LINK. Lucella Campbell
of his dark thoughts, he became at once, buoyant. He could physically feel the tension leaving his body. He turned his attention to his fingers now lying limply at his side. Slowly, he moved them up and down, sideways and backward, first one, then another and another with ever increasing dexterity. Soon all five fingers were engaged in a rotating dance of varying speeds. He was fascinated by this discovery of movement. To him it seemed magical, and he could feel within him, a mounting thrill at all there would be to discover. It was as if he had lifted a screen and was able to see through a different lens. Perceived through his new lens, it seemed the world rejoiced with him.
Everything was encased in hues of soft color. Each physical form seemed to replicate itself, but in ever-expanding circles of light and color that grew more radiant as they expanded. Form cushioning form at subtler and subtler levels of expression as they multiplied outwardly. It dawned on him that he was perceiving the auras of living things, in an unending energy exchange. The kaleidoscopic fiesta entranced him, and he bathed his visual sense in its soothing tones, its subtle shades and deep hues. It was like riding rainbows; and as his visual sense cascaded through this parade of color, he could feel every fiber in his being coming alive, wowed by the magic of this dance of energy and light. Around the grassy meadow in the distance, it was soft and seductive, light and airy around the grass at his feet; merged with the trees across from him, it was spirited, colorful and glowing. He reveled in this gaiety, and his spirit responded in a burst of freedom and laughter. As he listened to the waves of his laughter vibrating on the air, he knew that he had discovered joy. Did humans too experience joy, even in small amounts, maybe, sometimes? And if they did, why would one entertain any other feeling?
As his laughter faded in the distance, he sat back ruminating over the emotions he had just experienced. Sitting in one place, simply with the vehicle of observation, he had succeeded in creating a variety of sensations, so powerful, that they now resided in his body and memory, as tangibly as if they had been the outcome of actual experience. Observation. He already knew that the early acquaintance with this faculty was a wake-up call, which would serve him well. He wondered whether humans were fully aware of the awesome power of this gift.
A falling leaf landed on his hand. He stared at it, noting the uneven maze of lines and creases. And again he felt that twitch, as his fingers closed in on the leaf. He could feel the varied lines and creases of the object. Opening his hand, he became acutely aware not only of the patterns and color, but of a certain solid quality of the object that lay in his palm. This solid quality he realized was what gave birth to the sense of touch.
On Altura, form remained subtle and ephemeral. One simply merged with the experience, not at all separate from it. Here, in his new planet home, color and form took on a three-dimensional quality which made objects solidify in a manner he had never anticipated. Colors had lost the radiance they carried on Altura, but, merging completely with the objects to which they added form, they came alive in a most unexpected way. On Earth, it seemed that objects were experienced as an external reality that one could choose to hold or to observe as a separate entity.
Altura had not prepared him for the bombardment of mixed sensations he had experienced since getting here. While he had been informed, it had not prepared him either for the stark reality of how vastly different the experience of form was for the Earthling. It had not prepared him for the shock of the weightiness and density of the human form. But then, how could it? Altura – that world that he had left behind was not of the physical realm. It was a world of the spirit, a world of light and freedom – where the thoughts and interests of the unit were simultaneously shared with the whole, and where by a process of osmosis almost, one accessed like thoughts or information at will. In that free-floating sea of information, the possibilities for accessing knowledge on anything – past, present and future – were endless. It was all available at the flick of a thought, information at will.
In Altura the notion of time did not exist. It was a timeless existence. There simply was experience, and that was selected at will by the unit life forms, from the great expanse of possibilities across continuums. To move through a garden of exquisite beauty, one simply had to imagine it, and one was in it, of it…in the Alturan, non-physical sense. Colors were awesome, unlimited in their brilliance and their subtlety. A popular pastime in Altura was to explore the realm of color, always creating new variations of hues and tones. In Altura, he’d always had lots of fun conjuring up objects, situations, forms and feelings, but always he could make them disappear, with the same ease with which he made them manifest. And none of them attached themselves to him. They were of his making, but not of his being. This living attachment to one’s thoughts and feelings that Earthlings experienced was a total surprise to him, and one that he just could not fathom.
In Alturan life, devoid of physical form, experience was not filtered through the screen of the senses. It was all ephemeral…unraveled for the sheer thrill of enjoyment, learning, entertainment, inspiration or any of a number of transient reasons. Unlike the human experience, the Alturan experience left no residue, no long-lasting tangible effects. It was accepted as a transient outcome of the gift of choice. The cumulative effect was that the experience of each unit, each being, fed into the whole, enriching the bank of knowledge and experience. There was a real balance and communion between the unit and the whole, allowing for true community. Each unit gave full expression to its creativity, idiosyncrasies and curiosities, feeding the whole, with the end result being an ever expanding and enriched Whole.
On Altura, unimpeded by the separateness of physical form, and the limitations of weight and gravity, one came closer to experiencing the essence of being and of true community. Existence outside of that total connection with the community was not a notion that occurred to an Alturan. The whole was supreme. Without it there was no survival. Without it there was no unit, no self-identity. For a being from Altura to be disconnected from that lifeline would be a death warrant.
And here he was, having let go of his lifeline. Before this he had no concept of isolation. In Altura, connected always to a larger reality, and having instant access to the knowledge of the whole to guide his every move, he had never doubted himself. But now, catapulted onto the Earth, he found that he understood hardly anything and could not interpret what should be his next move. He tried once again to strain his being to tap into the thoughts of the wider network of this planet, so that he could understand better their way of being and create his own road map. But he could get nothing, only a barrage of confused thoughts that seemed to originate no further away than his own frame.
After several failed repetitions of this effort, he recognized that he had to begin to accept that there was no larger whole here, at least not one that could be accessed by thought connection. Again he recalled the exchange on Altura in which he had learned that, in solidifying into physical form, this group had lost the facility of thought travel and thought connection and gained the isolation of separateness. For him, there could be no desolation greater than this. His situation was untenable. He ruminated over the unlikely circumstances that had gotten him to this point.
His way of being had always been marked by a driving curiosity and an insatiable appetite for new experiences. On Altura as soon as he had discovered that travel to any part of the universe was possible on the impetus of a simple thought, he had made it his life commitment to discover the universe. Often, he would launch out on lone adventures to the far reaches of the universe, always maintaining thought contact with Altura. His adventures were encouraged, because his new experiences and fresh perspectives on other cultures added new dimensions to Alturan life. On Altura he came to be known as Link, a bridge to other worlds, expanding the span of Altura’s insights on little known cultures and habits.
His forays into other realms had included numerous planets, stars, and life forms. But ever since he had landed on Planet Earth, he had been both baffled and intrigued by this place of exquisite beauty, but with a brittleness unlike anything else in the universe. There was a quality here that was not replicated anywhere else in the universe. Sprinkled with rippling brooks and shimmering lakes, meandering riverways and cascading waterfalls, this landmass, cushioned in a sea of blue, had a static but magnetic quality to it that made it unique in the universe. Observed from close up or from the outer reaches of space, one could easily get seduced by the rhythms of the changing seasons and the ebb and flow of land and sea.
II.