protection now.”
Rebekah clung to the bear’s fur and it took off in a gallop. It crossed the hills and through the forest with huge strides, while Rebekah clung to it for dear life.
Finally, it stopped on top of a ridge. Rebekah slid down beside it. The bear nuzzled her, and began to speak.
“Rebekah,” the bear said.
Rebekah jumped. This bear could speak! What a strange world this was!
“Whenever you need me, I am here,” the bear said. “I am your spirit animal. I am strong and fierce. I will protect you.”
Rebekah thanked the bear and petted his thick, coarse fur. Then she closed her eyes and within seconds she was back home in her own bed. She looked out the window at the stars and felt safe for the first time in her life. “Thank you,” she said, and a star fell out of the sky.
For the rest of her life, Rebekah would call on her spirit guide the Bear whenever she was afraid. Even when she felt attacked on a psychic level, she called on him, because she knew he could protect her at all levels. He was a great friend to have.
“I am going to dedicate myself to being a better person,” she thought. “I have everything I need.”
She was on the path to Magnificence, the one her husband Joshua had tried so hard to find and given up everything for. But she had been given insight that was rare. She knew who she was and why she was here.
“I am part of the Universe,” she smiled. “I am here to connect with the Universe and all its Magnificence. That is my real Home.”
Rebekah knew there was no cost that was not worth the prize. And the rewards were already given. She was was on the path of the Power of Magnificence.
The End
Read more inspiring short stories at The Power of Love, The Power of Light, The Power of Silence, and The Power of Healing. Also read A Message of Faith, and A Message of Hope.