Fire Ecology of the Heart

Excerpt from:

The Book Store[0]

David was unlike others at the store.

Where Chloe, Maya and I worked in the music section, with David’s love for the written word, he became the manager of the bookstore. Scholarly minded: he spent his time writing, creating poems, and frequenting raves. Whatever he was doing, I always saw him dressed in a way that was respectful, with a button up shirt, and well-groomed hair. I remember once when we all went out after work, and he pulled out a pipe. Seeing David smoke a pipe, a Sherlock Holmes pipe, created laughter for some. For me, it was an expression of his character, who he was. The pipe suited the representation of who David was to me.

There were other things about David that were not consistent with the image I held of him. One day I had noticed him speaking with one of the cashiers, then later in the day to one of the woman that worked on the music floor with me. I was completely baffled by David's what I saw.

He took on two totally different ways of being: with one, he was almost flighty, with the other his tone was more serious, more mature. Without seeking understanding, I told him I thought he was shallow.  The following day something happened that would change our relationship forever.

Looking up from the computer, a smile graced my lips.

“Hi stranger!” I called out to a tall man with a handlebar mustache.

“Hi. How are you doing?”

“Fine, Luke,” I replied. “What brings you here?”

“They told me you quit and started working over here. I just came to see how you are doing.”

“Wow. It’s great to see you,” I said, surprised that one of my regular customers from the grocery store would follow me to my new place of employment. “Would you like a tour of the place?”

“Sure,” he replied.

“This is the bookstore,” I told him, stating the obvious as we walked through the glass doors.

"Celestine Prophecy," Luke read, picking up a book from the display. "Have you read it? I've heard a lot of people talking about.”

"It is great. My friend lent me her copy. I really liked it, especially when it talks about coincidences not being mere coincidences, but actually having meaning,” I replied.

“Like what?” he asked.

I thought about telling him about how I often knew when I would be seeing him at work. Repeatedly, as I prepared for work, his name would cross my mind. Each time this happened, he did come to the store. I learned to anticipate seeing him, when I found myself thinking of him. Remembering how I had declined his offer to go for coffee, I decided it was best not to disclose this information, replying, “The example given in the book is how people receive phone calls from a person they were just thinking about.”

“I have had that happen,” Luke offered.

“According to the author, that is not a coincidence: there is a reason.”

“Well, I am sold.”

I laughed. “If that is so, maybe I should put in for a transfer into the bookstore!”

Luke laughed too. “So where do I pay?”

“The cashiers are out there,” I said pointing through the glass window. “I will walk you, if you would like.”

“Just like old times!” he teased.

I smiled. He was right. I was known to turn off the light to my till when it was slow, and walk around with regular market customers as they picked up their groceries.

“Now that I know where you are, I will come by some time.”

“O.k. See ya soon,” I replied. I didn’t know it would be over a year before I would see him, in yet another store.

After waving to Luke as he rode the escalator down to the main floor, I looked at my watch. It was time for lunch. ‘I think I will have lunch outside today’ I thought as I reached for my nametag. Putting it in my pocket, I headed to the lunchroom at the back of the store.

∞∞∞

Returning from lunch, I went immediately onto the floor. ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘I left my sweater in the back.’  I returned to the lunchroom to retrieve my nametag, still in the pocket. Opening the door, I saw David sitting at the table with the cashier I had seen him speaking to earlier that week. He sat with the chair resting on its back legs. His arms where casually crossed behind his head. I heard him ask the cashier, "Do you think I am shallow?[1]"

The words were in his mouth, as I walked through the door. He looked up at me. His face dropped, as did his chair, swinging him forward. Embarrassed, I looked away.

“I forgot my nametag,” I mumbled and left the room as fast as I could. Swiftly I moved to a comer of the store where a computer stood, unoccupied. I entered the e-mail page, swiftly typing a message to David. I knew David had read the Celestine Prophecy. I knew we both knew the first principle and that this was not a coincidence. The event had happened for a reason. I did not know what reason, yet excitement filled my being with the experience. Then I felt concern. I did not want what I had said to impact how David felt about himself. I was often boosting the self-confidence of friends, and here I had David questioning his. I would trouble over the responsibility of my actions for some time.

At the same time, something happened in that synchronous moment: my relationship with David shifted. I began to experience with him what I had experience with no other. One day, I was at a computer desk near the back comer, close to the door to the warehouse. I was standing looking through a binder, checking the fliers of the competition to see if I needed to do any price adjustments, when I Knew[2] something was wrong. I looked up from my binder through the glass into the bookstore. I could see David. He was at the computer with his back to me.

Suddenly I Felt[3] a wave of anger. Seconds later, David turned around. I could see the distress on his face. He yanked the glass door, sending it swinging. Looking down, with his jaw set, he walked through the common area, past where I stood, and into the storeroom. David never walked this way. He usually took the short cut from books, through classical, to the back. I stood there amazed. I had felt his anger even before I knew he was angry. Through glass doors, and over a distance of 50 meters, I felt his anger.

That evening, I felt an urgency to resolve the situation I had created in my relationship with David by calling him shallow[4]. I wrote a letter to him. It was an honest letter, deep with sentiment.

Dear David,

I am writing this letter to tell you how very sorry I am for saying that I thought you were shallow. It was shortsighted of me to do so. I had seen you talking to two different people. With each person you changed your demeanor. After some reflection, I have come to understand that you have a rare gift: you have the ability to communicate with people on their terms. I have come to see this ability as a desirable trait: one I could do well to learn.

I am sorry for what pain and insecurity my words may have caused. I hope that you can forgive me for being so very shallow.

Your friend,

Kimber

I determined that I would give it to him the following Monday, knowing that as a manager he did not work weekends. What I did not know was that he was not working on Monday. Because when I was working nights, he was working days (or the other way around), it would be Thursday before our schedules would match.

Having not delivered the letter urgency filled my being.

I had to get the letter to him.

I felt pressured to resolve the situation.

Finally, the day came, and I handed the letter to him. He accepted, and said he would read it later. The following day he was filled with excitement about the weekend; he was going to Calgary. It was on his way home from his shift at the station, that same weekend that he died.

∞∞∞

Sitting in the church, surrounded by mourners, I felt a sense of relief, and gratitude for honouring the urgency I felt in resolving the situation with David.

Somehow, I Knew that it would be my last chance: the urgency demonstrated an unconscious knowledge of the events to come[5].

Looking around, I wondered how many people had ignored such inner promptings and, as a result, had unresolved issues compounding their grief.

Looking down at the daffodil in my hand, absorbing its beauty in the finest detail, I noticed a purple glow[6]. I looked away. ‘No. It couldn't be,’ I thought to myself, with a shake of my head. I looked back at the flower. Sure enough, it was still there. A purple glow surrounded the yellow blossom. ‘I can see the flower's aura!’ I exclaimed inwardly. Throughout the service, I would look back at the flower, only to see the beautiful luminescent hue that seemed to symbolize the unique relationship I had with David.

Through our relationship I had been gifted with a gift of Empathic nature. I had Premonitory dreams, and I was able to See auras for the first time.

What was it about David that allowed me to experience so many Spiritual events for the first time?

It wasn’t just me that had experiences of a Spiritual nature around David’s death. Everyone, at work, began expressing his or her Spiritual beliefs. A girl that worked in the warehouse told me that she often talked to David, when she was alone in the back room. The elderly lady in classical told me a story about how when he was alive, David would walk by a specific display of CD’s. Inevitably, as he passed by, one of the multiple CD packs would fall without him even touching them. After his death, the CDs would fall, and she would call out, “I know you are here David.” And Maya, lovely Maya reminisced a lot about David. And me, I began to look at the world differently.

I went by the accident site. The fence David had crashed into remained splintered. Flowers, notes, stuffed animals were everywhere. Through it all, I felt [7]Peace. I remembered a quote from a book my roommate had lent me earlier that year entitled Illusions by Richard Back (1977), author of Jonathon Livingstone Seagull. The quote questioned how to determine if one’s mission in life was accomplished. The answer was simple. If you are still alive, then your mission has not been completed. If that was true, then the opposite was also true: death was a testimony of a completed mission.

I Felt Comforted; knowing David had completed that which he had come to do.

Following his death, however, our internal e-mail system crashed. Great lamentations were voiced at the loss of messages David had sent. In this wave of grief, I was Reminded of the words of a poem that David had sent me one week before the accident. It said:

I am like a saturated log travelling down the river to the sea,

Whether I get there will not be known

Until I get there, or I do not.

David  (1971-1995)

Akin to the Bach quote, I felt Comfort knowing David had made it to the sea, he just found a different route.

The quote and the crash site combined in my mind’s eye as an Image[8].

I wanted to preserve the quotation through the Image I Saw.

I picked up a paintbrush, even though I had never had any professional training in art. In fact, I had not painted since my childhood. Still, I had a Vision I needed to paint. I drew sketches, playing with the colour. Noting the clouds, I would go home and attempt to recreate them on paper, playing with the formations. My efforts were in attempt to recreate the Image I held, Inspired by David’s poem.

Repeatedly, I would look up from my painting or sketching to the daffodil in the vase on the table. They did not have a flower ceremony, as Maya had hoped. I took the daffodil she had offered to me and took it home with me. Once home, I placed the vase on the kitchen table. The amazing thing was that each time I looked at the flower I would see its Energetic Radiance[9]. After admiring its beauty, I would resume working on the image I held in my mind.

In my mind's eye I pictured a log beached on the shore. In the background was the splintered fence, the one David’s car had left in shambles. At the point where the fence remained broken: a door stands opened.

Beyond the door is a glorious sunset reflecting on the ocean. From the log, in the forefront, rise twinkling stars travel through the door whereupon footprints can be seen disappearing into the sea.

The painting is black and white, except for the splash of colour of the sunset and the glow of light pouring forth from the doorway onto the grass[10].

David’s death had a huge impact on everyone at the store, including me. Walking by the bookstore became difficult for me. Each time I passed by, I would look up through the glass, hoping to see him, wanting to talk to him, and then I would remember that he was no longer with us in physical.

We all missed him dearly, and going to work became excruciatingly painful.

One day someone picked our demo of Sarah McLaughlin’s latest release, Unplugged, to play over the sound system. She later told me that David had always been borrowing that CD for the bookstore.

“It was his favorite,” she told me, “And this was his favorite song.”

I burst into tears as the first bars to Possession could be heard. It was the same song that triggered my grief the evening before his accident.

I knew I needed to change my place of employment. It was just too hard to work there. Besides I had a degree for a reason, and that reason was not to work in retail for the rest of my life.

With the approach of a new field season, I went to the university campus to look for job postings for summer field assistants. I applied to a few that seemed interesting, and were in areas of my expertise. Soon after I received a phone call from Evan[11].

I am Ready for this Journey!

∞∞∞