The Witch of Portobello

"What do you mean by 'universe'?"

"What you think you already have. You've imprisoned your world, but you know that you must liberate it. I know you understand what I mean, even though you don't want to hear it."

"I understand."

I was sure they were talking about me. Was this all a setup by Athena?

"It's finished," she said. "Bring the child to me."

Viorel didn't want to go; he was frightened by his mother's transformation. But Andrea took him gently by the hand and led him to her.

Athena--or Hagia Sofia, or Sherine, or whoever she was--did just as she had done with me, and pressed the back of the boy's neck with her fingers.

"Don't be frightened by the things you see, my child. Don't try to push them away because they'll go away anyway. Enjoy the company of the angels while you can. You're frightened now, but you're not as frightened as you might be because you know there are lots of people in the room. You stopped laughing and dancing when you saw me embracing your mother and asking to speak through her mouth. But you know I wouldn't be doing this if she hadn't given me her permission. I've always appeared before in the form of light, and I still am that light, but today I decided to speak."

The little boy put his arms around her.

"You can go now. Leave me alone with him."

One by one, we left the apartment, leaving the mother with her child. In the taxi home, I tried to talk to Andrea, but she said that we could talk about anything but what had just happened.

I said nothing. My soul filled with sadness. Losing Andrea was very hard. On the other hand, I felt an immense peace. The evening's events had wrought changes in us all, and that meant I wouldn't need to go through the pain of sitting down with a woman I loved very much and telling her that I was in love with someone else.

In this case, I chose silence. I got home, turned on the TV, and Andrea went to have a bath. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, the room was full of light. It was morning, and I'd slept for ten hours. Beside me was a note, in which Andrea said that she hadn't wanted to wake me, that she'd gone straight to the theater, but had left me some coffee. The note was a romantic one, decorated in lipstick and a small cutout heart.

She had no intention of "letting go of her universe." She was going to fi

ght. And my life would become a nightmare.

That evening she phoned, and her voice betrayed no particular emotion. She told me that the elderly actor had gone to see his doctor, who had examined him and found that he had an enlarged prostate. The next step was a blood test, where they had detected a significantly raised level of a type of protein called PSA. They took a sample for a biopsy, but the clinical picture indicated that there was a high chance he had a malignant tumor.

"The doctor said he was lucky, because even if their worst fears were proved right, they can still operate, and there's a ninety-nine percent chance of a cure."

DEIDRE O'NEILL, KNOWN AS EDDA

What do you mean, Hagia Sofia! It was her, Athena, but by touching the deepest part of the river that flows through her soul, she had come into contact with the Mother.

All she did was to see what was happening in another reality. The young actress's mother, now that she's dead, lives in a place outside of time and so was able to change the course of events, whereas we human beings can only know about the present. But that's no small thing: discovering a dormant illness before it gets worse, touching nervous systems and unblocking energies are within the reach of all of us.

Of course, many died at the stake, others were exiled, and many ended up hiding or suppressing the spark of the Great Mother in their souls. I never brought Athena into contact with the Power. She decided to do this, because the Mother had already given her various signs: she was a light while she danced, she changed into letters while she was learning calligraphy, she appeared to her in a fire and in a mirror. What my student didn't know was how to live with her, until, that is, she did something that provoked this whole chain of events.

Athena, who was always telling everyone to be different, was basically just like all other mortals. She had her own rhythm, a kind of cruise control. Was she more curious than most? Possibly. Had she managed to overcome her sense of being a victim? Definitely. Did she feel a need to share what she was learning with others, be they bank employees or actors? In some cases the answer was yes, but in others, I had to encourage her, because we are not meant for solitude, and we only know ourselves when we see ourselves in the eyes of others.

But that was as far as my interference went.

Maybe the Mother wanted to appear that night, and perhaps she whispered something in her ear: "Go against everything you've learned so far. You, who are a mistress of rhythm, allow the rhythm to pass through your body, but don't obey it." That was why Athena suggested the exercise. Her unconscious was already prepared to receive the Mother, but Athena herself was still dancing in time to the music, and so any external elements were unable to manifest themselves.

The same thing used to happen with me. The best way to meditate and enter into contact with the light was by knitting, something my mother had taught me when I was a child. I knew how to count the stitches, manipulate the needles, and create beautiful things through repetition and harmony. One day, my protector asked me to knit in a completely irrational way! I found this really distressing, because I'd learned how to knit with affection, patience, and dedication. Nevertheless, he insisted on me knitting really badly.

I knitted like this for two hours, thinking all the time that it was utterly ridiculous, absurd. My head ached, but I had to resist letting the needles guide my hands. Anyone can do things badly, so why was he asking this of me? Because he knew about my obsession with geometry and with perfection.

And suddenly it happened: I stopped moving the needles and felt a great emptiness, which was filled by a warm, loving, companionable presence. Everything around me was different, and I felt like saying things that I would never normally dare to say. I didn't lose consciousness; I knew I was still me, but, paradoxically, I wasn't the person I was used to being with.

So I can "see" what happened, even though I wasn't there--Athena's soul following the sound of the music while her body went in a totally contrary direction. After a time, her soul disconnected from her body, a space opened, and the Mother could finally enter.

Or, rather, a spark from the Mother appeared. Ancient, but apparently very young. Wise, but not omnipotent. Special, but not in the least arrogant. Her perceptions changed, and she began to see the same things she used to see when she was a child--the parallel universes that people this world. At such moments, we can see not only the physical body but people's emotions too. They say cats have this same power, and I believe them.

A kind of blanket lies between the physical and the spiritual world, a blanket that changes in color, intensity, and light; it's what mystics call "aura." From then on, everything is easy. The aura tells you what's going on. If I had been there, she would have seen a violet color with a few yellow splodges around my body. That means that I still have a long road ahead of me and that my mission on this earth has not yet been accomplished.