“Hawke, would you join me?”
“Always, Goddess. It is my pleasure.”
We stood beside the pond. As usual, the skies were overcast and gray. I moved into his arms for a hug and he kissed my hair, then I pulled back and turned to look at the landscape.
“Just once, I’d like to see this place sunny, and clear of all of the shadows,” I said. “But I guess that would mean it has nothing left to show me.”
“It will always have things to show you,” Hawke replied, and I could tell by a certain quality I sometimes hear in his voice that he was channeling Archangel Michael. “But when the clouds clear, you’ll know that there’s nothing left for you to release.”
“Is that even possible?”
Hawke chuckled. “Not only possible but assured. Eventually.”
“That’s good. In the meantime…” I started toward the pond. “Let’s see what it has for me today, then.”
The ground felt soft beneath my feet, a little spongy. And while the sky was gray, I could see the sun trying to push through.
I stopped walking and felt into the situation. What was wanted of me here? What was needed of me?
I looked around. There was a light breeze, and in the distance, I could make out the golden staircase that leads up to my meadow, but it was shrouded in shadow, as well.
I stepped closer to the pond, wondering if anything would rise out of it, but nothing did.
Finally, I reached the pond’s edge and looked down at the still surface. And that’s when I saw it – a scene in full motion, full color, as if a movie screen had been laid upon the water.
I motioned Hawke over. “Do you see this?”
“I do.”
Together, we watched what appeared to be a busy port from a past century, old fashioned sailing ships in the harbor beneath blue skies. Lots of hustle and bustle.
“Interesting,” Hawke murmured. “Does it mean anything to you?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. It looks like a couple of hundred years ago, to me.”
“I agree. It appears to be a port on the eastern seaboard of the United States, although I don’t think it was the United States at that point. Look at the flag on that ship.”
“The Union Jack. Why do you think it’s the U.S. and not Europe?”
“The landscape. And look there.” He pointed to a particular part of the scene where several native American men walked alongside a European holding a musket while several more European males hauled half a dozen chained Africans out of a small boat and onto the dock.
Anger pricked at the back of my throat at the sight. “When do you think this is?” I asked.
“Early 18th century? I wasn’t alive at that point, but I‘ve studied it well enough. Paenther could probably tell for sure, though he stayed clear of the European settlers, as much as he could.”
“Why are we seeing this?” As I watched the rough handling the Africans were receiving, and knew what they were likely in for, my stomach clenched. “God, I wish we could change what happened.”
“Perhaps you can,” Hawke said.
As I watched one of the Africans being struck in the face, I gripped Hawke’s forearm. “How? How do I change this?”
Hawke and the other Ferals call me Goddess because I literally created their world and everything in it when I wrote their books for Harper Collins years ago. My pen was magic in their world. But I didn’t think we were looking at their world now, but rather my own.
“How?” I asked again, releasing his forearm.
The gaze he turned on me wasn’t entirely Hawke’s. Archangel Michael is a regular, if not constant, companion of mine. One of my guides. But he’s an angel. Hawke, to me, is flesh and blood, even if I’ve never actually met him anywhere but my imagination. Both are family, in a sense. But I relate more easily to Hawke, and so Michael often comes to me through my Feral friend.
Hawke smiled that angel’s smile and nodded toward the pond. “Look.”
I did, and caught my breath. “It’s changed!”
While it appeared to be the same place, and I saw the same ship in the harbor, the town looked more indigenous than colonial, now. Not only the architectural style, but the fact that there were far more Native Americans than Europeans. And no enslaved Africans at all.
Laughter rose from the surface of the pond, a gaiety that had been sorely lacking in the first scene. And then I realized the biggest difference of all.
“The women,” I breathed. “Look at them.”
There were dozens of them gathered in the middle of the village. Most were indigenous, but at least twenty looked to be from the vessel flying the Union Jack, even though no more than half were Caucasian. They were a mix of races from all over the world, and dressed in a variety of outfits. A few wore dresses, but most wore some form of pants, from finely tailored to rough sailor garb.
The women–indigenous and visitor–were communicating with one another through hand motions and pantomime and laughter. So much laughter that it made me smile. Clearly, neither spoke the others’ language, and yet it didn’t seem to matter.
There were men about–both indigenous and visitor–some hauling boxes from the boats onto the shore and others reloading the boats with baskets filled with fruits and vegetables and other things.
The men worked with an easy camaraderie completely devoid of aggression or distrust. I saw them glance, from time to time, at the women with a joyousness that warmed me to my toes.
“This is how it should have been,” I murmured. “The explorers just visiting, just making new friends. Not trying to conquer and claim everything for themselves.” I looked at Hawke. “This is how it might have gone if the women had been in charge.”
Hawke nodded. “Yes. Remember that all time is now.”
I’ve heard that phrase so many times, but I can’t say that I truly understand it.
I looked at him. “Does that mean that we can change the past? That as the vibration of this world, and humanity, rises, as the feminine divine energy rises, all of the horror visited upon this world by testosterone run amok can unwrite itself? Is that possible?”
Out of Hawke’s eyes, I saw Michael. “Anything is possible. Nothing is fixed, although in the density of the third dimension, it has appeared to be. It is not fixed in the present, it is not fixed in the past. When you dream a better dream, you free yourselves from both past and present. Do you see?”
“Kind of?” I looked at the new scene, at the utter lack of wariness, something that would never have happened in the world as I knew it. “Have they never been afraid? Or is this a scene from the fifth or sixth dimension, where there is no fear?”
“Can it not be both?”
Huh. “I’ll have to ponder that one.”
He smiled, and it was Michael’s smile. “You are being shown this to remind you that when you dream, you are not constrained by what has been, any more than you are by what is. None of it is fixed. None of it.”
“The past can be changed as easily as the future.”
“Correct.”
“Because it’s all just experiences in consciousness. All of it – whether dreams or imagination, or what we consider the real world – is just happening in the mind of God.”
“Yes. Nothing is fixed. Nothing.”
“That’s a hard one to wrap a human mind around.”
Hawke smiled, and it was definitely Hawke this time. “It’s fun trying, though, isn’t it?”
I laughed. “It is, my friend. It is indeed.”
Side by side, we watched the scene a bit longer.
“So many races,” I said. “I suspect like-minded adventurers have joined them at every port they’ve visited around the world. There’s no fear of each other. And no aggression. I love it. This is how the world could have been, had the divine feminine been free and empowered.”
Hawke nodded, though I knew it was Michael who said, “And how it could have been had the divine masculine been empowered as well. The divine masculine always seeks to support the divine feminine, for it recognizes within her the heart of Creation.”
He smiled. “This is how the world can be now, if you choose it to be. Each and every one of you has the power to dream the world into being as you most wish it to be. Use your pens, or simply your imagination. Anything is possible. And all time is now.”
Hawke’s expression changed slightly, and I knew he was back in full. The scene in the pond faded and we were once more looking at our own reflections on the still surface.
“All time is now,” I said. “When you figure out what that means–like really grok it–let me know, will you?”
He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close for a last quick hug. “Promise.”
In a blink, I was back in my world, and knew Hawke had returned to his.