I am lying on the sweet warm grass within the Great Circle of Stonehenge, trying to go to sleep, when, suddenly, I feel something run into me, into my back, as I am on my side. And then, again, I feel something run into me.
I roll over to see what, or who, is doing this.
And there’s the Old Bag Lady, with her rickety grocery cart full of cardboard and newspapers. As she readies to run into me again, I get up and stare at her.
“’Bout time, Lassie. Now, let’s go!”
Apparently, I am in her Path. Anyway, I get up and follow her as she continues on in a straight line to the opposite side of the Circle.
As we step between two stone pillars, the landscape changes dramatically. Of a sudden, we are no longer in the English countryside, but rather in the narrow, dark, dirty alley of a very poor section of some city. There is a dumpster on my right, backed up against some long neglected apartments. On my left are scraggly, shabby bushes whose greenery looks less than healthy, for them and me. These also are backed up against tall concrete walls that perhaps belong to warehouses or other storage buildings, somewhere on the to-be-condemned waiting list. It has the strange feel of my own city.
She turns her cart, going between two of those bushes into a small gap that should not have been able to hold the cart, never mind her. Logically, there isn’t room, but she disappears from sight, so I follow.
And, again, the landscape abruptly changes.
As I look up from walking through the bushes, I behold a park-like venue – bright green grasses with sunshine and the peaceful songs of birds and squirrels. Though I am tempted to step out and try this again, she looks at me as if she can read my thoughts, so I decide not to..
“Sit,” she says, with authority.
I sit on the newspaper sheets she has set out for us.
“Here; have some tea.”
And she hands me a cup and saucer, full of steaming hot tea. No – I don’t know where it comes from, or where she gets it. It’s just there, and I am more than used to such happenings, and take them more in stride now.
Settled, she asks me, “What is it you want most for your life?”
Considering some of the stuff happening now, it seems easy to ask for some prosperous and helpful intervention, but it isn’t what I truly want, so I answer,
“To be the best I can be for Light and Spirit to flow through me.”
She looks at me. Her demeanor and energy suggest she knows my mind and is a little impressed with my actual answer, or at least finds it better than hearing something like ‘winning the lottery’.
Gently, she replies, “Then you need to continue with your Warrior training, and your energy integration. See your barriers as lessons while you journey to the place of your heart’s desire. Nothing can stand in your way but your ego. Not the ego of identity, but the ego of attachments and misperceptions and illusive need for control.”
She pauses to sip her tea. Then she looks again at me.
“Well, go on now. Go home.’
And the wind picks up and starts rustling and rattling the newspapers.
“The wind is shifting. Things change. You go on home now. Just walk to the light pole and you’ll see the street names. You’ll know where you are, Navigator.”
And so I set my tea down, and go back through the bushes. Farther up the alley, I can see the light pole, and I know where I am; I know my city. I walk home, and return to bed.