The Moon Singer Collection

Chapter 12

“Run, Little One, run as fast as you can!”

The vicious whooping and hollering are close on the child"s heels as she and her mother make a breathless attempt to escape. The marauding band of Mongol renegades tear through the village, setting fire to every house, beheading the men, torturing the women, and taking children hostage.

Little One and her Mother are fast on their feet as they sprint out of sight of their predators. With bare feet bleeding, they take refuge in a deserted hut and gasp for air trying to catch their breath.

“I can"t go anymore, Mama,” Little One cries. Mother wraps her strong arms around the child and promises to protect her. “We"ll rest here for awhile. They won"t find us now.”

Fatigued beyond their ability to stay alert, they both fall asleep and dream peaceful dreams of being safe and warm in a new home in a new village.

Soon, their breathing becomes heavy, their chests tight and unyielding. Even in a deep sleep they sense the air is unbreathable and something is choking their lives away. Mother and Little One awaken just as inescapable flames engulf them and suffocating smoke blackens their lungs.

Returning to earth, leaving the sanctuary of the afterlife world and the lightness of being to fall back into the heavy burdensome body of mortality, is the hardest decision for a spirit soul to make. As a beginner soul, Billie"s first reincarnations manifest in diverse, unconnected life cycles. She is man, woman, mother, father, sibling, with lives as mundane or as sensational as one can imagine. She lives long, or dies young, or meets with violent ends.

Billie is exasperated by her own inability to choose a productive and meaningful life. Is she the victim of her own internal discord, she wonders? Are these cruel cosmic jokes or the irony of her own misguided choices? Does she sense some need to punish herself by attracting horrible life experiences? Is it because I left my parents alone to pursue my own dreams? If I had stayed would they still be alive? Could I have saved them from that burning building?

Is it because I left my parents alone to pursue my own dreams? If I had stayed would they still be alive? Could I have saved them from that burning building?She recalls the miscarriages that she had, the little souls whose lives were ended before they even began. Did they change their minds about being born to me because I was not worthy of them, or because they had a better life waiting for them with another mother? Or did they decide to die, wisely knowing that they had to make way for David to be born?

Did they change their minds about being born to me because I was not worthy of them, or because they had a better life waiting for them with another mother? Or did they decide to die, wisely knowing that they had to make way for David to be born?“Can I ever know even one serene life? One existence that is the stepping stone to my true desire?” Billie rails to the Council. “It has to be my compensation for all this agony. Otherwise what is the point?”

“Life and death,” the Elders explain to her, “are mere pieces of a puzzle, with each life a touchstone and a link to the next and the next, and ultimately to the last. How spirits learn to assemble them, to create the basic design of their diverse lives, determines if they can move to a higher level of soul evolution. And so it is with you, Billie, how ingenious can you be in creating your life experiences?”

How ingenious, really! Occupying the beleaguered lives of people on Earth to whom she has no relationship is antithetical to her true goal. Life does not seem to be kind to women young or old, in Billie"s karmic life chain, nor is it any better as a man. Karma is gender neutral, rendering harsh lessons equally. But none of these experiences stick or fulfill her mission, or make any significant mark, and so they are forgotten and blown away like whispers in the wind.

Exhausted by her seemingly endless stream of embodiments, and hoping that she soon will clear away her karmic obligations, Billie stands before the Window of Time, watching her loved ones go on without her. She is close enough to touch them but still there is that vexing dimensional separation.

If she had a human heart, she would feel it pound and flutter with eagerness every time she saw them. There would also be the aching that comes with feeling sad and anguished by what they have to endure without her. But even without a human heart Billie knows deep in her soul that their lives are still intertwined with hers, that their bond is timeless and without end.

And so she perseveres.

As long as she does not give in to the required “crossing over” that is the lot of the dead, as long as she holds onto the conviction that she can somehow influence their lives, she knows that she will be with her family again.

To make the waiting bearable in this beautiful space of time between time, Billie turns to the one passion that liberated her from all of mortal life"s disappointments, troubles and sadness. The one thing that lifted her heart and allied her to life"s meaning, to her son: music, glorious and divine music, the music she was gifted with and, in turn, gifted to David.

As she creates and performs, filling the ether with harmonies that soothe and levitate, she can feel her son"s presence and he can feel hers, as though they are playing a duet inspired by the memory of the other.

She caresses the piano keys with love and an artist"s skill, hears the melodies and chords flow easily from her fingers, allows herself to be a channel for the enduring music created by inspired masters. With every note she also watches and contemplates, fantasizing her escape from the afterlife.